PRACTICAL REASON

• As the currency of practical deliberation
• prima facie or pro tanto reason vs. all-things-considered reason

• Comparative systematic plausibility as a matter of wide dialectical equilibrium that seeks reflective accommodation of our views about practical reason with various other plausible philosophical commitments about morality, intentional action, agency, personal identity, etc.
• Normative adequacy as central component of dialectical equilibrium.
• One aspect of normative adequacy is resonance or motivational engagement.
• Another aspect of normative adequacy is critical guidance, which presupposes fallibility.
• One aspect of critical guidance is normative accommodation -- how well does the conception mesh with our considered or reflective judgments about the reasonableness or value of actual or hypothetical activities, choices, etc.  Perfect accommodation is impossible.  The best global accommodation may require local and significant reforms.
• Another aspect of normative adequacy is provision of a satisfying rationale for the normativity of the standard in question.  If conception X of reason or value is to be plausible, why should I care about conforming to its demands?

• Intrapersonal contexts concern only the agent’s own life.
• Interpersonal contexts concern both the agent and others.
• Because interpersonal practical reason raises questions about the rational authority of morality, it will be useful to separate, so far as possible, these two contexts.  We will focus first on intrapersonal practical reason and turn to interpersonal practical reason later.

• I am sympathetic with those who take practical reason to be the ultimate currency of normative inquiry.
• However, many issues about practical reason have parallels about the good or the personal good (well-being).  Indeed, this parallelism should come as no surprise if we can treat reasons and values as interdependent.  On one such view, we could treat the good as whatever is a legitimate object of rational concern.
• The Reason-Value Link: Something is (intrinsically) good just in case it is (intrinsically) rational to care about or pursue it.
Something is (intrinsically) good just in case it is (intrinsically) rational for everyone to care about or pursue it; or
Something is (intrinsically) good just in case it is (intrinsically) rational for someone to care about or pursue it.
• To accept that the good and practical reason are linked in this way does not prejudge the question of which notion, if any, is explanatorily primary.
• The Reason-Value Link does not yet tell us about the evaluative notion of the good for a person.  We can equate a person’s good with her welfare or well-being, her self-interest, her quality of life, and, on some views, with her happiness.
• The Reason-Well-being Link: Something is (intrinsically) good for X just in case it is (intrinsically) rational to care about or pursue it for X’s own sake.
• As with the Reason-Value link, this link does not prejudge which relatum, if any, is explanatorily prior.
• The Reason-Value and Reason-Well-being links are agnostic about the relationship between the good and the personal good or well-being.  One can eliminate either notion (as Moore was an eliminativist about the personal good); one can reduce either notion (as utilitarians tended to reduce the good to a sum of personal goods); or one can accept the autonomy of both notions.
• The Reason-Value and Reason-Well-being Links do not settle substantive questions about either practical reason or the good but they should allow us to move between claims about practical reason, the good, and well-being.