Overview
The Range of Reasons contributes to two debates and it does so by bringing them together. The first is a debate in metaethics concerning normative reasons, the considerations that serve to justify a person's actions and attitudes. The second is a debate in epistemology concerning the norms for belief, the standards that govern a person's beliefs and by reference to which they are assessed. The book starts by developing and defending a new theory of reasons for action, that is, of practical reasons. The theory belongs to a family that analyses reasons by appeal to the normative notion of rightness (fittingness, correctness); it is distinctive in making central appeal to modal notions, specifically, that of a nearby possible world. The result is a comprehensive framework that captures what is common to and distinctive of reasons of various kinds: justifying and demanding; for and against; possessed and unpossessed; objective and subjective. The framework is then generalized to reasons for belief, that is, to epistemic reasons, and combined with a substantive, first-order commitment, namely that truth is the sole right-maker for belief. The upshot is an account of the various norms governing belief, including knowledge and rationality, and the relations among them. According to it, the standards to which belief is subject are various, but they are unified by an underlying principle.
Full Product Details
Author: Daniel Whiting (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, University of Southampton)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Edition: 1
Dimensions:
Width: 16.50cm
, Height: 2.00cm
, Length: 24.00cm
Weight: 0.520kg
ISBN: 9780192893956
ISBN 10: 0192893955
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 15 December 2021
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
This is an excellent book. It is original, provocative, and sophisticated. The level of scholarship is truly admirable. * Chris Howard, McGill University *
The book is swarming with excellent arguments...This is an excellent book. * Nathaniel Sharadin, Ethics * This is an excellent book. It is original, provocative, and sophisticated. The level of scholarship is truly admirable. * Chris Howard, McGill University *
Author Information
Daniel Whiting is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton, where he was Head of Department from 2016-19. He is the current Director of the Mind Association. His publications numerous journal articles as well as Metaepistemology (OUP, 2018) and Normativity: Epistemic and Practical (OUP, 2018), both co-edited with Conor McHugh and Jonathan Way. He led an international network on 'Higher-Order Evidence in Epistemology, Ethics, and Aesthetics' (2019-21) and was Principal Investigator on the research project 'Normativity: Epistemic and Practical' (2013-15), both supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Before joining Southampton, Daniel studied and taught at the University of Reading.
