Background Conditions on Reasons

The main argumentative conceit of Slaves of the Passions is to defend the Humean Theory of Reasons by showing that all of the most pressing objections to the Humean Theory of Reasons turn on interpreting it as a logically stronger view than it really is. Chapter 2 is the first illustration of this argumentative strategy, responding to a few different objections to the Humean Theory of Reasons by insisting on a distinction between a reason and its background conditions.

The main argumentative strategy of the book should be familiar from The Moral Problem. In Smith’s book, chapter 4 was mostly devoted to arguing that most of the objections to the Humean Theory of Motivation are really objections to a logically stronger view. But in Slaves we will hopefully go a little bit slower - you will have to let me know whether that is right!

Reading

For today’s class, read chapter 2 of Slaves of the Passions.