Additive theories of rationality, as I use the term, are theories that hold that an account of our capacity to reflect on perceptually-given reasons for belief and desire-based reasons for action can begin with an account of what it is to perceive and desire, in terms that do not presuppose any connection to the capacity to reflect on reasons, and then can add an account of the capacity for rational reflection, conceived as an independent capacity to ‘monitor’ and ‘regulate’ our (...) believing-on-the-basis-of-perception and our acting-on-the-basis-of-desire. I show that a number of recent discussions of human rationality are committed to an additive approach, and I raise two difficulties for this approach, each analogous to a classic problem for Cartesian dualism. The interaction problem concerns how capacities conceived as intrinsically independent of the power of reason can interact with this power in what is intuitively the right way. The unity problem concerns how an additive theorist can explain a rational subject's entitlement to conceive of the animal whose perceptual and desiderative life he or she oversees as ‘I’ rather than ‘it’. I argue that these difficulties motivate a general skepticism about the additive approach, and I sketch an alternative, ‘transformative’ framework in which to think about the cognitive and practical capacities of a rational animal. (shrink)

According to Heidegger's Being and Time, social relations are constitutive of the core features of human agency. On this view, which I call a ‘strong conception’ of sociality, the core features of human agency cannot obtain in an individual subject independently of social relations to others. I explain the strong conception of sociality captured by Heidegger's underdeveloped notion of ‘being-with’ by reconstructing Heidegger's critique of the ‘weak conception’ of sociality characteristic of Kant's theory of agency. According to a weak conception, (...) sociality is a mere aggregation of individual subjects and the core features of human agency are built into each individual mind. The weak conception of sociality remains today widely taken for granted. I show that Christine Korsgaard, one of the most creative contemporary appropriators of Kant, operates with a weak conception of sociality and that this produces a problematic explanatory deficiency in her view: she is unable to explain the peculiar motivational efficacy of shared social norms. Heidegger's view is tailor made to explain this phenomenon. I end by sketching how Heidegger provides a social explanation of a major systematic concern animating Korsgaard, the concern with the importance of individual autonomy and answerability in human life. (shrink)

For many epistemologists and normativity theorists, epistemic norms necessarily entail normative reasons. Why or in virtue of what do epistemic norms have this necessary normative authority? According to what I call epistemic constitutivism, it is ultimately because belief constitutively aims at truth. In this paper, I examine various versions of the aim of belief thesis and argue that none of them can plausibly ground the normative authority of epistemic norms. I conclude that epistemic constitutivism is not a promising strategy for (...) grounding epistemic normativity. (shrink)

It is a truism that we ought to be rational. Despite this, it has become popular to think that it is not the case that we ought to be rational. In this paper I argue for a view about rationality—the view that what one is rationally required to do is determined by the normative reasons one possesses—by showing that it can vindicate that one ought to be rational. I do this by showing that it is independently very plausible that what (...) one ought to do is determined by the normative reasons one possesses. Thus, the paper also makes a contribution tos the debate about the nature of our obligations. (shrink)

This paper outlines a new metasemantic theory of moral reason statements, focused on explaining how the reasons thus stated can be inescapable. The motivation for the theory is in part that it can explain this and other phenomena concerning moral reasons. The account also suggests a general recipe for explanations of conceptual features of moral reason statements. (Published with Open Access.).

There are at least two basic normative notions: rationality and reasons. The dominant normative account of reasons nowadays, which I call primitive pluralism about reasons, holds that some reasons are normatively basic and there is no underlying normative explanation of them in terms of other normative notions. Kantian constructivism about reasons, understood as a normative rather than a metaethical view, holds that rationality is the primitive normative notion that picks out which non-normative facts are reasons for what and explains why (...) those normative relations hold. By supposing that there is a plurality of primitive reasons, I argue that primitive pluralism about reasons lacks sufficient normative unity and structure. But Kantian constructivism about reasons faces a dilemma of its own: Either a conception of rationality is thick enough to capture the reasons of commonsense, in which case it cannot play the explanatory role assigned to it, or a conception of rationality is genuinely explanatory, in which case it is too thin to generate the reasons we recognize in commonsense. The aim of this paper is to suggest that if Kantian constructivism about reasons were built on a substantive, rather than merely formal, conception of rationality then it would stand a better chance at unifying the particular reasons we would endorse on due reflection. The groundwork I lay in this paper, I explain, is an essential first step in the larger project of developing a version of Kantian constructivism about reasons that might eventually explain all reasons in terms of rationality. (shrink)

