Donald Davidson writes that "[r]easons for intending to do something are very much like reasons f... more Donald Davidson writes that "[r]easons for intending to do something are very much like reasons for action, indeed one might hold that they are exactly the same except for time." 2 That the reasons for forming an intention and the reasons for acting as intended are in some way related is a widely accepted claim. But it can take different forms: (1) the reasons may mirror each other so that there is a (derivative) reason to intend whenever there is a reason to act; or (2) they may reduce to just one kind: perhaps all reasons for action are really reasons for forming intentions. 3 Or the other way around: (3) all reasons for intentions are really reasons to act. The three versions are not equally strong contenders though. The third-that reasons to intend could reduce to reasons to act-seems unlikely. After all, there may be reasons to form future-directed intentions, in particular, independently of the reason to act as intended. The second suggestion falls prey to different considerations: reasons to act can, at least sometimes, be reasons to produce a certain outcome, quite independently of the intention with which the action is done, or whether it is done intentionally at all. In these cases, the reason to act is not (or not obviously) a reason to intend. I will therefore not pursue the possibility of a reduction in this paper. My main focus is on the first, non-reductive proposal. I will discuss various versions of it in some detail, but ultimately reject it. 5 The Toxin Puzzle (Kavka 1983): an eccentric billionaire would transfer a million pounds into your bank account at midnight today, if you now intend to drink a (mild) toxin tomorrow. The toxin will not kill you, but it will cause you some discomfort. The billionaire does not require that you drink the toxin, but only that you form the intention to do so. You know now that tomorrow there will be absolutely no reason for you to drink the toxin, since the money either is already in your bank account, or you won't receive it. So you may have a reason to form the intention to drink the toxin, but no reason to actually drink it. 6 Much of the debate of the Toxin Puzzle focuses on 'solving' it: on showing that it may be possible to rationally intend to drink the toxin after all. McClennen (1990) and Bratman (1999) fasten on the notion of "resolution". As Bratman sees it "a prior plan settling on which was-because of autonomous benefits-best in prospect, can trump a later, conflicting evaluative ranking concerning planned-for circumstances." (70) Since the agent prefers drinking the toxin and having the money to not drinking the toxin, and since she needs to intend to drink the toxin to get the money, and since, once she intends to drink it, she is rationally committed to drinking it if nothing in her circumstances changes (Bratman calls this the 'linking principle'), the agent can rationally embark on a plan that takes her from intending to earn the money to drinking the toxin. It seems to me that she cannot: knowing that she doesn't need to drink the toxin to get the money should, if the 'linking principle' holds and she is rational, prevent her from forming the intention to drink it.-My focus here is just on understanding why it is that we cannot respond to reasons to intend of the toxin puzzle variety in the way in which we respond to other reasons to intend: why there is a puzzle to begin with. 7 Parfit (2011), Appendix A. 8 One problem with this terminology is that it is ambiguous between a reason that is provided by the value of the state of intending when there is no value in acting as intended, and a reason that is provided by the value of the state whether or not there is also value in acting as intended. This difference will become important at a later stage. (See also Schroeder (2012: 463f) for a discussion of the problems with the terminology.)-Joseph Raz speaks of a non-standard reason (Raz (2011), chapter 3) but this isn't extensionally equivalent, since a non-standard reason is a reason that cannot be followed directly, and as we will see, there is a difference between those and state-given reasons. Non-standard reasons are sometimes also called 'reasons of the wrong kind'. The origin of this terminology is in fitting-attitude analyses of reasons to form attitudes of a certain kind. If there were such reasons, so the worry, the fitting attitude analysis would be wrong. Hence, 'wrong' reasons: wrong from the perspective of a proponent of the theory. See Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2004) for showing how certain reasons are 'the wrong kind of reasons' in this sense. The term has gained wider currency recently, presumably just indicating that non-standard reasons are peculiar in certain ways. For further discussion see Heuer (2010, and 2017).
