Eudaemonism is the common structure of the family of theories in which the central moral conception is eudaemonia , understood as "living well" or "having a good life." In its best form, the virtues are understood as constitutive and therefore essential means to achieving or having such a life. What I seek to do is to lay the groundwork for an approach to eudaemonism grounded in practical reason, and especially in instrumental reasoning, rather than in natural teleology. In the first (...) chapter, I argue that an approach based in natural teleology will not work. In the second, the claims of decision theory to be an adequate formal representation of instrumental reasoning are examined and found wanting. In the third, I develop an account of ordinary instrumental reasoning. In the fourth, I discuss the structure of eudaemonism, with the aim of showing that there is an intelligible and attractive doctrine that can be disentangled from the natural teleology. In the fifth, I sketch an argument showing that instrumental reasoning, as explicated in the third chapter, can bear on the selection of final and ultimate ends, and that it is plausible that the instrumental approach to moral theory that I am urging yields conclusions with a eudaemonistic structure. I also indicate directions for further development and exploration. (shrink)

Many consequentialists take their theory to be anchored by a deeply intuitive idea, the “Compelling Idea” that it is always permissible to promote the best outcome. I demonstrate that this Idea is not, in fact, intuitive at all either in its agent-neutral or its evaluator-relative form. There are deeply intuitive ideas concerning the relationship of deontic to telic evaluation, but the Compelling Idea is at best a controversial interpretation of such ideas, not itself one of them. Because there is no (...) Compelling Idea at the heart of consequentialism, there is no initial burden of proof to be discharged nor any air of paradox to be cleared away by its opponents. (shrink)

Moral Motivation presents a history of the concept of moral motivation. The book consists of ten chapters by eminent scholars in the history of philosophy, covering Plato, Aristotle, later Peripatetic philosophy, medieval philosophy, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Kant, Fichte and Hegel, and the consequentialist tradition. In addition, four interdisciplinary "Reflections" discuss how the topic of moral motivation arises in epic poetry, Cicero, early opera, and Theodore Dreiser. Most contemporary philosophical discussions of moral motivation focus on whether and how moral beliefs by (...) themselves motivate an agent to act. In much of the history of the concept, especially before Hume, the focus is rather on how to motivate people to act morally as well as on what sort of motivation a person must act from in order to be a genuinely ethical person or even to have done a genuinely ethical action. The book shows the complexity of the historical treatment of moral motivation and, moreover, how intertwined moral motivation is with central aspects of ethical theory. (shrink)

One of the most prevalent and influential assumptions in metaethics is that our conception of the relation between moral language and motivation provides strong support to internalism about moral judgments. In the present paper, I argue that this supposition is unfounded. Our responses to the type of thought experiments that internalists employ do not lend confirmation to this view to the extent they are assumed to do. In particular, they are as readily explained by an externalist view according to which (...) there is a pragmatic and standardized connection between moral utterances and motivation. The pragmatic account I propose states that a person’s utterance of a sentence according to which she ought to ϕ conveys two things: the sentence expresses, in virtue of its conventional meaning, the belief that she ought to ϕ, and her utterance carries a generalized conversational implicature to the effect that she is motivated to ϕ. This view also makes it possible to defend cognitivism against a well-known internalist argument. (shrink)

The main aim of this thesis is to defend moral realism. In chapter 1, I argue that moral realism is best understood as the view that moral sentences have truth-value, there are moral properties that make some moral sentences true, and moral properties are not reducible to non- moral properties. Realism is contrasted with non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism, which, in brief, deny, and, respectively. In the introductory chapter, it is also argued that there are some prima facie reasons to assume (...) that non-cognitivism and error-theory are erroneous. In chapters 2 and 3, I suggest that the two main forms of reductionism, analytic and synthetic reductionism, are mistaken. In chapter 4, I argue that the considerations in the previous chapters in relation to non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism provide support to moral realism. It is also suggested that these considerations make it plausible to hypothesise that moral properties depend on non- moral properties in a way I refer to as ‘the realist formula’. The realist formula confirms moral realism since it implies that moral properties are not reducible to non- moral properties. In chapters 5, 6 and 7, I argue that moral realism, much owing to the realist formula, is able to explain significant meta-ethical issues regarding moral disagreement, moral reason and moral motivation. Among other things, externalism concerning moral motivation is defended. The explanatory value of moral realism in relation to these meta-ethical issues is taken to suggest that this view is preferable to non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism. Some of the meta-ethical issues discussed in these chapters, particularly moral disagreement and motivation, have been thought to provide support to non-cognitivism and error-theory. I maintain that since realism, unlike reductionism, is able to counter these arguments, it justifies us in upholding the view that moral sentences have truth-value and the view that there are moral properties. In chapter 8, various objections against realism with regard to the dependence of moral properties on non- moral properties are responded to. In chapter 9, I consider an influential argument to the effect that moral properties are not involved in causal explanations. I maintain that this argument fails and that it therefore is reasonable to assume that moral properties are natural properties. However, the discussions in chapters 8 and 9 also suggest that moral realism might face problems that cannot be thoroughly discussed in this thesis. (shrink)

Inspired by an analogy between moral and secondary properties, some moral philosophers have argued that moral properties are dispositions. According to one version of this view, most clearly represented by Jonathan Dancy, a moral property is the property of being such, having base properties such, that an entity with the property elicits morally merited and motivating responses. Its proponents have argued that this notion can explain how moral judgements can be objective in the sense of expressing properties that are independent (...) of will and yet imply motivation by those who assert them. In special consideration of Dancy’s Moral Reasons, I argue that the dispositional account does not save the idea of objectivity in the required sense and implies an untenable view of moral motivation. I therefore conclude that the dispositional account fails to explain the two features of moral judgements. (shrink)

This paper criticizes the conjunction of two theses: 1) cognitivism about first-person moral ought-beliefs, the thesis (roughly) that such beliefs are attitudes with truth-valued contents; 2) robust internalism about these beliefs, the thesis that, necessarily, agents' beliefs that they ought, morally, to A constitute motivation to A. It is argued that the conjunction of these two theses places our moral agency at serious risk. The argument, which centrally involves attention to clinical depression, is extended to a less demanding, recent brand (...) of internalist moral cognitivism. Philosophers discussed include Dancy, McDowell, McNaughton, and Nagel. (shrink)

Moral cognitivism, internalism about moral judgements, and Humeanism about motivating reasons all possess attractions.Yet they cannot all be true.This is the so–called moral problem. Dancy offers an interesting particularist response to the moral problem. However, we argue that this response, first, provides an inadequate basis for the distinction between motivating states and states necessary for motivation although not themselves motivators; second, draws no support from considerations about weakness of the will; and third, involves an implausible account of desire.We conclude that (...) particularism ú whatever other attractions it may have ú does not solve the moral problem. 1We would like to thank Jonathan Dancy, Paul Robinson, and two anonymous referees for very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. (shrink)