Christine Korsgaard: Skepticism About Practical Reason

question 32

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Christine Korsgaard: Skepticism About Practical Reason
Kant's ethical theory attempts to base morality on practical reason, but many thinkers have been skeptical about the extent to which human action is or could be directed by reason. Korsgaard distinguishes between content skepticism, which involves doubts about whether formal principles of rationality can provide any substantive moral guidance, and motivational skepticism, which involves doubts about the ability of reason to serve as a motive. Korsgaard argues that motivational skepticism is always based on content skepticism, and hence cannot provide an independent argument against a moral theory based on practical reason.
Korsgaard begins by discussing Hume's skeptical view of practical reason, according to which "reason is, and ought to be only the slave of the passions." On Hume's view, reason neither selects nor ranks our ends, but merely allows us to determine the most efficient means to our ends, which are themselves set by our desires. Practical irrationality occurs, on Hume's view, only when our desires are somehow based on false beliefs. Korsgaard argues, however, for the possibility of pure irrationality-cases in which we fail to respond appropriately to an available reason, as when one sees that one's ends can only be achieved by certain means, but fails to take those means. Despite the fact that reason and motivation can come apart, however, Korsgaard holds that the two are tightly linked. She endorses the internalist requirement, according to which one can only have a reason for action if that reason is capable of motivating a rational person. Because we sometimes fail to be rational, we can sometimes fail to be motivated by our reasons. But Korsgaard insists that human beings are capable of being rational, especially given the right sort of training. Accordingly, Korsgaard claims that if there are any unconditional requirements of reason (as Kant claimed), then humans are capable of responding to them, even if they sometimes fail to do so. If so, motivational skepticism is correct only if content skepticism is correct. The former cannot float free from the latter.
-On Hume's view, reason cannot determine our ends, it can only rank them.

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