Reasons and Causes Edited by Errol Lord (Princeton University)

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  • Peter Brian Barry, Intentional Action, Causation, and Deviance.
    It is reasonably well accepted that the explanation of intentional action is teleological explanation. Very roughly, an explanation of some event, E, is teleological only if it explains E by citing some goal or purpose or reason that produced E. Alternatively, teleological explanations of intentional action explain “by citing the state of affairs toward which the behavior was directed” thereby answering questions like “To what end was the agent’s behavior directed?” Causalism—advocated by causalists—is the thesis that explanations of intentional action (...)
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  • Henk bij de Weg, Dretske and the Causality of Reasons.
    In his work on reasons Dretske argues that reasons are only worthwhile for having them if they are causally relevant for explaining behaviour, which he elaborates in his representational theory of explanation. The author argues against this view by showing that there are reasons that are relevant for explaining behaviour but not causally relevant. He gives a linguistic foundation of his argumentation and shows that Dretske’s representational theory cannot explain human actions because man does not only perceive things that have (...)
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  • Rüdiger Bittner (2001). Doing Things for Reasons. Oxford University Press.
    What exactly are the reasons we do things, and how are they related to the resulting actions? Bittner explores this question and proposes an answer: a reason is a response to that state of affairs. Elegantly written, this work is a substantial contribution to the fields of rationality, ethics, and action theory.
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  • Stewart Candlish & Nic Damnjanovic, Reason, Action and the Will: The Fall and Rise of Causalism.
    When Donald Davidson published his influential article ‘Actions, Reasons and Causes’ [1963], many of his contemporaries were convinced that reasons for action could not be causes of anything, so that even an explanation such as ‘Gilbert knelt because he had decided to propose to Gertrude’ did not work by citing Gilbert’s decision as a cause of his kneeling. Davidson was mainly responsible for demolishing that consensus and reinstating causalism—the thesis that psychological or rationalizing explanations of human behaviour are a species (...)
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  • Giuseppina D'Oro (2007). Two Dogmas of Contemporary Philosophy of Action. Journal of the Philosophy of History 1 (1):10-24.
    Davidson's seminal essay "Actions, Reasons and Causes" brought about a paradigm shift in the theory of action. Before Davidson the consensus was that the fundamental task of a theory of action was to elucidate the concept of action and event explanation. The debate concerning the nature of action explanation thus took place primarily in the philosophy of history and social science and was focussed on purely methodological issues. After Davidson it has been assumed that the fundamental challenge for the theory (...)
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  • Stephen Darwall (2003). Desires, Reasons, and Causes. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2):436–443.
    Jonathan Dancy’s Practical Reality makes a significant contribution to clarifying the relationship between desire and reasons for acting, both the normative reasons we seek in deliberation and the motivating reasons we cite in explanation. About the former, Dancy argues that, not only are normative reasons not all grounded in desires, but, more radically, the fact that one desires something is never itself a normative reason. And he argues that desires fail to figure in motivating reasons also, concluding that neither the (...)
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  • Donald Davidson (1963). Actions, Reasons, and Causes. Journal of Philosophy 60 (23):685-700.
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  • Wayne A. Davis (2005). Reasons and Psychological Causes. Philosophical Studies 122 (1).
    The causal theory of reasons holds that acting for a reason entails that the agents action was caused by his or her beliefs and desires. While Donald Davidson (1963) and others effectively silenced the first objections to the theory, a new round has emerged. The most important recent attack is presented by Jonathan Dancy in Practical Reality (2000) and subsequent work. This paper will defend the causal theory against Dancy and others, including Schueler (1995), Stoutland (1999, 2001), and Ginet (2002).Dancy (...)
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  • Ezio Di Nucci (2008). Mind Out of Action. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh
    We think less than we think. My thesis moves from this suspicion to show that standard accounts of intentional action can't explain the whole of agency. Causalist accounts such as Davidson's and Bratman's, according to which an action can be intentional only if it is caused by a particular mental state of the agent, don't work for every kind of action. So-called automatic actions, effortless performances over which the agent doesn't deliberate, and to which she doesn't need to pay attention, (...)
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  • Jason Dickenson (2007). Reasons, Causes, and Contrasts. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (1):1–23.
    The standard argument for the causal theory of action is "Davidson's Challenge": explain the connection between reasons and actions without appealing to the idea that reasons cause actions. I argue that this is an argument to the best contrastive explanation. After examining the nature of contrastive explanation in detail, I show that the causalist does not yet have the best explanation. The best explanation would appeal further to the motivational strength of reasons. Finally, I show how this undermines the argument (...)
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  • Franz Dietrich & Christian List, A Reason-Based Model of Rational Choice.
    The standard rational choice paradigm explains an individual’s preferences by his beliefs and his fundamental desires. For instance, someone’s preference for joining the army might be explained by certain beliefs about what life in the army is like and a desire for such a life. When the paradigm is spelled out formally, the objects of preferences (such as possible professions) are usually ranked according to their expected utility, derived using a probability function reflecting current beliefs and a utility function reflecting (...)
