Plan B

Abstract

We sometimes strive to achieve difficult goals when our evidence suggests that success is unlikely-not just because it will require strength of will, but because we are targets of prejudice and discrimination or because success will require unusual ability. Optimism about one's prospects can be useful for persevering in these cases. With that said, excessive optimism can be dangerous; when our evidence is unfavourable, we should be at most agnostic about whether we will succeed. This paper explores the nature and rational significance of agnostic practical commitments. Most importantly, the rationality of striving against the odds can depend on investing in a plan for failure-a plan B. I aim to make headway on an account of what backup plans are, how they are related to primary plans, and whether the standard norms of plan rationality apply to our agnostic commitments.

Hope: a solution to the puzzle of difficult action

“…Consider the variety of projects we may describe as 'difficult'. At one end of the spectrum, there are projects whose realization depends to some extent on continued motivation and strength of will, but whose success is in fact mostly determined by favourable circumstances and contingencies outside of one's control falling into place: depending on the details of the case, the project of getting admitted into a prestigious school with a low admittance rate can be thought to fall into this category (as do that of graduating from such a school; see Morton and Paul 2018, 188;Paul 2022, Section 1). 5 At the other end of the spectrum, consider projects whose success is essentially a matter of ongoing motivation and strength of will.…”

“…In order to be practically rational, the pursuit of such a contingency plan should not undermine her main goal and leave a sufficiently good version of her main plan open: if Betsy saves so much for next year's race that she becomes unable to afford the running coach she planned to use this year, she would then be practically irrational. 14 Still, because there seem to be many ways for agents like Betsy to rationally plan for their success while bearing in mind the possibility of her failure by making some of their plans conditional, 14 See Paul (2022) for a full defense of the practical rationality of having a 'Plan B". Paul also draws on the notion of conditional intention.…”

Knowledge, Practical Knowledge, and Intentional Action

“…By contrast, one can imagine that the perspective that sees knowledge as inessential to intentional action lines up more cleanly with a view of the nature of agency that is more animal, emphasizing the limits of our powers of execution, planning, and perception, and thus emphasizing the need for agency to involve a special kind of mental structure, a structure of specific sorts of attitudes (as in, e.g., Castañeda 2012or Brand 1984 as well as a layered cognitive architecture (as in Mele 1995or Pacherie 2008, and in addition a range of tricks and techniques (not only the formation of habits and 'motor schemata' but the capacity to abut one's fallibility by strategic planning [Bratman 2018], including strategic backup planning [Paul 2021]), ways to raise our chances of success in an unfriendly world. This contrast is not the common one between a Davidsonian and an Anscombian perspective on agency.…”

Self‐Esteem: On the Form of Self‐Worth Worth Having

“…Our account takes the grounds of self-esteem to be valuable achievements that the agent herself values. It is possible that some valuable achievements aren't socially valued, but they can be grounds for self-esteem all the same -23 See Paul (2022) for an illuminating discussion concerning the rationality of having a 'plan B' when pursuing difficult goals in particular.…”