{"title":"Why Did You Really Do It? Human Reasoning and Reasons for Action","authors":"J. Gascón","doi":"10.31577/orgf.2021.28405","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"During the last decades several studies in cognitive psychology have shown that many of our actions do not depend on the reasons that we adduce afterwards, when we have to account for them. Our decisions seem to be often influenced by normatively or explanatorily irrelevant features of the environment of which we are not aware, and the reasons we offer for those decisions are a posteriori rationalisations. But exactly what reasons has the psychological research uncovered? In philosophy, a distinction has been commonly made between normative and motivating reasons: normative reasons make an action right, whereas motivating reasons explain our behaviour. Recently, Maria Alvarez has argued that, apart from normative (or justifying) reasons, we should further distinguish between motivating and explanatory reasons. We have, then, three kinds of reasons, and it is not clear which of them have been revealed as the real reasons for our actions by the psychological research. The answer we give to this question will have important implications both for the validity of our classifications of reasons and for our understanding of human action.","PeriodicalId":43025,"journal":{"name":"Organon F","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2021-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Organon F","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28405","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"PHILOSOPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
During the last decades several studies in cognitive psychology have shown that many of our actions do not depend on the reasons that we adduce afterwards, when we have to account for them. Our decisions seem to be often influenced by normatively or explanatorily irrelevant features of the environment of which we are not aware, and the reasons we offer for those decisions are a posteriori rationalisations. But exactly what reasons has the psychological research uncovered? In philosophy, a distinction has been commonly made between normative and motivating reasons: normative reasons make an action right, whereas motivating reasons explain our behaviour. Recently, Maria Alvarez has argued that, apart from normative (or justifying) reasons, we should further distinguish between motivating and explanatory reasons. We have, then, three kinds of reasons, and it is not clear which of them have been revealed as the real reasons for our actions by the psychological research. The answer we give to this question will have important implications both for the validity of our classifications of reasons and for our understanding of human action.
期刊介绍:
Organon F publishes high-quality articles on the entire range of topics discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy. Accordingly, we invite authors to submit articles that address issues that belong, but are not limited, to philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, epistemology, metaphysics and philosophical logic. We also consider analytically written articles on ethics, aesthetics, social philosophy, political philosophy and history of philosophy. The principal aim is to publish original articles that meet the standards typical of analytic philosophy, primarily those of conceptual clarity, precision and soundness of argumentation.