Questions are known to play a crucial role in helping to structure linguistic communication. I argue that paying attention to questions is also necessary for understanding disagreement, and in particular for distinguishing between genuine and merely verbal disagreements. I argue, moreover, that some of the questions that play this role are essentially practical questions, questions about what to do. Such questions can remain open even after questions about what is the case have been settled. Essentially practical questions help structure discourse (...) no less than ordinary questions. I argue that once we acknowledge them and their role in communication, we have new resources for making sense of cases of so-called “faultless disagreement” involving taste and aesthetic predicates within a standard, non-relativist semantics. (shrink)

Mark Schroeder’s expressivist program has made substantial progress in providing a compositional semantics for normative terms. This paper argues that it risks achieving this semantic progress at the cost of abandoning a key theoretical motivation for embracing expressivism in the first place. The problem can be summarized as a dilemma. Either Schroeder must allow that there are cases in which agents are in disagreement with one another, or can make valid inferences, but that these disagreements or inferences are not expressible (...) in natural language; or his version of expressivism must abandon one of the key theoretical advantages expressivist theories seemed to possess over cognitivism, the ability to provide a very straightforward explanation of the action- and attitude-guiding role of normative judgments. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently argued that self-fulfilling beliefs constitute an important counter-example to the widely accepted theses that we ought not and cannot believe at will. Cases of self-fulfilling belief are thought to constitute a special class where we enjoy the epistemic freedom to permissibly believe for pragmatic reasons, because whatever we choose to believe will end up true. In this paper, I argue that this view fails to distinguish between the aim of acquiring a true belief and the aim of (...) believing what is true. While one cannot usually fail to establish that one will acquire a true belief without establishing the truth of the believed proposition, in the case self-fulfilling belief the two can come apart. I argue that insofar as the aim of belief has to do with determining whether the believed proposition is true, it will be both impossible and impermissible to believe for pragmatic reasons. (shrink)

This paper considers the relationship between evidence and self-fulfilling beliefs—beliefs whose propositional contents will be true just in case—and because—an agent believes them. Following Grice, many philosophers hold that believing such propositions would involve an impermissible form of bootstrapping. This paper argues that such objections get their force from a popular but problematic function-model of theoretical deliberation, and that attending to the case of self-fulfilling belief can help us see why such a model is mistaken. The paper shows that on (...) a revised model of theoretical deliberation our evidence will problematically underdetermine any appropriate doxastic attitude: when belief in a proposition is self-fulfilling, our evidence is insufficient to support belief, disbelief, or even suspended judgment toward that proposition. (shrink)

This article discusses the phenomenon of normative resilience, with a focus on evaluative resilience. An object can become more or less valuable. In addition to this change in an object's value, the object's value can become more or less resilient. If it is less resilient, it cannot withstand as much evaluative change without its degree of value changing, as compared to an object with more resilient value. The article consists of three parts. First, examples of resilience are presented to give (...) the reader an intuitive understanding of the phenomenon, Second, the Fitting Attitudes Analysis of value is invoked to provide a formal account of evaluative resilience. Third, the theoretical and practical advantages of acknowledging the existence of evaluative resilience are brought to light. (shrink)

It's often thought that when we reason to new judgments in inference, we aim at believing the truth, and that this aim of ours can explain important psychological and normative features of belief. I reject this picture: the structure of aimed activity shows that inference is not guided by a truth‐aim. This finding clears the way for a positive understanding of how epistemic goods feature in our doxastic lives. We can indeed make sense of many of our inquisitive and deliberative (...) activities as undertaken in pursuit of such goods; but the evidence‐guided inferences in which those activities culminate will require a different theoretical approach. (shrink)

