The aim of this paper is twofold: In its first part, we work out the key features of constitutivism as presented by Christine Korsgaard. This reconstruction serves to clarify which goals Korsgaard wants to achieve with her account and which of its central claims she has to defend in particular. In the second part, we discuss whether Korsgaard can vindicate constitutivism's most central claim. To do this, we analyse two important arguments - the argument from unavoidability and the argument from (...) the abstract constitutive principle - that have been made in support of constitutivism. We show how both these arguments go amiss and conclude that at least for now, constitutivism's most central claim has not been successfully argued for. (shrink)

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)

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)

Is there an epistemic analogue of moral motivational internalism? The answer to this question has implications for our understanding of the nature of epistemic normativity. For example, some philosophers have argued from claims that epistemic judgement is not necessarily motivating to the view that epistemic judgement is not normative. This paper examines the options for spelling out an epistemic analogue of moral motivational internalism. It is argued that the most promising approach connects epistemic judgements to doxastic dispositions, which are related (...) to motivation in a fairly tenuous sense. It is also argued that this approach currently lacks a plausible and informative account of the nature and workings of these doxastic dispositions, and, hence, an explanation of the range of phenomena internalist theses typically set out to explain. The most promising route for developing such an account, based on recent expressivist work, is investigated and found inadequate for the task. (shrink)

Unpleasant sensations possess a unique ability to make certain aversive actions seem reasonable to us. But what is it about these experiences that give them that ability? According to some recent evaluationist accounts, it is their representational content: unpleasant sensations represent a certain event as bad for one. Unfortunately evaluationism seems unable to make sense of our aversive behavior to the sensations themselves, for it appears to entail that taking a painkiller is akin to shooting the messenger, and is every (...) bit as unreasonable. In this paper I distinguish two versions of the shooting-the-messenger challenge: First, how do we account for the badness of unpleasant sensation? And second, how do we account for our access to that badness? I suggest plausible responses to the first question, but I also argue that the seriousness of the second has not been appreciated. I then propose a solution to the second: when we introspect our pains we also turn our emotional distress inwards, enabling them to represent our pains as bad. (shrink)

Proponents of semiotic arguments against the commodification of certain goods face the following challenge: formulate your argument such that it does not appeal to immoral consequences, nor is really an argument showing that we ought to reform the meaning we give to commodification. I here attempt to meet this challenge via appeal to the notion of what I call proto-on-a-par value. Under this construal, the semiotic argument yields that the commodification of certain goods necessarily signals value choice, where value choice (...) ought not to be signaled. (shrink)

I argue that the claim that epistemic ought is incommensurable is self-defeating. My argument, however, depends on the truth of the premise that there can be not only epistemic reasons for belief, but also non-epistemic reasons for belief. So I also provide some support for that claim.

Are our actions morally good because we approve of them or are they good independently of our approval? Are we projecting moral values onto the world or do we detect values that are already there? For many these questions don’t state a real alternative but a secular variant of the Euthyphro dilemma: If our actions are good because we approve of them moral goodness appears to be arbitrary. If they are good independently of our approval, it is unclear how we (...) come to know their moral quality and how moral knowledge can be motivating. None of these options seems attractive; the source of moral goodness unclear. Despite the growing literature on Kant’s moral epistemology and moral epistemology the question remains open what Kant’s answer to this apparent dilemma is. The Kantian view I attempt to lay out in this paper is supposed to dissolve the secular version of the Euthyphro dilemma. In responding to this dilemma we need to get clear about the source or the origin of our moral knowledge: Voluntary approval or mind-independent moral facts? Projectivism or detectivism? Construction or given? I believe that all these ways of articulating the problem turn out, on closer inspection, to be false alternatives. (shrink)

In my article I summarize a 'Humean' view of deliberation, and in particular deliberation with an ethical aspect. I regard Hume as having paved the way for a 'naturalistic' account of these things, avoiding Kantian fantasies of agency that dominate much current work. Contrary to what is often supposed, the Humean story gives a satisfactory account of dutiful or principled motivations, and a rich account of the ways in which different aspects of character are selected as 'useful or agreeable to (...) ourselves or others'. (shrink)

