Keep Things in Perspective: Reasons, Rationality, and the A Priori

Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 8 (1):1-22 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Objective reasons are given by the facts. Subjective reasons are given by one’s perspective on the facts. Subjective reasons, not objective reasons, determine what it is rational to do. In this paper, I argue against a prominent account of subjective reasons. The problem with that account, I suggest, is that it makes what one has subjective reason to do, and hence what it is rational to do, turn on matters outside or independent of one’s perspective. After explaining and establishing this point, I offer a novel account of subjective reasons which avoids the problem.

Similar books and articles

Two Accounts of the Normativity of Rationality.Jonathan Way - 2009 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 4 (1):1-9.
Subjective Reasons.Eric Vogelstein - 2012 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (2):239-257.
Why be rational.Niko Kolodny - 2005 - Mind 114 (455):509-563.
What apparent reasons appear to be.Kurt Sylvan - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (3):587-606.
Prudential Reasons.D. Clayton Hubin - 1980 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (1):63 - 81.
Normativity and interpersonal reasons.Ken O'Day - 1998 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1 (1):61-87.
Subjective and Objective Reasons.Andrew Sepielli - 2018 - In Daniel Star (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press.
Can Animals Act For Reasons?Hans-Johann Glock - 2009 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 52 (3):232-254.
Having reasons and the factoring account.Errol Lord - 2010 - Philosophical Studies 149 (3):283 - 296.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-01-30

Downloads
643 (#27,177)

6 months
96 (#48,722)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Daniel Whiting
University of Southampton

Citations of this work

The Normativity of Rationality.Benjamin Kiesewetter - 2017 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stop Making Sense? On a Puzzle about Rationality.Littlejohn Clayton - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:257-272.
Which Reasons? Which Rationality?Daniel Fogal & Alex Worsnip - 2021 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 8.
Reasons as Premises of Good Reasoning.Jonathan Way - 2017 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (2).

View all 40 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

What we owe to each other.Thomas Scanlon - 1998 - Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Counterfactuals.David K. Lewis - 1973 - Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
Slaves of the passions.Mark Andrew Schroeder - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Rationality Through Reasoning.John Broome (ed.) - 2013 - Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

View all 49 references / Add more references