The Transcendental Necessity of Six Commitments for Rational Agency: A Philosophical Defense

The six philosophical commitments are  part of Grant C. Sterling's Stoic theory shared in messages to the International Stoic Forum.

Claude:

Introduction

The question of what constitutes rational agency stands at the intersection of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. This paper defends a bold thesis: rational agency, properly understood, necessarily requires six specific philosophical commitments - substance dualism, libertarian free will, ethical intuitionism, moral realism, correspondence theory of truth, and foundationalism. This is not an empirical claim about what agents happen to believe, but a transcendental argument about the structural prerequisites for the very possibility of rational agency.

The argument aligns with what C.S. Lewis termed the "Argument from Reason," refined by Victor Reppert and developed by contemporary philosophers like Alvin Plantinga, Thomas Nagel, and Robert Koons. The central insight is that rational agency is not a neutral behavioral description but a normatively charged ontological status incompatible with reductive naturalism. Any attempt to preserve rational agency while denying these commitments results not in a modified or degraded form of agency, but in its complete dissolution.

Part I: The Nature of the Transcendental Claim

Defining Rational Agency

Before demonstrating necessity, we must fix our explanandum. Rational agency, in its minimal form that still deserves the name, consists of: (1) the capacity to form judgments that can be correct or incorrect, (2) ownership of and responsibility for those judgments, (3) the ability to have judged otherwise, (4) the possibility of error and improvement, and (5) binding normativity that transcends mere description.

These features are not arbitrary additions but structural requirements. Without them, we have mere behavior, not agency. As Donald Davidson argues in his "Constitutive Principle of Rationality," to interpret something as an agent at all requires attributing consistency and adherence to logical norms. A system that systematically violates these doesn't present us with a confused agent but with no agent at all.

The Structure of Necessity

The argument takes the form of a transcendental conditional: If rational agency exists, then the six commitments must be true. This is proven by demonstrating the contrapositive: if any commitment is false, rational agency becomes impossible. This impossibility is not practical but conceptual - the very notion becomes unintelligible.

Jaegwon Kim's Exclusion Argument, though intended to attack non-reductive physicalism, illuminates this point. If physical causes are sufficient for an event, there's no explanatory room for mental agency unless that agency represents something ontologically distinct. Drop the distinguishing features, and agency dissolves into mechanism.

Part II: The Necessity of Each Commitment

1. Correspondence Theory of Truth

Without correspondence theory, "correct judgment" loses its meaning. If truth merely means "useful" (pragmatism) or "coherent" (coherentism), agents never judge reality but only their internal states or biological fitness. Error becomes not "false" but merely "unhelpful" or "non-standard."

Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism demonstrates this forcefully. If our cognitive faculties evolved solely for survival utility, the probability that they produce true beliefs (in the correspondence sense) becomes inscrutable. Evolution might well select for systematically false but adaptive beliefs. To trust our rational faculties as truth-tracking requires a correspondence framework transcending mere utility.

Bertrand Russell's 1908 debate with William James crystallizes the issue. If truth is merely "what pays," then "It is true that you exist" means only "It is useful to believe you exist." The agent loses all connection to the object of judgment, retaining only the utility of belief. Agency vanishes because there's nothing to be right or wrong about - only more or less useful dispositions.

2. Libertarian Free Will

Responsibility requires genuine alternatives. If judgments are causally necessitated, the agent could not have judged otherwise. Responsibility collapses into causal description, making praise and blame category errors.

Peter van Inwagen's Consequence Argument provides the gold standard demonstration. If determinism is true, our acts are consequences of the laws of nature and the distant past. Since we're not responsible for either the past or the laws, we cannot be responsible for their consequences. This forces the determinist to admit they've redefined "responsibility" as something purely causal, not moral.

Galen Strawson's Basic Argument, though intended to deny free will, actually strengthens our case. Strawson argues that true responsibility requires being causa sui (cause of oneself). While he considers this impossible, his analysis proves that if we claim genuine responsibility - as rational agency requires - we're committed to the strong metaphysics of self-origination. There's no middle ground between libertarian freedom and the elimination of responsibility.

3. Substance Dualism

Rational judgment requires a unified subject. A physical system consists of distributed parts - neurons, atoms, processes. There's no single "I" in a heap of atoms to serve as the subject who judges.

The Unity of Consciousness argument, traceable to Descartes and refined by Tim Bayne, demonstrates this necessity. A judgment like "A differs from B" requires one subject grasping both A and B simultaneously. If one brain region processes A while another processes B, the comparison never occurs. There's no location in distributed processing where the unified judgment "A differs from B" takes place.

