Varieties of Practical Reasoning

Practical reasoning is the study of how to figure out what to do. It is of particularimportance to ethics. Indeed, new developments in practical reasoning promise to break throughlong-standing ethical and moral dilemmas. Practical reasoning also has consequences for philosophyof mind, value theory, and the social sciences. This anthology provides an overview of thisimportant area of philosophy.Over the past two decades the field of practical reasoning has changedrapidly, with a small number of entrenched positions giving way to a healthy profusion of competingviews. This book covers a broad spectrum of positions on practical reasoning--from the nihilist viewthat there are no legitimate forms of practical inference, and hence no such thing as practicalreasoning, to inferential expressivism, which holds that our desires express commitments toarbitrarily different kinds of practical inferences (as when the desire to stay dry makes explicitthe commitment to inferring the need to carry an umbrella if rain is forecast). Underlying all thecontributions is the question of how one should go about determining what the legitimate forms ofpractical reasoning are.

Elijah Millgram is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah.