How To Persevere

Perseverance in the face of discouraging developments is crucial to the successful pursuit of long-term projects. But how to ensure one perseveres? Epistemically, by maintaining an optimistic outlook (‘optimism’), or practically, by being less disposed to quit given one’s outlook (‘tenacity’)? This paper critiques optimism and defends a new account of tenacity which centres on reasoning policies, policies about how to conduct practical reasoning. Because philosophical discussion of commitment has typically focused on straightforward short-term undertakings, there are currently no appealing accounts of tenacity in long-term projects, which require a distinctive sensitivity to new reasons to quit. On the approach I propose, rather than being directly committed to one’s project, one is committed to a reasoning policy which specifies how to deliberate about whether to quit. This allows for sensitivity to new reasons while avoiding the pitfalls of optimism. Reasoning policies, I suggest, offer a powerful tool for theorising about non-ideal agency.