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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    No motivationally external considerations could genuinely... — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    No motivationally external considerations could genuinely be practical reasons for an agent.

    Moral ResponsibilityVirtue Ethics
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Practical rationality is constitutively tied to an agent's subjective motivational set, as Williams argues in 'Internal and External Reasons' (1981).
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    • 2.A reason that cannot connect to any element of S via sound deliberation fails the minimal condition for action-guiding normativity.
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    • 3.Action-guiding normativity requires that a consideration can, at minimum dispositionally, move the agent — which external reasons by definition cannot guarantee.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Humean instrumentalism, defended by Williams and Foot, establishes that desires or pro-attitudes are the only ultimate sources of practical justification.
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    • 2.If a consideration R is motivationally inert for agent A even under idealized deliberation, R cannot figure in any valid practical syllogism for A.
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    • 3.Kantian attempts to ground external reasons in pure practical reason still require motivational uptake via respect for law, confirming the motivational-set dependency.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.For external reasons to exist, it must be possible that external reasons beliefs are true.
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    • 2.For an external reasons belief to be true, the consideration R must actually explain the agent's action under conditions of sound deliberation, independently of the agent's motivational set.
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    • 3.Nothing can be explanatory of an agent's action independently of the contents of the agent's motivational set — that is, independently of the agent's desires and dispositions.
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    Topics

    Moral ResponsibilityVirtue Ethics

    Connections

    2 topics

    Philosophy of Language4 linkedTruth & Knowledge1 linked

    Related

    A reason that cannot connect to any element of S via sound deliberation fails th...Action-guiding normativity requires that a consideration can, at minimum disposi...For an external reasons belief to be true, the consideration R must actually exp...For external reasons to exist, it must be possible that external reasons beliefs...
    +6 moreShow less
    Humean instrumentalism, defended by Williams and Foot, establishes that desires ...If a consideration R is motivationally inert for agent A even under idealized de...If a consideration cannot explain an agent's action, it cannot be a genuine prac...

    Similar

    There exist external reasons — reasons independent of agents' desires ...85%For an external reasons belief to be true, the consideration R must ac...84%For a reason to motivate an agent, it must be a reason the agent has.84%A disposition to be motivated by beliefs about reasons can explain why...83%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: reasons-internal-external
    View source passageHide passage
    According to this reading, the problem Williams sees for external reasons is the following. For there genuinely to be external reasons, he observes, it must be possible that some such external reasons beliefs are true. This requires that the consideration R which an agent accepts as his reason must actually be a genuine explanation of his acting under the condition of sound deliberation, independently of any facts about his motivational set. But this condition cannot be met, because nothing cou
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Kantian attempts to ground external reasons in pure practical reason still requi...
    Nothing can be explanatory of an agent's action independently of the contents of...
    Practical rationality is constitutively tied to an agent's subjective motivation...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit