The Relation of Reasons, Choice, and Character Traits. Recent years have seen a plethora of interdisciplinary work (in part because a number of
|
|
- Scott Oliver
- 6 years ago
- Views:
Transcription
1 The Relation of Reasons, Choice, and Character Traits Kevin Timpe Towards a Christian Positive Psychology conference Draft: Not for quotation or circulation without permission. Introduction Recent years have seen a plethora of interdisciplinary work (in part because a number of significant Templeton grants!). A number of psychologists (and some neuroscientists) are weighing in on the traditional philosophical topic of free will. There s also been a large body of work relating reflection on the virtues and moral character to relevant empirical studies; one, but certainly not the only, example here is the situationist s critique of traditional, Aristotelian approaches to moral character traits. My interest today is with an issue that spans both of these areas of development; and though I m going to approach this issue primarily as a philosopher, it s an area that input from positive psychologists would be not only helpful, but welcome. I want to explore the relationship between an agent s moral character and her reasons for acting, laying out a framework for how character traits constrain how a person freely chooses. I thus see my paper today as providing part of the needed conceptual and empirical tools 1 that the recent development of positive psychology seeks. 1 Introduction to a Manual of the Sanities, in Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, ed. Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 3. page 1
2 I. Reasons and the (Perceived) Good I begin with the connection between an agent s exercise of free will and the good or, to be more accurate, what the agent perceives as good. The degree of overlap between what the agent perceives as good and what is actually good will depend, to a large degree, on the moral character of the agent in question. The view that we only freely or intentionally do what we perceive as good in some way is sometimes referred to as the Guise of the Good Thesis. 2 The vast majority of the medievals embraced the Guise of the Good thesis and rejected the normative neutrality that characterizes much of contemporary philosophical writing on the issue. For many medieval philosophers, it was clear that an agent s free will could only be exercised toward what the agent sees as good or desirable in some way. By good here, I do not mean specifically moral goodness; I mean good in the generic sense of the term, recognizing and accepting that goodness comes in many forms: intrinsic, instrumental, moral, pleasurable, etc. Using the language of Judith Jarvis Thomson who said that when people say about a thing That s good, what they mean is always that the thing is good in some way 3 the standard medieval claim should be understood as involving pluralism about the ways a thing can be good. While this loaded understanding of the will dominated medieval discussions, it fell out of favor during the modern period and was replaced with a neutral account of the will, a neutrality which has dominated even most contemporary philosophical work on free will. But this professed neutrality is being questioned on a number of fronts. 2 So far as I am aware, this specific name comes from J. David Velleman, "The Guise of the Good," Nous 26, no. 1 (1992)., but a medieval predecessor can be found in the common dictum: quidquid appetitur, appetitur sub specie boni. For a collection of worthwhile papers addressing the Guise of the Good Thesis, see Sergio Tenenbaum, ed. Desire, Practical Reason, and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press,2010). 3 Judith Jarvis Thomson, Goodness and Advice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 17. page 2
3 Richard Swinburne, for instance, has argued that attributing a reason for doing a particular action while denying the agent sees any good in it is contradictory, 4 and I develop an account of this connection in a current book project. While I think this connection between the perceived good and one s reasons for actions is true, I shall not argue for it here. 5 Since at least Aristotle, it has been noted that action is teleological in nature and that the proper explanation for a morally responsible action will be a teleological explanation. The question Why did A freely X? is a request for a reason, but as Richard Taylor noted it is almost never a request for a recital of causes. It is rather a request for a statement of purpose or aim. 6 G. F. Schueler unpacks the intentionality of actions as follows: It seems clear enough that intentional actions are inherently purposive; indeed, intentional human actions are paradigm examples of purposive behavior. There is always some point, aim, or goal to any intentional action. It is equally clear that our everyday explanations of actions in terms of the agent s reasons ( reasons explanations for short) must always refer to that fact, that is to the purpose of the action, if only implicitly, on pain of not explaining the action at all. If I tell you that my reason for sprinting toward the bus stop is that the last bus leaves in five minutes, you will take this as an explanation of my action only if you assume that my purpose is to catch the last bus (or anyway that there is something involving my being there at the same time the bus is spray painting it with graffiti perhaps). Without some such addition, my reference to the time of the last bus simply won t connect in the right sort of way to what I am doing, i.e. sprinting toward the bust stop, and my action won t have been explained. 7 4 Richard Swinburne, The Christian God (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1994), 66f. 5 I should confess that it s unclear to me the degree to which positive psychology aims to be normatively neutral. While the focus on good character traits and virtues that is at the heart of the movement might suggest that it doesn t, there also seems to be a desire to downplay prescriptions of the good life ( Introduction to a Manual of the Sanities, 10) in favor of a more neutral description. Let me indicate my suspicion that this cannot be done, given the central roles of the good life and flourishing in the movement. 6 Richard Taylor, Action and Purpose (New York: Humanities Press, 1973), 141. See also Goetz, Freedom, Teleology, and Evil Schueler, Reasons and Purposes: Human Rationality and the Teleological Explanation of Action, 1. page 3
4 Freely performed actions are thus done with the aim of a goal, and the achieving of that goal serves as a purpose or reason for why the agent did that action. 8 What is key to understanding an agent s choice is the fit between the agent s reasons-giving structure and the goal that she is trying to accomplish in making that choice. If Deanna freely chooses to go to the kitchen to have a cup of coffee, her choice and subsequent behavior were directed at the goal of drinking coffee. The action is performed by the agent for a reason, and the action cannot be fully explained without mention of both (a) the agent and (b) the goal to which she directed the choice and which served as the reason for her choosing to perform that particular action. As R. Jay Wallace points out: It is important to our conception of persons as rational agents that *their+ motivations and actions are guided by and responsive to their deliberative reflection about what they have reason to do. Unless this guidance condition (as we might call it) can be satisfied, we will not be able to make sense of the idea that persons are genuine agents, capable of determining what they shall do through the process of deliberation. 9 Marie Alvarez makes a related connection, describing how rational agency means we have the capacity to act for reasons: we have the capacity to recognize certain things as reasons to act, and to act motivated and guided by those reasons. Because of this, moreover, many human actions can be explained by reference to the agent s reasons for acting. 10 So, when choosing which of various alternatives for action to do, agents have in mind an end (or ends) that they want to achieve, and the purpose of the action, or the reason for which the action is done, is the achievement of that end. If, as I suggested above, an agent s reasons are a function of what 8 In what follows, I ll primarily use the language of choice since my general concern is with free will, and I take choices to be the primary locus of such freedom. Actions too can be free, if freely chosen. 9 R. Jay Wallace, Normativity and the Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), Maria Alvarez, Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 7. page 4