Many philosophers think that moral objectivism is supported by stable features of moral discourse and thinking. When engaged in moral reasoning and discourse, people behave ‘as if’ objectivism were correct, and the seemingly most straightforward way of making sense of this is to assume that objectivism is correct; this is how we think that such behavior is explained in paradigmatically objectivist domains. By comparison, relativist, error-theoretic or non-cognitivist accounts of this behavior seem contrived and ad hoc. After explaining why this (...) argument should be taken seriously (recent arguments notwithstanding), I argue that it is nevertheless undermined by considerations of moral disagreement. Even if the metaphysical, epistemic and semantic commitments of objectivism provide little or no evidence against it, and even if the alternative explanations of ‘objectivist’ traits of moral discourse and thinking are speculative or contrived, objectivism is itself incapable of making straightforward sense of these traits. Deep and widespread moral disagreement or, rather, the mere appearance of such disagreement, strongly suggests that the explanations operative in paradigmatically objective discourse fail to carry over to the moral case. Since objectivism, no less than relativism, non-cognitivism and error-theories, needs non-trivial explanations of why we behave ‘as if’ objectivism were correct, such behavior does not presently provide reason to accept objectivism. (shrink)

Kantian ethics has struggled terribly with the challenge of incorporating non-human animals as beings to which we can owe obligations. Christine Korsgaard’s Fellow Creatures is a bold, substantial attempt to meet that challenge. In this essay review, I set the scene for the book’s core argument, offer a reconstruction of that argument, and reflect on its strengths and limitations, arguing that it is ultimately unconvincing.

Abstract: This article argues that Christine Korsgaard's conception of self-constitution can be historicized by considering the impact of actual humans on our reflective activity. Because Korsgaard bases her argument on a philosophy of action rather than of intention (as Kant does), and our actions must always be concrete, the article argues that the principles for action which we develop in reflection are likewise responses to concrete human demands. It further interprets the types of demands humans make on each other as (...) the expression of historical circumstance rather than as transcendentally anchored. The notion of universal respect that reflection seeks to achieve is thus seen as developing by a self-correcting process of concrete human interaction. Finally, the article concludes that there can be no metaphysical proof of morality, since morality develops through human interaction that seeks to approximate the idea of respect for persons. (shrink)

Actions expressing emotions (such as caressing the clothes of one's dead friend in grief, or tearing apart a photograph out of jealousy) pose a notorious challenge to action theorists. They are thought to be intentional in that they are in some sense under the agent's control. They are not thought to be done for a reason, however, because they cannot be explained by considerations that favor them from the agent's point of view. This seems to be the case, at least, (...) if one subscribes to the Davidsonian standard model of action explanation. So far, philosophers have had three different reactions to this challenge. Rationalists insist that such actions can be rationalized by re-interpreting them. Arationalists insist that there simply is no reasoning process moving agents in emotional states to act. A third reaction questions the intentionality of such actions altogether. All three reactions, however, share the assumption underlying the standard account: if an agent is thought to act for a reason - and hence acts intentionally - he must entertain a desire and some means-end belief reflecting his reasoning process about how to attain what he desires by acting. In this paper, I try to show that this reflective reasoning mechanism is only one way to rationalize an action. Another way is by tracing an action to an unreflective valuing stance respresenting reasons the agent has from his point of view. Emotions are attitudes that help to grasp reasons the agent has. Since emotions come with a strong motivational potential they move the agent to act expressively. But the agent typically allows himself to do so, thereby monitoring the way in which he does it. To the extent that the agent unreflectively acts on a motive that is itself representative of his point of view, his expressive actions can be regarded as rationalizable. (shrink)

