Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Contributors
- Introduction: The Moral and Political Philosophy of Gregory Kavka
- Some Personal Memories
- The Shadow of the Future
- A New Paradox of Deterrence
- Rethinking the Toxin Puzzle
- Toxin, Temptation, and the Stability of Intention
- The Toxin Puzzle
- Religion and Morality in Hobbes
- Contemporary Uses of Hobbes's Political Philosophy
- The Knavish Humean
- Some Considerations in Favor of Contractualism
- Justice, Reasons, and Moral Standing
- Wrongful Life: Paradoxes in the Morality of Causing People to Exist
- Gregory S. Kavka's Writings
Toxin, Temptation, and the Stability of Intention
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Contributors
- Introduction: The Moral and Political Philosophy of Gregory Kavka
- Some Personal Memories
- The Shadow of the Future
- A New Paradox of Deterrence
- Rethinking the Toxin Puzzle
- Toxin, Temptation, and the Stability of Intention
- The Toxin Puzzle
- Religion and Morality in Hobbes
- Contemporary Uses of Hobbes's Political Philosophy
- The Knavish Humean
- Some Considerations in Favor of Contractualism
- Justice, Reasons, and Moral Standing
- Wrongful Life: Paradoxes in the Morality of Causing People to Exist
- Gregory S. Kavka's Writings
Summary
Instrumentally Rational Planning Agency
We frequently settle in advance on prior, partial plans for future action, fill them in as time goes by, and execute them when the time comes. Such planning plays a basic role in our efforts to organize our own activities over time and to coordinate our own activities with those of others. These forms of organization are central to the lives we want to live.
Not all purposive agents are planning agents. Nonhuman animals who pursue their needs and desires in the light of their representations of their world may still not be planning agents. But it is important that we are planning agents. Our capacities for planning are an all-purpose means, basic to our abilities to pursue complex projects, both individual and social.
Why do we need to settle on prior plans in the pursuit of organized activity? A first answer is that there are significant limits on the time and attention we have available for reasoning. Such resource limits argue against a strategy of constantly starting from scratch – they argue against a strategy of never treating prior plans as settling a practical question. A second answer is that our pursuit of organization and coordination depends on the predictability to us of our actions.
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- Rational Commitment and Social JusticeEssays for Gregory Kavka, pp. 59 - 83Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998
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