Talk: Justin Snedegar (St Andrews)

“Deliberation, Reasons, and Alternatives”

Abstract: Many philosophers hold that normative reasons for action must be (perhaps among other things) good premises for deliberation about what to do. This opens up the possibility of arguing for certain claims about the nature of reasons from claims about good deliberation. In this talk, I’ll first argue that deliberation is question-directed — it is about answering a deliberative question about what to do. I will then argue that whether some consideration is a good premise in deliberation about whether to perform some action — and so, given the kind of constraint on reasons mentioned above, whether it’s a reason for or against performing that action — depends on the particular deliberative question at issue. This conclusion is a version of contrastivism about reasons, the claim that reasons are fundamentally reasons for one thing rather than another, instead of reasons for things simpliciter.

Lunch will be provided.