We tend to prescribe and appraise doxastic states in terms that are broadly deontic. According to a simple argument, such prescriptions and appraisals are improper, because they wrongly presuppose that our doxastic states are voluntary. One strategy for resisting this argument, recently endorsed by a number of philosophers, is to claim that our doxastic states are in fact voluntary (This strategy has been pursued by Steup 2008 ; Weatherson 2008 ). In this paper I argue that this strategy is neither (...) successful nor necessary. Our doxastic states are not voluntary in any interesting sense. But once we see why our doxastic states are not voluntary, we can also see that there is no apparent reason to think that deontic prescriptions and appraisals—epistemic ones, at any rate—presuppose doxastic voluntarism. Indeed, there is good reason to deny that they do so. Finally, I diagnose the misleading attraction of the idea that what I call ‘epistemic deontology’ presupposes doxastic voluntarism. (shrink)

According to a widely held view, epistemic reasons are normative reasons for belief – much like prudential or moral reasons are normative reasons for action. In recent years, however, an increasing number of authors have questioned the assumption that epistemic reasons are normative. In this article, I discuss an important challenge for anti-normativism about epistemic reasons and present a number of arguments in support of normativism. The challenge for anti-normativism is to say what kind of reasons epistemic reasons are if (...) they are not normative reasons. I discuss various answers to this challenge and find them all wanting. The arguments for normativism each stress a certain analogy between epistemic reasons and normative reasons for action. Just like normative reasons for action, epistemic reasons provide partial justification; they provide premises for correct reasoning; they constitute good bases for the responses they are reasons for; and they are reasons for which agents can show these responses without committing a mistake. In each case, I argue that the relevant condition is plausibly sufficient for the normativity of a reason, and that normativism is in any case in a much better position to explain the analogy than anti-normativism. (shrink)

Gilbert Harman’s famous principle of Clutter Avoidance commands that “one should not clutter one’s mind with trivialities". Many epistemologists have been inclined to accept Harman’s principle, or something like it. This is significant because the principle appears to have robust implications for our overall picture of epistemic normativity. Jane Friedman (2018) has recently argued that one potential implication is that there are no genuine purely evidential norms on belief revision. In this paper, we present some new objections to a suitably (...) formulated version of the clutter principle qua norm on belief revision. Moreover, we argue that the clutter principle is best understood as a norm on non-doxastic stages of inquiry. In our view, it is a norm of asking and considering questions rather than a norm of settling on an answer to a question by forming a belief. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason problem that afflicts Fitting-Attitude analyses of value. I argue that we can distinguish reasons of the right kind from reasons of the wrong kind by being clear about what our reasons are for. In Wrong Kind of Reason cases, our reason to have a certain affective attitude is a reason for an action, and it is this category-mistake that is the source of the problem.

Our beliefs, intentions, desires, regrets, and fears are evaluable for fit—they can succeed or fail to be fitting responses to the objects they are about. Can our headaches and heartrates be evaluable for fit? The common view says ‘no’. This chapter argues: sometimes, yes. First, it claims that when a racing heart accompanies fear it seems to have the typical characteristics of fit-evaluable items. Then, it suggests that suspicion of this initial impression is explained by the assumption that whether an (...) item is ever fit-evaluable is determined by the type of item it is. Fear is the type of thing that can be fit-evaluable, a racing heart is not. The chapter then proposes an alternative whereby the same type of item can be fit-evaluable on one occasion but not on another. What explains the difference, it is argued, is that only in the former occasion the item is explained by the agent’s narrative as an element of a fit-evaluable response. (shrink)

This paper proposes that the question “What should I believe?” is to be answered in the same way as the question “What should I do?,” a view I call Equal Treatment. After clarifying the relevant sense of “should,” I point out advantages that Equal Treatment has over both simple and subtle evidentialist alternatives, including versions that distinguish what one should believe from what one should get oneself to believe. I then discuss views on which there is a distinctively epistemic sense (...) of should. Next I reply to an objection which alleges that non-evidential considerations cannot serve as reasons for which one believes. I then situate Equal Treatment in a broader theoretical framework, discussing connections to rationality, justification, knowledge, and theoretical vs. practical reasoning. Finally, I show how Equal Treatment has important implications for a wide variety of issues, including the status of religious belief, philosophical skepticism, racial profiling and gender stereotyping, and certain issues in psychology, such as depressive realism and positive illusions. (shrink)

