Motivation

This chapter develops a scheme for the explanation of rational action. It start from a scheme that may be attributed to Thomas Nagel in The Possibility of Altruism, and develop it step by step to arrive at a sharper and more accurate scheme. The development includes a progressive refinement of the notion of motivation. It ends by explaining the role of reasoning within the scheme. Nagel explains rational action in terms of reasons. He deliberately declines to distinguish motivating reasons from normative reasons; reasons both justify and motivate actions. But they motivate action only through the agent’s judgements about reasons, which more accurately are her judgements about what she ought to do. This paper identifies another pattern of motivation, which is instrumental reasoning.