While each of us has an intuitive sense of what a reason is, when considered more carefully the concept is not so clear. There are a number of questions to which any successful account of reasons will provide some answer. For example, on some accounts reasons may appear to be metaphysically odd entities, unlike other sorts of facts in our world. From here there are very serious questions which spring up regarding the motivational efficacy of reasons: given the nature of reasons, as respective accounts describe them, how is it that reasons get a grip in an agent? Further, whatever reasons are, and in whichever relation agents stand to reasons, how is it that agents get in touch with truths about reasons? How in theory – and importantly, in practice – do agents figure out which reasons apply to them? I will be defending a view of reasons in which reasons are primitive. This is what T.M. Scanlon calls 'Reasons Fundamentalism'. In particular, I will defend this view against charges which claim that an account of reasons as primitive or fundamental fails us in the following three respects: 1) it cannot provide us with an adequate account of what sorts of facts reasons are, and how they intermingle with other sorts of facts; 2) it cannot provide us with adequate account of how a consideration can count as a reason for an agent even if that agent fails to be gripped by the consideration, and; 3) it cannot provide us with an adequate account of how we figure out, in principle and in practice, what count as reasons and which reasons apply to us. If reasons are fundamental, existing and applying to us independently of anything already true of particular agents and are the sorts of things we can come to understand through reflection, it seems that such a story also succeeds in capturing our phenomenological experience of practical reasoning in our every day lives. This, I will suggest, goes some distance toward setting it apart from – and ahead of – other accounts. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-07 20:05:36.934

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1918. / Typewritten. "Abstract": 9 leaves at end. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Li King Wai. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 165-167). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1. --- Introduction / "Desire, reason, and motivation" / Chapter I. --- The Issue --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- Desires and Motives --- p.2 / Chapter III. --- "Reason，Reasoning, and Practical Reason" --- p.7 / Chapter IV. --- The Question of the Gap --- p.8 / Chapter V. --- The Motivational Problem --- p.11 / Chapter VI. --- The Motivational Problem: A factual inquiry or a normative inquiry? --- p.16 / Chapter VII. --- Motivational Priority: Reason or desire? --- p.19 / Chapter VIII. --- An Overview of the Following Chapters --- p.21 / Chapter 2. --- Cognitivist Motivational Internalism / Kosgaard's attempt / Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.27 / Chapter II. --- Internalism Requirement (IR) --- p.30 / Chapter III. --- Condition of being Practically Rational (CPR) --- p.31 / Chapter IV. --- What IR Implies and Doesn't Imply --- p.36 / Chapter V. --- Motivational Skepticism Assumes Content Skepticism --- p.41 / Chapter VI. --- A Humean Conception of Practical Reason --- p.47 / Chapter VII. --- Kosgaard vs. Williams on the Proper Interpretation of IR --- p.52 / Chapter 3. --- Varieties of Humeanism / "Arguments for the principle of desire-in, desire-out" / Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.57 / Chapter II. --- Comprehensive Humeanism: An overview --- p.61 / Chapter III. --- Bald Instrumentalism --- p.64 / Chapter IV. --- Argument from Direction of Fit --- p.68 / Chapter V. --- Partial Humeanism (PH) --- p.86 / Chapter VI. --- Looking Backward and Looking Forward --- p.91 / Chapter 4. --- Quasi-Humeanism / Backgrounding PDIO / Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.93 / Chapter II. --- Strict Background View of Desire --- p.94 / Chapter III. --- Background Desire as an Enabling Condition --- p.119 / Chapter IV. --- Concluding Remarks --- p.123 / Chapter 5. --- Fusionist Alternative / Dissolving the reason/ desire dichotomy / Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.125 / Chapter II. --- Setting the Stage: The status of the debate without the fusionist alternative --- p.126 / Chapter III. --- Challenges to Humeanism: Motivation for a fusionist alternative --- p.129 / Chapter IV. --- The Fusionist Alternative --- p.133 / Chapter V. --- Three Merits of the Fusionist Account --- p.144 / Chapter VI. --- Conclusion --- p.151 / Chapter 6. --- Conclusion / Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.154 / Chapter II. --- Seeing the Point of a Rational Consideration and Being Motivated --- p.155 / Chapter III. --- The Inadequacies of CMI? --- p.159 / Chapter IV. --- The Dilemma of a Humean Conception of Desire --- p.160 / Chapter V. --- PDIO: Is it exclusively reserved for Humeanism? --- p.162 / Chapter VI. --- Conclusion: Groping in the dark --- p.163 / Bibliography --- p.165

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2009. / Thesis directed by Ralph McInerny and David Solomon for the Department of Philosophy. "June 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 234-239).

