Engaging Reason: On the Theory of Value and Action

345 Pages·2000·4.739 MB·English

by  Joseph Raz

ENGAGING REASON
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Engaging Reason
On the Theory of Value and Action
JOSEPH RAZ
OXPORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© in this volume Joseph Raz 1999
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ISBN 0-19-823829-0
A C K N O W L E D G E M E N TS
The following chapters are published separately as indicated:
'When We are Ourselves: The Active and the Passive', Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, suppl. 91 (1997).
'Incommensurability and Agency', in Ruth Chang (ed.) Incommensurabil-
ity, Incomparability, and Practical Reason (Harvard University Press,
1998).
'Explaining Normativity: On Rationality and the Justification of Reason',
in Ratio, 12(1999).
'Notes on Value and Objectivity', in Brian Leiter (ed.) Objectivity in Moral-
ity and the Law (Cambridge University Press, 1999).
'Moral Change and Social Relativism', Social Philosophy and Policy,
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
'Mixing Values', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. 85 (1991).
'The Truth in Particularism', in Brad Hooker and Margaret Little (eds.),
Moral Particularism (Oxford University Press, 1999).
'On the Moral Point of View', in Jerome B. Schneewind (ed.), Reason,
Ethics and Society (Open Court, 1996).
'The Amoralist', in Garrett Cullity and Berys Gaut (eds.), Ethics and
Practical Reasoning (Oxford University Press, 1997).
'The Central Conflict: Morality and Self-Interest', in Roger Crisp and Brad
Hooker (eds.), Well Being and Morality: Essays in honour of James Griffin
(Oxford University Press, 1999).
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CONTENTS
Introduction 1
1. When We are Ourselves 5
2. Agency, Reason, and the Good 22
3. Incommensurability and Agency 46
4. Explaining Normativity: On Rationality and the Justification
of Reason 67
5. Explaining Normativity: Reason and the Will 90
6. Notes on Value and Objectivity 118
7. Moral Change and Social Relativism 161
8. Mixing Values 182
9. The Value of Practice 202
10. The Truth in Particularism 218
11. On the Moral Point of View 247
12. The Amoralist 273
13. The Central Confflict: Morality and Self-Interest 303
Index 333
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Introduction
Aspects of the world are valuable. That constitutes reasons for action.
Because we are rational animals, ones with the power of reason, we are
able to conduct ourselves in the light of those reasons. Being rational is
being capable of acting intentionally, that is, for reasons, as one takes them
to be, and that means in light of one's appreciation of one's situation in the
world.
This book, collecting essays written over the last eight years, explores
some aspects of the complex interdependence of value, reason, and the will.
The first essay, 'When We are Ourselves' paints with broad brush a simple,
and simplified, picture of a person relying on the thought that our life is
our own when it is under our control and that means when our various
emotions, hopes, desires, intentions, and action are guided by reason. Inten-
tional action is action for reasons. Possession of features which show actions
to be good in some respect constitutes reasons. 'Agency, Reason, and the
Good' defends the connection between intention and reason on the one
hand, and between reason and the good on the other, from objections based
on people's ability to choose the bad, and to act intentionally in an expres-
sive but unreasoned way. 'Incommensurability and Agency' adds some
details to the picture by laying the foundation for an understanding of the
relations between reason and the will. The theses of these essays keep crop-
ping up, explicitly or implicitly, in all the others.
It was rather presumptuous of me to call the following two essays
'Explaining Normativity'. I plead in my defence that explanation is always
relative to a puzzle, and these essays seek to explain some of the puzzles
which preoccupied me, explaining them in ways which, however incom-
plete, satisfy me. As their titles suggest, the first deals with two topics. First,
the relations between rationality and reasons. Clearly there is a connection,
but what is it? Does rationality convey success in action for right reasons,
or success in acting according to reasons as one sees them, or an attempt
to follow reason, or success in the use of rules or reasoning? There are other
possibilities. The essay does not offer a complete account of rationality. Its
aim is to delineate some elements in such an account in order to help make
sense of the views expressed in this book. These reflections led to a con-
sideration of the connection between reasons and principles of reasoning,