We interact with value in two ways: we recognize objects as valuable and we take objects up as significant for our lives by valuing them. These two modes of interaction involve different kinds of reasons. Recognizing an object as valuable involves recognizing reasons that everyone shares, but agents can differ with respect to their reasons to value the object, and the reasons which are then involved in valuing. Using this observation, I argue that our relations to value and reasons are (...) irreducible to each other by rejecting two views that attempt to interpret value in terms of reasons and vice versa. (shrink)

Internalism about normative reasons is the view that an agent’s normative reasons depend on her motivational constitution. On the assumption that there are reasons for emotion I argue that externalism about reasons for emotion entails that all rational agents have reasons to be morally motivated and internalism about reasons for emotion is implausible. If the arguments are sound we can conclude that all rational agents have reasons to be morally motivated. Resisting this conclusion requires either justifying internalism about reasons for (...) emotion in a way hitherto unarticulated or giving up on reasons for emotion altogether. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Over the course of summarizing Volume Three and Does Anything Really Matter?, I argue that Parfit does not give us strong reason to think that Naturalists, Expressivists, and Non-Realist Cognitivists agree.

In this paper, I will discuss an objection to Buck-Passing accounts of value, such as Reasons Fundamentalism. Buck-Passing views take value to be derivative of or reducible to reasons. The objection is that since there can be value in possible worlds in which there are no reasons, value must not be ontologically derivative of reasons. Thus, BP is false. In this paper, I show that by accepting a dispositionalist revision, BP can allow such worlds while maintaining that reasons are interestingly (...) prior to value, and without having to adopt any controversial metaphysics. I show this by exploring the debate over the nature of dispositions, identifying the diverse resources BP can appeal to. The paper proceeds as follows. I first explain BP. Next, I discuss a few versions of the challenge, settling on what seems to be the strongest form. Following this, I show that on many accounts of dispositions, while we should accept that particular instances of dispositions are prior to their particular manifestations, we should also accept that there is a sense in which dispositions are dependent on their manifestations. This provides BP with resources to respond to the challenge: BP can accept a dispositional revision, without committing to a theory of dispositions. Finally, I will respond to two objections. The first is about whether there are dispositions with impossible manifestations, contrary to my thesis that dispositions depend on their manifestations. The second is about whether there could be value where it would be impossible for that value to give reasons. (shrink)

This paper looks at the phenomenon of ethical vagueness by asking the question, how ought one to reason about what to do when confronted with a case of ethical vagueness? I begin by arguing that we must confront this question, since ethical vagueness is inescapable. I then outline one attractive answer to the question: we ought to maximize expected moral value when confronted with ethical vagueness. This idea yields determinate results for what one rationally ought to do in cases of (...) ethical vagueness. But what it recommends is dependent on which substantive theory of vagueness is true; one can't draw conclusions about how to reason about vagueness in ethics in the absence of concrete assumptions about the nature of vagueness. (shrink)

It is often maintained that practical freedom is a capacity to act on our view of what we ought to do and in particular on our view of what it would be best to do. Here, I discuss an important exception to that claim, namely habitual agency. Acting out of habit is widely regarded as a form of reflex or even as compulsive behaviour but much habitual agency is both intentional and free. Still it is true that, in so far (...) as we act out of habit, we have no capacity to determine what we do by making a judgement about whether we ought to be doing it. Habitual agency is nonetheless free because we have the capacity to determine whether we act out of habit by making a judgement about whether or not the habit is a virtue. I develop this view of habit by contrasting habitual agency with action on policy and I argue that much virtuous agency is best understood as a form of habitual agency rather than as a form of action on policy. (shrink)

Constitutivism is best understood as a strategy for meeting a set of related metanormative challenges, rather than a fully comprehensive metanormative theory in its own right, or so many have plausibly argued. Whether this strategy succeeds may depend, in part, on which broader metanormative theory it is combined with. In this paper I argue that combining constitutivism with expressivism somewhat surprisingly provides constitutivists with their best chances for success, and that this combination of views has some surprising benefits for both (...) parties. (shrink)

