The Deliberative Landscape

This work charts the fate of a philosophical theory and its influence on a philosopher whose whole early education was predicated upon the truth of the theory. The philosopher in question is John Stuart Mill and the theory is 'Instrumentalism about Practical Rationality' - the view that there is nothing more to be said on behalf of any goal other than that achieving it will help achieve further goals. The chief objection to this theory is that it leaves our goals unsupported by reason and unacceptably arbitrary. The author argues that Mill was an Instrumentalist, that the crisis he suffered in his mid-twenties can be read as an embodiment of the arbitrariness objection, and that his subsequent work reveals both a subtle attempt to provide an Instrumentalist response to this objection and an incohate rejection of Instrumentalism. This Instrumentalist response fails to answer the underlying concern. Drawing on the anti-instrumentalist strands of Millian thought, Vogler constructs a powerful objection to the theory of Instrumentalism about Practical Rationality.

ISBN 0815336586   Pages 154 ISBN13 9780815336587 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Taylor & Francis Inc   Weight (grammes) 347 Imprint Garland Publishing Inc   Published in CT Format Hardback   Series title Dissertations in Ethics S. Publication date 01 Feb 2001   Height (mm) 216 Library of Congress 2002280551   Width (mm) 140 DEWEY 192   Spine width (mm) 12 DEWEY edition DC21   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate

		Preface and Acknowledgements
		Notes on Mill's Texts
I		Life and Work, Men and Women, Thought and Feeling
		James, John, Harriet and Two Crises		1
		Thought and Feeling		9
II		Instrumentalism
		An Obscure Doctrine		17
		"Instrumentalism"		18
		Instrumentalism in Contemporary Moral Philosophy		22
		Connecting Contemporary Work to Earlier Work		27
		Benthamite Instrumentalism		33
III		Means, Ends and Mill
		Mill's First Moment of Crisis		41
		How Mill's Crisis Embodies the Arbitrariness Problem		43
		Mill's State of Mind		47
		Recovery		48
		The Instrumentalist and the Arbitrariness Problem		51
		Tolerance and Types		56
		Mill's Own Problem		59
IV		Arts and Minds
		Explanandum		61
		Narrative Art and the Inferior Mind: What James Mill and Jeremy Bentham Got Right		64
		Dominant Thoughts, Dominant Feelings: What Benthamite Associationism Missed		68
		The New Science of Psychology		74
		Beauty and Reason		78
		Whole Stats of Mind, Higher Pleasures		80
		In Sum		84
V		Juice
		Introductory Note		87
		More...

..."an elaborate account of the philosophical undercurrents of Mill's 'crisis'... Vogler's prose is elegant and her reading of authors such as Berlin, Russell, Stephen, and, of course, Mill is perceptive."-Christoph Schmidt-Petri, London School of Economics and Political Science

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