The paper explores the relation between reason and action as it emerges from the texts of Āyurveda. Life or Ayus (commonly understood as life-span) is primary subject matter of Ayurveda. Life is a locus of experience, action and disposition. Experiences and actions are differentially determined by dispositions that characterize the organism; otherwise all living organisms will be identical. Ayus of each living being is uniquely individual and remains constant between birth and death. In this journey, upkeep of ayus (...) is the purpose of Āyurveda or science of life. Ayurveda is a science of experienced matter as well as of experienced body. The living body is critically dependent on the influx of matter for its upkeep. Āyurveda offers a conceptual system to reason about balance and imbalances of the system and the causal role of the material flux through the system. This sensate matter is causally open and makes room for definite causal role for the individual and the effective insertion of the felt-purpose of action. Some of the strengths of Ayurveda are brought forth in the paper such as (a) reasoning out the compatibility between the bodily processes and the selection of the natural products for diet and drug, (b) role for heuristics in medical diagnosis, which takes into cognizance the particularity of each living body and the teleology evident in the very act of diagnostic reasoning. The paper shows that Āyurvedic theory is built on experiential datum whereas scientific medical theory is built on experience-independent datum. Āyurveda explores causal efficacy of ‘secondary qualities’ whereas scientific medicine explores causal efficacy of ‘primary qualities’. The actionable experiential reasoning is at the foundations of Āyurveda whereas modern medical science is ab initio saddled with difficult ‘hiatus theoreticus’ between theory and practice. For Ayurveda it is experience of qualities that discloses behavior of matter. The types of qualities that appear in experience have a special significance for theorizing about the actions of matter with the help of qualities. The paper explores the relation between experience of qualities and the method of science. It shows how efficacy of medical practice is based on the foundational stance of experiential realism in theory. To bring the point home, the paper borrows Aristotalian concepts to show how the relation between phantasm and phronesis is honored in the very theory of Āyurveda. (shrink)

This paper argues that both teleological and causal concepts are required for explanations of intentional actions. It argues against ‘causalism’, the idea that action explanations are essentially causal. This requires analyzing Mele’s Q-Signals-from-Mars argument that having a purpose and behaving so as to achieve it aren’t sufficient to explain an intentional action. Though Mele’s example shows that external causal interference can defeat the claim that an intentional action has been performed, this is consistent with teleological (...) concepts being required (even if not sufficient) for action explanation. Mele’s example would work even if causalism were true. But causalism is false. Causalism depends on the idea that ‘agents always do what they want’ can be understood as saying agents have mental states, desires, that cause their behavior. But intentional actions involve what agents want only in the sense that actions have purposes, which are not mental states and cannot be the causes of actions. To perform an intentional action is to pursue some purpose in some way. This paper argues that neither the reference to the purpose that explains why the action was performed, nor the causal account of how this purpose was pursued, can be eliminated. (shrink)

This chapter considers whether legal requirements can constitute reasons for action independently of the merits of the requirement at hand. While jurisprudential opinion on this question is far from uniform, sceptical views are becoming increasingly dominant. Such views typically contend that, while the law can be indicative of pre-existing reasons, or can trigger pre-existing reasons into operation, it cannot constitute new reasons. This chapter offers support to a somewhat less sceptical position, according to which the (...) fact that a legal requirement has been issued can be a reason for action, yet one that is underpinned by bedrock values which law is apt to serve. Notions discussed here include a value-based conception of reasons as facts ; a distinction between complete and incomplete reasons ; and David Enoch’s idea of triggering reason-giving. Following a discussion of criticism against the view adopted here, the chapter concludes by considering some more ‘robust’ conceptions of law’s reason-giving capacity. (shrink)

What reasons for action do we have? What explains why we have these reasons? In this paper, I shall articulate some of the basic structural features of a theory that would provide answers to these questions. So my primary focus here is on the nature of reasons for action themselves, not on the meaning of the terms that can be used to talk about such reasons. However, it seems plausible that the term "reason for (...) action" is in fact used in many different ways, and can express many different concepts in different contexts. Hence, some prefatory remarks about the term "reason for action" are in order, to make it clear which of the many senses of the term I have in mind. (shrink)

Bernard Williams argued that philosophers should pay more attention to the role thick ethical concepts play in our moral thinking, and, separately, that all reasons for action depend in the first place upon the agent's pre-exisitng motives. Here I argue that these two views are in tension. Much like the standard examples of thick ethical concepts, the concept REASONABLE is likewise thick, and the features of the world that guide its correct use have much less to do with (...) the agent's pre-existing motives than internalism about reasons for action maintains. (shrink)

People act for reasons. That is how we understand ourselves. But what is it to act for a reason? This is what Fred Schueler investigates. He rejects the dominant view that the beliefs and desires that constitute our reasons for acting simply cause us to act as we do, and argues instead for a view centred on practical deliberation--our ability to evaluate the reasons we accept. Schueler's account of 'reasons explanations' emphasizes the relation between reasons (...) and purposes, and the fact that the reasons for an action are not always good reasons. (shrink)

I argue that Kantianism and utilitarianism have the opposite strengths and weaknesses. Whereas Kantianism but not utilitarianism accords with our commonsense views about morality, utilitarianism but not Kantianism accords with our commonsense views about action and reasons for action.

