Constructing Practical Reasons

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Müller
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
The Future ◽  
Great Pain ◽  
Distinctive Role

Some things are reasons for us to perform certain actions. That it will spare you great pain in the future, for example, is a reason for you to go to the dentist now, and that you are already late for work is a reason for you not to read the next article in the morning paper. Why are such considerations reasons for or against certain actions? Constructivism offers an intriguing answer to this question. Its basic idea is often encapsulated in the slogan that reasons are not discovered but made by us. This book elaborates the constructivist idea into a fully fledged account of practical reasons, makes its theoretical commitments explicit, and defends it against some well-known objections. It begins with an examination of the distinctive role that reason judgements play in the process of practical reasoning. This provides the resources for an anti-representationalist conception of the nature of those judgements, according to which they are true, if they are true, not because they accurately represent certain normative facts, but because of their role in sound reasoning. On the resulting view, a consideration owes its status as a reason to the truth of the corresponding reason judgement and thus, ultimately, to the soundness of a certain episode of reasoning. Consequently, our practical reasons exhibit a kind of mind-dependence, but this does not force us to deny their objectivity.

Taking Stock

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Dancy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
A Value ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning ◽  
Similar Explanation

This chapter considers some general issues about the nature of the account that is emerging. It asks whether moral reasoning should have been treated as it was in Chapter 5. It also askes whether an explanation of practical reasons by appeal to value could be mirrored by a similar explanation of theoretical reasoning if one thinks of truth as a value. One might also think of the probability of a belief as a respect in which it is of value. The chapter ends by introducing the idea of a focalist account, and maintains that the account offered of practical reasoning is focalist.

Moral Reasoning and the Primacy of the Practical

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Dancy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Complete Theory ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Moral Thought

This chapter considers how to locate moral reasoning in terms of the structures that have emerged so far. It does not attempt to write a complete theory of moral thought. Its main purpose is rather to reassure us that moral reasoning—which might seem to be somehow both practical and theoretical at once—can be perfectly well handled using the tools developed in previous chapters. It also considers the question how we are to explain practical reasoning—and practical reasons more generally—by contrast with the explanation of theoretical reasons and reasoning offered in Chapter 4. This leads us to the first appearance of the Primacy of the Practical. The second appearance concerns reasons to intend.

Correct reasoning

2020 ◽  
pp. 141-188
Author(s):  
Andreas Müller
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Correct Reasoning

According to the account of practical reasons presented in Chapter 4, those reasons are ultimately grounded in the soundness of certain episodes of practical reasoning. This chapter addresses what it is for an episode of practical reasoning to be correct, which is a necessary condition for their soundness. It first shows that, at least when it is applied to reasoning, the notion of correctness need not itself be understood in terms of reasons, which would render the constructivist’s overall view circular. Then, it presents an account that characterizes correct reasoning as reasoning in compliance with the constitutive rules of that activity. It also discusses how those rules can be determined, and what the constructivist should say about their ontological status.

Children with Disabilities: A Critical Appraisal

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 464-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya Sabatello
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Children With Disabilities ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Remedial Measures ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Children’S Perspectives ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
The Future

This essay contemplates the rights of children with disabilities under international law. It analyses the philosophical and practical reasons for the failure of the Convention on the Rights of the Child to protect the rights of children with disabilities, and looks at the remedial measures adopted under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The argument advanced is that, especially when children’s perspectives are considered, assistive technologies are at the heart of national and international efforts to advance the rights of children with disabilities, most importantly, a right to inclusion. I consider the challenges ahead and draw conclusions on the future of the rights of children with disabilities.

