Critics argue that non-cognitivism cannot adequately account for the existence and nature of some thick moral concepts. They use the existence of thick concepts as a lever in an argument against non-cognitivism, here called the Thick Concept Argument (TCA). While TCA is frequently invoked, it is unfortunately rarely articulated. In this paper, TCA is first reconstructed on the basis of John McDowell’s formulation of the argument (from 1981), and then evaluated in the light of several possible non-cognitivist responses. In general, (...) TCA assumes too much about what a non-cognitivist is (or must be) committed to. There are several non-cognitivist theories, and only some fit the view attacked by TCA. Furthermore, TCA rests on a contestable intuition about a thought experiment, here called the External Standpoint Experiment (ESE). It is concluded that TCA is remarkably weak, given how frequently the argument is invoked. (shrink)

Standard motivational internalism is the claim that by a priori or conceptual necessity, a psychological state is a moral opinion only if it is suitably related to moral motivation. Many philosophers, the authors of this paper included, have assumed that this claim is supported by intuitions to the effect that amoralists—people not suitably related to such motivation—lack moral opinions proper. In this paper we argue that this assumption is mistaken, seeming plausible only because defenders of standard internalism have failed to (...) consider the possibility that our own actual moral practice as a whole is one where moral opinions fail to motivate in the relevant way. To show this, we present a cynical hypothesis according to which the tendency for people to act in accordance with their moral opinions ultimately stems from a desire to appear moral. This hypothesis is most likely false, but we argue, on both intuitive and methodological grounds, that it is conceptually possible that it correctly describes our actual moral opinions. If correct, this refutes standard motivational internalism. Further, we propose an explanation of why many have seemingly internalist intuitions. Such intuitions, we argue, stem from the fact that standard amoralist cases allow (or even suggest) that we apprehend the putative moral opinions of amoralists as radically different from how we understand actual paradigmatic moral opinions. Given this, it is reasonable to understand them as not being moral opinions proper. However, since these intuitions rest on substantial a posteriori assumptions about actual moral opinions, they provide no substantial a priori constraints on theories of moral judgment. (shrink)

Reviews work on moral judgment motivational internalism from the last two decades.

Sometimes we disagree because of fundamental differences in what we treat as reasons for belief. Such are ‘deep disagreements'. Amongst the questions we might ask about deep disagreement is the epistemic normative one: how ought one to respond to disagreement, when that disagreement is deep. This paper addresses that question. According to the position developed, how one ought to respond to deep disagreement depends upon two things: (i) Whether one remains, in the context of disagreement, permitted to trust oneself in (...) following one's epistemic norms and in relation to that (ii) whether one has the shared stock of social-epistemic experiences with followers of one's rival's norms such that one could reasonably be expected to see their way of doing things as a genuine epistemic alternative to one's own. Section 1 introduces a model of deep disagreement such that deep disagreements occur when disputants disagree because they follow different epistemic norms. Section 2 surveys the possible theoretical stances to take towards the epistemic-normative question. Section 3 develops an account of what it is to follow an epistemic norm. Section 4 applies this conception of norm-following to the epistemic-normative question. Section 5 discusses two points of clarification. (shrink)

This paper defends the doctrine that moral requirements are categorical in nature. My point of departure is John McDowell’s 1978 essay, “Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?”, in which McDowell argues, against Philippa Foot, that moral reasons are not conditional upon agents’ desires and are, in a certain sense, inescapable. After expounding McDowell’s view, exploring his idea that moral requirements “silence” other considerations and discussing its particularist ethos, I address an objection that moral reasons, as McDowell conceives them, are fundamentally incomplete (...) in ways only a full-bloodedly Kantian appeal to pure practical reason can remedy. I conclude that the objection fails: ordinary moral reasons do not stand in need of a grounding in Reason. There is no prospect of deriving them from a supreme principle of morality or other canons of rationality. Ordinary reasons are sufficient in themselves, though their significance can be elucidated and illuminated by various strategies — some broadly Aristotelian, some drawing inspiration from Kant’s formula of humanity — in ways that can strengthen and vindicate them. Notwithstanding the failure of the objection, I conclude by reflecting on how Kantian insights can yet play a significant role in a McDowellian view of moral deliberation and moral education. (shrink)

