Monika Betzler

Gemeinsame Handlungen werden traditionellerweise über eine Form beziehungsweise über eine Beziehung verschiedener Absichten zueinander erklärt. Der Aufsatz verteidigt die Auffassung, dass manche gemeinsame Handlungen vollständiger erklärt werden können mit Rekurs auf die bestimmten interpersonellen Beziehungen, die zwischen zwei oder mehreren Handelnden bestehen. Interpersonelle Beziehungen, die von handelnden Personen wertgeschätzt werden, werden durch gemeinsame Handlungen realisiert. Dies ist allerdings nur dann der Fall, wenn die Handelnden in ihrem gemeinsamen Handeln zum Ausdruck bringen, dass sie auch die Beziehung zum Teil um ihrer selbst willen wertschätzen.

In this paper, I examine how an agent can cause and rationally guide his actions. A common approach explains an action by the agent's motives which cause and rationalize it. Given the fact that an agent does not always identify with the motives that propel him to action, the common approach does not account for an agent's autonomy in his acting. Consequently, I focus on the question whether an agent can rationally guide his action such that he controls his action by his own causal powers without being just moved to it. In this endeavour, Harry Frankfurt's more recent work in which he tries to specify recalcitrant dispositions like "caring" as conditions of autonomy, and hence as conditions of an action's rational guidance, will serve me as a case in point.

Bis vor wenigen Jahren hätte ein Beitrag zur Familienethik mit einem Hinweis darauf begonnen, dass es sich dabei um ein philosophisches Forschungsdesiderat handelt. In der Zwischenzeit hat sich die Situation merklich verändert: Zahlreiche Sammelbände, Monographien und Aufsätze zeugen davon, dass sich die Familienethik zunehmender Beachtung erfreut und die Beziehung zwischen Eltern und Kindern ebenso wie die Rechte und Pflichten von Eltern und Kindern untereinander eine eingehendere Analyse verdienen. In dieser Einleitung werden einige gesellschaftliche und innerphilosophische Entwicklungen skizziert, die zur zunehmenden Beachtung der Familienethik geführt haben. Darüber hinaus wird ein Überblick über die Beiträge des Schwerpunktes gegeben.

Actions expressing emotions (such as caressing the clothes of one's dead friend in grief, or tearing apart a photograph out of jealousy) pose a notorious challenge to action theorists. They are thought to be intentional in that they are in some sense under the agent's control. They are not thought to be done for a reason, however, because they cannot be explained by considerations that favor them from the agent's point of view. This seems to be the case, at least, if one subscribes to the Davidsonian standard model of action explanation. So far, philosophers have had three different reactions to this challenge. Rationalists insist that such actions can be rationalized by re-interpreting them. Arationalists insist that there simply is no reasoning process moving agents in emotional states to act. A third reaction questions the intentionality of such actions altogether. All three reactions, however, share the assumption underlying the standard account: if an agent is thought to act for a reason - and hence acts intentionally - he must entertain a desire and some means-end belief reflecting his reasoning process about how to attain what he desires by acting. In this paper, I try to show that this reflective reasoning mechanism is only one way to rationalize an action. Another way is by tracing an action to an unreflective valuing stance respresenting reasons the agent has from his point of view. Emotions are attitudes that help to grasp reasons the agent has. Since emotions come with a strong motivational potential they move the agent to act expressively. But the agent typically allows himself to do so, thereby monitoring the way in which he does it. To the extent that the agent unreflectively acts on a motive that is itself representative of his point of view, his expressive actions can be regarded as rationalizable.

Practical conflicts pervade human life. Agents have many different desires, goals, and commitments, all of which can come into conflict with each other. How can practical reasoning help to resolve these practical conflicts? In this collection of essays a distinguished roster of philosophers analyse the diverse forms of practical conflict. Their aim is to establish an understanding of the sources of these conflicts, to investigate the challenge they pose to an adequate conception of practical reasoning, and to assess the degree to which that challenge can be met. These essays will serve as a major resource for students of philosophy but will also interest students and professionals in related fields of the social sciences such as psychology, political science, sociology and economics.