Ulrike Heuer provides the first evaluation of Waismann’s long essay on action outside of its own ... more Ulrike Heuer provides the first evaluation of Waismann’s long essay on action outside of its own publication. For Waismann, Heuer explains, a motive is not an internal psychological state that we can know through introspection and neither does it trigger action in a way that would permit a causal explanation. She notes that Waismann’s objections to the causal explanation of action are not those put forward by Wittgenstein that were brushed aside by Donald Davidson. They are new, and they are followed by Waismann’s positive account that the explanation of an action is the interpretation of an action or, as he puts it, a motive is a kind of meaning. Heuer criticizes Waismann’s arguments for this view in detail, but adds in a footnote that his anti-causalist view of interpretation would provide an interesting challenge to a position like T. M. Scanlon’s that any reason of which a person is aware contributes to the explanation his action.
The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises ca... more The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises can be valid even when nothing good comes of keeping the promise (the problem of 'bare wrongings'), and the bootstrapping problem with explaining how the mere intention to put oneself under an obligation can create such an obligation have been recognized since Hume's famous discussion of the topic. In part 1, I showed that two main views of promising which attempt to solve these problems fall short of explaining the promissory obligation nonetheless. In this second part, I will explain what it takes to show that there is such an obligation (rather than just a reason of a different kind) to keep one's promises, and discuss a further account of promissory obligationthe normative powers account-which perhaps stands a chance to solve both the bootstrapping and the bare wrongings problem (or rather, to show why we needn't be worried about those problems after all), and to successfully explain promissory obligation. It comes in at least two different forms: one which regards the normative power to promise as based on our ability to form special relationships, and another which regards the promisee's 'authority interest' as the basis.
The buck-passing account of value (BPA) is very fertile ground that has given rise to a number of... more The buck-passing account of value (BPA) is very fertile ground that has given rise to a number of interpretations and controversies. It has originally been proposed by T.M. Scanlon as an analysis of value: according to it, being good 'is not a property that itself provides a reason to respond to a thing in certain ways. Rather, to be good or valuable is to have other properties that constitute such reasons'. 1 And also: 'being valuable is not a property that provides us with reasons. Rather, to call something valuable is to say that it has other properties that provide reasons for behaving in certain ways with regard to it.' 2 As Pekka Väyrynen, 3 and subsequently Mark Schroeder 4 and Roger Crisp 5 have pointed out, the account comprises two theses: (BPA-) The fact that something is good or of value is not itself a reason to respond to it favorably or to behave in certain ways with regard to it.
Is the wrongness of an action a reason not to perform it? Of course it is, you may answer. That a... more Is the wrongness of an action a reason not to perform it? Of course it is, you may answer. That an action is wrong both explains and justifies not doing it. Yet, there are doubts. Thinking that wrongness is a reason is confused, so an argument by Jonathan Dancy. There can't be such a reason if 'φ-ing is wrong' is verdictive, and an all things considered judgment about what (not) to do in a certain situation. Such judgments are based on all the relevant reasons for and against φ-ing. If that φ-ing is wrong, while being an all things considered verdict, would itself be a reason, it would upset the balance of reasons: it would be a further reason which has not yet been considered in reaching the verdict. Hence, the judgment wasn't 'all things considered' after all. I show that the argument against wrongness being a reason is unsuccessful, because its main assumption is false. Is main assumption is that a consideration which necessarily does not affect the balance of reasons is not a reason. I also argue that there can be no deontic buck-passing account.
It is an assumption common to many theories of rationality that all practical reasons are based o... more It is an assumption common to many theories of rationality that all practical reasons are based on a person's given desires. I shall call any approach to practical reasons which accepts this assumption a 'Humean approach'. In spite of many criticisms, the Humean approach has numerous followers who take it to be the natural and inevitable view of practical reason. I will develop an argument against the Humean view aiming to explain its appeal, as well as to expose its mistake. I focus on just one argument in favour of the Humean approach, which I believe can be constructed as the background idea of many Humean accounts: the argument from motivation. I first present the argument from motivation and explain why it seems so compelling. However, I then develop an equally compelling objection to desire-based approaches to reason, showing that they cannot accommodate the justificatory role of reasons. I show that this objection suggests that at least one of the premises of the argument from motivation must be false. And, finally, I argue that we should reject the premise that claims that only desires can explain actions. This result is fatal for desire-based views of practical reason. My conclusion is that practical reasons should be based not on desires, but on values.