5 she perceives as good, then this purpose or reason that a choice is done for will be connected with agent s judgment that the end to be achieved by choice is good. In choosing, then, the agent chooses to act for the sake of some end which she perceives to be good in some way, and in so choosing aligns herself with the promotion of that good end. And here the Guise of the Good thesis connects with talk of reasons, for the belief that the end promoted by the choice is good, again in some way or other, gives the agent a reason for making that choice. 11 To have a purpose or reason to perform an action is, I take it, to have a motivation to work toward actualizing a particular state of affairs. To put the point a slightly different way, in being motivated to act in a certain way, the agent s motivation involves two elements: the state of affairs that she is working toward bringing about (which I will refer to as the motivation s content ), and the judgment that this content is good. 12 Choosing, in order to be explicable, necessarily involves this second element as well as the first, for the content apart from the judgment that the content is good does nothing to explain the agent s reason for choosing in this way. As Scott Sehon has claimed in his teleological account of action, explanations of action imply that the state of affairs toward which the agent directed her behavior had some apparent value [or, in my preferred terminology, goodness] 11 In fact, Kieran Setiya argues that the Guise of the Good thesis is fundamentally about reasons and only derivatively about desires: First: When the object of desire, an action or outcome, is good, there is always some respect in which it is good, which is a reason to perform or to pursue it. Second: If desires represent their objects as good, they represent them as being good in some respect say, in being F and the fact that the object is F is a reason why the agent wants to perform it (Setiya, "Sympathy for the Devil," 85.). According to Setiya, the exact connection between reasons for action and the perceived good is as follows: When someone wants to φ, or wants it to be the case that p, they want it for a reason, and reasons for desire must be respects in which the object of desire is seen as good (ibid., 86.). Although I am inclined to accept Setiya s argument as persuasive, all that I need for the present chapter is the weaker claim that reasons and perceived goodness go together. 12 For a similar account, see Christine Korsgaard, The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 215f. page 5
6 from the perspective of the agent. 13 The explanation of why, for example, Tyler hid the television remote he broke under the couch involves both the content and the value the agent sees in achieving the content: the content includes his parents not finding out that the remote is broken, which is a state of affairs that he finds to be good as a way of avoiding getting in trouble. The previous paragraphs have made repeated reference to the agent s reasons. In general, a reason is a consideration that counts in favor of some course of action. It thus provides some degree of motivation for that action, though the motivation is certainly defeasible by other reasons. Also, agents need not actually be motivated, in the sense of acting on that reason, even if a reason provides a motivation for doing a particular action. Successful moral agency does depend on our capacity to recognize reasons. But, as Manuel Vargas points out, the capacity to detect reasons isn t sufficient for successful agency. Success also depends on the agent acting on that information in the right way, which is something we might call a volitional capacity, or a capacity for self governance. A squirrel that is an excellent acorn-detector but acornphobic will do badly at the business of acorn collection. So will a squirrel that is excellent at detecting acorns but completely apathetic about pursuing them. So, the ability to recognize reasons for action is of limited utility by itself it is absolutely crucial that it be connected to a further ability to act on the detected information in the right way. At least from the philosophical armchair, there is no reason to suppose that excellence in reason detection is necessarily coupled with excellence in being appropriately moved. 14 Below, I ll argue that both excellence in reason detection and excellence in volitional sensitivity to reasons are necessary for the proper use of free will. But it is also worth noting, as Vargas 13 Sehon, Teleological Realism: Mind, Agency, and Explanation, 149. See also Alvarez, Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action, 173. and Schueler, Reasons and Purposes: Human Rationality and the Teleological Explanation of Action, Manuel Vargas, "Responsibility in a World of Causes," Philosophical Exchange (forthcoming): 8f in manuscript. page 6
7 does, that both of these aspects can vary not only among individuals, but also within the same individual across time. What is important, though, is that there can be moral reasons, and that agents can vary in their abilities to recognize such reasons and to respond to them accordingly. The variation operates along several dimensions, including recognitional and volitional sensitivity, but also in terms of how these things operate across contexts. And, of course, these variations hold across particular agents. 15 The ability to change both one s ability to recognize reasons and respond in light of them will be important below when I return to the issue of character formation. But beyond this, there are a number of different kinds of reasons, and it is important for purposes of this chapter to make a number of clarifications about my use of the term. I will be almost exclusively concerned with moral reasons, though there are certainly other kinds of reasons as well (e.g., prudential reasons, legal reasons, etc ). More important, however, are the following two distinctions. The first of these is between motivational reasons and normative reasons. 16 Motivational reasons are the reasons that an agent has for doing a particular action and are capable of explaining her choice if she were to perform that action. As Maria Alvarez correctly notes, What *motivating+ reasons a person has for acting and wanting things depends partly on who that person is and on her circumstances and values, because, in general, things are not good or right tout court but in some respect; and that respect may be more or less 15 Ibid., 11 in manuscript. 16 For more on this distinction, see Timothy O'Connor, "Reasons and Causes," in A Companion to the Philosophy of Action, ed. Timothy O'Connor and Constantine Sandis (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2010). and Smith, Ethics and the a Priori, 1ff and 59ff. Motivational reasons are sometimes also referred to as explanatory reasons; see Alvarez, Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action, 3 and 33ff. page 7
8 relevant to different people depending precisely on what their circumstances and values are. 17 In contrast, normative reasons are those reasons which would morally justify a particular choice by the agent at a particular time, regardless of whether the agent actually considers them or not. 18 Insofar as an action is morally good for the agent in question to do, there is a normative reason for her performing that action. Likewise, insofar as an action would be morally bad for an agent to perform, there is a normative reason for her not performing it. But if the agent is unaware of the moral goodness or badness of an action, or simply does not care about the morality of the action, then her motivational reasons will not track the normative reasons that there are. Which reasons we point to will depend on whether we are merely explaining or morally evaluating the agent s action. The claim that free choices are made for reasons should be taken to involve reasons in the motivational sense of the term. II. Reasons and Free Will Returning then to the connection between reasons and free will, we can now understand a bit more clearly just what is involved in the claim made earlier that an agent never freely chooses to do an action A when she has no reason for A-ing. 19 Peter van Inwagen has argued, convincingly in my view, that the following conditional C is true about human agents: 17 Alvarez, Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action, 22. Even if aligning one s self to God is in fact always good tout court, it s not always recognized and such. I return to this issue in chapters 3 and There may be other sorts of normative reasons which are not explicitly moral in nature, such as pragmatic reasons. However, insofar as my general interest is with free will and its connection with moral responsibility, those need not concern me here. 19 In this paper, I focus almost exclusively on intellectual reasons, though I think many similar points could and should be made about affective reasons. page 8