Do the ethical features of an artwork bear on its aesthetic value? This movie endorses misogyny, that song is a civil rights anthem, the clay constituting this statue was extracted with underpaid labor—are facts like these the proper bases for aesthetic evaluation? I argue that this debate has suffered from a false presupposition: that if the answer is yes (for at least some such ethical features), such considerations feature as pro tanto contributions to an artwork's overall aesthetic value, i.e., as (...) merits or flaws which make something have more or less overall aesthetic value. As the case of ethically laden, aesthetic evaluation makes clear, however, good aesthetic judgement is irreducibly multi-dimensional, e.g., "the movie has an engaging soundtrack, tasteful camera work, and takes a misogynistically prurient perspective on its female lead.'' Such a "non-summative" judgement refuses to reduce those various dimensions of aesthetic value to a single aggregate aesthetic evaluation, like "it's a 6/10" or "it's a pretty good movie!" I defend both the modest claim that such non-summative evaluations are not mistaken and the extremist claim that summative (i.e., unidimensional) aesthetic evaluation is defective by considering other domains of normative assessment in which summing seems inappropriate, notably including evaluations of people's character. (shrink)

A state-based reason for one to intend to perform an action F is a reason for one to intend to F which is not a reason for one to F. Are there any state-based reasons to intend? According to the Explanatory Argument, the answer is no, because state-based reasons do not satisfy a certain explanatory constraint. I argue that whether or not the constraint is correct, the Explanatory Argument is unsound, because state-based reasons do satisfy the constraint. The considerations that (...) undermine the Explanatory Argument also generate a strong, positive case for the existence of state-based reasons to intend. (shrink)

In this commentary, I raise a few questions about Schmidt’s argument against (R-E): whether facts about incoherence are directly reasons for suspension on particular propositions, as opposed to reasons against sets of attitudes; whether (R-E) should really be formulated in terms of a broad category of “doxastic attitudes” that includes transitional attitudes like suspension; and whether incoherence-based reasons really must fit into the category of “epistemic reasons,” as opposed to be a more general category of right-kind reasons. Though my questions (...) reflect some skepticism about the specifics of Schmidt’s argument, I conclude that it succeeds in what I take to be its broader aim. (shrink)

I first sketch the different things we might have in mind, when thinking about responsibility. I then relate each of those to possible investigations of human agency. The most interesting such relation, in my opinion, is that between agency and what I call “responsibility as mattering.” I offer some hypotheses about that relation.

Contemporary forms of Kantian constitutivism generally begin with a conception of agency on which the constitutive aim of agency is some form of autonomy or self-unification. This chapter argues for a re-orientation of the Kantian constitutivist project towards views that begin with a conception of rationality on which both theoretical and practical rationality aim at forms of understanding. In a slogan, then, understanding-first as opposed to autonomy-first constitutivism. Such a view gives the constitutivist new resources for explaining many classes of (...) reasons, while also offering a new way of understanding the unity of theoretical and practical reason. The chapter concludes by arguing that the resulting view is best understood, not so much as an alternative to autonomy-first constitutivism, but as a complement to it. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyse the nature of a particular form of theoretical reasoning—ratiocination. Ratiocination is purposeful, self-conscious, deliberatively controlled reasoning. I will argue that ratiocination concludes when the ratiocinator believes that she ought to believe p. In Section 1, I suggest that the way a reasoner’s mind moves in ratiocination is different from the way her mind moves in non-ratiocinative reasoning. Such a difference should motivate an analysis that focuses just on ratiocination. In Section 2, I provide a general (...) characterisation of ratiocination and distinguish it from non-ratiocinative reasoning. I draw a distinction between non-deliberative rational control and deliberative rational control. I then argue that the ratiocinator always exercises the latter. Since theoretical reasoning is a norm-governed activity and since ratiocination involves deliberatively controlled reasoning, the ratiocinator necessarily tries to control her mental movements in a way that is in line with the normative requirements of this activity. In Section 3, I argue that ratiocination ends when the ratiocinator believes that she ought to believe p. I further explain the nature of the ‘ought’ in the ratiocinator’s belief that she ought to believe p. In Section 4, I address possible objections to the account on offer and explain why my account does not undermine our general understanding of the nature of theoretical reasoning. I explain that my claim is compatible with the claim that reasons to be rational are transparent to reasons to believe p. I also discuss why the ratiocinator’s belief that she ought to believe p is not an intermediate stage in ratiocination. Finally, I argue that ratiocination, as described, is compatible with the claim that belief is truth-governed. (shrink)

