Kinds of Reasons

Understanding human beings and their distinctive rational and volitional capacities is one of the central tasks of philosophy. The task requires a clear account of such things as reasons, desires, emotions and motives, and of how they combine to produce and explain human behaviour. In Kinds of Reasons, Maria Alvarez offers a fresh and incisive treatment of these issues, focusing in particular on reasons as they feature in contexts of agency. Her account builds on some important recent work in the area; but she takes her main inspiration from the tradition that receives its seminal contemporary expression in the writings of G.E.M. Anscombe, a tradition that runs counter to the broadly Humean orthodoxy that has dominated the theory of action for the past forty years. Alvarez's conclusions are therefore likely to be controversial; and her bold and painstaking arguments will be found provocative by participants on every side of the debates with which she engages. Clear and directly written, Kinds of Reasons aims to stake out a distinctive position within one of the most hotly contested areas of contemporary philosophy.

ISBN	019955000X	Pages	220
ISBN13	9780199550005 (What's this?)	Weight (grammes)	410
Publisher	Oxford University Press	Published in	Oxford
Imprint	Oxford University Press	Height (mm)	223
Format	Hardback	Width (mm)	146
Publication date	25 Mar 2010	Spine width (mm)	18
DEWEY	128.2	Academic level	General, Further/Higher education
DEWEY edition	DC22

	Introduction	1
1	Reasons	7
2	Reasons, Kinds, Ontology	32
3	Motivation and Desires	53
4	Desires and Motivating Reasons	90
5	Beliefs and Motivating Reasons	124
6	The Explanation of Action	165
	Conclusion	199
	References	201
	Index	207

Maria Alvarez has written a clear and thoughtful book which not only offers a serious challenge to the standard view of reasons... It does not disappoint Constantine Sandis, Times Literary Supplement Alvarez's bright and breezy book is about action, reasons, motivation and explanation... a useful antidote to the Humean dogma on philosophy of action Neil Sinclair, The Philosophical Quarterly

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An Essay in the Philosophy of Action