Actions receive teleological descriptions and reason explanations. In some circumstances, these descriptions and explanations might appeal not just to the agent’s own purposes and reasons, but also to the purposes and reasons of others in her social surroundings. Some actions have a social teleology. I illustrate this phenomenon and I propose a concept of vicarious action to account for it. An agent acts vicariously when she acts in response to the demand of another agent who knew (...) that her demand was likely to succeed. I argue that vicariousness grounds the social teleology of the resulting actions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:INTENTIONAL ACTIONS AND THE MEANING OF OBJECT: A REPLY TO RICHARD McCORMICK MARTIN RHONHEIMER Roman Athenaeum of the Holy Cross Rome, Italy I N HIS ARTICLE, " Some Early Reactions to Veritatis Splendor," 1 Richard McCormick discusses my article on Veritatis Splendor and its teaching about intrinsically evil acts.2 He challenges my defence of the encyclical's views and poses some concrete questions for me. At the same time, McCormick (...) complains once more about what he calls the encyclical's misrepresentation of the proportionalists' views, as well as about a general misunderstanding on the part of critics of what proportionalism, consequentialism, and their teleological approach are really about. To begin with, I find it somewhat surprising that McCormick presents intentional understanding of human acts and their objects as something discovered by proportionalists. By this he obscures the fact that most critics of proportionalism, consequentialism, and so-called " teleological ethics " (I will not further distinguish these different labels) work with what is precisely an intentional conception of moral objects.3 For example, my own 1 Theological Studies 55 (1994): 481-506; see 500-502; 504. 2 Martin Rhonheimer, " ' Intrinsically Evil Acts' and the Moral Viewpoint: Clarifying a Central Teaching of Veritatis Splendor," The Thomist 58 (1994) : 1-39. 3 There may be some exceptions, for example, Russell Rittinger; see his article, "The Pope and the Theorists," Crisis 11 (December 1993) : 31-36. G. E. M. Anscombe, one of the first and most incisive critics of consequentialism, attacked it on the grounds of an intentional concept of action, developed in her famous study Intention (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1957; 2nd ed. 1963). Cf. Anscombe, Contraception and Chastity (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1975). 279 280 MARTIN RHONHEIMER position, situated in the context of virtue ethics,4 is one in which an intentional conception action plays a crucial role. McCormick seems to evade this level of argument, however, and in this way appears to beg the question about one of the central issues in the debate. At the same, it is not entirely surprising that McCormick had some difficulty in dealing with the central point of my argument (and of similar arguments),5 because his methodology is so entangled in the categories of the strongly legalistic and casuistic manual tradition.6 In my article, I explicitly dealt with the difficulty of understanding a virtue and first-person-centered view from the perspective of the manual tradition: It will, however, never be possible to render intelligible this moral methodology on the grounds of an ethic which from the beginning is concerned with justifying " moral norms." This is so because in such an approach the distinction between " object" and further intentions necessarily drops out of view. The only thing which a norm ethic can produce in the way of an action theory are the particular " occurrences " ("actions ") on the one hand, and the consequences 4 See Martin Rhonheimer, "'Ethics of Narms' and the Lost Virtues. Searching the Roots of the Crisis of Ethical Reasoning," Anthropotes IX, 2 (1993) : 231-243; La prospettiva della morale. Fondamenti dell'etica philosophica (Rome: Armando, 1994) ; Praktische Vernunft und Verniinftigkeit der Praxis. Handlungstheorie bei Thomas van Aquin in ihrer Entstehimg aus dem Problemlwntext der aristotelischen Ethik (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1994). Contrary to the impression which McCormick gives in his article, I do not share the Grisez-Finnis theory about basic goods and practical reason, nor do I argue on its grounds, in spite of many important common views. 5 See William E. May, Moral Absolutes. Catholic Tradition, Citrrent Trends, and the Truth (Milwaukee, Wisc: Marquette University Press, 1989) ; John Finnis, Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision, and Truth (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991); Alasdair Macintyre, "How Can We Learn What Veritatis Splendor Has To Teach?" The Thomist 58 (1994) : 171-195. See also Robert P. George's and Hadley's Arkes's contributions to " The Splendor of Truth: A Symposium," published in First Things (January 1994) and rather unfairly criticized in McCormick's article. 6 This is also the case with Bruno Schuller and his disciples; see the recent paper by Werner Wolbert, " Die 'in sich schlechten' Handlungen und der Konsequentialismus," M oraltheologie im Abseitsf Antwort auf die Enzyklika... (shrink)

My paper reflects on the debate about reasons for action and action explanations between Wittgensteinian teleological approaches and causalist theories inspired by Davidson. After a brief discussion of similarities and differences in the philosophy of language, I sketch the prehistory and history of the controversy. I show that the conflict between Wittgenstein and Davidson revolves neither around revisionism nor around naturalism. Even in the philosophy of mind and action, Davidson is not as remote from Wittgenstein (...) and his followers as is commonly assumed: there are numerous points of contact of both a biographical and a substantive kind. The real conflict concerns the difference between Davidson’s official subjectivist approach to reasons for action, according to which they are mental states of believing and desiring (or their onsets) on the one hand, and an objectivist approach, according to which reasons for action are what is believed or desired, non-mental facts or states of affairs. (shrink)

What kind of thing is a reason for action? What is it to act for a reason? And what is the connection between acting for a reason and rationality? There is controversy about the many issues raised by these questions. In this paper I shall answer the first question with a conception of practical reasons that I call ‘Factualism’, which says that all reasons are facts. I defend this conception against its main rival, Psychologism, which (...) says that practical reasons are mental states or mental facts, and also against a variant of Factualism that says that some practical reasons are facts and others are false beliefs. I argue that the conception of practical reasons defended here provides plausible answers to the second and third questions above; and gives a more unified and satisfactory picture of practical reasons than those offered by its rivals. (shrink)

It is through our actions that we affect the way the world goes. Whenever we face a choice of what to do, we also face a choice of which of various possible worlds to actualize. Moreover, whenever we act intentionally, we act with the aim of making the world go a certain way. It is only natural, then, to suppose that an agent's reasons for action are a function of her reasons for preferring some of these possible (...) worlds to others, such that what she has most reason to do is to bring about the possible world which, of all those available to her, is the one that she has most reason to want to obtain. This is what is known as the `teleological conception of practical reasons'. Whether this is the correct conception of practical reasons is important not only in its own right, but also in virtue of its potential implications for what sort of moral theory we should accept. Below, I argue that the teleological conception is indeed the correct conception of practical reasons. (shrink)

