Rationality as a Virtue

Abstract

There seems to be a concept, which can be expressed in philosophical English by the term ‘rationality’, that plays a particularly central role both in epistemology and in ethics. This concept seems especially prominent in the more formal branches of epistemology and decision theory, since it seems to be a central topic for those branches of philosophy to investigate when beliefs and decisions – and events in which we revise or adjust our beliefs and intentions – count as rational. But it is not completely obvious what sort of concept the term ‘rational’ expresses in these contexts.