Direct theories of the virtues maintain that an explanation of why some virtuous trait counts as valuable should ultimately appeal to the value of its characteristic motive or aim. In this paper I argue that, if we take the idea of a direct approach to virtue theory seriously, we should favour a view according to which virtue involves knowledge. I raise problems for recent “agent-based” and “end-based” versions of the direct approach, show how my account proves preferable to these, and (...) defend it against a number of objections. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to challenge some common assumptions in contemporary theories of practical rationality and intentional action. If I am right, the fact that our intentions can be rationalised is widely misunderstood. Normally, it is taken for granted that the role of rationalisations is to show the reasons that the agent had to make up her mind. I will argue against this. I do not object to the idea that acting intentionally is, at least normally, acting for reasons, (...) but I will propose a teleological reading of the expression ‘for reasons.’ On this reading, it is quite possible to act for reasons without having reasons to act. In a similar way, paradigmatic cases of cogent practical reasoning do not require the transference of justification from the premises to the practical conclusion. (shrink)

This article critiques the much-discussed notion of alief recently introduced by Tamar Gendler. The narrow goal is to show that the notion is explanatorily unnecessary; the broader goal is to demonstrate the importance of making explicit one's explanatory framework when offering a philosophical account of the mind. After introducing the concept of alief and the examples Gendler characterizes in terms of it, the article examines the explanatory framework within which appeal to such a concept can seem necessary. This framework, it (...) argues, is a generalization of the belief-desire account of action. Although Gendler introduces the notion of alief in an attempt to move beyond the belief-desire account, it argues that she nevertheless works within a generalized version of its explanatory structure. Once the framework is made explicit, we find no explanatory need that requires introducing the notion of alief into our account of the mind. (shrink)

This paper argues that non-cognitivism about moral judgements is compatible with moral realism. In order to reveal the possibility, and plausibility, of this hitherto under-explored position in metaethics, it surveys a series of four increasingly fine-grained formulations of the distinction between cognitivism and non-cognitivism. It argues that all but the last of these distinctions should be rejected, on the grounds that they lead advocates of non-cognitivism away from what initially motivated them to advocate non-cognitivism in the first place. One significant (...) pay-off of this reconceived formulation of the cognitivism/non-cognitivism distinction is that it reveals what it would take to properly appreciate the place of virtue ethics in contemporary metaethical debates. (shrink)

Moore's paradox is a paradox in which certain kinds of belief or assertion, such as a belief that ?it is raining and I do not believe that it is raining?, are irrational despite involving no obvious contradiction in what is believed. But is there a parallel paradox involving other kinds of attitude, in particular desire? I argue that certain kinds of desire would be irrational to have for similar, distinctive reasons that having Moorean beliefs would be irrational to have. Hence, (...) I argue that such desires, a desire that ?one have a particular desire that was frustrated? or a desire that ?some state of affairs obtain about which one was indifferent?, are a parallel Moorean paradox of desire. I further argue that this analogous paradox has implications for practical reasoning, in particular by presenting a problem for instrumentalism about the objects of desire. (shrink)

Alan Goldman’s Reasons from Within is one of the most thorough recent defenses of what might be called ‘orthodox internalism’ about practical reasons. Goldman’s main target is an opposing view that includes a commitment to the following two theses: (O) that there are such things as objective values, and (E) that these values give rise to external reasons. One version of this view, which we can call ‘orthodox externalism’, also includes a commitment to the thesis (I) that rational people will (...) be motivated by any reason they have of which they are aware. Goldman himself embraces (I), and deploys it frequently in his criticisms of orthodox externalism. But there is logical space for an externalist view that includes a commitment to (O) and (E), but that denies (I). The resulting “hyperexternalist” view holds that some reasons need not motivate us, even if we are rational. In this paper I argue that Goldman’s criticisms of orthodox externalism leave hyperexternalism untouched, and that his specific criticisms of my own version of hyperexternalism do not work. In light of Goldman’s criticisms of orthodox externalism and my own criticisms of Goldman’s view, hyperexternalism emerges as the favored option. (shrink)