The article presents the conceptual groundwork for an understanding of the essentially improvisational dimension of human rationality. It aims to clarify how we should think about important concepts pertinent to central aspects of human practices, namely, the concepts of improvisation, normativity, habit, and freedom. In order to understand the sense in which human practices are essentially improvisational, it is first necessary to criticize misconceptions about improvisation as lack of preparation and creatio ex nihilo. Second, it is necessary to solve the (...) theoretical problems that derive from misunderstandings concerning the notions of normativity, habit, and freedom – misunderstandings that revolve around the idea that rationality is a form that is developed out of itself and thus works in a way similar to algorithms. One can only make sense of normativity, habit, and freedom if one understands that they all involve conflictual relationships with the world and with others, which in turn enables one to adequately take into account their constitutive connection to improvisation, properly understood. In outlining these conceptual connections, we want to prepare the foundations for an explanation of rational practices as improvisational practices. The article concludes by stating that human rational life is improvisatory because the conditions of human practice arise out of practice itself. (shrink)

Answers to the questions of what justifies conscientious objection in medicine in general and which specific objections should be respected have proven to be elusive. In this paper, I develop a new framework for conscientious objection in medicine that is based on the idea that conscience can express true moral claims. I draw on one of the historical roots, found in Adam Smith’s impartial spectator account, of the idea that an agent’s conscience can determine the correct moral norms, even if (...) the agent’s society has endorsed different norms. In particular, I argue that when a medical professional is reasoning from the standpoint of an impartial spectator, his or her claims of conscience are true, or at least approximate moral truth to the greatest degree possible for creatures like us, and should thus be respected. In addition to providing a justification for conscientious objection in medicine by appealing to the potential truth of the objection, the account advances the debate regarding the integrity and toleration justifications for conscientious objection, since the standard of the impartial spectator specifies the boundaries of legitimate appeals to moral integrity and toleration. The impartial spectator also provides a standpoint of shared deliberation and public reasons, from which a conscientious objector can make their case in terms that other people who adopt this standpoint can and should accept, thus offering a standard fitting to liberal democracies. (shrink)

I offer a novel two-stage reconstruction of Hume’s general-point-of-view account, modeled in part on his qualified-judges account in ‘Of the Standard of Taste.’ In particular, I argue that the general point of view needs to be jointly constructed by spectators who have sympathized with (at least some of) the agents in (at least some of) the actor’s circles of influence. The upshot of the account is two-fold. First, Hume’s later thought developed in such a way that it can rectify the (...) problems inherent in his Treatise account of the general point of view. Second, the proposed account provides the grounds for an adequate and well-motivated modest ideal observer theory of the standard of virtue. (shrink)

In The Sources of Normativity, Korsgaard argues for what can be called “The Universality of Humanity Claim” (UHC), according to which valuing humanity in one’s own person entails valuing it in that of others. However, Korsgaard’s reliance on the claim that reasons are essentially public in her attempt to demonstrate the truth of UHC has been repeatedly criticized. I offer a sentimentalist defense, based on Adam Smith’s moral philosophy, of a qualified, albeit adequate, version of UHC. In particular, valuing my (...) humanity, understood as (my awareness of) my perspective and the reasons determined from within it, entails valuing your humanity, understood as (your awareness of) your perspective and the reasons determined from within it. Given Korsgaard’s emphasis on the publicity of reasons in her argument for UHC, I also discuss the role of reasons in my account. I argue that the relative weights of (at least some of) an agent’s reasons are determined from within a shared evaluative point of view, namely, the standpoint of what Smith calls “the impartial spectator.” These reasons have normative authority over and constrain the agent’s private reasons, that is, those that are determined from within her own particular evaluative point of view. (shrink)

This paper presents a critique of a prevailing conception of the relation between moral reasoning and judgment on the one hand, and moral goodness on the other. I argue that moral reasoning is inescapably vulnerable to moral, as opposed to merely theoretical, failure. This, I argue, means that there is something deeply misleading in the way that Kant's moral theory, and some of its main rivals, have invited us to conceive of their subject matter.