Authority figures permeate our daily lives, particularly, our political lives. What makes authority legitimate? The current debates about the legitimacy of authority are characterised by two opposing strategies. The first establish the legitimacy of authority on the basis of the content of the authority’s command. That is, if the content of the commands meet some independent normative standard then they are legitimate. However, there have been many recent criticisms of this strategy which focus on a particular shortcoming – namely, its (...) seeming inability to account for who can legitimately command whom. This is the basis of the second strategy, which attempts to characterize the normative relationship that underlies and makes possible authoritative commands. The central point of Part I is that these two strategies are, in fact, not opposed and both raise questions which a theory of legitimacy must answer. If this is the case, then we need to ask: how ought we to determine the legitimacy both of the content of commands as well as who can command whom? Part II will answer this question. Starting with the question of standing, I argue that we ought not to look for normative principles outside of the institutions in which authority is embedded. Rather, one ought to start by elaborating the ontology of institutions in which a sui generis form of normativity arises. A joint commitment account of social ontology provides the tools necessary to see how the direction obligations emerge concurrently with the formation of institutions. Similarly, the question of content can be answered by paying close attention to the social ontology of institutions. We need not look beyond the internal constitutive standards of the institution itself. The constitutive standards provide an internal criterion by which the legitimacy of commands can be established. (shrink)

Most contemporary action theorists deny the possible existence of intentionally evil actions or diabolic agency. The reason for this is a normative interpretation of agency that appears to be motivated by action theoretic concerns, where agents are conceived as necessarily acting sub specie bonie or under ‘the guise of the good’. I argue that there is nothing in human agency to motivate this view and that diabolic evil is not at odds with inherent features of our nature.

Philosophical naturalism is ambiguous between conjoining philosophy with science or with nature understood scientifically. Reconciliation of this ambiguity is necessary but rarely attempted. Feminist science studies often endorse the former naturalism but criticize the second. Karen Barad's agential realism, however, constructively reconciles both senses. Barad then challenges traditional metaphysical naturalisms as not adequately accountable to science. She also contributes distinctively to feminist reinterpretations of objectivity as agential responsibility, and of agency as embodied, worldly, and intra-active.

Kant’s duty of self-knowledge demands that one know one’s heart—the quality of one’s will in relation to duty. Self-knowledge requires that an agent subvert feelings which fuel self-aggrandizing narratives and increase self-conceit; she must adopt the standpoint of the rational agent constrained by the requirements of reason in order to gain information about her moral constitution. This is not I argue, contra Nancy Sherman, in order to assess the moral goodness of her conduct. Insofar as sound moral practice requires moral (...) self-knowledge and moral self-knowledge requires a theoretical commitment to a conception of the moral self, sound moral agency is for Kant crucially tied to theory. Kant plausibly holds that self-knowledge is a protection against moral confusion and self-deception. I conclude that although his account relies too heavily on the awareness of moral law to explain its connection to moral development, it is insightful and important in Kantian ethics. (shrink)

Three distinct but related questions can be asked about the meaningfulness of one's life. The first is 'What is the meaning of life?', which can be called 'the cosmic question about meaningfulness'; the second is 'What is a meaningful life?', which can be called 'the general question about meaningfulness'; and the third is 'What is the meaning of my life?', which can be called 'the personal question about meaningfulness'. I argue that in order to deal with all three questions we (...) should start with the personal question. There is a way of understanding the personal question which allows us to answer it independently of any consideration of the cosmic question, but which nonetheless helps us see why the cosmic question should be dismissed as a bad question. Besides, a recommendable answer to the general question can be derived from my understanding of how the personal question should be answered. Two notions are essential to my account, namely, the notion of identities and the notion of a biographical life. And the account can be epitomized in this enticing way: a person's life is meaningful if it contains material for an autobiography that she thinks is worth writing and others think is worth reading. (shrink)

Evil acts strike us, by their very nature, as not only horrifying and reprehensible, but also as deeply puzzling. No doubt for reasons like this, evil has often been seen as mysterious, demonic and beyond our human powers of understanding. The question I examine in this paper is whether or not we can (or would want to) overcome this puzzlement in the face of evil acts. I shall argue that we ought want to (in all cases) and can (in at (...) least most cases) come to understand why people perpetrate evil acts. This is an appealing conclusion as it allows us to take practical steps to both minimise future occurrences of evil and come to terms with its past abominations. (shrink)

