Rational Regret as an Epistemic Tool: From Defeated Reasons to Epistemic Alternatives

Medha Kalyani Nayar

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India

Choices regarding courses of action are made via deliberation or reasoning. But sometimes we are left with a lingering sense of missing out on the merits of the choice we did not make. This regret over the unchosen course of action, which shows the weight of defeated reasons, was called rational regret by J Dancy. We show that this regret can be an epistemic tool, pointing not only to moral particularism (as Dancy proposed) but also to potential alternative courses of action available to the agent during reasoning (epistemic alternatives). So, the future (of potentialities) is not closed off.
Consider a student X at their college’s blood drive. X knows donating blood is a good cause, and others’ participation adds peer pressure. But X has a terrible fear of blood-transmitted diseases and poor needle hygiene. X deliberates, weighing “”Duty to Help”” against “”Fear of Infection”” and ultimately decides not to go. Unknown to X, they had a chronically low platelet count and were physically unable to donate, irrespective of their decision. Yet X feels rational regret, acknowledging the value of unchosen alternative. This regret shows that there were reasons to do otherwise or epistemic alternatives in their deliberative field, even if, in actuality, they were not possible courses of action.
We argue that responsibility is based on reasoning and deliberation of potential options, not on their actualities. You are responsible for your choice because you deliberated on it in a reason-responsive manner, considering the epistemic alternatives, and chose the particular action and its reasoning in the actual sequence of action. Responsibility is grounded in this doxastic openness; the many choices as you experienced them while deliberating, not in the physical possibility of action. Rational regret thus becomes an epistemic indicator that the potential futures were not closed at the moment of choice for the agent. It points toward an open, branching model of deliberation where multiple epistemically live options confront the agent.

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