Practical Reasoning – Rule or Exception?

Abstract

One of the fundamental ethical questions is concerning the nature and method of the human acquisition of the moral knowledge – especially the knowledge about personal and actual obligations hic et nunc. Since ancient times this area of human activity has been called “practical” or “moral reasoning.” At the end of twentieth century there have strated an interesting disputet whether this moral reasoning is necessary and regular (it is a sine qua non condition of every human act) or it is something rare and exceptional, carried out only in extremely difficult and untypical moral situations. In my paper, I’m trying to resolve this dispute by referring to the commonly accepted distinction between reasoning resulting in a “having a reason to act” (implicit reasoning, first-person point of view) and reasoning leading to “give a reason to act” (explicative reasoning, a ­third-person point of view).