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EE dT itH e dI bC yS J, er P e mR yA RC aT nI dC e l KAL o oR n sE aA nS d RO oN nI aN l dG L, o eA Routledge Studies in American Philosophy fflG erE N C Y ETHICS, PRACTICAL REASONING, AGENCY WILFRID SELLARS’S PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY Edited by Jeremy Randel Koons and Ronald Loeffler Ethics, Practical Reasoning, Agency This is the first volume devoted exclusively to the practical philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars. It features original essays by leading Sellars scholars that examine his ethical theory, his theory of practical reasoning, and his theory of intentional agency. While most scholarship on Sellars’s philosophy has focused on his epistemology, metaphysics, or philosophy of language and mind, Sellars himself regarded his practical philosophy as central to his overall pro- ject of situating rational beings within the natural order. The chapters in this volume address this neglected area of Sellars’s philosophy. The chapters are divided into thematic sections covering Sellars’s theory of we-intentions – influential in contemporary debates on collective intentionality – naturalism and the manifest image, and the moral point of view. Together, they demonstrate how Sellars’s practical philosophy con- tributes to important debates in contemporary philosophy regarding, for example, expressivist approaches to moral thought and group agency in the collective intentionality literature. Ethics, Practical Reasoning, Agency: Wilfrid Sellars’s Practical Philosophy will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in Wilfrid Sellars, American philosophy, and ethics. Jeremy Randel Koons is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at George- town University – Qatar. He is the author of The Ethics of Wilfrid Sellars (Routledge, 2019), and the author or co-author of two additional books as well as two dozen articles and book chapters on metaethics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion. Ronald Loeffler is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids, MI, USA. He is the author of Brandom (Polity Press, 2018) and of articles on the philosophy of mind and language. Routledge Studies in American Philosophy Edited by Willem A. deVries, University of New Hampshire, USA and Henry Jackman, York University, Canada C.I. Lewis The A Priori and the Given Edited by Quentin Kammer, Jean-Philippe Narboux, and Henri Wagner Charles Peirce on Ethics, Esthetics and the Normative Sciences James Jakób Liszka The Ethics, Epistemology, and Politics of Richard Rorty Edited by Giancarlo Marchetti Intentionality in Sellars A Transcendental Account of Finite Knowledge Luz Christopher Seiberth Disability and American Philosophies Edited by Nate Whelan-Jackson and Daniel J. Brunson William James and the Moral Life Responsible Self-Fashioning Todd Lekan The Ethics of Richard Rorty Moral Communities, Self-Transformation, and Imagination Edited by Susan Dieleman, David E. McClean, and Paul Showler Ethics, Practical Reasoning, Agency Wilfrid Sellars’s Practical Philosophy Edited by Jeremy Randel Koons and Ronald Loeffler For more information about this series, please visit: https://www. routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-American-Philosophy/book-series/ RSAP Ethics, Practical Reasoning, Agency Wilfrid Sellars’s Practical Philosophy Edited by Jeremy Randel Koons and Ronald Loeffler First published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Jeremy Randel Koons and Ronald Loeffler; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Jeremy Randel Koons and Ronald Loeffler to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Koons, Jeremy Randel, editor. | Loeffler, Ronald, editor. Title: Ethics, practical reasoning, agency : Wilfrid Sellars’s practical philosophy / edited by Jeremy Randel Koons and Ronald Loeffler. Identifiers: LCCN 2022035201 (print) | LCCN 2022035202 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032301433 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032301440 (pbk) | ISBN 9781003303619 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Sellars, Wilfrid. | Practical reason. | Ethics. | Agent (Philosophy) Classification: LCC B945.S444 E84 2023 (print) | LCC B945. S444 (ebook) | DDC 191--dc23/eng/20221024 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022035201 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022035202 ISBN: 978-1-032-30143-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-30144-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-30361-9 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003303619 Typeset in Sabon by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. for Abby and for Carla Contents Notes on Contributors ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 JEREMY RANDEL KOONS AND RONALD LOEFFLER PART I Understanding Sellarsian We-Intentions 13 1 Sellars on the Intersubjectivity of “We-Intentions” 15 STEFANIE DACH 2 We-Intentions and How One Reports Them 36 KYLE FERGUSON 3 Moral We-Intentions as Individualistic We-Attitudes 62 RONALD LOEFFLER 4 Cracks in the Foundation: An Anscombean Critique of Sellars’s Practical Philosophy 84 HEATH WHITE PART II Naturalism and the Manifest Image: Extensions and Critical Engagements 103 5 Persons and Their Categories 105 WILLEM A. deVRIES viii Contents 6 ‘Causal Reducibility’ and Naturalism in Sellars’s Conception of the Moral ‘Ought’ 123 JAMES R. O’SHEA 7 Norm, Nature, and Narrative: Stereoscopic Vision in Sellars and Danielle Macbeth 147 ZACHARY GABOR 8 Practical Cognition, Motor Intentionality, and the Idea of the Good: Considerations of Denotational and Connotational Meaning 165 PRESTON STOVALL PART III The Moral Point of View and the Kingdom of Ends 189 9 The Community of Rational Beings 191 NICHOLAS TEBBEN 10 Morality, Tribalism, and Value 205 DANIELLE MACBETH 11 Sellars on External Reasons 224 JEREMY RANDEL KOONS Index 245 Notes on Contributors Stefanie Dach is a Post-doc at the University of West Bohemia. In her research, she focuses on various aspects of Sellars’s thought, recently with an emphasis on his practical philosophy. She has published a book on Richard Rorty and post-analytic philosophy as well as articles on Sellars, Wittgenstein, and pragmatism. Willem A. deVries received BA from Haverford College; MA and PhD from the University of Pittsburgh. Co-editor, Routledge Studies in American Philosophy. He writes on Sellars and Hegel with forays into related periods and topics. He taught at Amherst College, Harvard, Tufts, the University of Vienna, and University College Dublin, now emeritus at University of New Hampshire. Kyle Ferguson is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Division of Medical Ethics, Department of Population Health, at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He received a BA in Philosophy from Augustana College in his native Illinois and a PhD in Philosophy from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Zachary Gabor is a Doctoral Candidate at Harvard University. Jeremy Randel Koons is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University – Qatar. He is the author of The Ethics of Wilfrid Sellars (Routledge, 2019) and the author or co-author of two additional books, as well as two dozen articles and book chapters on metaethics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion. Ronald Loeffler is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Grand Valley State University. He is the author of Brandom (Polity Press, 2018) and of articles on the philosophy of mind and language. Danielle Macbeth is T. Wistar Brown Professor of Philosophy at Haverford College and the author of Frege’s Logic (HUP, 2005) and Realizing Reason (OUP, 2014). She has been an NEH Fellow, an ACLS Fellow, and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford.