Legal Theory Blog

The Legal Theory Bookworm recommends Reasonably Vicious by Candace Vogler.  Here is the abstract:

Is unethical conduct necessarily irrational? Answering this question
requires giving an account of practical reason, of practical good, and
of the source or point of wrongdoing. By the time most contemporary
philosophers have done the first two, they have lost sight of the
third, chalking up bad action to rashness, weakness of will, or
ignorance. In this book, Candace Vogler does all three, taking as her
guides scholars who contemplated why some people perform evil deeds. In
doing so, she sets out to at once engage and redirect contemporary
debates about ethics, practical reason, and normativity.

Staged as a limited defense of a standard view of practical
reason (an ancestor of contemporary instrumentalist views), Vogler's
essay develops Aquinas's remark about three ways an action might be
desirable into an exhaustive system for categorizing reasons for
acting. Drawing on Elizabeth Anscombe's pioneering work on intention,
Vogler argues that one sort (means/end or calculative reasons for
acting) sets the terms for all sound work on practical rationality.

She takes up Aquinas's work on evil throughout, arguing that he
provides us with a systematic theory of immorality that takes seriously
the goods at issue in wrongdoing and the reasons for unethical conduct.
Vogler argues that, shorn of its theological context, this theory
leaves us with no systematic, uncontroversial way of arguing that
wrongdoing is necessarily contrary to reason.

And from the reviews:

Vogler (philosophy, Univ. of Chicago) here defends what she terms the
"standard view" of practical reasoning. To reason practically,
according to this position, is to attempt to fit means to an end, or
"parts of an activity in order to do the whole." Many contemporary
philosophers have objected that this doctrine artificially separates
reason and desire, making reason purely instrumental to desires that
cannot be rationally evaluated. Vogler responds with a distinction: the
standard view does not depend on controversial psychological premises,
such as a bifurcation of reason and desire. Quite the contrary, it
rests on a conceptual analysis of action. In carrying out her analysis,
Vogler relies extensively on Aquinas's discussion of evil. Her account
has the consequence that immoral action need not be irrational: an evil
person can pursue his or her ends without manifesting a defect in
rationality. Vogler shows a thorough knowledge of modern philosophers,
such as Donald Davidson and Philippa Foot, who have discussed practical
reason. Her subtle book is bound to be influential. Recommended for
academic libraries.–David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., OH

Bravely, and with rather touching regret, [Vogler] sets herself against
much current moral philosophy and shows just how difficult it is to
avoid internalism if one is persuaded by the standard picture. In doing
so, she challenges non-calculative theorists to pay closer attention to
the structure of action and practical reason before they can hope to
lay to rest the ghost of the reasonable villain."–Samantha Vice,
Times Literary Supplement