Internal Reasons and Contractualist Impartiality

Alan Thomas

Utilitas, 2002, vol. 14, issue 2, 135-154

Abstract: Williams's claim that practical reasons are internal reasons is analysed and interpreted as a neutral analysis, not distinctively Humean, of constraints on the concept of a practical reason. It is argued that within these constraints it remains possible to defend the impartiality of moral reasons. A reflective account of such reasons can be given in ‘pragmatic’ rather than ‘semantic’ terms. Paralleling a revisionary strategy towards Kant's theoretical philosophy, a higher order disposition to accept only reasons that can be put to others without the prospect of reasonable rejection is argued to be the internalization of a relativized a priori principle.

Date: 2002
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