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The Idea of Practical Reasonableness

The document discusses John Finnis's idea of practical reasonableness. Finnis identifies practical reasonableness as one of seven basic goods that people pursue. He provides nine requirements for determining whether decisions are practically reasonable, including having a coherent life plan and not showing arbitrary preference among people. The document aims to study Finnis's concept of practical reasonableness in detail and answer questions about what it is, its requirements, and how Finnis criticized consequentialism. It focuses only on Finnis's view of practical reasonableness and notes he has been criticized for emphasizing it over other basic goods.

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Bidisha Pandita
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98 views1 page

The Idea of Practical Reasonableness

The document discusses John Finnis's idea of practical reasonableness. Finnis identifies practical reasonableness as one of seven basic goods that people pursue. He provides nine requirements for determining whether decisions are practically reasonable, including having a coherent life plan and not showing arbitrary preference among people. The document aims to study Finnis's concept of practical reasonableness in detail and answer questions about what it is, its requirements, and how Finnis criticized consequentialism. It focuses only on Finnis's view of practical reasonableness and notes he has been criticized for emphasizing it over other basic goods.

Uploaded by

Bidisha Pandita
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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THE IDEA OF PRACTICAL REASONABLENESS

Abstract:

The idea of practical reasonableness has been developed by John Finnis as one of the seven
basic goods. The other basic goods are pursued with the help of this good. All these goods are
objective goods which are self-evident and they are not questionable. In order to know
whether our decisions are practically reasonable or not Finnis has given nine requirements of
practical reasonableness. These nine requirements are-coherent plan of life, non-arbitrariness
in the preference among values, non-arbitrariness among persons, detachment, commitment,
limited relevance of consequences, equal value to all the basic goods, following one’s
conscience. John Finnis is also against consequentialism or utilitarianism. This project
therefore tries to study the idea of practical reasonableness as put forward by Finnis. The
main objective of this research is to study the idea of practical reasonableness in detail.

Questions that will be answered in this project will be:

1. What is the idea of practical reasonableness?


2. What are the requirements of practical reasonableness?
3. How did Finnis criticized consequentialism?

The scope of this project is limited to the idea of practical reasonableness by John Finnis.
Practical reasonableness according to him is one through which we pursue the other basic
goods. In his book he talks about the seven basic goods and practical reasonableness is one of
them. He has listed down nine requirements of practical reasonableness. Through these
requirements we can actually know if our decisions are practically reasonable or not.
According to him consequentialists are not practically reasonable. They always talks about
maximizing the net goodness but according to Finnis its not possible. Again what is good for
one might be different for others. This article provides a critique to Finnis’s idea of practical
reasonableness, Finnis has also been criticised for giving more importance to practical
reasonableness than other goods.

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