Some of the most interesting questions about Kant, and more particularly about his moral philosophy, arise when he is placed alongside the giants of antiquity. Where does he come together with Plato? Where with Aristotle? Where does he diverge from each? He comes together with Plato in a shared conception of Ideas. When he first outlines how he is using the term ‘Idea’ in the Critique of Pure Reason , he insists that he is using it in none other than (...) its original Platonic sense; and he explains away certain discrepancies with the comment: It is by no means unusual… to find that we understand [an author] better than he has understood himself. As he has not sufficiently determined his concept, he has sometimes spoken… in opposition to his own intention. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

Philosophers have often claimed that the requirements of morality have an absolute and categorical status. Other values may be relative to the agent's ends, other imperatives hypothetical on his desires: their requirements must be justified by relating the action enjoined to the attainment of those ends or desires, and can be avoided by being shown to be incompatible with them. But the requirements of morality bind us whatever our ends or desires might be: they are not to be justified by (...) reference to anything beyond themselves; they cannot be avoided by being shown to be incompatatible with our existing purposes. Other values and imperatives may be determined—be given their status as values or imperatives—by our own prior purposes and desires: but those of morality themselves determine which purposes or desires we may or may not pursue. For convenient reference I label this the Absolutist view. (shrink)

Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson have argued that to evaluate the funniness of a joke based on the consideration of whether it is morally appropriate to feel amused commits the “moralistic fallacy.” We offer a new and empirically informed reply. We argue that there is a way to take morality into consideration without committing this fallacy, that is, it is legitimate to say that for some people, witty but immoral jokes can fail to be funny because they are immoral. In (...) our account, one has an intramural moral reason not to feel amused if one focuses on the moral feature itself of a joke rather than the moral consequence implied in one’s reaction to the joke. When one judges a joke as not funny because of the intramural moral reason, one is in a negative emotional state with high arousal, for example, moral disgust or anger. This state is psychologically incompatible with amusement. That one has an intramural reason not to feel amused thus implies that one does not have a reason to feel amused. Moral consideration thus plays an indirect and appropriate role in the evaluation of the funniness of a joke. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that moral principles are not sufficient to guide moral thought and action: they need to be supplemented by a capacity for judgement. However, why can we not rely on this capacity for moral judgement alone? Why do moral principles need to be supplemented, but are not supplanted, by judgement? So-called moral particularists argue that we can, and should, make moral decisions on a case-by-case basis without any principles. According to particularists, the person of moral judgement is (...) a person of empathy, sensibility and virtue, rather than a person of principle. In this paper I argue that this is a false dichotomy. The person of good moral judgement is a person of principle. I propose that we think of moral principles as internalised long-term commitments that form our moral character and sensitivity, and, as such, are constitutive of moral judgement. (shrink)

Inducing aspect-experiences – the sudden seeing of something anew, as when a face suddenly strikes us as familiar – can be used as a philosophical method. In seeing aspects, I argue, we let ourselves experience what it would be like to conceptualize something in a particular way, apart from any conceptual routine. We can use that experience to examine our ways of conceptualizing things, and re-evaluate the ways we make sense of them. I claim that we are not always passive (...) with regard to these experiences, and explain how we can actively induce them. I distinguish this method from other standard Wittgensteinian philosophical methods. (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)

Many areas of philosophy employ a distinction between factual and non-factual (descriptive/non-descriptive, cognitive/non-cognitive, etc) uses of language. This book examines the various ways in which this distinction is normally drawn, argues that all are unsatisfactory, and suggests that the search for a sharp distinction is misconceived. The book develops an alternative approach, based on a novel theory of the function and origins of the concept of truth. The central hypothesis is that the main role of the normative notion of truth (...) is to encourage speakers to argue, with long-run behavioural advantages. This offers a fresh perspective on many debates about realism in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

This paper first outlines a new taxonomy of different views concerning the relationship between normative judgments and motivation. In this taxonomy, according to the Type A views, a positive normative judgment concerning an action consists at least in part of motivation to do that action. According to the Type B views, motivation is never a constituent of a positive normative judgment even if such judgments have, due to the kind of states they are, a causal power to produce motivation in (...) an agent. Finally, according to the Type C views, a normative judgment can produce motivation only with the help of a third mental state or a distinct substantial local disposition. This paper then outlines a novel evolutionary argument for the Type B views. If we assume that normative judgments' ability to shape our motivations enabled efficient planning and cooperation , the psychological mechanism responsible for this adaptation should be understood as a proximal mechanism. This paper argues that it is then more likely that we evolved to make normative judgments that have direct causal powers to influence our motivations because such Type B mechanisms are more reliable than the Type C mechanisms. It also suggests that the Type A views are either empirically false or collapse into the Type B views. (shrink)