A critical survey of various positions on the nature, use, possession, and analysis of normative concepts. We frame our treatment around G.E. Moore’s Open Question Argument, and the ways metaethicists have responded by departing from a Classical Theory of concepts. In addition to the Classical Theory, we discuss synthetic naturalism, noncognitivism (expressivist and inferentialist), prototype theory, network theory, and empirical linguistic approaches. Although written for a general philosophical audience, we attempt to provide a new perspective and highlight some underappreciated problems (...) about normative concepts. (shrink)

The goal of this thesis is to create a distinctively Aristotelian-Thomistic ethical schema. I shall do this in four stages. First, in chapter one, I am going to present a summary of Aristotelian metaphysics. I will present a slightly Thomistic take on Aristotelian metaphysics specifically when it comes to the distinction between accidental and substantial form. However, I will present a more classically Aristotelian account when it comes to the source of teleology. Along the way I will explore whether science (...) can disprove any aspects of Aristotelian metaphysics. In particular, I will examine whether science can show that there are no final causes, and whether evolution poses problems for the Aristotelian concept of form and essence in biology. Second, in chapter two, I shall explain the nature of goodness within this metaphysical schema. I will also engage with competing accounts of the nature of goodness and will argue that my Aristotelian account is superior. Third, in chapter three, I will list and defend my account of the basic goods. I will also explain why certain things, such as pleasure and freedom, are not included in my list of the basic goods. I will then explain how and why they do fit into my schema. Finally, in chapter four, I will move onto duties. I will show how we can derive a list of pro tanto duties from the Aristotelian ethical schema. Along the way I will also briefly sketch out an account of human rights. My ethical theory will differ from many contemporary neo-Aristotelians in that it will place emphasis on, and smoothly follow from, Aristotelian metaphysics. At the same time, my ethical theory will differ from more traditional neo-Aristotelians and the medieval neo-Aristotelians in the way that it reconciles an Aristotelian ethical schema with a non-natural account of goodness and a reasons-based account of obligation. (shrink)

If emotions provide reasons for action through their intentional content, as is often argued, where does this leave the role of the affective element of an emotion? Can it be more than a motivator and have significant bearing of its own on our emotional actions, as actions done for reasons? One way it can is through reinforcing other reasons that we might have, as Greenspan argues. Central to Greenspan’s account is the claim that the affective discomfort of an emotion, as (...) a fact about the agent’s state of being, provides an additional normative reason to act to alleviate the state. This, I argue, is not correct, nor is it the best way to understand emotions as reason-reinforcers. In this paper, I thus do two things: I provide an examination of how and why the affect of emotion could provide reasons to act to alleviate it and I propose that the real way emotions reinforce reasons is through the way they orient our attention onto things that matter, registering them as salient. (shrink)

If emotions have a rational role in action, then one challenge for accounting for how we can act rationally when acting emotionally is to show how we can guide our actions by our emotional considerations, seen as reasons. In this paper, I put forward a novel proposal for how this can be so. Drawing on the interconnection between emotions, cares and caring, I argue that, as the emotional agent is a caring agent, she can be aware of the emotional consideration (...) as a pro tanto reason favouring an action choice and, even, as the reason for which she should act. (shrink)

Many prominent ethicists, including Shelly Kagan, John Rawls, and Thomas Scanlon, accept a kind of epistemic modesty thesis concerning our capacity to carry out the project of ethical theorizing. But it is a thesis that has received surprisingly little explicit and focused attention, despite its widespread acceptance. After explaining why the thesis is true, I argue that it has several implications in metaethics, including, especially, implications that should lead us to rethink our understanding of Reductive Realism. In particular, the thesis (...) of epistemic modesty in ethics implies a kind of epistemic modesty about the metaphysical nature of ethics, if Reductive Realism about the metaphysical nature of ethics is true, and it implies that normative concepts are indispensable to practical deliberation in a way that answers an influential objection to Reductive Realism from Jonathan Dancy, David Enoch, William FitzPatrick, and Derek Parfit. (shrink)

David Schmidtz's reconstruction of morality advances Hart‐type recognition rules for a “personal” and an “interpersonal” strand of morality. I argue that his view does not succeed for reasons owed both to the way in which Schmidtz construes of the task of reconstructing morality and the content of the moral recognition rules that he proposes. For Schmidtz, this task must be approached from a Hart‐type “internal” perspective, but this leaves his reconstruction with an unresolved problem of parochiality. He reconstructs morality as (...) a pursuit of the aim of the flourishing of individuals as reflectively rational agents. However, while it is plausible to see reflective rationality as a good, it does not seem to be a morally fundamental good. Ways to instantiate or pursue it depend for their moral value on other, more fundamental moral values that are beyond the normative space mapped by Schmidtz's moral recognition rules. (shrink)