Attempts to justify the special moral status of human beings over other animals face a well-known objection: the challenge of marginal cases. If we attempt to ground this special status in the unique rationality of humans, then it becomes difficult to see why nonrational humans should be treated any differently than other, nonhuman animals. We respond to this challenge by turning to the social contract tradition. In particular, we identify an important role for the concept of recognition in attempts to (...) secure rights through a social contract. Recognition, which involves identifying with or seeing ourselves as others, is the key to establishing the scope of justice, and we argue that this scope extends to all humans—even the so-called marginal cases—but not to other animals. If this is correct, then we have a principled reason for why all humans have certain rights that other animals lack. (shrink)

In non-philosophical discourse, “identity” is often used when the specific character of artefacts is described or evaluated. We argue that this usage of “identity” can be explicated as referring to the symbol properties of artefacts as they are conceptualized in the symbol theory of Goodman and Elgin. This explication is backed by an analysis of various uses of “identity”. The explicandum clearly differs from the concepts of numerical identity, qualitative identity and essence, but it has a range of similarities with (...) the notion of self-concept used in psychology and practical philosophy. The proposed explication is used to analyse claims about identity-pluralism and identity-conflicts. Firstly, the explication allows us to distinguish various ways how the same artefact can have a plurality of identities. Secondly, more or less sharp conflicts within an identity or between identities of an artefact are distinguished. Thirdly, many phenomena called “identity-conflicts” are only apparently identity-conflicts and can be analysed as involving some other form of tension. (shrink)

The traditional problem of incontinence raises the question of whether there is any way to account for action contrary to judgment. When one acts, rather than only being acted upon by circumstances, the action is explained in terms of the reasons for action one judges oneself to have. It therefore seems impossible to explain action that iscontrary to such judgment. This paper examines the question of how such explanation would be possible. After excluding accounts that either eliminate incontinence or render (...) it inexplicable, I argue that genuine incontinence would require three components: first, a distinction between the types of judgments simultaneously present in the agent; second, the Aristotelian idea that not all of those types of judgments can be directly action-guiding; and third, that the judgments that are action-guiding can be pre-conceptual perceptions. I then use elements of Collingwood's aesthetics to make the case that although such pre-conceptual perceptions would not be propositional judgments and the relationship between them and the behaviors of the agent could not be causal, those behaviors could still qualify as incontinent actions. (shrink)

The unpleasantness of pain motivates action. Hence many philosophers have doubted that it can be accounted for purely in terms of pain’s possession of indicative representational content. Instead, they have explained it in terms of subjects’ inclinations to stop their pains, or in terms of pain’s imperative content. I claim that such “noncognitivist” accounts fail to accommodate unpleasant pain’s reason-giving force. What is needed, I argue, is a view on which pains are unpleasant, motivate, and provide reasons in virtue of (...) possessing content that is indeed indicative, but also, crucially, evaluative. (shrink)

In Republic 1, Thrasymachus makes the radical claim that being just is ‘high-minded simplicity’ and being unjust is ‘good judgment’ (348c–e). Because injustice involves benefiting oneself, while justice involves benefiting others, the unjust are wise and good and the just are foolish and bad (348d–e). The “greedy craftsperson” argument (1.349b–350c) attempts to show that the unjust person's desire to outdo or have more than ( pleon echein) everyone is a symptom of her ignorance. Many commentaries have found the argument problematic (...) and unclear. However, this paper argues that the greedy craftsperson argument defends plausible constraints on the nature of justice and wisdom. (shrink)

Constitutivism aims to justify substantial normative standards as constitutive of practical reason. In this way, it can defend the constructivist commitment to avoiding realism and anti-realism in normative disciplines. This metaphysical debate is the perspective from which the nature of the constitutivist justification is usually discussed. In this paper, I focus on a related, but distinct, debate. My concern will not be whether the substantial normative claims asserted by the constructivist have some elements, which are not constructed, but real, given (...) independently from us; instead, my concern will be more narrowly epistemic – whether those claims can be derived from premises, which are normatively less substantial than the normative conclusions themselves. I focus on Korsgaard’s transcendental articulation of the constitutivist argument. I conclude that more work would need to be done, in order for this argument to function as intended. (shrink)