Neuroscience's "Binding Problem" empirically confirms this philosophical point. There's no central processor in the brain where information integrates - no "Cartesian Theater." Yet rational agency requires precisely such a theater. Since the brain doesn't provide it, the judging subject must transcend the brain's distributed processing.

4. Ethical Intuitionism

Without direct rational apprehension of norms, moral knowledge faces infinite regress or reduces to convention. The agent cannot recognize error, only calculate from premises or conform to patterns.

The Lucas-Penrose argument from Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems illuminates this necessity. Human mathematicians can "see" the truth of Gödel sentences that no formal algorithmic system can prove within itself. This requires rational intuition - non-algorithmic insight transcending mechanical calculation. Similarly, recognizing "virtue is good" isn't calculating from premises but directly apprehending a normative truth.

Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein's rule-following paradox reinforces this. No finite set of examples determines how to "go on the same way." Following a rule correctly requires grasping what the rule means, not merely mechanical disposition. This normative grasp - knowing not just what has been done but what should be done - requires the intuitive faculty that directly apprehends meaning.

5. Moral Realism

If norms are subjective or conventional, "I ought" becomes "I want" or "we agree." Rational agency requires that truth binds independently of desire or consensus.

Thomas Nagel's "Argument from Normativity" in The Last Word establishes this necessity. If we reduce logic and ethics to psychology ("I feel I should..."), we lose the ability to say someone is actually irrational - only that they function differently. Without objective norms, rational agency collapses into psychological pressure or social conditioning.

G.E. Moore's Open Question Argument provides additional support. For any natural property, it remains meaningful to ask whether it's good. Similarly, for any psychological state or social consensus, we can meaningfully ask whether it's rational. This irreducibility shows that normativity cannot be eliminated without losing the phenomenon itself.

6. Foundationalism

If every judgment requires further justification, no judgment ever completes. Agency becomes endless deferral, never reaching action.

Aristotle's Regress Argument in the Posterior Analytics remains definitive. Demonstration must begin from indemonstrable premises known through nous (direct rational insight). Without foundational stopping points, we have only hypotheses resting on hypotheses - infinite suspension, never knowledge.

The practical necessity is obvious: rational agents act. They complete judgments and move forward. This requires foundational commitments that don't themselves require further justification. Without foundations, agency cannot terminate in action but only generate endless chains of "but why?"

Part III: The Unity and Interdependence of the Commitments

The Collapse Argument

Paul Churchland's Eliminative Materialism inadvertently proves our thesis. Churchland explicitly acknowledges that if naturalism is true, "beliefs" and "desires" don't exist - they're folk psychological fictions. He's the honest opponent who admits that keeping the physics means losing the agent.

The Ship of Theseus metaphor illuminates what happens under denial. If we replace "truth" with "utility," "freedom" with "determinism," "norms" with "chemicals," we've replaced every plank. It's no longer rational agency but biological behavior - same words, different phenomenon.

Systems Interdependence

The six commitments form an ecosystem, not isolated axioms. Remove freedom, and responsibility loses its referent, becoming mere causal connectivity. Remove realism, and intuition grasps nothing - hallucination rather than insight. Remove foundations, and correspondence has no anchor.

This interdependence explains why partial acceptance fails. Compatibilists try to preserve responsibility while denying libertarian freedom, but responsibility without genuine alternatives is like "north" without "south" - the concept loses its meaning. Similarly, coherentists try to preserve truth while denying correspondence, but truth without reality-matching is just consensus or usefulness renamed.

Part IV: Meeting Objections

The Phenomenology-to-Metaphysics Bridge

Critics might grant the phenomenology - it seems like we're responsible - while denying the metaphysics. But rational agency isn't about seeming; it's about actual truth-apt judgment with genuine ownership.

Tyler Burge and Crispin Wright's work on "Epistemic Entitlement" provides the response. We're entitled to rely on our cognitive phenomenology unless given specific reason to doubt it. The phenomenology is the default evidence for the metaphysics. We don't need to prove we're free; opponents must prove we're not.

Kant's "Fact of Reason" strengthens this. Consciousness of moral obligation ("I ought") directly implies freedom ("I can"). The phenomenology isn't added to metaphysics but reveals it.

The Burden Shift

At this point, the burden shifts to opponents. We've shown that denying any commitment eliminates essential features of rational agency. They must either show how these features survive without the commitments or admit they're discussing something else.

Kant famously called compatibilism a "wretched subterfuge" - mere word jugglery redefining freedom as "unconstrained clockwork." This semantic maneuver avoids rather than meets the challenge. When compatibilists say "freedom," they mean something different from what agency requires.

