Practical Reasoning

The author of this treatise sets out an original theory of what practical reasoning is and how it bears on the explanation and rationality of human actions. Part 1 contains extensive discussion of Aristotle, Hume and Kant. Their views are compared, and their conceptions of reason and action formulated. Part 2 engages contemporary issues related to their views and brings together problems in philosophy of mind, such as the nature of intention, belief and inference with topics in ethics, including moral responsibility, the relation between reason and morality, and the ethical appraisal of actions influenced by self-deception or weakness of will. Professor Audi proposes a conception of rational action that links it with justified belief and thereby connects action theory with the theory of knowledge. He approaches practical reasoning, and indeed agency in general, with both psychological realism and philosophical adequacy in mind, and with an eye to integrating the common-sense framework of practical reasoning into a plausible cognitive psychology.