We are occasionally responsible for our beliefs. But is this doxastic responsibility analogous to any non‐attitudinal form of responsibility? What I shall call the consequential conception of doxastic responsibility holds that the kind of responsibility that we have for our beliefs is indeed analogous to the kind of responsibility that we have for the consequences of our actions. This article does two things, both with the aim of defending this somewhat unsophisticated but intuitive view of doxastic responsibility. First, it emphasizes (...) the advantage of preserving, as the consequential conception does, the analogy with the non‐attitudinal realm, i.e., with the realm of actions and their consequences. Second, this article regiments the most important objections to the consequential conception and answers them. The upshot is that there are no serious drawbacks to the consequential conception. There is, therefore, no reason not to favour it over accounts of doxastic responsibility that do not preserve the analogy with the non‐attitudinal realm. (shrink)

Gregory Kavka's 'Toxin Puzzle' suggests that I cannot intend to perform a counter-preferential action A even if I have a strong self-interested reason to form this intention. The 'Rationalist Solution,' however, suggests that I can form this intention. For even though it is counter-preferential, A-ing is actually rational given that the intention behind it is rational. Two arguments are offered for this proposition that the rationality of the intention to A transfers to A-ing itself: the 'Self-Promise Argument' and David Gauthier's (...) 'Rational Self-Interest Argument.' But both arguments – and therefore the Rationalist Solution – fail. The Self-Promise Argument fails because my intention to A does not constitute a promise to myself that I am obligated to honor. And Gauthier's Rational Self-Interest Argument fails to rule out the possibility of rational irrationality. (shrink)

In this paper, we present and defend a natural yet novel analysis of normative reasons. According to what we call support-explanationism, for a fact to be a normative reason to φ is for it to explain why there's normative support for φ-ing. We critically consider the two main rival forms of explanationism—ought-explanationism, on which reasons explain facts about ought, and good-explanationism, on which reasons explain facts about goodness—as well as the popular Reasons-First view, which takes the notion of a normative (...) reason to be normatively fundamental. Support-explanationism, we argue, enjoys many of the virtues of these views while avoiding their drawbacks. We conclude by exploring several further important implications: among other things, we argue that the influential metaphor of ‘weighing’ reasons is inapt, and propose a better one; that, contrary to what Berker (2019) suggests, there's no reason for non-naturalists about normativity to accept the Reasons-First view; and that, contrary to what Wodak (2020b) suggests, explanationist views can successfully accommodate what he calls ‘redundant reasons’. (shrink)

This is a work concerned with justification and freedom and the relationship between these. Its summational aim is to defend a transcendental argument for free will – that we could not be epistemically justified in undermining a strong notion of free will, as a strong notion of free will would be required for any such process of undermining to be itself epistemically justified. The book advances two transcendental arguments – for a deontically internalist conception of epistemic justification and the aforementioned (...) argument for a libertarian conception of free will. In defending each of these arguments, the book both defends and relies upon the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. In articulating the latter transcendental argument – for freedom – heavy reliance is made on the earlier, epistemic, work: especially on the deontological conception of rational justification (on epistemic internalism). (shrink)

