Internal Reasons Contemporary Readings

by Setiya, Kieran; Paakkunainen, Hille

• ISBN13: 9780262516402
• ISBN10: 0262516403
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-11-04
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

Some of the most challenging questions in philosophical ethics concern the justification of action. Does this always turn on what you happen to desire? Can you have reasons to do something that you are not, and perhaps cannot be, motivated to do? If reasons rest on desires, why respect the rights and interests of others when doing so prevents us from getting what we want? In other words, why be moral? In his 1979 essay, "Internal and External Reasons," Bernard Williams framed the dispute about reason and motivation in a way that captured the philosophical imagination. An explosion of work on reasons and action followed, with influential responses by Christine Korsgaard, John McDowell, and Michael Smith. This volume collects the most important work on the topic, including Williams's seminal essay, the responses by Korsgaard, McDowell, and Smith, and more recent contributions by central figures. Taken together, the selections offer a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art work on internal reasons and a distinctive, focused approach to foundational questions of ethical objectivity. A substantive introduction by Kieran Setiya skillfully guides the reader through the theoretical and conceptual terrain, explaining what is at stake in the larger debate.

Author Biography

Kieran Setiya is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. Hille Paakkunainen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Syracuse University.

Table of Contents

Sources	p. vii
Introduction: Internal Reasons	p. 1
Williams and His Critics	p. 35
Internal and External Reasons (1979)	p. 37
Skepticism about Practical Reason (1986)	p. 51
Might There Be External Reasons? (1995)	p. 73
Reply to McDowell (1995)	p. 89
Internal Reasons (1995)	p. 99
Instrumentalism	p. 125
Humean Doubts about the Practical Justification of Morality (1997)	p. 127
Why Is Instrumental Rationality Rational? (2005)	p. 147
Putting Rationality in Its Place (1993)	p. 167
Kantian Conceptions	p. 193
Selections from The Possibility of Altruism (1970)	p. 195
The Normativity of instrumental Reason (1997)	p. 201
The Possibility of Practical Reason (1996)	p. 249
Velleman's Autonomism (2001)	p. 285
Alternatives	p. 301
Beyond the Error Theory (2010)	p. 303
Rationality and Virtue (1994)	p. 329
Reasons and Motivation (1997)	p. 343
Bibliography	p. 373
Contributors	p. 379
Index	p. 381
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