Joseph Raz

(? - 2022)

The rule of law should be understood as part of the culture of democracy which requires a distribution of power between a periodically elected legislature and executive and an independent, but publicly accountable, judiciary in charge of a more slowly changing legal doctrine. The rule of law is also essential for the protection of individuals in fast changing pluralistic societies. In both its aspects the doctrine is a product of a particular historical culture, and requires a culture of legality, and not merely the introduction of a few legal rules, for its proper functioning.

In rejecting the liberal claim to the universality of morals, some contemporary philosophers insist on the danger of reducing the human being to an abstraction. This paper goes beyond this debate. The theoretical core of multiculturalism is the recognition that these universalistic claims can be realised in different ways in different cultures, so as to require a re‐conception of the liberal thesis of the well‐being and dignity of people. This interpretation of morality cannot be understood within the ideology of nationalism. Replacing nationalism as the common bond of society is thus one of the main political challenges facing multiculturalism. However, any specific policy must presuppose a new social sensitivity: Societies are not made up of majorities and minorities, but of a plurality of cultural groups. This is why the notion of toleration is not enough.[Link]

Quoting from the philosophical idea of Protagoras that ‘Man is the measure of all things’, this chapter discusses how the philosopher’s maxim disagrees with the author’s views on social relativism. Two formulations of social dependence of values are presented based on the special and general aspects. Sustaining practices are identified as well, apart from showing examples and explanations of dependence without reduction or conventionalism and other justifying considerations. Although applicable to cultural values, the scope and limitations of special dependence thesis are pointed out and it is also emphasised that the values giving a meaning and a purpose to life are socially dependent. Outlined in this chapter is the motivation to view social dependence of values as free from relativism.

Observations made by critics about the author’s work are compiled in this chapter, which also includes the methods used by the author to come up with his judgements. Explanations form a large part of the book as the author remarks that it is a constructive-theoretical task aiming to explain concepts that can be linked to the structure of one’s thoughts. The author quotes Robert Pippin, one of the commentators, on separation thesis and agrees with the latter’s idea while defending his position. Mixed values have their own distinction and one observation pointed out is that the value once it emerged from a sustaining social practice will continue to exist since it has already been recognised. Genre is an important factor to a value and interpretations are set out in pluralism and liberalism. Choices of decisions among a variety of people’s preferences are much better studied according to the known standard or value.

This chapter discusses generalising aspects of specific values which link to an appeal of a value and appreciation of beauty in the two-stage process of evaluation. A reference to Truman Capote’s novel ‘In Cold Blood’ is given. The perception of value and understanding is given analysis with views on changes and interpretation as an act of response. It also considers the distinction between knowledge and taste and the gradual changes of a norm when two processes are available, thus blurring the line of diagnosis. Complex reactions on a value are one of the reasons why this book provides a thorough explanation on the need to understand the contingency at the heart of a value.

The chapter first argues that there is no problem about how to justify partialities (though there is a difficulty in justifying impartialities). Then it considers the role of consent in justifying rights and duties, using voluntary associations as a case in which consent has an important but limited role in doing so, a role determined and circumscribed by evaluative considerations. The values explain why consent can bind, and bind one to act as one does not wish to do and even as one judges to be ill-advised. That opens the way to an explanation of how value considerations relate to non-voluntary membership in socially constituted groups, generating rights and duties that to a considerable extent are independent of the individual’s aims and preferences.

‘Participatory conditions’ take reasons generally or some broad classes of reasons to be valid only if people other than those who have those reasons, express approval or the absence of disapproval of the reasons in question. The chapter sketches a simple picture of value-based normativity, developing some aspects of it by commenting on one argument of Rawls, that justifies a participatory condition as the only alternative to intuitionism and consequentialism, and outlines the stages by which the simple picture accounts for concern for others, arguing that it validates the recognition principle that takes account of the fact that others are beings with their own view of themselves and their surroundings. The conclusion is that the sound aims that appear to support participatory conditions are met without them, and that participatory conditions derive their appeal from other principles like the recognition principle.

‘Well-being’ signifies the good life, the life which is good for the person whose life it is. I defend and slightly modify my view of well-being, as a wholehearted and successful pursuit of valuable relationships and goals, The chapter considers the role of well-being in practical thought: in particular, a suggestion that when we care about people, and when we ought to care about people, what we do, or ought to, care about is their well-being, regardless of who cares and who is cared for. People may care, perhaps ought to care, about themselves, and about people with whom they have, or ought to have special bonds, and about other people generally. The chapter argues that the suggestion is misleading: the role of well-being in both personal and ethical life is much more nuanced and more modest.