Character and the will are rarely discussed together. At most, philosophers working on the one mention the other in an eliminativist vein—if character is represented as something chosen, for example, it can be chalked up to the work of the will; if the will consists merely of a certain arrangement of mental states, it can be seen as little more than a manifestation of character. This mutual neglect appears perfectly justified. If both character and will are determinants of action, to (...) treat them separately would be to overdetermine agency at best, and at worst to fragment it. While defending this reasoning, I argue that things are not so simple, because character and will serve distinct explanatory and normative functions, respectively. The difference in function, however, does not prove that character and will must be ontologically distinct sources of agency; only that our discourse about them must keep them apart. (shrink)

Die Debatte um die Differenz von „Verantwortung“ und „Pflicht“ ist kein bloßer Streit um Wörter, geht es doch um Begriffe, für die der Anspruch erhoben wird, sie seien konstitutiv für moralische Normativität oder gar für Normativität per se. Doch welchen Unterschied macht es, die besondere Bindungskraft von Normativität über Verantwortung oder über Pflicht zu explizieren? Die Genealogie der philosophischen Reflexionen auf Verantwortung lokalisiert die Differenz zwischen Pflicht und Verantwortung in den jeweiligen Selbstverhältnissen, die mit diesen Begriffen verbunden werden. Die Analyse (...) der Struktur dieser Selbstverhältnisse erklärt sowohl, warum Verantwortung häufig als moderner Ersatzbegriff für Pflicht gedacht wird, als auch, welchen Unterschied die Explikation der Bindungskraft von Normativität über Verantwortung oder Pflicht macht: Je nachdem, mit welchem Begriff normative Kraft erläutert wird, wandert das entsprechende Selbstverhältnis in die Verfasstheit von Normativität ein. (shrink)

There is a growing consensus, long maintained by Derek Parfit, that there is an important distinction between what we have reason to do on the one hand, and what it is rational for us to do on the other. Philosophers are now realising that there is a conceptual distinction between rationality and normativity. Given this distinction, it thus becomes a substantive question whether rationality is genuinely normative; that is, whether there is any reason to do what rationality requires. While some (...) philosophers have argued that we sometimes have reason to do what rationality requires, it is notoriously difficult to show that there are always universal and categorical reasons to do what rationality requires. But if it is not the case that there are always universal and categorical reasons to do what rationality requires, then rationality is not genuinely normative.This dissertation offers a vindication of the normativity of rationality. I maintain that there is a robust relation between rational requirements and normative reasons. In arguing for this claim, I develop what I call the reasons-sensitive view of rationality, according to which rational requirements are normative verdicts: they are second-order claims about what there is conclusive reason of rationality to do. This view explains why there are always universal and categorical reasons to be rational. So while we may not always have most reason to do what it is rational for us to do, there is always some reason—reasons of rationality—to do what it is rational for us to do. I then show how this reasons-sensitive view addresses and responds to what I diagnose to be the major sources of skepticism about the normativity of rationality. (shrink)

The possibility that nothing really matters can cause much anxiety, but what would it mean for that to be true? Since it couldn’t be bad that nothing matters, fearing nihilism makes little sense. However, the consequences of belief in nihilism will be far more dramatic than often thought. Many metaethicists assume that even if nothing matters, we should, and would, go on more or less as before. But if nihilism is true in an unqualified way, it can’t be the case (...) that we should go on as before. And given some plausible assumptions about our psychology, it’s also unlikely that we would go on as before: belief in nihilism will lead to loss of evaluative belief, and that will lead to loss or deflation of our corresponding subjective concerns. Now if nothing matters, then this consequence also wouldn’t matter. But this consequence will be extremely harmful if we believe in nihilism but things do matter, an asymmetry that gives us, in Pascalian fashion, pragmatic reasons not to believe in nihilism, and reasons not to try to find out whether it is really true. (shrink)

In everyday life, we constantly encounter and deal with useful things without pausing to inquire about the sources of their intelligibility. In Div. I of Being and Time, Heidegger undertakes just such an inquiry. According to a common reading of Heidegger's analysis, the intelligibility of our everyday encounters and dealings with useful things is ultimately constituted by practical self-understandings. In this paper, I argue that while such practical self-understandings may be sufficient to constitute the intelligibility of the tools and equipment (...) specific to many practices, these “tools of the trade” are only a small portion of the things we encounter, use, and deal with on a daily basis. Practical self-understandings cannot similarly account for the intelligibility of the more mundane things—like toothbrushes and sidewalks—used in everyday life. I consider whether an anonymous self-understanding as “one,” “anyone,” or “no one in particular” —das Man—might play this intelligibility-constituting role. In examining this possibility, another type of self-understanding comes to light: cultural identities. I show that the cultural identities into which we are “thrown,” rather than practical identities or das Man, constitute the intelligibility of the abundance of mundane things that fill our everyday lives. Finally, I spell out how this finding bears on our understanding of Heidegger's notion of authenticity. (shrink)

