Reasonology and False Beliefs

Philosophical Papers 36 (1):91-118 (2007)
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Abstract

Whereas some philosophers view all reasons for action as psychological states of agents, others—objective favourers theorists—locate the overwhelming majority of reasons for action outside the agent, in items that objectively favour courses of action. (The latter may count such psychological states as a person's belief that demons dance in his kitchen as a reason for him to seek psychiatric help.) This article explores options that objective favourers theorists have regarding cases in which, owing significantly to a false belief, an agent performs an action for which there is no objective favourer. Topics addressed include whether such theorists, including Jonathan Dancy himself, should accept Dancy's thesis that 'intentional, deliberate, purposeful action is always done for a reason' and whether there are two different concepts of reasons for action, one geared to action-evaluation and the other to action-explanation.

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Alfred Mele
Florida State University

Citations of this work

The Importance of Being Rational.Errol Lord - 2013 - Dissertation, Princeton University
Hutcheson's Contributions to Action Theory.Elizabeth S. Radcliffe - 2022 - Journal of Scottish Philosophy 20 (2):103-120.
Actual Control - Demodalising Free Will.David Heering - 2020 - Dissertation, University of Leeds

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References found in this work

What we owe to each other.Thomas Scanlon - 1998 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Practical Reality.Jonathan Dancy - 2000 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973–1980.Bernard Williams - 1981 - New York: Cambridge University Press.

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