Thursday 18 February 2010

Rational Transitions and Hurley’s Monkey

I believe that an agent may instantiate a rational transition even though that agent lacks the concept of a rational transition. In support of this claim, I will be exploiting the example due to Susan Hurley (see below).

In general, the distinction between possessing the concept of a certain state of affairs and instantiating that state of affairs is relatively straightforward. Consider, for example, the concept of a mammal. One could not plausibly be in possession of the concept without knowing that mammals are furry, warm-blooded animals that nurse their young. However, one may instantiate mammal-hood—i.e., by being a furry, warm-blooded animal that nurses its young—even if one does not know that mammals are furry, warm-blooded animals that nurse their young. Analogously, I maintain that it is possible to instantiate a rational transition even if one does not possess the concept of a rational transition. In the account that follows, I will attempt to sketch and motivate a conception of rational transitions that can accommodate the above intuitions.

To say that a psychological transition is rational is, by my lights, to say that it is reason-conferring; it is to say that the agent has a reason for beliefs based on that transition. I hold that a plausible account of a rational transition must be able to accommodate the distinction between possessing the concept of a rational transition, on the one hand, and instantiating a rational transition, on the other. We may motivate this claim by considering what I take to be an example of a rational transition—namely, a transitive inference. In order to have the concept of a transitive inference one must believe that such inferences may be employed in different, but logically similar, contexts. In other words, one must believe that it is generalisable. However, an agent may instantiate a transitive inference even though that agent lacks such a belief. This is illustrated by an example due to Susan Hurley, who describes the following empirical possibility:
An intentional agent’s reasons for action can be bound to specific contexts and not generalise; there can be islands of practical rationality. For example, a primate could have reasons in social contexts that she cannot generalise to nonsocial but logically similar contexts. Suppose a monkey observes that conspecifics A is dominant over B and that B is dominant over C and, never having observed A and C together, registers that A is dominant over C, and is able to use this information in instrumentally appropriate ways in relation to various goals. Nevertheless, she might be unable to generalise the ability to make transitive inferences to foraging contexts, such as: tree A has more fruit that tree B, which has more than tree C, so tree A has more fruit that tree C. Evolution might have conferred the ability to make transitive inferences in social contexts, if it was most valuable there, without conferring the conceptual abilities needed to transfer it readily to other contexts (Hurley [2003], "Animal action in the Space of Reasons", pp. 238-239).
The lesson of Hurley’s monkey is that an agent’s belief that a particular inferential pattern is generalisable does not necessarily account for that agent’s reliance on that inferential pattern. There are a number of ways that this claim may be unpacked. Since I am sympathetic to the dispositional account of belief defended by Ruth Barcan Marcus (See her paper: "Some Revisionary Proposals about Belief"), I will rely on an argument that exploits that conception. Let us say that an agent believes that a particular inferential pattern is generalisable only if that agent is disposed to employ that inferential pattern in a number of different contexts. Ex hypothesi, Hurley’s monkey is not disposed to employ transitive inferences in a number of different contexts. It follows that Hurley’s monkey lacks the belief that transitive inferences are generalisable. Moreover, if we assume that an agent possesses the concept of a transitive inference only if that agent believes that transitive inferences are generalisable, then Hurley’s monkey fails to fulfil a necessary condition for possessing the concept of a transitive inference. Consequently, insofar as Hurley’s monkey represents an empirical possibility, it follows that an agent may instantiate a transitive inference even though that agent lacks the concept of a transitive inference.

2 comments:

Ben M-Y said...

Avery,

I wonder who you take your opponent to be and what you take her position to be. I also wonder whether your argument and appeal to Hurley's example really addresses your opponent's worry, plausibly construed.

Presumably, your opponent denies that one can instantiate a rational transition without possessing the concept of a rational transition. As you (and Hurley) show, this better not mean that one cannot, say, make a transitive inference (from A is dominant over B and B is dominant over C, to A is dominant over C). But I would have thought that your opponent's position would be more subtle. (Your first example, of being a mammal without the concept of mammal should, I think, make one suspicious of a characterization of your opponent's position as anything as simple as one cannot instantiate X without the concept of X.)

Perhaps your opponent would claim this: One cannot self-consciously make a rational transition (i.e., make the transition of thought because one recognizes that it is rational) without the concept of a rational transition. And self-consciousness is a necessary condition on having reasons. So Hurley's monkey can make the proposed transition of thought. But because she does not have the concept of a rational transition, she cannot do so because she takes it to be rational (or rationally required). That is, though the monkey may come to regard A as dominant over C on the basis of the two beliefs, that A is dominant over B and that B is dominant over C, she cannot do so because of some reflective awareness of the rationality of this movement of thought. Lacking the requisite reflexivity, the monkey's transition is not reason-conferring for her. The monkey does not make the inference because she sees that she has reason to, and she does not see a reason for believing the conclusion on the basis of the transition. (Though we may be able to attribute a reason to her on the basis of her transition of thought, this need not mean that she has a reason in the sense that it is available to her in deliberation.)

You may want to deny this. You might deny that reflective awareness is necessary for reason-conferring movements of thought. But now the dispute seems to be about what is required of a creature in order for that creature to be able to have reasons. Your opponent has built in some assumptions about the nature of rational creatures that you want to leave out. But she can grant you that a creature without reflective awareness can make the relevant movements of thought. She might, however, deny that a creature without reflective awareness can make such a transition under the guidance of some norm of rationality. And you might agree, pressing your opponent for an explanation of why guidance by such norms are so important. After all, all parties agree that the relevant movements of thought can occur without a capacity for reflective awareness.

I guess my worry might be put this way. Why should we think that Hurley's monkey example shows that the transition of thought is reason-conferring? One might grant that the monkey makes the transition (reliably, even) and yet still deny that it has anything to do with responsiveness to reasons (or the activity of reasoning). Perhaps it is a habit of instinct. And one might think that more than instinctual movement of thought is necessary for reasoning.

Maybe I have you wrong here. And maybe I am missing a possible position for your opponent that is plausible and closer to the one suggested in your post. In any case, I think the post raises some interesting issues.

AVERY ARCHER said...

Ben,

You make a number of very astute observations. In fact, you’ve anticipated the very objection I was planning to raise (on my opponent’s behalf) in a follow-up post. As you so perspicuously observe, it is ultimately going to come down to the question of what it takes for a psychological transition to be reason-conferring. Since I intend to address these questions at length in a future post I will limit myself to a short preview of the arguments to come.

Following McDowell, I wish to make room for a distinction between “responsiveness to reasons” and “responsiveness to reasons as such”. The basic move will be to say that only the latter requires that the agent be equipped with the appropriate conceptual capacities. Now, I grant that the inference performed by Hurley’s monkey is not an instance of reasoning (in the sense reserved for mature humans with the ability to respond to reasons as such). But I would also insist that under normal circumstances, neither is the transition from a perceptual experience to a perceptual belief!

Admittedly, there may be special circumstances in which an agent forms a perceptual belief only because that agent recognizes that her perceptual apparatus is reliable. But I do not believe that this is generally the case. Even so, I wish to say that perceptual experience is generally reason-conferring. On this view, an agent that unreflectively forms a belief based on her perceptual experience may count as responding to a reason, though not as responding to a reason as such. The upshot is that a transition need not be an instance of reasoning in order to count as reason-conferring. Moreover, I believe the point generalises to inferences of the kind performed by Hurley’s monkey; inferences performed by an agent that lacks the conceptual resources necessary to respond to reasons as such.