In Defense of the Wide-Scope Instrumental Principle

Abstract

I make the observation that English sentences such as 添ou have reason to take the bus or to take the train� do not have the logical form that they superficially appear to have. I find in these sentences a conjunctive use of 登r,� as found in sentences like 添ou can have milk or lemon in your tea,� which gives you a permission to have milk, and a permission to have lemon, though no permission to have both. I argue that a confusion of genuine disjunctions with sentences of the above form has motivated the mistaken acceptance by some philosophers of principles like the one I call 鏑iberal Transmission.� This is the principle that if you have a reason to do something, then you have a reason to do it in each of the possible ways in which it can be done (though not more than one of them). I argue that Liberal Transmission and its close relatives are false. Wide-scope reasons are defined as reasons that have a conditional or other logical connective within the scope of the reason operator. For example, a wide-scope instrumental reason might be: reason(if you have an end, take the means). By refuting Liberal Transmission, I show that you could have wide-scope instrumental reasons like this while nevertheless lacking any narrow-scope reason to take the means, or narrow-scope reason to not have the end. This enables me to respond to two major objections to the wide-scope approach to the instrumental principle that have been developed by Joseph Raz and by Niko Kolodny.

How Do Reasons Transmit to Non-Necessary Means?

“…We borrow the name 'liberal transmission' from Rippon [2011: 6-7], who uses it for a related principle entailed by the one to which we here refer by that name. 3 See, especially, Broome [2005], Bedke [2009: 678-86], Rippon [2011], and Kiesewetter [2017: 92-8]. Raz seems to presuppose Liberal Transmission in his argument against the wide-scope account [2005b: 11-14], but Liberal Transmission should be distinguished from his 'facilitative principle' (see [ibid.…”

The property of rationality: a guide to what rationality requires?

“…The absence of an intention to X is certainly not (conclusive) evidence of its not being the case that you ought to X. I will therefore not include (N*) in my discussion. 6 See in particular Broome (1999Broome ( , 2004Broome ( , 2007aBroome ( , 2007bBroome ( , and 2013a, Brunero (2010Brunero ( , 2012, Kolodny (2005Kolodny ( , 2007a, Rippon (2011), Schroder (2004, Shpall (2013), and Way (2010Way ( , 2011. 7 Suppose you believe you ought to X, but you have no intention of X-ing.…”

“…18 Compare, for example, Broome (1999Broome ( , 2007aBroome ( , 2013a, Brunero (2010Brunero ( , 2012, Evers (2011), Kolodny (2007b, Rippon (2011), Shpall (2013), and Way (2010 (LR) constrains a code as follows: suppose that, at w, q is among the rationally required propositions. Then, at w, r is also among the rationally required propositions.…”