Reasons From Within: Motivation and Practical Reasons
FAIN: FB-52953-07
Alan H. Goldman
College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA 23186-0002)
I plan to write a book that will defend a modified Humean internalist view of practical reasoning and practical reasons. This account holds that the reasons we have for acting in various ways are determined and limited by the motivations we have. Practical reasoning aims at coherence among motivations, intentions, and actions. Practical reasons are states of affairs constituted as reasons by informed and coherent motivational sets, including deep concerns, dispositions to behavior, evaluative judgments, and various other mental states. This economical account of practical reason, which shows its unity with theoretical reason, will be defended against major objections by proponents of external reasons and objective values.