In Internal and external reasons, Bernard Williams, claims that there is nothing as an “external reason”. He first assumes that there might be two kinds of practical reasons, however, he rejects any possibility for such things as so called external reasons. he argues that all normative reasoning is either internal or non-explanatory. He also introduces a possible situation to have external reason, however he rejects this possibility, too. In Might there be external reasons? John McDowell, in response to Williams’ theory, (...) tries to defend the idea that there are external reasons. He concentrates on the possible situation which are suggested by Williams and he accept some part of his conditions to have an external reason, however he doesn’t accept that a new motivational set should be necessarily came up throw rational deliberation. He proposes the case of conversion as a counterexample for Williams’s theory. (shrink)

Often our reason for doing something is an "instrumental reason": that doing that is a means to doing something else that we have reason to do. What principles govern this "instrumental transmission" of reasons from ends to means? Negatively, I argue against principles often invoked in the literature, which focus on necessary or sufficient means. Positively, I propose a principle, "General Transmission," which answers to two intuitive desiderata: that reason transmits to means that are "probabilizing" and "nonsuperfluous" with respect to (...) the relevant end. I then apply General Transmission to the debate over "detachment": whether "wide-scope" reason for a material conditional or disjunction implies "narrow-scope" reason for the consequent or disjuncts. (shrink)

A discussion of epistemic reasons, theoretical rationality, and the relationship between them. Discusses the ontology of reasons and evidence, the relationship between reasons (motivating, normative, possessed, apparent, genuine, etc.) and rationality, the relationship between epistemic reasons and evidence, the relationship between rationality, justification, and knowledge, and many other related topics.

This book is a defence of the philosophy of common sense in the spirit of Thomas Reid and G.E. Moore, drawing on the work of Aristotle, evolutionary biology and psychology, and historical studies on the origins of early modern philosophy. It defines and explores common sense beliefs, and defends them from challenges from prominent philosophers.

Pour contrer le scepticisme au sujet de la connaissance des valeurs, la plupart soutiennent avec John Rawls qu’une croyance comme celle qu’une action est bonne est justifiée dans la mesure où elle appartient à un ensemble de croyances cohérent, ayant atteint un équilibre réfléchi. Christine Tappolet s’inspire des travaux de Max Scheler et d’Alexius von Meinong pour défendre une conception opposée au cohérentisme. La connaissance des valeurs est affirmée dépendre de nos émotions, ces dernières étant conçues comme des perceptions des (...) valeurs. (shrink)

Desires matter. What are desires? Many believe that desire is a motivational state: desiring is being disposed to act. This conception aligns with the functionalist approach to desire and the standard account of desire's role in explaining action. According to a second influential approach, however, desire is first and foremost an evaluation: desiring is representing something as good. After all, we seem to desire things under the guise of the good. Which understanding of desire is more accurate? Is the guise (...) of the good even right to assume? Should we adopt an alternative picture that emphasizes desire's deontic nature? What do neuroscientific studies suggest? -/- Essays in the first section of the volume are devoted to these questions, and to the puzzle of desire's essence. In the second part of the volume, essays investigate some implications that the various conceptions of desire have on a number of fundamental issues. For example, why are inconsistent desires problematic? What is desire's role in practical deliberation? How do we know what we want? -/- This volume will contribute to the emergence of a fruitful debate on a neglected, albeit crucial, dimension of the mind. (shrink)

This file contains the Bibliography of my book Mindlessness.

