Reasons as Premises of Good Reasoning

Way, Jonathan

doi:10.1111/papq.12135

Cited by 84 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…An outweighed pro tanto reason to ϕ is one associated with a sound and undefeated piece of reasoning that is weaker than some sound and undefeated piece of reasoning that concludes in a intention to perform an action that is not co‐possible with ϕ‐ing. This approach differs from that of (Way ), who associates outweighed reasons with defeated pieces of reasoning, and of (Setiya , chap. 1).…”

mentioning

confidence: 84%

The Reasoning View and Defeasible Practical Reasoning

Asarnow

2017

Philos Phenomenol Research

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According to the Reasoning View about normative reasons, facts about normative reasons for action can be understood in terms of facts about the norms of practical reasoning. I argue that this view is subject to an overlooked class of counterexamples, familiar from debates about Subjectivist theories of normative reasons. Strikingly, the standard strategy Subjectivists have used to respond to this problem cannot be adapted to the Reasoning View. I think there is a solution to this problem, however. I argue that the norms of practical reasoning, like the norms of theoretical reasoning, are characteristically defeasible, in a sense I make precise. Recognizing this property of those norms makes space for a solution to the problem. The resulting view is in a way analogous to the familiar defeasibility theory of knowledge, but it avoids a standard objection to that theory.

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confidence: 84%

The Reasoning View and Defeasible Practical Reasoning

Asarnow

2017

Philos Phenomenol Research

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“…The argument I want to discuss in this section focuses on the explanatory function of the notion of outweighed reason. Remember that I am regarding as a constraint on normative reasons that they are intelligible potential premises in our deliberations (Way, ; Snedegar, forthcoming). In particular, it can be argued that the main role of the notion of outweighed normative reason is to contribute to our understanding of weighing deliberations, in which some option is chosen after balancing the weights of the reasons in favor and against the different alternatives (Broome, ).…”

Section: No Outweighing With Partial Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, I will not assume that motivating reasons are always normative as well – I will leave open the possibility that merely apparent reasons can function as motivating reasons. However, I will regard as a constraint on normative reasons that they can play a suitable motivating role, more specifically that they can intelligibly intervene as premises in our reasoning and deliberations (for this idea, see Schroeder, ; Way, ; Snedegar, forthcoming).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

No Reasons to Believe the False

Salas¹

2019

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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I argue that if there are nondisabled reasons to believe p, then there cannot be nondisabled reasons to believe something incompatible with p. I first defend a restricted version of the view, which applies only to situations where the relevant agent has complete evidence. Then, I argue for a generalized version of the view, which holds regardless of the agent's evidence. As a related result, I show that, given plausible assumptions, there cannot be nondisabled reasons to believe something false.

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“…27 We propose instead an account of a sort already defended by one of us elsewhere. 28 As a first step towards this account, note that there seems to be an important connection between reasons and reasoning. Reasons, we might say, are for reasoning; they are the sort of thing it is suitable to reason with.…”

Section: Ormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This would be a way for the view to allow that a subject's attitudes may make a difference to her reasons. 30 According to our account, reasons are premises of good reasoning from fitting responses. The motivation for this restriction is easy to see.…”

Section: Ormentioning

confidence: 99%

Fittingness First

McHugh¹,

Way²

2016

Ethics

Self Cite

137

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According to the fitting-attitudes account of value, for X to be good is for it to be fitting to value X. But what is it for an attitude to be fitting? A popular recent view is that it is for there to be sufficient reason for the attitude. In this paper we argue that proponents of the fitting-attitudes account should reject this view and instead take fittingness as basic. In this way they avoid the notorious 'wrong kind of reason' problem, and can offer attractive accounts of reasons and good reasoning in terms of fittingness.According to the fitting-attitudes account of value, what it is for X to be good is for it to be fitting to value X. Famously proposed by Brentano and Ewing, the fitting-attitudes account takes goodness to be similar to properties like that of being admirable, fearful, or amusing. 1 These properties are plausibly understood as a matter of the fittingness or appropriateness of a certain human response: admiration, fear, or amusement. Similarly, on the fitting-attitudes view, goodness, or being valuable, is a matter of the fittingness of the response of valuing.The fitting-attitudes account is often thought to constitute an attractive middle-ground between subjectivist views on which something is good just if we value it and Moorean views * For very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper, we would like to thank Richard Chappell, Guy 2 on which goodness is a basic, non-natural -and, so critics say, mysterious -property. And while the advantages of the fitting-attitudes account over Moorean views should not be overstated -the metaphysical questions that arise about Moorean goodness seem also to arise about fittingness -the connection between value and human valuing responses does seem an attractive feature of the fitting-attitudes account.Nonetheless, and even putting aside the question of whether fittingness is a 'nonnatural' property, there is an important question about how fittingness is to be understood. A popular recent suggestion is that fittingness should be understood in terms of reasons -roughly, that what it is for it to be fitting to value X is for there to be sufficient reason to value X. This idea is especially natural for those sympathetic to the recently influential reasons-first approach to normativity. On this approach, reasons are the basic normative unit, and the rest of the normative and evaluative domain can be understood in terms of reasons. 2 If we put this view together with the fitting-attitudes account, we reach the buck-passing account of value: what it is for X to be good is for there to be sufficient reason to value X.The aim of this paper is to argue that proponents of the fitting-attitudes account should not take this path. Instead, they should take fittingness as basic. Doing so results in a view which has all the attractions of the buck-passing view, and more, but avoids a serious problem facing the buck-passer. In making this case, we also show how reasons (and thus oughts) can be understood in terms of fittingness. The paper thus makes ...

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Reasons as Premises of Good Reasoning

Cited by 84 publications

References 52 publications

The Reasoning View and Defeasible Practical Reasoning

The Reasoning View and Defeasible Practical Reasoning

No Reasons to Believe the False

Fittingness First

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