PublishedOxford University Press, January 2014 |
ISBN9780199678488 |
FormatHardcover, 144 pages |
Dimensions22.4cm × 14.5cm × 1.3cm |
T. M. Scanlon offers a qualified defense of normative cognitivism: the view that there are irreducibly normative truths about reasons for action. He responds to three familiar objections--that such truths would have troubling metaphysical implications; that we would have no way of knowing what they are; and that the role of reasons in motivating and explaining action could not be explained if accepting a conclusion about reasons for action were a kind of
belief--and goes on to argue that the method of reflective equilibrium, properly understood, provides an adequate account of how we come to know both normative truths and mathematical truths, and that the idea
of a rational agent explains the link between an agent's normative beliefs and his or her actions.
