126. Emma Borg | Acting for Reasons

If humans are as irrational and “automatic” as some psychologists suggest, why does explaining what people believe and want still feel like the best way to understand what they do?1. GuestEmma Borg is Professor at the Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, although before that was for a long time Professor at the University of Reading. Her work focuses on the philosophy of language, mind, and cognitive science. In this interview, we focus on her recent book, "Acting for Reasons: In Defence of Common-sense Psychology".Check out her book!https://academic.oup.com/book/58959https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DNCYHXC5/2. Book SummaryEmma Borg’s Acting for Reasons: In Defence of Common-sense Psychology argues that the familiar ‘common-sense psychology’ (CP) framework—explaining action via contentful mental states like beliefs and desires—remains broadly vindicated despite recent experimental and theoretical backlash. Borg characterizes CP as combining (i) a claim about action generation (typically, behaviour is caused “in the right way” by an agent’s reasons) and (ii) a claim about action understanding (typically, we explain and predict others by attributing mental states and inferring what those states should lead them to do). The book’s central aim is to resist the increasingly popular conclusion that “common-sense psychology is wrong” and to show that CP’s reach is much broader than “high days and holidays” cases of explicit deliberation.The first half of the book takes on the Heuristics-and-Biases-inspired attacks on CP’s picture of decision-making. Borg distinguishes two strands: the No Reasons challenge, where heuristics are treated as automatic, “gut-feel” processes that bypass reasons altogether, and the Insufficient Reasons challenge, where people do consult reasons but in a biased, evidentially thin, or otherwise irrational way. She argues that defining heuristics as reasons-insensitive (or inferring that from their “fast, automatic” feel) is a mistake, and that much of the empirical case for endemic irrationality relies on contentious interpretations and methodological pitfalls (including concerns tied to replication, stability, and ecological validity). Overall, Borg’s conclusion on this side is that widespread heuristic reasoning does not by itself undermine CP’s general assumption of individual rationality and reasons-responsiveness.The remainder of the book turns to CP’s second component—how we understand other people—and targets “deflationary” alternatives that try to explain social cognition without robust belief–desire attribution (e.g., behaviour-reading, mirror-neuron stories, “submentalizing,” or more “minimal” mentalizing). Borg argues that fully behaviour-reading approaches face serious empirical and theoretical problems, and that mid-ground views still don’t justify demoting CP to a niche role. Her final position is that deflationary resources may at most supplement CP (for certain developmental or special-purpose explanations), but they don’t supplant CP as the central, everyday framework for making sense of intentional action—so, taken together, the book concludes that common-sense psychology is broadly vindicated.3. Interview Chapters00:00 - Introduction00:47 - Overview of common-sense psychology02:50 - Further consequences of view06:38 - Intuitive view10:51 - Kahneman and Tversky18:35 - "No reasons" challenge23:36 - "Insufficient reasons" challenge29:39 - Vagueness34:25 - Introspectable properties challenge41:37 - Unconscious action47:18 - Reasons-sensitivity52:41 - Semantic issue57:28 - Response to insufficient reasons1:06:57 - Useful fictions1:13:40 - Why read the book?1:17:32 - Value of philosophy1:19:54 - Conclusion This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fric.substack.com/subscribe