In this paper, I argue that a person can have a reason to do what she cannot do. In a nutshell, t... more In this paper, I argue that a person can have a reason to do what she cannot do. In a nutshell, the argument is that a person can have derivate reasons relating to an action that she has a non-derivative reason to perform. There are clear examples of derivative reasons that a person has in cases where she cannot do what she (non-derivatively) has reason to do. She couldn't have those derivative reasons, unless she also had the non-derivative reason to do what she cannot do. I discuss a number of objections to this view, in particular two: (1) The objection that if there were reasons to do what one cannot do, many of those would be 'crazy reasons', and (2) the worry that if there were such reasons, then agents would have reasons to engage in futile deliberations and tryings. I develop an explanation of 'crazy reasons' that shows that not all reasons to do the impossible are crazy and only those that are need to be filtered out, and, regarding the second objecting, I show that the reasons for trying as well as for taking the means to doing something-instrumental reasons in a broad sense-are different from the reasons for performing the action in the first place. They are affected by impossibility, and we can explain why that is so. The view I argue for is that a person may have a reason to do what she cannot do, but she does not have a reason to try to do so or to take means to realizing the impossible. Keywords Reasons for action Á Impossibility Á Instrumental reasons Á Trying and intending Á Bart Streumer on reasons and impossibility 1 Introduction Can a person have a reason to do what she cannot do? Some philosophers claim that having a reason entails 'can do' as an instance of 'ought implies can', or,
Critical discussion of Thomson's and Scanlon's arguments against the view that the permis... more Critical discussion of Thomson's and Scanlon's arguments against the view that the permissibility of an action may depend on the intention with which it is done. I argue that intentions can determine permissibility, but in a way that is different from the principle of double effect.
The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises ca... more The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises can be valid even when nothing good comes of keeping the promise (the problem of 'bare wrongings'), and the bootstrapping problem with explaining how the mere intention to put oneself under an obligation can create such an obligation have been recognized since Hume's famous discussion of the topic. There are two influential accounts of promising, and promissory obligation, which attempt to solve the problems: The expectation account and the practice account. While those accounts solve both the bootstrapping problem and the problem of bare wrongings, it turns out that they encounter numerous problems of their own.
Many of the things we do in the course of a day we don’t do intentionally: blushing, sneezing, br... more Many of the things we do in the course of a day we don’t do intentionally: blushing, sneezing, breathing, blinking, smiling — to name but a few. But we also do act intentionally, and often when we do we act for reasons. Whether we always act for reasons when we act intentionally is controversial. But at least the converse is generally accepted: when we act for reasons we always act intentionally. Necessarily, it seems. In this paper, I argue that acting intentionally is not in all cases acting for a reason. Instead, intentional agency involves a specific kind of control. Having this kind of control makes it possible to modify one’s action in the light of reasons. Intentional agency opens the possibility of acting in the light of reasons. I also explain why when we act with an intention (and not just intentionally in a broader sense) we act for reasons. In the second part of the paper, I draw on these results to show that the dominant view of reasons to intend and the rationality of intentions should be rejected.
