Abstract

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. ;Is reason the slave of the passions? In Part I it is argued that neither the humean nor the kantian answers to this question can be maintained simpliciter. Each side of the controversy has to make significant concessions to the other. One consequence of this is that humean and kantian approaches to action are less clearly distinguished than might initially be supposed. ;In Part II several central notions are examined. The idea of a pre-rational motive is rejected, as is the view that desires can be divided into motivated and unmotivated. The assumption that reason in action always takes the form of deductive argument is also rejected. An alternative view is presented that reason in action is to be understood in terms of the process of questioning a person's motives. There is no specific point which must always mark the termination of such a process. The circumstances in which questioning takes place are at least as important as the form answers to questions take. ;This implies that both the humean and kantian accounts of morality are unacceptable as complete moral theories. Moral deadlock does not result solely from conflicts of wants or of understanding. Equally it is not explicable in terms of different cultures. Different ways we talk of virtue reveal both humean and kantian strands in our moral thinking. Also the idea of moral progress reveals a kantian related notion of the form of a person's motives as a guide to changing for the better