There have been many recent books, and near countless articles, written recently on practical reasons and reasoning. Many of these discussions are good. In my view, A. W. Price's new book is a very fine addition to the work in this area and one from which many people will gain illumination.

As with many works, it has its flaws. Let me raise and put aside the chief one. The overall claim – that context matters to practical reasoning – is simple to grasp. Price's four main chapters argue for distinct, detailed claims spinning out from this overall claim. Indeed, there are connections made between the four chapters; 138-141 provide a useful, if difficult, summary. The worry I have is that I was unable to get a grip on any more detailed but connecting claim other than the very general one just expressed. Indeed, it is unclear if there is such a ‘mid-level’ claim. (To put it another way, could one agree with Price that context matters, but disagree with him not just on the details of the four particular chapters, but on what he means by ‘context’ as applied to each of them? I do not know the answer as I am simply unsure what one would be opposing.) As well as the pages just referred to, and others in the main body, Price includes a five page introductory overview, and a nineteen page analytical abstract, but I confess that neither helped me in this regard. This criticism could be a reflection of me as a reader, of course, which leads me to the overall virtues of the book.

Perhaps Price does not have a mid-level claim. No matter, because what makes Price special as a writer and thinker, here and elsewhere, is his attention to the fine points of the words and phrases that we use, and how much philosophical and conceptual mileage he can get out of the unpacking of a simple piece of language or philosophical cliché. This aspect of his thinking informs and powers much of the ideas in the book, and generates a great deal of light. He honestly and self-deprecatingly points out this style of writing and thinking in the preface. This way of writing is possibly what leads to the absence of the mid-level connecting thesis mentioned above, or perhaps it leads a reader such as me to miss it. But, it is also what leads to Price's insights, in my view. And, this is the second chief virtue of the book. There are many such insights, and they should make a number of people involved in the debates Price discusses stop and think.

I now summarize the book's four chapters and then concentrate on one of Price's final trains of thought. All I do is extend his thought somewhat here; I find his thinking admirable throughout.

The first chapter is concerned with practical inferences, concentrating on a comparison between these and theoretical inferences. Price argues that a form of logicism, which claims that there is a special form of logic in practical deliberation, is false. Instead, what differences there are between the practical and theoretical inferences are to be explained with references to ‘situationally sensitive evaluations’. Chapter two is concerned with the way in which true practical judgements get to be true. Price argues again that we must refer to the context in order to explain why judgements are true or false. In doing so, Price pulls apart and illuminates the differences between ‘must’, ‘need’, different sorts of ‘ought’, and other examples. (Price's careful concentration on language is to the fore here.) In the third chapter Price considers how we should practically reason with conditionals, focussing on the idea of detaching one part of a conditional from another and considering the recent work by John Broome, amongst others. The final chapter concerns what reasons one has for action. It focuses on both their ground (which finds Price discussing Bernard Williams' distinction between internal and external reasons and work by Richard Wollheim on the genetic basis of reasons), and their structure (which finds him discussing particularism and engaging in a local disagreement with fellow particularist Jonathan Dancy). In what follows I concentrate on his work on Williams.