In ethics, ‘probabilism’ refers to a position defended by a number of Catholic theologians, mainly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They held that, when one is uncertain which of a range of actions is the right one to perform, it is permissible to perform any which has a good chance of being the right one—even if there is another which has a better chance. This paper considers the value of this position from the viewpoint of modern ethical philosophy. The (...) unusual nature of probabilism as a theory focusing upon permissibility, rather than right-making properties, is explored and related to some modern attempts to set out ‘satisficing’ and ‘hybrid’ ethical theories. Such theories try to distinguish between what is best and what is permissible, and probabilism can be understood as an alternative way of supplementing a theory of right-making properties by adding to it a theory of permissibility. But a more radical version is also possible, where one abandons any attempt to identify right actions or right-making properties, and instead considers permissibility alone. Accordingly, a ‘multi-account theory’ of permissibility is proposed and defended as a model of how many people actually make moral decisions. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that theists are extremely well-situated with respect to developing metaethical accounts that qualify as ‘robust’ versions of moral realism. In the first part of the essay, a number of metaethical desiderata are identified. In the second part, theistic strategies for accommodating those desiderata are explained and defended. The upshot is that, contrary to the received philosophical wisdom, there are good theoretical reasons for theistic philosophers to seek to develop metaethical accounts that ground moral facts in (...) facts about God. (shrink)

A quantitative interpretation is given of the (in)coherence that moral agents experience as a tension between their ordered moral judgments over n physically incompatible actions, and the competitive ordering of motivating intensities (or, desires). Then a model describing one’s tendency to reduce the experienced in-coherence is constructed. In this model, moral sensitivity (S) and desire attachment (e) function as primitives that motivate from opposing perspectives the reduction of incoherence. Two distinct sub-processes of this reduction are therefore initiated by (S) and (...) (e) co-ordinated (more or less efficiently) by the agent’s degree of rationality (R) characteristic of her capacity to handle such internal tensions. This process ends when a new equilibrium between what motivates and what resists (further) reduction has been reached. A macro-equilibrium is described involving (R) constrained by weakness-of-will (W w ). A reinterpretation of the Aristotelian characters (enkratês, akratês, etc.) and an exegesis of Hume’s ‘Calm Passions’ follow as applications. (shrink)

One of us -- Alfred Mele (1996; 2003, ch. 5) -- has argued that possible instances of listlessness falsify the combination of cognitivism and various kinds of internalism about positive first-person moral ought-beliefs. If an argument recently advanced by James Lenman (1999) is successful, listlessnessis impossible and Mele's argument from listlessness therefore fails.However, we will argue that Lenman's argument is unpersuasive.

Expressivism, as applied to a certain class of statements, evaluative ones, for instance, is constituted by two doctrines, only the first of which will concern me in this paper. Evaluative statements, according to this doctrine, aren’t propositional (susceptible of truth or falsity). In this paper, I will argue that one of the vexing problems (that I label the “logical problem”) this doctrine engenders for the expressivist is equally pressing for some cognitivists (who think evaluative statements do have a truth-value). I (...) will present the difficulty and argue that some constructivists, who are cognitivists, cannot contend with it at all, and others must resort to more complex ways than the one available to other cognitivists. (shrink)

The answer to the title question is “No.” The first section argues, using the example of Huckleberry Finn, that rational agents need not be motivated by their explicit judgments of rightness and wrongness. Section II rejects a plausible argument to the conclusion that rational agents must have some moral concerns. The third section clarifies the relevant concept of irrationality and argues that moral incoherence does not equate with this common relevant concept. Section IV questions a rational requirement for prudential concern (...) and whether a requirement for moral concern would follow from it. Section V examines the rationality of amoralists and partial amoralists, and Sect. VI closes with speculation on why there might seem to be a rational requirement to be morally motivated. (shrink)

I argue that Mackie's approach to practical reasons is attractive and unjustly neglected. In particular I argue that it is much more plausible than the kind of instrumentalist approach famously articulated by Bernard Williams. This matters for Mackie's arguments for moral skepticism. Contra Richard Joyce, I argue that it is a serious mistake to invoke instrumentalism in arguing for moral skepticism.