This paper examines Moran’s argument for the special authority of the first-person, which revolves around the Self/Other asymmetry and grounds dichotomies such as the practical vs. theoretical, activity vs. passivity, and justificatory vs. explanatory reasons. These dichotomies qualify the self-reflective person as an agent, interested in justifying her actions from a deliberative stance. The Other is pictured as a spectator interested in explaining action from a theoretical stance. The self-reflective knower has authority over her own mental states, while the Spectator (...) does not. I highlight the implications of this construal for a theory of action, and call attention onto some other interesting normative relations between the self-reflective agent and the Other that escape both the first-person and the third-person approach. My contention is that the authority of self-reflection (and of reason) is best understood as a relation of mutual recognition between self and others, hence from a second-person stance. (shrink)

This paper argues that to understand the varieties of wrongs done in coercion, we should examine the dynamic normative relation that the coercer establishes with the coerced. The case rests on a critical examination of coercion by threat, which is proved irreducible to psychological inducement by overwhelming motives, obstruction of agency by impaired consent or deprivation of genuine choice. In contrast to physical coercion, coercion by threat requires the coercee’s participation in deliberation to succeed. For this kind of coercion to (...) be successful, there must be a normative relation established by the coercer and the coercee, in which they recognize each other as rational agents. In such cases, the coercee is wronged in the exercise of her deliberative powers. As a consequence, this form of coercion does not cancel the coercee’s moral responsibility for coerced action. Reclaiming the coercee’s responsibility for action under threat does not diminish the visibility and gravity of the coercer’s wrongdoing. On the contrary, it allows us to capture some features of the coercive relation that otherwise remain unfocused and thus identify the distinctive ways in which the coercee is wronged. (shrink)

This paper situates the problem of defeaters in a larger debate about the source of normative authority. It argues in favour of a constructivist account of defeasibility, which appeals to the justificatory role of normative principles. The argument builds upon the critique of two recent attempts to deal with defeasibility: first, a particularist account, which disposes of moral principles on the ground that reasons are holistic; and second, a proceduralist view, which addresses the problem of defeaters by distinguishing between provisional (...) and strictly universal principles. The particularist view fails to establish that moral principles have no epistemological import, but it raises important questions about their role in practical reasoning. The proceduralist view fails to distinguish between reasoning by default and reasoning by principles, but it shows that normative principles have a structural justificatory role. The constructivist view recognizes that the moral valence of normative claims vary across contexts, but denies that this is because of holism about reasons. Rather, it defends defeasibility within a constructivist account of reasoning where universality serves as the matrix of judgment. The constructivist view vindicates the justificatory role of universal normative principles, and makes room for some ordinary sources of defeasibility, which are left unaccounted by competing views, and which depend on the agent’s own progress. (shrink)

Humean constructivists object to Kantian constructivism that by endorsing the constitutivist strategy, which grounds moral obligations in rational agency, this position discounts the impact of cont...

The attention economy — the market where consumers’ attention is exchanged for goods and services — poses a variety of threats to individuals’ autonomy, which, at minimum, involves the ability to set and pursue ends for oneself. It has been argued that the threat wireless mobile devices pose to autonomy gives rise to a duty to oneself to be a digital minimalist, one whose interactions with digital technologies are intentional such that they do not conflict with their ends. In this (...) paper, we argue that there is a corresponding duty to others to be an attention ecologist, one who promotes digital minimalism in others. Although the moral reasons for being an attention ecologist are similar to those that motivate the duty to oneself, the arguments diverge in important ways. We explore the application of this duty in various domains where we have special obligations to promote autonomy in virtue of the different roles we play in the lives of others, such as parents and teachers. We also discuss the consequences of our arguments for employers, software developers, and policy makers. (shrink)

Integrity is a central topic in business ethics, and in the world of business it is quite possibly the most commonly cited morally desirable trait. But integrity is conceived in widely differing ways, and as often as it is discussed in the literature and given a central place in corporate ethics statements, the notion is used so variously that its value in guiding everyday conduct may be more limited than is generally supposed. Two central questions for this paper are what (...) work the notion does and whether it does any ethical work that is not done better by other concepts. In pursuing these questions the paper explores the most plausible range of understandings of integrity found in recent literature, considers in what sense it is a virtue, and proposes a strategy of clarification and interpretation that can facilitate both ethical reflection and the guidance of moral conduct in business. (shrink)

