Pluralism about practical reasons and reason explanations

Reason Claims and Contrastivism about Reasons∗

In this paper I argue for contrastivism about reasons. Just as contrastivism about causation and knowledge hold that ‘cause’ and ‘knows’, respectively, express relations with argument places for sets of alternatives, contrastivism about reasons holds that ‘reason’ expresses a relation with an argument place for a set of alternatives. Some consideration might be a reason for an action relative t...

Names, Equations, Relations: Practical Ways to Reason about new

The nu-calculus of Pitts and Stark is a typed lambda-calculus, extended with state in the form of dynamically-generated names. These names can be created locally, passed around, and compared with one another. Through the interaction between names and functions, the language can capture notions of scope, visibility and sharing. Originally motivated by the study of references in Standard ML, the ...

How to be a Cognitivist about Practical Reason

Cognitivism about practical reason is the view that intentions involve beliefs, and that the rational requirements on intentions can be explained in terms of the rational requirements on the beliefs that figure in intentions. In particular, cognitivists about practical reason have sought to provide cognitive explanations of two basic requirements of practical rationality: a consistency requirem...

Reason-based explanations and analytical sociology

Practical Reasons and Moral ‘Ought’

Morality is a source of reasons for action, what philosophers call practical reasons. Kantians say that it ‘gives’ reasons to everyone. We can even think of moral requirements as amounting to particularly strong or stringent reasons, in an effort to demystify deontological views like Kant’s, with its insistence on inescapable or ‘binding’ moral requirements or ‘oughts.’1 When we say that someon...