What exactly are the reasons we do things, and how are they related to the resulting actions? Bittner explores this question and proposes an answer: a reason is a response to that state of affairs. Elegantly written, this work is a substantial contribution to the fields of rationality, ethics, and action theory.

Among the numerous conceptions of autonomy, three are particularly important: Kant's notion of humans' being subject, and subject only, to moral laws they gave themselves, Frankfurt's idea of persons' willing and acting deriving from the essential character of their wills, and the popular conception of persons' being master over whether others do or do not certain things to them. Kant's moral conception of autonomy, it is argued, is untenable because the moral character of a law and its self-givenness are incompatible. (...) Frankfurt's idea suffers from the fact that we cannot give substance to talk of the essential character of one's will. The third conception is practically irrelevant: there is no principle requiring people to be master over what others do to them. Thus autonomy may have to be dropped from our self-conception. To some this will appear a grave loss. In fact it is not. (shrink)

Recent philosophy has developed an overblown concept of autonomy. In fact we do not have moral autonomy, and personal autonomy we only have in the sense of being able to decide some things that affect the course of our lives, not in the sense of shaping these lives and being master over them; nor ought we to have autonomy in the latter sense, or come closer to having it. As for our political institutions, they do not presuppose, as prevailing doctrines (...) claim they do, citizens’ autonomy in a more demanding sense. Freedom and democracy as understood for instance in the German constitution only assume subordinates capable of deciding some matters on their own. Current talk of autonomy is just gilding people’s real dependence. (shrink)

Why does world hunger hold an inferior place on the contemporary moral agenda? Proposed answer: because it is a political, not a moral problem. It is not a moral problem, because morality needs two conditions fulfilled: that those be in some way close to the agent unto whom that agent is doing something that is to be morally assessed; and that the relevant good or bad states or events can be clearly credited to some particular agent or agents. Neither condition (...) is fulfilled in the case of world hunger. This explains morality's failure to come to grips with it. Yet, while lacking morality's endorsement, the abolition of world hunger may still be a political goal. (shrink)

Was genau sind die Gründe für unser Handeln, und wie hängen sie zusammen mit den Resultaten dieses Handelns? Gegen die gängige Lehre, wonach Gründe geistige Zustände des Handelnden wie Wollen und Meinen sind, wird hier eine neue These entwickelt: Unser Handeln begründet sich nach Bittner in Zuständen oder Ereignissen in der Welt. Diese Antwort, im Detail ausgearbeitet und gegen Einwände verteidigt, führt zu einer radikalen Neu-Konzeption von uns selbst als Handelnden. Verkaufsargumente: - dt. übersetzung des viel gerühmten "Doing Things for (...) Reasons" - Originalfassung fand viel Beachtung unter Philosophen - radikaler Neuansatz der philosophischen Handlungstheorie. (shrink)

Two broad views on how agents are related to their actions are distinguished, agents as origins and agents as rulers. This paper focusses on the second. First it argues that a view of agents as rulers is attractive because a view of agents as origins seems incapable of accounting for the difference between actions and mere doings. Second, various attempts to spell out the idea of agents as rulers are examined, none of them proving successful. Thus the final suggestion is (...) to renounce the search for a basic pattern of how agents are related to their actions and settle for the historically ascertainable significance of individual actions in the context of individual lives. (shrink)

Political philosophers often see their task in providing a justification of states, with 'justification' understood, in analogy to the theological use of the term, as an argument showing states to be right, or unobjectionable. Political philosophers disagree on what property of a state it is that is required for its being right. In fact, it is difficult to see what could give this or that property of a state its right-making power. Since there is nothing that states as such are (...) called upon to be or to do, claims to the effect that some property or other is right-making are unfounded. The task of justification falling away, then, political philosophers should rather ask what should be done now with states. (shrink)

Examines an alternative understanding of doing things for reasons, Kant's conception of acting on a maxim. Having explained the Kantian idea of maxims and having defended the claim that this is indeed Kant's conception of agency, the chapter tries to find viable accounts of, first, holding a maxim and, second, acting on a maxim, in either case without success. How the agent who holds a maxim differs from an agent who does not cannot be made out. As for acting on (...) a maxim, Kant's texts support two accounts, the one relying on the practical syllogism, the other on the faculty of judgment. Notoriously, however, the practical syllogism does not yield action; and a faculty of judgment, it is argued here, does not in fact exist. (shrink)

