Rationality and Morality

Abstract

Is practical rationality on the side of morality? Is it even the benchmark or the ground of morality? Why do what morality requires you to do? The diversity of answers that are still in the running and of considerations for and against them is astonishing. Our aim is to delineate the structure of the debate and to locate and clarify some major questions, options, and moves. We organize the presentation around a pair of prominent sample views, linking the rationality of an action to the agent’s desires, but its morality to the general welfare. We expound how different the matter looks for other views of rationality or of morality. All things considered, thoughts about each of the two normative domains and about conflicting norms in general suggest that even regarding well-informed agents rationality and morality cannot be fully harmonized. To some extent, convergence will remain gappy and contingent.