The Possibility of Practical Reason

Abstract

This principle is meant to apply only to complete sets of reasons, not to reasons taken individually.That is, if a particular consideration counts as a reason only in the context of a larger set or series of considerations, then it need not be capable of swaying the agent unless it is considered in that context.The assumption that 'reasons' denotes complete sets of reasons will be in force throughout the following discussion.I shall also rely on the success-grammar of the word 'considerations': considerations are, by implication, true considerations-or, as I shall sometimes call them, facts.2. The last clause is meant to account for cases like this: "It may be true of me that were the aroma of fresh apple pie to waft past my nose I would be moved to discover its source and perhaps to try to wangle a piece.It does not follow from this, however, that before I smell the pie I desire to eat it or to eat anything at all" (Stephen L. Darwall, Impartial Reason [Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983], p. 40).Here apple pie is something that the agent doesn't yet want but will want once he considers its attainability, and so considerations about how to obtain it are capable of influencing Ethics 106 (