John Searle - Rationality in Action-chap1.pdf - Rationality in Action - asiaka88

The Classical Model

of Rationality and Its

Weaknesses

I The Problem of Rationality

During the First World War a famous animal psycholo -

gist, Wolfgang Kohler , working on the island of Tenerife,

showed that apes were capable of rational decision mak-

ing . In a typical experiment he put an ape in an environ -

ment containing a box , a stick , and a bunch of bananas

high up out of reach. After a while the ape figured out

how to get the bananas . He moved the box under the

bananas , got the stick , climbed up on the box , reached up

with the stick and brought down the bananas.l Kohler

was more interested in Gestalt psychology than in ratio -

nality , but his apes exemplified a form of rationality that

has been paradigmatic in our theories. The idea is that

ra tional decision making is a matter of selecting means

that will enable us to achieve our ends . The ends are

entirely a matter of what we desire . We come to the deci -

sion making situation with a prior inventory of desired

ends, and rationality is entirely a matter of figuring out

the means to our ends .

1. Wolfgang Kohler , The Mentality of Apes, second edition , London :

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1927. The animals were chimpanzees.

Chapter1

There is no question that the ape exemplifies one type of

human rational decision making . But there is a very large

number of other types of rational decision making that

the ape did not , and presumably could not , engage in . The

ape could attempt to figure out how to get bananas now ,

but he could not attempt to figure out how to get bananas

next week . For humans, unlike the ape, much decision

making is about the organization of time beyond the

immediate present. Furthermore , the ape cannot consider

large chunks of time terminating in his own death. Much

human decision making , indeed most major decisions,

such as where to live , what sort of career to pursue , what

kind of family to have, whom to marry , has to do with the

allocation of time prior to death. Death, one might say, is

the horizon of human rationality ; but thoughts about

death and the ability to plan with death in mind would

seem to be beyond the limitations of the ape's conceptual

apparatus . A second difference between human rationality

and the ape case is that humans are typically forced to

choose between conflicting and incompatible ends. Some-

times that is true of animal decision making - Buridan 's

ass is a famous hypothetical case- but for Kohler 's ape

it was the box, stick, and bananas or nothing . The ape's

third limitation is that he cannot consider reasons for

action that are not dependent on his desires. That is, it

seems that his desire to do something with the chair and

the stick can be motivated only by a prior desire to eat the

bananas. But in the case of human beings, it turns out we

have a rather large number of reasons that are not desires.

These desire-independent reasons can form the ground for

desires, but their being reasons for us does not depend on

their being based on desires. This is an interesting and

contentious point , and I will return to it in more detail in

The Classical Model of Rationali ty and Its Weaknesses

subsequent chapters. A fourth point of difference between

ourselves and the ape is that it appears that the ape has, if

anything , only a very limited conception of himself as a

self, that is to say, as a rational agent making decisions

and capable of assuming responsibility in the future for

decisions taken in the present, or responsibility in the pres-

ent for decisions taken in the past. And a fifth difference,

related to the fourth , is that the chimp , unlike the human ,

does not see his decisions as in any way expressions of,

nor commitments to, general principles that apply equally

to himself and to other selves.

It is customary in these discussions to say that w hat the

ape lacks is la.nguage. The idea, apparently , is that if only

we could succeed in teaching the apes the rudiments of

linguistic communication , they would have the full range

of rational decision making apparatus and responsibility

that humans do . I very much doubt that that is the case.

The simple ability to symbolize is not by itself sufficient

for the full gamut of rational thought processes. Efforts to

teach chimpanzees to use symbols linguistically have had,

at best, only ambiguous results . But even if they have

succeeded, it seemsto me that the types of use of symbols

purportedly taught to Washoe, Lana, and other famous

experimental chimps are insufficient to account for the

range of human rational capacities that come with certain

special features of human linguistic abilities . The point is

that the mere capacity to symbolize does not by itself yield

the full range of human rationality . What is necessary, as

we will seein these pages, is the capacity for certain types

of linguistic representation , and for those types it seemsto

me we cannot make a clear distinction between the intel -

lectual capacities that are expressed in the notation and

the use of the notation itself . The key is this : animals can

Chapter 1

deceive but they cannot lie . The ability to lie is a conse-

quence of the more profound human ability to undertake

certain sorts of commitment, and those commitments are

caseswhere the human animal intentionally imposes con-

ditions of satisfactionon conditions of satisfaction. If you do

not understand this point , don 't worry ; I will explain it in

the chapters to come.

Persistent philosophical problems , like the problem of

rationality , have a characteristic logical structure : How

can it be the case that p, given that it appears to be cer-

tainly the case that q, where q apparently makes it im -

possible that p. The classic example of this pattern is, of

course, the problem of free will . How can it be the case

that we perform free actions, given that every event has

a cause, and causal determination makes free actions

impossible ? The same logical structure pervades a large

number of other problems . How can it be the casethat we

have consciousness, given that we are entirely composed

of unconscious bits of matter ? The same problem arises

about intentionality : how can it be the case that we have

intentional states- states that refer to objects and states of

affairs in the world beyond themselves- given that we are

made entirely of bits of matter that lack intentionality ?

A similar problem arises in skepticism : how can it be

the case that we know anything , given that we can never

be sure we are not dreaming , hallucinating , or being de-

ceived by evil demons? In ethics: how can there be any

values in the world , given that the world consists entirely

of value-neutral facts? A variation on the same question :

how can we know what ought to be the casegiven that all

knowledge is about what is in fact the case, and we can

never derive a statement about what ought to be the case

from any set of statements about what is in fact the case?

The Classical Model of Rationality and Its Weaknesses

The problem of rationality , a variant of these persistent

problems , can be posed as follows . How can there be

rational decision making in world where everything that

occurs happens as a result of brute , blind , natural causal

forces ?

II The Classical Model of Rationality

In the discussion of ape rationality , I remarked that in our

intellectual culture , we have a quite specific tradition of

discussing rationality and practical reason , rationality in

action . This tradition goes back to Aristotle ' s claim that

deliberation is always about means , never about ends ,2

and it continues in Hume ' s famous claim that " Reason is

and ought to be the slave of the passions ," and in Kant ' s

claim that " He who wills the end wills the means ." The

tradition receives its most sophisticated formulation in

contemporary mathematical decision theory . The tradition

is by no means unified , and I would not wish to suggest

that Aristotle , Hume , and Kant share the same conception

of rationality . On the contrary , there are striking differ -

ences between them . But there is a common thread , and I

believe that of the classical philosophers , Hume gives the

clearest statement of what I will be referring to as " the

Classical Model ." I have for a long time had doubts about

this tradition and I am going to spend most of this first

chapter exposing some of its main features and making

a preliminary statement of some of my doubts . One way

to describe the Classical Model is to say that it repre -

sents human rationality as a more complex version of ape

rationality .

2. Alan Codehaspointedout to methat this standardattribution maybe

a misunderstandingof Aristotle's actualviews.

John Searle - Rationality in Action-chap1.pdf

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