What’s the matter with Huck Finn?

Abstract

This paper explores some key commitments of the idea that it can be rational to do what you believe you ought not to do. I suggest that there is a prima facie tension between this idea and certain plausible coherence constraints on rational agency. I propose a way to resolve this tension. While akratic agents are always irrational, they are not always practically irrational, as many authors assume. Rather, “inverse” akratics like Huck Finn fail in a distinctively theoretical way. What explains why akratic agents are always either theoretically or practically irrational? I suggest that this is true because an agent’s total evidence determines both the beliefs and the intentions it is rational for her to have. Moreover, an agent’s evidence does so in a way such that it is never rational for the agent to at once believe that she ought to Φ and lack the intention to Φ.

Keywords:

• akrasia
• rationality
• reasons
• virtue
• evidence
• moral testimony

Acknowledgements

I want to specially thank Gideon Rosen for providing detailed feedback on earlier drafts. Thanks also to Marcus Gibson, Sherif Girgis, Christopher Howard, Thomas Kelly, Sarah McGrath, Philip Pettit, David Plunkett, Samuel Preston, Michael Smith, and audiences at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the 2016 Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, and the 2015 Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress for helpful feedback and discussion.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Hrishikesh Joshi is a Postgraduate Research Associate in the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University.

Notes

1. Plato (1997) and Aristotle (1999) were both very concerned with virtue, and Aristotle outlined a theory of what it is for a person to act virtuously. For Aristotle, practical wisdom (phronēsis) – in other words, practical rationality – is constitutive of virtue.

2. The moral worth of an action, like the practical rationality of an action, depends on the reasons for which the action is done. If I save a drowning child merely so that I can be in the newspaper tomorrow, my action has low moral worth. By contrast, if I save the child out of a concern for her being able to live a full life, my action has higher moral worth. The concept of acting rationally is broader than the concept of moral worth because the former concept takes into account all the normative reasons an agent has, whereas the latter concept is only relevant when something of moral importance is at stake. Thus if I base my decision as to whether to work in the office or at home on a particular day upon the astrological profile of that day, my action is intuitively irrational – though (depending on what the astrological profile says) the action is neither morally worthy nor unworthy since nothing of moral importance is at stake. Immanuel Kant famously thought that the idea of moral worth was central to ethics. An action’s moral worth, in Kant’s (1996) words, lies

not in the purpose to be attained by it but in the maxim in accordance with which it is decided upon, and therefore does not depend upon the realization of the object of the action but merely upon the principle of volition in accordance with which the action is done …  (G4:400)

In contemporary philosophical parlance, an action’s moral worth depends on the reasons for which it is done. The good will, out of which morally worthy actions spring, is for Kant the only thing in the world that “could be considered good without limitation” (G4:393). Indeed, according to Kant (1996),

Even if, by a special disfavor of fortune or by the niggardly provision of a stepmotherly nature, this [good] will should wholly lack the capacity to carry out its purpose … then, like a jewel, it would still shine by itself, as something that has its full worth in itself. (G4:394)

The concept of moral worth, then, lies at the heart of Kantian ethics.

3. The Huck Finn case has been employed in the moral psychology literature to defend a kind of “anti-intellectualism” about virtuous action. Bennett (1974) famously discusses this case to illuminate “misguided conscience.” Arpaly (2003) also talks about this example as an instance of what she calls “inverse” akrasia. My discussion of the case here does not aim to accurately characterize Huck’s psychology as depicted in Mark Twain’s novel – rather, I want to make certain stipulations about the scenario, and use it to illuminate more abstract claims about the purported requirement of enkrasia and the nature of evidence for normative beliefs.