The Aristotle-Kant tradition requires that autonomous activity must originate within the self and points toward a new type of causation (different from natural efficient causation) associated with teleology. Notoriously, it has so far proven impossible to uncover a workable model of causation satisfying these requirements without an increasingly unsatisfying appeal to extra-physical elements tailor-made for the purpose. In this paper we first provide the essential reason why the standard linear model of efficient causation cannot support the required model of agency: (...) its causal thread model of efficient causation cannot support the core requirement that an action is determined by, and thus an expression of, the agent’s nature. We then provide a model that corrects these deficiencies, constructed naturalistically from within contemporary biology, and argue that it provides an appropriate foundation for all the features of genuine agency. Further, we provide general characterisations of freedom and reason suitable to this bio-context (but that also capture the core classical conceptions) and show how this model reconciles them. (shrink)

This dissertation urges philosophers to reevaluate how they frame the question of the rationality of moral action. Its motivation is the thought that approaches to the question have suffered from mistakes in the relata. On the part of theories of practical reason, philosophers adopt an inadequate theory of action. On the part of moral theory, philosophers hold narrow conceptions of moral worth. As a result, not only have we failed to vindicate the thought that the moral agent acts (...) well, our conception of moral action invites the charge of remoteness from human life. ;In response, I propose we abandon some dogmas of moral psychology. My rethinking proceeds, negatively, by rejecting desire-based instrumentalist accounts of practical rationality and, positively, from renewed attention to virtuous action, a focus some suggest might counteract the remoteness of which morality's critics complain. I attend to the virtue of true friendship to defend non-instrumental conceptions of moral psychology and practical rationality that bring both into closer contact with commonsense norms of admirable action as they bear on what agents have reason to do. ;Chapter 1 introduces desire-based instrumentalism as the theory proponents claim is best suited to avoid the problem of the alienation of practical reason. I argue their claim does not survive scrutiny. ;In Chapter 2 I distinguish between explicit desiderative content and desiderative framing versions of desire-based instrumentalism. I argue the former is false to the content of deliberation and that arguments from the nature of intentional action fail to support the latter. ;Chapter 3 examines the evaluatively non-detachable quality of the descriptions under which actions performed out of friendship are intentional. I develop an account of virtuous action as nonteleologically ally motivated action understood in terms not of what it brings about but of its expressive quality. I argue action's expressive quality is key to assessing moral worth and rationality. ;Chapter 4 develops my account of virtuous agents' reasons for acting and asks what earns expressive action its claim to rationality. I argue certain actions inherit their rationality by expressing dispositions to regulate practical attitudes , dispositions themselves rationally assessable. (shrink)

A primary fault line in the analytic philosophy of action is the debate between causal/Davidsonian and interpretivist/Anscombian theories of action. The fundamental problem of the former is producing a criterion for distinguishing intentional from non-intentional causal chains; the fundamental problem of the latter is producing an account of the relation between reasons and actions that is represented by the ‘because’ in the claim that the agent acted because she had the reason. It is argued that Hegel’s (...) class='Hi'>conception of teleology can be used to develop the interpretivist position by solving both its and the causal theory’s fundamental problems. (shrink)

My paper reflects on the debate about reasons for action and action explanations between Wittgensteinian teleological approaches and causalist theories inspired by Davidson. After a brief discussion of similarities and differences in the philosophy of language, I sketch the prehistory and history of the controversy. I show that the conflict between Wittgenstein and Davidson revolves neither around revisionism nor around naturalism. Even in the philosophy of mind and action, Davidson is not as remote from Wittgenstein (...) and his followers as is commonly assumed: there are numerous points of contact of both a biographical and a substantive kind. The real conflict concerns the difference between Davidson’s official subjectivist approach to reasons for action, according to which they are mental states of believing and desiring on the one hand, and an objectivist approach, according to which reasons for action are what is believed or desired, non-mental facts or states of affairs. (shrink)

This chapter explores whether a version of causalism about reasons for action can be saved by giving up Davidsonian psychologism and endorsing objectivism, so that the reasons for which we act are the normative reasons that cause our corresponding actions. We address two problems for ‘objecto-causalism’, actions for merely apparent normative reasons and actions performed in response to future normative reasons—in neither of these cases can the reason for which the agent acts cause her (...) action. To resolve these problems, we move from objecto-causalism to ‘objecto-capacitism’, which appeals to agential competences manifest-ed in acting for a reason. We briefly apply this view of reasons for action to historical action explanations. (shrink)

I challenge the common picture of the “Standard Story” of Action as a neutral account of action within which debates in normative ethics can take place. I unpack three commitments that are implicit in the Standard Story, and demonstrate that these commitments together entail a teleological conception of reasons, upon which all reasons to act are reasons to bring about states of affairs. Such a conception of reasons, in turn, supports a (...) consequentialist framework for the evaluation of action, upon which the normative status of actions is properly determined through appeal to rankings of states of affairs as better and worse. This covert support for consequentialism from the theory of action, I argue, has had a distorting effect on debates in normative ethics. I then present challenges to each of these three commitments, a challenge to the first commitment by T.M. Scanlon, a challenge to the second by recent interpreters of Anscombe, and a new challenge to the third commitment that requires only minimal and prima facie plausible modifications to the Standard Story. The success of any one of the challenges, I demonstrate, is sufficient to block support from the theory of action for the teleological conception of reasons and the consequentialist evaluative framework. I close by demonstrating the pivotal role that such arguments grounded in the theory of action play in the current debate between evaluator-relative consequentialists and their critics. (shrink)

