Robert Audi

Abstract I distinguish various ways in which human life may be thought to be meaningful and present an account of what might be called existential meaningfulness. The account is neutral with respect to both theism and naturalism, but each is addressed in several places and the paper's main points are harmonious with certain versions of both. A number of important criteria for existential meaningfulness are examined, and special emphasis is placed on criteria centering on creativity and excellence, on contributing to the well-being of persons, and on human relationships, particularly those pervaded by love. In the light of a conception of intrinsic goodness, the good life is compared with the meaningful life, and the relation between the two notions is explored. I argue that goodness in a life counts towards its meaningfulness and that the goodness of a life is sufficient for an important kind of meaningfulness. I also suggest that the overall notion of rewarding elements in a life-intrinsically good elements that are typically but not necessarily pleasurable-is a significant unifying concept that helps both in understanding existential meaningfulness and in integrating the various kinds of constituents in a life that conduce to its meaningfulness

The literature on theoretical reason has been dominated by epistemological concerns, treatments of practical reason by ethical concerns. This book overcomes the limitations of dealing with each separately. It sets out a comprehensive theory of rationality applicable to both practical and theoretical reason. In both domains, Audi explains how experience grounds rationality, delineates the structure of central elements, and attacks the egocentric conception of rationality. He establishes the rationality of altruism and thereby supports major moral principles. The concluding part describes the pluralism and relativity his conception of rationality accommodates and, taking the unified account of theoretical and practical rationality in that light, constructs a theory of global rationality--the overall rationality of persons. Rich in narrative examples, intriguing analogies, and intuitively appealing arguments, this beautifully crafted book will spur advances in ethics and epistemology as well in philosophy of mind and action and the theory of rationality itself.

This collection of papers (including three completely new ones) by one of the foremost philosophers in epistemology transcends two of the most widely misunderstood positions in philosophy--foundationalism and coherentism. Audi proposes a distinctively moderate, internalist foundationalism that incorporates some of the virtues of both coherentism and reliabilism. He develops important distinctions between positive and negative epistemic dependence, substantively and conceptually naturalistic theories, dispositional beliefs and dispositions to believe, episodically and structurally inferential beliefs, first and second order internalism, and rebutting as opposed to refuting skepticism. These contrasts are applied not only to rational belief, but to rational action and the rationality of desires and intentions. The overall position is a pluralist, moderately rationalistic, internalist theory of justification and a partly externalist conception of knowledge. However, by virtue of offering a theory of rationality as well as an account of knowledge and justified belief, it will interest philosophers of ethics, science, and the social sciences and teachers and students of epistemology.

This book is unified by three broad concerns: the rationality of belief in God, the relation between religion and morality, and the explication of the concept of God. The essays are, however, marked by diversity. Some focus on historical figures, such as Aquinas and Locke; others bring recent epistemological and metaphysical developments to bear on problems of religious belief. Some of the papers explore neglected issues central to religious practice, such as the question of how total devotion to God can permit other deep commitments; others apply philosophical distinctions from within a religious tradition, for example, in setting out a Christian approach to the problem of evil.

This book constructs a comprehensive theory of rationality. Part I addresses theoretical rationality, roughly the territory of epistemology. Part II concerns practical rationality, roughly the territory of rational action, rational desire, and moral conduct. The third, final part addresses global rationality, the overall rationality of persons. Throughout, the role of experience is central: theoretical reason represents, in good part, our cognitive responses to experience, and it yields our map of the world. Practical reason represents, in good part, our conative responses to experience, and, in the light of our beliefs, it yields a kind of itinerary for our lives. (edited)

This paper is an examination of modest foundationalism in relation to some important criteria of epistemic dependence. The paper distinguishes between causal and epistemic dependence and indicates how each might be related to reasons. Four kinds of reasons are also distinguished: reasons to believe, reasons one has for believing, reasons for which one believes, and reasons why one believes. In the light of all these distinctions, epistemic dependence is contrasted with defeasibility, and it is argued that modest foundationalism is not committed to criteria of epistemic dependence on which foundational beliefs are indefeasible. Modest foundationalism is contrasted with coherentism and is shown to be hospitable to a causal criterion of epistemic dependence, compatible with reliabilism, and neutral with respect to skepticism.

Weakness of will has been widely discussed from at least three points of view. It has been examined historically, with Aristotle recently occupying centre stage. It has been analysed conceptually, with the question of its nature and possibility in the forefront. It has been considered normatively in relation to both rational action and moral character. My concern is not historical and is only secondarily conceptual: while I hope to clarify what constitutes weakness of will, I presuppose, rather than construct, an account of it. My chief aim is to assess the bearing of weakness of will on the rationality of actions that exhibit it--incontinent actions. Philosophers have tended to assume that incontinent action is a paradigm of irrationality, and none to my knowledge has seriously criticised this assumption. I challenge it and in doing so try to clarify rationality in general.

This paper outlines and defends a moderate intuitionism. The point of departure is the intuitionism of W. D. Ross (1930) in The Right and the Good, conceived as ethically pluralist and epistemologically rationalist. The paper articulates a conception of self-evidence – including mediate as well as immediate kinds – appropriate to a moderate intuitionism, explores some of the resources and varieties of that position, and considers some problems and prospects for a rationalist version of intuitionism. The final section addresses the issue of how best to conceive the nature and grounds of prima facie duty, the problem of whether intuitionism can adequately deal with conflicts of prima facie duties, and the question of how satisfactorily a moderate intuitionism can account for the epistemic status of moral judgments of overall duty and their connection with rational action.

Kant famously said that one could not do morality a worse disservice than to derive it from examples, and this pronouncement, taken together with his formulations and explanations of the categorical imperative, has led some critics to regard him as too abstract. Ross, by contrast, has been widely viewed as taking individual cases of duty to have a kind of epistemic priority over principles of duty, and some of his critics have thus considered him insufficiently systematic, or even dogmatically limited to deliverances of intuition. This paper arises from the conviction that understanding of the categorical imperative may be enhanced by reflection on Rossian principles, and conversely. Kant and other systematic philosophers who have done moral philosophy in the grand style have had too little faith in intuitive singular moral judgement; Ross and other intuitionists have had too little faith in comprehensive moral theory. Drawing in part on an independent account of self-evidence and its relation to intuition, the paper shows how a Rossian view can be integrated with a Kantian moral theory in a way that yields the major benets of both positions: the moral unication possible through the categorical imperative and other notions prominent in Kantian ethics, and the relative closeness to moral practice of Rossian principles.