Are our goals really what we're after?

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Title Are our goals really what we're after?
Publication Type dissertation
School or College College of Humanities
Department Philosophy
Author Bowman, Margaret Mary
Date 2012-12
Description Long-term goals typically represent our deepest concerns and interests: they are our current life-size ambitions. Whereas instrumentalist theories of deliberation claim that the point of having them is achieving them, I argue that deliberation toward final ends operates primarily in the service of decision-making for present action. We use them to generate priorities in the here and now. Functioning in this capacity, having long-term goals is valuable regardless of whether we achieve or abandon them later. That's a good thing, because while it is rarely acknowledged in philosophical work, we typically abandon the large majority of long-term goals that we pursue at different periods of life. Embracing the idea that abandoning goals is not a practical failure, my proposal calls for a reassessment of practical commitment. It makes sense to give ourselves some slack between what practical rationality demands of us now and what happens later. I conclude that a proper account of practical rationality will require coming to terms with a more present-oriented picture of deliberation and agency.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Practical rationality
Dissertation Name Doctor of Philosophy
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Margaret Mary Bowman 2012
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 522,788 bytes
Identifier etd3/id/2094
ARK ark:/87278/s6b570km
Setname ir_etd
ID 195779
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6b570km
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