The paper presents a positive argument for a version of metaphysically light ethical non-naturalism from the nature of mental states such as desires. It uses as its premise the time-honoured, and recently rediscovered, doctrine of the guise of the good, whereby it is essential to desire that the object of desire be conceived as good or as normatively favoured under some description. The argument is that if the guise of the good is a correct theory of desire, then a certain (...) version of non-naturalism is better placed than other meta-ethical views to make sense of it. First I define ethical non-naturalism and the guise of the good, providing also an initial defence of the latter. Then I briefly survey some historical precedents and proceed to the argument. For each major meta-ethical view I consider I offer reasons why combining them with the guise of the good leads to consequences that are or should be unwelcome by the guise of the good. At the end of this elimination process a form of relatively metaphysically light non-naturalism will emerge as the view that best fits with the guise of the good. (shrink)

This paper examines the extent to which the voluntary adoption of codes of conduct by multinational corporations (MNCs) renders MNCs accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which codes of conduct coordinate the expectations of relevant parties with regard to the provision of assistance by MNCs on grounds of rescue or justice. The paper argues that this coordinative role of codes of conduct renders MNCs more accountable for (...) the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct than they would be without a code of conduct. This interpretation of the significance of codes of conduct is contrasted with the view that codes of conduct render MNCs accountable for performing actions specified in a code of conduct by grounding contractual obligations for the performance of such actions. (shrink)

This paper examines the extent to which the voluntary adoption of codes of conduct by multinational corporations (MNCs) renders MNCs accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which codes of conduct coordinate the expectations of relevant parties with regard to the provision of assistance by MNCs on grounds of rescue or justice. The paper argues that this coordinative role of codes of conduct renders MNCs more accountable for (...) the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct than they would be without a code of conduct. This interpretation of the significance of codes of conduct is contrasted with the view that codes of conduct render MNCs accountable for performing actions specified in a code of conduct by grounding contractual obligations for the performance of such actions. (shrink)

The article discusses the relation between the concepts of unfair trade, exploitation, and below-subsistence wages with regard to individual economic transactions. Starting from the common notion that exploitation involves some kind of unfair advantage taking, it asks how “unfair” is to be understood, and what it is that is taken advantage of in exploitative exchanges. On this basis it then explores a line of argument for grounding the claim that below-subsistence wages are exploitative, focusing on the condition of morally transformative (...) voluntary consent to transactions. By analyzing the structure of coercion with regard to threats, offers, and circumstances it comes to the conclusion that consent to an offer is morally non-transformative with regard to legitimizing the outcome of a transaction if the person giving the “consent” has only unacceptable options in absolute terms to choose from, since this reduces “consent” to a mere act of rationality devoid of any normative content. Accordingly, it argues that insofar as below-subsistence wages are unacceptable options in absolute terms, they are to be considered exploitative and an instance of unfair trade. (shrink)

Here I criticise Audi's account of self-evidece. I deny that understanding of a proposition can justify belief in it and offfer an account of intuition that can take the place of understanding in an account of self-evidence.

How many attitudes must be posited at the level of reductive bedrock in order to reductively explain all the rest? Motivational Humeans hold that at least two attitudes are indispensable, belief and desire. Desire-As-Belief theorists beg to differ. They hold that the belief attitude can do the all the work the desire attitude is supposed to do, because desires are in fact nothing but beliefs of a certain kind. If this is correct it has major implications both for the philosophy (...) of mind, with regards the problem of naturalizing the propositional attitudes, and for metaethics, with regards Michael Smith’s ‘moral problem’. This paper defends a version of Desire-As-Belief, and shows that it is immune to several major objections commonly levelled against such theories. (shrink)