9 C: If X regards A as an indefensible act, given the totality of relevant information available to him, and if he has no way of getting further relevant information, and if he lacks any positive desire to do A, and if he sees no objection to not doing A (again, given the totality of relevant information available to him), then X is not going to do A. 20 First, it is worth noting that van Inwagen intends C to be not only a statement regarding what X will (or will not) do, but about what X is capable (or incapable) of doing: The general lesson is: if I regard a certain act as indefensible, then it follows not only that I shall not perform that act but that I can't perform it. 21 Finally, while van Inwagen s formulation of the conditional here doesn t explicitly mention free will, the context of his discussion makes it clear that in saying that X is not going to do A, he has in mind those cases where X s doing A is a free act. Putting these elements together, the truth of van Inwagen s conditional C leads to the following claim, which I shall call the reasons-constraint on free choice. Reasons-constraint on free choice: If, at time t, A has neither no reasons for X-ing, then A is incapable, at t, of freely choosing to X. The incapability here should be understood in a strong sense: necessarily, given her lack of reasons for X-ing, A will not freely choose to X. Jonathan Dancy gives an example which purports to show that an agent could desire to perform a particular action and yet have no reason at all to perform it. Dancy s example is as follow: I hesitate to give an example of this, but the sort of one that springs to mind is some shameful act that would immediately bring my career and marriage to an end, but which I still 20 Peter van Inwagen, "When Is the Will Free?," Philosophical Perspectives 3, no. Mind and Action Theory (1989): Ibid., 409. page 9
10 have some desire to do. All agree that I have no reason to do this, and every reason not to do it. 22 The example is somewhat opaque, but it s pretty clear that he has in mind a case of an adulterous sexual encounter with one of his students, which he has every reason not to do. But Dancy s description is misleading, and I think that it is pretty easy to how this objection to the reasons-constraint on free choice misses its mark. In Dancy s example, it is stipulated that the agent has no reason for pursing this course of action. But the fact that he still desires to do it shows that he has some reason for doing so presumably, the pleasure of the sexual satisfaction involved. Now there is one sense in which the agent has no reason for doing the action in question insofar as he presumably has no normative reason for engaging in a sexual relationship with one of his students, and every normative reason not to. But the fact that he nevertheless desires to do so requires that he have some motivational reason for the behavior. Insofar as sexual satisfaction is pleasurable, it is something that he sees as good in some way, which then provides him with a reason for engaging in the affair. The agent thus, contrary to Dancy s description, does in fact have a motivational reason for the action, even if he has no normative reason for it. His example thus fails to be a counterexample to the present account of motivation. Van Inwagen argues from the considerations related to his conditional C, and thus also related to the reasons-constraint on free choice, to the claim that we have precious little free will 23 insofar as there are few occasions in life on which at least after a little reflection and perhaps some investigation into the facts it isn't absolutely clear what to do. 24 Although I m 22 Jonathan Dancy, Practical Rationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), van Inwagen, "When Is the Will Free?," Ibid., 415. page 10
11 inclined to think that we have free will more frequently than does van Inwagen (and here it will be helpful to remember van Inwagen s specific definition of free will), not much hangs on this for present purposes, for van Inwagen goes on to agree that it does not, however, follow that moral accountability is a less common phenomenon than one might have thought. 25 He continues: The inability to prevent or to refrain from causing a state of affairs does not logically preclude being to blame for that state of affairs. An agent cannot be blamed for a state of affairs unless there was a time at which he could so have arranged matters that that state of affairs not obtain. It is an old, and very plausible, philosophical idea that, by our acts, we make ourselves into the sorts of people we eventually become. Or, at least, it is plausible to suppose that our acts are among the factors that determine what we eventually become. If one is now unable to behave in certain ways this may be because of a long history of choices one has made. 26 And here we directly encounter issues of moral character and habituation. There are important issues here that I am unable to address in the present context. Perhaps most pressing of these is giving an account of how a young child who has no choice about her initial character traits, her environment, or upbringing can over time come to make free choices. That is, how do we develop from agents who are not free and responsible into free and responsible agents? It is not my goal here to present such a developmental account. Instead, in what follows I will focus on agents who are already moral agents. III. Moral Character and Agency In this section I want to explore some ways in which our moral character affects our exercise of free will. Character traits are typically understood as dispositions to have thoughts 25 Ibid., Ibid., 419f. page 11
12 and feelings of a certain sort, and thus to act in certain ways 27 in particular kinds of circumstances; in this general respect, philosophers and psychologists alike tend to use the term character trait along these lines. But this similarity often masks differences in how the two groups understand such traits more fully, and these differences are crucial. It is thus advisable to differentiate those traits that are morally relevant from those that are not. The psychologist Lawrence Pervin, for example, defines a character trait as a disposition to behave expressing itself in consistent patterns of functioning across a range of situations. 28 But even among such traits, some do not appear to be morally relevant. For instance, Sam s disposition to eat pizza rather than spaghetti, or her disposition to play with Riley rather than Sandy, will not be morally relevant in most cases. Philosophers, in contrast, typically think that character traits, unlike other personality or psychological traits, have an irreducibly evaluative dimension; that is, they involve a normative judgment. The evaluative dimension is directly related to the idea that the agent is morally responsible for having the trait itself or for the outcome of that trait. Thus, a specifically moral character trait is a character trait for which the agent is morally responsible and for which it is appropriate to hold the agent morally responsible. Exactly how these traits are understood depends upon the larger normative theory that they are wed to; a consequentialist view will differ in numerous ways from a virtue-theoretic approach. In what follows, I will assume a roughly Aristotelian approach that I think is correct, though I will not 27 Peter Goldie, The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 141. More fully, Goldie takes character traits to refer, not to a single disposition, but to a complex network of dispositions which interlock and dynamically interrelate in ways that enable the agent both to recognize and to respond to a situation as embedded in a complex narrative which includes the agent, and his thoughts, feelings, and action (157). 28 Lawrence Pervin, "A Critical Analysis of Current Trait Theory," Psychological Inquiry 5(1994): 108. page 12
13 defend this assumption in the present volume. Despite this assumption, I think that much of what I say could also be accepted by someone who preferred a different normative theory. 29 In what follows, I will assume a roughly Aristotelian approach, though I will not defend this assumption. As a result of this assumption, I tend to view moral character traits primarily as a function of whether the agent has or lacks various moral virtues and vices. A trait for which the agent is deserving of a positive reactive attitude, such as praise or gratitude, is a virtue, and a vice is a trait for which the agent is deserving of a negative reactive attitude, such as resentment or blame. Furthermore, though this understanding of such traits has come under considerable pressure from Situationist approaches in recent years, I shall also assume that moral character traits are relatively stable, fixed and reliable dispositions of action and affect that ought to be rationally informed. 30 It is widely accepted that our moral character influences our choices. John Kronen and Eric Reitan write, for example, that moral character influences, often decisively, what one does or does not do. In other words, one s moral character gives fries to motives for actions, the totality of which excludes some actions, permits others, and necessitates still others. 31 I agree 29 Niall Connolly has objected that there are certain deontological approaches that may be incompatible with my assumption of reasons externalism (see note?? above). If this is fact the case, then perhaps some of what I say will not be as neutral with respect to normative theory as I would like. 30 For the challenge posed by Situationism, see John Doris, Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). and Maria Merritt, John Doris, and Gilbert Harman, "Character," in Moral Psychology Handbook, ed. John Doris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). For virtue based replies to Situationism, see Christian Miller, "Social Psychology and Virtue Ethics," The Journal of Ethics 7(2003). and Robert Merrihew Adams, A Theory of Virtue: Excellence in Being for the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), particularly chapters 8 and 9. I think my assumptions here regarding the nature of the virtues is in line with that of positive psychology. See Introduction to a Manual of the Sanities, 12f. I m willing to grant, as does positive psychology, that the expression of character traits and virtues is situationally dependent, even though I do not focus on this element in the present paper. It should also be pointed out that Aristotle granted as much as well. 31 John Kronen and Eric Reitan, "Species of Hell," in The Problem of Hell: A Philosophical Anthology, ed. Joel Buenting (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), 201. page 13
