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- Douglas W. Portmore, Chapter 3: The Teleological Conception of Practical Reasons.This is Chapter 3 of my Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality. In this chapter, I defend the teleological conception of practical reasons, which holds that the reasons there are for and against performing a given act are wholly determined by the reasons there are for and against preferring its outcome to those of its available alternatives, such that, if S has most reason to perform x, all things considered, then, of all the outcomes that S could bring about, S has most reason to desire that Ox (i.e., x’s outcome) obtains, all things considered.
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In this paper, I defend the teleological conception of practical reasons, which holds that “since any rational action must aim at some result, reasons that bear on whether to perform an action must appeal to the desirability or undesirability of having that result occur, taking into account also the intrinsic value of the act itself” (Scanlon 1998, 84). On this conception, practical reasoning involves, first, determining which ends one has reason to desire and, second, determining which available action will best (...)
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| | Scholar | Share & More ... This is a book on morality, rationality, and the interconnections between the two. In it, I defend a version of consequentialism that both comports with our commonsense moral intuitions and shares with other consequentialist theories the same compelling teleological conception of practical reasons.
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| | Scholar | Share & More ... 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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| | Scholar | At my library | Share & More ... This is Chapter 5 of my Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality. In this chapter, I argue that those who wish to accommodate typical instances of supererogation and agent-centered options must deny that moral reasons are morally overriding and accept both that the reason that agents have to promote their own self-interest is a non-moral reason and that this reason can, and sometimes does, prevent the moral reason that they have to sacrifice their self-interest so as to do more to (...)
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| | Scholar | Share & More ... Sidgwick’s dualism of the practical reason is the idea that since egoism and utilitarianism
aim both to have rational supremacy in our practical decisions, whenever they conflict
there is no stronger reason to follow the dictates of either view. The dualism leaves us
with a practical problem: in conflict cases, we cannot be guided by practical reason to
decide what all things considered we ought to do. There is an epistemic problem as well:
the conflict of egoism and utilitarianism shows that they cannot be both (...)
aim both to have rational supremacy in our practical decisions, whenever they conflict
there is no stronger reason to follow the dictates of either view. The dualism leaves us
with a practical problem: in conflict cases, we cannot be guided by practical reason to
decide what all things considered we ought to do. There is an epistemic problem as well:
the conflict of egoism and utilitarianism shows that they cannot be both (...)
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| | Scholar | At my library | Share & More ... There are a number of proposals as to exactly how reasons, ends and rationality are related. It is often thought that practical reasons can be analyzed in terms of practical rationality, which, in turn, has something to do with the pursuit of ends. I want to argue against the conceptual priority of rationality and the pursuit of ends, and in favor of the conceptual priority of reasons. This case comes in two parts. I first argue for a new conception of (...)
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| | Other links: springerlink.com | Scholar | At my library | Share & More ... How should we decide which theory of practical reason is correct? One possibility is to link each conception of practical reason with a theory of value, and to assess the first in combination with the second. Recently some philosophers have taken a different approach. They have tried to link theories of practical reason with theories of action instead. I try to show that it can be illuminating to think of practical reason in terms of the success conditions of action, but (...)
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| | Scholar | At my library | Share & More ... My chief aim is to explain how someone can act freely against her own best judgment. But I also have a second aim: to defend a conception of practical rationality according to which someone cannot do something freely if she believes it would be better to do something else. These aims may appear incompatible. But I argue that practical reason has the capacity to undermine itself in such a way that it produces reasons for behaving irrationally. Weakness of will is (...)
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| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: blackwell-synergy.com | Scholar | At my library | Share & More ...
| | Other links: blackwell-synergy.com | Scholar | At my library | Share & More ... Practical reasons, roughly, are reasons to have our desires and goals, and to do what might secure these goals. I argue for the view that lack of freedom to do otherwise undermines the truth of judgments of practical reason. Thus, assuming that determinism expunges alternative possibilities, determinism undercuts the truth of such judgments. I propose, in addition, that if practical reason is associated with various values in a specified way, then determinism precludes such values owing to determinism's imperiling practical reason.
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| | Scholar | At my library | Share & More ... The use of the English word “reason” in all of these contexts, and the way we translate equivalent terms from other languages, suggests a connection, but what exactly is it? Aristotle and Kant’s conception of what practical reasons are, I believe, can help us to answer this question, by bringing out what is distinctive, and distinctively active, about acting for a reason. That, at least, is what I am going to argue.
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