In their strife for designing a moral system where everyone is given equal consideration, cosmopolitan theorists have merely tolerated partiality as a necessary evil (insofar it means that we give priority to our kin opposite the distant needy). As a result, the cosmopolitan ideal has long departed from our moral psychologies and our social realities. Here I put forward partial cosmopolitanism as an alternative to save that obstacle. Instead of demanding impartial universal action, it requires from us that we are (...) equally responsive in all the relationships we stand in. That goes from the local to the cosmopolitan sphere, since I defend that we are related with strangers as co-members of the global community. Thus, partiality not only is accommodated by cosmopolitanism, but actually supports it: only by having meaningful personal relationships we become able to care for distant strangers. (shrink)

It has become virtually a matter of dogma—among both philosophers and laypersons—that human lives are more valuable than animal lives. One argument for this claim dominates the philosophical literature and, despite its employment by a host of philosophers, should be found wanting. I try to show that this line of reasoning, as well as one that is less popular but still with significant appeal, are faulty. The errors in each argument seem fatal: the pervasive argument begs the question, and the (...) more selective is, at bottom, unintelligible. We should judge that the lives of humans and animals are equally valuable, an assessment that should be accompanied by major changes in some of our fundamental practices. (shrink)

In this paper I critically engage with Hennie Lötter’s impressive book, Poverty, Ethics and Justice. I discuss his conception of poverty, and offer an interpretation of his claim that poverty is a uniquely human scourge. I exam the various harms of poverty that Lötter discusses. I consider two reasons that he offers for why we have a moral duty to end poverty, and I argue that the reason based on what we can justify to others if we take their human (...) dignity seriously is most compelling. Finally, I argue that Lötter overemphasizes of the moral importance of aid and downplays in the importance of the justice of institutional and structural change. I close by considering the prospects for social equality given our experience of capitalist development as a means for poverty eradication. I consider the moral importance of limits to the achievement of robust equality. (shrink)

In this article I advocate a worldly account of normative reasons according to which there is an ontological gap between these and the premises of practical thought, i.e. motivating considerations. While motivating considerations are individuated fine-grainedly, normative reasons should be classified as coarse-grained entities, e.g. as states of affairs, in order to explain certain necessary truths about them and to make sense of how we count and weigh them. As I briefly sketch, acting for normative reasons is nonetheless possible if (...) the connection between normative reasons and motivating considerations is a competence-based correspondence. (shrink)

This work is an investigation into philosophical method and rational argument in moral philosophy. It makes an original contribution to human understanding, by taking some of the tools and techniques that Gordon Baker identifies in the later work of Wittgenstein, and using them as a way of fending for oneself in an area of philosophy that neither Baker, nor Wittgenstein, wrote on. More specifically, a discussion of some different aspects of the contemporary literature on Dancy’s moral particularism is used as (...) a vehicle for illustrating how Baker’s therapeutic conception of philosophy offers alternative possibilities for how we can do philosophy, and what counts as rational argument in moral philosophy. I maintain that, by considering some indicative ways in which Baker’s therapeutic approach to philosophy can dissolve, rather than solve, the kinds of perplexities found in the existing literature on Dancy’s moral particularism, we can liberate ourselves from the traditional/theoretical view of how we ought to do philosophy, and an understanding of rational argument in moral philosophy, to which we need not be committed. (shrink)

In this paper, I will critically assess the expressive justification of punishment recently offered by Christopher Bennett in The Apology Ritual and a number of papers. I will first draw a distinction between three conceptions of expression: communicative, motivational, and symbolic. After briefly demonstrating the difficulties of using the first two conceptions of expression to ground punishment and showing that Bennett does not ultimately rely on those two conceptions, I argue that Bennett’s account does not succeed because he fails to (...) establish the following claims: punishment is the only symbolically adequate response to a wrongdoing; and punishment is permissible if it is the only symbolically adequate response to a wrongdoing. (shrink)

This paper explores the moral and legal status of the right to strike from a contractualist perspective, broadly construed. I argue that rather than attempting to ground the right to strike in the principle of association, as is commonly done in the ongoing legal debate, it ought to be understood as the assertion of a second-order moral right to self-determination within economic life. The controversy surrounding the right to strike thus reflects and depends upon a more basic question of the (...) legitimate scope of reason giving. I conclude that the right to strike, understood as an assertion of a right to self-determination, enjoys presumptive or pro tanto legitimacy apart from the merits or demerits of particular strike demands. (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)

