RT Article
T1 Practical Reasons, Practical Rationality, Practical Wisdom
JF Ethical theory and moral practice
VO 11
IS 1
SP 85
OP 111
A1 Bedke, Matthew S.
LA English
PB Springer Science + Business Media B. V
YR 2008
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1785694553
AB 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 ends by which all ends are had under the guise of reasons. I then articulate a sense of rationality, procedural rationality, that is connected with the pursuit of ends so conceived, where one is rational to the extent that one is motivated to act in accordance with reasons as they appear to be. Unfortunately, these conceptions of ends and procedural rationality are inadequate for building an account of practical reasons, though I try to explain why it is that the rational pursuit of ends generates intuitive but misleading accounts of genuine normative reasons. The crux of the problem is an insensitivity to an is-seems distinction, where procedural rationality concerns reasons as they appear, and what we are after is a substantive sense of rationality that concerns reasons as they are. Based on these distinct senses of rationality, and some disambiguation of what it is to have a reason, I offer a critique of internalist analyses of one’s reasons in terms of the motivational states of one’s ideal, procedurally rational self, and I offer an alternative analysis of one’s practical reasons in terms of practical wisdom that overcomes objections to related reasons externalist views. The resulting theory is roughly Humean about procedural rationality and roughly Aristotelian about reasons, capturing the core truths of both camps.
K1 Reasons externalism
K1 Reasons internalism
K1 Reason
K1 End setting attitudes
K1 substantive rationality
K1 Procedural rationality
K1 Reasoning
K1 Means–ends
K1 Ends
K1 Practical rationality
K1 Practical Wisdom
K1 Motivating reasons
K1 Normative reasons
DO 10.1007/s10677-007-9064-8