ABSTRACT ABSTRACT: This paper provides a multifaceted account of intuition. The paper integrates apparently disparate conceptions of intuition, shows how the notion has figured in epistemology as well as in intuitionistic ethics, and clarifies the relation between the intuitive and the self-evident. Ethical intuitionism is characterized in ways that, in phenomenology, epistemology, and ontology, represent an advance over the position of W. D. Ross while preserving its commonsense normative core and intuitionist character. This requires clarifying the sense in which intuitions (...) are non-inferential and explaining how self-evident principles may be maintained without dogmatism, how intuition is significantly analogous to perception, and how rational disagreements can extend even to the self-evident. The paper distinguishes between two orders of normative disagreement, shows how intuition can contribute to resolving normative disagreements, and represents ethical intuitionism as capable of modified forms that depart from its traditional claims in being neutral with respect to both ethical naturalism and metaphysical realism. (shrink)

This paper aims to investigate Allan Gibbard’s norm-expressivist account of normativity. In particular, the aim is to see whether Gibbard’s theory is able to account for the normativity of reason-claims. For this purpose, I first describe how I come to targeting Gibbard’s theory by setting out the main tenets of quasi-realism cum expressivism. After this, I provide a detailed interpretation of the relevant parts of Gibbard’s theory. I argue that the best reading of his account is the one that takes (...) normativity to be carried by a controlled, coherent, comprehensive set of norms. Finally, I present a potential obstacle to Gibbard’s approach: the regress problem. The idea is to examine the structure of the non-cognitive state expressed and find it inadequate due to the possibility of an infinite regress in the justification of the norms whose acceptance it contains. I then end the paper with some concluding remarks. (shrink)

Kant and Kierkegaard are two philosophers who are not usually bracketed together. Yet, for one commentator, Ronald Green, in his book Kierkegaard and Kant: The Hidden Debt , a deep similarity between them is seen in the centrality both accord to the notion of freedom. Kierkegaard, for example, in one of his Journal entries, expresses a ‘passion’ for human freedom. Freedom is for Kierkegaard also linked to a paradox that lies at the heart of thought. In Philosophical Fragment Kierkegaard writes (...) about the ‘paradox of thought’: ‘the paradox is the passion of thought […] the thinker without the paradox is like the lover without the passion.’. (shrink)

ABSTRACT If acting morally can be viewed as acting consistently with a moral principle or rule, then being a person with moral integrity can be viewed as consistently applying moral principles or rules across different types of situations. We advance a view of moral integrity that incorporates three distinct, but interrelated, types of moral consistency: cognitive, emotional and motivational moral consistency. Our approach is based on Self-Determination Theory, a motivational theory that can explain when a moral rule becomes the primary (...) motive for behavior. We argue that moral integrity is achieved when a person acts on the basis of an internal moral system of principles, emotions and motives and provide an account of the way that it develops during a person’s interaction with the environment. (shrink)

Among the available metaethical views, it would seem that moral realism—in particular moral naturalism—must explain the possibility of moral progress. We see this in the oft-used argument from disagreement against various moral realist views. My suggestion in this paper is that, surprisingly, metaethical constructivism has at least as pressing a need to explain moral progress. I take moral progress to be, minimally, the opportunity to access and to act in light of moral facts of the matter, whether they are mind-independent (...) or -dependent. For the metaethical constructivist, however, I add that moral progress ought also mean that agents come to be or could come to be motivated to act in light of the right kind of moral judgments. Together I take this to mean that, for all forms of constructivism, moral progress must be explained as a form of moral improvement, or agents aspiring to be better sorts of moral agents. In what moral improvement consists differs for various forms of constructivism. Here I distinguish between three different versions of metaethical constructivism: Humean constructivists as represented by Street, Kantian constitutivist constructivists as represented by Korsgaard, and constructivists about practical reason as represented by Carla Bagnoli. I conclude by showing that only constructivism as a view about practical reason can fully account for moral progress qua the opportunity for moral improvement. (shrink)