In spite of the burgeoning philosophical literature on human dignity, Stephen Darwall's second-personal account of the dignity of persons has not received the attention it deserves. This article investigates Darwall's account and argues that it faces a dilemma, for it succumbs either to a problem of antecedence or to the wrong kind of reasons problem. But this need not mean one should reject a second-personal account. Instead, I argue that an alternative second-personal conception, one I will call relational, promises to (...) solve the dilemma by avoiding both the problem of antecedence and the wrong kind of reasons problem. More generally, distinguishing these two second-personal conceptions of the dignity of persons is important to enrich the available philosophical accounts of human dignity. (shrink)

Despite broad agreement that forgiveness involves overcoming resentment, the small philosophical literature on this topic has made little progress in determining which of the many ways of overcoming resentment is forgiveness. In a recent paper, however, Pamela Hieronymi proposed a way forward by requiring that accounts of forgiveness be “articulate” and “uncompromising.” I argue for these requirements, but also claim that Hieronymi’s proposed articulate and uncompromising account must be rejected because it cannot accommodate the fact that only some agents have (...) the standing to forgive. I end by sketching an alternative account which, I claim, explains the phenomenon of standing. (shrink)

I focus on an overlooked aspect of the challenge of irrelevant influences. The challenge is often framed in terms of whether recognizing the presence of irrelevant factors in the pedigree of a belief provides a defeater. I argue that the epistemic significance of irrelevant factors goes beyond their status as defeaters. I focus on what I call gray cases, where learning about such factors causes epistemic worry without justifying giving up the belief. I argue that in gray cases, the subject (...) finds a commendatory epistemic practical reason to engage in an activity intended to assuage that epistemic worry. (shrink)

It is commonly held that p is a reason for A to ϕ only if p explains why A ought to ϕ. I argue that this view must be rejected because there are reasons for A to ϕ that would be redundant in any ex...

What is a normative reason for acting? In this paper, I introduce and defend a novel answer to this question. The starting-point is the view that reasons are right-makers. By exploring difficulties facing it, I arrive at an alternative, according to which reasons are evidence of respects in which it is right to perform an act, for example, that it keeps a promise. This is similar to the proposal that reasons for a person to act are evidence that she ought (...) to do so; however, as I explain, it differs from that proposal in two significant ways. As a result, I argue, the evidence-based account of reasons I advance shares the advantages of its predecessor while avoiding many of the difficulties facing it. (shrink)

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 (...) to belief is the focus of much recent attention. The aim is not to resolve the issues but to demonstrate the significance of higher-order evidence in aesthetics and, in doing so, encourage work on the topic in and across aesthetics and epistemology. (shrink)

The 'fitting-attitudes analysis' aims to analyze evaluative concepts in terms of attitudes, but suffers from the 'wrong kind of reasons' problem. This article critiques some suggested solutions to the WKR problem and offers one of its own, which appeals to the aims of attitudes. However, goodness is not a concept that can be successfully analyzed according to the method suggested here. Reasons are given why goodness should be thought of, instead, as a mind-independent property.

A normative reason for a person to? is a consideration which favours?ing. A motivating reason is a reason for which or on the basis of which a person?s. This paper explores a connection between normative and motivating reasons. More specifically, it explores the idea that there are second-order normative reasons to? for or on the basis of certain first-order normative reasons. In this paper, I challenge the view that there are second-order reasons so understood. I then show that prominent views (...) in contemporary epistemology are committed to the existence of second-order reasons, specifically, views about the epistemic norms governing practical reasoning and about the role of higher-order evidence. If there are no second-order reasons, those views are mistaken. (shrink)

What does the aesthetic ask of us? What claims do the aesthetic features of the objects and events in our environment make on us? My answer in this paper is: that depends. Aesthetic reasons can only justify feelings – they cannot demand them. A corollary of this is that there are no aesthetic obligations to feel, only permissions. However, I argue, aesthetic reasons can demand actions – they do not merely justify them. A corollary of this is that there are (...) aesthetic obligations to act, not only permissions. So, I conclude, the aesthetic asks little of us as patients and much of as agents. (shrink)