This is Chapter 3 of my Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality. In this chapter, I defend the teleological conception of practical reasons, which holds that the reasons there are for and against performing a given act are wholly determined by the reasons there are for and against preferring its outcome to those of its available alternatives, such that, if S has most reason to perform x, all things considered, then, of all the outcomes that (...) S could bring about, S has most reason to desire that Ox (i.e., x’s outcome) obtains, all things considered. (shrink)

Here, for the first time in English, is volume one of Jurgen Habermas's long-awaited magnum opus: The Theory of Communicative Action. This pathbreaking work is guided by three interrelated concerns: to develop a concept of communicative rationality that is no longer tied to the subjective and individualistic premises of modern social and political theory; to construct a two-level concept of society that integrates the 'lifeworld' and 'system' paradigms; and to sketch out a critical theory of modernity that explains its (...) sociopathologies in a new way. Habermas approaches these tasks through a combination of conceptual analyses, systematic reflections, and critical reconstructions of such predecessors as Marx and Weber, Durkheim and Mead, Horkheimer and Adorno, Schutz and Parsons. Reason and the Rationalization of Society develops a sociological theory of action that stresses not its means-ends or teleological aspect, but the need to coordinate action socially via communication. In the introductory chapter Habermas sets out a powerful series of arguments on such foundational issues as cultural and historical relativism, the methodology of Verstehen, the inseparabilty of interpretation from critique. In addition to clarifying the normative foundations of critical social inquiry, this sets the stage for a systematic appropriation of Weber's theory of rationalization and its Marxist reception by Lukacs, Horkheimer and Adorno. This is an important book for degree students of philosophy, sociology and related subjects. (shrink)

A disjunctivist conception of acting for reasons is introduced by way of showing that a view of acting for reasons must give a place to knowledge. Two principal claims are made. 1. This conception has a rôle analogous to that of the disjunctive conception that John McDowell recommends in thinking about perception; and when the two disjunctivist conceptions are treated as counterparts, they can be shown to have work to do in combination. 2. This (...) class='Hi'>conception of acting for reasons safeguards the connection between considerations that move us to act in particular ways and considerations that favour our acting in particular ways. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a new account of teleological reasons, i.e. reasons to perform a particular action because of the outcomes it promotes. Our account gives the desired verdict in a number of difficult cases, including cases of overdetermination and non-threshold cases like Parfit’s famous _Drops of water._ The key to our account is to look more closely at the metaphysics of causation. According to Touborg (_The dual nature of causation_, 2018), it is a necessary (...) condition for causation that a cause increases the security of its effect. Building on this idea, we suggest, roughly, that you have a teleological reason to act in a certain way when doing so increases the security of some good outcome. This represents a middle way between the proposal that you have a reason to act in a certain way just in case this _would_ cause a good outcome and the proposal that you have a reason to act in a certain way just in case this _could_ cause a good outcome. (shrink)

In Kant scholarship, the concept of maxims is discussed, for the most part, from the perspective of the universalization procedure of the Categorical Imperative. In fact, however, it has a much wider relevance. As is shown in this contribution, maxims are fundamental to Kant’s theory of action and value. Since the agent expresses her pro-attitudes, i.e., interests, preferences, and life-plans based on maxims, they figure as constitutive elements of her practical identity. After some general and historical considerations on Kant’s (...) concept of maxims, it is shown that their function in the theory of the ‘practical syllogism’ implies that maxims play an important role in considerations on the agent’s ends, goals, and purposes. Additionally, I will discuss the function of maxims in Kant’s action theory. I will defend an interpretation of the Kantian idea according to which practical deliberation can be understood based on a hierarchical order of maxims. Finally, the problem of higher-order maxims and the issue of the unity and inner consistency of maxims is debated. (shrink)

It is a commonplace in philosophy of action that there is and must be teleologically basic action: something done on an occasion without doing it by means of doing anything else. It is widely believed that basic actions are exercises of skill. As the source of the need for basic action is the structure of practical reasoning, this yields a conception of skill and practical reasoning as complementary but mutually exclusive. On this view, practical reasoning and (...) complex intentional action depend on skill and basic action, but the latter pair are not themselves rationally structured: the movements a basic action comprises are not intentional actions, and they are not structured as means to an end. However, Michael Thompson and Douglas Lavin have argued that action that bears no inner rational structure is not intentional action at all, and that therefore there can be no such thing as basic action. In this paper, I argue that their critique shows that standard conceptions of basic action are indeed untenable, but not that we can do without an alternative. I develop an alternative conception of skill and basic action on which their basicness is not to be equated with simplicity: like deliberation and non-basic action, they are teleologically complex, but their complexity takes a different form. On this view, skill contrasts with deliberation—not because it is not a manifestation of practical reason, but because the two are specifically different manifestations of practical reason. (shrink)

The idea of integrating evolutionary biology and psychology has great promise, but one that will be compromised if psychological functions are conceived too abstractly and neuroscience is not allowed to play a contructive role. We argue that the proper integration of neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology requires a telelogical as opposed to a merely componential analysis of function. A teleological analysis is required in neuroscience itself; we point to traditional and curent research methods in neuroscience, which make critical use (...) of distinctly teleological functional considerations in brain cartography. Only by invoking teleological criteria can researchers distinguish the fruitful ways of identifying brain components from the myriad of possible ways. One likely reason for reluctance to turn to neuroscience is fear of reduction, but we argue that, in the context of a teleological perspective on function, this concern is misplaced. Adducing such theoretical considerations as top-down and bottom-up constraints on neuroscientific and psychological models, as well as existing cases of productive, multidisciplinary cooperation, we argue that integration of neuroscience into psychology and evolutionary biology is likely to be mutually beneficial. We also show how it can be accommodated methodologically within the framework of an interfield theory. (shrink)

