Moral Reason

by Julia Markovits

What is it to have a reason to do something? is one sort of question; what is it we have reason to do? is another. These questions are often explored separately. But our answers to them may not be what reasons are may have implications for what reasons there are . So the door is opened to a troubling tension--the account of what reasons are that is most plausible in its own right could entail a view of what we have reason to do that is independently implausible. In fact, it looks like this is the case.

In the first half of Moral Reason , Julia Markovits develops and defends a version of a desire-based, internalist, account of what normative reasons are . But does that account entail that there are no moral reasons that apply to all of us, regardless of what we happen to desire? It may look obvious that it does--that a bullet must be bitten somewhere. If what we have reason to do depends on what we antecedently desire, corrected only for misinformation and procedural irrationalities, and if desires differ from person to person, there seems to be no basis for assuming that everyone has reason to be moral. But the bullet may yet be avoided. In the second half of the book, Markovits shows how we may do so, building on Kant's argument for his formula of humanity to provide an internalist defense of universal moral reasons. In doing so, she provides a more satisfying answer to the age-old why be moral ?

Genres: Philosophy

222 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Hossein Samani · Rating 5 out of 5]

بحث دلیل اخلاقی در قلب مباحثات فلسفه اخلاق معاصر است وهمچنان زنده.
این کتاب تا آن جا که من دیده ام در میان منابع دیگر، شرح خوب و روشنی از مباحثات فیلسوفان اخلاق تحلیلی معاصر در این باب به دست میدهد و مارکوویتز در پیشنهاد خود اگر چه موضع درونی گرایانه ی ویلیامز(=هیوم) را بر می گزیند، اما هم استدلال های متفاوتی اقامه میکند، و هم برای فرار از معضل نسبی گراییِ هارمن، راهی اصلا کانتی باز میکند که اولا کم هزینه تر از راه پیشنهادی فوت و خود ویلیامز است، و ثانیا مشکلات برونی گرایان را ندارد. شرح مارکوویتز از کانت فوق العاده روشن و گیراست، و البته با حفظ فاصله انتقادی از خود کانت.
من کتاب را جزء به جزء نخواندم و به خواندن قسمت های با اهمیت تر (دست کم برای جستاری که باید مینوشتم با اهمیت تر) بسنده کردم. اما هم خواندنش را به هر علاقه مند بحث های فلسفه اخلاق تحلیلی پیشنهاد میکنم و هم به خودم قول میدهم که کتاب را بار دیگر و دقیق تر بخوانم.

[Ali Baygi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julia Markovits in her book tries to identify universal moral internal reasons that apply to everyone, and failing to follow them results in procedural irrationality.
She also asks whether reducing moral wrongdoing to just an error in reasoning is satisfying?
Could we possibly be persuaded by the conclusion that a morally wrong action is reduced to an error in reasoning.