Abstract:

According to the principle ‘Equal Treatment’ (Rinard, 2017) the rationality of a belief is determined in the same way as the rationality of any other state. For example: if it is rational to be in a state (like driving a car to visit your parents), if being in the state has the highest expected utility, then it is rational to have a belief, if believing it has the highest expected utility. ‘Equal Treatment’ is neutral on which view of rationality is the right one. In this talk we will check if ‘Equal Treatment’ works with three views of rationality: The expected utility view, means-end rationality, and the meta-inductive view. We will focus on the concept and the measurement of utility and see how this affects the plausibility of ‘Equal Treatment’ in each of the views of rationality.

Speaker:
Maximilian Seubold studies philosophy at the Heinrich Heine University and is a student assistant at the DCLPS.