10: Ethical Reasoning and Evaluation
One of the most important things we reason about is what to do . How should we live our lives? What’s a good person? What’s the best life? What sorts of actions are out-of-bounds? What is required of us in situations of great need? What action is best in this situation?
These are ethical or moral questions.
We also reason about how to get things done, what the best means for attaining our goals are, what strategies work, etc.
These are prudential or pragmatic or practical questions.
We also reason about a lot of other things. Scientific questions, philosophical questions, legal questions, aesthetic questions, epistemic questions (questions about what we know and how we come to know things).