Reasons for Action

by Edited by David Sobel , Steven Wall

• ISBN13: 9780521877466
• ISBN10: 0521877466
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

What are our reasons for acting? Morality purports to give us these reasons, and so do norms of prudence and the laws of society. The theory of practical reason assesses the authority of these potentially competing claims, and for this reason philosophers with a wide range of interests have converged on the topic of reasons for action. This volume contains eleven new essays on practical reason by leading and emerging philosophers. Topics include the differences between practical and theoretical rationality, practical conditionals and the wide-scope ought, the explanation of action, the sources of reasons, and the relationship between morality and reasons for action. The volume will be essential reading for all philosophers interested in ethics and practical reason.

Author Biography

'Sobel and Wall's collection Reasons for Action brings together twelve important essays about reasons for action, practical reasoning, and rational choice, by some of the leading philosophers in the field today (as well as a useful introduction by the editors themselves). The essays approach these issues from several different points of view, but every one of them is an illuminating contribution to the contemporary debates. Everyone who is seriously interested in these questions will find their understanding enriched by a careful study of these essays.' Ralph Wedgwood, University of Oxford

Table of Contents

Notes on the contributors	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Intention, belief, and instrumental rationality	p. 13
Reasons: practical and adaptive	p. 37
The explanatory role of being rational	p. 58
Practical competence and fluent agency	p. 81
Practical conditionals	p. 116
Authority and second-personal reasons for acting	p. 134
Promises, reasons, and normative powers	p. 155
Regret and irrational action	p. 179
Mackie's motivational argument	p. 200
The truth in Ecumenical Expressivism	p. 219
Voluntarist reasons and the sources of normativity	p. 243
Bibliography	p. 272
Index	p. 285
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