Population projections: Notes on the choice of bases

1952 ◽  
Vol 11 (02) ◽  
pp. 60-75
Author(s):  
P. R. Cox
Keyword(s):  
Long Range ◽  
Population Projections ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Future ◽  
Made In

Any discussion of mortality, fertility or migration assumptions for population projections, or of the various technical questions that arise, must be preceded by some consideration of the nature and purpose of the work that has been undertaken. It should be asked why such calculations are necessary and what is expected from the results. Fundamentally, inquiry about the future of the population arises from a natural curiosity about man's surroundings in space and in time, and this does not seem to have been damped by past failures to foresee developments; otherwise, long-range projections would by now have ceased to be made, in view of the poor prospects of success. Beyond this, however, there are to-day a variety of practical reasons for which it is deemed necessary to estimate the future numbers of persons in given areas with such accuracy as is possible.

Practical Reasoning and Practical Reasons in Hume

Hume Studies ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Schafer
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Practical Reasons

Normative And Empirical Business Ethics: Separation, Marriage Of Convenience, Or Marriage Of Necessity?

1994 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary R. Weaver ◽  
Linda Klebe Trevino
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Theoretical Integration ◽  
Empirical Inquiry ◽  
Ethics Research ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract:This paper outlines three conceptions of the relationship between normative and empirical business ethics, views we refer to as parallel, symbiotic, and integrative. Parallelism rejects efforts to link normative and empirical inquiry, for both conceptual and practical reasons. The symbiotic position supports a practical relationship in which normative and/or empirical business ethics rely on each other for guidance in setting agenda or in applying the results of their conceptually and methodologically distinct inquiries. Theoretical integration countenances a deeper merging of prima facie distinct forms of inquiry, involving alterations or combinations of theory, metatheoretical assumptions, and methodology. This paper explicates these positions, summarizes arguments for and against each, and considers their implications for the future of business ethics research.

scholarly journals Affective Experience and Evidence for Animal Consciousness

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-127
Author(s):  
Patrick Butlin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Future Study ◽  
Action Selection ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Affective Experience ◽  
Animal Consciousness ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Directed Action ◽  
The Future ◽  
Similar Content

Affective experience in nonhuman animals is of great interest for both theoretical and practical reasons. This paper highlights research by the psychologists Anthony Dickinson and Bernard Balleine which provides particularly good evidence of conscious affective experience in rats. This evidence is compelling because it implicates a sophisticated system for goal-directed action selection, and demonstrates a contrast between apparently conscious and unconscious evaluative representations with similar content. Meanwhile, the evidence provided by some well-known studies on pain in nonhuman animals is much less convincing. This comparison may offer lessons for the future study of animal consciousness.

Reasoning and reason judgements

2020 ◽  
pp. 33-81
Author(s):  
Andreas Müller
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Infinite Regress ◽  
Constructivist Theory ◽  
Practical Reasons

This chapter takes the first step in developing a constructivist theory of practical reasons. It does so by giving an account of the cognitive role that judgements about those reasons play in an agent’s psychology. In particular, it presents the Normative Guidance Account of practical reasoning, according to which such reasoning always involves a reason judgement that guides it. This account is shown to be preferable to competing accounts in the literature and defended against two influential objections: the objection that it requires too much conceptual sophistication and thus excludes certain reasoners, and the objection that it leads into an infinite regress.

Practical Reason

Philosophy ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jussi Suikkanen
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Philosophical Investigation ◽  
Mental Faculty

Practical reason is the mental faculty that enables agents to deliberate about what they ought to do and to act on the basis of such deliberation. Much of the philosophical investigation of practical reason and its limits has been done in three historical traditions, originating from Aristotle, Hume, and Kant. This article begins from some of the most interesting recent publications within these traditions. It then moves on to the literature of the different problem-centered debates concerning practical reason, practical reasoning, and rationality. The notion of philosophy of practical reason has also been used more widely to cover philosophy of normativity generally, that is, philosophical investigation about what we ought to do, what reasons we have, and so on. Two sections of this bibliography—Dualism of Practical Reason: Prudence versus Morality and Practical Reasons—include some literature of the philosophy of practical reason in this wider sense.

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