The chapter develops the main consequences the present conception of reasons for which people do things has for our status as rational agents. One is that rational agents only need an awareness of things going on around them and the ability to act in response to them, but no faculty of governing themselves. This does away with inner opposition and domination as well as with the restriction of rational agency to the human species. It also does away with activity as (...) the core of agency: we are not masters over what we do for reasons; we do it, sensitive to what we encounter. Another consequence is that we are not, on the strength of being rational agents, subject to moral and other requirements, and that we do not therefore enjoy a special dignity: we are worldly creatures through and through. (shrink)

The chapter defends the present account of reasons one has against challenges by internalism and normativism. Internalists like Bernard Williams hold that one does not have a reason for doing something unless one has also a motivation to do it or could acquire such motivation by sound deliberation on the basis of the motivation one has. However, the argument for this claim is based on the premise that only what motivates agents can explain actions, and nothing speaks in favor of (...) accepting this premise. On the other hand, it is a consequence of the present account that reasons are not normative, contrary to the view of most of the literature, and the arguments offered by Korsgaard and Broome for the received view do turn out to be defective. (shrink)

Given that reasons for which people do things are states of affairs and events in the world, are there additional restrictions on what can be a reason for what? Many writers have claimed that there are, arguing that actions and the reasons for which they are done derive from particular systems of meaning. The pivot on which their argument turns is the notion of a constitutive rule, introduced by Rawls and taken up by writers like Charles Taylor and Searle; i.e., (...) the notion of a rule such that without it the activity in question could not exist. The chapter argues, by contrast, that there are no constitutive rules, and that it is purely an empirical matter to figure out what is a reason for what action. This does not bar from reason status rules, customs, obligations, and similar things deemed to involve meanings. (shrink)

The present reply to Peter Schaber’s critique of my paper Achtung und ihre moralische Bedeutung argues, first, that Schaber has no good grounds for maintaining that we have an obligation to respect every human being. Second, it explains why respect is not a fruitful attitude to take in the face of social divisions.

Examines the desire‐belief‐theory, as presented, for example, in the work of Donald Davidson, which holds that a reason for which somebody does something is a combination of a desire and a belief of the agent. Widely accepted, this theory is seldom defended, the most explicit argument being due to Michael Smith. However, not only is his argument found wanting on a number of counts but the desire‐belief‐theory also gives desire and belief incompatible roles to fulfill. Desire is asked both to (...) set a goal and to provide the impulse for pursuing it, and, correspondingly, belief is held to give the agent guidance both in the sense of informing and in the sense of directing him or her. (shrink)

The central idea of the book is this: a reason for which people do things is a state of affairs or event in the world, and the action is a response to that state of affairs or event. The present chapter introduces this idea by means of examples. It explains the term “response” and argues that it is historical knowledge that allows us to tell what some action is a response to. It argues, moreover, that this idea makes the best (...) sense of how we ordinarily think and speak of reasons for which people do things. (shrink)

The chapter tries to account for two kinds of cases that raise difficulties for the present conception of reasons for which people do things, namely, things done for a purpose, where the reason seems to be a future state or event, and things done for fun, which do not seem to be supported by reasons at all. As for things done for a purpose, it is argued here that we do not need teleological explanation as a special kind of explanation (...) of action, and that these cases can be accommodated on the present conception by taking the reason for the action to lie, not in the end state the agent is said to be aiming at, but in the current state of affairs that prompts the agent to change or, as the case may be, to preserve it. As for things done for fun, it is argued that they are indeed done for a reason, which lies, generally speaking, in the special character of what it is like to do them. (shrink)

Spinoza holds that we can become free by recognizing that everything happens with necessity. His own reasons for this claim do not stand scrutiny. More promising appears the idea that he who considers things necessary is not subject to affects that deprive him of his freedom. On this line, however, recognizing necessity also destroys joy, contrary to Spinoza’s maxim ”Do good and be joyful”. More importantly, what is necessary may in fact be a reasonable object of affective reactions. Thus, Spinoza (...) fails to support the enlightenment’s hope that knowledge brings freedom. (shrink)