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, Dec 1, 2014
Many of the things we do in the course of a day we don't do intentionally: blushing, sneezing, br... more Many of the things we do in the course of a day we don't do intentionally: blushing, sneezing, breathing, blinking, smiling-to name but a few. But we also do act intentionally, and often when we do we act for reasons. Whether we always act for reasons when we act intentionally is controversial. But at least the converse is generally accepted: when we act for reasons we always act intentionally. Necessarily, it seems. In this paper, I argue that acting intentionally is not in all cases acting for a reason. Instead, intentional agency involves a specific kind of control. Having this kind of control makes it possible to modify one's action in the light of reasons. Intentional agency opens the possibility of acting in the light of reasons. I also explain why when we act with an intention (and not just intentionally in a broader sense) we act for reasons. In the second part of the paper, I draw on these results to show that the dominant view of reasons to intend and the rationality of intentions should be rejected. 1 The reasons for which a person acts may not be the reasons for which she should have acted. She could be irrational (e.g. weak-willed), but she might also simply be mistaken. In that case there may be no reason to act as she does; she only believes there is. The qualification in parenthesis is meant to make room for this possibility. The agent's reasons should be understood throughout in this way, allowing for mistaken beliefs. 2 I will simply assume here that reasons to act are normative reasons, and that the reasons for which someone acts are seen by her as normative reasons (rightly or wrongly). This is controversial: in particular, Kieran Setiya (2007, pt. 1, ch. 6) contests the view. As he sees it, the reasons for which we act needn't be reasons that we regard as normative reasons-or, to put it differently, we don't always act under the guise of the good. Discussing his view would take me too far afield here. 3 I take it that normative reasons are properties of an action that make it good. Mistakenly believed to be normative reasons may be properties of an action of which the agent falsely believes that they make it good. Or they may be good-making features that the agent wrongly believes her action has. There is more than one way of being mistaken. 4 The problem of 'deviant causal chains' is relevant here: the actor while attempting to take Copyright of Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Paperback) is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
The buck-passing account of values offers an explanation of the close relation of values and reas... more The buck-passing account of values offers an explanation of the close relation of values and reasons for action: of why it is that the question whether something that is of value provides reasons is not ”open.” Being of value simply is, its defenders claim, a property that something has in virtue of its having other reason-providing properties. The generic idea of buck-passing is that the property of being good or being of value does not provide reasons. It is other properties that do. There are, however, at least three versions of the account which differ in their understanding of those “other properties.” The first two versions both assume that non-normative properties provide reasons, the difference being that the second allows that normative properties also provide reasons. Both run into difficulties, which I explain, in trying to defend the claim that non-normative properties provide reasons for action. The third version of the buck-passing account which explains being of value...
The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises ca... more The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises can be valid even when nothing good comes of keeping the promise (the problem of 'bare wrongings'), and the bootstrapping problem with explaining how the mere intention to put oneself under an obligation can create such an obligation have been recognized since Hume's famous discussion of the topic. In part 1, I showed that two main views of promising which attempt to solve these problems fall short of explaining the promissory obligation nonetheless. In this second part, I will explain what it takes to show that there is such an obligation (rather than just a reason of a different kind) to keep one's promises, and discuss a further account of promissory obligationthe normative powers account-which perhaps stands a chance to solve both the bootstrapping and the bare wrongings problem (or rather, to show why we needn't be worried about those problems after all), and to successfully explain promissory obligation. It comes in at least two different forms: one which regards the normative power to promise as based on our ability to form special relationships, and another which regards the promisee's 'authority interest' as the basis.
This book concerns one of the most basic philosophical questions: the explanation of normativity ... more This book concerns one of the most basic philosophical questions: the explanation of normativity in its many guises. It lays out succinctly the view of normativity that Raz has sought to develop over many decades and determines its contours through some of its applications. In a nutshell, it is the view that understanding normativity is understanding the roles and structures of normative reasons which, when they are reasons for actions, are based on values. The book aims also to clarify the ways in which normative reasons are made for rational beings like us. It brings the account of normativity to bear on many aspects of the lives of rational beings, most abstractly, their agency, more concretely their ability to form and maintain relationships, and live their lives as social beings with a sense of their identity.
