Required textbooks:

You will have to have paper copies of these books, which you will need to bring to class.

• Elijah Millgram, Varieties of Practical Reasoning (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001); ISBN 0262632209 (Pbk). (Royalties from classroom sales will be donated to charity.)
• Sergio Tenenbaum, Rational Powers in Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023); ISBN 0198889569 (Pbk.)
• G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000); ISBN 0674003993 (Pbk.; you need the 2nd edition, but both the original Cornell UP and the Harvard UP reprint are fine)

Optional textbook:

• Talbot Brewer, The Retrieval of Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); ISBN 019969222X (Pbk.)

Additional readings will be made available through the Philosophy Department reserve file (behind the desk in the reception area of the department office), and online.

Reading Assignments:

1. Aug. 20: Introduction.

   Optional prereading: "Practical Reasoning: The Current State of Play" (VPR, ch. 1); Practical Reasoning and the Structure of Actions, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

   (Optional reading really is optional. These are overviews of the subject area, in case you want more of an idea of what the topic is.)

2. Aug. 27: Internalism.
   • Williams, "Internal and External Reasons" (VPR, ch. 1; on reserve in the Philosophy Department; alternatively, go to the Marriott catalog, search for Bernard Williams' book Moral Luck -- there are both paper and electronic versions -- and you'll be able to download a pdf of ch. 8).

     Optional reading: Hooker, "Williams' Argument against External Reasons" (VPR, ch. 5)

   • Korsgaard, "Skepticism about Practical Reasons" (VPR, ch. 6). (Also available in Journal of Philosophy 83(1), 1986: 5-25, at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2026464. Click through to the article from the Marriott catalog; you'll be required to log in using your UNID and campus password.)

     Optional reading: Dreier, "Humean Doubts about Categorical Imperatives" (VPR, ch. 2)

   • Michael Smith, "The Humean Theory of Motivation," Mind 96(381), Jan. 1987: 36-61; you can find this at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2253760, and via the Marriott catalog. (I recommend reading sections 3-4 lightly, secs. 1, 2, and 5 at medium attentiveness, and secs. 6-7 closely; you can skip sec. 8.)

     Optional reading: G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention, sec. 32.

Have a great Labor Day -- and for a thrilling read, why not take Bruno Latour, Aramis, to the beach?

3. Sept. 3: Specificationism.
   • Kolnai, "Deliberation Is of Ends" (VPR, ch. 12).

     Optional reading: Wiggins, "Deliberation and Practical Reason" (VPR, ch. 13).

   • Millgram, "Specificationism" (from the Marriott catalog, find Adler J E and Rips L J, eds. Reasoning: Studies of Human Inference and Its Foundations; this is ch. 35, at pp. 731-747).

     Optional reading: Bruno Latour, Aramis (available from Marriott).

   • Brewer, Retrieval, ch. 1 (on reserve in the Philosophy Department; electronic version accessible through the Marriott catalog [but formatting is different than paper]).

     Optional reading: Sarah Buss, "Some Reflections on the Relationship between Reason and the Will," section on "The desirability and necessity of passive agency" (from the Marriott catalog, click through to Ruth Chang and Kurt Sylvan, eds., Routledge Handbook of Practical Reason; Buss's paper is ch. 13, and this very short section is on pp. 207-08).

4. Sept. 10: New Kantians.
   • Onora O'Neill, "Consistency in Action" (VPR, ch. 14).

     Optional reading: Margaret Bowman, "Can the Categorical Imperative Test Final Ends?" (mss, on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

   • Christine Korsgaard, "Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant", Journal of Ethics, vol. 3, no. 1, 1999, pp. 1–29. (Available thru the Marriott catalog.)

     Optional reading: Korsgaard, Self-Constitution.

   • Brewer, Retrieval, ch. 2, up to the section break on p. 56 [i.e., stop at "A Brief History..."]; in ch. 3, para. bridging pp. 95f, starting "For Kant, the moral quality...".