Cornell realists maintain that irreducible moral properties have earned a place in our ontology in virtue of the indispensable role they play in a variety of explanations. These explanations can be divided into two groups: those that employ thin ethical concepts and those that employ thick ethical concepts. Recent work on thick concepts suggests that they are not inherently evaluative in their meaning. If correct, this creates problems for the moral explanations of Cornell realists, since the most persuasive moral explanations (...) are those that employ thick concepts. If thick concepts are not inherently evaluative, then the most plausible explanations on offer cannot support Cornell realism. Moral explanations employing thin concepts, however, are too flimsy to support the view. Unless proponents can develop a compelling story about thick concepts or thin explanations, Cornell realism is in trouble. (shrink)

Metaethicists typically develop and assess their theories—in part—on the basis of the consistency of those theories with “ordinary” first-order normative judgment. They are, in this sense, “methodologically conservative.” This article shows that this methodologically conservative approach obstructs a proper assessment of the debate between internalists and externalists. Specifically, it obstructs one of the most promising readings of internalism. This is a reading—owed to Bernard Williams—in which internalism is part of a practically and politically motivated revision of the assessment of action. (...) The article uses this case study to highlight the role of methodological conservatism in contemporary metaethics more generally. (shrink)

Many natural scientists explain the evolutionary origin of morality by documenting altruistic behaviour in our nearest nonhuman relatives. Christine Korsgaard has criticized such attempts on the premise that they do not put enough effort in explaining the capacity to be motivated by normative thoughts. She speculates that normative motivation may have originated with the internalization of the dominance instincts. In this article I will challenge the dominance hierarchy hypothesis by arguing that a proper investigation into how and when dominance inhibits (...) behaviour does not seem to reveal a minimal normative dimension. (shrink)

This is the most comprehensive book ever published on philosophical methodology. A team of thirty-eight of the world's leading philosophers present original essays on various aspects of how philosophy should be and is done. The first part is devoted to broad traditions and approaches to philosophical methodology. The entries in the second part address topics in philosophical methodology, such as intuitions, conceptual analysis, and transcendental arguments. The third part of the book is devoted to essays about the interconnections between philosophy (...) and neighbouring fields, including those of mathematics, psychology, literature and film, and neuroscience. (shrink)

Metaethical constructivism is one of the main movements within contemporary metaethics – especially among those with Kantian inclinations. But both the philosophical coherence and the Kantian pedigree of constructivism are hotly contested. In the first half of this article, I first explore the sense in which Kant's own views might be described as constructivist and then use the resulting understanding as a guide to how we might think about Kantian constructivism today. Along the way, I hope to suggest that a (...) fairly diverse range of views within contemporary metaethics – including some without any explicit allegiance to Kant – may be thought of as pursuing a version of the resulting strategy. (shrink)

Normative ethics usually presupposes background accounts of human agency, and although different ethical theorists might have different pictures of human agency in mind, there is still something like a standard account that most of mainstream normative ethics can be understood to rest on. Ethical theorists tend to have Rational Man, or at least some close relative to him, in mind when constructing normative theories. It will be argued here that empirical findings raise doubts about the accuracy of this kind of (...) account; human beings fall too far short of ideals of rationality for it to be meaningful to devise normative ideals within such a framework. Instead, it is suggested, normative ethics could be conducted more profitably if the idea of unifying all ethical concerns into one theoretical account is abandoned. This disunity of ethical theorizing would then match the disunited and heuristic-oriented nature of our agency. (shrink)

This paper proposes a way to understand transformative choices, choices that change ‘who you are.’ First, it distinguishes two broad models of transformative choice: 1) ‘event-based’ transformative choices in which some event—perhaps an experience—downstream from a choice transforms you, and 2) ‘choice-based’ transformative choices in which the choice itself—and not something downstream from the choice—transforms you. Transformative choices are of interest primarily because they purport to pose a challenge to standard approaches to rational choice. An examination of the event-based transformative (...) choices of L. A. Paul and Edna Ullman-Margalit, however, suggests that event-based transformative choices don’t raise any difficulties for standard approaches to rational choice. An account of choice-based transformative choices—and what it is to be transformed—is then proposed. Transformative choices so understood not only capture paradigmatic cases of transformative choice but also point the way to a different way of thinking about rational choice and agency. (shrink)

