scholarly journals Which Reason? Which Rationality?

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Fogal ◽  
Alex Worsnip
Keyword(s):  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
Substantive Rationality

The slogan that rationality is about responding to reasons has a turbulent history: once taken for granted; then widely rejected; now enjoying a resurgence. The slogan is made harder to assess by an ever-increasing plethora of distinctions pertaining to reasons and rationality. Here we are occupied with two such distinctions: that between subjective and objective reasons, and that between structural rationality (a.k.a. coherence) and substantive rationality (a.k.a. reasonableness). Our paper has two main aims. The first is to defend dualism about rationality—the view that affirms a deep distinction between structural and substantive rationality—against its monistic competitors. The second aim is to answer the question: with the two distinctions drawn, what becomes of the slogan that rationality is about responding to reasons? We’ll argue that structural rationality cannot be identified with responsiveness to any kind of reasons. As for substantive rationality, we join others in thinking that the most promising reasons-responsiveness account of substantive rationality will involve an “evidence-relative” understanding of reasons. But we also pose a challenge for making this idea precise—a challenge that ultimately calls into question the fundamentality of the notion of a reason even with respect to the analysis of substantive rationality.

Autonomy and Addiction

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Levy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The Other ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
Extended Agency ◽  
Conception Of The Good ◽  
Autonomous Agency ◽  
The Way

Whatever its implications for the other features of human agency at its best — for moral responsibility, reasons-responsiveness, self-realization, flourishing, and so on—addiction is universally recognized as impairing autonomy. But philosophers have frequently misunderstood the nature of addiction, and therefore have not adequately explained the manner in which it impairs autonomy. Once we recognize that addiction is not incompatible with choice or volition, it becomes clear that none of the Standard accounts of autonomy can satisfactorily explain the way in which it undermines fully autonomous agency. In order to understand to what extent and in what ways the addicted are autonomy-impaired, we need to understand autonomy as consisting, essentially, in the exercise of the capacity for extended agency. It is because addiction undermines extended agency, so that addicts are not able to integrate their lives and pursue a Single conception of the good, that it impairs autonomy.

An Interpretation of Max Weber's Theory of Law: Metaphysics, Economics, and the Iron Cage of Constitutional Law

1991 ◽  
Vol 16 (02) ◽  
pp. 205-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M. Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Economic Action ◽  
Iron Cage ◽  
Weberian Theory ◽  
Substantive Rationality ◽  
Formal Rationality ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
Constitutional Jurisprudence

Among legal scholars, Anthony T. Kronman and David M. Trubek have provided the leading interpretations of Weber's theory of law. Kronman and Trubek agree on two important points: Weber's theory is fundamentally contradictory, and Weber's theory relates primarily to private law subjects such as contracts. This article contests both of these points. Building on a foundation of Weber's neo-Kantian metaphysics and his sociological categories of economic action, this article shows that Weber's theory of law is not fundamentally inconsistent; rather it explores the inconsistencies that are inherent within Western society itself, including its legal systems. Furthermore, Weber's insights can be applied to modern constitutional jurisprudence. Weberian theory reveals that modern constitutional law is riddled with irreconcilable tensions between process and substance—between formal and substantive rationality. In the context of racial discrimination cases involving equal protection and the Fifteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court's acceptance of John Hart Ely's theory of representation-reinforcement demonstrates the Court's resolute pursuit of formal rationality, which insures that the substantive values and needs of minorities will remain unsatisfied.

scholarly journals AS RACIONALIDADES SUBSTANTIVA E INSTRUMENTAL NA PRÁTICA ORGANIZACIONAL: um olhar sobre Guerreiro Ramos e os estudos organizacionais

Revista Foco ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Tadeu Cerri ◽  
Carolina Machado Saraiva de Albuquerque Maranhão ◽  
Jussara Jéssica Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Minas Gerais ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
First Line ◽  
Line Managers ◽  
Public Agency ◽  
Quadrilátero Ferrífero ◽  
Control Decision ◽  
Substantive Rationality

