Practical reasons and the redundancy of motives

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 4 (1):3-22 (2001)
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Abstract

Jonathan Dancy, in his 1994 Aristotelian Society Presidential Address, set out to show ''why there is really no such thing as the theory of motivation''. In this paper I want to agree that there is no such thing, and to offer reasons of a different kind for that conclusion. I shall suggest that the so-called theory of motivation misconstrues the question which it purports to answer, and that when we properly analyse the question and distinguish it clearly from other questions with which it should not be confused, we do not need a theory of motivation at all.

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10.1023/a:1011435024849

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Richard Norman
University of Kent

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References found in this work

Internal and External Reasons.Bernard Williams - 1979 - In Ross Harrison (ed.), Rational action: studies in philosophy and social science. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 101-113.
Might There Be External Reasons?John McDowell - 1995 - In James Edward John Altham & Ross Harrison (eds.), World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical Philosophy of Bernard Williams. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Why There Is Really No Such Thing as the Theory of Motivation.Jonathan Dancy - 1995 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 95 (1):1-18.

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