Reasons as Premises of Good Reasoning

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (2) (2017)
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Abstract

Many philosophers have been attracted to the view that reasons are premises of good reasoning – that reasons to φ are premises of good reasoning towards φ-ing. However, while this reasoning view is indeed attractive, it faces a problem accommodating outweighed reasons. In this article, I argue that the standard solution to this problem is unsuccessful and propose an alternative, which draws on the idea that good patterns of reasoning can be defeasible. I conclude by drawing out implications for the debate over pragmatic reasons for belief and other attitudes and for one influential form of reductionism about the normative.

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Citations of this work

Fittingness First.Conor McHugh & Jonathan Way - 2016 - Ethics 126 (3):575-606.
Being More Realistic About Reasons: On Rationality and Reasons Perspectivism.Clayton Littlejohn - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 99 (3):605-627.
What is Reasoning?Conor McHugh & Jonathan Way - 2018 - Mind 127 (505):167-196.
What is Good Reasoning?Conor McHugh & Jonathan Way - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:153-174.

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References found in this work

What we owe to each other.Thomas Scanlon - 1998 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Slaves of the passions.Mark Andrew Schroeder - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
On What Matters: Two-Volume Set.Derek Parfit - 2011 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The moral problem.Michael Smith - 1994 - Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell.
Ethics without principles.Jonathan Dancy - 2004 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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