It is widely believed by philosophers that we human beings are capable of stepping back from inclinations to act in a certain way and consider whether we should do so. If we judge that there are enough reasons in favour of following our initial inclination, we are definitely motivated, and, if all goes well, we act. This view of human agency naturally leads to the idea that our actions are self-determined, or controlled by ourselves. Some go one step further to (...) the point of saying that we should extend the fundamental aspects of this view of human agency to the epistemic realm. This we call ‘the control-view”. Here we will make a strong case against the control-view. While we have a substantial control over our practical lives, it is very unlikely that this extends to our epistemic lives. Our discussion will proceed in three stages. We will present two asymmetries between our practical and epistemic lives which are followed by a general argument against the control-view. (shrink)

Discussion of the relations between ethics and aesthetics has tended to focus on issues concerning judgement: for example, philosophers have often asked whether, or to what extent, ethical considerations of one sort or another should inform aesthetic verdicts. Much less discussed, however, have been the relations between these two domains in their practical aspects. In this paper, I try to defuse a cluster of reasons for believing that practical competence in the ethical domain and practical competence in the aesthetic domain (...) must be understood as importantly, or structurally, distinct from one another. (shrink)

A sourcebook/textbook on the problem of free will and determinism. Contains a history of the free will problem, a taxonomy of current free will positions, the standard argument against free will, the physics, biology, and neuroscience of free will, the most plausible and practical solution of the problem, and reviews of the work of the leading determinist Ted Honderich, the leading libertarian Robert Kane, the well-known compatibilist Daniel Dennett, and the determinism-agnostic Alfred Mele.

Immanuel Kant is known for his ideas about duty and morally worthy acts, but his conception of virtue is less familiar. Nevertheless Kant’s understanding of virtue is quite distinctive and has considerable merit compared to the most familiar conceptions. Kant also took moral education seriously, writing extensively on both the duty of adults to cultivate virtue and the empirical conditions to prepare children for this life-long responsibility. Our aim is, first, to explain Kant’s conception of virtue, second, to highlight some (...) distinctive and potentially appealing features of the Kantian account of virtue, third, to summarize and explain Kant’s prescriptions for educating young children and youth as well as the duty of moral self-improvement that he attributes to all adults, and, fourth, to respond to some common objections that we regard as misguided or insubstantial. (shrink)

Traditionally, Kantian ethics has been thought hostile to agents' well-being. Recent commentators have rightly called this view into question, but they do not push their challenge far enough. For they leave in place a fundamental assumption on which the traditional view rests, viz., that happiness is all there is to well-being. This assumption is important, since, combined with Kant’s rationalism about morality and empiricism about happiness, it implies that morality and well-being are at best extrinsically related. Since morality can only (...) make our lives go well by making us happy, and since morality can only make us happy by influencing our sensibility, morality is not its own reward--not really. It is simply the condition for some separate benefit. Drawing on Kant’s underappreciated discussion of self-contentment, an intellectual analog of happiness, I reconstruct an alternative account of morality’s relation to well-being. Morality does make our lives go well--and so is its own reward--not because it makes us happy but because it makes us self-contented. (shrink)

This chapter presents David Foster Wallace's views about three positions regarding the good life—ironism, hedonism, and narrative theories. Ironism involves distancing oneself from everything one says or does, and putting on Wallace's so-called “mask of ennui.” Wallace said that the notion appeals to ironists because it insulates them from criticism. However, he reiterated that ironists can be criticized for failing to value anything. Hedonism states that a good life consists in pleasure. Wallace rejected such a notion, doubting that pleasure could (...) play a fundamental role in the good life. Lastly, narrative theories characterize the good life by fidelity to a unified narrative -- a systematic story about one's life, composed of a set of ends or principles according to which one lives. Wallace believed that these theories turn people into spectators, rather than the participants in their own lives. (shrink)

In very general terms, an agent is a being with the capacity to act, and 'agency' denotes the exercise or manifestation of this capacity. The philosophy of action provides us with a standard conception and a standard theory of action. The former construes action in terms of intentionality, the latter explains the intentionality of action in terms of causation by the agent’s mental states and events. From this, we obtain a standard conception and a standard theory of agency. There are (...) alternative conceptions of agency, and it has been argued that the standard theory fails to capture agency. Further, it seems that genuine agency can be exhibited by beings that are not capable of intentional action, and it has been argued that agency can and should be explained without reference to causally efficacious mental states and events. Debates about the nature of agency have flourished over the past few decades in philosophy and in other areas of research. In philosophy, the nature of agency is an important issue in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of psychology, the debates on free will and moral responsibility, in ethics, meta-ethics, and in the debates on the nature of reasons and practical rationality. For the most part, this entry focuses on conceptual and metaphysical questions concerning the nature of agency. In the final sections, it provides an overview of empirically informed accounts of the sense of agency and of various empirical challenges to the commonsense assumption that our reasons and our conscious intentions make a real difference to how we act. (shrink)