The chapter unfolds in five sections dealing with five questions: first, does the partiality of attachments present an obstacle to their being or giving practical reasons? Second, given a value-based approach to practical reasons, can universal values generate reasons that are specific to their subjects, reasons—say—towards my friends that only I have? Third, do attachments affect what we do independently of any reasons that they provide? Fourth, in what ways do attachments constitute or provide normative reasons, and briefly, how do attachment-related reasons relate to other practical reasons? Finally, the chapter turns to the question of the nature of and justification for partiality to oneself.

The chapter provides an analysis of normative powers as the ability to change a normative condition, and distinguishes and analyses several kinds of such powers. It distinguishes between wide normative powers possessed by any act that non-causally results in a normative change, and narrow normative powers, which are the main topic of the chapter. The most important theses of the chapter are: First, the distinction between basic normative powers and chained normative powers (the latter being powers created by the exercise of other powers) and second, defending the apparently surprising claim that people have narrow powers when and because there is undefeated value in their existence. The account explores the relations between the normative powers and the values which explain and justify their existence. It ends by showing the connection between the thesis that values depend on human nature and culture, and the dependence of normative powers on justifying reasons.

If promises are binding there must be a reason to do as one promised. There is a difficulty in explaining what that reason is. It arises because the reasons that promising creates are content independent. Similar difficulties arise regarding other content-independent reasons, though their solution need not be the same. Section 1 introduces an approach to promises, and outlines an account of them. The problems discussed in the chapter arise, albeit in slightly modified ways, for various other accounts as well. It is, however, helpful to use a specific account as a springboard leading to one explanation of promissory reasons, namely of the reasons that valid promises constitute for performing the promised act (Section 2). We can call it the bare reasons account. Sections 3 and 4 will raise difficulties with that account, leading to its abandonment in favour of an alternative in Sections 5 and 6.

The chapter considers the possibility of acting in the belief that the action is bad and for the reason that it is, as the agent believes, bad. Besides, can agents, without having any relevant false beliefs, perform actions motivated by their badness? The worry is the compatibility of action for the sake of the bad with the thesis of the Guise of the Good (intended actions are undertaken because agents see them as good in some respects). How can reason explanations and the more widely understood normative explanations explain actions, in light of the conditions for the rationality of actions and the bearing of masking beliefs on the explanation of their actions? Various conceptual mistakes are possible. Given the variety of human motivations, the chapter focuses on the interpretation of one case: the Luciferian motive, understood, roughly, as the drive to defy the limits of thought or of rational thought.

Assuming that the value of options constitutes the proximate reason for pursuing them, some considerations encourage doubts whether we have reason to promote or to maximize value. A proper argument would require establishing a negative. Raising doubts is less demanding: it consists in explaining some aspects of the relation between values and reasons that enable us to dispense with the doubtful thesis, by illustrating alternative relations between values and reasons. Theses such as that value should be promoted show how to determine the strength of reasons. Abandoning the thesis reopens the question of how to do this. The doubt about promotion of value is not merely terminological. Even though the value of things and of activities is a reason to engage with them there are cases in which there is not always a reason to choose the best. The conclusion touches on the limits of the argument, and its importance.

This chapter considers the main arguments against the possibility that basic normative principles can change, and finds them wanting. The principal argument discussed derives from the claim that normative considerations are intelligible, and therefore that they can be explained, and their explanations presuppose the prior existence of basic normative principles. The intelligibility thesis is affirmed but the implication that basic change is impossible is denied. Subsumptive explanations are contrasted with explanations by analogy. Later in the chapter, other objections are considered more briefly: that normative properties are queer, that they are unconnected to the rest of reality, and therefore cannot play an explanatory role, etc.