14 with this, though, as I see it, there are at least two different ways in which an agent s various moral character traits can shape what she freely chooses to do. One s character directs one s choices both by influencing what one sees as reasons for actions and influencing how one weighs her reasons, in the sense of rank-ordering the various reasons she has. To put this point a slightly different way: in making free decisions, one s character traits affect not only the weights, they also affect the scales. Both of these aspects can be seen as follows. First, suppose that I foster the virtue (or character trait) of kindness, such that I become committed to working toward and promoting the good of others. I will then have reason for, say, loaning you my car so that you can make an important meeting you would otherwise miss. Furthermore, when I weigh the good of helping you out by loaning you my car against the good of not putting miles on my car, I will easily and clearly see that the good you will experience by making the meeting exceeds the good of no one driving my car. My character is involved insofar as if I were more selfish, I might find the good of not driving my car as a good reason to ignore your request. Similarly, if I were less empathetic, I may weigh my own perceived good more heavily than I do against the good of helping you. Since we freely choose to do only things that we think we have some reason to do, our character affects our free choices by affecting both the weight or strength we assign to reasons, and by affecting the scale by which we compare a reason or set of reasons for acting one way against a reason or set of reasons for acting another. Given this fact, as well as the fact that our moral character is diachronically pliable, an agent may develop her moral character in such a way that, given how that agent evaluates and compares her reasons, there may be actions which she no longer sees as reasonable in any way page 14
15 at a particular time, even though another agent may see good reason to perform that same action at that time and the agent herself may have had similar reasons at an earlier time. Our characters can be such that we are simply no longer capable of freely choosing certain courses of action without our character first changing from what it is given the role that our character has in shaping our reasons for action. Why this is will be related to the reasons-constraint on free choice introduced earlier. Over time, an agent s performance of certain actions, and the lack of performance of others, will become more and more natural for her to do (or not to do) given her character. As a person s moral character develops even further, she may come to no longer have either intellectual or affective reasons for doing certain actions. In these cases, she will be incapable of freely choosing to perform those actions. In these cases, an agent need no longer consciously consider at the time of action what is good for her to do since her character makes that determination automatically. I have argued that an agent s reasons 32 affect her free choices by influencing both the weight or strength she assign to reasons, and by affecting the scale by which she compares a set of reasons for acting one way against a reason or set of reasons for acting another. Given this fact, as well as the fact that our moral character can change over time, an agent may develop her moral character in such a way that, given how that agent evaluates and compares her reasons, there may be actions which she no longer sees as reasonable in any way at a particular time, even though another agent may see good reason to perform that same action at that time and the agent herself may have had similar reasons at an earlier time. Our characters can be such that we are simply no longer capable of freely choosing certain courses 32 Both intellectual and affective. page 15
16 of action without our character first changing from what it is given the role that our character has in shaping our reasons for action. Why this is will be related to the reasons-constraint on free choice introduced earlier. Over time, an agent s performance of certain actions, and the lack of performance of others, will become more and more natural for her to do (or not to do) given her character. As a person s moral character develops even further, she may come to no longer have either intellectual or affective reasons for doing certain actions. In these cases, she will be incapable of freely choosing to perform those actions. In these cases, an agent need no longer consciously consider at the time of action what is good for her to do since her character makes that determination automatically. Furthermore, if we understand the agent s moral character along Aristotelian lines, as I am here assuming, then such instances will be examples of what Bill Pollard has referred to as habit explanations : cases of explain*ing+ by referring to a pattern of a particular kind of behavior which is regularly performed in characteristic circumstances, and has become automatic for that agent due to this repetition. 33 Now, Pollard s class of habit explanations is broader than the use I m putting it to here in reference to moral character; for Pollard thinks that actions like biting one s nails or missing a turn while driving along a road because one normally goes straight are examples of habit explanations. And Pollard has no truck with what he takes to be the over-intellectualized nature of much philosophy of action. But keep in mind that the reasons-constraint on action condition, as well as the larger account of moral character that I m situating it within, takes account not only of intellectual reasons, but affective reasons as well. 33 Bill Pollard, "Explaining Actions with Habits," American Philosophical Quarterly 43, no. 1 (2006): 57. page 16
17 Pollard also has a stronger account of what it means to be a habit than I m appealing to in the present discussion. For him, the test of whether Φ-ing has become a habit is not only that Φ-ing has become part of her history, but also for Φ-ing (in these circumstances) to be automatic. 34 There are numerous ways for an action to be automatic for an individual, only one of which is that it s a natural result of the agent s moral character such that not performing that action (in the right circumstance) isn t compatible with said character. It is only this latter group that I m interested in here. Actions that are habitual in this way seem to be teleological, even if the habit itself need not be. 35 But if, as Aristotle claims, an action must be done for the right reason (as well as at the right time and to the right degree, etc ) in order to be virtuous, then the forming of a virtuous moral character will require us to consider the goal not only of our individual actions, but also the larger pattern of behavior that those actions are a part of. The exact degree to which we can expect that a person s moral character will become developed in such a way will depend on a variety of factors related to the actual psychology of individuals, the time involved in fortifying habits, the degree to which their motivational reasons line up with normative reasons, how attuned their passions are to the demands of virtue, etc. But all of these seem to me to be issues where philosophical reflection should be influenced by empirical work from other disciplines. That is one reason why I m very excited by the kind of dialogues that this conference is promoting. And I hope that positive psychologists 34 Ibid., It should be noted that Pollard does not think all habits are to be explained teleologically. Given his wide use of habit, that is certainly right. But that does not diminish the teleological nature of free action under consideration here. page 17
18 continue to allow philosophers, theologians, and others to help work toward the domain of moral excellence that so many of us think is important Introduction to a Manual of the Sanities, 8. page 18
Virtuous act, virtuous dispositions
virtuous act, virtuous dispositions 69 Virtuous act, virtuous dispositions Thomas Hurka Everyday moral thought uses the concepts of virtue and vice at two different levels. At what I will call a global
More informationReasons With Rationalism After All MICHAEL SMITH
book symposium 521 Bratman, M.E. Forthcoming a. Intention, belief, practical, theoretical. In Spheres of Reason: New Essays on the Philosophy of Normativity, ed. Simon Robertson. Oxford: Oxford University
More informationJudith Jarvis Thomson s Normativity
Judith Jarvis Thomson s Normativity Gilbert Harman June 28, 2010 Normativity is a careful, rigorous account of the meanings of basic normative terms like good, virtue, correct, ought, should, and must.