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  • Fred Dretske (1989). Reasons and Causes. Philosophical Perspectives 3:1-15.
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  • Fred Dretske (1988). Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes. MIT Press.
    In this lucid portrayal of human behavior, Fred Dretske provides an original account of the way reasons function in the causal explanation of behavior.
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  • Stephen Finlay (2008). Motivation to the Means. In David Chan (ed.), Values, Rational Choice and the Will.
    Rationalists including Nagel and Korsgaard argue that motivation to the means to our desired ends cannot be explained by appeal to the desire for the end. They claim that a satisfactory explanation of this motivational connection must appeal to a faculty of practical reason motivated in response to desireindependent norms of reason. This paper builds on ideas in the work of Hume and Donald Davidson to demonstrate how the desire for the end is sufficient for explaining motivation to the means. (...)
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  • Bronwyn Finnigan & Koji Tanaka (forthcoming). Don't Think! Just Act! In Graham Priest & Damon Young (eds.), Philosophy and the Martial Arts. Open Court.
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  • Gilbert H. Harman (1970). Knowledge, Reasons, and Causes. Journal of Philosophy 67 (21):841-855.
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  • Joshua Knobe (2007). Reason Explanation in Folk Psychology. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 31 (1):90–106.
    Consider the following explanation: (1) George took his umbrella because it was just about to rain. This is an explanation of a quite distinctive sort. It is profoundly different from the sort of explanation we might use to explain, say, the movements of a bouncing ball or the gradual rise of the tide on a beach. Unlike these other types of explanations, it explains an agent’s behavior by describing the agent’s own _reasons_ for performing that behavior. Explanations that work in (...)
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  • James Lenman (2009). Reasons for Action: Justification Vs. Explanation. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Modern philosophical literature distinguishes between explanatory reasons and justifying reasons. The former are reasons we appeal to in attempting to explain actions and attitudes. The latter are reasons we appeal to in attempting to justify them.
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  • Neil C. Manson (2004). Reason Explanation a First-Order Rationalizing Account. Philosophical Explorations 7 (2):113 – 129.
    How do reason explanations explain? One view is that they require the deployment of a tacit psychological theory; another is that even if no tacit theory is involved, we must still conceive of reasons as mental states. By focusing on the subjective nature of agency, and by casting explanations as responses to 'why' questions that assuage agents' puzzlement, reason explanations can be profitably understood as part of our traffic in first-order content amongst perspectival subjects. An outline is offered of such (...)
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  • Alfred R. Mele (1983). Akrasia, Reasons, and Causes. Philosophical Studies 44 (3):345-368.
    The occurrence or apparent occurrence of incontinent actions challenges several influential views in ethics and the philosophy of mind, e.g., Hare's prescriptivism and the Socratic idea that we always act in the light of the imagined greatest good. It also raises, as I shall explain, an interesting and instructive problem for proponents of causal theories of action. But whereas Socrates and Hare attempt to avoid the difficulties with which akrasia confronts them by denying - wrongly, I shall argue - that (...)
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  • Bill Pollard (2005). Naturalizing the Space of Reasons. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 13 (1):69 – 82.
    Given the Sellarsian distinction between the space of causes and the space of reasons, the naturalist seeks to articulate how these two spaces are unproblematically related. In Mind and World (1996) John McDowell suggests that such a naturalism can be achieved by pointing out that we work our way into the space of reasons by the process of upbringing he calls Bildung. 'The resulting habits of thought and action', writes McDowell, 'are second nature' (p. 84). In this paper I expose (...)
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  • Joseph Raz (2009). Reasons : Explanatory and Normative. In Constantine Sandis (ed.), New Essays on the Explanation of Action. Palgrave Macmillan.
    A thesis familiar by being as often disputed as defended has it that intentional action is action for a reason. The present paper contributes to the defence of a weaker version of it, namely: Acting with an intention or a purpose is acting (as things appear to one) for a reason.
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  • Robert J. Richman (1969). Reasons and Causes: Some Puzzles. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 47 (1):42 – 50.
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  • Mark Risjord (2005). Reasons, Causes, and Action Explanation. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 35 (3).
    To explain an intentional action one must exhibit the agent’s reasons. Donald Davidson famously argued that the only clear way to understand action explanation is to hold that reasons are causes. Davidson’s discussion conflated two issues: whether reasons are causes and whether reasons causally explain intentional action. Contemporary work on explanation and normativity help disentangle these issues and ground an argument that intentional action explanations cannot be a species of causal explanation. Interestingly, this conclusion is consistent with Davidson’s conclusion that (...)
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  • Constantine Sandis (ed.) (2009). New Essays on the Explanation of Action. Palgrave Macmillan.
    A solid cast of contributors present the first collection of essays on the Philosophy of Action.
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  • Markus E. Schlosser (2007). Basic Deviance Reconsidered. Analysis 67 (295):186–194.