In this paper, I defend my book Conversation and Responsibility in response to three critics: Julia Driver, David Shoemaker, and Manuel Vargas. Driver raises questions about my account of private blame. Shoemaker finds problems with my account of quality of will. And Vargas questions the conversational nature of my account.

According to cognitive non-naturalism, normative judgments are standard beliefs that purport to be about non-natural properties. An influential plurality of normative theorists, including non-naturalist realists, error theorists and skeptics, share this view. But it is mistaken. For it predicts an epistemic profile for normative judgments that they do not have. In particular, they are not disposed to extinguish in light of accepted evidence that the any non-natural properties are absent, and they are not disposed to come into existence in light (...) of accepted evidence for any non-natural property. So normative judgments might be beliefs, and there might be non-natural properties, but normative judgments are not beliefs about non-natural properties. (shrink)

It is a supposed conceptual truth about moral norms that we have reason to comply with them even if we desire not to. This combination of rational authority and inescapability is thought to be incompatible with instrumentalism about practical reason. This essay argues that there are ways in which norms with inescapable rational authority can exist alongside instrumentalism about practical reason. One way involves positing an afterlife and a powerful supernatural agency—so, a kind of god—who has total control over our (...) welfare in that afterlife. I go on to argue that the attitudes of this god would also provide something answering to our impressions of moral desert. (shrink)

Mi problema es como reconciliar una fundamentación racional de instituciones democráticas, que en nuestras sociedades tienden a ser de índole liberal, con la creciente complejidad demográfica de las sociedades contemporáneas. Mi punto de vista es que esta fundamentación debería ser deliberativa y discursiva, es decir, debería garantizar una participación reflexiva de todos los ciudadanos en el diseño y sostenimiento de sus instituciones públicas. Ahora bien, ¿cómo alcanzar este ideal en sociedades cuyas complejidades dificultan la coordinación de intereses y la participación (...) discursiva, lo que vuelve a sus ciudadanos dispuestos a sacrificar sus libertades para rendirlas a un poder político despótico y totalitario? Palabras claves: instituciones democráticas y sociedades complejas; democracia deliberativa. The constitution of democratic citizenship and the problem of the foundation of knowledge in complex societiesMy problem is how to reconcile a rational foundation of democratic institutions, which in our societies tend to be of a liberal nature, with the increasing demographic complexity of contemporary societies. My contention is that this rational and liberal foundation ought to be deliberative and discursive, that is to say, it must guarantee a reflective participation of all citizens in the design and maintenance of their public institutions. However, how could this ideal be achieved within societies with such complexities that make coordination of interests and discursive participation difficult, thus making their citizens willing to sacrifice their liberties, in order to surrender them to a despotic or totalitarian political power? Keywords: Democratic institutions and complex societies; Deliberative democracy. (shrink)

