Sophie Keeling
Affiliation: Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia
Category: Philosophy
Keywords: reasons, deliberation, reasoning
Date: Friday 5th of September
Time: 15:30
Location: Room 232 (232)
View the full session: Deliberation
We don’t just deliberate about what to do or believe. We can also deliberate about why we are performing these actions and holding these beliefs. Much attention has been paid to the fact that we can assess our reasons in the course of deliberating to a belief or action, that is, epistemic and practical deliberation. In this paper I argue that we also engage in a distinctive form of deliberation directed at our reasons themselves – reasons deliberation.
Section 1 introduces the phenomenon at hand. It is clearest when the subject does not doubt the belief or course of action itself, only her reasons for them. For example: - Sally moves to a new city. She meets a friendly woman from an activist group and starts to volunteer with them. Sally then starts to worry: undoubtedly activism is a good thing to do. But what about her reasons for joining? After all, they include the fact it is a way to meet new people and that she enjoys the activities – these are self-interested considerations. She then considers how everyone must do things to make friends, and that moral considerations still play some role in her behaviour – she would not join a far-right organisation even though it would also be a way to meet people. And it also reflects well on her that she is motivated by the fact that the group is a way to meet a certain sort of person – those committed to good causes… In all of this, Sally is not deliberating about whether to continue volunteering, but rather, why. (For similar examples see Smithies 2022). - Considering new arguments for positions we already endorse. - Reconsidering our bases for beliefs that we hold for multiple reasons – the belief itself is not in question because of the quantity of reasons in its favour.
Section 2 argues that reasons deliberation is a distinctive subspecies of deliberation. The main alternative is to say that in these cases we only deliberate to a belief, namely the belief that the consideration in question is a good reason, and that this is just a subspecies of doxastic deliberation. But the subjects in these cases are not just trying to determine what is a good reason out of idle curiosity. Presumably they would expect this deliberation to make some further immediate difference. That reasons deliberation is a substantively different phenomenon from doxastic deliberation is especially highlighted by cases in which we come to a judgement about our reasons and yet this fails to take hold. E.g.: - Tom goes to the theatre, something which he sincerely endorses as educational. But deep down he knows that he is only going because an attractive man will be there. He considers this, and how he will not be able to speak to the man and that they have had little prior interaction. Tom judges that the man’s presence is a weak reason, and he dislikes how he keeps being motivated in this way. Despite reaching a conclusion about his reasons, Tom would expect something more – he is not just interested in forming beliefs about them. The fact that something has gone rationally wrong suggests that we normally expect this deliberation to culminate in more than just belief.
Section 3 introduces an account of reasons deliberation. For example, key to understanding reasons deliberation is to uncover its aim. We may well think that deliberation is always guided by trying to answer certain questions – ‘reasoning is (actual or possible) thought directed at some question or conclusion’ (Hieronymi 2013: 155-6). But even if we deny that this is always the case (McHugh & Way 2018), deliberation at least surely can be guided by questions. In the case of practical deliberation, there is debate about whether the crucial question is, e.g., what am I going to do? (Velleman 2000) what should I do? (Audi 2006), or what to do/ whether to phi¬? (Hieronymi 2009; Southwood 2019). Regarding doxastic deliberation, we deliberate about what to believe, which is largely held to be transparent to the question of is p true? (e.g., Shah & Velleman 2005). And for argument that we cannot find an appropriate question in the case of emotions, see (Schultz forthcoming). What, then, is the question that at least sometimes guides reasons deliberation? I will argue that we deliberate about our reasons, we are deliberating about what to base our belief or action on, where this in turn is ‘transparent’ to a further question. One initial thought is that it is transparent to whether p is a good reason. But this is not enough since ideally we will base our beliefs on only the weightiest reasons, or base our beliefs on them in a way that is proportionate to the strength of those reasons. So the claim is that first-order reasoning about our reasons is transparent to the question of what are the weightiest reasons for this belief or action?. And in the case of second-order reasons, it is transparent to the question of what is the most appropriate kind of reason? (on appropriate kinds of reason see Keeling 2024).
Section 4 then considers some upshots including the following. 1) We can respond to respond to reasons to respond to reasons – we might doubt that this is possible on the grounds that we cannot deliberate to our reasons. And this in turn helps to defuse a worry against the existence of second order reasons (Whiting 2017), and helps support the claim that we have agency over our reasons as argued in (Keeling 2023). 2) Reasons deliberation provides a new way to say how higher order evidence has its effect. 3) It challenges the claim that the aim of reasoning is simply ‘to get fitting attitudes’ and ‘to get things right’ (McHugh & Way 2018: 178) since you engage in meaningful reasoning even when you are certain that the attitudes are correct.