Explaining normativity: On rationality and the justification of reason

Ratio 12 (4):354–379 (1999)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Aspects of the world are normative in as much as they or their existence constitute reasons for persons, i.e. grounds which make certain beliefs, moods, emotions, intentions or actions appropriate or inappropriate. Our capacities to perceive and understand how things are, and what response is appropriate to them, and our ability to respond appropriately, make us into persons, i.e. creatures with the ability to direct their own life in accordance with their appreciation of themselves and their environment, and of the reasons with which, given how they are, the world presents them. An explanation of normativity would explain the various puzzling aspects of this complex phenomenon. In particular it would explain how it is that aspects of the world can constitute reasons for cognitive, emotive, and volitional responses; how it is that we can come to realise that certain cognitive, emotional or volitional responses are appropriate in various circumstances, and inappropriate in others; and how it is that we can respond appropriately. This paper explores an aspect of the last of these questions.

Other Versions

reprint Raz, Joseph (1999) "Explaining Normativity: On Rationality and the Justification of Reason". In Raz, Joseph, Engaging Reason, pp. : International Phenomenological Society (1999)

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,597

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Engaging Reason. [REVIEW]Joshua Gert - 2003 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (3):745-748.
Explaining Normativity: Reason and the Will.Joseph Raz - 1999 - In Engaging Reason. International Phenomenological Society.
Reasons and Normativity in Critical Thinking.Guðmundur Heiðar Frímannsson - 2015 - Studier i Pædagogisk Filosofi 4 (1):3-16.
The Ethics of Aesthetic Form.Katherine Julia M. I. Thomson - 2003 - Dissertation, University of Toronto (Canada)
The Rationality of Love.Hichem Naar - 2022 - Oxford University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
164 (#142,799)

6 months
10 (#418,198)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Joseph Raz
Columbia University

Citations of this work

A unified social ontology.Francesco Guala & Frank Hindriks - 2015 - Philosophical Quarterly 65 (259):177-201.
Basic knowledge and the normativity of knowledge: The awareness‐first solution.Paul Silva - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (3):564-586.
Subjective Reasons.Eric Vogelstein - 2012 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (2):239-257.
Teleology and Normativity.Matthew Silverstein - 2016 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics 11:214-240.

View all 36 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references