Overview

Ingmar Persson offers an original view of the processes of human action: deliberating on the basis of reasons for and against actions, making a decision about what to do, and from there implementing the decision in action in a way that makes the action intentional. Persson's analysis is mainly developed to suit physical actions, though how it needs to be modified to cover mental acts is also discussed. The interpretation of intentional action that is presented is reductionist in the sense that it does not appeal to any concepts that are distinctive of the domain of action theory, such as a unique type of agent-causation, or irreducible mental acts, like acts of will, volitions, decisions, or tryings. Nor does it appeal to any unanalyzed attitudes or states essentially related to intentional action, like intentions and desires to act. Instead, the intentionality of actions is construed as springing from desires conceived as physical states of agents which cause facts because of the way agents think of them. A sense of our having responsibility that is sufficient for our acting for reasons is also sketched out.

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9780191880391

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Ingmar Persson, University of Gothenburg / Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics Ingmar Persson is Emeritus Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Gothenburg and Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. He received his PhD in practical philosophy in 1981 before becoming a Junior Research Fellow, Lecturer, and then Professor in the same discipline at the University of Lund, Sweden. Persson then moved to Gothenburg to take up the chair in practical philosophy in 2004. His publications include The Retreat of Reason (Oxford 2005), From Morality to the End of Reason (Oxford 2013), Inclusive Ethics (Oxford 2017), and Unfit for the Future (Oxford 2012, with Julian Savulescu).

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