Abstract: This essay examines two interpretations of Kant's argument for the formula of humanity. Christine M. Korsgaard defends a constructivist reading of Kant's argument, maintaining that humans must view themselves as having absolute value because their power for rational choice confers value on their ends. Allen Wood, however, defends a realist interpretation of Kant's argument, maintaining that humans actually are absolutely valuable and that their choices do not confer value but rather reflect their understanding of how the objects of their (...) choices fulfill their needs and wants and contribute to their flourishing. Though Korsgaard's reading is more consistent with Kant's prioritizing of the right over the good, this essay raises a metaethical question regarding her constructivist position, namely, “What is meant by her claim that rational choice ‘confers’ value on objects?” In developing this question, it presents a realist account of goodness that is taken from Peter Geach's “Good and Evil.”. (shrink)

Constitutivists explicitly emphasize the importance of self-reflection for rational agency. Interestingly enough, there is no clear account of how and why self-reflection plays such an important role for these views. My aim in this paper is to address this underappreciated problem for constitutivist views and to determine whether constitutivist self-reflection is normatively oriented. Understanding its normative features will allow us to evaluate a potential way that constitutivism may meet its purported metaethical promise. I begin by showing why constitutivism, as exemplified (...) by Korsgaard’s and Velleman’s respective views, takes self-reflection to be a constitutive feature of rational agency. Closer examination of this claim suggests three underappreciated problems for the constitutivist’s apparent reliance on self-reflection. First, we have no picture of the specific role that self-reflection plays. Second, it is unclear in what sense it is a requirement for full-fledged agency and, thereby, for self-constitution. Third, it is not clear whether it has any necessary normative features, even given the often cited moral normativity associated with constitutivism. In §1, I will address the first and second questions. §2 will be dedicated to considering the third question. (shrink)

What role do celebrities play in our moral lives? Philosophers have explored the potential for celebrities to function as moral exemplars and role models. We argue that there are more ways in which celebrities play a role in helping us navigate our moral lives. First, gossiping about celebrities helps us negotiate our moral norms and identify competing styles of life. Second, fandom for celebrities serves as the basis for the development of distinct moral communities and identities. Third, celebrities possess high (...) levels of epistemic power which can be used to help change and adapt our moral norms. We will then investigate two kinds of problems that arise from using celebrities in this way. Firstly, harm is done to celebrities because they are used in the ways explained in the first part of the article; secondly, celebrity life has a distinctive nature that can affect the moral agency of celebrities. Fame, we suggest, might lead to a morally unhealthy asymmetry in human relationships. We end by discussing the ethical implications of our analysis and conclude that when using stars for moral navigation, we should take into account the harm this does to them and the distinctive nature of their lives. (shrink)

Motivational judgement internalists hold that there is a necessary connection between moral judgments and motivation. There is, though, an important lack of clarity in the literature about the types of moral evaluation the theory is supposed to cover. It is rarely made clear whether the theory is intended to cover all moral judgements or whether the claim covers only a subset of such judgements. In this paper I will investigate which moral judgements internalists should hold their theory to apply to. (...) I will argue that the possibility of the supererogation amoralist, someone who makes genuine supererogation judgements but remains unmotivated by them, makes it implausible to be an internalist about moral goodness. As a result, internalists should restrict their claim to moral requirement judgements. I will then argue that this creates an explanatory burden for Internalism. In order for their view to be plausible they must explain why some moral judgements and not others are necessarily connected to motivation. (shrink)

The concept of preference dominates economic theory today. It performs a triple duty for economists, grounding their theories of individual behavior, welfare, and rationality. Microeconomic theory assumes that individuals act so as to maximize their utility – that is, to maximize the degree to which their preferences are satisfied. Welfare economics defines individual welfare in terms of preference satisfaction or utility, and social welfare as a function of individual preferences. Finally, economists assume that the rational act is the act that (...) maximally satisfies an individual's preferences. The habit of framing problems in terms of the concept of preference is now so entrenched that economists rarely entertain alternatives. (shrink)

This paper explores a pair of puzzling and controversial topics in the history of late nineteenth-century philosophy: the psychologism debates, and the nature of neo-Kantianism. Each is sufficientl...