Nine lead papers, all with two or three commentators, and six with replies to the commentators. It is the Identity theorists cum cybernetician versus the "non-Cartesian dualists" and C. D. Broad-style interactionists. The most sparks are generated with MacKay's paper, "From Mechanism to Mind," and the ensuing exchange between MacKay and Beloff; MacKay's paper is intended as a summary of his work in cybernetics as it relates to the philosophy of mind, and Beloff's criticisms range from the cautious to the (...) devastating. Beloff's own paper is a well-ordered, rear-guard action against the Identity theory, which fastens on the dual nature of consciousness and para-psychological phenomena as the theory's present obstacles. Flew's "A Rational Animal" is an incisive challenging of what he dubs the "Co-existence Thesis," i.e., the view defended by such people as Winch and MacIntyre, that explanations by reasons and explanations by causes, or, in another idiom, teleological and mechanical explanations, can exist together in irreducible harmony—even given the ideal of a unified science. It should be mentioned that Price's paper is the bulk of his 1952 lecture before the Members of the Society for Psychical Research, "Survival and the Idea of 'Another World.'"—E. A. R. (shrink)

On a ‘comparative’ conception of practical reasons, reasons are like ‘weights’ that can make an action more or less rational. Bernard Gert adopts instead a ‘toggle’ conception of practical reasons: something counts as a reason just in case it alone can make some or other otherwise irrational action rational. I suggest that Gert’s conception suffers from various defects, and that his motivation for adopting this conception – his central claim that actions (...) can be rational without there being reasons for them – does not require adoption of the toggle conception. The more intuitive comparative conception of reasons for action can accommodate the insight. (shrink)

Once affirmed that a formal and finalistic theory of action is one of the four pillars of neo‐institutionalism, the author introduces the concept of Freedom of action, which is based on two points: the empirical existence of a scope for action and an information process which determine the choice between alternative actions. He then analyzes different versions of determinism and the distinction between descriptive and practical sentences, and concludes that a theory of action based on the (...) information process has to deal with the structures of teleological thought. In this sense he stresses the practical relevance of the plurality of ends, often conflicting with each other. Finally, he explains how formal teleology is used in his theory of action and how this theory provides methodological achievements for jurisprudence.*. (shrink)

There is a debate in philosophy of mind about the nature of reason explanations of action, and this volume is testament to a resurgence of interest in non-causal accounts. In Teleological Realism: Mind, Agency, and Explanation,2 I have proposed a non-causal account according to which common-sense reason explanations of action are irreducibly teleological in form. I claim that we explain behavior by citing the state of affairs towards which the agent was directing her behavior, i. e., (...) by citing the purpose or goal of the behavior. I will not be defending that account of action explanation here, but will be assuming it and applying it to the free will debate. I will argue that the teleological account of action explanation leads to a view of free will with some interesting and attractive features. Philosophical accounts of free will typically propose some sort of criterion for determining which behaviors count as free, e. g., that the agent could have done otherwise, or that the behavior was in accord with the agent’s second-order volitions. The account is then usually used to answer the question of whether we have free will, and especially whether we can have free will even if determinism is true. To test these accounts, philosophers make arguments of various sorts, but the primary method is with cases. Here’s the recipe for an objection to an account of free will: come up with a case where the theory says that the agent is free, but our intuition says that the agent is unfree, or vice versa. I won’t question the method of cases in principle; it’s what we have and it makes some sense. On the picture of analytic philosophy as conceptual analysis, it makes perfect sense. Philosophers put forward a precisely spelled out version of our concept of free will; but if such an account is at odds with firm intuitions in particular cases, then it can’t be what we mean. We know that the situation is not really so simple as that. Our ordinary concept of free will might be messy and not perfectly consistent; accordingly, any particular theory might get a few cases ›wrong‹ as judged by our intuitions.. (shrink)

In the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant formulates teleological principles, or rather ideas, and explicates them referring to concrete examples of natural science such as chemistry, astronomy, biology, empirical psychology, and physical geography. Despite the increasing interest in the systematic relevance of the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic and its importance for Kant’s conception of natural science, the numerous historical sources for the regulative use of reason have not yet been investigated. One that is very central is (...) Maupertuis’ principle of least action. In 1781, Kant transformed teleology into heuristics and methodology, but in doing so, he partially develops a teleology which was disqualified by Maupertuis because its starting point lies in the construction of animals or plants, the structure of the earth, and the immensity of the celestial bodies. Based on Maupertuis’ principle of action, it can be shown that the Appendix forms a systematic interface between Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens and Critique of Judgement which allows the reconstruction of Kant’s regulative use of reason and its specific status in the context of natural science and his critical appraisal of Maupertuis. (shrink)

In my comments on Vardoulakis’s paper, I try to challenge the overall thrust of Vardoulakis’s argument, that Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotle’s ethics rests on a fundamental mistake, an inability to recognize the instrumentality, or the relation between means and ends, that is fundamental to the concept of phronēsis. Against Vardoulakis’s supposition that Heidegger for his own part is in search of a conception of action without ends, I suggest that a major aim of Heidegger’s early work is to (...) clarify the teleological structure of human action, with particular focus on the end or telos of action. Vardoulakis seems to think that Heidegger’s later critique of instrumental reason is in place already in the early work, but this is a view that I cannot share. Moreover, I believe that Vardoulakis’s own interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of action is problematic, and in particular the way he conceives of the difference between the end of action and that of production: namely, as a distinction between an instrumental, although provisional end on the one hand, and a causal or final end on the other. I devote the greater part of my comments to a critique of this distinction, such as it is used by Vardoulakis, and also to developing an alternative interpretation of Aristotle’s conception of action in a broader sense, which I hope can also contribute to making Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle’s ethics seem more plausible than it does on Vardoulakis’s account. (shrink)

