Rodríguez-Blanco on the Instability of the Internal Point of View

Abstract

In her contribution to the present volume, Verónica Rodríguez-Blanco argues that Hart’s internal point of view is instable insofar as understanding the mental states of an agent can only lead us to understand the point of her action by accident or sheer coincidence. In a nutshell, the argument is that the internal point of view presupposes an inward-looking approach to action and that, to adequately understand the point of actions, it is necessary to adopt an outward-looking approach instead. In this paper, I argue that Rodríguez-Blanco’s arguments against the inward-looking approach to action are unsuccessful. Furthermore, I argue that her criticisms of Raz’s legal point of view are equally misguided, and that her own positive account of the role of legal rules in practical reasoning suffers from serious defects.