Acting for reasons: Reply to Dancy

2001

order to decide what to do. As a result of this ill-advised assumption, the moral agent is alienated from a whole wealth of methods of decision-making that I claim are, under certain conditions, morally pennissible or even, more controversially, morally compulsory. Contrary to that, I believe that the substantive moral rules that apply to decision-making processes are rather more complex. The fact that so much of contemporary practical philosophy assumes that reasoning is always the best way to make decisions is at least partly due to the lack of a clear distinction between reasoning as a way that leads to the morally correct action and reasoning as a means to know what is the morally correct action. The failure to understand the distinction between those two modalities of reasoning processes blurs the perception of the peculiar moral rules that apply to the use of reasoning as a tool of moral decision-making. My claim that there is a complex relation between the morality of actions and the morality of decision-making methods is not to be confused with the much more familiar claim that the rationality (in the sense of means-end calculation1) of decision-making is independent of the morality of the action to be performed. What is at stake is the morality of decision-making processes and their relation to the morality of the actions performed as a result of the decision-making processes. This complex relation is a recurring theme in many of the arguments presented below, notably in the first and the fourth chapters. However, the fact that there is a distinction between the morality of decision-making and the morality of actions does not imply that there is no relation between them. Indeed, I shall try to explain this connection in chapter four, in doing so, I expect to clarify the moral relevance ofthe distinction. The alienation between the moral agent and her decision-making might take yet another form. Namely, it might take the form of an argument that tries to justify the thesis that some sorts of rational decision-making, notably public decision-making, should be regarded as 'non-comprehensive' or 'non-plenary'. I use those expressions to refer to processes of decision-making in which the agent should not use all the reasons that could 1 Pursuing this sort of 'rationality', means to engage into what Habennas 'pragmatic discourse' which, as he pointed out, is only one sort of practical discourse (see his Between Facts and Norms Translated by William Rehg, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996, p. 151-168, see also his On the Pragmatic, the Ethical and the Moral Employments of Practical Reason in Habermas, Jurgen Justification and Application: Remarks on Discourse Ethics (Transl. by Ciaran P. Cronin) Cambrige/Mass: MIT Press, 1993, pp. 1-17.

The concepts of reasons as supporting elements, of practical reason as a capacity, and of practical reasoning as a process are central in the theory of action. This paper provides a brief account of each. Several kinds of reason for action are distinguished. Practical reason is characterized both as a capacity whose exercise is largely constituted by a kind of responsiveness to reasons and as governed by certain normative principles; and practical reasoning is described as a kind of mental process in which reasons figure as premises and, from those premises, a practical conclusion is drawn. Much of the paper undertakes two related tasks: to distinguish the main kinds of practical reasoning and the associated criteria of assessment and to formulate some important substantive principles of practical reason. These principles yield criteria of several sorts: logical, inferential, epistemic, and material. On the theory presented, although any (non-basic) intentional act can be grounded in practical reasoning, the same acts can be performed for the relevant reason(s) without being so grounded, and in either case their rationality depends on adequate support by the reason(s). One kind of reason is commonly thought to be captured by Kantian hypothetical imperatives. The final sections explore what constitutes a hypothetical imperative and what other principles are needed to account for practical rationality. A major conclusion is that in the domain of practical reason, if there are no categorical imperatives, there are no hypothetical imperatives either. Reasons are central in understanding both practical reason and theoretical reason. But there are many kinds of reasons. Partly because of this, philosophical writing is often unclear about what counts as a reason and about how reasons are connected with various closely related elements. One of these is reason, as a general capacity. A second is reasoning, as an exercise of that capacity. My concern is the practical domain, but much of what I say also applies to the theoretical realm. I begin with the nature of reasons for action, proceed to connect these with practical

2005

One strategy for providing an analysis of practical rationality is to start with the notion of a practical reason as primitive. Then it will be quite tempting to think that the rationality of an action can be defined rather simply in terms of 'the balance of reasons'. But just as, for many philosophical purposes, it is extremely useful to identify the meaning of a word in terms of the systematic contribution the word makes to the meanings of whole sentences, this paper argues that it is extremely useful to explain the nature of practical reasons in terms of the systematic contributions that such reasons make to the wholesale rational statuses of actions. This strategy gives us a clear view of two logically distinct normative roles for practical reasons -- justifying and requiring -- that are often conflated, and it allows us to give clear definitions of what 'the strength of a reason' means with each of these roles.

2018

This thesis argues against the Humean theory of practical reasons, criticising its foundations in philosophical and moral psychology. It develops a realist account of value-based reasons, underpinned by a distinctive cognitivist moral psychology, and a non-causalist account of the rational explanation of action. Contemporary Humeans reject Hume’s own theory of thought, but this leaves the Humean theory of practical reasons without justification for a conception of desire as non-cognitive and not open to fundamental rational evaluation. Two possible strategies for filling this justificatory gap are (i) an appeal to grammatical considerations about the attribution of desires and their content, or (ii) an appeal to distinctions in respect of direction of fit. I argue that neither is successful. Kant’s moral psychology provides the key to an alternative account, but is unsatisfactory due to its acceptance of a theory of thought which is relevantly similar to Hume’s, and of non-compulsor...