Although explanation is a central topic in the philosophy of science, there is an important issue concerning explanation that has not been discussed much, namely, why some phenomena need an explanation while some do not. In this paper we first explain why this is an important issue, and then discuss two accounts of the need for explanation that can be gathered from the literature. We argue that both accounts are inadequate. The main purpose of the paper is, however, to offer (...) a normative account of the need for explanation. On this account, a demand for explanation is possible only against the background of a certain understanding of the world. It is the map we are using that provides us with the concepts and beliefs in terms of which we can ask for an explanation. And a phenomenon needs explanation only when it does not fit the map—the phenomenon’s not fitting the map is a good reason for us to look for an explanation of it. This account not only captures our pre-theoretical understanding of the need for explanation, but also is in accordance with our practice of demanding an explanation. (shrink)

Moral theories usually aspire to be explanatory – to tell us why something is wrong, why it is good, or why you ought to do it. So it is worth knowing how moral explanations differ, if they do, from explanations of other things. This paper uncovers a common unarticulated theory about how normative explanations must work – that they must follow what I call the Standard Model. Though the Standard Model Theory has many implications, in this paper I focus primarily (...) on only one. It plays a crucial role in an argument originally due to Cudworth that has been widely held to conclusively establish that voluntaristic ethical theories are incoherent. But if Cudworth’s argument works, then so would similar arguments against many other moral theories. All of these theories therefore need a different model for how normative explanations can work. So I also motivate and sketch one such alternative model. The result enables us to make progress in evaluating the prospects for a successful reductive view about the normative. (shrink)

The values-based approach to welfare holds that it is good for one to realize goals, activities, and relationships with which one strongly (and stably) identifies. This approach preserves the subjectivity of welfare while affirming that a life well lived must be active, engaged, and subjectively meaningful. As opposed to more objective theories, it is unified, naturalistic, and ontologically parsimonious. However, it faces objections concerning the possibility of self-sacrifice, disinterested and paradoxical values, and values that are out of sync with physical (...) and emotional needs. This paper revises the values-based approach, emphasizing the important—but limited—role consciously held values play in human agency. The additional components of human agency in turn explain why it is important for one’s values to cohere with one’s fixed drives, hard-wired emotional responses, and nonvolitionally guided cognitive pro- cesses. This affords promising responses to the objections above. (shrink)

We propose that the prevalent moral aversion to AWS is supported by a pair of compelling objections. First, we argue that even a sophisticated robot is not the kind of thing that is capable of replicating human moral judgment. This conclusion follows if human moral judgment is not codifiable, i.e., it cannot be captured by a list of rules. Moral judgment requires either the ability to engage in wide reflective equilibrium, the ability to perceive certain facts as moral considerations, moral (...) imagination, or the ability to have moral experiences with a particular phenomenological character. Robots cannot in principle possess these abilities, so robots cannot in principle replicate human moral judgment. If robots cannot in principle replicate human moral judgment then it is morally problematic to deploy AWS with that aim in mind. Second, we then argue that even if it is possible for a sufficiently sophisticated robot to make ‘moral decisions’ that are extensionally indistinguishable from (or better than) human moral decisions, these ‘decisions’ could not be made for the right reasons. This means that the ‘moral decisions’ made by AWS are bound to be morally deficient in at least one respect even if they are extensionally indistinguishable from human ones. Our objections to AWS support the prevalent aversion to the employment of AWS in war. They also enjoy several significant advantages over the most common objections to AWS in the literature. (shrink)

I argue in this paper that some of the most basic commitments of Kantian ethics can be understood as grounded in the dynamic of sense that Merleau-Ponty describes in his Phenomenology of Perception. Specifically, I argue that Merleau-Ponty’s account supports the importance of universalizability as a test for the moral permissibility of particular acts as well as the idea that the binding character of the moral law is given as something like a fact of reason. But I also argue that (...) Merleau-Ponty’s account of reversibility suggests an important dimension of moral experience that is given in the experience of contact and that is underthematized in moral philosophies like Kant’s that emphasize the role of universalizability. Finally, I advance a positive account of moral experience that is centered on the idea of tact as ambiguous imperative. (shrink)

