Bounded Thinking: Intellectual virtues for limited agents PDF
Preview Bounded Thinking: Intellectual virtues for limited agents
Bounded Thinking This page intentionally left blank Bounded Thinking Intellectual virtues for limited agents Adam Morton 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,ox26dp, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries #AdamMorton2012 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublished2012 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable ISBN 978–0–19–965853–4 PrintedinGreatBritainby MPGBooksGroup,BodminandKing’sLynn LinkstothirdpartywebsitesareprovidedbyOxfordingoodfaithand forinformationonly.Oxforddisclaimsanyresponsibilityforthematerials containedinanythirdpartywebsitereferencedinthiswork. Thanks Duringthetenyearsinwhichtheideasinthisbookwereforming,Ispoke aboutthemwithmanypeople.Theirinfluenceonmetookmanyforms, from detailed comments on drafts to stray remarks that lingered in my mind. I have learned from Santiago Amaya, Prasanta Bandyopadhyay, Jonathan Bennett, Susanna Braund, Andrei Buleandra, Wesley Cooper, PatriciaChurchland,AbrolFairweather,BrandenFeitelson,RichardFoley, Jane Friedman, James Hawthorne,Bruce Hunter,NeilImmerman, Octa- vianIon,JonathanKvanvig,ClaudiaLandeo,ChristopherLepock,Barton Lipman, Michael Lockhart, Elijah Millgram, Christopher Mole, Stephen Morton, Wayne Riggs, Ariel Rubinstein, Amy Schmitter, John Simpson, Ronald de Sousa, Georg Theiner, Paul Weirich, and Linda Zagzebski. I presented versions of some of these chapters to audiences at Bristol, Bern, Bled, British Columbia,Brown,Dalhousie, Geneva, Toronto,Mis- souri, Montréal, Oklahoma, Queen’s, and Utah. I tried out many of the ideasongraduateseminarsatAlberta,togetherwithideasthatarenotinthe book because the Alberta students forced me to abandon them. I have probably missed some important influences, and I apologize. The two referees for OUP gave really wonderfully helpful and detailed comments, seeing both my intended aims and my omissions. While writing this I worked in the pleasant and supportive atmosphere of the University of Alberta, funded by the Canada Research Chairs programme, and I am gratefultoboth. This page intentionally left blank Contents TheArgument ix 1. HelpingOneAnothertoThinkWell 1 Thereareconventionalnormsofthinking.Theydonotsay howweshouldthinkbutratherhowweshouldencourage oneanothertothink.Therearevirtuesofselective compliancewiththesenorms. 2. ExternalismAboutThinking 29 Theanalogueofknowledgeforpracticalthinkingis accomplishment.Externalistassessmentscanalsobeextended totheprocessesthatresultinknowledgeandaccomplishment. Theseareparticularlyappropriateforfallibleagentswith limitedpowers. 3. IrreplaceableVirtue 59 Wehavetoappealtomanyintellectualvirtues,knowledge- andaccomplishment-producingpatternsofthought,in describingandassessingourthinking.Manyofthemarevirtues oflimitationmanagement.Paradoxicalvirtues,virtueswhich canbedescribedsotheysoundlikevices,areparticularly interesting. 4. TheDifficultyofDifficulty 88 Inordertoplansequencesofactionswehavetoknowin advancewhichproblemswecansolve.Butoftenwecannot knowwhatwearegoingtoknow.Thisisconnectedwitha generalfactthatitisoftenhardtoknowhowhardaproblemis. Butwehaveotherwaysofsucceedingatsequentialproblems. 5. DilemmasofThinking 111 Therearesituationsinwhichthebeststrategyforaperson dependsonwhatintellectualvirtuesshepossesses.Idiscuss viii CONTENTS Pascalproblems,whereonehasamotivetoacquirebeliefsone thinksarefalse,andprefaceproblems,whereonehasreasonto believethatspecificbeliefsthatoneholdsarefalse.Fromthis discussion,Isuggestanorderinginwhichintellectualvirtues apply. 6. RationalityandIntelligence 137 Someofourcommentaryononeanotherisphrasedinterms ofintelligenceandrationality.Neitheroftheseisaveryuseful concept.Itracetheillusionoftheirusefulnesstoafalsebelief aboutthinking,thatmostthinkingisinference.Thereisa greatervarietyinthewaysthatpeoplecanbeorfailtobe capable,whichcanbearticulatedbyastructuredvocabulary ofintellectualvirtues. Bibliography 166 Index 175 The Argument We manage, collectively, the fact that our environments present us with manyproblemsthataretoohardforustosolveindividually.Wemanageit by shaping one another’s thinking and by cooperating in practical and intellectual projects. Problems are difficult in many different ways, and there are many ways that we solve them: so many and so varied that we cannot as part of our thinking grasp all the ways situations and capacities connect. So we cannot by systematic thinking regulate our responses to ourlimitations.Inthiswaytheconceptofrationality—theunderstanding- basedoversightoverourthinking—isnotveryhelpful,andsincereactions to our limitations and failures are an important part of thinking well, rationality is in general not a helpful frame to put on thought. Instead, we can directly discuss connections between environment and thinking, talkingbothofknowledgeandaccomplishmentandofintellectualvirtues, which represent the variety of targets we can achieve. The difficulty of mapping the potential connections and disconnections also makes prob- lemsinanticipatingwhetheronewillsucceedinsolvingaproblem.There are important virtues that are specific to the consequences of this fact. Though we have no useful classification of our intellectual skills, we can classifyourvirtues.Thisissobecausevirtuesaredefinedintermsoftheir results rather than the ways they achieve them. The categories of such a classificationmustbeverybroadandincludeparadoxical-seemingvirtues thatinrationality-shapedtermswillseemlikevices.Butsuchaclassifica- tion represents our best hope of any systematic understanding of human limitation-management.
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