EMPOWERING RATIONALITY

This paper defends a version of the view that, sometimes, rational choice between two options can be grounded on a good reason whose justifying force does not depend on how the two options compare. The route via which this view is arrived at does not presuppose the existence of incomparable options, and so allows for common ground with skeptics about incomparability. Still, it requires that challenging cases be acknowledged and addressed, rather than abstracted from or assumed away. Ultimately, the reasoning provided suggests that rationality can handle quite a lot of messiness, which is important, since rationality wouldn’t be all that helpful if, whenever messiness threatened, we had to rush to its rescue rather than look to it for guidance.