It has been suggested that a rational being stands in what is called a “second-personal relation” to herself. According to philosophers like S. Darwall and Ch. Korsgaard, being a rational agent is to interact with oneself, to make demands on oneself. The thesis of the paper is that this view rests on a logical confusion. Transitive verbs like “asking”, “making a demand” or “obligating” can occur with the reflexive pronoun, but it is a mistake to assume that the reflexive and (...) the non-reflexive use exhibit the same logical grammar. The thesis that they do is in part motivated by the assumption that to show that my relation to you bears the same form as my practical self-relation is to show that, fundamentally, you are not an object for me to think about and act on, but a subject with whom to think and act together. I argue, to the contrary, that if my addressing you exhibited the same form as a relation I could literally be said to stand in to myself, then the nexus between us would be such that I am irretr.. (shrink)

According to rationalist conceptions of moral agency, the constitutive capacities of moral agency are rational capacities. So understood, rationalists are often thought to have a problem with feeling. For example, many believe that rationalists must reject the attractive Aristotelian thought that moral activity is by nature pleasant. I disagree. It is easy to go wrong here because it is easy to assume that pleasure is empirical rather than rational and so extrinsic rather than intrinsic to moral agency, rationalistically conceived. Drawing (...) on underappreciated elements of Kant’s moral psychology, I sketch an alternative form of rationalism, according to which moral activity is by nature pleasant because at least some pleasures are by nature rational. (shrink)

This is a survey of recent debates concerning the normativity of belief. We explain what the thesis that belief is normative involves, consider arguments for and against that thesis, and explore its bearing on debates in metaethics.

L’objectif de cette article est de comprendre la neutralité axiologique non pas comme une exigence épistémologique, mais plutôt comme un idéal éducationnel. Max Weber propose une science basée sur la description factuelle, de laquelle on exclut la formulation de jugements de valeur. Or, il faut démontrer pourquoi il est préférable de séparer les jugements descriptifs des jugements évaluatifs. L’objectif de Weber est de préserver l'autonomie intellectuelle des étudiants. Pour Weber, la classe et l'académie en général sont des lieux politiques. Ces (...) rapports au sein de la classe sont nécessaires pour transmettre des connaissances, des méthodes et le goût de l'autonomie intellectuelle. Or, il serait contraire au principe d'autonomie de laisser le professeur influencer et convaincre ses étudiants, de façon partisane, d'adhérer à certaines thèses normatives. Weber propose ainsi un mécanisme pour éviter que le professeur n'ixnfluence ses étudiants de manière illégitime. (shrink)

We often treat our basic, unmotivated desires as reason-giving: you’re thirsty and take yourself to have a reason to walk to the drinking fountain; you care intrinsically about your young daughter and take yourself to have a reason to feed and clothe her. We think these desires generate normative practical reasons. But are there basic desires that don’t? It might seem so, for we sometimes find ourselves impelled to do some very strange, and some very awful, things. For example, would (...) a loving mother with a violent impulse thereby come to have a reason to harm her beloved child? Let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that there are basic desires, such as the mother’s, that fail to generate reasons. Can a subjectivist, a theorist in the Humean tradition, accept this thesis? Against the historical grain, I argue yes. I frame my discussion in terms of solving a puzzle in Harry Frankfurt’s subjectivist theory of rational agency and appeal to the concept of a personal ideal to reveal how a subjectivist, a follower of Hume, can countenance the existence of “rationally impotent basic desires.”. (shrink)

Christine Korsgaard argues for the moral status of animals and our obligations to them. She grounds this obligation on the notion that we share a common identity, our animal nature, with them and that animal pain represents a public reason that binds us; nevertheless, her distinctive attempt to enlist Kantian arguments to account for our obligations to animals has a startling implication that she fails to adequately consider: that we have direct duties to plants as well.

The central claim of Aristotelian naturalism is that moral goodness is a kind of species-specific natural goodness. Aristotelian naturalism has recently enjoyed a resurgence in the work of philosophers such as Philippa Foot, Rosalind Hursthouse, and Michael Thompson. However, any view that takes moral goodness to be a type of natural goodness faces a challenge: Granting that moral goodness is natural goodness for human beings, why should we care about being good human beings? Given that we are rational creatures who (...) can ‘step back’ from our nature, why should we see human nature as authoritative for us? This is the authority-of-nature challenge. In this essay, I state this challenge clearly, identify its deep motivation, and distinguish it from other criticisms of Aristotelian naturalism. I also articulate what I consider the best response, which I term the practical reason response. This response, however, exposes Aristotelian naturalism to a new criticism – that it has abandoned the naturalist claim that moral goodness is species-specific natural goodness. Thus, I argue, Aristotelian naturalists appear to face a dilemma: Either they cannot answer the authority-of-nature challenge, or in meeting the challenge they must abandon naturalism. Aristotelian naturalists might overcome this dilemma, but doing so is harder than some Aristotelians have supposed. In the final sections of the paper, I examine the difficulties in overcoming the dilemma, and I suggest ways that Aristotelians might answer the authority-of-nature challenge while preserving naturalism. (shrink)