The paper addresses the integration of ethics into professional education related to the disciplines responsible for the conception and creation of the artificial (artefactual or technology). The ontological-epistemological paradigm of those disciplines is understood within the frame of the sciences of the artificial as established by Herbert Simon (1969). According to that paradigm, those sciences include disciplines not only related to the production of artefacts (technology), such as engineering, architecture, industrial design, etc, but also disciplines related to devised courses (...) of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones, like medicine, law, education, etc. They are centered on intentional action and at their core is the activity of design, which is their common foundation and attitude, or their common culture. The science of design becomes the broader foundational discipline for any professions engaged in the intentional transformation of the world. The main distinction between design disciplines and scientific ones rests on the object-project dichotomy. Indeed, contrary to Science that sees the world as an object to be observed, Design sees the world as a project and acts upon the world through projects, which are grounded in intentions, ends, and values. Design disciplines are meant to transform the world, or part of it, and are teleological. Being so, they are embodied in an act that is ethical and their ontology-epistemology must be addressed also through practical reason to resituate all professional disciplines according to their involved nature. (shrink)

The present volume brings together a number of studies, eight in all, dedicated to diverse aspects of Aristotle's conception of rational action and practical rationality. Two principal motifs account for their thematic unity. The first one is given in the idea that Aristotle's view is characterized by a fundamental tension between the totalizing orientation of practical rationality, on the one hand, and the situational subjection of human action, on the other. The second one concerns the connection that (...) Aristotle establishes between rational action (praxis) and truth, expressed in the notion of practical truth. The proposed interpretation seeks to show that Aristotle's conception is not just internally consistent and philosophically interesting; it is also capable of entering into fruitful dialogue with a whole range of modern and contemporary views. (shrink)

AS IS WELL KNOWN, one of Kant's major concerns was the reconciliation of Newtonian science and metaphysics, a preoccupation made particularly acute by the need to provide a satisfactory explanation of organisms. It is in light of his claim that only the mechanistic principles of Newton's physics can provide scientific knowledge that the role to be played by purposiveness becomes problematic. Purpose appears to resist mechanistic explanation and is therefore a major impediment to unifying science under one set of principles. (...) Kant concludes that although organisms cannot be explained mechanistically, the impossibility is due to a limitation of reason. By appealing to the critical turn Kant thus avoids an antinomy between mechanism and finality while allowing that it is possible for mechanism and finality to be reconciled in the supersensible. This reconciliation, unfortunately, we will never know. (shrink)

In a detailed and careful manner, Taylor sets about an analysis of the notions of causation, human action, purpose, and a whole host of other conceptions such as deliberation, willing, mental acts, and reasons that relate to these key concepts in the philosophy of human action. The issue is, of course, what sort of explanation is suited to grasping the inherent intelligibility of human action. Having argued his way through to a notion of agent causality, which (...) differs little from that of Aristotle, and having concluded to the irreducibility of purpose that this conception implies, Taylor maintains that logical reductionism, behaviorism, and/or mechanism are logically deficient and leave human action unexplained; however, the non-reducibility of common sense, teleological and free will concepts does not imply, for Taylor, a dualism Taylor does leave it open as a matter to be empirically decided whether or not ontological reductionism is a viable alternative. While the book is an extraordinarily skillful and dialectical handling of current discussion in the philosophy of action, there is distressingly little mention of the sources and supports of this discussion. The effect is to make some of Taylor's more controversial pronouncements appear a bit more dogmatic than should be the case; but in the end, content triumphs sufficiently over style to make this book important reading for anyone interested in having some clear light thrown on the thorny problems surrounding the philosophy of action.—E. A. R. (shrink)

Our aim in this essay is to present some David Hume’s contributions on reasons for action’s debate. We tried to do this mainly from the discussions presented in the chapters “Of liberty and necessity”, from his An enquiry concerning human understanding, and “Of the general principles of morals” and “Concerning moral sentiment”, both from his An enquiry concerning the principles of morals. Starting from Bernard Williams' provocation in his description of what would be a “sub-Humean” model about (...) class='Hi'>reasons for action, we intend to present what the “properly Humean” model of understanding the subject would be. The efforts for this attempt were spent in three different ways, respectively concerning in to reconstruct the Humean argument. The relationships between feelings, sentiments, reason, actions, motivation for action and moral judgments are discussed, in the first section, while tributaries of the debate of the dispositions of the understanding about freedom and necessity that are related to Hume’s attempts to comprehend the human condition in its epistemological aspects. In the second and in the third sections, we seek to expose the possible understanding of the concepts mentioned above within the Humean framework to moral philosophy itself. From this, we can affirm that for Hume the reasons for action, that is, the elements that could be characterized as motivators for actions and behaviors can be said to reside ultimately in the subjectivity of the human condition and be originated from human sensitivity which is in turn constituted by passions, emotions, will, desires and moral sentiments. (shrink)

If a legal rule tells us to do something, do we thereby have a reason to do it? This remains one of the most basic questions for theoretical and practical reflection on law. It is a foundational question, which many prominent contemporary theorists have discussed, yet the topic remains poorly understood. While many legal positivists have recently sought to “explain normativity”, this is likely a project inconsistent with the basic commitments of legal positivism, and, in any event, thoroughly unnecessary. Following (...) ides of M. B. E. Smith and David Enoch, this article emphasizes that law does not always (or “essentially” or paradigmatically) give reasons for action, and when it does give us reasons for action, it does so in unremarkable ways.Resumen:Si una norma jurídica nos dice que hagamos algo, ¿acaso por ese solo hecho tenemos una razón para hacerlo? Esta sigue siendo una de las preguntas más básicas para la reflexión jurídica, tanto teórica como práctica. Se trata de una cuestión fundamental que muchos teóricos importantes del derecho han discutido; aunque el tópico sigue estando muy pobremente entendido. No obstante que recientemente muchos teóricos positivistas han buscado “explicar la normatividad”, este es probablemente un proyecto inconsistente con los compromisos básicos del positivismo jurídico y, en cualquier caso, totalmente innecesario. Siguiendo las ideas de M. B. E. Smith y David Enoch, este artículo subraya que el derecho no siempre (o no “esencial” o paradigmáticamente) ofrece razones para la acción, y cuando es el caso que ofrece razones para la acción lo hace de una manera irrelevante. (shrink)

