Reasons and Causes

Since the publication of Davidson’s “Actions, Reasons and Causes” the philosophy of action has been dominated by the view that rational explanations are a species of causal explanations. Although there are dissenting voices, anti-causalism is for the most part associated with a position that tended to be defended in the 1960s and that was successfully buried by Davidson’s criticism of the logical connection argument. In the following I argue that the success of causalism cannot be fully accounted for by considering the outcome of first-order debates in the philosophy of action and that it is to be explained instead by a shift in meta-philosophical assumptions. It is the commitment to a certain second-order view of the role and character of philosophical analysis, rather than the conclusive nature of the arguments for causalism, that is largely responsible for the rise of the recent causalist consensus. I characterise the change in meta-philosophical assumptions in Strawsonian terms as a change from a descriptive to a revisionary conception of metaphysics and argue that since the disagreement between causalists and non-causalists cannot be settled at the level of first-order debates, causalists cannot win the philosophical battle against anti-causalists without fighting the meta-philosophical war.

Pre-final proofs of paper published in journal of the philosophy of history 9 (2015) 372–392.  In this paper, I revisit some anti-­‐causalist arguments relating to reason-­‐giving explanations of action put forth by numerous philosophers writing in the late '50s and early '60s in what Donald Davidson dismissively described as a 'neo-­‐Wittgensteinian current of small red books'. While chiefly remembered for subscribing to what has come to be called the 'logical connection' argument, the positions defended across these volumes are in fact as diverse as they are subtle, united largely by a an anti-­‐scientistic spirit which may reasonably be described as historicist. I argue that while Davidson's causalist attack was motivated by an important explanatory insight borrowed from Hempel, it caused serious damage to the philosophy of action by effectively brushing over a number of vital distinctions made in the aforementioned works. In seeking to revive these I propose an approach to the theory of action explanation that rescues anti-­‐causalist baby from the historicist bathwater.

This paper situates Wittgenstein in what is known as the causalism/anti-causalism debate in the philosophy of mind and action and reconstructs his arguments to the effect that reasons are not a species of causes. On the one hand, the paper aims to reinvigorate the question of what these arguments are by offering a historical sketch of the debate showing that Wittgenstein's arguments were overshadowed by those of the people he influenced, and that he came to be seen as an anti-causalist for reasons that are in large part extraneous to these arguments. On the other hand, the paper aims to recover the arguments scattered in Wittgenstein's own writings by detailing and defending three lines of argument distinguishing reasons from causes. The paper concludes that Wittgenstein's arguments differ from those of his immediate successors; that he anticipates current anti-psychologistic trends; and that he is perhaps closer to Davidson than historical dialectics suggest.

Philosophers influenced by Wittgenstein rejected the idea that the explanatory power of our ordinary interpretive practices is to be found in law-governed, causal relations between items to which our everyday mental terms allegedly refer. Wittgenstein and those he inspired pointed to differences between the explanations provided by the ordinary employment of mental expressions and the style of causal explanation characteristic of the hard sciences. I believe, however, that the particular non-causalism espoused by the Wittgensteinians is today ill- understood. The position does not, for example, find its place on a map that charts the territory disputed by mental realists and their irrealist opponents. In this paper, I take a few steps toward reintroducing this ill-understood position by sketching my own understanding of it and explaining why it fits so uncomfortably within the contemporary metaphysical landscape.

Kant sometimes compares human beings with animals and angels and grants human beings a middle position. But contrary to what one might expect, his transcendental philosophy does not apply well to animals or angels. The question of whether we share perception with animals has no good answer in his system that has to be taken as a single piece and does not allow for introducing steps of empirical, real developments. Differently from Kant, McDowell does compare human beings with animals, but he is not a transcendental philosopher and his attempts to find support in Kant are problematic. Although McDowell says that concepts go "all the way out" and Kant says the categories go "all the way down," which sounds similar, Kant talks of a priori categories, not empirical concepts. Burge is definitely not a transcendental philosopher like Kant. Up front he strongly relies on empirical studies, especially animal perception. Nevertheless, his quest into mental content introduces first-person perspectives that have a metaphysical flavor, and this makes - at least to me - comparisons with Kant tempting again.

From the very beginning of hinge epistemology, its advocates have noted certain similarities between Wittgenstein’s thought and that of Hume. They have also, however, accused Hume of ultimately remaining too sceptical and too metaphysical to be enlisted to the cause. I have defended Hume against the second charge
elsewhere. Here, I wish to focus on his epistemology and, more particularly, his account of justification. I shall argue that Hume’s account of how justification comes to an
end is proto-Wittgenstein in numerous respects. It is anti-sceptical without being rationalistic; it is accompanied by an account of how explanation comes to an end that places human practices and the animal behaviour that they grow  from at its centre; it is an early form of hinge epistemology. The first part of this essay is devoted to showing the Hume is a hinge epistemologist. The second half considers what kind of hinge epistemologist he is. The third and final part looks at what contemporary hinge epistemologists can learn from Hume.

I've defended the view that to act or believe for the reason that p, p must be true.  (Ultimately, the position I take in the book is that to act, believe, or feel for the reason that p, one must aptly believe p.) People run arguments from error to try to undermine this view.  I offer a partial response to such arguments here. The arguments from error rest on a mistake in that they assume that acting on a false belief is an instance of acting for a reason.  Acting for a reason is an achievement. To act for a reason one has to identify or recognise how things are and respond accordingly.  That there are ways to explain someone's behaviour in the case of acting on a false belief (or a Gettiered belief) does not show that there are ways to act for reasons in this case.

Davidson and Kolnai in different ways emphasise that practical syllogistic reasoning can only tell one that one has a reason to do or not to do something.  It cannot adjudicate between conflicting reasons.  It can tell one the means to certain ends but not which ends to pursue.  This paper considers possible responses to this predicament.  What if anything can be done to put deliberation - the 'weighing' of competing reasons - on  a rational basis?

In this paper I draw the outline of a psychological genealogy of normativity: an account of normativity as a complex neuro-psychological fact, entirely analysable in non-normative terms. As a first step, I introduce two of the main problems faced by the genealogical approach. I call the first one “Gibbard problem”: what kind of neuro-psychological state is normative judgment? I call the second one “irreducibility of normativity problem”: normative dynamics seem to be irreducible to causal dynamics. As a second step, I examine the “dual model” of the psychology of normative judgment developed by J.
Haidt and J. Greene. I argue that the dual model is not able to solve the aforementioned problems. However, it points at the right direction. Moving from the conceptual framework and the difficulties outlined in the discussion of the dual model, I eventually propose an alternative model, the “model of control”. According to this model, normative guidance consists of a network of recursive control processes. Normative judgment is the conscious mental state we access when the relevant control process is completed. Reasons and norms are parameters that causally guide the process.

The two problems are:

a) Does one ever have sufficient reason for what one does; and if not, should this be a cause for concern? If, when reasons for action conflict, reaching a decision is always a non sequitur, then it looks as though in such situations the answer is: No.  But would it even be desirable to act according to the Principle of Sufficient Reason?  It can be argued that, unless one can give sufficient reason for one’s actions, one can never really justify them; nor will rational persuasion be possible.  On the other hand, the idea that there is only one rational thing to do in any given situation seems oppressive, almost totalitarian.

b) Is deliberation an inherently self-deceptive operation? Is the deliberator compelled to treat an irrational procedure with no right outcome as though it were the intelligent engagement with a problem that has a correct answer? And if so, what will become of deliberation once this is fully realised?  Less nihilistically, what would a maximally rational decision be like?