A standard thesis of contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics and some recent Heideggerian scholarship is that virtuous behavior can be performed immediately and spontaneously without engaging conscious processes of deliberative thought. It is also claimed that phronēsis either enables or is consistent with this possibility. In the Nicomachean Ethics, however, Aristotle identifies phronesis as the excellence of the calculative part of the intellect, claims that calculation and deliberation are the same and that it is the mark of the phronimos to be (...) able to deliberate well. He also insists that for an action to count as virtuous it must issue from rational choice, which he characterizes as determined by deliberation. It thus seems that any exegetically respectable attempt to explain virtuous action within an Aristotelian framework would need to integrate with some account of deliberative choice. This creates a tension in Aristotelian scholarship. In this paper, I shall formalize this tension in terms of an apparently inconsistent triad of claims and shall examine the merits of at least one prominent interpretation of phronesis with respect to its reconciliation. (shrink)

I argue that cognitively mature human beings have an important sort of control or discretion over their own beliefs, but that to make good sense of this control, we must reject the common idea that it consists in a capacity to act on our belief-state by forming new beliefs or modifying ones we already hold. I propose that we exercise agential control over our beliefs, not primarily in doing things to alter our belief-state, but in holding whatever beliefs we hold. (...) Our beliefs are thus not normally things on which we act; they are themselves our acts, in a sense I seek to explicate. (shrink)

Decoupling a modestly construed Narrative Self Shaping Hypothesis from Strong Narrativism this paper attempts to motivate devoting our intellectual energies to the former. Section one briefly introduces the notions of self-shaping and rehearses reasons for thinking that self-shaping, in a suitably tame form, is, at least to some extent, simply unavoidable for reflective beings. It is against this background that the basic commitments of a modest Narrative Self-Shaping Hypothesis are articulated. Section two identifies a foundational commitment—the central tenet—of all Strong (...) Narrativist proposals, those that posit a necessary link between narrative self-shaping and narrative self-experience. As will be shown, in the hands of Strong Narrativists the latter notion is unpacked in stronger or weaker ways by appeal to the notion of implicit Narrativizing. Section three reminds the reader of Strawson’s challenge to Strong Narrativism. It is revealed that Strawson’s objections are most effective if they target Strong Narrativism’s central tenet construed as a phenomenological revelation about what is necessary for self-experience and not merely the psychological Narrativity thesis, construed as an empirical hypothesis about typical Narrativizing proclivities. Having set the stage, section four critically examines two different strategies, pursued by Rudd and Schechtman respectively, for escaping the horns Strawson’s dilemma poses for Strong Narrativism. In the end both strategies invoke the notion of implicit Narrativizing at a crucial juncture. Section five reveals that a substantive proposal about what implicit Narrativizing might be is lacking, hence we have no reason to believe that it actually occurs. It is concluded that, as things stand, Strong Narrativism has no way of avoiding the horns of Strawson’s dilemma. Brief concluding remarks in the final section are a reminder why, despite their modesty, softer versions of the NSSH—when coupled with a developmental proposal about the narrative basis of our folk psychological competence—are non-trivial and worthy of further development and investigation. (shrink)

We accomplish three things in this paper. First, we provide evidence that the motivational internalism/externalism debate in moral psychology could be a false dichotomy born of ambiguity. Second, we provide further evidence for a crucial distinction between two different categories of belief in folk psychology: thick belief and thin belief. Third, we demonstrate how careful attention to deep features of folk psychology can help diagnose and defuse seemingly intractable philosophical disagreement in metaethics.

The primary focus here is romantic love, but it may be applied to other cases of love such as those within a family. The first issue is whether love is a non-rational occurrence leading to a state of affairs to which the normative constrains of reason do not apply. If one assumes that reasons are relevant to determining love, then the second issue is the manner in which love is and should be reasonable and governed by the indications of reason. (...) It is contended that our conception of love is inherently contradictory. Depending on circumstances, we want love to be both a non-rational occurrence beyond reason and something normative such that the indications of reasons are relevant to determining and assessing it. We alternate between the two treatments of love and in so doing love can function in our lives. The incoherence is accommodated by each treatment or view of love being one of as if. This allows us to live with love in a manner whereby we do not have to definitively commit to either alternative, so we have a dipolar as if concept of love. Sometimes we view love as if reasons were beside the point and at others we view love as if it were rightly subject to the indications of reason. (shrink)