     Optional reading: Tamar Schapiro, "Three Conceptions of Action in Moral Theory" (= http://www.jstor.org/stable/2671947 ).

5. Sept. 17: Intrinsic Specificationism and Particularism.
   • Brewer, Retrieval, ch. 3 (but skip the section on pp. 97-103 ["The Misinheritance..."]).

     Optional reading: Dancy, "The Role of Imaginary Cases in Ethics" Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 66(1-2), Jan./Apr. 1985: 141-153. (On reserve in the Philosophy Department.)

   • Iris Murdoch, "The Idea of Perfection" (VPR ch. 18).

     Optional reading: Cora Diamond, "We Are Perpetually Moralists" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department). Further reading: the rest of Murdoch, Sovereignty of Good.

   • Avner Baz, "Motivational Indeterminacy", European Journal of Philosophy 25:2 (2016): 336-357 (available thru the Marriott catalog).

     Optional reading: Vitaly Komar and Aleksandr Melamid, Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid's Scientific Guide to Art (available from Marriott); Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings (available in Marriott, but noncirculating).

6. Sept. 24: Is Utility Theory Instrumentalism Made Formal?
   • Nicolas Arkilo, "Reasons for Practically Inviable Actions".

     Optional reading: Bernard Williams, "Deciding to Believe" (search Marriott for his book, Problems of the Self; this is ch. 9).

   • "Von Neumann-Morgenstern Utility Theory" (typescript); Davidson, McKinsey and Suppes, "Outlines of a Formal Theory of Value, I" (excerpt). (Both on reserve in the Philosophy Department). Mandler, "A Difficult Choice in Preference Theory" (VPR ch. 17).

     Optional followon reading: Kahneman, Slovic and Tversky, Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.

   • Optional reading: Cooter and Rappoport, "Were the Ordinalists Wrong About Welfare Economics?", Journal of Economic Literature 22, June 1984: 507-530.

7. Oct. 1: Planning and Defeasibility.
   • Austin Morris, "In Defense of the Third Dogma of Desire". Michael Bratman, "Taking Plans Seriously" (VPR, ch. 9).

     Optional reading: Bratman, "Planning and the Stability of Intention" (available in the Philosophy Department).

   • Jason Ripplinger, "Plastic Reasons". Review Chrisoula Andreou, Choosing Well, para. bridging pp. 19f (starting "But is there reason to accept..."); sec. 3.2 ("The Real Puzzle of the Self-Torturer"); para. bridging pp. 116f (from "Now focus again on..." to "...they could have opted for"). (Available via the Marriott catalog and on reserve in the Philosophy Department.)
   • John Searle, "Desire, Deliberation and Action" (thru sec. 4; available in the Philosophy Department). Brandom, "Actions, Norms, and Practical Reasoning" (VPR ch 20).

     Optional reading: Remainder of "Desire, Deliberation and Action".

HAVE A GREAT FALL BREAK! Take Rational Powers in Action to the beach.

8. Oct. 15: Bounded Rationality: Old School, New Wave.
   • Review John Searle, "Desire, Deliberation and Action" (thru sec. 4; available in the Philosophy Department). Brandom, "Actions, Norms, and Practical Reasoning" (VPR ch 20). Sanjot Singh, "You Already Know What 'Good" Is!"

     Optional reading: John Conlisk, "Why Bounded Rationality?" (available in the Philosophy Department)

   • Simon, Models of Man, chs. 14-15 (available in the Philosophy Department); Cliff Landesman, "When to Terminate a Charitable Trust?" (available in the Philosophy Department)

     Optional reading: Slote, "Moderation and Satisficing" (in VPR).

   • Borges et al.,"Can Ignorance Beat the Stock Market?" (in Gigerenzer et al., Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart, available in the Philosophy Department).

     Optional reading: Jonathan Bendor, "Herbert A. Simon: Political Scientist" (available in the Philosophy Department).

9. Oct. 22: Instrumentalism Strikes Back!
   • Martha Nussbaum, "The Protagoras: A Science of Practical Reasoning" (VPR ch. 8).