Thinking is overrated: golfers perform best when distracted and under pressure; firefighters make the right calls without a clue as to why; and you are yourself ill advised to look at your steps as you go down the stairs, or to try and remember your pin number before typing it in. Just do it, mindlessly. Both empirical psychologists and the common man have long worked out that thinking is often a bad idea, but philosophers still hang on to an intellectualist (...) picture of human action. This book challenges that picture and calls on philosophers to wake up to the power of mindlessness: it is our habits, skills and conventions that help us cope with a world way too diverse for us to hope to always reinterpret it. The book presents the empirical evidence that has been accumulating over the last few decades and offers a philosophical analysis of mindless phenomena such as habits, skilled activity, automatic actions, emotional and spontaneous reactions and social conventions, arguing that traditional philosophical theories of action should be revised to do justice to this forgotten but important part of our lives: when we act mindlessly, we are free and fully rational even though we neither deliberate nor are aware of what we are doing. (shrink)

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

This book is a contribution both to analytical philosophy of mind, and to Marxist philosophy. Marxists see pervasive irrationality in the conduct of human affairs, and claim that people in a class-divided society are prone to a variety of misconceptions. They say that we can suffer from "false consciousness" in our views about what inspires our behavior and in our judgments as to what is good for us. Meyerson uses the techniques of analytic philosophy to investigate this picture and argues (...) that Marxism is committed to the idea of motivated belief, and that the idea is philosophically defensible. She shows that there are other philosophically defensible claims which are congenial to Marxism: that there are facts about interests, that interests are not based on wants, that a desire can be contaminated by its history, that our judgments about our interests do not automatically motivate us, and that beliefs can survive the evidence that they are false. Meyerson throws light on puzzling psychological phenomena which confront everyone in their everyday political experience. (shrink)

What motivates the benevolent or charitable agent is regard for another’s good or well-being, but talk about regard for others’ good or well- being is simply talk about benevolence or charity in different terms. Yet Hume clearly holds that the regard for another’s good is a motive to produce benevolent acts that is distinct from a sense of their benevolence. So what is the difference? ‘Well’, one might say, ‘intuitively, rights are very different from wellbeing.’ Yes indeed. And that, I (...) shall contend, is Hume’s point. My general contention is that Hume’s discussion of justice is in fact an attack on that concept of rights we think of as having motivated the American and French revolutions, a concept that is still (deplorably in my view) prevalent. I think the very fact that it is so prevalent and so sanctified by its position in the American Constitution has blinded most readers to the power and plausibility of Hume’s attack, which I shall try to defend. (shrink)

The present thesis surveys different philosophical approaches to the nature of delusions: specifically, their ontology. However, since none of the various theories of the nature of delusions succeeds, I argue that there must be something problematic about the form of the analyses commonly offered. My general conclusion is that one cannot characterize delusions without taking away what it is distinctive about them.

In our everyday lives, we confront a host of moral issues. Once we have deliberated and formed judgments about what is right or wrong, good or bad, these judgments tend to have a marked hold on us. Although in the end, we do not always behave as we think we ought, our moral judgments typically motivate us, at least to some degree, to act in accordance with them. When philosophers talk about moral motivation, this is the basic phenomenon they seek (...) to understand. Moral motivation is an instance of a more general phenomenon—what we might call normative motivation—for our other normative judgments also typically have some motivating force. When we make the normative judgment that something is good for us, or that we have a reason to act in a particular way, or that a specific course of action is the rational course, we also tend to be moved. Many philosophers have regarded the motivating force of normative judgments as the key feature that marks them as normative, thereby distinguishing them from the many other judgments we make. In contrast to our normative judgments, our mathematical and empirical judgments, for example, seem to have no intrinsic connection to motivation and action. The belief that an antibiotic will cure a specific infection may move an individual to take the antibiotic, if she also believes that she has the infection, and if she either desires to be cured or judges that she ought to treat the infection for her own good. All on its own, however, an empirical belief like this one appears to carry with it no particular motivational impact; a person can judge that an antibiotic will most effectively cure a specific infection without being moved one way or another. (shrink)

is true, there is a truth-maker (e.g., a fact) with which it is identical and the truth of the former consists in its identity with the latter. The theory is best understood as a reaction to the correspondence theory, according to which the relation of truth-bearer to truth-maker is correspondence. A correspondence theory is vulnerable to the nagging suspicion that if the best we can do is make statements that merely correspond to the truth, then we inevitably fail to capture (...) the reality they are about and thus fall short of the truth we aim at. An identity theory is designed to overcome this suspicion. (shrink)