Belief is said to be essentially subject to a norm of truth. This view has been challenged on the ground that the truth norm cannot provide guidance on an intuitive inferentialist model of guidance and thus cannot be genuinely normative. One response to the No Guidance argument is to show how the truth norm can guide belief-formation on the inferentialist model of guidance. In this paper, I argue that this response is inadequate in light of emerging empirical evidence about our (...) system of belief-formation. I will then motivate an alternative response and present, in rough outline, a viable, reason-responsive model of epistemic guidance on which the truth norm can guide. (shrink)

According to fitting-attitudes accounts of value, the valuable is what there is sufficient reason to value. Such accounts face the famous wrong kind of reason problem. For example, if an evil demon threatens to kill you unless you value him, it may appear that you have sufficient reason to value the demon, although he is not valuable. One solution to this problem is to deny that the demon’s threat is a reason to value him. It is instead a reason to (...) want to value the demon, and to bring it about that you value him. However, many proponents of the wrong kind of reason problem find this solution unmotivated. This paper thus offers a new argument for this solution. The argument turns on the ‘transmission’ of reasons – the familiar fact that there is often reason for one action or attitude because there is reason for another. I observe that putative reasons of the wrong kind transmit in a very different way to other reasons. I then argue that this difference is best explained by the hypothesis that putative reasons of the wrong kind are not reasons for the attitude in question, but are instead reasons to want and bring about that attitude. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept a response constraint on normative reasons: that p is a reason for you to φ only if you are able to φ for the reason that p. This constraint offers a natural way to cash out the familiar and intuitive thought that reasons must be able to guide us, and has been put to work as a premise in a range of influential arguments in ethics and epistemology. However, the constraint requires interpretation and faces putative counter-examples due (...) to Julia Markovits, Mark Schroeder, and others. This paper develops and motivates an interpretation of the response constraint that avoids the putative counter-examples. (shrink)

The Wide-Scope view of instrumental reason holds that you should not intend an end without also intending what you believe to be the necessary means. This, the Wide-Scoper claims, provides the best account of why failing to intend the believed means to your end is a rational failing. But Wide-Scopers have struggled to meet a simple Explanatory Challenge: why shouldn't you intend an end without intending the necessary means? What reason is there not to do so? In the first half (...) of this paper, I argue that the Wide-Scope view struggles to meet this challenge because it takes the principles of instrumental reason to have unlimited application—to apply to all agents, in all circumstances. I then go on to offer a new account of these principles. The new account is very much in the spirit of the Wide-Scope view, and shares its central advantages, but lacks its unlimited application. This view should, therefore, find the Explanatory Challenge more tractable. In the second half of the paper, I argue that this prediction is confirmed. If the requirements of instrumental reason apply only when a means is, or is believed to be, necessary for your end, then plausible independent claims, about reasons, rationality, and intentions, explain why failing to intend the necessary means to your ends is a rational failing. (shrink)

In this paper, we claim that, if you justifiably believe that you ought to perform some act, it follows that you ought to perform that act. In the first half, we argue for this claim by reflection on what makes for correct reasoning from beliefs about what you ought to do. In the second half, we consider a number of objections to this argument and its conclusion. In doing so, we arrive at another argument for the view that justified beliefs (...) about what you ought to do must be true, based in part on the idea that the epistemic and practical domains are uniform, in a sense we spell out. We conclude by sketching possible implications of our discussion for the debates over what is wrong with akrasia and pragmatic encroachment on justified belief and knowledge. (shrink)

The Wide-Scope approach to instrumental reason holds that the requirement to intend the necessary means to your ends should be understood as a requirement to either intend the means, or else not intend the end. In this paper I explain and defend a neglected version of this approach. I argue that three serious objections to Wide-Scope accounts turn on a certain assumption about the nature of the reasons that ground the Wide-Scope requirement. The version of the Wide-Scope approach defended here (...) allows us to reject this assumption, and so defuse the objections. (shrink)