    Most contemporary philosophers of action agree on the following claims. Firstly, the possibility of deviant or wayward causal chains poses a serious problem for the standard-causal theory of action. Secondly, we can distinguish between different kinds of deviant causal chains in the theory of action. In particular, we can distinguish between cases of basic and cases of consequential deviance. Thirdly, the problem of consequential deviance admits of a fairly straightforward solution, whereas the possibility of basic deviance constitutes a separate and (...)
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  • G. F. Schueler (2003). Reasons and Purposes: Human Rationality and the Teleological Explanation of Action. Oxford University Press.
    People act for reasons. That is how we understand ourselves. But what is it to act for a reason? This is what Fred Schueler investigates. He rejects the dominant view that the beliefs and desires that constitute our reasons for acting simply cause us to act as we do, and argues instead for a view centred on practical deliberation--our ability to evaluate the reasons we accept. Schueler's account of 'reasons explanations' emphasizes the relation between reasons and purposes, and the fact (...)
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  • Kieran Setiya (forthcoming). Reasons and Causes. European Journal of Philosophy.
    Abstract: This paper argues for a causal-psychological account of acting for reasons. This view is distinguished from a more ambitious causal theory of action, clarified as far as possible, and motivated—against non-reductive, teleological, and behaviourist alternatives—on broadly metaphysical grounds.
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  • Kieran Setiya (2003). Explaining Action. Philosophical Review 112 (3):339-393.
    Argues that, in acting for a reason, one takes that reason to explain one's action, not to justify it: reasons for acting need not be seen "under the guise of the good". The argument turns on the need to explain the place of "practical knowledge" - knowing what one is doing - in intentional action. A revised and expanded version of this material appears in Part One of "Reasons without Rationalism" (Princeton, 2007).
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  • Michael Smith (2009). The Explanatory Role of Being Rational. In David Sobel & Steven Wall (eds.), Reasons for Action. Cambridge University Press.
    Humeans hold that actions are movements of an agent's body that are suitably caused by a desire that things be a certain way and a belief on the agent's behalf that something she can just do, namely perform a movement of her body of the kind to be explained, has some suitable chance of making things that way (Davidson 1963). Movements of the body that are caused in some other way aren't actions, but are rather things that merely happen to (...)
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  • Michael Smith (2003). Humeanism, Psychologism, and the Normative Story. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2):460–467.
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  • Michael Smith (1994/1995). The Moral Problem. Blackwell.
    This widely anticipated book offers a systematic introduction to and striking analysis of the central issues animating current debate in moral philosophy. It will be of interest to anyone with a serious interest in the philosophical foundations of ethics. Topics discussed include: realist vs. anti-realist accounts of moral truth, cognitivist vs. expressivist accounts of moral judgment, internalist vs. externalist accounts of the relation between moral judgment and the will, Humean vs. anti-Humean theories of motivation, and the debate between those who (...)
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  • Michael Smith (1988). On Humeans, Anti-Humeans, and Motivation: A Reply to Pettit. Mind 97 (388):589-595.
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  • Michael Smith (1987). The Humean Theory of Motivation. Mind 96 (381):36-61.
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  • Wolfgang Spohn (1983). Deterministic and Probabilistic Reasons and Causes. Erkenntnis 19 (1-3).
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  • Dennis W. Stampe (1990). Desires as Reasons--Discussion Notes on Fred Dretske's Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (4):787-793.
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  • Tim Thornton (1997). Reasons and Causes in Philosophy and Psychopathology. Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 4 (4):307-317.
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  • John J. Tilley (2004). Justifying Reasons, Motivating Reasons, and Agent Relativism in Ethics. Philosophical Studies 118 (3).
    According to agent relativism, each person's moral requirements are relative to her desires or interests. That is, whether a person morally ought to depends on what interests or desires she has. Some philosophers charge that the main argument for agent relativism trades on an ambiguity –specifically, an ambiguity in ``reason,'' ``reasonfor action,'' or a kindred term. This charge has been common, and widely thought to damage the case for agent relativism, since its appearance, in 1958, in a now classic paper (...)
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  • John Turri (2009). The Ontology of Epistemic Reasons. Noûs 43 (3):490-512.
    Epistemic reasons are mental states. They are not propositions or non-mental facts. The discussion proceeds as follows. Section 1 introduces the topic. Section 2 gives two concrete examples of how our topic directly affects the internalism/externalism debate in normative epistemology. Section 3 responds to an argument against the view that reasons are mental states. Section 4 presents two problems for the view that reasons are propositions. Section 5 presents two problems for the view that reasons are non-mental facts. Section 6 (...)
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  • Gregory Vlastos (1969). Reasons and Causes in the Phaedo. Philosophical Review 78 (3):291-325.
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  • Aaron Z. Zimmerman (forthcoming). Hume's Reasons. Hume Studies.
    My aim is to formulate a charitable, well-grounded reading of Hume's view of practical reason. In §1-§2 I defend the teleological reading of Hume’s claim that reason is enslaved to the passions. Then, in §3, I outline the basic account of prudence Hume provides at Treatise 2.3.3-4, and go on to argue that it does not provide Hume’s complete account of practical reason. In §4 I begin to fill out Hume’s view of reason’s practical or action-guiding role, by describing his (...)
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