Este trabalho de cunho qualitativo se propôs compreender como se entrelaçam as racionalidades substantiva e instrumental no cotidiano dos gestores de primeira linha de uma multinacional e alguns funcionários de alto escalão de um órgão público na região do quadrilátero ferrífero em Minas Gerais. A coleta de dados ocorreu por meio da entrevista semiestruturada, que foram gravadas, transcritas e posteriormente analisadas via Análise de Conteúdo de Bardin (2006). A base teórica que fomentou as análises foram os trabalhos de Guerreiro Ramos (1981) e Maurício Serva (1996). Diante disso foi possível identificar 11 rubricas previstas por Serva (1996), entendidas nas análises como unidades de sentido; estas foram classificadas por proporção conforme sua aparição nos relatos; são elas: valores e objetivos, satisfação individual, reflexão, controle, tomada de decisão, divisão do trabalho, hierarquia e normas, conflito, ação social, relações interpessoais e dimensão simbólica. A presença da racionalidade instrumental ainda é latente no cotidiano analisado, sendo necessária alguma evolução para que esse modelo reificado do ser humano se altere. Todavia, tal pesquisa se mostra relevante, pois permitiu verificar uma manifestação considerável da racionalidade substantiva em um ambiente supostamente instrumental. This qualitative study was proposed to understand how the substantive and instrumental rationalities are interwoven in the daily life of first-line managers of a multinational and some high-ranking officials from a public agency in the iron quadrilateral region of Minas Gerais. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews, which were recorded, transcribed and analyzed through Bardin Content Analysis (2006). A theoretical basis that fostered as analyzes were the works of Guerreiro Ramos (1981) and Maurício Serva (1996). Thus, it was possible to identify 11 items predicted by Serva (1996), understood in the analyzes as units of meaning; These were classified by proportion according to their appearance in the reports; are they: values and objectives, individual satisfaction, reflection, control, decision making, division of labor, hierarchy and norms, conflict, social action, interpersonal relations and symbolic dimension. The presence of instrumental rationality is still latent in the daily analyzed, and some evolution is necessary for this reified model of the human being to change. However, such research is relevant because it has allowed us to verify a considerable manifestation of substantive rationality in a supposedly instrumental environment.

A Rough Account of Substantive Rationality

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-53
Author(s):  
Alex Worsnip
Keyword(s):  
Main Topic ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Substantive Rationality

This chapter gives a rough account of substantive rationality, the kind of rationality that contrasts with the book’s main topic, structural rationality. On this account, which mirrors some recently popular accounts in the literature, substantive rationality consists in responding to evidence-relative, right-kind reasons. It also argues against further restrictions on the kinds of reasons relevant to structural rationality—such as a “practical condition” and a condition excluding moral reasons—and introduces the distinction between ex ante and ex post substantive rationality. Finally, it explores accounts of structural rationality that closely mirror the offered account of substantive rationality by understanding the former as responsiveness to “subjective” or belief-relative reasons and argues that these accounts fail.

Autonomy

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-38
Author(s):  
Serene J. Khader
Keyword(s):  
Social Influence ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
The Way

This chapter explains three conceptions of personal autonomy through a discussion of two teen girls’ struggles for self-definition. Autonomy is the ability to live a life that is genuinely one’s own. Starr, the protagonist of Angie Thomas’s The Hate You Give, struggles to know herself because the demands of upward mobility seem to ask her to disavow her Blackness. Kiara, the author of a blog post on oppressive beauty standards, struggles to find self-worth in a society that devalues the way she looks. The chapter discusses how coherentist, reasons-responsiveness, and socially constitutive conceptions of autonomy illuminate the girls’ lives. It also explains why autonomy should not be conceived of as the rejection of all social influence.

Who Gets Power and Why

1949 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ithiel de Sola Pool
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Goals ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Substantive Rationality ◽  
The Government

A Feature of Western ideology, particularly its American variant, is consciousness of tension between ideals and reality. One source of this tension is a propensity to seek social goals by way of adventitious motives. Education seeks marks not knowledge; business seeks profits not products; politics seeks power not the good life. To protest this lack of what Max Weber called substantive rationality, and to demand that first things be put first is labelled “idealism,” while acceptance of the immediate incentive and disregard for the final end is labelled “realism.”Thus in political science the name “realistic” has been largely applied to that tradition which concentrates on power relations and assumes that its subjects behave as “political men,” that is, that they strive to maximize power. The “realist” assumes that all men in politics share the same drive. So deeply ingrained is this identification of politics and power that it appears even in the unconscious where the state is a father symbol. It appears also in everyday idioms where to be in the government is “to be in power” and to go into politics means not to pave streets but to enter a game of hierarchical advancement. It appears also in scholarly thought. Unlike Aristotle, who defined the polis as that association formed for the highest good and which comprehends the rest, most modern scholars find in a monopoly of coercion the distinctive attribute of the state.

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