The Diagnostic Test

Apply this test to any proposed counterexample: Does their "rational agent" make judgments that are actually correct/incorrect (not just approved/disapproved)? Is the agent genuinely responsible (not just causally involved)? Could they have judged otherwise (not just might have been programmed differently)?

Frankfurt cases, attempting to show responsibility without alternative possibilities, fail this diagnostic. Frankfurt's agents aren't responsible in the desert sense (deserving praise/blame) but only in the causal sense (being part of a causal chain). The distinction between genuine agency and sophisticated mechanism remains.

Part V: The Transcendental Unity

Kant's "Transcendental Unity of Apperception" reveals the deep structure. The "I think" must be able to accompany all representations. This unity isn't accidental but prerequisite for any experience. The six commitments are simply the logical dimensions of this unified "I."

• Correspondence: the "I" that judges reality
• Freedom: the "I" that could judge otherwise
• Dualism: the "I" distinct from its states
• Intuitionism: the "I" that recognizes directly
• Realism: the "I" bound by objective norms
• Foundationalism: the "I" that completes judgment

These aren't six separate requirements accidentally conjoined but six aspects of the single structure required for rational agency.

Part VI: The Performative Contradiction

The final clincher comes from recognizing that denying these commitments involves performative contradiction. Jürgen Habermas's Discourse Ethics demonstrates that argumentation presupposes the ideal speech situation - participants must be free agents oriented toward truth.

To argue "rational agency doesn't require libertarian freedom" is to present a judgment you're responsible for, which could be incorrect, which you could have judged otherwise. The denial assumes what it rejects. As Reppert notes, following Lewis, to argue that thoughts are merely chemical reactions is to argue that the thought "thoughts are merely chemical reactions" is itself merely a chemical reaction with no truth value, only chemical properties. The assertion consumes itself.

Part VII: Implications for Naturalism

This argument doesn't disprove naturalism but reveals its cost. Consistent naturalists must follow Churchland in eliminating agency entirely. They cannot have their cake (physical reduction) and eat it too (preserve agency).

The "Argument from Reason" shows that rational inference cannot be reduced to physical causation. If our thoughts are merely brain states caused by prior brain states according to physical laws, they have no truth-value, only causal properties. To evaluate an argument as valid or invalid, sound or unsound, requires transcending the causal order to grasp logical relations.

Thomas Nagel, though an atheist, acknowledges this in Mind and Cosmos. The existence of reason is a fundamental challenge to naturalistic explanation. Either consciousness and reason are reducible to physics (eliminating agency) or they represent something irreducibly beyond physical description (requiring our six commitments).

Part VIII: The Special Case of Moral Knowledge

The connection between rational and moral agency deserves special attention. If moral knowledge is possible - if we can genuinely err morally and improve - all six commitments become necessary.

Without realism, there's nothing to be wrong about. Without intuitionism, we cannot recognize wrongness. Without freedom, we cannot be responsible for wrong. Without correspondence, wrongness is just divergence from convention. Without dualism, there's no one who is wrong. Without foundations, determining wrongness faces infinite regress.

This explains why moral nihilism often accompanies naturalism. It's not accidental but structurally required. Deny the six commitments and moral agency evaporates along with rational agency.

Part IX: The Training Implications

The necessity of these commitments becomes especially clear when considering the development of rational capacities. Training presupposes:

• An objective standard to progress toward (realism)
• Recognition of improvement (intuitionism)
• Choice to practice (libertarianism)
• A subject who develops (dualism)
• Correct techniques to master (correspondence)
• Starting points for practice (foundationalism)

Without these, "training" becomes mere conditioning - behavioral modification without genuine development of agency. The difference between education and programming depends entirely on these commitments.

Conclusion

The six commitments - substance dualism, libertarian free will, ethical intuitionism, moral realism, correspondence theory, and foundationalism - are not optional additions to rational agency but its necessary conditions. They form a unity, each supporting the others, together constituting the transcendental structure of agency itself.

Opponents face a trilemma: accept the six commitments, eliminate rational agency entirely, or engage in semantic subterfuge that changes the subject while preserving the vocabulary. There's no fourth option - no way to preserve genuine agency while denying its necessary conditions.

This argument doesn't rest on intuition or preference but on careful analysis of what rational agency requires. The phenomenology of agency - our experience of judging, choosing, recognizing truth and error - points to underlying metaphysical necessities. To deny these while claiming to preserve agency is not philosophical modesty but conceptual confusion.

The implications extend beyond academic philosophy. If rational agency exists - if we genuinely make truth-apt judgments for which we're responsible - then we inhabit a reality far richer than naturalism acknowledges. We're not sophisticated biological machines but genuine agents capable of truth, error, responsibility, and improvement. The six commitments aren't philosophical burdens but recognitions of what we've always been.