Abstract
Chapter 5 defends a view according to which acting for a reason, at least in a good case, involves: having a belief that is an awareness of that reason; adopting a goal of performing an action which is justified by the reason one is aware of; choosing to perform that action; and performing that action. It also argues that explaining actions in this way does not involve any assumptions about how the actions are caused.
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Notes
- 1.
Hume (1739–40/1985) appears to say that belief alone (as a mere concern for matters of fact) cannot lead to action, rather we also require a desire (a passion). Whether or not this is a correct interpretation of Hume’s position the view that an agent’s motivational reasons are a combination of beliefs and desires has become known as ‘Humeanism’. Cf. Dancy (2000, 10), Smith (2003), and Cullity and Gaut (1997).
- 2.
Cf. Alvarez (2010a, 10 and 126).
- 3.
Below I will add to this. We may also need a belief such as that stepping out of the road will involve avoiding a speeding car and so benefit my health.
- 4.
Cf. Alvarez (2009a, 55).
- 5.
Cf. Davidson (1963/2001a, 4). Schueler (2003, ch.2) warns against conflating the two because Davidson’s notion of a pro attitude includes “moral views” (Davidson 1963/2001a, 4) and to this degree also appears to include beliefs such as ‘it is wrong to G’. However, I shall not dwell on this here. My concern is that the objects of desire are not reasons to act, but are perhaps goals one has in acting. It appears that Davidson takes his pro-attitudes to give the ends of an act, as he talks of having a pro attitude towards something. I take this to be enough to put pro attitudes in line with desires. (Though I do want to remain open on whether there are moral facts, such as that one ought to G, if there are such facts an agent can be aware of them and act for them, but in this case I would take them to be the objects of beliefs, not of desires or pro-attitudes .)
- 6.
Cf. Alvarez (2010a, 121).
- 7.
- 8.
This does assume that desires are propositional attitudes, that is, the content of a desire is a proposition or is captured buy one. This does seem to be a popular view (e.g. Smith (1994) and Broome (2002)). However, Alvarez has argued that this is incorrect. The content of a desire can always be captured by an infinitival clause e.g “I want to F” or “I want b to F”, but it is awkward if not misleading to try to capture it with a that clause “I want that b F” (Alvarez (2010a, ch. 3 and 4), see also Ben-Yami (1997) and Thagard (2006)). Thagard (2006) also argues that desires are not propositional attitudes on the grounds of evidence from comparative psychology and neuroscience.
- 9.
Cf. Alvarez (2010a, 69).
- 10.
Cf. Alvarez (2010a, 69).
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
Cf. Schueler (2003, 34).
- 14.
Cf. Alvarez (2010a, 12).
- 15.
- 16.
The thought that each action is merely a means to a further action which is itself merely a means to a further one, and so on for infinity, is clearly unacceptable. One would have to see that which an action was a means to as of value to perceive that action itself as of value, and hence, one would have to be able to perceive an infinity of actions as of value in order to perceive any one action as of value and this is obviously not the case. Moreover, this strikes one as an infinite chain of dependence and such chains are highly dubious (there possibility is generally doubted, e.g. Leibniz (1974), Kant (1787/1996, B436-437), Cameron (2008), contra Brown and Ladyman (2009)).
- 17.
- 18.
The action is reasonable because of the fact that the action gives pleasure, this is quite different from saying that the action is reasonable because of a desire to perform it, we have not fallen into psychologism about reasons.
- 19.
This needn’t imply that there are always innumerable reasons for each act or if it does this is not a problem. Our concern is with the reasons the agent acts for and these will be reasons that the agent is aware of. Although we could introduce a great number of relevant facts in such a case, we needn’t become bogged down by them, just as the agent needn’t be.
- 20.
- 21.
This differs from Nagel (1978, ch. 5), who speaks of choice in regard to his similar distinction between motivated and motivating desires.
- 22.
One might dispute this on the grounds that the objects of such desires ought to be taken to be general so that we should perhaps say that the desire is to perform an act of a certain type, not that particular token. But, this requires little change . Cf. Lowe (2008, 207), Davidson (1963/2001a), and in a related way, Hornsby (1980, ch. 1) in her suggestion that what we do is always something general.
- 23.
- 24.
One might, e.g., decide to pursue a different desire instead. Cf. Alvarez (2010a, 96).
- 25.
- 26.
- 27.
Cf. Schuler (2003, 92).
- 28.
Actually, because one can have reasons both to perform or not perform an action, the premises of a piece of practical reasoning might include both reasons pro and contra the action.
- 29.
Or simply ‘the action one ought to perform’ if we adopt the view below that the conclusion of a piece of practical reasoning is an action.
- 30.
- 31.
Cf. Rundle (1997, ch. 7).
- 32.
- 33.
Of course one might take such mental actions as the formation of a decision or the initiation of the will as actions which are somehow mental (cf. Lowe (2008, ch. 8.4)).
- 34.
Cf. Audi (1989, ch. 1.IV).
- 35.
- 36.
Cf. Korsgaard (2009).
- 37.
Cf. Williams (1995).
- 38.
Cf. Schuler (2003, ch. 3). Schuler himself speaks of an agent’s character suggesting that the reasons an agent acts for are distinguished from those he merely considers by being suited to his character.
- 39.
Cf. Lowe (2008, ch. 9 and 10).
- 40.
Cf. Schuler (2003, ch. 3).
- 41.
- 42.
There is here perhaps an issue of what an action is. Should it involve the world as putting on one’s shoes does, or should it stop at the boundaries of the human body, or should it consist solely in some minute inner action of choosing? (E.g. Goldman (1971) and perhaps Wittgenstein (1969/2003, sect. 402 and 476) at the former extreme, and Hornsby (1980) at the latter).
- 43.
- 44.
- 45.
Cf. Davidson (1970/2001b).
- 46.
- 47.
Cf. Schuler (2003, ch. 1).
- 48.
Cf. Cullity and Gaut (1997).
- 49.
This does not stand in conflict with the position, defended in the preceding chapter, that there can only be one rationality and agents must be by and large rational. Because, as just noted, that requirement is only a ‘by and large’ requirement whereas lawlikeness is an all or nothing type of requirement.
- 50.
- 51.
This is to deny that we can have fully determinate counterfactual descriptions of the relations between mental states and actions. This goes against Hornsby’s suggestion that the holding of counterfactuals shows that causation is at issue (e.g. Hornsby (1993)). Given the popularity of counterfactual accounts of causality (e.g. Lewis (1973)), this also speaks against remarks such as Sosa’s (1993) that it is not clear that causation must go hand in hand with lawlikeness.
- 52.
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Pearson, O.(. (2018). Acting for a Reason. In: Rationality, Time, and Self. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71973-3_5
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