Modern philosophy is often said to privilege rationality over received wisdom, but to some extent this is an ideal which we pursue under a measure of uncertainty. It is not always obvious what rationality requires. Nor is it clear how rationality is to be traded against other ideals. This dissertation seeks to clarify both questions as they pertain to the rationality of belief. The choice of topic is apposite, since many argue that the case of belief illustrates that what is rational and what there is most reason to do is one and the same thing. In particular, so-called evidentialists often argue that to believe what the evidence indicates is both to believe rationally and to believe what one has most reason to believe, since (i) rationality consists in responding to reasons, and (ii) only evidence that p can be a reason to believe that p. My first objective is to challenge this thesis. I do so by arguing that the class of reasons that rationalise a belief does not coincide with the class of reasons there are to have the belief all things considered. To equate the two classes would be to conflate the psychological issue of how we respond to reasons with the ontological issue of what reasons there are. My case against evidentialism does not depend on pragmatism being true, however. Even if Pascal was wrong to claim that the expected benefit of believing can be a reason to believe, it does not follow that evidentialism is true. Some non-pragmatic form of anti-evidentialism may still be true. The latter half of the dissertation explores this possibility in greater detail. There I argue that there is at least one class of beliefs which is not subject to common evidentiary strictures. When we use practical reasoning to form intentions about what to do in the future, we typically also form beliefs about what we will do. Yet, those beliefs are not based on evidence about what we will do, I argue. Typically, we do not predict what we do based on what we intend to do. Nor should we. When it is up to us whether we will perform an action, our intentions do to not carry enough weight as evidence that we must use them to predict what we will do. In the last part of the dissertation, I use this point to elucidate how we acquire self-knowledge and how belief relates to truth.

This project is primarily exegetical in nature and aims to provide a rational reconstruction of the concept of moral responsibility in the work of Immanuel Kant, specifically in his Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (GR), and Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR). It consists of three chapters – the first chapter interprets the concept of freedom that follows from the resolution to the Third Antinomy in the CPR. It argues that Kant is best understood here to be providing an unusual but cogent, compatibilist account of freedom that the author terms meta-compatibilism. The second chapter examines the GR and CPrR to interpret the theory of practical reason and moral agency that Kant develops in these works. This chapter concludes by evaluating what has been established about Kant’s ideas of freedom and moral agency at that point in the project, identifying some problems and objections in addition to providing some suggestions for how Kantian ethics might be adapted within a consequentialist framework. The third chapter argues that, for Kant, there are two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions (in addition to a compatibilist definition of freedom) that must obtain for an individual to qualify as responsible for her actions.

Dans notre étude, nous retraçons le chemin d’une reconstruction de la raison pratique à partir du concept de responsabilité. La théorie de la communication est en mesure de nous fournir les moyens théoriques pour saisir l’étroite relation entre responsabilité et normativité pratique, tant au niveau de la reconstruction de la raison pratique, qu’à celui de son application. Néanmoins, il ne s’agit pas d’une reconstruction du mouvement d’ensemble de la pensée de Habermas. Bien au contraire, nous procédons, tel est notre choix méthodologique, par une mise en relief de l’ouverture dialogique de la théorie de la communication à ses interlocuteurs. La théorie de la communication veut restaurer toute la richesse pratique du concept de responsabilité dans ses droits en s’appuyant sur une critique de la subjectivité moderne. Néanmoins, une critique de la théorie de la communication peut montrer que le moment de la constitution de l’intersubjectivité va de pair avec celui du sujet de la communication. / In our study, we are tracing the way of the reconstruction of the practical reason starting from the concept of responsibility. The theory of communication can provide us with the theoretical tools in order to understand the close relation between responsibility and the normative core of practice at the level of the reconstruction of the practical reason as also of its application. Nevertheless, our study does not have for his object the reconstruction of Habermas’ thought as a whole. On the contrary, our methodological choice is to proceed based on the emphasis on the opening of the dialogue of the theory of communication towards its interlocutors. The theory of communication attempts to restore the whole practical richness of the concept of responsibility underpinning a critique of the modern subjectivity. Nevertheless, a critique of the theory of communication can show that the moment of the constitution of the intersubjectivity is consistent with that of the subject of communication.