Is there a Moore ’s paradox in desire? I give a normative explanation of the epistemic irrationality, and hence absurdity, of Moorean belief that builds on Green and Williams’ normative account of absurdity. This explains why Moorean beliefs are normally irrational and thus absurd, while some Moorean beliefs are absurd without being irrational. Then I defend constructing a Moorean desire as the syntactic counterpart of a Moorean belief and distinguish it from a ‘Frankfurt’ conjunction of desires. Next I discuss putative (...) examples of rational and irrational desires, suggesting that there are norms of rational desire. Then I examine David Wall’s groundbreaking argument that Moorean desires are always unreasonable. Next I show against this that there are rational as well as irrational Moorean desires. Those that are irrational are also absurd, although there seem to be absurd desires that are not irrational. I conclude that certain norms of rational desire should be rejected. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been considerable debate in the literature concerning the existence of moral character. One lesson we should take away from these debates is that the concept of character, and the role it plays in guiding our actions, is far more complex than most of us initially took it to be. Just as Gilbert Harman, for example, makes a serious mistake in insisting, plainly and simply, that ther is no such thing as character, defenders of character also (...) make a mistake to the extent that they imply there is no problem raised by the psychological literature for either the concept of character or the nature of character-based ethics. My hope for this paper is to avoid both of these mistakes by first, exploring exactly what is the concept of character that is so firmly rooted in our philosophical and everyday thinking; and second, exploring the implications of the psychological literature for this appropriately understood concept of character. In so doing, I will come to a resolution that vindicates the existence of character, while at the same time calls attention to the real and serious problem suggested by the psychological evidence. This, we will see, is a problem of moral motivation. (shrink)

We present a strategy to dissolve semantic paradoxes which proceeds from an explanation of why paradoxical sentences or their definitions are semantically defective. This explanation is compatible with the acceptability of impredicative definitions, self-referential sentences and semantically closed languages and leaves the status of the so-called truth-teller sentence unaffected. It is based on platitudes which encode innocuous constraints on successful definition and successful expression of propositional content. We show that the construction of liar paradoxes and of certain versions of Curry’s (...) paradox rests on presuppositions that violate these innocuous constraints. Other versions of Curry’s paradox are shown not to be paradoxical at all once their presuppositions are made explicit. Part of what we say rehearses a proposal originally made by Laurence Goldstein in 1985. Like Goldstein we dispose of certain paradoxes by rejecting some of the premises from which they must be taken to proceed. However, we disagree with his more recent view that the premises to be rejected are neither true nor false. (shrink)

This essay tackles head on the argument that sees an inherent paradox in the autonomy of the will as the ground for the authority of the fundamental practical norms. It points out that only on reductive understandings of the autonomy of the will can this idea be qualified as paradoxical, thereby yielding outcomes that either contradict their premises or present autonomy under a false guise. With that done, it will proceed to offer a conception of the autonomy of the will (...) which is not vulnerable to the paradox, and which may therefore be equipped to rest the fundamental practical norms on solid ground. Throughout this discussion, I will rely on constitutivism about practical reasons to specifically defend the twofold conclusion that (a) the paradox of autonomy can be avoided and that, relatedly, (b) if autonomy is properly conceptualised, it is fully equipped and well positioned to ground the authority of the fundamental practical norms. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that Curry’s recent defence of the interpretivist approach to beliefs is unsuccessful. Curry tries to argue that his version of interpretivism, which is based on the model-theoretic approach to folk-psychological attributions, is well-suited to resisting the epistemological argument that is directed at interpretivism. In this paper, I argue that even if Curry’s defence is successful in this case, his theory does not have enough resources to solve the metaphysical problems of interpretivism. In (...) particular, I argue that the model-theoretic version of interpretivism that Curry espouses does not explain the claim that beliefs are constituted by the process of attribution, which is central to the interpretivist project. In the final parts of the paper, I discuss the issue of the relation between interpretivism and other forms of the broadly superficial/deflationary approach to beliefs, especially dispositionalism. I contend that if one wants to adopt a superficial/deflationary approach, it is best not to adopt interpretivism as it is an unnecessarily complex and problematic version of this broad view. (shrink)