Two conceptions of motivating reasons, i.e. the reasons for which we act, can be found in the literature: (1) the dominant 'psychological conception', which says that motivating reasons are an agent's believing something; and (2) the 'non-psychological' conception, the minority view, which says that they are what the agent believes, i.e. his beliefs. In this paper I outline a version of the minority view, and defend it against what have been thought to be insuperable difficulties - in particular, difficulties concerning (...) 'error cases' (cases where what the agent believes is false); and difficulties concerning the explanation of action. Concerning error cases, I argue that if we are motivated by something believed that is true, what motivates us to act is a motivating reason. By contrast, if we are motivated by something believed that is false, then what motivates us to act is merely an apparent motivating reason. Either way, what motivates us is, as the non-psychological conception says, what we believe and not our believing it. I offer an account of the relation between motivating reasons and the explanation of action, and argue that this account helps bring out two important points. One is that the fact that we often do, and indeed sometimes must, use explanations such as 'He did it because he believed that p' does not vindicate the psychological conception of motivating reasons. The other is that endorsing the non-psychological conception of motivating reasons does not commit one to a non-factive view of explanations of action. (shrink)

This paper offers a partial justification of so-called "deontological restrictions." Specifically it defends the "self/other asymmetry," that we are morally obligated to treat our own agency, and thus its results, as specially important. The argument rests on a picture of moral obligation of a broadly Kantian sort. In particular, it rests on the basic normative assumption that our fundamental obligations are determined by the principles which a rational being as such would follow. These include principles which it is not essential (...) for rational beings to accept, but acceptance of which we could non-arbitrarily attribute to them simply in their capacity as rational. Among these principles is the asymmetry mentioned above. (shrink)

The main claim of this paper is that the method outlined and used in Aristotle’s Ethics is an appropriate and credible one to use in bioethics. Here “appropriate” means that the method is capable of establishing claims and developing concepts in bioethics and “credible” that the method has some plausibility, it is not open to obvious and immediate objection. It begins by suggesting why this claim matters and then gives a brief outline of Aristotle’s method. The main argument is made (...) in three stages. First, it is argued that Aristotelian method is credible because it compares favourably with alternatives. In this section it is shown that Aristotelian method is not vulnerable to criticisms that are made both of methods that give a primary place to moral theory (such as utilitarianism) and those that eschew moral theory (such as casuistry and social science approaches). As such, it compares favourably with these other approaches that are vulnerable to at least some of these criticisms. Second, the appropriateness of Aristotelian method is indicated through outlining how it would deal with a particular case. Finally, it is argued that the success of Aristotle’s philosophy is suggestive of both the credibility and appropriateness of his method. (shrink)

Here is a sketch of a genealogy of political theory for the last century. This is a genealogy in Nietzsche’s sense: therefore, neither unhistorical taxonomy, nor a history of political theory as it is written by historians, but a typology in time. Four types of modern political theory are distinguished. These are called, with some justification, positive, normative, third way and sceptical political theory. Seen from the vantage of the twenty-first century, they form an instructive sequence, emerging as a series (...) of reactions to the canonical political theory that was established in the universities in the late nineteenth century. None of the four should be excluded from our conception of what political theory has been, though most of them, when seen genealogically, reveal their defects more clearly than they do when treated purely theoretically. Since this is a sceptical finding, the genealogy is a polemic against the first three types of modern political theory in favour of the last. (shrink)

Paradoxically, the practical necessity of love seems to combine the personal character of psychological necessity with the inescapable and authoritative quality of moral necessity. Traditionally, philosophers have avoided this paradox by treating love as an amalgam of impersonal evaluative judgments and affective responses. On my account, love participates in a different form of practical necessity, one characterized by a non-moral yet normative type of expectation. This expectation is best understood as a kind of second-personal address that does not support derivative (...) third-personal demands. It is revealed when we react with hurt feelings instead of resentment upon its disappointment. (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)