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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Reasons cannot be causes of actions.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Donald Davidson's 'primary reasons' account shows reasons can be causes without requiring strict nomological laws, only heteronomic generalizations.
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    • 2.The requirement for strict universal laws conflates Humean regularity theory with causation itself; singular causal relations can hold without covering laws.
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    • 3.Davidson's anomalous monism demonstrates mental events are physically realized and thus enter causal relations, even if mental descriptions resist strict laws.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The supporting argument commits a non-sequitur: the absence of strict psychological laws entails only that reasons-explanations are not nomological, not that reasons are causally inert.
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    • 2.Dretske's and Fodor's work on causal-explanatory relevance of mental content shows that propositional attitudes can be causally efficacious in virtue of their semantic properties, not despite them.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.If an agent's explaining reasons R were among the causes of action A, then there must be some universal causal law nomologically linking the psychological factors in R to the A-type action they rationalize.
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    • 2.There are no strict psychological laws and co-ordinate conditions that ensure a suitable action will be the invariant product of pertinent pro-attitudes, beliefs, and other psychological states.
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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.
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