Ch3 – foundations
Contents
Ch3 – foundations..................................................................................................................................1
Reasons and foundations...................................................................................................................1
Being good and living well..................................................................................................................1
The categorical imperative.................................................................................................................2
Contracts and discourse.....................................................................................................................3
The common point of view.................................................................................................................3
Confidence restored...........................................................................................................................3
Reasons and foundations
Question: what is the difference between reason and Reason?
Conclusion:
reason Reason
If you offer someone a reason and they shrug it off, you If you offer someone a Reason and they
might say they are insensitive or inhuman, callous or shrug it off, then their very rationality is in
selfish, imprudent or sentimental. These are defects of jeopardy. There is something wrong with
the heart. You may regret them, but you may not be their head, if they cannot see things that
able to prove to the audience that they are defects at all just 'stand to reason'.
there is no proof that reasons have to work a reason that everyone must
It seems to depend on our feelings or acknowledge to be a reason,
sentiments. And feelings or sentiments are not independently of their sympathies
capable of proof. and inclinations
Evidence: Philosophers are professionally wedded to reasoning, so it is natural to them to hope that
we can find Reasons.
Question: Why does Hume argue that there are no Reasons?
Conclusion: he argued that reason's proper sphere is confined to mathematics and logic, while
knowledge about the way things are is due to sense experience. Neither reason nor knowledge afford
us any substantive principles of conduct. Moreover, conduct to rules depends on sympathy, which is
not mandated by reason alone . The plight of others might five us reasons to act, but not Reasons.
Evidence: human reason has a limited domain. It includes, mathematics and logic, for if we try to
disobey their laws, thought itself becomes impossible. We are left with no ideas at all. When it comes
to ethics we are in the domain of preference and choice, where reason is silent. Here, the heart rules
everything.
Question: how can this be put in terms of a contrast between description and prescription?
Conclusion: Reason is involved in getting our descriptions of the world right. What we then prescribe
is beyond its jurisdiction
Evidence: Reason is wholly at the service of the passions
Being good and living well
Question: explain how Aristotle thinks we can live well
Conclusion: the telos (goal) of a human being is to live a certain kind of life in which certain basic
biological needs for food, warmth, shelter and perhaps sex are met.
Evidence: connects the 'intended' life with the virtuous life and life lived according to reason
Contents
Ch3 – foundations..................................................................................................................................1
Reasons and foundations...................................................................................................................1
Being good and living well..................................................................................................................1
The categorical imperative.................................................................................................................2
Contracts and discourse.....................................................................................................................3
The common point of view.................................................................................................................3
Confidence restored...........................................................................................................................3
Reasons and foundations
Question: what is the difference between reason and Reason?
Conclusion:
reason Reason
If you offer someone a reason and they shrug it off, you If you offer someone a Reason and they
might say they are insensitive or inhuman, callous or shrug it off, then their very rationality is in
selfish, imprudent or sentimental. These are defects of jeopardy. There is something wrong with
the heart. You may regret them, but you may not be their head, if they cannot see things that
able to prove to the audience that they are defects at all just 'stand to reason'.
there is no proof that reasons have to work a reason that everyone must
It seems to depend on our feelings or acknowledge to be a reason,
sentiments. And feelings or sentiments are not independently of their sympathies
capable of proof. and inclinations
Evidence: Philosophers are professionally wedded to reasoning, so it is natural to them to hope that
we can find Reasons.
Question: Why does Hume argue that there are no Reasons?
Conclusion: he argued that reason's proper sphere is confined to mathematics and logic, while
knowledge about the way things are is due to sense experience. Neither reason nor knowledge afford
us any substantive principles of conduct. Moreover, conduct to rules depends on sympathy, which is
not mandated by reason alone . The plight of others might five us reasons to act, but not Reasons.
Evidence: human reason has a limited domain. It includes, mathematics and logic, for if we try to
disobey their laws, thought itself becomes impossible. We are left with no ideas at all. When it comes
to ethics we are in the domain of preference and choice, where reason is silent. Here, the heart rules
everything.
Question: how can this be put in terms of a contrast between description and prescription?
Conclusion: Reason is involved in getting our descriptions of the world right. What we then prescribe
is beyond its jurisdiction
Evidence: Reason is wholly at the service of the passions
Being good and living well
Question: explain how Aristotle thinks we can live well
Conclusion: the telos (goal) of a human being is to live a certain kind of life in which certain basic
biological needs for food, warmth, shelter and perhaps sex are met.
Evidence: connects the 'intended' life with the virtuous life and life lived according to reason
