Rationalist restrictions and external reasons

Philosophical Studies 151 (1):39 - 57 (2010)
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Abstract

Historically, the most persuasive argument against external reasons proceeds through a rationalist restriction: For all agents A, and all actions Φ, there is a reason for A to Φ only if Φing is rationally accessible from A's actual motivational states. Here I distinguish conceptions of rationality, show which one the internalist must rely on to argue against external reasons, and argue that a rationalist restriction that features that conception of rationality is extremely implausible. Other conceptions of rationality can render the restriction true, but then the restriction simply fails to rule out external reasons

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Matthew Bedke
University of British Columbia

References found in this work

Slaves of the passions.Mark Andrew Schroeder - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The moral problem.Michael Smith - 1994 - Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell.
Wise choices, apt feelings: a theory of normative judgment.Allan Gibbard - 1990 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Moral realism: a defence.Russ Shafer-Landau - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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