This essay serves as an introduction to this issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. The five articles in this issue address a range of topics from the human embryo and substantial change to conceptions of disability. They engage claims of moral status, defense of our humanity, and argue for an accurate and just classification of persons of different communities within a healthcare system. I argue in this essay that though their concerns are diverse, the authors in this issue (...) help to answer a common question: “Who counts as one of us?” Reading these articles through the lens of membership and the themes of dignity illustrates this commonality and bears fruit for further reflection on many of the challenging issues addressed in the subsequent papers. (shrink)

In the first part of the paper, three objections to the precautionary principle are outlined: the principle requires some account of how to balance risks of significant harms; the principle focuses on action and ignores the costs of inaction; and the principle threatens epistemic anarchy. I argue that these objections may overlook two distinctive features of precautionary thought: a suspicion of the value of “full scientific certainty”; and a desire to distinguish environmental doings from allowings. In Section 2, I argue (...) that any simple distinction between environmental doings and allowings is untenable. However, I argue that the appeal of such a distinction can be captured within a relational account of environmental equity. In Section 3 I show how the proposed account of environmental justice can generate a justification for distinctively “precautionary” policy-making. (shrink)

When a person gives up an end of crucial importance to her in order to promote a moral aim, we regard her as having made a moral sacrifice. The paper analyzes these sacrifices in light of some of Bernard Williams’ objections to Kantian and Utilitarian accounts of them. Williams argues that an implausible consequence of these theories is that that we are expected to sacrifice projects that make our lives worth living and contribute to our integrity. Williams’ arguments about integrity (...) and meaning are shown to be unconvincing when the content of projects is left open. However, a look at his later arguments suggests a reason to be concerned about defensible ethical projects as understood through what he refers to as “the morality system”. The problem for theories of this type turns out to be not merely conflicts between ethical projects and moral demands but making sense of some of the ethically relevant features of these projects. Accommodations to moral theories that leave room for ethical projects may be insufficient to explain such features, for example in cases where agents demand more of themselves than the theories require. Making the theories more demanding is also problematic. Williams’ view about the role ethics plays in our conception of the life we want to lead provides a better account of these cases. (shrink)

This paper considers the connection between the three-place relation, R is a reason for X to do A and the two-place relation, R is a reason to do A. I consider three views on which the former is to be analyzed in terms of the latter. I argue that these views are widely held, and explain the role that they play in motivating interesting substantive ethical theories. But I reject them in favor of a more obvious analysis, which goes the (...) other way around. (shrink)

In this paper I critically assess Derk Pereboom’s book, Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life. In it, I resist Pereboom’s manipulation argument for incompatibilism and his indictment of desert-based accounts of moral responsibility.

Stephen Darwall’s moral theory explains moral obligation by appealing to a “second-person” standpoint where persons use second-person reasons to hold one another accountable for their moral behavior. However, Darwall claims obligations obtain if and only if hypothetical persons endorse them, despite tying the second-person standpoint to our real-world moral practices. Focus on hypothetical persons renders critical elements of his account obscure. I solve this problem by distinguishing two ideas quietly working in tandem, the hypothetical endorsement of moral norms and the (...) hypothetical recognition of these norms. Hypothetical endorsement is a plausible source of normativity; hypothetical recognition is not. A more plausible account of second-person normativity must combine hypothetical endorsement with actual recognition. I term these alternative conceptions justification and easy publication. To combine justification and easy publication in an account of moral obligation, second-person normativity should be applied first to rules. Following other moral philosophers, I introduce the concept of a “social-moral” rule into an account of moral obligation. Social-moral rules acquire normative force when they are justified for and easily published by the relevant moral community. I conclude that a rule-centric account of second-personality is superior to Darwall’s reason-centric account. (shrink)