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Philosophy, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

One of the hot topics in doxastic epistemology at the moment is how to characterise the relationship between beliefs and truth. The extant literature is dominated by two views; a teleological understanding of the relationship – championed by people such as Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen – and a normative understanding of the relationship – championed by among others Nishi Shah. I argue that neither view does an adequate job of capturing the relationship between beliefs and truth. I argue that these two views should be abandoned in favour of a third model that sees beliefs as part of a doxastic system that aims at rationality.

Metaethical constructivism approaches metaethical questions from the perspective of the nature of normativity; and it approaches questions about the nature of normativity from the perspective of agency. According to constructivism, normativity originates in the agent. The agent gives herself laws, and these laws are normative because the agent has given them to herself. Placing the agent as the source of normativity enables constructivism to answer metaphysical and epistemological questions about morality with ease. It also allows it to account for the relation between moral judgements and action. But placing the agent as the source of normativity raises two questions. First, if the laws that the agent issues to herself are normative because she issues them to herself, what are the standards of correctness of those laws? Second, if the agent is her own source of normativity, how can she accommodate the normative status of others? In this thesis I explore whether constructivism can answer those questions. In Chapter 1 I argue that the constructivist account of normativity is rich enough to answer the first question. From Chapter 2 onwards I argue that constructivism cannot answer the second question. I argue that its account of normativity requires that the agent does not accommodate the normative status of others.

This thesis is an examination of the foundations of practical reason. Building on the later work of Wittgenstein, I argue for a subjectivist view of moral judgment and of judgments about reasons for action. On this view, moral judgments and judgments about reasons for action can be true or false, but they are not objective. The argument for this view has the form of an inference to the best explanation. Using a distinction between primary and secondary qualities, I suggest that moral judgments and judgments about reasons for action should not be construed as referring to an ethical or normative reality that exists independently of us. There are ethical facts and facts about our reasons, but these facts arise as the result of our involvement in a linguistic practice. This provides a new way of accounting for these judgments that differs both from moral realism and expressivism. The view of reasons that emerges is closely related to, but not identical with, reasons internalism as described by Bernard Williams. I reject his argument in favour of internalism and provide a new and independent argument to support this view of our reasons. In the course of spelling out that argument, I show why internalism as described by Williams should be modified, and why this does not commit us to externalism. In the final chapters, I show that there is an important parallel between our practical predicament and the account of our epistemic condition as portrayed by Wittgenstein. The inference to the best explanation is completed by considering a number of objections to subjectivism that are based on the idea that a subjectivist account of moral judgment and of reasons fails to do justice to the ethical phenomena. I reject these objections, and suggest that a subjectivist can both be reflectively aware of his subjectivism and continue to live well.

This study brings the biblical book of Proverbs into discussion with two significant accounts of the nature and foundation of practical reason in Christian ethics, one medieval—Thomas Aquinas—and one modern—Oliver O'Donovan. It begins with an outline of the complexities of practical reason in the thought of Aristotle, which leads to an extended discussion of Aquinas's moral theory. The centrality of Proverbs 8 in Aquinas's account of eternal law opens the way to a reading of Proverbs, in which the central constructive ideas of the thesis are developed. These are then sharpened through an engagement with the work of Oliver O'Donovan. The conclusions are consolidated and developed in a final, constructive chapter. The study's central thesis is that the way the Book of Proverbs thinks about wisdom presents an important challenge to the way practical reason has been understood in the Western theological and philosophical tradition. Rather than being a perfection of speculative knowledge, in the Book of Proverbs, wisdom is a practical knowledge of how to act well, grounded in the reality of the world God has made. God's wisdom is therefore better understood as a perfection of his action, which is why it ultimately relates to Jesus Christ crucified. This perspective reframes our understanding of certain aspects of Christian ethical theory. It shows that created, natural order is a crucial, unavoidable presupposition of Christian ethics, but not its only norm. It helps us understand why moral deliberation and discernment centres on the construal of actions as kinds. Finally, it clarifies the purpose of Christian ethics as a theoretical discipline that accompanies the practical wisdom of the Christian life.