Philip Pettit

Incorporated groups include businesses, universities, churches and the like. Organized to act as single centers of agency, they also routinely satisfy the three conditions that make an agent fit to be held responsible: they face significant choices, can recognize the relative value of different options, and are able to choose in sensitivity to such values. But is it redundant to hold a corporate agent responsible for something, when certain members are also held responsible for the individual parts they play? No it is not, for it is often possible for a corporate entity to be fully fit to be held responsible, when this is not true of the individual members; they may be able to make excuses that are not available at the corporate level. Does the case made for corporate responsibility extend to unincorporated collectivities like nations or religions? Not strictly but it does explain why it may be sensible to treat those collectivities as if they had corporate responsibility in certain domains.

Whether the interpretations made by social scientists of the thoughts, utterances and actions of other people, including those from an alien culture or a different period in history, are objectively correct, whether the forms of explanation they employ conform to those of the natural sciences, and whether values have a role in arriving at the theory that delivers the interpretations, are the main questions addressed by the contributors to this volume. Of particular importance in the discussion of the issues are developments in the philosophy of language and mind. The eight essays converge on the themes of intentionality, realism and theory choice, reflecting the amount of attention being given to these matters when this book was first published in 1980. Together they make a distinguished contribution to discussion in the area and serve to underline the importance of intellectual collaboration on such discussion between philosophy and the social sciences

In this essay I consider the question that divides quetism from existentialism and to defend a particular line on that question. The essay is in three main sections. In the first I set out a view of philosophy under which it grows out of reflection on the views that shape ordinary practice. In the second section I outline a theory as to how exactly practice commits us to such views. And then in the third section I argue on the basis of that account that, notwithstanding serious difficulties, philosophy can feed back onto the views that inform practice and recast them in various ways. I reject the existentialist vision according to which there is no limit to how far philosophy may lead us to reconstruct ourselves. But I also reject the quietist view that philosophy must leave everything as it was. Under the picture adopted, philosophy can be expected to have a threefold impact--meditative, methodological, and moral--on people's habits of experience and behaviour.

Comment chercher à situer, dans l'expérience humaine, les termes ou les concepts moraux ? Autrement dit, où, dans l'expérience, la morale devient-elle saillante pour nous ? C'est par le biais d'une généalogie naturaliste qu'il nous faut envisager la problématique, dans la mesure où nous ne possédons pas un sens moral irréductible par lequel des propriétés morales irréductibles nous seraient connues. Je soutiens que si des sujets intentionnels n'ont nul besoin de disposer de concepts normatifs, il en sera autrement pour des créatures discursives. Ces dernières, afin de raisonner ensemble, devront avoir accès aux concepts normatifs inférentiels et c'est par deux voies distinctes qu'elles seront amenées à prendre note des considérations morales. La première engage les individus qui privilégient le discours, comme forme d'interaction ; la seconde, ceux qui étendent cette pratique discursive au domaine du sentiment. Le privilège accordé au discours et l'exercice discursif du sentiment constituent les deux sources distinctes d'une conceptualisation morale, évoquées dans le titre de cet article. Dans une brève conclusion, il est suggéré que les différents concepts qu'elles fournissent représentent des candidats attractifs rivaux pour la construction de la théorie morale.Where in human experience are moral terms or concepts grounded; where in experience does the moral becomes salient to us? The question calls for a naturalistic genealogy, so far as we are not possessed of an irreducibly moral sense whereby irreducibly moral properties might be revealed to us. I argue that intentional subjects need not have any normative concepts whatsoever but that creatures who are discursive do. They will have to access inferentially normative concepts so far as they reason together and there are two separate ways in which they will be disposed to register moral considerations. The first involves them privileging discourse as a form of interaction and the second involves them extending such discourse to the realm of sentiment. Privileging discourse and discursifying sentiment are the two distinct sources of moral conceptualisation that are signaled in the title of the paper, and a brief conclusion suggests that the different concepts they provide represent rival attractors in the construction of moral theory

Reason and Value collects fifteen brand-new papers by leading contemporary philosophers on themes from the moral philosophy of Joseph Raz. The subtlety and power of Raz's reflections on ethical topics - including especially his explorations of the connections between practical reason and the theory of value - make his writings a fertile source for anyone working in this area. The volume honours Raz's accomplishments in the area of ethical theorizing, and will contribute toan enhanced appreciation of the significance of his work for the subject.