Reasons

Factualism, the explanatory requirement, and agency5 Hybrid theories; Building normative reasons out of motivating reasons; Building motivating reasons out of normative reasons; The identity thesis; 6 Constitutivism; Activities and aims; Hedonism; Action and knowledge; The knowledge constraint; Constitutivism and knowledge; Shmaction and shmagency; Constitutivism and error; The magic of constitutivism; 7 Anscombean views; Why?; The structure of action; Naïve action theory; Actions and facts; Keeping score; Activity and normativity; Conclusion; Notes; Further reading; Bibliography; Index.

When we say we ''act for a reason'', what do we mean? And what do reasons have to do with being good or bad? Introducing readers to a foundational topic in ethics, Eric Wiland considers the reasons for which we act. You do things for reasons, and reasons in some sense justify what you do. Further, your reasons belong to you, and you know the reasons for which you act in a distinctively first-personal way. Wiland lays out and critically reviews some of the most popular contemporary accounts of how reasons can function in all these ways, accounts such as psychologism, factualism, hybrid theori