Episode 77: Mark Schroeder discusses reasons for action and belief
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What is the basic distinction between reasons for action and reasons for belief?
Hey, Matt Techman here from Elucidations. Before we get going today, I just thought I'd ask if you're a fan of the show, to maybe go to our iTunes page and leave a rating and a review, and that way more people can discover it. Alright, thanks.
Hello and welcome to Elucidations, the philosophy podcast recorded at the University of Chicago. I'm Matt Tykman.
And I'm done and J Juggin' nothing.
With us today is Mark Schroeder, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, and he's here to discuss reasons for action and belief. Mark Schroeder, welcome. Thanks for having me. Okay, so I think the idea of reasons for action and reasons for belief has some place in sort of common sense. I mean we talk about like for what reason did Donna Jay do that last week? Yeah. It's a little bit stilted, but we you know, we kind of think in that way. But maybe we could just sort of open with some examples of acting, believing and reasons for doing these things.
Sure. So I think it's useful to distinguish between different ways in which we use the word reason. But take for example the case of Ronnie who likes dancing and he's been invited to a party this evening and at the party there's gonna be dancing. So that's a reason for Ronnie to go to the party. If he's trying to make up his mind, that's one of the things that it makes sense for him to take into account. If you were making a list of pros and cons of going to the party, that would be a pro. And if he goes to the party and you ask him why he came, he might tell you, because there's gonna be dancing here. And so even before he goes, the fact that there's dancing at the party seems like it counts in favor of his going to the party.
It's a pro. And in that sense it's a reason to go there. And I think that's the interesting sense of reason. There's also a sense in which after he's come and you ask him why he came and he says, Well, because there's dancing. Another way of putting that, a m perhaps a more stilted way of putting it, would be to say that the reason why he came is that there would be dancing there. And Philosophers sometimes call that an a motivating reason, and that's another way in which reasons can be talked about is the reason why somebody did something. But even if you don't do something, there can be reason to do it. And uh that's also true in Ronnie's case. To take a case of belief. You might see that Caroline is smiling.
And if you see Caroline smiling, that can be a reason to believe that she's happy because generally people smile when they're happy. And if you do believe she's happy and I haven't seen her and I ask you, Is Caroline happy? and you say yes I might ask you, why do you believe that? How do you know? And you might say, Because I saw her smiling. And so in that case, even before you believe it, the fact that she's smiling is a reason for you to believe she's happy. Once you believe it and I ask you why you believe it, the reason for which you believe it. That's a stilted way of talking about the idea that You believe it because she's happy? And so we can both talk about reasons before you believe that are reasons to believe.
And once you believe we can talk about the reasons why you believe. So we can make that same distinction.
Is there anything special about reasons for belief? I mean, believing is one thing I might do among other things. Why should we think of reasons for belief as being anything other than just like a special case of reasons for action?
Well, I don't think that believing something is an action. When philosophers at least talk about action, actions are things that you've made decisions to do. It's a very tricky question whether you can decide what to believe. one I don't really have an answer to, but if you can decide what to believe, it's very difficult because even if you really want to believe something, if it's really obviously not true, you're gonna have a very hard time convincing yourself to believe it. For example, if you are in outside in Chicago in January, you might have a very hard time convincing yourself that it is warm.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the basic distinction between reasons for action and reasons for belief?
0:00–6:15
2
How does the Ronnie‑the‑dancer example illustrate a motivating reason to act?
6:15–14:06
3
Why can evidence like Caroline’s smile serve as a reason to believe someone is happy?
14:06–19:31
4
Is believing a belief an action, and how do philosophers view this?
19:31–38:34
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Elucidations
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