Donald Davidson writes that "[r]easons for intending to do something are very much like reasons f... more Donald Davidson writes that "[r]easons for intending to do something are very much like reasons for action, indeed one might hold that they are exactly the same except for time." 2 That the reasons for forming an intention and the reasons for acting as intended are in some way related is a widely accepted claim. But it can take different forms: (1) the reasons may mirror each other so that there is a (derivative) reason to intend whenever there is a reason to act; or (2) they may reduce to just one kind: perhaps all reasons for action are really reasons for forming intentions. 3 Or the other way around: (3) all reasons for intentions are really reasons to act. The three versions are not equally strong contenders though. The third-that reasons to intend could reduce to reasons to act-seems unlikely. After all, there may be reasons to form future-directed intentions, in particular, independently of the reason to act as intended. The second suggestion falls prey to different considerations: reasons to act can, at least sometimes, be reasons to produce a certain outcome, quite independently of the intention with which the action is done, or whether it is done intentionally at all. In these cases, the reason to act is not (or not obviously) a reason to intend. I will therefore not pursue the possibility of a reduction in this paper. My main focus is on the first, non-reductive proposal. I will discuss various versions of it in some detail, but ultimately reject it. 5 The Toxin Puzzle (Kavka 1983): an eccentric billionaire would transfer a million pounds into your bank account at midnight today, if you now intend to drink a (mild) toxin tomorrow. The toxin will not kill you, but it will cause you some discomfort. The billionaire does not require that you drink the toxin, but only that you form the intention to do so. You know now that tomorrow there will be absolutely no reason for you to drink the toxin, since the money either is already in your bank account, or you won't receive it. So you may have a reason to form the intention to drink the toxin, but no reason to actually drink it. 6 Much of the debate of the Toxin Puzzle focuses on 'solving' it: on showing that it may be possible to rationally intend to drink the toxin after all. McClennen (1990) and Bratman (1999) fasten on the notion of "resolution". As Bratman sees it "a prior plan settling on which was-because of autonomous benefits-best in prospect, can trump a later, conflicting evaluative ranking concerning planned-for circumstances." (70) Since the agent prefers drinking the toxin and having the money to not drinking the toxin, and since she needs to intend to drink the toxin to get the money, and since, once she intends to drink it, she is rationally committed to drinking it if nothing in her circumstances changes (Bratman calls this the 'linking principle'), the agent can rationally embark on a plan that takes her from intending to earn the money to drinking the toxin. It seems to me that she cannot: knowing that she doesn't need to drink the toxin to get the money should, if the 'linking principle' holds and she is rational, prevent her from forming the intention to drink it.-My focus here is just on understanding why it is that we cannot respond to reasons to intend of the toxin puzzle variety in the way in which we respond to other reasons to intend: why there is a puzzle to begin with. 7 Parfit (2011), Appendix A. 8 One problem with this terminology is that it is ambiguous between a reason that is provided by the value of the state of intending when there is no value in acting as intended, and a reason that is provided by the value of the state whether or not there is also value in acting as intended. This difference will become important at a later stage. (See also Schroeder (2012: 463f) for a discussion of the problems with the terminology.)-Joseph Raz speaks of a non-standard reason (Raz (2011), chapter 3) but this isn't extensionally equivalent, since a non-standard reason is a reason that cannot be followed directly, and as we will see, there is a difference between those and state-given reasons. Non-standard reasons are sometimes also called 'reasons of the wrong kind'. The origin of this terminology is in fitting-attitude analyses of reasons to form attitudes of a certain kind. If there were such reasons, so the worry, the fitting attitude analysis would be wrong. Hence, 'wrong' reasons: wrong from the perspective of a proponent of the theory. See Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2004) for showing how certain reasons are 'the wrong kind of reasons' in this sense. The term has gained wider currency recently, presumably just indicating that non-standard reasons are peculiar in certain ways. For further discussion see Heuer (2010, and 2017).
