Prudence and the desire theory of reasons

✍ Scribed by Richard Foley

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1978
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 377 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5363
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00159315

✦ Synopsis

Oxford, 1970)

. Nagel is also concerned to show that the desire theory's treatment of altruism is inadequate. Although I believe the desire theory can supply an adequate account of altruism as well as prudence, in the present paper I deal only with the latter.

2 The desire theory, in other words, may be able both to guarantee that persons have prudential reasons in all those cases where we think that they do have such reasons and to guarantee that they do not have prudential reasons in all those cases where we think they do not have such reasons.