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51Engaging ReasonPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (3): 745-748. 1999.Joseph Raz presents a penetrating exploration of the interdependence of value, reason, and the will. These essays illuminate a wide range of questions concerning fundamental aspects of human thought and action. Engaging Reason is a summation of many years of original, compelling, and influential work by a major contemporary philosopher.
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21The Active and the Passive: Joseph RazSupplement to the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 71 (1): 211-228. 1997.
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195Being in the worldRatio 23 (4): 433-452. 2010.Actions for which we are responsible constitute our engagement with the world as rational agents. What is the relationship between such actions and our capacities for rational agency? I take this to be a question about responsibility in a particular use of that term, which I shall call ‘responsibility2’. We are not responsible2 for all our intentional actions (actions under hypnosis, for example), but we can nevertheless be responsible2 for actions we do not adequately control, for negligent act…Read more
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20Ethics in the Public Domain: Essays in the Morality of Law and PoliticsPhilosophical Review 106 (3): 453. 1997.Raz's method is as unusual, and as admirable, as the substance of his sometimes rather unfortunately labeled "perfectionist liberalism"—unfortunate because "it is not perfectionist in the more ordinary sense of the term" in that it recognizes that "imperfect ways of life may be the best which is possible for people" and "is strongly pluralistic", while understanding its fundamental value of well-being as the active and autonomous making of a life of one's own. Raz's approach is simultaneously al…Read more
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4The authority of lawOxford University Press. 2009.Authority is one of the key issues in political studies, for the question of by what right one person or several persons govern others is at the very root of political activity. In selecting key readings for this volume Joseph Raz concerns himself primarily with the moral aspect of political authority, choosing pieces that examine its justification, determine who is subject to it and who is entitled to hold it, and whether there are any general moral limits to it. The readings-by such modern pol…Read more
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29Value: a Menu of QuestionsIn John Keown & Robert P. George (eds.), Reason, morality, and law: the philosophy of John Finnis, Oxford University Press. pp. 13. 2013.
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80Moral Change and Social RelativismSocial Philosophy and Policy 11 (1): 139-158. 1994.I could not write the essay I hoped to write. I hoped to write about cultural pluralism and moral epistemology by assuming that the first is the case and exploring what implications this may have for the second. But I soon realized that I do not know what cultural pluralism is. I do not mean that I have just belatedly discovered that the phrase “cultural pluralism” is used in different ways on different occasions. I mean that I realized that I myself did not know in what sense the phrase may be …Read more
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186Reasons : Explanatory and normativeIn Constantine Sandis (ed.), New essays on the explanation of action, Palgrave-macmillan. 2009.A thesis familiar by being as often disputed as defended has it that intentional action is action for a reason. The present paper contributes to the defence of a weaker version of it, namely: Acting with an intention or a purpose is acting (as things appear to one) for a reason.
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220The Politics of the Rule of LawRatio Juris 3 (3): 331-339. 1990.The article reviews several books on the rule of law, including "International Justice in Rwanda and the Balkans: Virtual Trials and the Struggle for State Cooperation," by Victor A. Peskin, "Civil War and the Rule of Law: Security, Development, Human Rights," edited by Agnes Hurwitz and Reyko Huang, and "Plunder: When the Rule of Law Is Illegal," by Ugo Mattei and Laura Nader
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31The Force of NumbersRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 54 245-264. 2004.A view as widely endorsed as it is disputed says, formulating it in my own words: The only thing we have reason to do is promote value . This I will call The promotion of value thesis
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122From Normativity to ResponsibilityOxford University Press. 2011.What are our duties or rights? How should we act? What are we responsible for? Joseph Raz examines the philosophical issues underlying these everyday questions. He explores the nature of normativity--the reasoning behind certain beliefs and emotions about how we should behave--and offers a novel account of responsibility.
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55Personal practical conflictsIn Peter Baumann & Monika Betzler (eds.), Practical Conflicts: New Philosophical Essays, Cambridge University Press. pp. 172--196. 2004.
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1084Ethics in the public domain: essays in the morality of law and politicsOxford University Press. 1994.In the past twenty years Joseph Raz has consolidated his reputation as one of the most acute, inventive, and energetic scholars currently at work in analytic moral and political theory. This new collection of essays forms a representative selection of his most significant contributions to a number of important debates, including the extent of political duty and obligation, and the issue of self-determination. He also examines aspects of the common (and ancient) theme of the relations between law…Read more
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360I will provisionally take the Guise of the Good thesis to consist of three propositions: (1) Intentional actions are actions performed for reasons, as those are seen by the agents. (2) Specifying the intention which makes an action intentional identifies central features of the reason(s) for which the action is performed. (3) Reasons for action are such reasons by being facts which establish that the action has some value. From these it is said to follow that (4) Intentional actions are actions …Read more
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687Authority, Law and MoralityThe Monist 68 (3): 295-324. 1985.H. L. A. Hart is heir and torch-bearer of a great tradition in the philosophy of law which is realist and unromantic in outlook. It regards the existence and content of the law as a matter of social fact whose connection with moral or any other values is contingent and precarious. His analysis of the concept of law is part of the enterprise of demythologising the law, of instilling rational critical attitudes to it. Right from his inaugural lecture in Oxford he was anxious to dispel the philosop…Read more
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38Wolf, Susan. The Meaning of Life and Why It Matters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010. Pp. 160. $24.95 (review)Ethics 121 (1): 232-236. 2010.
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247Reasons : Practical and adaptiveIn David Sobel & Steven Wall (eds.), Reasons for Action, Cambridge University Press. 2009.The paper argues that normative reasons are of two fundamental kinds, practical which are value related, and adaptive, which are not related to any value, but indicate how our beliefs and emotions should adjust to fit how things are in the world. The distinction is applied and defended, in part through an additional distinction between standard and non-standard reasons (for actions, intentions, emotions or belief).
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198Voluntary Obligations and Normative PowersAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 46 (1). 1972.
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120The truth in particularismIn Brad Hooker & Margaret Olivia Little (eds.), Moral particularism, Oxford University Press. pp. 48--78. 2000.Particularism's model of explanation is challenged on the ground that a sensible intelligibility principle requires that there must be an explanation for the difference between a good and a bad action. Raz is concerned with what it is to be guided by reason, as well as with the results of the fact that reason can often undermine particular outcomes. What determines the moral status of an action must extend beyond what the agent's reason for acting is. It is argued that there is a clear distincti…Read more
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83My remarks will focus primarily on the connection between the thesis of the Guise of the Good, and actions under the Guise of the Bad. I distinguish and discuss separately two versions of the Guise of the Bad thesis. The normative version claims that it is possible to perform an action that one believes to be bad (to have bad-making features) and for the reason that it is, as the agent believes, bad. The motive version claims that an agent can, without having any relevant false beliefs, perform …Read more
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Columbia UniversityProfessor (Part-time)
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King's College LondonProfessor (Part-time)
London, London, City of, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Value Theory, Misc |