     Optional reading: Plato, "Protagoras" (tr. Allen, available in the Philosophy Department). Further followon reading: Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, through Part II; available from Marriott.

   • Tenenbaum, Rational Powers in Action: in the Preface, pp. vi-vii; chs. 1-3. (How to proceed? Read ch. 1 lightly -- it's mostly orientation, where you have to be pretty immersed in the current literature to know what the point of the gestures is -- but pay close attention to the paras. bridging pp. 18f and 22f. Read ch. 2 more closely; paying attention to the arguments throughout. Read ch. 3 primarily to get the overview of ST's position, and you can read the definitions of "gappy" in sec. 3.4 lightly, but look carefully at the arguments on 51f, 62, and 76f.)

     Optional reading: If you wanted to think further about the Self-Torturer: Tenenbaum, ch. 4. If you want to pursue issues in Bratman: Tenenbaum, chs. 5-6. (Both these directions are good places to look for final paper topics.)

10. Oct. 29: Psychologism and Antipsychologism.
    • Meylin Al-Saleh, "The Satisficing Threshold".

      Aiden Christesen, "Limiting Definitions and Viable Shared Reasoning".

      Followon reading (in case you want to see where the particularism debate went next): Hooker and Little, eds. Moral Particularism (available from Marriott).

    • Review Tenenbaum, Rational Powers in Action, chs. 2-3 (see above for focus passages).
    • G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention, through sec. 16.

11. Nov. 5: The Nested Structures of Intentional Action.
    • Nick Toth, "Welfare and Ecological Rationality".

      Optional reading: Christoph Fehige, "Instrumentalism" (VPR, ch. 3); John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, "The Psychological Foundations of Culture," in J. Barkow, L. Cosmides and John Tooby, The Adapted Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992; available in the Philosophy Department).

    • David Schmidtz, "Choosing Ends" (VPR ch. 11); review Tenenbaum, Rational Powers in Action, chs. 2-3 (see above for focus passages).

      Optional reading: Harry Frankfurt, "On the Usefulness of Final Ends".

    • G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention, through sec. 26.

      Optional reading: Michael Thompson, "Anscombe, Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret (1919-)" (available shortly); Michael Thompson, "Naive Action Theory" (this is packaged as Part II of his Life and Action, available from Marriott [they have a hardcopy, but you can also click through to online versions]).

12. Nov. 12: Difficulties: The Argument for Basic Actions
    • G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention, through sec. 35.
13. Nov. 19: The Intention of Intention.
    • Mo Yang's paper on Anscombe and the Toxin Puzzle.

      Optional reading: Gregory Kavka, "The Toxin Puzzle".

    • Finish Anscombe, Intention.

      Optional reading: John Schwenkler, "Perception and Practical Knowledge" (available in the Philosophy Department). Will Small, "Practical Knowledge and the Structure of Action" (available in the Philosophy Department). Review Candace Vogler, "Anscombe on Practical Inference" (VPR ch. 19). Review Smith, "The Humean Theory of Motivation." Kim Frost, "On the Very Idea of Direction of Fit".

14. Nov. 26: What's So Desirable about the Desirability Characterization of Intentional Action?
    • Will Small, "Practical Knowledge and the Structure of Action" (available in the Philosophy Department), through p. 14.

      Optional reading: Ulf Hlobil and Katharina Nieswandt, "On Anscombe's Philosophical Method" (available shortly); the rest of Small, "Practical Knowledge".

    • Cisil Vardar, "Uncontrollable Inertial Actions" (available shortly).

      Optional reading: Ross Harrison, On What There Must Be, ch. 4 (available shortly).

    • Jonathan Bendor, "Intelligence versus Rationality: Simon's Multiple Scientific Reference Points" (available shortly).

      Optional reading: Sebastian Rodl, Self-Consciousness (not to be confused with his later book, Self-Consciousness and Objectivity), ch. 2 ("Action and the First Person"; print version available from Marriott).