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Colloquium (Ralph Wedgwood, Southern California)
Thursday October 10, 2024, 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
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As speaker for our Fall 2024 colloquium, the department is delighted to welcome Ralph Wedgwood, a professor of Philosophy and the director of the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. Dr. Wedgwood works in ethics and epistemology, more specifically, in metaethics, practical reason, normative ethical theory, and the history of ethics. Before coming to USC, he was a professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford.
This is an in-person event, but those unable to come to campus may join via Zoom.
Talk Title
Intending the Improbable
Talk Abstract
One reason why it can be irrational to intend a course of action is if it is clearly a bad thing to do – that is, clearly inferior to an alternative that one has thought of and rationally regards as available. Another reason why an intention can be irrational – even if the intended course of action would be better than every alternative – is if it is highly improbable that one will take that course of action even if one intends to. How do these two dimensions of rationality relate to each other?
Some philosophers suggest that it is rational to intend a course of action only if it is conditionally certain that one will take the course of action if one intends to. Others suggest that the “options” that must have maximal expected value if an intention is to be rational must always be “acts of will” rather than external courses of action. Neither of these views is acceptable. A different proposal is defended: these two dimensions of the rationality of intentions must simply be in a way balanced against each other. This proposal turns out to have illuminating consequences about the nature of practical rationality.
