Abstract
The questions that motivate this book are “What, ultimately, is there reason to do?” and “On what grounds should any view of ultimate reasons be accepted?” Our deliberations in ordinary life typically presuppose an answer to the first question, and the answer to the second question determines the justification of the first answer. Thus we cannot be indifferent to these questions insofar as we are reflective rational beings. We deliberate about countless matters. Some of these matters are relatively trivial, such as which vacation destination to select; some relatively weighty, such as which career to pursue. Some deliberations aim at decisions that are meant to affect only ourselves; some aim at decisions meant to affect others. Deliberations may be solitary, or they may involve dialogue with others. All deliberations, however, involve thinking about reasons for action.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Let me make two clarifications. Firstly, when I say “if no other such considerations apply,” I do not mean to deny that the agent’s mere wish not to act may be an applicable consideration that outweighs some reasons. Secondly, I inserted the word “normally” in the text because a reason to do a particular action may be canceled or excluded by reasons that are not “other such considerations,” i.e., are not reasons for or against doing the action. For the notion of canceling and excluding reasons, see Chapter 1 of Joseph Raz, Practical Reason and Norms (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Originally published: London: Hutchinson, 1975 ).
A similar distinction is observed by Derek Parfit: “I distinguished between what I have most reason to do, and what, given my beliefs,it would be rational for me to dochrwww(133) My main question is about what we have most reason to do.” (Reasons and Persons [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984], p. 153, emphasis added.) Some readers will wish to substitute something like rationally advisable to do’ whenever I write rationally ought to do.’ I have no objection to this substitution as long as the substitution does not carry any assumption that prudential considerations are the only ones that can be reasons, and as long as one accepts that to be a reason in our sense is to be a consideration which has an appropriate guiding role to play in the agent’s deliberation.
In contrast to a Reasons Theory, a descriptive/explanatory theory of reasons for action is concerned with reasons that can be cited to predict or explain action.
I say this without prejudice to the question whether the best Reasons Theory will turn out to include (part of) a normative ethical theory as a subset.
Compare Brandt’s well-known formulation: “An act is right if and only if it conforms with that learnable set of rules the recognition of which as morally binding—roughly at the time of the act—by everyone in the society of the agent, except for the retention by individuals of already formed and decided moral convictions, would maximize intrinsic value.” Richard B. Brandt, “Toward a Credible Form of Utilitarianism,” in Hector-Neri Castaneda and George Nakhnikian (eds.), Morality and the Language of Conduct ( Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963 ), p. 139.
Ibid, p. 108.
Roderick Firth, “Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 12 (1952): 317–345.
I say “at most” because our rule utilitarian may decline to use the word true’ with respect to any moral statements; she may insist that she is committed only to saying that those rules ought to be respected.
When I say that an agent has reason to do something, I mean only that there is a reason for her to do it, not that she knows or is inclined to act on the reason.
The notion of the objective standpoint is discussed in the next chapter.
See Stephen L. Darwall, Impartial Reason, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983 ) and Alan Gewirth, Reason and Morality ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978 ).
Defending Irrationality and Lists,“ Ethics 103 (1993): 329–336 @ 336, emphasis added.
Ibid.
Gert notes that the concept of rationality has “normative implications,” and he points out that “if one accepts an inadequate account of an irrational action, then one may rule out a certain way of acting that should not be ruled out, or one may fail to rule out a certain way of acting that should be ruled out.” See “Rationality, Human Nature, and Lists,” Ethics 100 (1990): 279–300 @ 280.
Some who wish to preserve a wall between normative theory and meta-level theory may object that it would be something like a category mistake to make a general normative judgment that we rationally ought not, or morally ought not, to act in those ways defined as irrational or immoral. That would be a very artificial stance, however, for nothing stops us from making these general judgments as normative judgments. For example, we might use them in appraising persons, policies, or conduct, or in answering normative questions.
This concern is articulated, for example, in Stephen L. Darwall, “Rational Agent, Rational Act,” Philosophical Topics 14, no. 2 (1986): 33–57. There Darwall instructively contrasts a strategy that takes as fundamental the rational autonomy of the agent, to a strategy that takes as fundamental some independently defined aim of rational acts.
See Alasdair Maclntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? ( Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988 ).
Here are some examples of (candidates for) reason-attributing normative principles: There is reason to do what will realize one’s own ambitions. There is reason to promote anyone’s happiness. There is reason not to do any action whose maxim cannot be universalized. (Those principles correspond roughly to the purported reasons for action that were mentioned early on, in the discussion of the definition of reason for action.’
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Postow, B.C. (1999). Introduction: Basic Concepts, Method, and Summary of Chapters. In: Reasons for Action. Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2850-8_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2850-8_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5219-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-2850-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive