Practical Reason

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Practical reason defines a distinctive standpoint of reflection. When agents deliberate about action, they think about themselves and their situation in characteristic ways. What are some of the salient features of the practical point of view? A natural way to interpret this point of view is to contrast it with the standpoint of theoretical reason. The latter standpoint is occupied when we engage in reasoning that is directed at the resolution of questions that are in some sense theoretical rather than practical; but how are we to understand this opposition between the theoretical and the practical? One possibility is to understand theoretical reflection as reasoning about questions of explanation and prediction. Looking backward to events …show more content…

That is, it involves reflection with an eye to the truth of propositions, and the reasons for belief in which it deals are considerations that speak in favor of such propositions' being true, or worthy of acceptance. Practical reason, by contrast, is concerned not with the truth of propositions but with the desirability or value of actions. The reasons in which it deals are considerations that speak in favor of particular actions being good, or worthy of performance in some way. This difference in subject matter corresponds to a further difference between the two forms of reason, in respect of their consequences. Theoretical reflection about what one ought to believe produces changes in one's overall set of beliefs, whereas practical reason gives rise to action; as noted above, it is practical not only in its subject matter, but also in its …show more content…

Accounts of this kind offer interpretations of the normative and evaluative language that distinctively figures in practical reflection. As was seen in section 1, such reflection addresses an agent's reasons for acting in one way or another; conclusions about such reasons are characteristically couched in evaluative terms, as claims about what it would be good to do, or as normative conclusions about the actions that one ought to perform. According to the expressivist, however, evaluative and normative claims of these kinds do not represent genuine cognitive achievements, judgments that are literally capable of being true or false. Rather they give expression to desires, sentiments, plans, and other pro-attitudes, the sorts of goal-directed noncognitive state that move people to action. The expressivist contends that we can make sense of the capacity of practical reason to generate states with the peculiar structure and function of intentions only if evaluative and normative assertions are understood along these

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