Editing Rationality (section)

===Robert Audi===
[[Robert Audi]] developed a comprehensive account of rationality that covers both the theoretical and the practical side of rationality.<ref name="Precis">{{cite journal |last1=Audi |first1=Robert |title=Précis of the Architecture of Reason |journal=Philosophy and Phenomenological Research |date=2003 |volume=67 |issue=1 |pages=177–180 |doi=10.1111/j.1933-1592.2003.tb00031.x |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/AUDPOT |access-date=2020-11-07 |archive-date=2021-04-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414132814/https://philpapers.org/rec/AUDPOT |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Architecture">{{cite book |last1=Audi |first1=Robert |title=The Architecture of Reason: The Structure and Substance of Rationality |date=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/AUDTAO-3 |access-date=2020-11-07 |archive-date=2021-06-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210619215025/https://philpapers.org/rec/AUDTAO-3 |url-status=live }}</ref> This account centers on the notion of a ''ground'': a [[mental state]] is rational if it is "well-grounded" in a source of [[Justification (epistemology)|justification]].<ref name="Architecture" />{{rp|19}} Irrational mental states, on the other hand, lack a sufficient ground. For example, the perceptual experience of a tree when looking outside the window can ground the rationality of the belief that there is a tree outside.

Audi is committed to a form of [[foundationalism]]: the idea that justified beliefs, or in his case, rational states in general, can be divided into two groups: the ''foundation'' and the ''superstructure''.<ref name="Architecture" />{{rp|13,29–31}} The mental states in the superstructure receive their justification from other rational mental states while the foundational mental states receive their justification from a more basic source.<ref name="Architecture" />{{rp|16–18}} For example, the above-mentioned belief that there is a tree outside is foundational since it is based on a basic source: perception. Knowing that trees grow in soil, we may deduce that there is soil outside. This belief is equally rational, being supported by an adequate ground, but it belongs to the superstructure since its rationality is grounded in the rationality of another belief. Desires, like beliefs, form a hierarchy: intrinsic desires are at the foundation while instrumental desires belong to the superstructure. In order to link the instrumental desire to the intrinsic desire an extra element is needed: a belief that the fulfillment of the instrumental desire is a means to the fulfillment of the intrinsic desire.<ref name="Haji">{{cite journal |last1=Haji |first1=Ish |title=Review of The Architecture of Reason: The Structure and Substance of Rationality |url=https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-architecture-of-reason-the-structure-and-substance-of-rationality/ |website=Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews |date=9 March 2002 |access-date=7 November 2020 |archive-date=23 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201023025553/https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-architecture-of-reason-the-structure-and-substance-of-rationality/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Audi asserts that all the basic sources providing justification for the foundational mental states come from [[experience]]. As for ''beliefs'', there are four types of experience that act as sources: perception, memory, introspection, and rational intuition.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Audi |first1=Robert |title=The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=71–94 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/AUDTSO-3 |chapter=The Sources of Knowledge |year=2002 |access-date=2020-11-07 |archive-date=2022-06-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220612112116/https://philpapers.org/rec/AUDTSO-3 |url-status=live }}</ref> The main basic source of the rationality of ''desires'', on the other hand, comes in the form of hedonic experience: the experience of pleasure and pain.<ref name="Commitment">{{cite book |last1=Audi |first1=Robert |title=Rationality and Religious Commitment |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/AUDRAR-2 |access-date=2020-11-07 |archive-date=2020-11-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201113084347/https://philpapers.org/rec/AUDRAR-2 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|20}} So, for example, a desire to eat ice-cream is rational if it is based on experiences in which the agent enjoyed the taste of ice-cream, and irrational if it lacks such a support. Because of its dependence on experience, rationality can be defined as a kind of responsiveness to experience.<ref name="Commitment"/>{{rp|21}}

''Actions'', in contrast to beliefs and desires, do not have a source of justification of their own. Their rationality is grounded in the rationality of other states instead: in the rationality of beliefs and desires. Desires motivate actions. Beliefs are needed here, as in the case of instrumental desires, to bridge a gap and link two elements.<ref name="Architecture" />{{rp|62}} Audi distinguishes the ''focal'' rationality of individual mental states from the ''global'' rationality of ''persons''. Global rationality has a derivative status: it depends on the focal rationality.<ref name="Precis" /> Or more precisely: "Global rationality is reached when a person has a sufficiently integrated system of sufficiently well-grounded propositional attitudes, emotions, and actions".<ref name="Architecture" />{{rp|232}} Rationality is ''relative'' in the sense that it depends on the experience of the person in question. Since different people undergo different experiences, what is rational to believe for one person may be irrational to believe for another person.<ref name="Precis"/> That a belief is rational does not entail that it is ''true''.<ref name="Haji"/>