Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T21:44:15.304Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rationality and Charity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Paul Thagard  and
Richard E. Nisbett
Paul Thagard
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities University of Michigan, Dearborn
Richard E. Nisbett
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Quine and others have recommended principles of charity which discourage judgments of irrationality. Such principles have been proposed to govern translation, psychology, and economics. After comparing principles of charity of different degrees of severity, we argue that the stronger principles are likely to block understanding of human behavior and impede progress toward improving it. We support a moderate principle of charity which leaves room for empirically justified judgments of irrationality.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , June 1983 , pp. 250 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

For helpful comments, we are grateful to Denis Dutton, Allan Gibbard, Alvin Goldman, Daniel Hausman, Daniel Kahneman, Susan Kus, John McCumber, Daniel Moerman, and Stephen Stich. We also thank Ed Sammons for editorial assistance.

References

Agassi, J. and Jarvie, I. C. (1979), “The Rationality of Dogmatism”, in Geraets, T. (ed.), Rationality Today. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. pp. 353–362.Google Scholar
Arrow, K. J. (1971), Essays in the Theory of Risk-Bearing. Chicago: Markham.Google Scholar
Bennett, J. (1964), Rationality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Cohen, L. J. (1979), “On the Psychology of Prediction: Whose is the Fallacy?”, Cognition 7: 385–407.10.1016/0010-0277(79)90023-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, L. J. (1981), “Can Human Irrationality be Experimentally Demonstrated?”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4: 317–331.10.1017/S0140525X00009092CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, D. E. (1975), “Alternative Logic in ‘Primitive Thought'”, Man 10: 238–256.10.2307/2800497CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D. (1973/74), “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association 47: 5–20.10.2307/3129898CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D. (1976), “Hume's Cognitive Theory of Pride”, Journal of Philosophy 73: 744–757.10.2307/2025635CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawes, R. M. (1976), “Shallow Psychology”, in Carroll, J. S. and Payne, J. S. (eds.), Cognition and Social Behavior. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. (1978), Brainstorms. Montgomery, Vermont: Bradford Books.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. (1981), “Three Kinds of Intentional Psychology”, in Healey, R. (ed.), Reduction, Time, and Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 37–61.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. (forthcoming), “True Believers: The Intentional Strategy and Why it Works”, forthcoming in a volume of Herbert Spencer Lectures, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Einhorn, H. and Hogarth, R. M. (1981), “Behavioral Decision Theory: Processes of Judgment and Choice”, Annual Review of Psychology 32: 53–88.10.1146/annurev.ps.32.020181.000413CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fong, G. T., Krantz, D. H. and Nisbett, R. E. (forthcoming), “Effects of Statistical Training on Inductive Reasoning”.Google Scholar
Friedman, M. and Savage, L. J. (1948), “The Utility Analysis of Choices Involving Risks”, Journal of Political Economy 56: 279–304.10.1086/256692CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gellner, E. (1973), Cause and Meaning in the Social Sciences. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Gibbard, A. and Harper, W. (1978), “Counterfactuals and Two Kinds of Expected Utility”, in C. Hooker, J. Leach, and E. McClennan (eds.), Foundations and Applications of Decision Theory, vol. 1, Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I. (1978), “Epistemics: The Regulative Theory of Cognition”, Journal of Philosophy 75: 509–523.10.2307/2025838CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, N. (1965), Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, second Edition. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Hacking, I. (1975), The Emergence of Probability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hamill, R., Wilson, T. D., and Nisbett, R. E. (1980), “Insensitivity to Sample Bias: Generalizing from Atypical Cases”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39: 578–589.10.1037/0022-3514.39.4.578CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegel, G. (1969), Science of Logic. Trans. by Miller, A. V. New York: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Jarvie, I. C. and Agassi, J. (1970), “The Problem of the Rationality of Magic”, in Wilson, B. (ed.), Rationality. New York: Harper & Row, pp. 172–193.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, R. (1977), “Savage's Omelet”, in Suppe, F. and Asquith, P. (eds.), PSA 1976, vol. 2. East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, pp. 361–371.Google Scholar
Jepson, C., Krantz, D. H. and Nisbett, R. E. (forthcoming), “Inductive Reasoning: Competence or Skill?”Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. (1972), “Subjective Probability: A Judgment of Representativeness”, Cognitive Psychology 3: 430–454.10.1016/0010-0285(72)90016-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. (1973), “On the Psychology of Prediction”, Psychological Review 80: 237–251.10.1037/h0034747CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. (1979), “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk”, Econometrica 47: 263–291.10.2307/1914185CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. (1981), “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice”, Science 211: 453–458.Google Scholar
Kekes, J. (1976), A Justification of Rationality. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Lycan, W. G. (1981), “'Is’ and ‘Ought’ in Cognitive Science”, Behavioral and Brain Science 4: 344–345.10.1017/S0140525X00009249CrossRefGoogle Scholar
March, J. G. (1978), “Bounded Rationality, Ambiguity, and the Engineering of Choice”, Bell Journal of Economics 9: 587–608.10.2307/3003600CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGinn (1977), “Charity, Interpretation, and Belief”, Journal of Philosophy 74: 521–535.10.2307/2025795CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nisbett, R. and Ross, L. (1980), Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Nisbett, R. E. and Wilson, T. (1977), “Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes”, Psychological Reveiw 84: 231–259.10.1037/0033-295X.84.3.231CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. (1960), Word and Object. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. (1969), Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press.10.7312/quin92204CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schachter, S. and Singer, J. E. (1962), “Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State”, Psychological Review 69: 379–399.10.1037/h0046234CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Simon, H. A. (1957), Models of Man. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (1978), “Psychologism”, Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 8: 165–191.10.1111/j.1468-5914.1978.tb00398.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, E. (1980), “The Evolution of Rationality”, paper read to Society for Philosophy and Psychology.Google Scholar
Stich, S. (forthcoming), “Could Man Be an Irrational Animal?”Google Scholar
Stich, S. and Nisbett, R. (1980), “Justification and the Psychology of Human Reasoning”, Philosophy of Science 47: 188–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thagard, P. (1979), “In Defense of Deductive Inference”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 57: 274–279.10.1080/00048407912341281CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thagard, P. (1982a), “Beyond Utility Theory”, in Bradie, M. and Sayre, K. (eds.), Reason and Decision. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University, pp. 42–49.Google Scholar
Thagard, P. (1982b), “From the Descriptive to the Normative in Psychology and Logic”, Philosophy of Science 49: 24–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thagard, P. (1982c), “Hegel, Science, and Set Theory”, Erkenntnis 18: 397–410.10.1007/BF00205279CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thagard, P. (forthcoming) “Frames, Knowledge, and Inference”, unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. (1974), “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases”, Science 185: 1124–1131.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wason, P. C. and Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1972), Psychology of Reasoning: Structure and Content. London: Batsford.Google Scholar