Reasons for Action : Toward a Normative Theory and Meta-Level Criteria

B C Postow

ISBN 10: 0792357000 / ISBN 13: 9780792357001

Editore: Springer Mai 1999, 1999

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Neuware - 2 first-person point of view, I acknowledge these possible handicaps and try to overcome them. Other people may coherently judge that I am incapable of figuring out correctly what I rationally ought to do, or they may inform me of reasons of which I had heretofore been ignorant, or they may try to help me overcome intellectual hindrances. Like me, these people would be assuming that the goal is to identify what I really rationally ought to do. Nevertheless, we are concerned with reasons for the agent to act in a certain way, rather than with reasons, say, for someone to want it to be the case that the agent act. Thus to be a reason in our sense is to be a consideration which has an appropriate guiding role to play in the. agents deliberation. (An agent is guided by reasons if she determines what to do in light of the reasons. ) Suppose then that a nor mative theory says that it is supremely desirable, or that it rationally ought to be the case, that agents act in a way that maximizes the general utility, but that (since the general utility is never in fact maximized by those who pay attention to it) considerations of the general utility should play no role in the agents' deliberation. Such a theory would not be said to ascribe to agents a reason to maximize the general utility on our usage.

Codice articolo 9780792357001

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• Titolo: Reasons for Action : Toward a Normative Theory and Meta-Level Criteria
• Editore: Springer Mai 1999
• Data di pubblicazione: 1999
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0792357000
• ISBN 13: 9780792357001
• Rilegatura: Buch
• Condizione: Neu
• Dimensioni: 241 L x 160 A x 17 P (millimetri) 241 millimetri di larghezza per 160 millimetri di altezza per 17 millimetri di profondità
• Peso: 500 grammi

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Riassunto

What, ultimately, is there good reason to do? Proposing a unified theory of agent-dependent reasons and agent-independent reasons, this work holds that principles which assign reasons to agents are valid if and only if they make maximally good sense in the light of relevant data and background theories. The theory avoids problems encountered by views associated with Nagel, Parfit, Brandt, Hubin, Gert, Baier, and Tiberius, amongst others. By what criteria should a normative theory of ultimate reasons be judged? Plausible meta-level criteria emerge from a process of identifying the criteria that have been used, sometimes unwittingly, by various theorists; categorizing and evaluating the criteria in the light of each other; and proposing revisions on that basis. This method escapes the drawbacks of rival approaches, such as those associated with Parfit, Gert, and Darwall. The resulting criteria cast a favourable light on the proposed normative theory of ultimate reasons.

Contenuti

Acknowledgments. Introduction. 1. Some Rival Reasons Theories. 2. The Inclusive Data View. 3. A Rival Approach: Darwall's Argument. 4. Are We Limited to a Particular Tradition? 5. Parfit-Inspired Candidates for Meta-Level Criteria. 6. Brandt-Inspired Candidates for Meta-Level Criteria. 7. Selecting and Using Meta-Level Criteria. Bibliography of Works Cited. Index.