An oft-rehearsed objection to the claim that an intention can give one reasons is that if an intention could give us reasons that would allow an agent to bootstrap herself into having a reason where she previously lacked one. Such bootstrapping is utterly implausible. So, intentions to φ cannot be reasons to φ. Call this the bootstrapping objection against intentions being reasons. This essay considers four separate interpretations of this argument and finds they all fail to establish that non-akratic, nonevil, (...) and deliberatively sound intentions cannot be reasons. The first argument is the argument from evil intentions, the second is the argument from akratic intentions, the third is the argument from errors in deliberation, and the last is what I call the ‘wizardry’ argument. This ‘argument’, put forward most clearly by John Broome, claims that intentions are so insubstantial that were they on their own reasons for action, that would amount to creating something out of nothing and that is impossible. The essay argues that the claim that intentions are insubstantial is too strong a premise to put forward without argument. For there are other attitudes that are on their own sufficient to generate reasons, such as loving attitudes. The essay then argues that the bootstrapping objection’s status as dogma in the philosophy of action has led to insufficient attention being paid to the entirely reasonable question of whether intentions are sufficiently like other reason-giving attitudes, such as loving and valuing. It may turn out that, just as loving someone can give the loving person a reason to act in a certain, so too can intending to do something give someone a reason to act in a certain way, but we cannot effectively engage this question without first giving up our commitment to the bootstrapping objection as a central “insight” in philosophy of action. The essay concludes by proposing two research questions that are opened up by the abandonment of the bootstrapping objection as dogma, and proposes that we turn our philosophical attentions to those questions. (shrink)

Several European and North American states encourage or even require, via good Samaritan and duty to rescue laws, that persons assist others in distress. This paper offers a utilitarian and contractualist defense of this view as applied to corporations. It is argued that just as we should sometimes frown on bad Samaritans who fail to aid persons in distress, we should also frown on bad corporate Samaritans who neglect to use their considerable multinational power to undertake disaster relief or to (...) confront widespread social ills such as those currently befalling public health (obesity) and the environment (climate change). As such, the corporate duty to assist approach provides a novel justification for sustainable business practices in such cases. The paper concludes by arguing that traditional stakeholder approaches have not articulated this duty of assistance obligation, though a new utilitarian stakeholder theory by Thomas Jones and Will Felps may be coextensive. (shrink)

In justifying punishment we sometimes appeal to the idea that the punished offender has, by his criminal action against others, forfeited his moral right (and therefore his legal right) against hard treatment by the state. The imposition of suffering, or deprivation of liberty, loses its prima facie morally objectionable character, and becomes morally permissible. Philosophers interrogating the forfeited right theory generally focus on whether the forfeiting of the right constitutes a necessary or a sufficient condition for punishment to be permissible; (...) rarely do they ask whether the idea of a right that can be forfeited is itself morally illuminating. The paper examines and criticizes various versions of this theory. It concludes that the forfeited right arguments add little other than rhetorical dignity to the existing repertoire of justifications for punishment. They can be most usefully understood as communicating the thought that the offender cannot reasonably complain about the violation of rights he himself has violated. But the incapacitation of the offender’s reasonable complaint does not entail that we are justified in punishing him. (shrink)

The paper is an opinionated tour of the literature on the reasons for which we hold beliefs and other doxastic attitudes, which I call ‘operative epistemic reasons’. After drawing some distinctions in §1, I begin in §2 by discussing the ontology of operative epistemic reasons, assessing arguments for and against the view that they are mental states. I recommend a pluralist non-mentalist view that takes seriously the variety of operative epistemic reasons ascriptions and allows these reasons to be both propositions (...) and truth-making facts. In §3, I turn to consider what it takes for a consideration to be an operative epistemic reason, examining three conditions – the representational, treating, and explanatory conditions – that have been proposed. I offer a novel view about the explanatory condition. In §4, I discuss the special case of inferential operative reasons and examine attempts to understand them in terms of rule-following, sketching a competence-based spinoff of dispositionalism. Finally, in §5, I consider whether there are non-inferential operative reasons, observing that one needn't countenance them to be a foundationalist but then developing a view about what they are and how they do and don't differ from inferential reasons. (shrink)

