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  1. Suspension of Judgement: Fittingness, Reasons, and Permissivism.Michael Vollmer - 2023 - Episteme:1-16.
    This paper defends three theses on the normativity of the suspension of judgment. First, even if beliefs have to fit the truth and disbelief the false, suspension can still have satisfiable fittingness conditions. Second, combining this view with specific theses on the link between fittingness and normative reasons in favour of attitudes commits one to the existence of reasons to suspend judgement, which are neither reasons to believe nor reasons to disbelieve. These independent reasons, in turn, generate a form of (...)
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  • Maladjustment.Michaela McSweeney - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 180 (3):843-869.
    Martin Luther King Jr. claimed that “the salvation of the world lies in the hands of the maladjusted”. I elaborate on King’s claim by focusing on the way in which we treat and understand ‘maladjustment’ that is responsive to severe trauma (e.g. PTSD that is a result of military combat or rape). Mental healthcare and our social attitudes about mental illness and disorder will prevent us from recognizing real injustice that symptoms of mental illness can be appropriately responding to, unless (...)
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  • (1 other version)Hoping for Metanormative Realism.Anne Jeffrey - 2021 - Erkenntnis 86 (1):1-15.
    Debates in metaethics about metanormative realism, quasi-realism, anti-realism, and nihilism mostly focus on epistemic reasons for beliefs about values. Very little has been said about our practical reasons for metaethical beliefs, and even less is said about practical reasons for other attitudes we might take toward metaethical views. This paper shows why a recent argument bucking that trend fails to show that we have practical reasons to believe realism over nihilism, but that for many of us, we do have practical (...)
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  • Making space for the normativity of coherence.Alex Worsnip - 2022 - Noûs 56 (2):393-415.
    This paper offers a new account of how structural rationality, or coherence, is normative. The central challenge to the normativity of coherence – which I term the problem of “making space” for the normativity of coherence – is this: if considerations of coherence matter normatively, it is not clear how we ought to take account of them in our deliberation. Coherence considerations don’t seem to show up in reasoning about what to believe, intend, desire, hope, fear, and so on; moreover, (...)
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  • Minimal disturbance: in defence of pragmatic reasons of the right kind.Lisa Bastian - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (12):3615-3636.
    This paper draws attention to an important methodological shortcoming in debates about what counts as a reason for belief. An extremely influential distinction in this literature is between reasons of the ‘right kind’ and the ‘wrong kind’. However, as I will demonstrate, arguments making use of this distinction often rely on a specific conception of epistemic rationality. Shifting focus to a reasonable alternative, namely a coherentist conception, can lead to surprising consequences—in particular, pragmatic reasons can, against orthodoxy, indeed be reasons (...)
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  • Reasoning First.Pamela Hieronymi - 2020 - In Ruth Chang & Kurt Sylvan (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Practical Reason. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 349–365.
    Many think of reasons as facts, propositions, or considerations that stand in some relation (or relations) to attitudes, actions, states of affairs. The relation may be an explanatory one or a “normative” one—though some are uncomfortable with irreducibly “normative” relations. I will suggest that we should, instead, see reasons as items in pieces of reasoning. They relate, in the first instance, not to psychological states or events or states of affairs, but to questions. That relation is neither explanatory nor “normative.” (...)
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  • Deliberation, Reasons, and Alternatives.Justin Snedegar - 2018 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 100 (3):682-702.
    A plausible constraint on normative reasons to act is that it must make sense to use them as premises in deliberation. I argue that a central sort of deliberation – what Bratman calls partial planning – is question-directed: it is over, and aims to resolve, deliberative questions. Whether it makes sense to use some consideration as a premise in deliberation in a case of partial planning can vary with the deliberative question at issue. I argue that the best explanation for (...)
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  • The Beliefs and Intentions of Buridan's Ass.Nathaniel Sharadin & Finnur Dellsén - 2017 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 3 (2):209-226.