Esta dissertação visa oferecer uma interpretação da verdade prática em Aristóteles que explique o papel causal da razão prática com relação à ação humana. Nossa hipótese é de que a verdade prática depende fundamentalmente da efetividade causal da razão prática na ação, visto que a razão prática, por sua relação com o desejo, consistiria em algo que é simultaneamente da verdade e da ação, de sorte que a verdade prática não seria uma verdade que apenas pode levar à ação, mas uma verdade que efetivamente leva à ação, ou melhor, ela seria verdade justamente por levar à ação. Para tanto, analisaremos o sentido em que a razão prática é causa de ação mostrando que a realização de seu a verdade está inequivocamente ligada ao desempenho dessa função causal, não podendo se reduzir ao fato de a razão prática descobrir ou se valer de proposições verdadeiras. / This dissertation aims at an interpretation of Aristotles account of practical truth which explains the causal role of practical reason with regards to human action. Our hypothesis is that practical truth depends fundamentally upon practical reasons causal efficacy in action, since practical reason, due to its relation with desire, would be something which is at the same time of truth and action, so that practical truth would not be a kind of truth which can only lead to action, but a kind of truth which elicts action, in other words, it would be truth precisely because it elicts action. In order to do that, we shall analyse the sense in which practical reason is a cause o action showing that the achievement of its the truth is unequivocally connected to the performance of this causal role, implying that practical truth is not reducible to the fact that practical reason discovers or makes use of true propositions.

Chan Chun Hang Henry. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 129-138). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Notes on the sources of the works of Immanuel Kant and keys to abbreviations --- p.i / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter CHAPTER ONE: --- The Supersensible in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason / Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.8 / Chapter II. --- "Brief Survey to the Scholarships on the ""Dialectic""" --- p.11 / Chapter III. --- The Supersensible in the first Critique: A Problematic / Emergence of the Transcendental Ideas --- p.16 / Bound determination and Reason --- p.17 / Antinomy and the Supersensible Totality --- p.24 / Concluding remarks --- p.34 / Chapter IV. --- The Supersensible in the second Critique: Reality of Freedom as Practical Reason --- p.36 / """Keystone “ of the critical system" --- p.37 / Pure practical reason and freedom --- p.39 / Chapter V. --- Tension between the Two Critiques --- p.44 / Chapter VI. --- Conclusion to the Chapter --- p.48 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO: --- A Transition from Nature to Freedom and the Power of Judgement / Chapter I. --- Introduction: From Urtheil to Urtheilskraft --- p.50 / Chapter II. --- Experience as a System and the Urtheilskraft --- p.55 / Chapter III. --- System of Philosophy and the Urtheilskraft --- p.59 / Chapter IV. --- Aesthetic Judgement as Reflective Power of Judgement --- p.64 / Chapter V. --- The Moments of Taste --- p.67 / First Moment: Taste as disinterested --- p.67 / Second Moment: Taste as universal --- p.69 / Third Moment: Taste as purposiveness without purpose --- p.71 / Fourth Moment: Taste as necessary liking --- p.72 / Chapter VI. --- "Imagination, Harmony, and the Deduction of Aesthetic Judgement" --- p.74 / Imagination in the Critique of Pure Reason --- p.76 / Deduction of taste --- p.81 / Chapter VII. --- Concluding Remarks to the Chapter --- p.85 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE: --- Reflective Judgement and the Supersensible Substrate / Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.86 / Chapter II. --- Analogy and Teleological Judgement --- p.88 / Analogy as reflective judgement --- p.89 / Teleological Judgement: Between mechanism and purposiveness --- p.92 / Chapter III. --- Intuitive Understanding and the Supersensible Substrate of Reality --- p.97 / The peculiarity of human cognitive power --- p.99 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR: --- Problems and Legacy of Kant's Concepts of Reflective Judgement and Supersensible Substrate / Chapter I. --- Introduction: Recapitulation of the Systematic Problem of Kant's Philosophy --- p.108 / Chapter II. --- The Supersensible Substrate as seen through Reflective Power of Judgement --- p.113 / Chapter III. --- An Indeterminate Ground of Critical Philosophy --- p.116 / Indeterminate ground of philosophy; or the destination of human freedom? --- p.120 / Chapter IV. --- Concluding Remarks --- p.125 / Conclusion --- p.126 / Bibliography --- p.129

In contrast to his rationalist predecessors, Kant insists that feeling has a pos- itive role to play in moral life. But the exact nature of this role is far from clear. As much as Kant insists that moral action must proceed from a feeling of respect, he maintains with equal insistence that the objective basis of acting from duty must come from practical reason alone, and that when we act from duty we must exclude sensibility from the determining grounds of choice. In what way, then, is respect for the law a feeling? And what place does this feeling have—if any—in Kant’s ethics? The aim of my dissertation is to answer these questions, in part through a close engagement with Kant’s second Critique. I provide a close reading of his claim that our recognition of the moral law must effect both painful and pleasurable feelings in us, and I argue that these feelings, for Kant, are meant to explain how the moral law can figure into the basis of a maxim. By showing why our recognition of the law must be painful from the perspective of self-love, but pleasurable from the perspective of practical reason, Kant is able to show how our desires can acquire normative direction. On my reading, then, the theory of moral sensibility we find in the second Critique addresses a rather troubling form of skepticism: skepticism about moral motivation.In the course of defending this claim, I provide an alternative reading of the development of Kant’s project of moral justification from Groundwork III to the second Critique. Against a wide-spread view in the literature, I suggest that what changes between these texts is not a direction of argument (from freedom to morality, or morality to freedom), but a methodological shift toward the concept of human sensibility. In the later work, I argue, Kant develops a novel approach to moral feeling from the perspective of the deliberating agent; and this in turn clears room in Kant’s ethics for a new kind of a priori knowledge—namely, knowledge of what the activity of practical reason must feel like. The broader aim of my dissertation is thus to put Kant’s work on meta-ethics and moral psychology in closer proximity.

