Abstract

This chapter discusses responses to the author’s “Rationality’s Fixed Point (or: In Defense of Right Reason).” Among other things, the chapter: explains how the author understands rationality; explains why akrasia is irrational; intuitively overviews the argument from the Akratic Principle to the Fixed Point Thesis; explains why you can’t avoid this argument by distinguishing the rational from the reasonable, ideal rationality from everyday rationality, or substantive from structural norms; responds to the suggestion that misleading higher-order evidence creates rational dilemmas; explains why the Fixed Point Thesis doesn’t assume objectivist or externalist notions of rationality; dismisses complaints about agents who aren’t able to “figure out” what’s rational; then responds to an objection that peer disagreement undermines doxastic justification. Finally, the chapter modifies the author’s steadfast position on peer disagreement to take into account cases in which peer disagreement rationally affects an agent’s first-order opinions without affecting higher-order ones.