China Social Science Review

No.1, 2023

Reasons for Action, Practical Reasoning, and Virtue Normativity: An Examination of the Philosophy of Action in the Context of Three Traditions

(Abstract)

Xu Zhu

Reasons for action and practical reasoning are the main topics of the contemporary philosophy of action. The philosophy of action must discuss these issues not only by drawing on the rich resources of Aristotelian practical philosophy, but also by in turn contributing to the tradition of practical philosophy. We cannot fully understand the significance of contemporary virtue ethics’ attempts to reconstruct the Aristotelian philosophy of action unless we understand naїve realism and its modern tensions in the context of the interaction of the three theoretical traditions of the philosophy of action and acknowledge the interventions in and challenges arising from the modern philosophy of action.