More informationVirtue Ethics without Character Traits
Virtue Ethics without Character Traits Gilbert Harman Princeton University August 18, 1999 Presumed parts of normative moral philosophy Normative moral philosophy is often thought to be concerned with
More informationWhy there is no such thing as a motivating reason
Why there is no such thing as a motivating reason Benjamin Kiesewetter, ENN Meeting in Oslo, 03.11.2016 (ERS) Explanatory reason statement: R is the reason why p. (NRS) Normative reason statement: R is
More informationPRACTICAL REASONING. Bart Streumer
PRACTICAL REASONING Bart Streumer b.streumer@rug.nl In Timothy O Connor and Constantine Sandis (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Action Published version available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444323528.ch31
More informationLet us begin by first locating our fields in relation to other fields that study ethics. Consider the following taxonomy: Kinds of ethical inquiries
ON NORMATIVE ETHICAL THEORIES: SOME BASICS From the dawn of philosophy, the question concerning the summum bonum, or, what is the same thing, concerning the foundation of morality, has been accounted the
More informationCRUCIAL TOPICS IN THE DEBATE ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF EXTERNAL REASONS
CRUCIAL TOPICS IN THE DEBATE ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF EXTERNAL REASONS By MARANATHA JOY HAYES A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
More informationUtilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp Reprinted in Moral Luck (CUP, 1981).
Draft of 3-21- 13 PHIL 202: Core Ethics; Winter 2013 Core Sequence in the History of Ethics, 2011-2013 IV: 19 th and 20 th Century Moral Philosophy David O. Brink Handout #14: Williams, Internalism, and
More informationPractical reasoning and enkrasia. Abstract
Practical reasoning and enkrasia Miranda del Corral UNED CONICET Abstract Enkrasia is an ideal of rational agency that states there is an internal and necessary link between making a normative judgement,
More informationResponsibility and Normative Moral Theories
Jada Twedt Strabbing Penultimate Version forthcoming in The Philosophical Quarterly Published online: https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqx054 Responsibility and Normative Moral Theories Stephen Darwall and R.
More informationMoral Argumentation from a Rhetorical Point of View
Chapter 98 Moral Argumentation from a Rhetorical Point of View Lars Leeten Universität Hildesheim Practical thinking is a tricky business. Its aim will never be fulfilled unless influence on practical
More informationAre There Reasons to Be Rational?
Are There Reasons to Be Rational? Olav Gjelsvik, University of Oslo The thesis. Among people writing about rationality, few people are more rational than Wlodek Rabinowicz. But are there reasons for being
More informationScanlon on Double Effect
Scanlon on Double Effect RALPH WEDGWOOD Merton College, University of Oxford In this new book Moral Dimensions, T. M. Scanlon (2008) explores the ethical significance of the intentions and motives with
More informationWhat Lurks Beneath the Integrity Objection. Bernard Williams s alienation and integrity arguments against consequentialism have
What Lurks Beneath the Integrity Objection Bernard Williams s alienation and integrity arguments against consequentialism have served as the point of departure for much of the most interesting work that
More informationIn his paper Internal Reasons, Michael Smith argues that the internalism
Aporia vol. 18 no. 1 2008 Why Prefer a System of Desires? Ja s o n A. Hills In his paper Internal Reasons, Michael Smith argues that the internalism requirement on a theory of reasons involves what a fully
More informationDISCUSSION THE GUISE OF A REASON
NADEEM J.Z. HUSSAIN DISCUSSION THE GUISE OF A REASON The articles collected in David Velleman s The Possibility of Practical Reason are a snapshot or rather a film-strip of part of a philosophical endeavour
More informationBuck-Passers Negative Thesis
Mark Schroeder November 27, 2006 University of Southern California Buck-Passers Negative Thesis [B]eing valuable is not a property that provides us with reasons. Rather, to call something valuable is to
More informationIs the Existence of Heaven Compatible with the Existence of Hell? James Cain
This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Southwest Philosophy Review, July 2002, pp. 153-58. Is the Existence of Heaven Compatible with the Existence of Hell?
More informationMoral requirements are still not rational requirements
ANALYSIS 59.3 JULY 1999 Moral requirements are still not rational requirements Paul Noordhof According to Michael Smith, the Rationalist makes the following conceptual claim. If it is right for agents
More informationKNOWLEDGE ON AFFECTIVE TRUST. Arnon Keren
Abstracta SPECIAL ISSUE VI, pp. 33 46, 2012 KNOWLEDGE ON AFFECTIVE TRUST Arnon Keren Epistemologists of testimony widely agree on the fact that our reliance on other people's testimony is extensive. However,
More informationBOOK REVIEW: Gideon Yaffee, Manifest Activity: Thomas Reid s Theory of Action
University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications - Department of Philosophy Philosophy, Department of 2005 BOOK REVIEW: Gideon Yaffee, Manifest Activity:
More informationINTUITION AND CONSCIOUS REASONING
The Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 63, No. 253 October 2013 ISSN 0031-8094 doi: 10.1111/1467-9213.12071 INTUITION AND CONSCIOUS REASONING BY OLE KOKSVIK This paper argues that, contrary to common opinion,
More informationREASON AND PRACTICAL-REGRET. Nate Wahrenberger, College of William and Mary
1 REASON AND PRACTICAL-REGRET Nate Wahrenberger, College of William and Mary Abstract: Christine Korsgaard argues that a practical reason (that is, a reason that counts in favor of an action) must motivate
More informationAction in Special Contexts
Part III Action in Special Contexts c36.indd 283 c36.indd 284 36 Rationality john broome Rationality as a Property and Rationality as a Source of Requirements The word rationality often refers to a property
More informationTwo Kinds of Ends in Themselves in Kant s Moral Theory
Western University Scholarship@Western 2015 Undergraduate Awards The Undergraduate Awards 2015 Two Kinds of Ends in Themselves in Kant s Moral Theory David Hakim Western University, davidhakim266@gmail.com
More informationChoosing Rationally and Choosing Correctly *
Choosing Rationally and Choosing Correctly * Ralph Wedgwood 1 Two views of practical reason Suppose that you are faced with several different options (that is, several ways in which you might act in a
More informationReply to Kit Fine. Theodore Sider July 19, 2013
Reply to Kit Fine Theodore Sider July 19, 2013 Kit Fine s paper raises important and difficult issues about my approach to the metaphysics of fundamentality. In chapters 7 and 8 I examined certain subtle
More informationThe University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ethics.