    The moral of Buridan's Ass is that it can sometimes be rational to perform one action rather than another even though one lacks stronger reason to do so. Yet it is also commonly believed that it cannot ever be rational to believe one proposition rather than another if one lacks stronger reason to do so. This asymmetry has been taken to indicate a deep difference between epistemic and practical rationality. According to the view articulated here, the asymmetry should instead be (...)
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  • Reasons to Desire and Desiring at Will.Victor M. Verdejo - 2017 - Metaphilosophy 48 (3):355-369.
    There is an unresolved conflict concerning the normative nature of desire. Some authors take rational desire to differ from rational belief in being a normatively unconstrained attitude. Others insist that rational desire seems plausibly subject to several consistency norms. This article argues that the correct analysis of this conflict of conative normativity leads us to acknowledge intrinsic and extrinsic reasons to desire. If sound, this point helps us to unveil a fundamental aspect of desire, namely, that we cannot desire at (...)
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  • Incommensurability, incomparability, and practical reason.Ruth Chang (ed.) - 1997 - Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard.
    Can quite different values be rationally weighed against one another? Can the value of one thing always be ranked as greater than, equal to, or less than the value of something else? If the answer to these questions is no, then in what areas do we find commensurability and comparability unavailable? And what are the implications for moral and legal decision making? This book struggles with these questions, and arrives at distinctly different answers.".
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  • The right and the wrong kind of reasons.Jan Gertken & Benjamin Kiesewetter - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (5):e12412.
    In a number of recent philosophical debates, it has become common to distinguish between two kinds of normative reasons, often called the right kind of reasons (henceforth: RKR) and the wrong kind of reasons (henceforth: WKR). The distinction was first introduced in discussions of the so-called buck-passing account of value, which aims to analyze value properties in terms of reasons for pro-attitudes and has been argued to face the wrong kind of reasons problem. But nowadays it also gets applied in (...)
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  • What is Reasoning?Conor McHugh & Jonathan Way - 2018 - Mind 127 (505):167-196.
    Reasoning is a certain kind of attitude-revision. What kind? The aim of this paper is to introduce and defend a new answer to this question, based on the idea that reasoning is a goodness-fixing kind. Our central claim is that reasoning is a functional kind: it has a constitutive point or aim that fixes the standards for good reasoning. We claim, further, that this aim is to get fitting attitudes. We start by considering recent accounts of reasoning due to Ralph (...)
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  • Reasons Wrong and Right.Nathaniel Sharadin - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (3):371-399.
    The fact that someone is generous is a reason to admire them. The fact that someone will pay you to admire them is also a reason to admire them. But there is a difference in kind between these two reasons: the former seems to be the ‘right’ kind of reason to admire, whereas the latter seems to be the ‘wrong’ kind of reason to admire. The Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem is the problem of explaining the difference between the ‘right’ (...)
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  • Nothing but the Evidential Considerations?Nathaniel P. Sharadin - 2016 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (2):343-361.
    A number of philosophers have claimed that non-evidential considerations cannot play a role in doxastic deliberation as motivating reasons to believe a proposition. This claim, interesting in its own right, naturally lends itself to use in a range of arguments for a wide array of substantive philosophical theses. I argue, by way of a counterexample, that the claim to which all these arguments appeal is false. I then consider, and reply to, seven objections to my counterexample. Finally, as a way (...)
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  • Epistemic Reasons I: Normativity.Kurt Sylvan - 2016 - Philosophy Compass 11 (7):364-376.
    This paper is an opinionated guide to the literature on normative epistemic reasons. After making some distinctions in §1, I begin in §2 by discussing the ontology of normative epistemic reasons, assessing arguments for and against the view that they are mental states, and concluding that they are not mental states. In §3, I examine the distinction between normative epistemic reasons there are and normative epistemic reasons we possess. I offer a novel account of this distinction and argue that we (...)
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  • (1 other version)Normativity: The Place of Reasoning.Joseph Raz - 2015 - Philosophical Issues 25 (1):144-164.
