Leading a Rational Life

Abstract

We often assess the rationality of an action in terms of the desires of the actor at the time of acting. But a bit of reflection shows that this viewpoint is much too narrow. The rationality of an action must be assessed in terms of the rationality of the life of which it is a part. After showing why this is so (Section II), I shall claim that certain ways decision theory might naturally lead us to think about our lives would not be reasonable (Section III). I Then want to propose a way of thinking about the rationality of a life (Section IV) and reply to some possible misunderstandings of it (Section V). Before doing this, however, I shall have to make clear what sort of rationality I am interested in and what I am assuming about it (Section I).