Reasons without rationalism / Kieran Setiya.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Setiya, Kieran, 1976-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethics.

Virtue.

Act (Philosophy).

Practical reason.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (143 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2007.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Modern philosophy has been vexed by the question "Why should I be moral?" and by doubts about the rational authority of moral virtue. In Reasons without Rationalism, Kieran Setiya shows that these doubts rest on a mistake. The "should" of practical reason cannot be understood apart from the virtues of character, including such moral virtues as justice and benevolence, and the considerations to which the virtues make one sensitive thereby count as reasons to act. Proposing a new framework for debates about practical reason, Setiya argues that the only alternative to this "virtue theory" is a form of ethical rationalism in which reasons derive from the nature of intentional action. Despite its recent popularity, however, ethical rationalism is false. It wrongly assumes that we act "under the guise of the good," or it relies on dubious views about intention and motivation. It follows from the failure of rationalism that the virtue theory is true: we cannot be fully good without the perfection of practical reason, or have that perfection without being good. Addressing such topics as the psychology of virtue and the explanation of action, Reasons without Rationalism is essential reading for philosophers interested in ethics, rationality, or the philosophy of mind.

Contents:

"Squeezing the good into the right through the tubes of imperfection"

The relevance of action theory

A puzzle about intention

The belief-desire model

Acting for reasons

Solving the puzzle

A causal theory of action?

Against the guise of the good

Character and practical thought

An argument for the virtue theory

Practical reason and the guise of the good

Motivation and desire

Self-knowledge as the aim of action.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [121]-127) and index.

ISBN:

9786612129728

9781282129726

1282129724

9781400827725

1400827728

OCLC:

341998758