Grounding practical normativity: going hybrid

Philosophical Studies 164 (1):163-187 (2013)
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Abstract

In virtue of what is something a reason for action? That is, what makes a consideration a reason to act? This is a metaphysical or meta-normative question about the grounding of reasons for action. The answer to the grounding question has been traditionally given in ‘pure’, univocal terms. This paper argues that there is good reason to understand the ground of practical normativity as a hybrid of traditional ‘pure’ views. The paper 1) surveys the three leading ‘pure’ answers to the question of a normative ground, 2) examines one or two of the most difficult problems for each, proposing along the way a new objection to one, and 3) argues that a particular hybrid view about normative grounds –‘hybrid voluntarism’ – avoids each of the main problems faced by the three leading ‘pure’ views.

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Ruth Chang
Oxford University

Citations of this work

Which Reasons? Which Rationality?Daniel Fogal & Alex Worsnip - 2021 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 8.
Hard Choices.Ruth Chang - 2017 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 3 (1):1-21.
Your word against mine: the power of uptake.Lucy McDonald - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):3505-3526.
Do We Have Normative Powers?Ruth Chang - 2020 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 94 (1):275-300.

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References found in this work

What we owe to each other.Thomas Scanlon - 1998 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
On What Matters: Two-Volume Set.Derek Parfit - 2011 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The sources of normativity.Christine M. Korsgaard - 1996 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Onora O'Neill.
Ethics without principles.Jonathan Dancy - 2004 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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