I examine Alexander of Aphrodisias’ theory of action, addressing the question how his view that human actions are determined by reason accounts for the capacity of doing otherwise. Calling into question the standard view that Alexander frees agents from internal determination, I argue that (1) the capacity of doing otherwise is a consequence of determination by reason, since it enables agents to do something different from what they would have done had they followed external circumstances; and (2) this capacity (...) is compatible with causal determination by reason because as a case of potentiality for opposites, it grants agents the qualified possibility of doing otherwise insofar as their nature as human beings is concerned – a possibility which remains also when their actions are causally determined by reason and by their internal disposition. I show further that these elements of Alexander’s theory of action are ultimately based on his conception of the soul, specifically on his commitment to Aristotle’s view that the human soul is not purely rational, as the Stoics hold, but has nonrational and rational parts. (shrink)

This article argues that both courage and reason are necessary aspects of moral action. It begins by examining Plato’s changing conceptions of these two virtues, and, in particular, the settled view he arrives at in The Statesman. Sloterdijk’s recent attempt in his book advocating rage to appropriate this dialogue in order to criticize Habermas is then considered. I suggest, by interpreting various claims by these two authors, that neither understands that both reason and courage have essential roles in moral (...) action. Additional support for this conclusion is found, not just in Plato’s late work, but in a ‘third generation’ reworking of critical theory recently developed by Menke. (shrink)

Reasoning about change is a central issue in research on human and robot planning. We study an approach to reasoning about action and change in a dynamic logic setting and provide a solution to problems which are related to the Frame problem. Unlike most work on the frame problem the logic described in this paper is monotonic. It (implicitly) allows for the occurrence of actions of multiple agents by introducing non-stationary notions of waiting and test. The need to state (...) a large number of frame axioms is alleviated by introducing a concept of chronological preservation to dynamic logic. As a side effect, this concept permits the encoding of temporal properties in a natural way. We compare the relative merits of our approach and non-monotonic approaches as regards different aspects of the frame problem. Technically, we show that the resulting extended systems of propositional dynamic logic preserve (weak) completeness, finite model property and decidability. (shrink)

Collingwood's faith in the historian's intuitive capacity for discerning the meaning of past actions by re-enactment" is too unqualified. However, his thesis that through actions alone can reasons and inner meanings be discovered is true. This assumes that actions can be traced to recognizable agents and that these agents are able to acknowledge their reasons. The relation between knowing and doing and between knowing and understanding is a form of causality not inconsistent with teleological reasoning. Characteristic of (...) human action are the constitutive nature of causality, the delimiting effect of rationality on human autonomy, and the role of purpose as a mediating link between intention and outcome. Despite the fact that emphasis on impersonal actions and interactions seriously calls into question Collingwood's theory of understanding, any radical revision of this theory proves no less problematical. (shrink)

This chapter explores the ways in which the project of the early Royal Society supported the transformation of religion into a practical and reasonable activity that essentially consists in a kind of natural religion wherein we focus on what can be known about God and our duties through the natural light, understood in terms of an experimental approach to nature. More precisely, Rossiter argues that the natural religion supported by figures in and around the Royal Society subverts the traditional hierarchy (...) between contemplation and action found in the medieval period by subsuming contemplation into action—the fruit of which is a concept of religion that is above all practical. After the Introduction, the second section considers the way in which the ideal of religious contemplation is viewed differently between the Royal Society and earlier medieval perspectives that value speculative theology. He argues that figures in the Royal Society invert the traditional hierarchy found in the medieval period between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa. Instead of seeing action as dispositive and subservient to contemplation, experimental philosophers understand contemplation as an ultimately practical activity oriented toward bettering our condition on this Earth. In the third section, Rossiter shows that the proper contemplation of nature on this view yields evidence of teleological design. Contemplation of nature, then, ultimately has a practical orientation insofar as recognition of divine design in nature is intended to strengthen the conviction that God too has designed human nature for practical ends. In the fourth section, he argues that this serves to yield a ‘de-confessionalised’ conception of religion in which religious knowledge primarily consists in a minimal set of propositions about the world and the divine nature, all of which were verified by experience and oriented toward promoting ethical behaviour. Religion, in this sense, is essentially practical and has no place for contemplation as an end in itself. (shrink)