Reply to Southwood, Kearns and Star, and Cullity Author(s): by John Broome Source: Ethics, Vol. 119, No. 1 (October 2008), pp. 96-108 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/592584.
More informationNew Aristotelianism, Routledge, 2012), in which he expanded upon
Powers, Essentialism and Agency: A Reply to Alexander Bird Ruth Porter Groff, Saint Louis University AUB Conference, April 28-29, 2016 1. Here s the backstory. A couple of years ago my friend Alexander
More informationFinal Paper. May 13, 2015
24.221 Final Paper May 13, 2015 Determinism states the following: given the state of the universe at time t 0, denoted S 0, and the conjunction of the laws of nature, L, the state of the universe S at
More informationIn Kant s Conception of Humanity, Joshua Glasgow defends a traditional reading of
Glasgow s Conception of Kantian Humanity Richard Dean ABSTRACT: In Kant s Conception of Humanity, Joshua Glasgow defends a traditional reading of the humanity formulation of the Categorical Imperative.
More informationEXTERNALISM AND THE CONTENT OF MORAL MOTIVATION
EXTERNALISM AND THE CONTENT OF MORAL MOTIVATION Caj Strandberg Department of Philosophy, Lund University and Gothenburg University Caj.Strandberg@fil.lu.se ABSTRACT: Michael Smith raises in his fetishist
More informationA Review on What Is This Thing Called Ethics? by Christopher Bennett * ** 1
310 Book Review Book Review ISSN (Print) 1225-4924, ISSN (Online) 2508-3104 Catholic Theology and Thought, Vol. 79, July 2017 http://dx.doi.org/10.21731/ctat.2017.79.310 A Review on What Is This Thing
More information32. Deliberation and Decision
Page 1 of 7 32. Deliberation and Decision PHILIP PETTIT Subject DOI: Philosophy 10.1111/b.9781405187350.2010.00034.x Sections The Decision-Theoretic Picture The Decision-plus-Deliberation Picture A Common
More informationAN ACTUAL-SEQUENCE THEORY OF PROMOTION
BY D. JUSTIN COATES JOURNAL OF ETHICS & SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY DISCUSSION NOTE JANUARY 2014 URL: WWW.JESP.ORG COPYRIGHT D. JUSTIN COATES 2014 An Actual-Sequence Theory of Promotion ACCORDING TO HUMEAN THEORIES,
More informationPhilosophical Ethics. Distinctions and Categories
Philosophical Ethics Distinctions and Categories Ethics Remember we have discussed how ethics fits into philosophy We have also, as a 1 st approximation, defined ethics as philosophical thinking about
More informationPOWERS, NECESSITY, AND DETERMINISM
POWERS, NECESSITY, AND DETERMINISM Thought 3:3 (2014): 225-229 ~Penultimate Draft~ The final publication is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tht3.139/abstract Abstract: Stephen Mumford
More informationA primer of major ethical theories
Chapter 1 A primer of major ethical theories Our topic in this course is privacy. Hence we want to understand (i) what privacy is and also (ii) why we value it and how this value is reflected in our norms
More information4 Liberty, Rationality, and Agency in Hobbes s Leviathan
1 Introduction Thomas Hobbes, at first glance, provides a coherent and easily identifiable concept of liberty. He seems to argue that agents are free to the extent that they are unimpeded in their actions
More informationWhat God Could Have Made
1 What God Could Have Made By Heimir Geirsson and Michael Losonsky I. Introduction Atheists have argued that if there is a God who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, then God would have made
More informationTWO ACCOUNTS OF THE NORMATIVITY OF RATIONALITY
DISCUSSION NOTE BY JONATHAN WAY JOURNAL OF ETHICS & SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY DISCUSSION NOTE DECEMBER 2009 URL: WWW.JESP.ORG COPYRIGHT JONATHAN WAY 2009 Two Accounts of the Normativity of Rationality RATIONALITY
More informationwhat makes reasons sufficient?
Mark Schroeder University of Southern California August 2, 2010 what makes reasons sufficient? This paper addresses the question: what makes reasons sufficient? and offers the answer, being at least as
More informationGS SCORE ETHICS - A - Z. Notes
ETHICS - A - Z Absolutism Act-utilitarianism Agent-centred consideration Agent-neutral considerations : This is the view, with regard to a moral principle or claim, that it holds everywhere and is never
More informationTHE CONCEPT OF OWNERSHIP by Lars Bergström
From: Who Owns Our Genes?, Proceedings of an international conference, October 1999, Tallin, Estonia, The Nordic Committee on Bioethics, 2000. THE CONCEPT OF OWNERSHIP by Lars Bergström I shall be mainly
More informationDo Intentions Change Our Reasons? * Niko Kolodny. Attitudes matter, but in what way? How does having a belief or intention affect what we
Do Intentions Change Our Reasons? * Niko Kolodny Attitudes matter, but in what way? How does having a belief or intention affect what we should believe or intend? One answer is that attitudes themselves
More information(P420-1) Practical Reason in Ancient Greek and Contemporary Philosophy. Spring 2018
(P420-1) Practical Reason in Ancient Greek and Contemporary Philosophy Course Instructor: Spring 2018 NAME Dr Evgenia Mylonaki EMAIL evgenia_mil@hotmail.com; emylonaki@dikemes.edu.gr HOURS AVAILABLE: 12:40
More informationVirtue Ethics. A Basic Introductory Essay, by Dr. Garrett. Latest minor modification November 28, 2005
Virtue Ethics A Basic Introductory Essay, by Dr. Garrett Latest minor modification November 28, 2005 Some students would prefer not to study my introductions to philosophical issues and approaches but
More informationA Coherent and Comprehensible Interpretation of Saul Smilansky s Dualism
A Coherent and Comprehensible Interpretation of Saul Smilansky s Dualism Abstract Saul Smilansky s theory of free will and moral responsibility consists of two parts; dualism and illusionism. Dualism is
More informationSetiya on Intention, Rationality and Reasons
510 book symposium It follows from the Difference Principle, and the fact that dispositions of practical thought are traits of character, that if the virtue theory is false, there must be something in
More informationMoral Twin Earth: The Intuitive Argument. Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons have recently published a series of articles where they
Moral Twin Earth: The Intuitive Argument Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons have recently published a series of articles where they attack the new moral realism as developed by Richard Boyd. 1 The new moral
More informationWhy Is Epistemic Evaluation Prescriptive?
