Reasons and ‘because’

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming)
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Abstract

The paper argues that action explanations of the form ‘because p’ do not indicate that reasons are non-psychological facts or propositions. ‘Because p’ has two different uses: In the explanatory use, ‘because’ operates on the alleged fact that p. In the reason-giving use, however, ‘because’ operates not on p, but on the agent’s belief that p: she does not describe but express her reason. I conclude that a proper analysis of reason-giving ‘because’-utterances suggests that reasons are mental states.

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References found in this work

Actions, Reasons, and Causes.Donald Davidson - 1963 - Journal of Philosophy 60 (23):685.
Speech Acts.J. Searle - 1969 - Foundations of Language 11 (3):433-446.
Practical Reality.Jonathan Dancy - 2000 - Philosophy 78 (305):414-425.
The Humean theory of motivation.Michael Smith - 1987 - Mind 96 (381):36-61.
The place of reasons in epistemology.Kurt Sylvan & Ernest Sosa - 2018 - In Daniel Star (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press.

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