Ships from: Phoenix, MD
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Ships from: Geneva, IL
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Practical reasoning is the study of how to figure out what to do. It is of particular importance to ethics. Indeed, new developments in practical reasoning promise to break through long-standing ethical and moral dilemmas. Practical reasoning also has consequences for philosophy of mind, value theory, and the social sciences. This anthology provides an overview of this important area of philosophy.Over the past two decades the field of practical reasoning has changed rapidly, with a small number of entrenched positions giving way to a healthy profusion of competing views. This book covers a broad spectrum of positions on practical reasoning—from the nihilist view that there are no legitimate forms of practical inference, and hence no such thing as practical reasoning, to inferential expressivism, which holds that our desires express commitments to arbitrarily different kinds of practical inferences (as when the desire to stay dry makes explicit the commitment to inferring the need to carry an umbrella if rain is forecast). Underlying all the contributions is the question of how one should go about determining what the legitimate forms of practical reasoning are.
| Sources and Acknowledgements | ||
| Ch. 1 | Practical Reasoning: The Current State of Play | 1 |
| Ch. 2 | Humean Doubts about Categorical Imperatives | 27 |
| Ch. 3 | Instrumentalism | 49 |
| Ch. 4 | Internal and External Reasons, with Postscript | 77 |
| Ch. 5 | Williams' Argument against External Reasons | 99 |
| Ch. 6 | Skepticism about Practical Reason | 103 |
| Ch. 7 | Internalism, Practical Reason, and Motivation | 127 |
| Ch. 8 | The Protagoras: A Science of Practical Reasoning | 153 |
| Ch. 9 | Taking Plans Seriously | 203 |
| Ch. 10 | Moderation and Satisficing | 221 |
| Ch. 11 | Choosing Ends | 237 |
| Ch. 12 | Deliberation Is of Ends | 259 |
| Ch. 13 | Deliberation and Practical Reason | 279 |
| Ch. 14 | Consistency in Action | 301 |
| Ch. 15 | Pleasure in Practical Reasoning | 331 |
| Ch. 16 | How to Make Decisions: Coherence, Emotion, and Practical Inference | 355 |
| Ch. 17 | A Difficult Choice in Preference Theory: Rationality Implies Completeness or Transitivity but Not Both | 373 |
| Ch. 18 | The Idea of Perfection | 403 |
| Ch. 19 | Anscombe on Practical Inference | 437 |
| Ch. 20 | Action, Norms, and Practical Reasoning | 465 |
| Contributors | 481 | |
| Index | 485 | |
| Index of Examples | 489 |
Overview
Practical reasoning is the study of how to figure out what to do. It is of particular importance to ethics. Indeed, new developments in practical reasoning promise to break through long-standing ethical and moral dilemmas. Practical reasoning also has consequences for philosophy of mind, value theory, and the social sciences. This anthology provides an overview of this important area of philosophy.Over the past two decades the field of practical reasoning has changed rapidly, with a small number of entrenched ...