Belief has a special connection to truth, a connection not shared by mental states like imagination. One way of capturing this connection is by the claim that belief aims at truth. Normativists argue that we should understand this claim as a normative claim about belief – beliefs ought to be true. A second important connection between belief and truth is revealed by the transparency of belief, i.e. the fact that, when I deliberate about what to believe, I can settle this (...) deliberation only by appeal to considerations I take to show p to be true. It is natural to think that there is a connection between these two features of belief, that the fact that believing for non-evidential considerations would be irrational can help to explain why it is impossible, and Shah and Velleman make exactly this argument. However, as I shall argue, we cannot explain transparency on the basis of a normative requirement on belief. For this explanation to work non-evidential considerations would have to fail to be reasons for belief, and we would have to be able to explain why we are unable to form beliefs on the basis of non-evidential considerations by appealing to the fact that they fail to be reasons for belief. However, while it is plausible that non-evidential considerations are not in fact reasons for belief, the explanatory picture is the other way around. Such considerations only fail to be reasons for belief because we are unable to form beliefs on their basis. (shrink)

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 (...) this paper, I provide a rebuttal to all these challenges by drawing attention to the object-given reasons for and against the third doxastic state, namely the suspension of judgement. First, I introduce an original picture of how suspension relates to belief and disbelief – as ways of being decided – which yields a novel weighing model of the corresponding reasons. Second, I demonstrate that this new take on doxastic deliberation can accommodate all five features of epistemic normativity. Finally, I extend the weighing model to cover practical deliberation and the suspension of intentions. The resulting theory provides an explanation of why epistemic and practical normativity differ in certain respects in terms of a significant difference between doxastic and conative suspension. (shrink)

Morality is commonly thought to be normative in a robust and important way. This is commonly cashed out in terms of normative reasons. It is also commonly thought that morality is necessarily and universally normative, i.e., that moral reasons are reasons for any possible moral agent. Taking these commonplaces for granted, I argue for a novel view of moral normativity. I challenge the standard view that moral reasons are reasons to act. I suggest that moral reasons are reasons for having (...) sentiments—in particular, compassion and respect—and I argue that this view has important advantages over the standard view of moral normativity. (shrink)

This paper argues for a novel sentimentalist realist metaethical theory, according to which moral wrongness is analyzed in terms of the sentiments one has most reason to have. As opposed to standard sentimentalist views, the theory does not employ sentiments that are had in response to morally wrong action, but rather sentiments that antecedently dispose people to refrain from immoral behavior, specifically the sentiments of compassion and respect.

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 (...) will. Unlike belief, however, desire can unproblematically accommodate a notion of instrumental attitude. (shrink)

I explore the possibility and rationality of interpersonal mechanisms of doxastic self-control, that is, ways in which individuals can make use of other people in order to get themselves to stick to their beliefs. I look, in particular, at two ways in which people can make interpersonal epistemic commitments, and thereby willingly undertake accountability to others, in order to get themselves to maintain their beliefs in the face of anticipated “epistemic temptations”. The first way is through the avowal of belief, (...) and the second is through the establishment of collective belief. I argue that both of these forms of interpersonal epistemic commitment can function as effective tools for doxastic self-control, and, moreover, that the control they facilitate should not be dismissed as irrational from an epistemic perspective. (shrink)

A number of writers argue that objects can be valuable for their own sakes on account of their extrinsic features. No one has offered an account, though, that shows exactly how or why objects have this sort of value. I seek to provide such an account. I suggest that an object can have final value on account of its relation to someone one loves or admires, where it is one’s warranted love or admiration for the person that renders the related (...) object valuable for its own sake. I identify a feature of love and admiration that shows exactly why this is the case. I then end by suggesting how this account locates a reason to value non-intrinsically good things for their own sakes that avoids a “wrong reason” objection facing alternative views. (shrink)