Ulrike Heuer provides the first evaluation of Waismann’s long essay on action outside of its own ... more Ulrike Heuer provides the first evaluation of Waismann’s long essay on action outside of its own publication. For Waismann, Heuer explains, a motive is not an internal psychological state that we can know through introspection and neither does it trigger action in a way that would permit a causal explanation. She notes that Waismann’s objections to the causal explanation of action are not those put forward by Wittgenstein that were brushed aside by Donald Davidson. They are new, and they are followed by Waismann’s positive account that the explanation of an action is the interpretation of an action or, as he puts it, a motive is a kind of meaning. Heuer criticizes Waismann’s arguments for this view in detail, but adds in a footnote that his anti-causalist view of interpretation would provide an interesting challenge to a position like T. M. Scanlon’s that any reason of which a person is aware contributes to the explanation his action.
The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises ca... more The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises can be valid even when nothing good comes of keeping the promise (the problem of 'bare wrongings'), and the bootstrapping problem with explaining how the mere intention to put oneself under an obligation can create such an obligation have been recognized since Hume's famous discussion of the topic. In part 1, I showed that two main views of promising which attempt to solve these problems fall short of explaining the promissory obligation nonetheless. In this second part, I will explain what it takes to show that there is such an obligation (rather than just a reason of a different kind) to keep one's promises, and discuss a further account of promissory obligationthe normative powers account-which perhaps stands a chance to solve both the bootstrapping and the bare wrongings problem (or rather, to show why we needn't be worried about those problems after all), and to successfully explain promissory obligation. It comes in at least two different forms: one which regards the normative power to promise as based on our ability to form special relationships, and another which regards the promisee's 'authority interest' as the basis.
The buck-passing account of value (BPA) is very fertile ground that has given rise to a number of... more The buck-passing account of value (BPA) is very fertile ground that has given rise to a number of interpretations and controversies. It has originally been proposed by T.M. Scanlon as an analysis of value: according to it, being good 'is not a property that itself provides a reason to respond to a thing in certain ways. Rather, to be good or valuable is to have other properties that constitute such reasons'. 1 And also: 'being valuable is not a property that provides us with reasons. Rather, to call something valuable is to say that it has other properties that provide reasons for behaving in certain ways with regard to it.' 2 As Pekka Väyrynen, 3 and subsequently Mark Schroeder 4 and Roger Crisp 5 have pointed out, the account comprises two theses: (BPA-) The fact that something is good or of value is not itself a reason to respond to it favorably or to behave in certain ways with regard to it.
Is the wrongness of an action a reason not to perform it? Of course it is, you may answer. That a... more Is the wrongness of an action a reason not to perform it? Of course it is, you may answer. That an action is wrong both explains and justifies not doing it. Yet, there are doubts. Thinking that wrongness is a reason is confused, so an argument by Jonathan Dancy. There can't be such a reason if 'φ-ing is wrong' is verdictive, and an all things considered judgment about what (not) to do in a certain situation. Such judgments are based on all the relevant reasons for and against φ-ing. If that φ-ing is wrong, while being an all things considered verdict, would itself be a reason, it would upset the balance of reasons: it would be a further reason which has not yet been considered in reaching the verdict. Hence, the judgment wasn't 'all things considered' after all. I show that the argument against wrongness being a reason is unsuccessful, because its main assumption is false. Is main assumption is that a consideration which necessarily does not affect the balance of reasons is not a reason. I also argue that there can be no deontic buck-passing account.
It is an assumption common to many theories of rationality that all practical reasons are based o... more It is an assumption common to many theories of rationality that all practical reasons are based on a person's given desires. I shall call any approach to practical reasons which accepts this assumption a 'Humean approach'. In spite of many criticisms, the Humean approach has numerous followers who take it to be the natural and inevitable view of practical reason. I will develop an argument against the Humean view aiming to explain its appeal, as well as to expose its mistake. I focus on just one argument in favour of the Humean approach, which I believe can be constructed as the background idea of many Humean accounts: the argument from motivation. I first present the argument from motivation and explain why it seems so compelling. However, I then develop an equally compelling objection to desire-based approaches to reason, showing that they cannot accommodate the justificatory role of reasons. I show that this objection suggests that at least one of the premises of the argument from motivation must be false. And, finally, I argue that we should reject the premise that claims that only desires can explain actions. This result is fatal for desire-based views of practical reason. My conclusion is that practical reasons should be based not on desires, but on values.
