| Description |
xiv, 326 pages ; 23 cm |
| Series |
Cambridge studies in philosophy |
|
Cambridge studies in philosophy.
|
| Contents |
Machine derived contents note: PART 1. PROBLEM: 1. Introduction -- 2. Practical reasoning -- PART II. SCOPE: 3. Ends in deliberation -- 4. Specifying ends -- Part Iii. System -- 5. Value incommensurability -- 6. Is commensurability a prerequisite of rational choice? -- 7. Practical coherence -- 8. Reflective sovereignty -- Part Iv. Source -- 9. Sources and limits -- 10. Ultimate ends -- PART V. DISAGREEMENT: 11. Interpersonal deliberation -- 12. Disagreement in concept and in practice -- 13. Dialectical softening -- 14. Realizing rationality |
| Summary |
This is a book of major importance to a broad swath of philosophers as well as social and political scientists |
|
How should we reason about what to do? The answer offered by most recent philosophy, as well as such disciplines as decision theory, welfare economics, and political science, is that we should select efficient means to our ends. However, if we ask how we should decide which ends or goals to aim at, these standard theoretical approaches are silent. Henry Richardson argues that we can determine our ends rationally. He constructs a rich and original theory of how we can reason about what to seek for its own sake as a final end. Richardson defuses the counter-arguments for the limits of rational deliberation and develops interesting ideas about how his model might be extended to interpersonal deliberation of ends, taking him to the borders of political theory. Along the way Richardson offers illuminating discussions of, inter alia, Aristotle, Aquinas, Sidgwick, and Dewey, as well as the work of several contemporary philosophers |
| Analysis |
Ethics |
|
Ethics |
| Notes |
First paperback ed. published 1997 |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-319) and index |
| Subject |
Ends and means.
|
|
Practical reason.
|
| LC no. |
94004501 |
| ISBN |
0521464722 (hardback) |
|
0521574420 (paperback) |
|