I assume that Williams' distinction is familiar enough. Price, like many others, presses on the relationship between the current elements in an agent's subjective motivational set – the elements in A's S – and the reasons that exist for A. Perhaps A does not have all relevant knowledge, perhaps imagination will reveal new options to A that appeal to him as he currently is, perhaps he requires the help of another as a spur to imaginative thinking, and so on. As we consider yet more possibilities, it seems reasonable to think that the relationship between A's current S and the reasons that apply is murkier than first appears when Williams' contrast between internal and external reasons is made. Price is not that concerned to discuss in detail the dispute between internalists and externalists. Rather, by putting matters in the form of ‘concentric circles of reason of which the agent is the centre point’ (p. 149), we can see that we can go further and further away from A's (and Williams') starting point in order to ground reasons. Price argues from this that we should resist a single analysis of ‘A has a reason to φ’. Someone advising A, for example, can diverge from the specific reasons and deliberations tied tightly to A's current S, and do so depending on the circumstances and context, so long as she respects that the reasons statement has to be something that is distinctively about A. To cut a long story short, Price argues that Williams distorts the inquiry and nature of the phenomenon because the mode and manner of the advice and deliberation on which it is based can itself change the sorts of factor that legitimately ground the reasons for A, even on an internalist picture of reasons. What sorts of deliberation, advice, suggestion, and the like are relevant and legitimate to apply is determined by context. Indeed, such things themselves help to determine the context in which the reasons apply to A. (Price is surely right here. We can imagine that the existing relationship between A and his advisor might affect things. A might be more inclined to see a reason as attractive when presented by one person than by another, not just because of the words used, but, say, because of how A conceives himself when talking with various advisors. Some people might be more prepared to accept as a reason for action something suggested by a close friend than something suggested by a parent, for example.) Price then extends this account by thinking about the relationship between desire and reason. In brief, he develops the view that, first, our desiring things and, secondly, the reasons that accrue to actions and things, are intertwined. Too often there is a dichotomy set up either with (i) all reason (and value) being derived from our desires (which makes us wonder how normativity enters the picture), or with (ii) the reasons for us to act and values of such actions existing prior to any desires that we have towards such actions (in which case there is the possibility of people failing to be moved by reason, and a further worry that reasons are ‘queer’ in John Mackie's sense). The acceptance of this dichotomy is often at the heart of positions that are either thoroughly internalist or thoroughly externalist, hence the link between this discussion and that concerning Williams. But, says Price, this dichotomy is false. We need to examine more carefully what reason and (mature) desire are so as to show that they grow and exist together, and that any sort of ‘priority’ story is silly. As well as drawing on work by Wollheim, Price notably references David Wiggins.

I find much that is congenial in this picture, particularly Price's discussion of Williams. What is of key value in his discussion is that he calls into question the line (or lines) drawn between internal and external reasons. (Price is not the first to have done this, of course, but he does it really well.) Consider this abstract description. A has a reason, R, now. However, R links to nothing specific in A's present S, but only is the sort of thing that would appeal to A's general character. Indeed, as a contrast, many of us who share the various desires and commitments of A would find it difficult to see the value of R. But A has a certain sort of psychology, and is in a certain sort of situation, and R relates to a certain sort of thing (and so on), such that a quite radical sort of event, or the exactly right advisor or exemplar, or similar, can bring about a change in A such that he can see R's value and embrace it and, further, can tell himself a (kosher) story such that he appreciates that he has changed but is still ‘himself’, and appreciates that R always was a reason for him. (And so on.) We can make the situation less abstract with talk of the decision to change career midway through one's life, or with talk of the thought processes that occur after the death of someone close, and the like. I find that once one plays around with this sort of thing, which Price's discussion of context invites, one can put pressure on Williams' key but (necessarily) vague idea that, roughly, we can imagine new Ss for A that ground particular reasons for him now, so long as we can reasonably imagine A's S transforming into these new Ss and his remaining recognisably A. Indeed, one might be tempted to think that any position that fits Williams' initial characterization of externalism in his key papers is a straw man, at least to the modern mind. Now, I do not think that that conclusion quite follows. However, the prospects for a thorough-going externalism, or a crude internalism, are shown as slim through Price's discussion of desire and reason. If I had any criticism of Price's book here, rather than his thought, it would have been nice to see him discuss in more detail the internalism-externalism dispute from this direction, so as to show what sort of ‘externalism’ marks the limits of unacceptability and why it is that the discussion of reason and desire should soften any blow that might come from rejecting the thought that reasons are external.

As my discussion has hinted, this is a rich book, and a short review can only scratch the surface. Discussing his views on logicism, for example, would require a full-length paper. Indeed, I have even omitted details of how Price sees reason and desire related. My overall thought should be plain, however: this is a book that should become much cited and influential in the field. It is careful, illuminating, and thoughtful.