Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-15T20:10:54.130Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Majesty of Reason

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2010

Simon Blackburn
Simon Blackburn
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge/University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this paper I contemplate two phenomena that have impressed theorists concerned with the domain of reasons and of what is now called ‘normativity’. One is the much-discussed ‘externality’ of reasons. According to this, reasons are just there, anyway. They exist whether or not agents take any notice of them. They do not only exist in the light of contingent desires or mere inclinations. They are ‘external’ not ‘internal’. They bear on us, even when through ignorance or wickedness we take no notice of them. They thus very conspicuously shine the lights of objectivity, and independence, and even necessity. By basking in this light, ethics is rescued from the slough of sentiment and preference, and regains the dignity denied to it by theorists such as Hobbes or Hume, Williams, Gibbard or myself. Hence, many contemporary philosophers compete to stress and to extol the external nature of reasons, their shining objectivity. The other phenomenon is that of the inescapable ‘normativity’ of means-ends reasoning. Here the irrationality of intending an end but failing to intend the means is a different shining beacon. It is that of pure practical reason in operation: an indisputable norm, again showing a sublime indifference to whatever weaknesses people actually have, and ideally fitted to provide a Trojan horse for inserting rationality into practical life. If the means-end principle is both unmistakably practical and yet the darling child of rationality itself, then other principles of consistency or of humanity, or of universalizing the maxims of our action, can perhaps follow through the breach in the Humean citadel that it has spearheaded. And so we get the dazzling prospect that if people who choose badly are choosing against reason, then this can be seen to be a special and grave defect. It would locate the kind of fault they are indulging. It would give us, the people of reason, a special lever with which to dislodge their vices. Being able to herd knaves and villains in a compound reserved for those who trespass against reason and rationality therefore represents definite progress.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 85 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 5 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bateson, M., Nettle, D. & Roberts, G. 2006. ‘Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting’, Biology Letters, 2 412–414.Google Scholar
Bennett, Jonathan, 1974. ‘The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn’, Philosophy 49, No. 188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackburn, Simon. 2005. ‘Success Semantics’ in Lillehammer, Hallvard & Mellor, D. H.Ramsey's Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bonevac, D. 1998. ‘Against Conditional Obligation’, Nous, 32:1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bratman, M. 1987. Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Broome, John. 2004. ‘Reasons.’ In Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz, edited by Wallace, , et al. , 28–55. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Cowley, Christopher. 2005. ‘A New Defence of Williams's Reasons-Internalism.’ Philosophical Investigations, 28:4, 346–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dancy, J. 2000. Practical Reality. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, W. 2004. ‘Reasons, Value, and Particular Agents: Normative Relevance without Motivational Internalism.’ Mind, 113: 285–318.Google Scholar
Foot, P. R. 1978. ‘Reasons for Action and Desires.’ In Practical Reasoning, edited by Joseph, Raz, 178–184. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grice, G. R. 1978. ‘Motive and Reason.’ In Practical Reasoning, edited by Joseph, Raz, 168–177. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Holton, R. 1999. ‘Intention and Weakness of Will’, Journal of Philosophy, 96 (1999) 241–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, I. 1785. Royal prussian Academy Edition, IV, 417. Also The Groundword of the Metaphysic of Morals, ed. Paton, . New York: Harper Row.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, C. 1986. ‘Skepticism about Practical Reason.’ Journal of Philosophy, 83: 5–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, C. 1996. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. 1996 ‘Elusive Knowledge’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, T. 1970. The Possibility of Altruism. Princeton: Princeton University Press; reprinted 1978.Google Scholar
Parfit, D. 1997. ‘Reason and Motivation.’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 71: 99–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plato 2008. Republic, trs. Waterfield, . Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Quinn, W. 1995. ‘Putting Rationality in its Place’ in Virtues and Reasons: Philippa Foot and Moral Theory, eds. Hursthouse, Lawrence and Quinn, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 1975. Practical Reason and Norms. London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 1978. (ed.) Practical Reasoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 2003. The Practice of Value. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Scanlon, T. M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Setiya, K. 2004. ‘Against Internalism.’ Noûs, 38: 266–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Setiya, K. 2007. ‘Cognitivism about Instrumental Reason,’ Ethics (2007): 649–673.Google Scholar
Shafer-Landau, R. 2003. Moral Realism: A Defence. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, M. 1994. The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Suikkanen, Jussi. 2004. ‘Reasons and Value – In Defence of the Buck-Passing Account.’ Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 7:513–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomason, R. 1981. ‘Deontic Logic and the Role of Freedom in Moral Deliberation’ in Hilpinen, R., ed., New Studies in Deontic Logic, Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Wallace, R. J. 1999. ‘Three Conceptions of Rational Agency.’ Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2: 217–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, R. J. 2002. ‘Scanlon's Contractualism.’ Ethics, 112(3): 429–470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, R. Jay et al. 2004. Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Williams, B. 1979. ‘Internal and External Reasons.’ Reprinted in Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981: 101–13.Google Scholar
Williams, B. 1995. ‘Internal Reasons and the Obscurity of Blame’ in Making Sense of Humanity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wong, D. 2006. ‘Moral Reasons: Internal and External.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 72: 536–58.Google Scholar