Following the Rules: Practical Reasoning and Deontic Constraint

353 Pages·2008·4.07 MB·English

by  Joseph Heath

Following the Rules
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Following the Rules
Practical Reasoning and Deontic
Constraint
joseph heath
1
2008
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heath, Joseph, 1967–
Following the rules : practical reasoning and deontic constraint / Joseph Heath.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-19-537029-4
1. Deontic logic. 2. Practical reason. 3. Ethics. 4. Duty. I. Title.
BC145.H43 2008
128'.4—dc22 2007052440
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Acknowledgments
My thanks to those who have helped me with this book over the years, along
with those who have read and commented on it. Special thanks to Joel Anderson,
Benoît Dubreuil, Benoit Hardy-Vallée, Vida Panitch, Patrick Turmel, Scott
Woodcock, and Sergio Tenenbaum. Thanks also to my colleague Ronald De
Sousa, along with Peter Ohlin and Peter Momtchiloff, both of Oxford University
Press, for giving the entire project a boost when it most needed it.
This book incorporates, in revised form, ideas that have been presented in
journal articles over the years. My thanks to the editors and referees at these
journals, along with all those who helped me with these papers. The formulation
of my arguments in this work should be taken to supersede those presented in
“Foundationalism and Practical Reason,” Mind 106, 3 (1997): 452–73; “The
Structure of Normative Control,” Law and Philosophy 17, 4 (1998): 419–42;
“Brandom et les sources de la normativité,” Philosophiques 28 (2001): 27–46;
“Rational Choice with Deontic Constraint,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 31, 3
(2001): 361–88; “Practical Irrationality and the Structure of Decision Theory,”
in Sarah Stroud and Christine Tappolet, eds., Weakness of Will and Practical
Irrationality (Oxford: Clarendon, 2003); and “The Transcendental Necessity of
Morality,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2003): 378–95.
This book covers a lot of ground. I would like to thank those who, at cru-
cial junctures, have introduced me to ideas and bodies of work to which I might
otherwise have been oblivious, but which subsequently proved central in the
development of my views. These include Thomas McCarthy, James Johnson,
Stephen Toulmin, David Davies, Michael Williams, Paul Thompson, and Ronald
De Sousa.
vi Acknowledgments
I would also like to acknowledge the generous support I have received, over the
years, from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the
Canada Research Chairs Program, along with the Departments of Philosophy at
the University of Toronto and the Université de Montréal.
Contents
Introduction, 3
1. Instrumental Rationality, 12
2. Social Order, 42
3. Deontic Constraint, 65
4. Intentional States, 99
5. Preference Noncognitivism, 132
6. A Naturalistic Perspective, 166
7. Transcendental Necessity, 202
8. Weakness of Will, 226
9. Normative Ethics, 258
Conclusion, 286
Notes, 293
Index, 331
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Following the Rules