In providing an intentional explanation of action, we cite the reasons for actions. Since Davidson’s seminal “Action, Reasons, and Causes” (Davidson 1967) the relation between these reasons for action and the explanation of intentional action has been at the forefront of philosophy of action. Davidson’s answer to the question was, at least in broad outlines, widely embraced and it very quickly became the “mainstream” view in action theory. In a nutshell, according to Davidson, a reason for action both rationalizes and causes the action; this view has become known as the “standard account” or the “standard story” of action. Davidson immediately realized that such an account cannot easily become a reductive account of intentional action. Actions can be caused by beliefs and desires that rationalize the action while obviously failing to be a case of an intentional action done for that reason;in these cases the reasons that potentially rationalize action are said to cause the action in a “deviant” way. The problem of deviant causation has been one of the more serious obstacles for a proper causal theory of action. In this paper, we first examine the advantages and difficulties of the causal theory. Investigating the problem of deviant causal chains reveals that there are in fact two related problems faced by a causal theory of action. First, the problem of deviant causation shows that it is difficult to come up with a reductive account of intentional action that understands intentional actions as an action that is caused by mental states. Second there is the problem that such a theory seems to fail account for how the agent herself is guided by her reasons, what we call “the problem of guidance”. Solving the problem of guidance will not on its own resolve the problem of causal deviance. However, addressing this problem is a precondition for a solution to the problem of causal deviance, since part of what an account of the right kind of causal link between attitudes and action must do is show how this causal link ensures that the agent guides the resulting action. Furthermore, we argue that the problem of guidance is related to a number of other issues in the literature on action explanation and that it is much more general; it threatens not only causal theories but any theory of action. Finally, we try to suggest that a certain version of the view that acting has a constitutive or formal aim can overcome this problem.

Philosophical Studies, 2004

Synthese, 2020

This article presents a limited defense of Humeanism about practical reason. Jonathan Dancy and other traditional objective-reasons theorists (e.g., Schueler, Bittner) argue that all practical reasons, what we think about when we deliberate, are facts or states of affairs in the world. On the Humean view, the reasons that motivate us are belief-desire combinations, which are in the mind. Thus, Dancy and others reject Humeanism on the grounds that it cannot allow that anyone acts from a normative reason. I argue, first, that this critique fails. What we deliberate about prior to action in cases of conflict sometimes are our desires: we consider our wants from a "normative" perspective (akin to Hume's general or common point of view). So normative reasons are also desirebased, but involve appeal to desires of a higher order. These second-order desires can motivate. Second, I argue that objective-reasons theorists have a reverse problem with explanation of behavior. If reasons are considerations in the world, a person has reasons to do any number of actions at any given time. I charge that theories that exclude desire-based reasons cannot explain why an agent does one particular action rather than another. Recent philosophers (Alvarez, Hironymi, Lord, and Mantel) strike a compromise position, allowing for normative reasons in terms of facts and motivating reasons in other terms. However, I suggest that they may be subject to the same difficulty because of the relation between normative and motivating reasons that each has. Keywords Humeanism • Reasons • Practical reason • Explanatory reasons • Motivating reasons • Justifying reasons • Normative reasons • Motivation • Objective reasons • Hume • Desires • Second-order desires • Action • Dancy 1 Gert (2004, pp. 31-33) has argued for an additional distinction between justifying reasons and requiring (obligating) reasons, since we are not obligated to do everything for which there is good reason.

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, 2014

Many of the things we do in the course of a day we don't do intentionally: blushing, sneezing, breathing, blinking, smiling-to name but a few. But we also do act intentionally, and often when we do we act for reasons. Whether we always act for reasons when we act intentionally is controversial. But at least the converse is generally accepted: when we act for reasons we always act intentionally. Necessarily, it seems. In this paper, I argue that acting intentionally is not in all cases acting for a reason. Instead, intentional agency involves a specific kind of control. Having this kind of control makes it possible to modify one's action in the light of reasons. Intentional agency opens the possibility of acting in the light of reasons. I also explain why when we act with an intention (and not just intentionally in a broader sense) we act for reasons. In the second part of the paper, I draw on these results to show that the dominant view of reasons to intend and the rationality of intentions should be rejected. 1 The reasons for which a person acts may not be the reasons for which she should have acted. She could be irrational (e.g. weak-willed), but she might also simply be mistaken. In that case there may be no reason to act as she does; she only believes there is. The qualification in parenthesis is meant to make room for this possibility. The agent's reasons should be understood throughout in this way, allowing for mistaken beliefs. 2 I will simply assume here that reasons to act are normative reasons, and that the reasons for which someone acts are seen by her as normative reasons (rightly or wrongly). This is controversial: in particular, Kieran Setiya (2007, pt. 1, ch. 6) contests the view. As he sees it, the reasons for which we act needn't be reasons that we regard as normative reasons-or, to put it differently, we don't always act under the guise of the good. Discussing his view would take me too far afield here. 3 I take it that normative reasons are properties of an action that make it good. Mistakenly believed to be normative reasons may be properties of an action of which the agent falsely believes that they make it good. Or they may be good-making features that the agent wrongly believes her action has. There is more than one way of being mistaken. 4 The problem of 'deviant causal chains' is relevant here: the actor while attempting to take Copyright of Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Paperback) is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

Philosophical Explorations, special issue eds. Bruno Verbeek and Nic Southwood , 2009

This paper sketches an account of normative practical reasons along functionalist lines. We argue that there is no explanatory or metaphysical priority between reasons and rightness: the two notions are functionally interdefined in much the way beliefs and desires are. The 'right-maker' approach is contrasted with other similar accounts, in particular John Broome’s analysis of reasons as explanations of oughts.