The Teleological Conception of Practical Reasons

Abstract

The Teleological Conception of Practical Reasons* D OUGLAS W. P ORTMORE Arizona State University NOTE TO ISUS X PARTICIPANTS: Due to some unfortunate personal circumstances, I am unable to attend the conference. I am, however, happy to respond to comments and questions by email. Please send them to douglas.portmore@asu.edu. Abstract: I defend the teleological conception of practical reasons (or ‘TCR’ for short), which holds that “since any rational action must aim at some result, reasons that bear on whether to perform an action must appeal to the desirability or undesirability of having that result occur, taking into account also the intrinsic value of the act itself” (Scanlon 1998, 84). On this conception, practical reasoning involves, first, determining which ends there are reason to desire and, second, determining which available action will best achieve those ends. I offer a more precise statement of the view and then clear up some common misconceptions about it, such as: (1) that TCR is incompatible with the idea that concrete entities (e.g., persons, animals, and things), not states of affairs, are the primary bearers of intrinsic value; (2) that TCR is incompatible with appropriately valuing goods such as friendship, and (3) that TCR is incompatible with the view that attitudes such as belief and blame are rationally justified on non‐instrumental grounds. And I rebut Scanlon’s putative counterexamples to TCR, where putatively “many of the reasons bearing on an action concern not the desirability of outcomes but rather the eligibility or ineligibility of various other reasons” (Scanlon 1998, 84). Lastly, I provide an argument for TCR. T HE TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPTION of practical reasons holds that “since any rational action must aim at some result, reasons that bear on whether to perform an action must appeal to the desirability or undesirability of having that result occur, taking into account also the intrinsic value of the act itself” (Scanlon 1998, 84). On this conception, practical reasoning involves, first, determining which ends there are reason to desire and, second, determining which available actions will best achieve those ends. Whether this is the correct conception of practical reasons is not only important in its own right, but also important in virtue of its potential implications for what sort of moral theory we should accept—at least, it will have such implications if we assume, as many philosophers do, that an agent can be morally required to perform an act only if she has most reason to perform that act. 1 In this paper, I argue that the teleological conception is * Working draft of 6/27/08. You may cite this work, but please check with me before quoting from it given the tentative nature of the work. The paper is currently being revised in light of reviewer comments and a revise‐and‐resubmit verdict from Philosophers’ Imprint. Future versions of the paper will be available at http://www.public.asu.edu/~dportmor/papers.htm.