From Normativity to Responsibility

What are our duties or rights? How should we act? What are we responsible for? How do we determine the answers to these questions? Joseph Raz examines and explains the philosophical issues underlying these everyday quandaries. He explores the nature of normativity--namely, the fact that we believe and feel we should behave in certain ways, the reasoning behind certain beliefs and emotions, and various basic features of making decisions about what to do. He goes on to consider when we are responsible for our actions and omissions, and offers a novel account of responsibility. We can think of responsibility for unjustified actions or attitudes as a precondition of the blameworthiness of a person for an attitude or an action, or perhaps for a whole set of actions, intentions, or beliefs. Responsibility for justified actions or attitudes may be a precondition of praiseworthiness. Either way responsibility may point to further consequences of being justified or unjustified, rational or not. But crucially, responsibility attaches to people in a more holistic way. Some people are responsible for their actions, while others are not. In this way, Raz argues that the end is in the beginning, in understanding how people are subject to normativity, namely how it is that there are reasons addressed to them, and what is the meaning of that for our being in the world. ...a valuable resource. Katerina Deligiorgi, Philosophy in Review Raz has explored in this book the way we understand our duties and rights, and how we decide the way we ought to act. In less than three-hundred pages it provides a clearly-written and focused answer to these types of inquiry. Eleanor Healy Birt, Interlib The discussion of nomativity and practical reason that makes up From Normativity to Responsibility is breathtaking in its scope, its depth, and, most importantly, its brilliance. Christopher Essert, The Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence1. The Hope ; PART ONE: REGARDING NORMATIVITY ; 2. Practical Reasons: Explanatory and Normative ; 3. Reasons: Practical and Adaptive ; 4. The Guise of the Good ; 5. Reason, Rationality & Normativity ; PART TWO: REGARDING PRACTICAL REASONING ; 6. Epistemic Modulations ; 7. Practical Reasoning ; 8. The Myth of Instrumental Rationality ; 9. Reasons in Conflict ; 10. Numbers: With and Without Contractualism ; 11. Promoting Value? ; PART THREE: ON RESPONSIBILITY ; 12. Being in the World ; 13. Responsibility and the Negligence Standard