The Range of Reasons: in Ethics and Epistemology

Description

The Range of Reasons contributes to two debates and it does so by bringing them together. The first is a debate in metaethics concerning normative reasons, the considerations that serve to justify a person's actions and attitudes. The second is a debate in epistemology concerning the norms for belief, the standards that govern a person's beliefs and by reference to which they are assessed. The book starts by developing and defending a new theory of reasons for action, that is, of practical reasons. The theory belongs to a family that analyses reasons by appeal to the normative notion of rightness (fittingness, correctness); it is distinctive in making central appeal to modal notions, specifically, that of a nearby possible world. The result is a comprehensive framework that captures what is common to and distinctive of reasons of various kinds: justifying and demanding; for and against; possessed and unpossessed; objective and subjective. The framework is then generalized to reasons for belief, that is, to epistemic reasons, and combined with a substantive, first-order commitment, namely that truth is the sole right-maker for belief. The upshot is an account of the various norms governing belief, including knowledge and rationality, and the relations among them. According to it, the standards to which belief is subject are various, but they are unified by an underlying principle. Cover The Range of Reasons: in Ethics and Epistemology Copyright Contents Acknowledgements 1: Introduction 1.1 Norms of belief 1.2 From norms to reasons, from belief to action 1.3 The unity of reason 1.4 A terminological interlude 1.5 Is something first? 1.6 Overview 2: Reasons and Their Roles 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Preliminaries 2.2.1 The ontology of reasons 2.2.2 Motivating and explanatory reasons 2.2.3 Weighing reasons 2.2.4 Being and having 2.2.5 Objective and subjective 2.2.6 Conditions and modifiers 2.3 The job description 2.4 The options 2.5 Reasons as explanations and as evidence 2.5.1 Rightness 2.5.2 Overall or contributory? 2.5.3 Explanation or evidence? 2.5.4 De re or de dicto? 2.6 The interim evidence-basedaccount of reasons 2.6.1 The objection from conditions 2.6.2 The objection from instrumental reasons 2.6.3 The objection from facts about reasons 2.6.4 The objection from testimony 2.7 Reasons as premises of reasoning 2.8 Conclusion 3: Justifying and Demanding 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Some examples 3.3 Reasons and ‘reasons’ 3.4 Some principles 3.4.1 Retrospection 3.4.2 Instrumental reasons 3.4.3 Conditions 3.5 Reasons against 3.6 From the contributory to the overall 3.6.1 The problem 3.6.2 The solution 3.6.3 Objection and reply 3.6.4 Alternative actions 3.7 Back to reasons as evidence 3.8 Conclusion 4: A Modal Theory of Reasons 4.1 Introduction 4.2 From probability to modality 4.2.1 Justifying reasons 4.2.2 Metaphysical space 4.2.3 Demanding reasons 4.3 Concluding remarks 5: Possessing Reasons 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Possessed reasons 5.3 Is knowledge necessary? 5.3.1 Fake barns 5.3.2 Perception 5.4 Is knowledge sufficient? 5.5 A new modality 5.6 Epistemic space 5.7 For and against 5.7.1 The objection from falsehood 5.7.2 The objection from irrationality 5.8 From the contributory to the overall 5.9 Conclusion 6: Subjective Reasons 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Rationality 6.3 Subjective reasons as would-beobjective reasons 6.3.1 Too weak 6.3.2 Too strong 6.3.3 Diagnosis 6.4 A modal theory of subjective reasons 6.4.1 Objections and replies 6.5 Are subjective reasons possessed reasons? 6.6 Can irrationality beget rationality? 6.7 Some optional extras 6.7.1 Credence 6.7.2 Normative belief 6.7.3 Desire 6.8 Conclusion 7: Truth 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Preliminaries 7.3 Nothing but the truth 7.4 Moorean propositions 7.5 Epistemic reasons 7.5.1 Justifying epistemic reasons 7.5.2 Demanding epistemic reasons 7.6 From the contributory to the overall 7.6.1 Truth is necessary for permissible belief 7.6.2 Truth is sufficient for permissible belief 7.7 Truth is necessary and sufficient for permissible belief 7.8 Moorean propositions revisited 7.9 Conclusion 8: Knowledge 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Objections 8.2.1 Baselessness 8.2.2 Guidance 8.3 Possessing epistemic reasons 8.4 Justified true belief entails knowledge 8.5 Gettier cases 8.5.1 Helpful Gettier cases 8.5.2 Really helpful Gettier cases 8.5.3 Dangerous Gettier cases 8.6 Must justified beliefs be safe? 8.7 Guidance revisited 8.8 Knowledge norms 8.8.1 Lotteries 8.8.2 Moorean propositions 8.8.3 Conversational challenges 8.9 Conclusion 9: Rational Belief 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Preliminaries 9.3 Subjective reasons for and against belief 9.4 From the contributory to the overall 9.5 Safety revisited 9.5.1 Closure 9.5.2 Iteration 9.6 Necessary truths 9.7 The lottery paradox 9.8 The preface paradox 9.9 Moorean beliefs revisited 9.10 Conclusion 10: Conclusion References Index