Normative Reasons and Theism

Front Cover
Springer, Jun 6, 2018 - Philosophy - 204 pages

Normative reasons are reasons to do and believe things. Intellectual inquiry seems to presuppose their existence, for we cannot justifiably conclude that we exist; that there is an external world; and that there are better and worse ways of investigating it and behaving in it, unless there are reasons to do and believe such things. But just what in the world are normative reasons? In this book a case is made for believing normative reasons are favouring relations that have a single, external source, filling this significant gap in the literature in an area within contemporary philosophy that has quickly grown in prominence. Providing a divine command metanormative analysis of normative reasons on entirely non-religious grounds, its arguments will be relevant to both secular and non-secular audiences alike and will address key issues in meta-ethics, evolutionary theory - especially evolutionary debunking threats to moral reasons and the normative more generally - and epistemology.

 

Contents

The Question
1
Normativity
11
Mentality
28
Unity
43
Externality
59
Mente Divina
79
Euthyphro
104
Predictions
135
A Miscellany of Objections
159
Conclusion
181
References
193
Index
199
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2018)

Gerald K. Harrison is Lecturer in Philosophy at Massey University, New Zealand. Specialising in meta-ethics and normative ethics, he has published in various journals and has contributor chapters to Just the arguments: 100 of the most important arguments in western philosophy (2011).

Bibliographic information