Kantian Tunes on a Humean Instrument
Why Hume is not Really a Skeptic About Practical Reasoning
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8109870 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elizabeth S Radcliffe (0000-0002-5447-3458, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1997 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 247-269 |
| Publication date | 1997-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Canadian Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0045-5091 • E-ISSN: 1911-0820 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00455091.1997.10717479 |
| OpenAlex | W826387681 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 8 |
The theory that practical reasoning is wholly instrumental says that the only practical function of reason is to tell agents the means to their ends, while their ends are fixed by something other than reason itself. In this essay I argue that Hume has an instrumentalist theory of practical reasoning. This thesis may sound as unexciting as the contention that Kant is a rationalist about morality. For who would have thought otherwise? After all, isn't the ‘instrumentalist’ line in contemporary discussions of this topic descended directly from Hume himself? Contrast the following recent comment from Robert Audi's book on practical reasoning, holding the standard line, with the comment from Christine Korsgaard following it: Hume's conception of practical reasoning, so far as we can formulate it, can be located within ... the foundationalist account of motivation in which reason plays the instrumentalist role ... by virtue of arousing and directing our desires
Epistemology · Foundationalism · Instrumentalism · Morality · Practical reason · Skepticism · Virtue · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,3 |
| Citation span | 2006 - 2021 (16) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |