The role of judgement

Abstract

In this essay I explore one way of making sense of the idea that 'judgement' picks out a singular cognitive operation that cannot be modelled in terms of rule application. I argue that there is a place for noting a distinctive capacity for coming to a view about what to think and what to do and that this capacity is best understood in terms of singular attentional states. On the account that I sketch, the role of judgement contributes to the metaphysics of reasoning, not to a debate within the logic of reasons. The role of judgement is not concerned with particularist versus generalist debates about the nature of reasons; it is concerned with getting right the metaphysics of agency in reasoning.

Notes

1. See Dancy (2004) for the idea that moral knowledge for a particularist involves the exercise of judgement.

2. For more on this, see my forthcoming essay on ‘Teaching and Learning Words’ in a volume of essays edited by Walter and Zamuner to be published by Springer-Kluwer in 2006.

3. This view is not necessary for particularism, but is common in the education literature.

4. Cf. Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986).

5. This is clear in the literature on professional expertise, e.g. Benner (1984), Eraut (2000) and Hager (2000).

6. See report on pilot project ‘Attention and the knowledge bases of expert practice’ funded by an AHRB Innovatin Award, which can be found at www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/research/akbep.

7. This objection to Gigerenzer's critique of the classical theory of rationality can be found in Chater and Oaksford (2000) and Chater et al. (2003). For Gigerenzer's views see Gigerenzer (2000) and Gigerenzer and Selten (2002).

8. This is a view that might be suggested by the computational models of cognition in cognitive science, though that would be a poor source for the view. It is, arguably, what Gigerenzer is arguing against, see his arguments against Laplacean models of the mind (Gigerenzer 2000; Gigerenzer and Selton 2002).

9. This is the idea that underpins the rational explanation model appealed to by Chater and Oaksford in their critique of Gigerenzer (2000).

10. On such an account, although it is then true that rule-following is something we do or a practice, saying this says nothing about the nature of the agency involved, e.g. whether it is in any way constitutive of the obligatoriness of the rule-following. That is to say, if the account of rule-following ends with an unanalysed appeal to what we do or to practice, this is in danger of collapsing into quietism, e.g. see McDowell (1984) or Pettit (1990). My own account of rule-following as practice (Luntley 2003) is meant to say more about the nature of the doing, on our part, that is constitutive of rule-following. The present essay extends that analysis.

11. Therefore, there is more to being a good reasoner than simply using good reasons—premise (1) is not the whole truth of the matter.

12. This formulation is intended to echo Lovibond's (2002) way of expressing a similar resistance to something like the rule-analysis thesis, although she makes that resistance in the pursuit of particularism, which is something I think is unnecessary for the resistance to go through.

13. That would be Pettit's (1990) account of rule-following, it is something that we do.

14. The alternative to quietism is to take seriously the agency imputed to ourselves by talk of practice and to enquire for more detail about the sorts of action that compose this practice. That is the alternative that I take myself to be undertaking in this essay.

15. Exogenous attention applies equally to automated systems like auto-focusing on modern cameras, the ability of a dog to pursue a ball in flight, etc.

16. Korsgaard would be an example of a social practice account, see Korsgaard (1996).

17. The example is ral—literacy and numeracy curricula in the UK have been standardised and many teachers make use of detailed lesson plans with scripted examples, responses and sequencing of tasks.