What makes certain mental states subject to evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification, and others arational? In this paper, I develop and defend an account that explains why belief is governed by, and so appropriately subject to, evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification, one that does justice to the complexity of our evaluative practice in this domain. Then, I sketch out a way of extending the account to explain when and why other kinds of (...) mental states are rationally evaluable. I argue that the cognitive or psychological mechanisms that give rise to and sustain our mental states help to render our mental states appropriate targets for evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification when the operation of these mechanisms is responsive, in a specific way, to our judgments about which kinds of considerations constitute rationalizing and justifying reasons for being in states of the relevant sort. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a metaethical position described as ‘actual agreement contractualism’: the view that norms arise from actual attempts to arrive at legitimate terms for social cooperation among all those affected. I distinguish the actual agreement approach from hypothetical approaches to contractualism, and defend the former against objections from Thomas Scanlon, in particular. The attractiveness of a focus on actual agreements, I argue, is seen in the way it resolves problems internal to the hypothetical approach as well as (...) in its implications for the purpose of moral theory and for the obligation to justify our actions to others.Dans cet article, je défends une position métaéthique pouvant être désignée comme «contractualisme de l’accord réel», soit la position voulant que les normes découlent d’efforts réels pour s’entendre sur les termes légitimes de la coopération sociale entre tous ceux qui sont touchés. Je distingue cette approche des approches hypothétiques du contractualisme et je défends la première, notamment contre les objections de Thomas Scanlon. L’attrait d’une approche basée sur les accords réels se voit dans la façon dont elle permet de résoudre certains problèmes internes de l'approche hypothétique, mais aussi dans ce qu’elle implique quant à l'objet de la théorie morale et quant à l'obligation de justifier nos actions auprès des autres. (shrink)

Against non-analytic naturalism and quietist realism, I defend a robust form of non-naturalism. The argument proceeds as follows: In the face of extensional underdetermination, quietist realism cannot non-question-beggingly respond to alternative accounts that offer formally identical but substantively different interpretations of what reasons are. They face what we might call the reasons appropriation problem. In light of this problem, quietists ought to abandon their view in favor of robust realism. By permitting substantive metaphysical claims we can then argue, based on (...) reasonhood being a relation, that reasonhood is an abstract universal. If reasonhood is an abstract universal, then we can non-question-beggingly assert that the counting in favor of relation is a general kind or genus. This poses a dilemma for non-analytic naturalists: either they need to give the same reductive analysis for epistemic and practical reasons, or they can give a different analyses by treating epistemic and practical reasons as a species of the larger genus. However, the former looks extensionally implausible epistemic reasons are not desire-based and the latter entails that the reduction, via a violation of irreflexivity, fails to ground reasonhood. Naturalistic reductions of the normative, accordingly, face a damning dilemma. We should, in the face of this argument, thus accept a robust form of non-naturalist realism. (shrink)

The involvement of social considerations in our ordinary conception of presumption and corresponding plain practice of presuming things raises doubts as to whether they afford epistemically satisfying bases for rational argumentation. To some this involvement illuminates important modes of discursive inquiry; to others it points to the need for theoretically based reform or regulation of our ordinary practices. This paper attempts to clarify and defend the epistemic value of ordinary presumptions.

This article defends the Kantian moral theory developed by Christine Korsgaard against the charge that it does not establish that immorality is always irrational because moral obligations are inescapable and overriding. My aim is to show that two versions of a well-known criticism of the view fail for the same reason. They do not recognize the role of inadequate reflection in accounting for immoral actions and, consequently, they do not fully appreciate the commitments that come with accepting the supposed structure (...) of human psychology that is bedrock to the view. I argue, first, that G. A. Cohen makes too much of the difference between Korsgaard and Kant on the source of moral norms and that we can appeal to what she says about practical reason in an early paper of hers in order to handle his Mafioso case. Next, I take up J. David Velleman’s more recent treatment of Korsgaard’s view in response to Cohen’s Mafioso case. I show that Velleman’s argument that her view is concessive conflates his own view of human agency with Korsgaard’s practical identity theory. My hope is that this discussion shows how Korsgaard’s view can be made to work as an orthodox Kantianism. (shrink)

Accounts of moral responsibility can be divided into those that claim that attributability of an act, omission, or attitude to an agent is sufficient for responsibility for it, and those which hold that responsibility depends crucially on choice. I argue that accounts of the first, attributionist, kind fail to make room for the relatively stringent epistemic conditions upon moral responsibility, and that therefore an account of the second, volitionist, kind ought to be preferred. I examine the various arguments advanced on (...) behalf of attributionist accounts, and argue that for each of them volitionism has a reply that is in every case at least as, and often more, persuasive. Most significantly, only volitionism can accommodate the intuitively important distinction between the bad and the blameworthy. (shrink)