Why Is Epistemic Evaluation Prescriptive? Kate Nolfi UNC Chapel Hill (Forthcoming in Inquiry, Special Issue on the Nature of Belief, edited by Susanna Siegel) Abstract Epistemic evaluation is often appropriately
More informationConditions of Fundamental Metaphysics: A critique of Jorge Gracia's proposal
University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor Critical Reflections Essays of Significance & Critical Reflections 2016 Mar 12th, 1:30 PM - 2:00 PM Conditions of Fundamental Metaphysics: A critique of Jorge
More informationA New Argument Against Compatibilism
Norwegian University of Life Sciences School of Economics and Business A New Argument Against Compatibilism Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum Working Papers No. 2/ 2014 ISSN: 2464-1561 A New Argument
More informationThe Critical Mind is A Questioning Mind
criticalthinking.org http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/the-critical-mind-is-a-questioning-mind/481 The Critical Mind is A Questioning Mind Learning How to Ask Powerful, Probing Questions Introduction
More informationOxford Scholarship Online Abstracts and Keywords
Oxford Scholarship Online Abstracts and Keywords ISBN 9780198802693 Title The Value of Rationality Author(s) Ralph Wedgwood Book abstract Book keywords Rationality is a central concept for epistemology,
More informationPractical Wisdom and Politics
Practical Wisdom and Politics In discussing Book I in subunit 1.6, you learned that the Ethics specifically addresses the close relationship between ethical inquiry and politics. At the outset, Aristotle
More informationAN ANALOGICAL APPROACH TO DIVINE FREEDOM KEVIN TIMPE
10 AN ANALOGICAL APPROACH TO DIVINE FREEDOM KEVIN TIMPE Abstract: Assuming an analogical account of religious predication, this paper utilizes recent work in the metaphysics of free will to build towards
More informationAboutness and Justification
For a symposium on Imogen Dickie s book Fixing Reference to be published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Aboutness and Justification Dilip Ninan dilip.ninan@tufts.edu September 2016 Al believes
More informationNICHOLAS J.J. SMITH. Let s begin with the storage hypothesis, which is introduced as follows: 1
DOUBTS ABOUT UNCERTAINTY WITHOUT ALL THE DOUBT NICHOLAS J.J. SMITH Norby s paper is divided into three main sections in which he introduces the storage hypothesis, gives reasons for rejecting it and then
More informationThe Future of Practical Philosophy: a Reply to Taylor
The Future of Practical Philosophy: a Reply to Taylor Samuel Zinaich, Jr. ABSTRACT: This response to Taylor s paper, The Future of Applied Philosophy (also included in this issue) describes Taylor s understanding
More informationAttraction, Description, and the Desire-Satisfaction Theory of Welfare
Attraction, Description, and the Desire-Satisfaction Theory of Welfare The desire-satisfaction theory of welfare says that what is basically good for a subject what benefits him in the most fundamental,
More information2 FREE CHOICE The heretical thesis of Hobbes is the orthodox position today. So much is this the case that most of the contemporary literature
Introduction The philosophical controversy about free will and determinism is perennial. Like many perennial controversies, this one involves a tangle of distinct but closely related issues. Thus, the
More informationThe Many Faces of Besire Theory
Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Philosophy Theses Department of Philosophy Summer 8-1-2011 The Many Faces of Besire Theory Gary Edwards Follow this and additional works
More informationIntroduction to Cognitivism; Motivational Externalism; Naturalist Cognitivism
Introduction to Cognitivism; Motivational Externalism; Naturalist Cognitivism Felix Pinkert 103 Ethics: Metaethics, University of Oxford, Hilary Term 2015 Cognitivism, Non-cognitivism, and the Humean Argument
More informationDOES STRONG COMPATIBILISM SURVIVE FRANKFURT COUNTER-EXAMPLES?
MICHAEL S. MCKENNA DOES STRONG COMPATIBILISM SURVIVE FRANKFURT COUNTER-EXAMPLES? (Received in revised form 11 October 1996) Desperate for money, Eleanor and her father Roscoe plan to rob a bank. Roscoe
More informationFrom the Categorical Imperative to the Moral Law
From the Categorical Imperative to the Moral Law Marianne Vahl Master Thesis in Philosophy Supervisor Olav Gjelsvik Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Arts and Ideas UNIVERSITY OF OSLO May
More informationCurriculum Vitae GEORGE FREDERICK SCHUELER Web Page:
Curriculum Vitae GEORGE FREDERICK SCHUELER E-Mail: SCHUELER@UDEL.EDU, Web Page: www.unm.edu/~schueler/ 35 Darien Rd., Newark, Delaware 19711 Phone: (302) 294-1589 Philosophy Dept., University of Delaware,
More informationBad Luck Once Again. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LXXVII No. 3, November 2008 Ó 2008 International Phenomenological Society
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LXXVII No. 3, November 2008 Ó 2008 International Phenomenological Society Bad Luck Once Again neil levy Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University
More informationIs Truth the Primary Epistemic Goal? Joseph Barnes
Is Truth the Primary Epistemic Goal? Joseph Barnes I. Motivation: what hangs on this question? II. How Primary? III. Kvanvig's argument that truth isn't the primary epistemic goal IV. David's argument
More informationGuise of the Good. Introduction. Sergio Tenenbaum
1 Guise of the Good Sergio Tenenbaum Introduction The guise of the good (GG) thesis concerns the nature of human motivation and intentional action (see action; intention). It is generally understood as
More informationInstrumental Normativity: In Defense of the Transmission Principle Benjamin Kiesewetter
Instrumental Normativity: In Defense of the Transmission Principle Benjamin Kiesewetter This is the penultimate draft of an article forthcoming in: Ethics (July 2015) Abstract: If you ought to perform
More information1 Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 1-10.