The philosophical path that I propose finds its origin in a properly metaethical questioning. It was first of all a question about the meaning of our moral statements by considering a defense of some kind of moral realism according to which our moral judgments would refer to a “moral reality” which would make it possible to determine their truth or their falsity. However, the realistic interpretation of moral judgments poses many difficulties from a psychological, an ontological and an epistemological point (...) of view. The central idea of this thesis was to explore these difficulties in order to consider the possibility of defending a form of moral realism. Nevertheless, this exploration – which constitutes the first part of this work – led me to a dead end in which all metaethical positions appeared to me as interesting as they were unsatisfactory. Faced with this situation, a new problem emerged to me as central: the disagreement between epistemic peers in philosophy. Since all metaethical positions are, even today, defended by experts in the field, it seemed to me essential to treat this difficulty with the intuition that a skeptical solution would be necessary. But this first turnaround was also unsatisfying, and rather than a skeptical conclusion it led me to shift my questioning to philosophy itself: what is philosophy? what can we expect from it? Perhaps my conception of philosophy – a search for truth based on argumentation – was at the origin of these successive dissatisfactions. I thus explore, in the last chapter, another way of approaching philosophy. Maybe it's not about looking for solutions to problems, like in science, maybe it’s about dealing with individual embarrassments which, at best, could just disappear. Thus “success” in philosophy would only be its abandonment – as an individual practice, and not as a discipline – through the disappearance of our philosophical embarrassments. In the end, I must admit that I do not have the means to defend such a conception of philosophy, but I can only note that all this work on moral realism, disagreement and philosophy was, for me, a way to make my philosophical embarrassment disappear. This is how, far from its starting point, the philosophical path that was mine ended. (shrink)

Uno de los temas de más profundo debate en la filosofía del derecho de los últimos años ha sido el de las maneras en que dar cuenta del fenómeno del desacuerdo entre operadores jurídicos y entre juristas a la hora de desentrañar el contenido del derecho y, por ende, de dar con la respuesta jurídica para controversias particulares. A partir del trabajo de Ronald Dworkin, el tema se ha convertido en un instrumento de intenso análisis crítico del positivismo jurídico y (...) consecuentemente ha generado diversos enfoques que intentan dar cuenta del fenómeno de manera armónica con las tesis positivistas centrales. Uno de estos enfoques, en particular, intenta afrontar este desafío ligando al positivismo con un análisis expresivista del discurso jurídico de primer orden; análisis análogo al que importantes autores abocados a la metaética contemporánea han propuesto para el discurso moral. En el presente trabajo presento los lineamientos centrales de este enfoque iusfilosófico, indagando tanto en algunas de sus virtudes como en algunas de sus mayores dificultades. (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)

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)

Psychopaths pose a challenge to those who make claims about the strength of moral assessments. These individuals are entirely unmoved by the moral rules that they articulate and purportedly espouse. Psychopaths appear rationally intact but are emotionally broken. In some cases, they commit horrendous crimes yet show no guilt, no remorse. Sentimentalists claim that the empirical evidence about psychopaths’ affective deficits supports that moral judgment is rooted in emotion and that psychopaths do not make genuine moral judgments—they can’t. Here, I (...) challenge an explanation of psychopathy that indicts psychopaths’ emotional impairments alone. I conclude that there are rational requirements for moral motivation and that psychological and neuroscientific research support that psychopaths do not make the grade. (shrink)

This paper analyzes three contrasting strategies for modeling intentional agency in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and action, and draws parallels between them and similar strategies of scientific model-construction. Gricean modeling involves identifying primitive building blocks of intentional agency, and building up from such building blocks to prototypically agential behaviors. Analogical modeling is based on picking out an exemplary type of intentional agency, which is used as a model for other agential types. Theoretical modeling involves reasoning about intentional agency in (...) terms of some domain-general framework of lawlike regularities, which involves no detailed reference to particular building blocks or exemplars of intentional agency. Given the contrasting procedural approaches that they employ and the different types of knowledge that they embody, the three strategies are argued to provide mutually complementary perspectives on intentional agency. (shrink)

