Reasons in Action

Philosophical Papers 42 (3):341 - 368 (2013)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

When an agent performs an action because she takes something as a reason to do so, does she take it as a normative reason for the action or as an explanatory reason? In Reasons Without Rationalism, Setiya criticizes the normative view and advances a version of the explanatory view. This paper advances a version of the normative view and shows that it is not subject to Setiya's criticisms. It also shows that Setiya's explanatory account is subject to two fatal flaws, viz., that it raises questions about the occurrence of one motivational "because" within the scope of another which it cannot answer, and that it cannot accommodate the fact that, if an agent can φ for the reason that p, then she could take p as a reason to φ without φ-ing

Similar books and articles

Reasons for Action.Pamela Hieronymi - 2011 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 111 (3pt3):407-427.
A Puzzle About Knowledge in Action.Iskra Fileva - 2013 - Logique Et Analyse 56 (223):287-301.
Are there any nonmotivating reasons for action?Noa Latham - 2003 - In Sven Walter & Heinz-Dieter Heckmann (eds.), Physicalism and Mental Causation. Imprint Academic. pp. 273.
Reasons, Values, and Rational Actions.Paul K. Moser - 1990 - Journal of Philosophical Research 15:127-151.
Intrinsic values and reasons for action.Ralph Wedgwood - 2009 - Philosophical Issues 19 (1):342-363.
‘Ought’, ‘Can’, and Practical Reasons.Clayton Littlejohn - 2009 - American Philosophical Quarterly 46 (4):363-73.
Animal action in the space of reasons.Susan Hurley - 2003 - Mind and Language 18 (3):231-256.
Reasons, causes, and action explanation.Mark Risjord - 2005 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 35 (3):294-306.

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-10-24

Downloads
165 (#108,019)

6 months
48 (#75,853)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Michael Pendlebury
North Carolina State University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

What we owe to each other.Thomas Scanlon - 1998 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
The moral problem.Michael Smith - 1994 - Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell.
Intention.G. E. M. Anscombe - 1957 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
The possibility of altruism.Thomas Nagel - 1970 - Oxford,: Clarendon P..
Practical Reality.Jonathan Dancy - 2000 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.

View all 20 references / Add more references