Introduction This book seeks to provide a metaethical analysis of the responsibility ethics of two of its prominent defenders: H. Richard Niebuhr and Emmanuel Levinas. In any ethical writings, some use
More informationHow Many Kinds of Reasons? (Pre-print November 2008) Introduction
How Many Kinds of Reasons? (Pre-print November 2008) Introduction My interest in the question that is the title of my paper is primarily as a means of preparing the ground, and the conceptual tools, for
More informationPerceptual Normativity and Accuracy. Richard Kenneth Atkins Presented at Central APA, 2011
Perceptual Normativity and Accuracy Richard Kenneth Atkins Presented at Central APA, 2011 ABSTRACT: The accuracy intuition that a perception is good if, and only if, it is accurate may be cashed out either
More informationCONVENTIONALISM AND NORMATIVITY
1 CONVENTIONALISM AND NORMATIVITY TORBEN SPAAK We have seen (in Section 3) that Hart objects to Austin s command theory of law, that it cannot account for the normativity of law, and that what is missing
More informationPlantinga, Van Till, and McMullin. 1. What is the conflict Plantinga proposes to address in this essay? ( )
Plantinga, Van Till, and McMullin I. Plantinga s When Faith and Reason Clash (IDC, ch. 6) A. A Variety of Responses (133-118) 1. What is the conflict Plantinga proposes to address in this essay? (113-114)
More informationCitation for the original published paper (version of record):
http://www.diva-portal.org Postprint This is the accepted version of a paper published in Utilitas. This paper has been peerreviewed but does not include the final publisher proof-corrections or journal
More informationPractical Rationality and Ethics. Basic Terms and Positions
Practical Rationality and Ethics Basic Terms and Positions Practical reasons and moral ought Reasons are given in answer to the sorts of questions ethics seeks to answer: What should I do? How should I
More informationReply to Robert Koons
632 Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic Volume 35, Number 4, Fall 1994 Reply to Robert Koons ANIL GUPTA and NUEL BELNAP We are grateful to Professor Robert Koons for his excellent, and generous, review
More informationON PROMOTING THE DEAD CERTAIN: A REPLY TO BEHRENDS, DIPAOLO AND SHARADIN
DISCUSSION NOTE ON PROMOTING THE DEAD CERTAIN: A REPLY TO BEHRENDS, DIPAOLO AND SHARADIN BY STEFAN FISCHER JOURNAL OF ETHICS & SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY DISCUSSION NOTE APRIL 2017 URL: WWW.JESP.ORG COPYRIGHT STEFAN
More informationIn essence, Swinburne's argument is as follows:
9 [nt J Phil Re115:49-56 (1984). Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague. Printed in the Netherlands. NATURAL EVIL AND THE FREE WILL DEFENSE PAUL K. MOSER Loyola University of Chicago Recently Richard Swinburne
More informationFREEDOM OF CHOICE. Freedom of Choice, p. 2
FREEDOM OF CHOICE Human beings are capable of the following behavior that has not been observed in animals. We ask ourselves What should my goal in life be - if anything? Is there anything I should live
More informationBERNARD WILLIAMS S INTERNALISM: A NEW INTERPRETATION. Micah J Baize
BERNARD WILLIAMS S INTERNALISM: A NEW INTERPRETATION By Copyright 2012 Micah J Baize Submitted to the graduate degree program in Philosophy and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial
More informationDeontological Perspectivism: A Reply to Lockie Hamid Vahid, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, Tehran
Deontological Perspectivism: A Reply to Lockie Hamid Vahid, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, Tehran Abstract In his (2015) paper, Robert Lockie seeks to add a contextualized, relativist
More informationHYBRID NON-NATURALISM DOES NOT MEET THE SUPERVENIENCE CHALLENGE. David Faraci
Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy Vol. 12, No. 3 December 2017 https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v12i3.279 2017 Author HYBRID NON-NATURALISM DOES NOT MEET THE SUPERVENIENCE CHALLENGE David Faraci I t
More informationThe form of relativism that says that whether an agent s actions are right or wrong depends on the moral principles accepted in her own society.
Glossary of Terms: Act-consequentialism Actual Duty Actual Value Agency Condition Agent Relativism Amoralist Appraisal Relativism A form of direct consequentialism according to which the rightness and
More informationThe Problem with Complete States: Freedom, Chance and the Luck Argument
The Problem with Complete States: Freedom, Chance and the Luck Argument Richard Johns Department of Philosophy University of British Columbia August 2006 Revised March 2009 The Luck Argument seems to show
More informationMark Schroeder. Slaves of the Passions. Melissa Barry Hume Studies Volume 36, Number 2 (2010), 225-228. Your use of the HUME STUDIES archive indicates your acceptance of HUME STUDIES Terms and Conditions
More informationWhy economics needs ethical theory
Why economics needs ethical theory by John Broome, University of Oxford In Arguments for a Better World: Essays in Honour of Amartya Sen. Volume 1 edited by Kaushik Basu and Ravi Kanbur, Oxford University
More informationTo link to this article:
This article was downloaded by: [University of Chicago Library] On: 24 May 2013, At: 08:10 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office:
More information7AAN2011 Ethics. Basic Information: Module Description: Teaching Arrangement. Assessment Methods and Deadlines. Academic Year 2016/17 Semester 1
7AAN2011 Ethics Academic Year 2016/17 Semester 1 Basic Information: Credits: 20 Module Tutor: Dr Nadine Elzein (nadine.elzein@kcl.ac.uk) Office: 703; tel. ex. 2383 Consultation hours this term: TBA Seminar
More informationWho or what is God?, asks John Hick (Hick 2009). A theist might answer: God is an infinite person, or at least an
John Hick on whether God could be an infinite person Daniel Howard-Snyder Western Washington University Abstract: "Who or what is God?," asks John Hick. A theist might answer: God is an infinite person,
More informationIntroductory Kant Seminar Lecture
Introductory Kant Seminar Lecture Intentionality It is not unusual to begin a discussion of Kant with a brief review of some history of philosophy. What is perhaps less usual is to start with a review
More informationSaying too Little and Saying too Much. Critical notice of Lying, Misleading, and What is Said, by Jennifer Saul
Saying too Little and Saying too Much. Critical notice of Lying, Misleading, and What is Said, by Jennifer Saul Umeå University BIBLID [0873-626X (2013) 35; pp. 81-91] 1 Introduction You are going to Paul
More informationLuck, Rationality, and Explanation: A Reply to Elga s Lucky to Be Rational. Joshua Schechter. Brown University
Luck, Rationality, and Explanation: A Reply to Elga s Lucky to Be Rational Joshua Schechter Brown University I Introduction What is the epistemic significance of discovering that one of your beliefs depends
More informationTHE NATURE OF NORMATIVITY IN KANT S PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC REBECCA V. MILLSOP S
THE NATURE OF NORMATIVITY IN KANT S PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC REBECCA V. MILLSOP S I. INTRODUCTION Immanuel Kant claims that logic is constitutive of thought: without [the laws of logic] we would not think at
More informationREASONS-RESPONSIVENESS AND TIME TRAVEL
DISCUSSION NOTE BY YISHAI COHEN JOURNAL OF ETHICS & SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY DISCUSSION NOTE JANUARY 2015 URL: WWW.JESP.ORG COPYRIGHT YISHAI COHEN 2015 Reasons-Responsiveness and Time Travel J OHN MARTIN FISCHER
More information2018 Philosophy of Management Conference Paper submission NORMATIVITY AND DESCRIPTION: BUSINESS ETHICS AS A MORAL SCIENCE
2018 Philosophy of Management Conference Paper submission NORMATIVITY AND DESCRIPTION: BUSINESS ETHICS AS A MORAL SCIENCE Miguel Alzola Natural philosophers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had
More informationSaying too Little and Saying too Much Critical notice of Lying, Misleading, and What is Said, by Jennifer Saul
Saying too Little and Saying too Much Critical notice of Lying, Misleading, and What is Said, by Jennifer Saul Andreas Stokke andreas.stokke@gmail.com - published in Disputatio, V(35), 2013, 81-91 - 1
More information