In this paper I propose minimal criteria for a successful theory of the mechanisms of motivation, and argue that extant philosophical accounts fail to meet them. Further, I argue that a predictive processing framework gives us the theoretical power to meet these criteria, and thus ought to be preferred over existing theories. The argument proceeds as follows—motivational mental states are generally understood as mental states with the power to initiate, guide, and control action, though few existing theories of motivation explicitly (...) detail how they are meant to explain these functions. I survey two contemporary theories of motivational mental states, due to Wayne Wu and Bence Nanay, and argue that they fail to satisfactorily explain one or more of these functions. Nevertheless, I argue that together, they are capable of giving a strong account of the control function, which competing theories ought to preserve. I then go on to argue that what I call the ‘predictive theory’ of motivational mental states, which makes use of the notion of active inference, is able to explain all three of the key functions and preserves the central insights of Wu and Nanay on control. It thus represents a significant step forward in the contemporary debate. (shrink)

Any complete theory of “what we owe to each other” must be able to adequately accommodate directed or bipolar obligations, that is, those obligations that are owed to a particular individual and in virtue of which another individual stands to be wronged. Bipolar obligations receive their moral importance from their intimate connection to a particular form of recognition respect that we owe to each other: respect of another as a source of valid claims to whom in particular we owe certain (...) treatment and, at the very least, an apology if we fail to accord that treatment. While some of the most prominent accounts of interpersonal morality fail to adequately accommodate bipolar obligations, I here investigate a recent proposal that explicitly seeks to improve on these accounts—Stephen Darwall’s second-personal theory of morality. Ultimately, I object to Darwall’s theory on the grounds that his second-personal theory normatively ties bipolar obligations too closely to non-directed moral obligations or those that we are under, period. The problem for Darwall’s account is that any obligations that at first appear to be bipolar and owed to someone in particular turn out to be instances of non-directed moral obligations period that have their normative source in the representative authority of the moral community. Adequately accommodating bipolar obligations requires taking seriously a novel second-personal approach, according to which we locate the normative sources of our interpersonal obligations in the claims and demands particular persons and deliberate from what I call the pairwise or bipolar standpoint. (shrink)

Self-consciousness in non-human animals is a complex phenomenon which raises both conceptual and methodological problems. First, what do we mean by the concept of ‘self-consciousness’? Secondly, what is the best experimental approach to self-consciousness? This paper gives a short overview of the concept of self-consciousness in section 1. We can understand the concept of self-consciousness as capturing the ability of subjects to consciously think about themselves as themselves. If this is accurate, then it is prudent to look at a broad (...) bundle of abilities which are related to this ability. The paper then focuses on advantages and problems of the multipronged approach, a kind of empirical approach which uses several different test criteria to determine whether a subject is self-conscious or not. Section 2 briefly contrasts this kind of approach with other possibilities. The main disparity is to singlepronged approaches, which have been discussed and dismissed in greater detail elsewhere. Section 3 discusses the advantages of a multipronged approach, whereas section 4 is dedicated to the discussion of some of its problems. (shrink)

Non-naturalists claim that the nature of normativity precludes the possibility of normative naturalism. In particular, they think that normative reduction amounts to normative elimination. This is because it always leaves out the normative. In this paper, I examine the force that the normativity objection has against Humean reductionism. I argue that the normativity objection has no argumentative force against reductionism. When it is presented as a bare intuition, it begs the question against reduction. A more interesting reading of the argument (...) claims that the normative cannot be explained in terms of the natural because the natural is arbitrary. Yet, this version of the argument fails as well because the natural is not arbitrary in the relevant sense. The natural is contingent, so what has value is contingent. That is not an elimination of the normative though, because contingent reasons are still reasons. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that theism is superior to metaphysical naturalism in explaining moral phenomena, especially with regard to the practical aspect of morality. In this article, I will firstly clarify what this practical aspect amounts to and present two challenges against metaphysical naturalism, by John Mackie and Richard Joyce. Then, I will critically engage with two main attempts to argue for the superiority of theism over metaphysical naturalism: One of them is the appeal to the existence of afterlife, and (...) the other is Robert Merrihew Adams’ divine command metaethics. I will argue that both are problematic for different reasons. Relying on the main aspects of Adams’ metaethical framework, I will advance my proposal to maintain the practical aspect of morality which lends theism superiority over metaphysical naturalism, and then follow with certain implications of the proposal for theistic metaethics. (shrink)