4. According to some authors, for instance Broome (1999), rationality consists at least partly in satisfying normative requirements, where doing so can come apart from acting for the right reasons. These authors would presumably want to endorse one of the first two options mentioned here if they think that the enkratic requirement is a requirement of rationality. Nonetheless, as I go on to show, one can capture the intuitive claim that the enkratic requirement is a requirement of rationality even if one thinks that rationality is a matter of being properly responsive to reasons. However, this will mean giving up the idea that the enkratic requirement is explanatorily basic in a certain sense. This paper thus suggests a way in which the enkratic requirement can fit in within a picture – defended in, for example, Dancy (2002), Arpaly (2003), Schroeder (2009), Markovits (2010), and Parfit (2011) – on which acting rationally (or acting well, or acting virtuously) consists in properly responding to reasons.

5. Others who argue for the view include Audi (1990) and Weatherson (2013).

6. Generally, it is thought that if P is part of the best explanation for why Q is true, then Q is evidence for P.

7. According to Kelly (2014):

It is characteristic of rational thinkers to respect their evidence. Insofar as one is rational, one is disposed to respond appropriately to one’s evidence: at any given time, one’s views accurately reflect the character of one’s evidence at that time, and one’s views manifest a characteristic sensitivity or responsiveness to changes in one’s evidence through time. Of course, rationality is no guarantee of correctness. Indeed, in a given case one might be led astray by following one’s evidence, as when one’s evidence is misleading. But being mistaken is not the same as being unreasonable. (§2)

8. In this paper, I want to remain neutral with respect to different conceptions of evidence in epistemology – however the distinction between an agent’s evidence and what the agent takes to be her evidence is available for all plausible views of evidence. For example, a currently popular view – see Williamson (2000) – holds that agent’s total evidence just consists of all the things she knows. If this view is right, then an agent’s evidence will amount to what she knows, rather than what she thinks she knows. Bayesians have a different model of theoretical rationality. On this view, the credences (degrees of belief) it is rational for someone to have depends on his or her prior credences, which are to be updated via Bayes’ rule. But even here, there is a distinction to be made between one’s credences and one’s credences about one’s credences. More generally, an agent’s take on her evidence involves an attitude, or set of attitudes, towards her evidence – hence, this take is distinct from the evidence itself. Moreover, the rationality of an agent’s belief that P is to be assessed in light of her evidence for P (which may well involve her other beliefs, depending on which theory of evidence is true), but not on her take as to what her evidence for P amounts to.

9. The Standard Model plays a key role in the arguments of many authors writing on rational action and akrasia. For a recent, explicit defense of this idea, see Smith (2013). Smith gives a more detailed depiction of the Standard Model, but the core idea is the same. For Smith, the arrows represent the exercise of the agent’s rational capacities. Thus, for example, the practically rational agent’s ought belief must be causally effective in bringing her to have the corresponding intention, and this must occur via the agent exercising her rational capacities (rather than, say, a hit on the head).

10. For more discussion of this distinction and its philosophical implications, see Lord (2015).

11. Bratman (1987) has argued that intentions play a key role functioning as inputs to practical reasoning. However, he claims, they do not function as reasons. Given this framework, my account in Figure 3 should be understood not as representing future intentions, but rather, intention in action. The broader point I am defending here, namely that evidence rationalizes action or intention, just as it rationalizes belief, can be understood straightforwardly within the Bratmanian framework – part of your body of evidence can include facts about your intentions.

12. See Broome (1999, 2013). In the latter, a more detailed formulation is given. Broome writes:

Rationality requires you to intend what you believe you ought; it requires you not to be akratic. More accurately: Enkrasia: Rationality requires of N that, if (1) N believes at t that she herself ought that p, and if (2) N believes at t that, if she herself were then to intend that p, because of that, p would be so, and if (3) N believes at t that, if she herself were not then to intend that p, because of that, p would not be so, then (4) N intends at t that p. (170)

13. See Arpaly (2003) for a more thorough defense of this claim.

14. For example, see Broome (2013), Davidson (1980), and Wedgwood (2007).

15. See Hills (2009) and McGrath (2011) for more discussion of this and related issues.

16. Authors of diverse metaethical commitments have defended this view. See, for example, Dancy (2002) and Schroeder (2007).

17. Markovits (2010) also points out this problem.

18. Notably, Thomson (2008) defends a view of reasons as evidence for ought-claims.