In this paper, I argue that a person can have a reason to do what she cannot do. In a nutshell, t... more In this paper, I argue that a person can have a reason to do what she cannot do. In a nutshell, the argument is that a person can have derivate reasons relating to an action that she has a non-derivative reason to perform. There are clear examples of derivative reasons that a person has in cases where she cannot do what she (non-derivatively) has reason to do. She couldn't have those derivative reasons, unless she also had the non-derivative reason to do what she cannot do. I discuss a number of objections to this view, in particular two: (1) The objection that if there were reasons to do what one cannot do, many of those would be 'crazy reasons', and (2) the worry that if there were such reasons, then agents would have reasons to engage in futile deliberations and tryings. I develop an explanation of 'crazy reasons' that shows that not all reasons to do the impossible are crazy and only those that are need to be filtered out, and, regarding the second objecting, I show that the reasons for trying as well as for taking the means to doing something-instrumental reasons in a broad sense-are different from the reasons for performing the action in the first place. They are affected by impossibility, and we can explain why that is so. The view I argue for is that a person may have a reason to do what she cannot do, but she does not have a reason to try to do so or to take means to realizing the impossible. Keywords Reasons for action Á Impossibility Á Instrumental reasons Á Trying and intending Á Bart Streumer on reasons and impossibility 1 Introduction Can a person have a reason to do what she cannot do? Some philosophers claim that having a reason entails 'can do' as an instance of 'ought implies can', or,
Critical discussion of Thomson's and Scanlon's arguments against the view that the permis... more Critical discussion of Thomson's and Scanlon's arguments against the view that the permissibility of an action may depend on the intention with which it is done. I argue that intentions can determine permissibility, but in a way that is different from the principle of double effect.
The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises ca... more The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises can be valid even when nothing good comes of keeping the promise (the problem of 'bare wrongings'), and the bootstrapping problem with explaining how the mere intention to put oneself under an obligation can create such an obligation have been recognized since Hume's famous discussion of the topic. There are two influential accounts of promising, and promissory obligation, which attempt to solve the problems: The expectation account and the practice account. While those accounts solve both the bootstrapping problem and the problem of bare wrongings, it turns out that they encounter numerous problems of their own.
Many of the things we do in the course of a day we don’t do intentionally: blushing, sneezing, br... more Many of the things we do in the course of a day we don’t do intentionally: blushing, sneezing, breathing, blinking, smiling — to name but a few. But we also do act intentionally, and often when we do we act for reasons. Whether we always act for reasons when we act intentionally is controversial. But at least the converse is generally accepted: when we act for reasons we always act intentionally. Necessarily, it seems. In this paper, I argue that acting intentionally is not in all cases acting for a reason. Instead, intentional agency involves a specific kind of control. Having this kind of control makes it possible to modify one’s action in the light of reasons. Intentional agency opens the possibility of acting in the light of reasons. I also explain why when we act with an intention (and not just intentionally in a broader sense) we act for reasons. In the second part of the paper, I draw on these results to show that the dominant view of reasons to intend and the rationality of intentions should be rejected.