In this paper I put forth three criticisms against McDowell account of the idea that moral requirements are categorical imperatives. I argue that McDowell’s account fails as a defense of Kant’s doctrine for at least three reasons. First, McDowell claims that agents can appeal to experience in order to formulate and recognize categorical imperatives. However, Kant strongly disagrees with this claim, explicitly claiming that moral requirements cannot be derived from experience. Second, McDowell argues that the virtuous agent will not experience (...) inner conflict when motivating herself to act virtuously, but inner conflict plays a central role in Kant’s picture of moral motivation and virtue. Third, McDowell does not account for how the moral law serves as a necessary incentive to moral action through the a priori feeling of respect. Finally, I suggest that my criticisms cast doubt on the validity of McDowell’s account, and provide insights into some criteria that an account must meet if it is to be a proper defense of Kant’s doctrine of moral requirements as categorical imperatives. (shrink)

This thesis is the first step in a research project which aims to develop an accurate and robust theory of global justice. The thesis concerns the content of our duties of global justice, under strict compliance theory. It begins by discussing the basic framework of my theory of global justice, which consists in two aspects: duties of minimal wellbeing, which are universal, and duties of fairness and equality, which are associative and not universal. With that in place, it briefly discusses (...) the nature of duties of fairness and equality. I shall argue that they are associative, because they are derived from the form of cooperation at hand; and that there are three kinds of them in our contemporary world: states, local cooperation and trans-state cooperation. It is from their forms of cooperation that these duties are derived. After that, the thesis focuses exclusively on duties of minimal wellbeing. Against the usual account of these duties - the human-flourishing account - I argue for my human-life account. This account argues that the function of these duties is to secure a human life for individuals; and it begins with a Razian conception of wellbeing, which states that the wellbeing of an individual is fundamentally constituted by: (a) the satisfaction of his biological needs, and (b) his success in whole-heartedly pursuing socially defined and determined goals and activities which are in fact valuable. An account of what constitutes a human life is then derived from this conception of wellbeing – it is a life that consists in having a level of wellbeing that is higher than the satisfaction of biological needs, where this is constituted by the pursuit of goals and activities with a sense of what is worth doing; and this in turn consists in: (a) being able to forms ideas of what is worth doing, (b) being able to revise them in light of further reasons, and (c) being able to coordinate one's actions according to them. I then determine the specific objects of duties of minimal wellbeing (means for the satisfaction of biological needs, education, physical security, freedom of belief, association and expression, freedom of non-harmful conduct, and minimal resources), by determining what is involved in securing such a human life for individuals. (shrink)

When we say that a subject has attitudes that she is rationally required to have, does that entail that she has those attitudes for reasons? In other words, is there a deep nexus between being rational and responding to reasons? Many have argued that there is. For example, Derek Parfit tells us that 'to be rational is to respond to reasons '. But I am not so sure. I begin by considering this question in the domain of theoretical rationality. The (...) question in this domain is whether, when a subject has the beliefs that she is required to have by the norms of theoretical rationality, she is responding to reasons that there are for having those beliefs. Armed with a moderately clear answer to this question in the theoretical domain, I consider their relationship in the practical domain. When a subject has the desires that she is required to have by the norms of practical rationality, is she responding to reasons that there are for having those desires? Part of the interest of these questions lies in improving our understanding of reasons for action. I will say a little about this towards the end. (shrink)

The thesis aims at analyzing the concepts of risk and safety as well as the class of concepts to which they belong, thick concepts, focusing in particular on the normative aspects involved. Essay I analyzes thick concepts, i.e. concepts such as cruelty and kindness that seem to combine descriptive and evaluative features. The traditional account, in which thick concepts are analyzed as the conjunction of a factual description and an evaluation, is criticized. Instead, it is argued that the descriptive and (...) evaluative aspects must be understood as a whole. Furthermore, it is argued that the two main worries evoked against non-naturalism – that non-naturalism cannot account for disagreement and that it is not genuinely explanatory – can be met. Essay II investigates the utilization of the Kripke/Putnam causal theory of reference in relation to the Open Question Argument. It is argued that the Open Question Argument suitably interpreted provides prima facie evidence against the claim that moral kinds are natural kinds, and that the causal theory, as interpreted by leading naturalist defenders, actually underscores this conclusion. Essay III utilizes the interpretation of the Open Question Argument argued for in the previous essay in order to argue against naturalistic reduction of risk, i.e. reduction of risk into natural concepts such as probability and harm. Three different normative aspects of risk and safety are put forward – epistemic uncertainty, distributive normativity and border normativity – and it is argued that these normative aspects cannot be reduced to a natural measure. Essay IV provides a conceptual analysis of safety in the context of societal decision-making, and argues for a notion that explicitly includes epistemic uncertainty, the degree to which we are uncertain of our knowledge of the situation at hand. Some formal versions of a comparative safety concept are also proposed. Essay V puts forward a normative critique against a common argument, viz. the claim that the public should follow the experts’ advice in recommending an activity whenever the experts have the best knowledge of the risk involved. The importance of safety in risk acceptance together with considerations from epistemic uncertainty makes the claim incorrect even after including plausible limitations to exclude ‘external’ considerations. Furthermore, it is shown that the scope of the objection covers risk assessment as well as risk management. Essay VI provides a systematized account of safety engineering practices that clarifies their relation to the goal of safety engineering, namely to increase safety. A list of 24 principles referred to in the literature of safety engineering is provided, divided into four major categories. It is argued that important aspects of these methods can be better understood with the help of the distinction between risk and uncertainty, in addition to the common distinction between risk and probability. (shrink)

