Are there any nonmotivating reasons for action?

In Sven Walter & Heinz-Dieter Heckmann (eds.), Physicalism and Mental Causation: The Metaphysics of Mind and Action. Imprint Academic. pp. 273 (2003)
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Abstract

When performing an action of a certain kind, an agent typically has se- veral reasons for doing so. I shall borrow Davidson’s term and call these rationalising reasons (Davidson 1963, 3). These are reasons that allow us to understand what the agent regarded as favourable features of such an action. (There will also be reasons against acting, expressing unfavour- able features of such an action, from the agent’s point of view.) I shall say that R is a rationalising reason of agent X’s for K-ing iff R consists of (i) a desire of X’s to L and (ii) a belief of X’s that K-ing promotes L-ing (to be discussed shortly). It is frequently said that when an agent X is K-ing and has several rationalising reasons for K-ing, not all of those reasons are reasons for which X is K-ing, that motivate X’s K-ing, or that explain X’s K-ing. In this paper I challenge this view.

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Noa Latham
University of Calgary

Citations of this work

Kant on Acting from Juridical Duty.Andre Santos Campos - 2019 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 27 (4):498-514.
Kant on duty in the groundwork.Benjamin Ferguson - 2012 - Res Publica 18 (4):303-319.

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References found in this work

Actions, Reasons, and Causes.Donald Davidson - 1963 - Journal of Philosophy 60 (23):685.
Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1969 - Journal of Philosophy 66 (23):829-839.
Connectionism, eliminativism, and the future of folk psychology.William Ramsey, Stephen P. Stich & J. Garon - 1991 - In William Ramsey, Stephen P. Stich & D. M. Rumelhart (eds.), Philosophy and Connectionist Theory. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. pp. 499-533.
2003.A. R. Mele - 1997 - In Alfred R. Mele (ed.), The philosophy of action. New York: Oxford University Press.
Philosophy of Action.Alfred R. Mele - 2003 - In Kirk Ludwig (ed.), Contemporary Philosophy in Focus: Donald Davidson. Cambridge University Press.

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