    It is more or less common ground that an important aspect of the explanation of normativity relates it to the way Reason (our rational powers), reasons (for beliefs, emotions, actions, etc.) and reasoning, with all its varieties and domains, are inter-connected. The relation of reasoning to reasons is the topic of this this paper. It does not start from a tabula rasa. It presupposes that normativity has to do with the ability to respond rationally to reasons, and with responding to (...)
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  • In defence of object-given reasons.Michael Vollmer - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (2):485-511.
    One recurrent objection to the idea that the right kind of reasons for or against an attitude are object-given reasons for or against that attitude is that object-given reasons for or against belief and disbelief are incapable of explaining certain features of epistemic normativity. Prohibitive balancing, the behaviour of bare statistical evidence, information about future or easily available evidence, pragmatic and moral encroachment, as well as higher-order defeaters, are all said to be inexplicable in terms of those object-given reasons. In (...)
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  • A tale of two cities: emotion and reason in the formation of moral judgement and possible metaethical implications.Susana Cadilha - 2022 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 44 (3):1-27.
    The project of naturalizing ethics has multiple contributions, from cognitive and moral psychology to primatology, neuroscience or evolutionary theory. One of the strategies for naturalizing ethics has been to argue that moral norms and values can be explained away if we focus on their causal history, if it is possible to offer both an ultimate and proximate causal explanation for them. In this article, I will focus on the contribution of cognitive and moral psychology as a way of offering a (...)
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  • Explaining Free Will by Rational Abilities.Frank Hofmann - 2022 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 25 (2):283-297.
    In this paper I present an account of the rational abilities that make our decisions free. Following the lead of new dispositionalists, a leeway account of free decisions is developed, and the rational abilities that ground our abilities to decide otherwise are described in detail. A main result will be that the best account of the relevant rational abilities makes them two-way abilities: abilities to decide to do or not to do x in accordance with one’s apparent reasons. Dispositionalism about (...)
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  • Epistemic Reasons Are Not Normative Reasons for Belief.Samuel Montplaisir - 2021 - Acta Analytica 36 (4):573-587.
    In this paper, I argue against the view that epistemic reasons are normative reasons for belief. I begin by responding to some of the most widespread arguments in favor of the normativity of epistemic reasons before advancing two arguments against this thesis. The first is supported by an analysis of what it means to “have” some evidence for p. The second is supported by the claim that beliefs, if they are to be considered as states, cannot have epistemic reasons as (...)
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  • Evidentialism doesn’t make an exception for belief.Keshav Singh - 2021 - Synthese 198 (6):5477-5494.
    Susanna Rinard has recently offered a new argument for pragmatism and against evidentialism. According to Rinard, evidentialists must hold that the rationality of belief is determined in a way that is different from how the rationality of other states is determined. She argues that we should instead endorse a view she calls Equal Treatment, according to which the rationality of all states is determined in the same way. In this paper, I show that Rinard’s claims are mistaken, and that evidentialism (...)
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  • Against zetetic encroachment.Michael Vollmer - 2024 - Synthese 203 (6):1-23.
    Proponents of zetetic encroachment claim that certain zetetic or inquiry-related considerations can have a bearing on the epistemic rationality of one’s belief formation. Since facts about the interestingness or importance of a topic can be the right kind of reasons for inquisitive attitudes, such as curiosity, and inquisitive attitudes are ways to suspend judgement, these facts also amount to reasons against believing. This mechanism is said to explain several contentious phenomena in epistemology, such as the occurrence of pragmatic encroachment. In (...)
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  • Mental painkillers and reasons for pain.Hagit Benbaji - 2018 - Manuscrito 41 (4):1-32.
    What does bodily pain have in common with mental pain? According to “evaluativism,” both are representations of something bad. This paper puts forward three claims. First, that evaluativism vis-à-vis bodily pain is false for it renders it irrational to take painkillers. Second, that evaluativism vis-à-vis mental pain is true. Third, that this difference between bodily and mental pain stems from the fact that only the latter is normative, that is, based on reasons. The normative difference between bodily and mental pain (...)
