Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- 153 Paternalism
- 154 Peoples
- 155 Perfectionism
- 156 Plan of life
- 157 Pogge, Thomas
- 158 Political conception of justice
- 159 Political liberalism, justice as fairness as
- 160 Political liberalisms, family of
- 161 Political obligation
- 162 Political virtues
- 163 Practical reason
- 164 Precepts of justice
- 165 Primary goods, social
- 166 The priority of the right over the good
- 167 Procedural justice
- 168 Promising
- 169 Property-owning democracy
- 170 Public choice theory
- 171 Public political culture
- 172 Public reason
- 173 Publicity
- R
- S
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
163 - Practical reason
from P
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- 153 Paternalism
- 154 Peoples
- 155 Perfectionism
- 156 Plan of life
- 157 Pogge, Thomas
- 158 Political conception of justice
- 159 Political liberalism, justice as fairness as
- 160 Political liberalisms, family of
- 161 Political obligation
- 162 Political virtues
- 163 Practical reason
- 164 Precepts of justice
- 165 Primary goods, social
- 166 The priority of the right over the good
- 167 Procedural justice
- 168 Promising
- 169 Property-owning democracy
- 170 Public choice theory
- 171 Public political culture
- 172 Public reason
- 173 Publicity
- R
- S
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Practical reasons are reasons for action, while theoretical reasons are reasons for belief. The former direct us to what is good to do, while the latter direct us to what is true about the world. To make this standard distinction is not yet to say anything about the nature of either practical or theoretical reasons, or about how they do or do not relate to one another. In PL Rawls explains that his theory of justice is grounded in a distinctive view about the nature and independence of practical reason, one which Rawls explicitly associates with Kant, and which Rawls calls constructivist.
Rawls contrasts this view with a kind of moral realism illustrated by rational intuitionism (PL 91–94; see also CP 343–346). On this opposing view, practical reasons, or at least moral reasons, are just a special case of theoretical reasons: the moral good is an object of knowledge, “gained in part by a kind of perception or intuition, as well as organized by first principles found acceptable on due reflection” (PL 92). By contrast, Rawls associates his own political constructivism with the (Kantian) view that there are distinctly practical reasons which are not grounded in theoretical knowledge.
[T]he procedure of construction is based essentially on practical reason and not on theoretical reason. Following Kant’s way of making the distinction, we say: practical reason is concerned with the production of objects according to a conception of those objects – for example, the conception of a just constitutional regime taken as the aim of political endeavor – while theoretical reason is concerned with the knowledge of given objects.(PL 93)
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- Information
- The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon , pp. 635 - 639Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014