Functional Irrationality Essay -- Psychology Psychological Essays

Functional Irrationality (1)I. IntroductionThe view that some forms of erroneousity whitethorn serve a useful purpose is being increasingly entertained, disrespect the disquiet it elicits. The reason for the disquiet isnt difficult to discern, for if the view were made unsloped it might threaten the unqualified normative primacy that rationality enjoys in the evaluation of thoughts, beliefs, intentions, decisions and actions. In terms of the predominant rational explanation model, reasons both impart and justify actions, and carrying out the dictates of reason is held up as an ideal. If it can be shown that under some circumstances or for certain types of action irrational elements or procedures would produce all things considered better results, this would put these deliberative ideals in question. Nozick (1993), going deeper, advances the view that we accord rationality intrinsic value (over and preceding(prenominal) its instrumental value), because deciding and believing in a way that is antiphonary to the net balance of reasons has come to form an important part of serviceman identity. We value a persons believing and deciding rationally in a way that is responsive to the net balance of reasons, and we think that is good and admirable in itself, perhaps because so deciding and believing uses our high and manifold capacities and expresses them, or perhaps because that embodies an admirable and principled integrity in command beliefs and actions by reasons, not by the whims or desires of the moment. (Nozick 1993 136)In this paper I want to explore whether such entrenched assumptions and intuitions preempt a dour account of functional irrationality, or whether, despite the presumption against it, it can be defended within th... ...McLaughlin (eds) Actions and Events. Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. Dunn, Robert. 1995. Motivated Irrationality and Divided management, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73,3 325-335.Elster, Jon. 1989 . Solomonic Judgements. Studies in the Limitations of Rationality. Cambridge CUP.Johnston, Mark. 1995. Self lie and the Nature of the Mind, in C. MacDonald and G. MacDonald (eds) Philosophy of Psychology. Debates on Psychological description 433-460. Basil Blackwell.Nozick, Robert. 1993. The Nature of Rationality. Princeton Princeton University Press.Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York Columbia University Press.Rorty, Amlie. 1980. Where Does the Akratic throw Take Place. Australasian Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 58, No. 94 333-346. in Action. Essays in the Philosophy of Mind. Boston Beacon Press.