A person desires, at some time, to procrastinate. They know it’s bad for them, but they don’t want to do their tasks. On anti-realism, this is not a rational failing.
I am just picking one of these examples, but an anti-realist could call this a rational failing. People can have many different desires, and thus many different reasons for action, e.g. you could have a desire—and thus a reason—to procrastinate, while at the same time, have a stronger desire—and thus a stronger reason—to work. An anti-realist could say that one is irrational for not doing what one has most reason to do, and in this case, as they have more reason to work than to procrastinate, they are being irrational here. You may say that this impossible, but a “stronger” desires does not have to be defined as being “more” motivational. “Stronger” desires could be understood as, e.g., more persistent desires.
They could, but they could also not. Desires and preferences are malleable, although not infinitely so. The critique is presuposing, I feel, that the subject is someone who knows with complete detail not only their preferences, but their exact weights, and that this configuration is stable. I think that is a first model approximation, but it fails to reflect the more messy and complex reality underneath. Still, even accepting the premises, I don’t think an anti-realist would say procrastinating in that scenario is ‘irrational’, but rather that it is ‘inefficient’ or ‘counterproductive’ to attaining a stronger goal/desire, and that the subject should take this into account, whatever decision he or she ends up making .which might include changing the weights and importance of the originally ‘stronger’ desire.
Ah yes, I agree with you that it is not so clean-cut in reality. I also agree that an anti-realist need not claim that it is irrational. However, I just wanted to show a possible counterexample to the author’s claim that “on anti-realism, [procrastination] is not a rational failing”. There is not just one single “anti-realism” and so while not all anti-realists would argue the person is being irrational, one certainly could (with consistency) argue that. And the same could be said for the other supposedly “crazy” examples that the author provided.
I am just picking one of these examples, but an anti-realist could call this a rational failing. People can have many different desires, and thus many different reasons for action, e.g. you could have a desire—and thus a reason—to procrastinate, while at the same time, have a stronger desire—and thus a stronger reason—to work. An anti-realist could say that one is irrational for not doing what one has most reason to do, and in this case, as they have more reason to work than to procrastinate, they are being irrational here. You may say that this impossible, but a “stronger” desires does not have to be defined as being “more” motivational. “Stronger” desires could be understood as, e.g., more persistent desires.
They could, but they could also not. Desires and preferences are malleable, although not infinitely so. The critique is presuposing, I feel, that the subject is someone who knows with complete detail not only their preferences, but their exact weights, and that this configuration is stable. I think that is a first model approximation, but it fails to reflect the more messy and complex reality underneath. Still, even accepting the premises, I don’t think an anti-realist would say procrastinating in that scenario is ‘irrational’, but rather that it is ‘inefficient’ or ‘counterproductive’ to attaining a stronger goal/desire, and that the subject should take this into account, whatever decision he or she ends up making .which might include changing the weights and importance of the originally ‘stronger’ desire.
Ah yes, I agree with you that it is not so clean-cut in reality. I also agree that an anti-realist need not claim that it is irrational. However, I just wanted to show a possible counterexample to the author’s claim that “on anti-realism, [procrastination] is not a rational failing”. There is not just one single “anti-realism” and so while not all anti-realists would argue the person is being irrational, one certainly could (with consistency) argue that. And the same could be said for the other supposedly “crazy” examples that the author provided.