Contrastive reasons / Justin Snedegar.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Snedegar, Justin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reasoning.

Contrast (Philosophy).

Normativity (Ethics).

Reason.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 149 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2017.

Summary:

This book develops and defends contrastivism about reasons. This is the view that normative reasons are fundamentally reasons for or against actions or attitudes only relative to sets of alternatives. Simply put, reasons are always reasons to do one thing rather than another, instead of simply being reasons to do something, full stop. Work on reasons has become central to several areas of philosophy, but, besides a couple of exceptions, this view has not been discussed. This book makes the case that this is a mistake. The book develops three kinds of arguments for contrastivism. First, contrastivism gives us the best account of our ordinary discourse about reasons. Second, contrastivism best makes sense of widespread ideas about what reasons are, including the idea that they favor the things they are reasons for and the idea that they involve the promotion of certain kinds of objectives. Third, contrastivism has attractive applications in different areas of normative philosophy in which reasons are important. These include debates in normative ethics about whether better than might be intransitive and debates in both epistemology and practical reasoning about the rationality of withholding or suspending belief and intention.

Contents:

Contrastivism and Reasons

Reasons and Contrastivism

Reasons and the Contrastivist Program

The Plan

Reason Claims

A Simple Argument

A Stronger Argument

Contrastivism

Other 'Rather than' Ascriptions

Negative Reason Existentials

Looking Forward

Favoring

Why Resist Contrastivism?

Shallow Contrastivism

Contrastive Reasons and Favoring

Promotion

The Need for Constraints

Contrastive Reasons and Promotion

Contrastive Reasons as Better Reasons?

Providing the Constraints

Non-Promotional Reasons

Where we Are

Intransitivity

Transitivity and Reasons

In transitivity

Intransitivity and Contrastivism

Contrast-Sensitive importance

Remaining Questions

Conclusion

Withholding

Withholding Belief and Contrastive Reasons

Withholding Intention

Wrap Up.

Notes:

This edition previously issued in print: 2017.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version :

ISBN:

0-19-108904-4

0-19-183571-4

0-19-108903-6