Bernard Williams in his “Internal and External Reasons” argues for internalism about reasons. He holds that according to internalism of reasons, agent A has reason to Φ if and only if he has a desire ψ which will be satisfied by Φ-ing and he also believes that it is so. Williams maintains that if one does not have a preceding desire and cannot form any desires through deliberation then it will be rational to claim that he does not have reason (...) to Φ. Clearly desires play a crucial role here because if an agent does not have such desires, then he does not have reasons for action. Williams goes beyond this claim and says only internal reasons are reasons for action. In this article, we argue against his claim. After explaining descriptive and normative senses of rationality and alternative views regarding the rationality of beliefs and desires, in virtue of the idea of blameworthiness, responsibility, and having practical reason, we show that there are a set of actions for which moral agents are blameworthy and they, therefore, have reasons at least for certain actions which are not dependent upon their desires. This idea would be supported by the facts that most people consider a person who violates hedonic, prudential, and moral norms as much as possible to be irrational, that they consider the act of counting him as rational to be counterintuitive, and finally that societies have founded institutions for restraining such a person.Our argument from blameworthiness can be formulated as follows: If a moral agent performs an action X for which he can justly be blamed, then he will be responsible and he ought not to perform X. If a moral agent is responsible and he ought not to perform X, then there is a reason for him not to perform X. There are a set of actions, S, that moral agents can be justly blamed for performing. So moral agents are responsible for performing an action in S. So there are reasons for moral agents not to perform an action in S.By falsifying the negation of premise, we show that is true. To falsify that it is not the case that there are actions for which moral agents can be justly blamed, we presented an example of an extremely immoral, imprudent, and pain-seeking agent who forms abnormal desires and acts against moral, prudent, and hedonic norms as much as possible. Since there are not any desires for such norms in his psychology, and his actions are based on these desires, he is not regarded as rational by most people and social institutions such as psychiatric clinics and courts. In addition, it would be irrational to hold that he is rational in his having immoral, imprudent, and pain-seeking desires and acting accordingly because it is a rational, prevalent, conventional practice to believe so and any theory which denies its rationality should provide convincing reasons. (shrink)

In this thesis, I explore motivational internalism and externalism, which concern the relationship between moral judgments and motivation. I first introduce the basic terms and different forms of internalism and externalism, including the externalist objections to internalism based on the famous counterexamples. I then argue against externalism by defending and developing Michael Smith’s fetishism argument. I not only respond to the externalist objections to the fetishism argument but also further argue against different externalist explanations of moral motivation that intend to (...) avoid the fetishism charge. Finally, I re-examine different forms of internalism in order to argue for a new form of internalism that can better preserve our internalist intuitions whilst accommodating the externalist counterexamples. My ultimate conclusion will be that the most plausible form of internalism to accept is constitutional, unconditional, relatively strong, direct internalism that is formulated in terms of dispositional desires. (shrink)

Prema hjumovskoj teoriji motivacije, motivacijski se proces sastoji od dva međusobno nezavisna mentalna stanja , što znači da subjekt ne može biti u potpunosti motiviran na djelovanje ako mu jedno od tih stanja nedostaje. U prvom dijelu članka prikazujem središnja obilježja ove teorije, a potom pokazujem da prihvaćanje Humeove distinkcije između divljih i tihih strasti može biti vrlo koristan alat za obranu ovog modela od nekih standardnih prigovora.

