Justin Snedegar, “Contrastive Reasons” (Oxford UP, 2017)
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What is contrastivism about normative reasons and why does it matter?
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Hello, and thanks for joining us for this episode of New Books in Philosophy. I'm Robert Talese. I'm Kari is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. Now today, my guest is Justin Snidegar. Justin is Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews. Justin has a new book that's titled Contrastive Reasons. It's published by Oxford University Press. Now in this book, Justin develops and defends the thesis that normative reasons are fundamentally contrastive in structure. This is to say that a reason to perform some act is always a reason to perform that act rather than some other act. In one way, contrastivism sounds like a natural fit with everyday understandings of deliberation or practical reason.
In those cases, we're concerned to decide what to do, and those decisions are carried out among options, ways of conceiving what things we might do. But note that contrastivism about reasons has to say more than that. The contrastivist says that there is no reason simpliciter to perform a given act. A reason to perform some act A is always a reason to A given some background of alternatives to A. That still might sound intuitive, but a lot of work needs to be done in order to flesh out the details, and there are lots of puzzles along the way. So as usual, we've got a lot to talk about. Contrast of Reasons is a concise book that's got a lot of philosophy packed in. But why don't we begin where we normally do, which is by greeting our guest.
Hello, Justin.
Hey, Bob. How are you?
Good. How are you today?
I'm doing great. I'm watching it rain in St. Andrews.
Well, it's very sunny and hot in Nashville, if that's any consolation.
Not really,
no. No. Well, thanks for joining us today on New Books in Philosophy.
Thank you.
Why don't you start us off as we usually start these conversations off? Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Great. So as you mentioned, I'm a lecturer in philosophy at St. Andrews, which is, for those of you that don't know, a small town on the east coast of Scotland. And I live in an even smaller town, more like a tiny fishing village outside of St. Andrews. I grew up in another small town called Lewisburg, which is in southeastern West Virginia, which is a really tiny place in the middle of nowhere, but actually a really charming town. Something I'm actually sort of unreasonably proud of is that the town was actually named the coolest small town in America by a travel magazine in 2011.
Did they give reasons for that? What makes it
cool? I mean, that's a really good question. I mean, it's, you know, a kind of small mountain town that's kind of packed with art galleries and, you know, Carnegie Hall, sort of genuine Carnegie Hall and good food.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is contrastivism about normative reasons and why does it matter?
0:00–9:00
2
How does Justin Snedegar explain the intuition behind contrastive reasons?
9:00–21:29
3
Why does Snedegar argue that there is no reason simpliciter for an act?
21:29–33:34
4
What is the difference between shallow and deep contrastivism in the book?
33:34–44:40
5
How does the ‘favoring’ relation support a deep contrastive view of reasons?
44:40–56:12
6
Why does the book reject in‑transitivity of reasons but allow in‑transitivity of ‘more reason than’?
56:12–1:03:18
7
How does the contrastive framework apply to belief‑withholding and intention?
1:03:18–1:08:09
8
What are the broader implications of contrastive reasons for moral theory?
1:08:09–1:08:27
Speakers
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