Permissivism Across Rationality

Permissivisms in both epistemic and practical rationality enjoy support, but they are discussed in strikingly different ways. Epistemic permissivists focus on both intrapersonal and interpersonal cases, finding the latter more popular than the former. In contrast, practical permissivists focus only on intrapersonal cases. This is odd because practical and epistemic rationality are structurally similar. Furthermore, Paul Forrester (2024) argues that permissivism faces significant explanatory burdens regarding the range of one’s rational options: permissivists need to explain why some cases are permissive and others are not as well as explain why some options are permissible while others are not. I argue that we can meet Forrester’s challenge by appealing to reasons holism, which explains the range of rational options. This appeal also illuminates similarities between practical and epistemic permissivisms, motivating an underappreciated interpersonal practical permissivism.