What does it mean to say that an agent has a reason to do a certain action? Does it mean that she would desire to do the action, or that there is some external consideration, which she ought to follow? Or is there a third alternative? The debate between Humean affective (i.e., desire-based) and classical Kantian cognitive theories has seemingly ended up in a theoretical standoff, and so most of the contributors have recently focused on the conative attitude of motivation (...) - either preceded by affective or cognitive attitudes. Accordingly, they contend that an agent has a reason to f only if, on some occasions, she would be motivated to f: call this Conative Reason Internalism. I argue, first, that even the most qualified version of this weak conative condition obtains only contingently. Secondly, that a cognitive contextual attitude, derived from the agent’s capacity of Reasons-Understanding, necessarily obtains. Therefore, necessarily, if an agent has a reason to f, it follows that, were she contextually rational, she would make evaluative sense out of the propositional content of f-ing or would understand why f-ing is considered as a right action in the relevant context: I call this De Dicto Cognitive Reason Contextualism. (shrink)

The buck-passing account of value involves a positive and a negative claim. The positive claim is that to be good is to have reasons for a pro-attitude. The negative claim is that goodness itself is not a reason for a pro-attitude. Unlike Scanlon, Parfit rejects the negative claim. He maintains that goodness is reason-providing, but that the reason provided is not an additional reason, additional, that is, to the reason provided by the good-making property. I consider various ways in which (...) this may be understood and reject all of them. So I conclude that buck-passers cannot reject the negative claim. (shrink)

This thesis comprises a study of the ethical thought of Iris Murdoch with special emphasis, as evidenced by the title, on how morality is intimately connected to self-improvement aiming at perfection and how the study of fiction has an important role to play in our strive towards bettering ourselves within the framework set by Murdoch’s moral philosophy.

Externalists argue that motivation is external to moral judgments on the grounds that people can be unmoved by their moral judgments. I reply that people sometimes act indifferently to their moral considerations not because their moral judgments lack motivation but because their moral judgments are obstructed by rival desires. It appears that the moral motivation wanes while the moral judgments linger. In reality, however, the moral motivation is only made inconspicuous by the motivation of the opposing desires. A moral judgment (...) is subject to obstruction just like an emotive judgment and a gustatory judgment. (shrink)

This Thesis reconsiders the prospects for an approach to global justice centring on the proposal that every human being should possess a certain bundle of goods, which would include certain members of a distinctive category: the category of capabilities. My overall aim is to present a clarified and well-developed framework, within which such claims can be made. To do this, I visit a number of regions of normative and metanormative theorising. I begin by introducing the motivations for the capability approach, (...) and clarifying some of its most distinctive features. Next, I focus on Martha Nussbaum's version of the approach, and identify several problems therein. The most important concerns epistemology, and especially the challenges that constructivist theories pose. The middle part of the Thesis presents an alternative, based on the work of John McDowell, which I argue has superior prospects. Then, I turn to two further problems: that of making sense of the universalistic aspirations of cosmopolitanism, and that of integrating the microscopic prescriptions of ethics with the macroscopic analyses of political philosophy. Using the Aristotelian interpretation of its core framework that I have developed, I conclude that the capability approach can provide compelling answers to important questions about global justice. (shrink)

As Kant claimed in the Groundwork, and as the idea has been developed by Korsgaard 1997, Bratman 1987, and Broome 2002. This formulation is agnostic on whether reasons for ends derive from our desiring those ends, or from the relation of those ends to things of independent value. However, desire-based theorists may deny, against Hubin 1999, that their theory is a combination of a principle of instrumental transmission and the principle that reasons for ends are provided by desires. Instead, they (...) may say, there is just one principle, a principle of, if you will, instrumental transmutation: if one desires the end, then one has reason to take the means. See the discussion of General Production, in section 8, for a doubt about this. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of moral philosophers have held both that there are particular moral truths, and also that there are no general moral principles which explain these particular moral truths--either because there simply are no moral principles, or because moral principles are themselves explained by or derived from particular moral truths rather than vice versa. Often this combination of doctrines is held by philosophers interested in reviving an Aristotelean approach..