It is more or less common ground that an important aspect of the explanation of normativity relates it to the way Reason (our rational powers), reasons (for beliefs, emotions, actions, etc.), and reasoning, with all its varieties and domains, are inter-connected. The relation of reasoning to reasons is the topic of this chapter. It does not start from a tabula rasa. It presupposes that normativity has to do with the ability to respond rationally to reasons, and with responding to reasons with the use of our rational powers. The question is where does reasoning fit in? Raz compares two sketchy accounts of reasoning, judging their success in elucidating the concept and its role in the explanation of normativity. First he outlines the view that reasoning is an activity of searching for a justified answer or for a justification of the answer to a question. Some critical reflection on that view leads to what he calls the simple account, which takes reasoning to consist (broadly speaking) in responsiveness to perceived reasons. He illustrates ways in which the simple account is at odds with the concept of reasoning. Its merits depend on the thought that intentions, attempts, or actions can be conclusions of reasoning. Those who affirm that possibility often regard reasoning that has such conclusions as practical reasoning. Hence much of the chapter will be about practical reasoning. That would lead to a tentative endorsement of reasoning as a search for a justified answer, suggesting a different view of the place of reasoning in explaining normativity.

What is the role of intentions in the actions intended? What do they contribute, and how do they contribute to the occurrence of the intended actions? The chapter will offer an account of acting with an intention and of having an intention to act. It will not offer an account of intentional action, merely suggesting that when intentional actions are not actions done with an intention, their explanation as intentional relates to that of actions with intentions, showing how like them and unlike them they are. Motivation will be discussed mainly to distinguish its role in leading to action from the role played by intentions.

In previous writings, Joseph Raz joined those who take the view that action with an intention is an action for (what the agent takes to be) a reason, where whatever value there is in the action is a reason for it. This chapter sketches the role of reasons and intentions in leading to action with an intention. Section 1 explains that though belief in the value of the intended action is not an essential constituent of intentions, nevertheless when humans act with an intention they act in the belief that there is value in the action. Section 2 explains the relative role of value and intention in ‘producing’ the action, and relates their role to that of motivation.

Assuming that the value of options (actions, activities, or omissions) constitutes the proximate reason for pursuing them, this chapter considers whether we have reason to promote or maximise value. A proper argument would require establishing a negative, but raising doubts is less demanding—explaining some aspects of the relation between values and reasons that enable us to dispense with the doubtful thesis by illustrating alternative relations between values and reasons. Theses that value should be promoted are accompanied by a way of determining the strength of reasons (the stronger reason promotes more value). This chapter develops theoretical doubts about promotion of value and argues that the disagreement is not merely terminological. Even though the value of things and activities is a reason to engage with them, there is not always reason to choose the best. The concluding section touches on the limits of the argument and its importance.

The chapter examines the main argument for, and the presuppositions of the claim that intentional actions are actions taken in, and because of, a belief that there is some good in them. An analysis of intentional actions, and of action for a (normative) reason, followed by a consideration of a number of objections to the thesis of the Guise of the Good force various revisions and refinements of the thesis yielding a defensible version of it. It is argued that the revised thesis is supported by the same argument that inspired the Guise of the Good from the beginning and that the thesis plays a crucial role in uniting theories of action, rationality, and normativity.

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, which honor the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner, are presented annually at each of nine universities in the United States and Great Britain. They were established at the University of California, Berkeley, beginning in the 2000/1 academic year. This book is an exploration of a pervasive but puzzling aspect of our world: value. At the core of the book are the Tanner Lectures delivered at Berkeley in 2001 by the author, who has been one of the leading figures in moral and legal philosophy since the 1970s. His aim is to make sense of the dependence of value on social practice, without falling back on cultural relativism. In response, three philosophers, Christine Korsgaard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams, offer different approaches to the subject. The book begins with an introduction by Jay Wallace, setting the scene for what follows, and ends with a response from the author to his commentators. The result is a debate about the relations between human values and human life.

Aspects of the world are normative in as much as they or their existence constitute reasons for persons, i.e. grounds which make certain beliefs, moods, emotions, intentions or actions appropriate or inappropriate. Our capacities to perceive and understand how things are, and what response is appropriate to them, and our ability to respond appropriately, make us into persons, i.e. creatures with the ability to direct their own life in accordance with their appreciation of themselves and their environment, and of the reasons with which, given how they are, the world presents them. An explanation of normativity would explain the various puzzling aspects of this complex phenomenon. In particular it would explain how it is that aspects of the world can constitute reasons for cognitive, emotive, and volitional responses; how it is that we can come to realise that certain cognitive, emotional or volitional responses are appropriate in various circumstances, and inappropriate in others; and how it is that we can respond appropriately. This paper explores an aspect of the last of these questions.