Reasons and passions

Acta Analytica 21 (2):41-53 (2006)
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Abstract

Jonathan Dancy has argued that agents’ reasons for their actions are facts or features of the situations rather than their psychological states. The purpose of the paper is to show that even if we grant that this is so in most of the cases, there is a class of mental states that can be reasons. Although beliefs and desires are not reasons for actions, some emotional states—like loving, liking or disliking someone—can generate reasons. The distinctive feature of these states is that their content is a particular, and not a proposition. Hence in certain situations their love or admiration can provide agents with reasons to do one particular thing rather than another.

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Ferenc Huoranszki
Central European University

Citations of this work

A particularistic moral mind.Pierpaolo Marrone - 2021 - Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia 12 (2):110-124.

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References found in this work

A treatise of human nature.David Hume & D. G. C. Macnabb (eds.) - 1969 - Harmondsworth,: Penguin Books.
The Morality of Freedom.Joseph Raz - 1986 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
The philosophical writings of Descartes.René Descartes - 1984 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973–1980.Bernard Williams - 1981 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Practical Reality.Jonathan Dancy - 2000 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.

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