Why are people often rational? Saving the causal theory of action
Capraru M.
2025Routledge
Philosophical Explorations
2025#28Issue 168 - 84 pp.
Since Donald Davidson issued his challenge to anticausalism in 1963, most philosophers have espoused the view that our actions are causally explained by the reasons why we do them. This Davidsonian consensus, however, rests on a faulty argument. Davidson’s challenge has been met, in more than one way, by anticausalists such as C. Ginet, G. Wilson, and S. Sehon. Hence I endeavor to support causalism with a stronger argument. Our actions are correlated with our motivating reasons; to wit, we often do what we have reason to do. In yet other words, we are often rational. Our frequent rationality is easily explained if causalism is correct, but looks like a staggering coincidence otherwise. Anticausalism thus appears to be ill-equipped to account for the very existence of rational behavior, and so far no attempts in this direction have succeeded.
Causal theory of action , correlation and causation , motivating reasons , rationalization , teleological explanation
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HPRS, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
HPRS
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