Abstract

Although much ink has been spilled in discussing the relationship between rationality and normative reasons on the one hand and normative reasons and reasoning on the other, surprisingly, little has been said about whether we can understand rationality in terms of reasoning.

In this paper, I propose a novel way to understand rationality in terms of good reasoning. I argue that structural rationality is best understood in terms of adherence to formal good reasoning and substantive rationality as adherence to non-formal good reasoning.

I show how this can provide a unified account of structural and substantive dimensions of rationality that remain elusive on many other accounts.

I also discuss several challenging cases for some prominent accounts of rationality and show how my account succeeds where they fail.