Practical Reason, Aristotle, and Weakness of the Will.
Title:
Practical Reason, Aristotle, and Weakness of the Will.
Author:
Dahl, Norman O.
ISBN:
9780816655618
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (316 pages)
Series:
Minnesota Publications in the Humanities
Contents:
Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part One: Practical Reason and Aristotle -- Chapter 1 A Statement of the Problem -- Section I: The Nature of Practical Reason -- Section II: The Scope of Practical Reason -- Section III: Does Aristotle's Ethics Rest on Practical Reason? -- Chapter 2 Aristotle and Hume: A Preliminary Contrast -- Section I: Action as a Result of Appetite -- Section II: Action as a Result of Desire and Deliberation -- Section III: The Practical Syllogism -- Section IV: A Preliminary Contrast -- Chapter 3 Reason and General Ends -- Section I: Reason Apprehends the Ends of Action -- Section II: Universal Ends Acquired by Induction: The Role of Nous in Practical Affairs -- Section III: Apprehending vs. Acquiring Ends -- Section IV: A Sketch of a Theory -- Section V: Objections -- Chapter 4 The Pervasiveness of Aristotle's Views on Practical Reason -- Section I: Practical Wisdom and Virtue -- Section II: Excellence in Deliberation -- Section III: Nature and the End of Action (NE 1114b16-25) -- Section IV: Aristotle's Methodology in Ethics and Politics -- Chapter 5 The Apparent Support for the Humean Position -- Section I: Deliberation Is about Means -- Section II: Virtue Preserves First Principles -- Section III: Phronēsis Provides One with the Right Means, Aretē with the Right Ends -- Chapter 6 A Summary of the Argument -- Chapter 7 The Interest of Aristotle's Position on Practical Reason: Happiness and the Good Relative to Human Beings -- Section I: Happiness as the End of Action -- Section II: The Good as Fulfilling the Ergon of Human Beings Well -- Section III: The Good for Human Beings and the Good Human Being: Their Connection -- Chapter 8 Does Aristotle's Position on Practical Reason Provide an Adequate Basis for Ethics? -- Section I: Initial Objections -- Section II: The Incompleteness of Aristotle's Position.
Section III: Objectivity Once More -- Part Two: Aristotle and Weakness of the Will -- Chapter 9 The Traditional Interpretation: Some Problems and Preliminaries -- Section I: The Traditional Interpretation -- Section II: Some Problems for the Traditional Interpretation -- Section III: The Seriousness of These Problems -- Section IV: Variations of the Traditional Interpretation -- Section V: A Methodological Problem -- Chapter 10 An Argument for the Traditional Interpretation -- Section I: A Thesis about Knowledge and Action -- Section II: Aristotle's General Approach to Akrasia -- Section III: The Details of Aristotle's Explanation of Akrasia -- Section IV: Solutions to the Problems Raised for the Traditional Interpretation -- Section V: A Summary of the Argument -- Chapter 11 An Argument for an Alternative Interpretation -- Section I: Conflicts of Motive and Akrasia -- Section II: The Thesis about Knowledge and Action Reconsidered -- Section III: Aristotle's General Approach to Akrasia -- Section IV: The Details of Aristotle's Explanation of Akrasia -- Section V: Two Final Objections -- Section VI: A Summary -- Concluding Remarks -- Appendix I: NE 1143a35-b5 -- Appendix II: De Anima 434a12-15 -- Part A: Difficulties in Translation and Interpretation -- Part B: Alternative Interpretations -- Part C: Akrasia as Involving a Conflict of Motives -- Notes -- Bibliography -- General Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Index of Aristotelian Passages.
Abstract:
Practical Reason, Aristotle, and Weakness of the Will was first published in 1984. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. One of the central problems in recent moral philosophy is the apparent tension between the "practical" or "action-guiding" side of moral judgments and their objectivity. That tension would not exist if practical reason existed (if reason played a substantial role in producing motivation) and if recognition of obligation were one of the areas in which practical reason operated. In Practical Reason, Aristotle, and the Weakness of the Will,Norman Dahl argies that, despite widespread opinion to the contrary, Aristotle held a position on practical reason that both provides an objective basis for ethics and satisfies an important criterion of adequacy-that it acknowledges genuine cases of weakness of the will. In arguing for this, Dahl distinguishes Aristotle's position from that of David Hume, who denied the existence of practical reason. An important part of his argument is an account of the role that Aristotle allowed the faculty nous to play in the acquisition of general ends. Relying both on this argument and on an examination of passages from Aristotle's ethics and psychology, Dahl argues that Aristotle recognized that a genuine conflict of motives can occur in weakness of the will. This provides him with the basis for an interpretation that finds Aristotle acknowledging genuine cases of weakness of the will. Dahl's arguments have both a philosophical and a historical point. He argues that Aristotle's position on practical reason deserves to be taken seriously, a conclusion he reinforces by comparing that position with more recent attempts, by Kant, Nagel, and Rawls, to base
ethics on practical reason.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Genre:
Electronic Access:
Click to View