Dimensions of Practical Necessity

This collection of essays provides the first systematic investigation of practical necessity and offers novel perspectives on this intriguing phenomenon. While debates on necessity often take place in the realm of metaphysics, there is a form of necessity that is pertinent to practical philosophy. ¿Here I stand. I can do no other,¿ a phrase habitually attributed to Martin Luther, is often interpreted as revealing underlying normative reasons that exhibit a special kind of necessitating force, experienced as an inescapable constraint by the agent. However, one of the features that make this phenomenon so fascinating is that this constraint is often deciphered as stemming from a form of necessitation that articulates the agent¿s autonomy or practical identity. Luther¿s saying serves as a leitmotif for an exploration of different claims and challenges related to practical necessity. As the complex philosophical investigations are based on familiar, everyday experiences the book is accessible to any academic readership.

Brings together prominent international experts to provide the first systematic investigation of practical necessity.

1. Dimensions of Practical Necessity: An IntroductionPart I. Examples: The Necessity of Love and the Unforgivable2.  Loving Eyes of My Own: Love, Particularity, and Necessity (Marya Schechtman)3. ¿I cannot forgive you.¿ The Unforgivable as an Example of a Practical Necessity (Oliver Hallich)Part II. Normative Claims: Personal Practical Necessity and Practical Identities4. Christine Korsgaard and the Normativity of Practical Identities (Christoph Bambauer)5. What if I Cannot Do What I Have to Do? Notions of Personal Practical Necessity and the Principle ¿Ought Implies Can¿ (Michael Kühler)Part III. Normative Challenges: Vice and Akrasia6. Vice, Practical Necessity, and Agential Self-Destruction (Jonathan Jacobs)7. Three Ways to Understand Practical Necessity and akrasia: Aristotle, Davidson, and Frankfurt (Kathi Beier)8. Here I stand, I could do other: Can a Person of Integrity Be Weak-Willed? (Arnd Pollmann)Part IV. Volitional and Psychological Challenges: Ambiguity, Psychopathy, and Shame9. Where? Me? Indeterminacy and Ambiguity in Human Motivation (Jan Bransen)10. Shame and Necessity Redux (Heidi Maibom)Part V. Concluding Evaluations11. Here I Stand: About the Weight of Practical Necessity (Katharina Bauer)12. Morality and Happiness: Two Precarious Situations? (Corinna Mieth)