In contrast to his rationalist predecessors, Kant insists that feeling has a pos- itive role to play in moral life. But the exact nature of this role is far from clear. As much as Kant insists that moral action must proceed from a feeling of respect, he maintains with equal insistence that the objective basis of acting from duty must come from practical reason alone, and that when we act from duty we must exclude sensibility from the determining grounds of choice. In what way, then, is respect for the law a feeling? And what place does this feeling have—if any—in Kant’s ethics? The aim of my dissertation is to answer these questions, in part through a close engagement with Kant’s second Critique. I provide a close reading of his claim that our recognition of the moral law must effect both painful and pleasurable feelings in us, and I argue that these feelings, for Kant, are meant to explain how the moral law can figure into the basis of a maxim. By showing why our recognition of the law must be painful from the perspective of self-love, but pleasurable from the perspective of practical reason, Kant is able to show how our desires can acquire normative direction. On my reading, then, the theory of moral sensibility we find in the second Critique addresses a rather troubling form of skepticism: skepticism about moral motivation.In the course of defending this claim, I provide an alternative reading of the development of Kant’s project of moral justification from Groundwork III to the second Critique. Against a wide-spread view in the literature, I suggest that what changes between these texts is not a direction of argument (from freedom to morality, or morality to freedom), but a methodological shift toward the concept of human sensibility. In the later work, I argue, Kant develops a novel approach to moral feeling from the perspective of the deliberating agent; and this in turn clears room in Kant’s ethics for a new kind of a priori knowledge—namely, knowledge of what the activity of practical reason must feel like. The broader aim of my dissertation is thus to put Kant’s work on meta-ethics and moral psychology in closer proximity.

<p>Traditional approaches to the empirical research of human action, rational choice theory dominant amongst them, have implicitly adopted philosophical pre-suppositions about human action that are untenable and in need of correction. In this project, I seek to both (a) diagnose these problems by showing that rational choice theory is insufficiently attentive to both the question of what agents are and of what kind of world they occupy, and (b) overcome these problems by offering a conception of practical reason that is more "realistic" in that it incorporates a philosophically convincing account of world and of the practical agent's relation with it. To that end, I develop a conception of praxis that is centered on the idea that practical agents act within and toward practical horizons rather than exercising a faculty of choice within stable decision spaces.</p> / Dissertation

Moral judgments have tended to be made through the application of certain moral principles and it seems we think we need principles in order to make sound moral judgments. However, the theory of moral particularism, as put forward by Jonathan Dancy (2004), calls this into question and challenges the traditional principled approaches to moral reasoning. This challenge naturally began a debate between those who adhere to principled accounts of moral rationality, and those who advocate a particularist approach. The aim of this thesis is thus to assess the theory of moral particularism as recently put forward by Jonathan Dancy. In pursuing this project I initially set up a survey of the field of environmental ethics within which to explore traditional approaches to applied ethics. This survey suggests that applied ethical problems have traditionally been solved using various principled approaches and if we are inclined to take the particularist challenge seriously, this suggests a philosophical conundrum. On the one hand, increasingly important and pressing applied environmental ethical concerns suggest there is a practical need for ethical principles, whilst on the other hand, the particularist claim is that we do not need principles in order to make sound moral judgments. The survey of environmental ethics then establishes the first side of the philosophical conundrum. I then move to explore the second side of the conundrum; the theory of moral particularism, looking at why the challenge it presents to traditional principled approaches needs to be taken seriously. I then move to explore theoretical challenges to moral particularism; this is done to establish the current state of the theoretical debate between the particularist and the generalist. I conclude from this that the theoretical debate between the two has currently reached a stalemate; it is, at present, simply not clear which account is correct. As the main goal of this study is to evaluate particularism, this apparent stalemate led me to explore certain practical challenges to particularist theory as a means of advancing the debate. As particularism is a theory that challenges our traditional conception of how to make moral judgments, there will be important implications for applied ethics if particularism turns out to be correct, and 1 thus finally apply particularism to a practical environmental problem in order to assess the validity of practical challenges to particularism. In order to do this, a particularist ethic is applied to the question of whether or not to allow mining in Kakadu National Park in Australia. This provides a means of seeing what an applied particularist ethic could look like, as well as providing something of an answer to the practical challenge to particularism and achieving the goal of evaluating it within the applied context of environmental ethics. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-81). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.