Being Apart From Reasons

by Michelon, Claudio, Jr.

• ISBN13: 9781402042829
• ISBN10: 1402042825
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-06-30
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

Being Apart from Reasons deals with the question of how we should go about using reasons to decide what to do. More particularly, the book presents objections to the most common response given by contemporary legal and political theorists to the moral complexity of decision-making in modern societies, namely: the attempt to release public agents from their argumentative burden by insulating a particular set of reasons from the general pool of reasons and assigning the former systematic priority over all other reasons. If those attempts succeed, public agents should not reason comprehensively, taking into account all reasons and weighing them against one another. Some reasons would be excluded from decision-making by kind. That strategy is apparent both in Rawls' claim that reasons concerning the right are systematically prior to reasons concerning the good and in Raz's claim that pre-emptive reasons are systematically prior to first-order reasons. The same strategy is also instantiated by certain arguments for the procedural value of law, such as Jeremy Waldron's. In the book, each of those arguments for the insulation of reasons is objected to in order to defend the thesis the reasoning by public agents must always be as comprehensive as possible.In order to reach that conclusion a particular picture of public decision-making in needed. That picture in provided by the comparison between the use of reasons in public and private decision-making which is carried out in the first two chapters of the book. That comparison brings to light peculiar features of public decision-making that imply the need for public agents to reason comprehensively before deciding. The remaining chapters object to those arguments mentioned above which aim at justifying the exclusion of certain reasons from public agent's decision-making.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS	ix
INTRODUCTION	1	(12)
CHAPTER ONE MORAL ACTION, REASON AND INCLINATION	13	(38)
ANTECEDENTS OF ACTION	14	(6)
THEORIES OF MERCY	20	(5)
CAUSALITY AND MORAL ACTION	25	(11)
INTENSIONALITY, UNIVERSALS AND PARTICULARS	36	(4)
THE VALUE OF A MORAL ACTION AND THE VALUE OF MORAL LIFE	40	(6)
MORAL CERTAINTY AND THE WEIGHT OF ONE'S OWN MORAL SUCCESS	46	(3)
A SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT	49	(2)
CHAPTER TWO REASONING IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE CONTEXTS	51	(58)
PUBLIC AGENTS' DIRTY HANDS	52	(22)
CONCLUSION	74	(2)
EXCURSUS ON THE MERCIFUL ACTIONS PERFORMED IN THE EXERCISE OF PUBLIC ROLES	76	(3)
CHAPTER THREE NEUTRALIST PUBLIC LIBERALISM AND THE INSULATION OF THE RIGHT FROM THE GOOD	79	(1)
IMPARTIALITY AND SYSTEMATIC PRIORITY	80	(7)
THE TWO STRATEGIES TO JUSTIFY THE POSSIBLE PRIORITY OF THE RIGHT OVER THE GOOD	87	(3)
THE INTERNAL CONNECTION ARGUMENT	90	(3)
THE OBJECTIVITY ARGUMENT	93	(8)
PUBLIC LIBERAL NEUTRALISM AND THE CRITICAL PROJECT	101	(4)
FINAL WORDS	105	(4)
CHAPTER FOUR LEGAL AND NON-LEGAL REASONS IN THE COMMON GROUND OF DELIBERATION	109	(32)
AUTHORITY AND AUTONOMOUS DECISION-MAKING	111	(3)
REASONS FOR DECISION AND REASONS FOR ACTION	114	(3)
PRE-EMPTION IN LEGAL REASONING	117	(17)
FORMAL REASONS	134	(5)
CONCLUSION	139	(2)
CHAPTER FIVE THE PROCEDURAL VALUE OF LAW AND THE INSULATION BETWEEN LEGAL AND MORAL REASONS FOR ACTION	141	(32)
THE PROCEDURAL VALUE OF LEGAL REASONING	143	(5)
WALDRON'S ARGUMENT FOR THE IMPERFECT PROCEDURAL VALUE OF LEGISLATION	148	(5)
DISCOURSE THEORY AND THE PROCEDURAL VALUE OF LAW	153	(20)
About whether or not Alexy's conception of legal reasoning as a pure procedure implies the insulation of legal reasons from moral reasons	154	(7)
Habermas and the co-originality of law and morals	161	(12)
CONCLUSION	173	(1)
THE THESES	173	(1)
THE ARGUMENT TO PROVE THE FIRST THESIS	174	(2)
THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE SECOND THESIS	176	(5)
REFERENCES	181	(6)
INDEX	187