The present research reveals the nature of moral philosophy in the human universe based on retrospective analysis and synthesis of the positions of modern sciences related to the problem of scientific searching practices and offers the author’s concept. In the process of achieving the pursued goal, the raised problem is actualized through the prism of a view on the activities of the relevant scientific communities, in particular, AME, APNME, ESMP — associations of moral education and moral philosophy, which study various (...) aspects of moral development and highlight the results in the journals founded by them: Journal of Moral Education, Journal of Moral Philosophy, Philosophical News, Moral Capital. Based on the retrospective study of moral philosophy in the human universe, it is proven that for many centuries, philosophers-moralists have been trying to clarify the specifics of the world of human freedom, their confession of moral norms, and rules accepted in society. Based on the analysis of modern paradigms of moral philosophy and moral psychology, which are related to each other, it is established that the universe contributes to the identification of moral values and their acceptance in the internal plan of human actions. The scientific research results made it possible to outline the author’s concept of the studied phenomenon and determine its main components. It is established that the basis of the universe in its significance for man provides an interaction process that is directly reflected in the formation of moral consciousness, the basis of which is moral philosophy with a system of moral values. In turn, this affects the formation of man’s moral self-consciousness, which contains such constructs as moral intuition, moral judgments, and moral behavior. In conclusion, it is postulated that man as a part of the single whole world acts as a builder of their own moral being, creating their moral “I” and producing their universe. (shrink)

Constitutivism is the view that we can derive a substantive account of normative reasons for action—perhaps a Kantian account, perhaps a hedonistic account, perhaps a desire-fulfillment account, this is up for grabs—from abstract premises about the nature of action and agency. Constitutivists are thus bound together by their conviction that such a derivation is possible, not by their agreement about which substantive reasons can be derived, and not by agreement about the features of action and agency that permit the derivation. (...) In the final section of the penultimate chapter of Reasons, a chapter devoted to discussing the merits of constitutivism, Eric Wiland has this to say: Constitutivism is ambitious. It attempts to extract an account of reasons for action from reflection on the bare ideas of action and agency. So we shouldn’t be surprised if doubts remain. Those who claim to extract reasons out of agency might remind us of those who claim to pull rabbits out of hats. you suspect that there must be a trick. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of the nature of desire, informed by psychology and neuroscience, which entails that hunger is not a desire. The account is contrasted with Schroeder’s well-known empirically-informed theory of desire. It is argued that one significant virtue of the present account, in comparison with Schroeder’s theory, is that it draws a sharp distinction between desires and basic drives, such as the drive for food. One reason to draw this distinction is that experiments on incentive learning show (...) that desires and basic drives influence action in different ways. (shrink)

Response-dependent theories of morality are currently popular. I suspect that this is because they combine ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ elements in an appealing way. Such theories seem to do justice to the idea that morality is out there to be known, at the same time as connecting moral judgements with our affective and motivational states. However, I shall argue that all response-dependent theories of morality are irretrievably flawed.

The moral status of business bluffing is a controversial issue. On the one hand, bluffing would seem to be relevantly similar to lying and deception. Because of this, business bluffing can be taken to be an activity that is at least prima facie morally condemnable. On the other hand, it has often been claimed that in business bluffing is part of the game and that therefore there is nothing morally questionable in business bluffing. In a recent issue of this journal, (...) Fritz Allhoff puts forward a novel defence of business bluffing. In this article, I will examine Allhoff’s arguments for the moral acceptability of business bluffing and argue that they are implausible. (shrink)