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, Dec 1, 2014
Many of the things we do in the course of a day we don't do intentionally: blushing, sneezing, br... more Many of the things we do in the course of a day we don't do intentionally: blushing, sneezing, breathing, blinking, smiling-to name but a few. But we also do act intentionally, and often when we do we act for reasons. Whether we always act for reasons when we act intentionally is controversial. But at least the converse is generally accepted: when we act for reasons we always act intentionally. Necessarily, it seems. In this paper, I argue that acting intentionally is not in all cases acting for a reason. Instead, intentional agency involves a specific kind of control. Having this kind of control makes it possible to modify one's action in the light of reasons. Intentional agency opens the possibility of acting in the light of reasons. I also explain why when we act with an intention (and not just intentionally in a broader sense) we act for reasons. In the second part of the paper, I draw on these results to show that the dominant view of reasons to intend and the rationality of intentions should be rejected. 1 The reasons for which a person acts may not be the reasons for which she should have acted. She could be irrational (e.g. weak-willed), but she might also simply be mistaken. In that case there may be no reason to act as she does; she only believes there is. The qualification in parenthesis is meant to make room for this possibility. The agent's reasons should be understood throughout in this way, allowing for mistaken beliefs. 2 I will simply assume here that reasons to act are normative reasons, and that the reasons for which someone acts are seen by her as normative reasons (rightly or wrongly). This is controversial: in particular, Kieran Setiya (2007, pt. 1, ch. 6) contests the view. As he sees it, the reasons for which we act needn't be reasons that we regard as normative reasons-or, to put it differently, we don't always act under the guise of the good. Discussing his view would take me too far afield here. 3 I take it that normative reasons are properties of an action that make it good. Mistakenly believed to be normative reasons may be properties of an action of which the agent falsely believes that they make it good. Or they may be good-making features that the agent wrongly believes her action has. There is more than one way of being mistaken. 4 The problem of 'deviant causal chains' is relevant here: the actor while attempting to take Copyright of Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Paperback) is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
The buck-passing account of values offers an explanation of the close relation of values and reas... more The buck-passing account of values offers an explanation of the close relation of values and reasons for action: of why it is that the question whether something that is of value provides reasons is not ”open.” Being of value simply is, its defenders claim, a property that something has in virtue of its having other reason-providing properties. The generic idea of buck-passing is that the property of being good or being of value does not provide reasons. It is other properties that do. There are, however, at least three versions of the account which differ in their understanding of those “other properties.” The first two versions both assume that non-normative properties provide reasons, the difference being that the second allows that normative properties also provide reasons. Both run into difficulties, which I explain, in trying to defend the claim that non-normative properties provide reasons for action. The third version of the buck-passing account which explains being of value...
The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises ca... more The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises can be valid even when nothing good comes of keeping the promise (the problem of 'bare wrongings'), and the bootstrapping problem with explaining how the mere intention to put oneself under an obligation can create such an obligation have been recognized since Hume's famous discussion of the topic. In part 1, I showed that two main views of promising which attempt to solve these problems fall short of explaining the promissory obligation nonetheless. In this second part, I will explain what it takes to show that there is such an obligation (rather than just a reason of a different kind) to keep one's promises, and discuss a further account of promissory obligationthe normative powers account-which perhaps stands a chance to solve both the bootstrapping and the bare wrongings problem (or rather, to show why we needn't be worried about those problems after all), and to successfully explain promissory obligation. It comes in at least two different forms: one which regards the normative power to promise as based on our ability to form special relationships, and another which regards the promisee's 'authority interest' as the basis.
This book concerns one of the most basic philosophical questions: the explanation of normativity ... more This book concerns one of the most basic philosophical questions: the explanation of normativity in its many guises. It lays out succinctly the view of normativity that Raz has sought to develop over many decades and determines its contours through some of its applications. In a nutshell, it is the view that understanding normativity is understanding the roles and structures of normative reasons which, when they are reasons for actions, are based on values. The book aims also to clarify the ways in which normative reasons are made for rational beings like us. It brings the account of normativity to bear on many aspects of the lives of rational beings, most abstractly, their agency, more concretely their ability to form and maintain relationships, and live their lives as social beings with a sense of their identity.
connecting normativity to normative reasons, and their relations to intentions and motivations. O... more connecting normativity to normative reasons, and their relations to intentions and motivations. Offers an account of reasoning. Discusses the possibility of radical moral change, the guise of the bad. Offers an account of normative powers, and of promises. considers moral duties to others, the role of well-being, identity and social bonds
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