Abstract
One of the main concerns in contemporary legal philosophy involves the idea of law-imposed duty and its relevance for action. The interest in this topic is reflected in the discussion of a great variety of problems, all focused on the practical nature of the law. Its analysis presupposes a context of discourse somewhat wider than that of legal theory, and a more general philosophical discussion. The practical relevance of the law has been a subject of reflection in moral philosophy as well as in action theory. Each one of these lines of work has contributed valuable insights into the meaning of ‘duty’, the possibility of its justification, and its relationship with action.
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References
For the sake of simplicity, hereafter, the expressions ‘reasons as premises of an argument’ and ‘premise-masons’ will be used interchangeably.
Moser, Paul K., Introduction, in: id. (ed.), A Priori Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1987, p. 1.
Cf. Cohen, Moms R., A Preface to Logic, New York: Henry Holt 1945, ch. I.
On this point, there are two opposing positions. One holds that the two meanings of truth are mutually independent; the other one sees only a gradual difference between them. For the first view, cf., e. g., Carnap, Rudolf, Introduction to Symbolic Logic and its Applications, New York: Dober 1958; id., Intellectual Autobiography, in: Path Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, La Salle, Ill.: Open Court 1963; Lewis, C. I., An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation, La Salle, Ill.: Open Court 1971. For the second, cf. Quine, W. V. O., Two Dogmas of Empiricism, in: id., From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1953; Pap, Arthur, Semantics and Necessary Truth, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press 1958.
Cf. on this subject, e. g., Whitehead, Alfred N., The Function of Reason, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press 1966.
Cf. Bunge, Mario, La ciencia, su método y su filosofia, Buenos Aires: Siglo X XI 1985.
For instance, the Kantian position that there are synthetic truths a priori in the physical as well as in the moral realm.
Audi, Robert, Practical Reasoning, London: Routledge 1991, p. 71.
Ibid., pp. 68–72.
This leaves open the possibility that such contents are of a propositional or a non-propositional kind. This subject will be treated in Chapter III, in the context of reasons understood as premises of practical arguments.
Those who have written about this question usually identify rational states with beliefs. In this first part of the book, I will present several proposals, but will not question that conception. In the second part, when I come to the analysis of the concept of acceptance, I will consider an alternative way of unterstanding beliefs, in contrast to other kinds of mental attitudes.
One could point out a number of problematic aspects concerning this factual function of reason. First of all, the interpretation according to which the relation between an individual’s psychological states and its behaviour is of a causal nature is not unanimously accepted. Secondly, one can deny the existence of psychological entities and explain action directly on the basis of processes in the brain. These are points, however, that cannot be discussed in the confines of the present investigation.
Cf., e. g., Edgley, Roy, Reason in Theory and Practice, London: Hutchinson University Library 1969; also Nagel, Thomas, The Possibility of Altruism, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press 1970.
This is the opinion, e. g., of Fmnkena, William K., Obligation and Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy, in: A. I. Melden (ed.), Essays in Moral Philosophy, Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press 1958.
Cf. Klimovsky, Gregorio, EI método hipotético-deductivo y la Itigica, in: Jorge J. E. Gracia et al. (eds.), Anâlisis Filostifico en América Latina, Mexico-City: Fondo de Cultura Econômica 1985, pp. 75–90.
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Redondo, C. (1999). Presentation. In: Reasons for Action and the Law. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 43. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9141-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9141-6_1
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