The central problem of the ‘normativity of law’ concerns how legal rules or directives give us reasons for actions. The core of this question is how something that is external to the agent, such as legal rules or directives, can be ‘part of the agent’, and how they can guide the agent in performing complex actions (such as legal rule-following) that persist over time. David Enoch has denied that the normativity of law poses any interesting challenge to theories of (...) law. He argues that law provides reasons for actions in terms of what he calls triggering-reasons and he advances the view that because there are many circumstances in which reasons are triggered, law does not pose a special challenge. According to Enoch, once we understand the way that triggering reasons operate, we can understand how legal rules and directives provide us with reasons for actions. In §II of this paper, I set the stage for the debate and establish a set of principles that emerge from the common sense of view of reasons for actions and argue that any theory of reasons for action should provide a coherent explanation of these key principles. I focus on the idea that a satisfactory account of reasons for action should also explain reasons in actions. In §III I explain briefly the different theories of reasons for action and locate Enoch’s conception of reasons for action as triggering-reasons within this theoretical framework. In §IV I show that Enoch’s conception of reasons for actions does not explain some of the key features or principles that emerge from our common sense view of reasons for action and nor does it explain reasons in actions.Resumen:El problema central de la ‘normatividad del derecho’ versa sobre cómo las reglas o directrices jurídicas nos dan razones para la acción. El núcleo de esta cuestión reside en cómo algo que es externo al agente, tal como las reglas o directrices jurídicas, pueden ser ‘parte del agente’, y cómo pueden guiar a ese agente al llevar a cabo acciones complejas (tal como la obediencia de las reglas) que persisten en el tiempo. David Enoch ha negado que la normatividad del derecho presente algún reto interesante a las teorías del derecho. Arguye que el derecho provee razones para la acción en términos de lo que él llama razones detonantes (triggering-reasons) y propone la perspectiva de que, dado que hay muchas circunstancias bajo las cuales se detonan las razones, el derecho no plantea ningún reto especial. De acuerdo con Enoch, una vez que entendemos la manera en que operan las razones detonantes, podemos comprender cómo las reglas y directrices jurídicas nos proveen razones para la acción. En la sección II de este artículo, fijo el escenario para el debate y establezco una serie de principios que emergen de la visión de sentido común sobre las razones para las acciones, y sostengo que cual- quier teoría de las razones para la acción debería proporcionar una explicación coherente de estos principios clave. Me centro en la idea de que una concepción satisfactoria de las razones para la acción también debe- ría explicar las razones en las acciones. En la sección III, explico brevemente las diferentes teorías de las razones para la acción y ubico la concepción de Enoch de razones para la acción como razones detonantes (triggering-reasons) dentro de este marco teórico. En la sección IV muestro que la concepción de Enoch de razones para las acciones no explica algunas de las principales características o principios que emergen de nuestra visión de las razones para la acción basada en el sentido común, ni tampoco explica las razones en las acciones. (shrink)

In his political philosophy, John Rawls has a normative notion of reasonable behaviour expected of citizens in a pluralist society. We interpret the various strands of this idea and introduce them to the discourse on stakeholder dialogue in order to address two shortcomings in the latter. The first shortcoming is an unnoticed, artificial separation of words from actions which neglects the communicative power of action. Second, in its proposed new role of the firm, the discourse of political CSR appeared (...) to offer a promising synthesis of deliberation and action. However, the discourse has been criticized for its shortcoming in failing to provide a regulatory environment for corporation—stakeholder dialogue. Through our interpretation of Rawls’ notion of reasonableness in citizens, the article makes two important theoretical contributions to the debate on stakeholder dialogue. First, we transfer Rawls’ injunction in insisting that dialogues between business corporations and their weaker stakeholders must be understood as consisting of both verbal exchanges and actions. Second, we propose that the coercive power of government ought to provide a necessary context for stakeholder dialogue, and that by doing so, it can provide a way forward for the discourse of political CSR. We illustrate the usefulness of this contribution from Rawls in an analysis of BP’s behaviour towards thousands of victims following the Deepwater Horizon blowout in 2010. (shrink)

Two experiments investigated whether infants represent goal‐directed actions of others in a way that allows them to draw inferences to unobserved states of affairs (such as unseen goal states or occluded obstacles). We measured looking times to assess violation of infants' expectations upon perceiving either a change in the actions of computer‐animated figures or in the context of such actions. The first experiment tested whether infants would attribute a goal to an action that they had not seen completed. The (...) second experiment tested whether infants would infer from an observed action the presence of an occluded object that functions as an obstacle. The looking time patterns of 12‐month‐olds indicated that they were able to make both types of inferences, while 9‐month‐olds failed in both tasks. These results demonstrate that, by the end of the first year of life, infants use the principle of rational action not only for the interpretation and prediction of goal‐directed actions, but also for making productive inferences about unseen aspects of their context. We discuss the underlying mechanisms that may be involved in the developmental change from 9 to 12 months of age in the ability to infer hypothetical (unseen) states of affairs in teleological action representations. (shrink)

The contemporary philosophy of mind and neuroethics are two of the liveliest fields of interdisciplinary reflection which deal with the everlasting topic: what/who we essentially are. One of the many questions that can be tackled in order to go deep in this knowledge is: why man is naturally inclined towards specific tiers for survival which constitute his/her teleological project of flourishing? Two different, but complementary, answers are brought to light in this work. The author argues for an apparently obvious, (...) but relatively underexplored view of the classical hylomorphic concept of form, not just as the information that characterizes the organization of human body, but also as the intrinsic final reason why, through a specific type of bodily structure, the human being develops his/her natural inclinations and behaves according to them. The author advances the argument in terms of an upward comparison between the threefold levels of Thomas Aquinas’ natural human inclinations according to Summa Theologiae I-II, question 94, article 2, and the pioneering structural and functional “Triune Brain” model developed from 1949 to 1952 by Paul MacLean. The hylomorphic view sketched is profoundly different from a purely materialistic conception of teleological processes of human behavior, and it is a plausible explanation that motivates and invites further considerations and research. (shrink)

The controversies in our time between teleological and deontological ethics which come down to the problem "from being to ought," referring to human being or nature, can be resolved only by an adequate conception of human nature. Taking up the ancient tradition again, we can re-examine the teleological conception of human nature as primarily instinctive and selfish, and say that human nature is constituted also by reason and that the instinctive nature is predisposed to be guided (...) by reason or intellect. The constitutive order of the human soul, with the subordination of the instinct under the intellect, involves already some natural goodness, of which the intellect is aware and for which the will strives. This is the basis for the "moral law" and for normative ethics. Thus, human nature is not selfish in itself. Although moral goodness as humankind’s perfection is an ideal, it has in us already imperfect natural beginnings, a "natural morality." In a certain sense, the moral ought of actions comes from one’s being, from the natural moral goodness of which the intellect is aware in itself, and from its good intentions. (shrink)