Moral Reasons

This book attempts to place a realist view of ethics (the claim that there are facts of the matter in ethics as elsewhere) within a broader context. It starts with a discussion of why we should mind about the difference between right and wrong, asks what account we should give of our ability to learn from our moral experience, and looks in some detail at the different sorts of ways in which moral reasons can combine to show us what we should do in the circumstances. The second half of the book uses these results to mount an attack on consequentialism in ethics, arguing that there are more sorts of reasons around than consequentialists can even dream of.

Introduction. 1. Internalism and Cognitivism. 2. The Pure Theory and its Rivals. 3. In Defence of Purity. 4. Why Particularism. 5. Against Generalism (1). 6. Against Generalism (2). 7. Conflict, Dilemma, Regret. 8. Supererogation. 9. Objectivity. 10. Towards Agent–Relativity. 11. Agent–Relativity. 12. Agent–Relativity – the Very Idea. 13. Consequentialism and the Agent–Relative. Appendix I: Internal/External Reasons. Appendix II: Hare′s Later Views. Appendix III: Nagel on Incommensurability.

Jonathan Dancy is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading and author of An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology (Blackwell, 1985) and Berkeley: An Introduction (Blackwell, 1987), and editor of A Companion to Epistemology (with Ernest Sosa, Blackwell, 1992), Reading Parfit (Blackwell, 1997), and Normativity (Blackwell, 2000).

"In presenting an original view of motivation, as well as in defending a minority view of motivation, as well as in defending a minority view on moral principles, Dancy enlarges our view of the theoretical options in a fashion that all parties should welcome." Mark van Roojen, The Philosophical Quarterly