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  • How Reasons Guide Us (in Reasoning and Rationalisation).Franziska Poprawe - 2023 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 99 (4):544-569.
    The common-sense view that reasons guide us in thought and action and that humans are essentially reason-responsive animals is increasingly under attack by defenders of what one can call the Rationalisation View, which emphasises that we typically rationalise actions and judgements that are based on intuition rather than reasoning. This article defends the former view of human Reason, partly by replying to prominent advocates of the latter, partly by proposing accounts of reflective reasoning and rationalisation that bring to light a (...)
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  • Higher-Order Evidence in Aesthetics.Daniel Whiting - 2023 - British Journal of Aesthetics 63 (2):143-155.
    In this introduction, I explain the notion of higher-order evidence and explore its bearing on aesthetic judgement. I start by illustrating how reflection on cases involving higher-order evidence engages with well-established concerns in aesthetics—specifically, how it might reveal tensions within and between widely recognized aesthetic ideals governing aesthetic judgement. Next, I show how attention to higher-order evidence in relation to aesthetic judgement might expose limitations or assumptions of theories in epistemology, where the nature and significance of higher-order evidence with respect (...)
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  • The fitting resolution of anger.Oded Na’Aman - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (8):2417-2430.
    How can we explain the rational diminution of backward-looking emotions without resorting to pragmatic or wrong kind of reason explanations? That is to say, how can the diminution of these emotions not only be rational but fitting? In this paper, I offer an answer to this question by considering the case of anger. In Sect. 1, I examine Pamela Hieronymi’s account of forgiveness as the rational resolution of resentment. I argue that Hieronymi’s account rests on an assumption about the rationality (...)
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  • What can we not do at will and why.Hagit Benbaji - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (7):1941-1961.
    Recently it has been argued that we cannot intend at will. Since intentions cannot be true or false, our involuntariness cannot be traced to “the characteristic of beliefs that they aim at truth”, as Bernard Williams convincingly argues. The alternative explanation is that the source of involuntariness is the shared normative nature of beliefs and intentions. Three analogies may assimilate intentions to beliefs vis-à-vis our involuntariness: first, beliefs and intentions aim at something; second, beliefs and intentions are transparent to the (...)
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  • Productive freedom.Tully Rector - forthcoming - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.
    This paper presents and defends a new conception of freedom as a value in the sphere of economic production. It challenges the common, proprietarian-contractual view of economic liberty. My alternative integrates three elements: compossible control, non-alienation, and reason-responsiveness. After surveying various forms of freedom, conceptual ground is cleared for the presentation of those three elements in a relational structure. I define them, show how they interpenetrate, and argue for their shared centrality. Compossible control involves a person’s conditions of economic agency (...)
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  • Substantial Self-Knowledge and the Necessity of Avowal.Naomi Kloosterboer - 2024 - Journal of Value Inquiry 58 (4).
    A central intuition regarding self-knowledge is that if I say (or think) that I believe that it is raining – to use a familiar example – I do not merely state a fact about my mental life but also express my view of the world: I take it to be the case that it is raining. The notion of avowal is supposed to capture this duality of perspectives: whilst occupying one’s first-person perspective, one self-attributes a mental attitude, which is a (...)
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  • (1 other version)Hoping for Metanormative Realism.Anne Jeffrey - 2022 - Erkenntnis 87 (1):1-15.
    Debates in metaethics about metanormative realism, quasi-realism, anti-realism, and nihilism mostly focus on epistemic reasons for beliefs about values. Very little has been said about our practical reasons for metaethical beliefs, and even less is said about practical reasons for other attitudes we might take toward metaethical views. This paper shows why a recent argument bucking that trend fails to show that we have practical reasons to believe realism over nihilism, but that for many of us, we do have practical (...)
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