Practical Reasoning and Ethical Decision

215 Pages·2006·1.62 MB·English

by  Robert Audi

Practical Reasoning and Ethical
Decision
What role does reason play in our actions? How do we know whether what we do is
right? Can practical reasoning guide ethical judgment?
Practical Reasoning and Ethical Decision presents an account of practical reasoning as
a process that can explain action, connect reasoning with intention, justify practical
judgments, and provide a basis for ethical decisions.
The first part of the book is a detailed critical overview of the influential theories of
practical reasoning found in Aristotle, Hume, and Kant. The second part examines
practical reasoning in the light of important topics in moral psychology—weakness of
will, self-deception, rationalization, and others. The third part describes the role of moral
principles in practical reasoning and clarifies the way practical reasoning underlies
ethical decisions. Audi formulates a comprehensive set of concrete ethical principles,
explains how they apply to reasoning about what to do, and shows how practical
reasoning guides moral conduct.
Practical Reasoning and Ethical Decision provides the most comprehensive account of
the topic in the current literature and is essential reading for anyone interested in the role
of reason in ethics or the nature of human action.
Robert Audi is the David E.Gallo Chair in Ethics and Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Moral Knowledge and Ethical Character
(1997), The Architecture of Reason (2001), Epistemology (Routledge, 2003), The Good
in the Right (2004), and many papers in ethics, moral psychology, and the philosophy of
action.

Robert Audi
Practical Reasoning and Ethical
Decision

LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX 14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York,
NY 10016, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of
thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.”
© 2006 Robert Audi
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized 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.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Audi, Robert, 1941– Practical reasoning and
ethical decision/Robert Audi.—1 st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-36462-0 (hardcover: alk paper)—ISBN 0-415-36463-9 (pbk: alk paper) I. Practical
reason. 2. Ethics. 3. Decision making. 4. Aristotle. 5. Hume, David, 1711–1776. 6. Kant,
Immanuel, 1724–1804. 1.Title. BC177.A84 2005 I70’.42–dc22 2005018550
ISBN 0-203-01568-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 10: 0-415-36462-0 (Print Edition) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-36462-1 (hbk)
ISBN 10: 0-415-36463-9 (Print Edition) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-36463-8 (pbk)

Taylor & Francis Group is the Academic Division of T&F Informa p/c.
Contents

Preface viii
Acknowledgments x

Introduction 1

8
PART I Historical and conceptual background: practical reasoning in Aristotle,
Hume, and Kant

1 Aristotle on practical reasoning and the structure of action 10
2 Hume and the instrumentalist conception of practical reasoning 29
3 Kant and the autonomy of practical reason 45

62
Part II Practical reasoning, practical arguments, and intentional action

4 The varieties and basic elements of practical reasoning 64
5 Practical reasoning and intentional action 82
6 Practical reasoning in the dynamics of action 95

107
Part III Practical reasoning, ethical decision, and rational action

7 The assessment of practical reasoning 109
8 General principles of practical appraisal 124
9 Practical reasoning and moral judgment 135
10 Practical reasoning in ethical decisions 147
11 The rationality of action and the plurality of value 157

Conclusion 170
Notes 175
Index 194
Preface
This book is intended as a wide-ranging contribution to moral psychology—conceived as
including the theory of action—and normative ethics. It is a sequel to Practical
Reasoning, published by Routledge in 1989. It contains three new chapters that connect
my theory of practical reasoning with ethics, and the content of the earlier volume has
been expanded in many places and revised—often in major ways—in part with the idea
of placing my account of practical reasoning in the context of an ethical theory that I have
developed in The Good in the Right (Princeton, 2004) and elsewhere. Most of the content
of the earlier, much shorter book is preserved, but some points have been eliminated.
Many of the revisions reflect my thinking and writings in ethics and the theory of
practical reason since the earlier book, and Chapter 8 draws heavily on my “Reasons,
Practical Reason, and Practical Reasoning” (Ratio 17, 2, 2004).
In many places the revised chapters take into account various developments in ethics
and the philosophy of action during the past fifteen years. This book is not, however,
about major figures in the literature, apart from Aristotle, Hume, and Kant. It is intended
as an independent contribution to moral psychology and normative ethics. Even in
exploring their positions, then, I have concentrated on what seems philosophically central
rather than on historical or textual questions.
Readers in either ethics or the philosophy of action will find many discussions in the
book that bear on central problems in those fields. Among these are the moral standards
that govern practical reasoning in ethical matters; the status of moral reasons in
comparison with other practical reasons; the dimensions of reasoned ethical decisions;
the structure and explanation of action, and the conditions for its rationality; the nature
and dynamics of weakness of will; and the connection between practical reasoning and
such psychological notions as inference, self-deception, rationalization, and unconscious
motivation.
Readers interested in the history of ethics will find interpretations of major elements in
the three immensely influential positions explored in Part I: Aristotle’s, which remains
central in virtue ethics; Hume’s, which is central for understanding instrumentalism—
and, in my view, naturalism—in the theory of practical reason; and Kant’s, which is
currently the leading deontological view in modern ethics. These three positions, both as
they bear on practical reasoning and in their implications for ethics, are kept in view
throughout the book.
The writing style and narrative elements of the book are meant to make it accessible to
serious students in any of the areas just mentioned. The aim has been to combine
adequate clarity and concreteness to help readers coming to the topic for the first time
with sufficient rigor and originality to reward professional readers.
For those with background in the subject, any of the three parts may be read
separately, but this applies to Part I for virtually any reader. Most of the references to Part
I that come later in the book are quite intelligible in their context or easy to pursue using
the index. Readers particularly interested in normative questions and ethical decision
should find Part III largely self-contained. Indeed, Chapters 8 through 11 (or even 8 or 9
through 10) are largely understandable on their own. The Introduction provides a sense of
the scope of all three parts; each chapter has a summary of its major points; and the
Conclusion draws together main ideas developed throughout the book.