Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy

Could Morality Have a Source?

Sun,01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

It is a common idea that morality, or moral truths, if there are any, must have some sort of source, or grounding. It has also been claimed that constructivist theories in metaethics have an advantage over realist theories in that the former but not the latter can provide such a grounding. This paper has two goals. First, it attempts to show that constructivism does not in fact provide a complete grounding for morality, and so is on a par with realism in this respect. Second, it explains why it seems that morality in fact couldn’t have a source.

Gender Justice

Sun,01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

I propose, defend and illustrate a principle of gender justice meant to capture the nature of a variety of injustices based on gender: A society is gender just only if the costs of a gender-neutral lifestyle are, all other things being equal, lower than, or at most equal to, the costs of gendered lifestyles. The principle is meant to account for the entire range of gender injustice: violence against women, economic and legal discrimination, domestic exploitation, the gendered division of labor and gendered socialization. The sense of “costs” employed is similarly wide. Costs can be material (such as financial, time or effort), psychological (such as self-respect, a good relationship with one’s body and emotions) and social (such as reputation, social acceptance and valuable social relationships). I defend the principle by appeal to the values at the core of liberal egalitarian justice: equality of access and the good of individual choice. I illustrate my case through a discussion of the injustice of a gendered division of labor. Some feminists doubt that liberal egalitarianism has the theoretical resources to recognize the unjust nature of the gendered division of labor. I argue that it does. If the principle advanced here is correct, then gender injustice is pervasive. At the same, it does not affect only women but also men. Liberal egalitarianism is capable of acknowledging this fact without denying that, overall, gender norms oppress women more than they oppress men: Arguably, women who wish to lead a gender-neutral lifestyle have to pay higher costs that men who wish to do the same.

The Locative Analysis of Good For Formulated and Defended

Sun,01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

THE STRUCTURE OF THIS PAPER IS AS FOLLOWS. I begin §1 by dealing with preliminary issues such as the different relations expressed by the “good for” locution. I then (§2) outline the Locative Analysis of good for and explain its main elements before moving on to (§3) outlining and discussing the positive features of the view. In the subsequent sections I show how the Locative Analysis can respond to objections from, or inspired by, Sumner (§4-5), Regan (§6), and Schroeder and Feldman (§7). I then (§8) reply to an imagined objector who claims that the Locative Analysis generates implausible results with respect to punishment, virtue and agent-centered duties.

The Humean Theory of Practical Irrationality

Tue,01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Christine Korsgaard has argued that Humean views about action and practical rationality jointly imply the impossibility of irrational action. According to the Humean theory of action, agents do what maximizes expected desire-satisfaction. According to the Humean theory of rationality, it is rational for agents to do what maximizes expected desire-satisfaction. Thus Humeans are committed to the impossibility of practical irrationality — an unacceptable consequence. I respond by developing Humean views to explain how we can act irrationally. Humeans about action should consider the immediate motivational forces produced by an agent's desires. Humeans about rationality should consider the agent's dispositional desire strengths. When (for example) vivid sensory or imaginative experiences of desired things cause some of our desires to produce motivational force disproportional to their dispositional strength, we may act in ways that do not maximize expected desire-satisfaction, thus acting irrationally. I argue that this way of developing Humean views is true to the best reasons for holding them.

'Ought' and the Perspective of the Agent

Sat,01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Objectivists and perspectivists disagree about the question of whether what an agent ought to do depends on the totality of facts or on the agent’s limited epistemic perspective. While objectivism fails to account for normative guidance, perspectivism faces the challenge of explaining phenomena (occurring most notably in advice, but also in first-personal deliberation) in which the use of “ought” is geared to evidence that is better than the evidence currently available to the agent. This paper aims to defend perspectivism by developing a perspectivist account that captures the phenomena in question.

Self-Evidence and Disagreement in Ethics

Mon,01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Moral epistemology, like general epistemology, faces a regress problem. Suppose someone demands to know why I am justified in holding a moral belief. In a typical case, I will respond by citing a further moral belief that justifies it. A regress arises because, in order for this further belief to justify anything, it too must be justified. According to a traditional position in moral epistemology, moral foundationalism, the regress comes to an end with some moral beliefs. Moral foundationalism is an attractive position because it promises to answer the regress problem. However, it inherits the burden of explaining why some moral beliefs have a particular privileged epistemic position — that is, why these beliefs are justified without requiring inferential support from other beliefs. The standard answer to this question is to insist that some moral beliefs have as their content propositions that are self-evident. A common way of resisting moral foundationalism is to argue from the fact of moral disagreement to the claim that no moral proposition is self-evident. I argue that while a simple version of this argument fails, this argument can be developed in such a way that it poses serious difficulties for moral foundationalism. I develop this argument by drawing on recent work in epistemology on the nature of our epistemic burdens in the face of peer disagreement. I then suggest that even if this argument does show that moral foundationalism fails, it need not have skeptical implications so long as coherentism remains a viable option in moral epistemology. Finally, I claim that this argument has implications for normative ethics. Namely, it rules out a position advocated by Peter Singer in his early work and indirectly supports the method of reflective equilibrium.

Deviant Formal Causation

Fri,01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

What is the role of practical thought in determining the intentional action that is performed? Donald Davidson’s influential answer to this question is that thought plays an efficient-causal role: intentional actions are those events that have the correct causal pedigree in the agent's beliefs and desires. But the Causal Theory of Action has always been plagued with the problem of “deviant causal chains,” in which the right action is caused by the right mental state but in the wrong way. This paper addresses an alternative approach to understanding intentional action inspired by G.E.M. Anscombe, interpreting that view as casting practical thought in the role of formal rather than efficient cause of action and thereby avoiding the problem of deviant (efficient) causal chains. Specifically, on the neo-Anscombean view, it is the agent’s “practical knowledge” — non-observational, non-inferential knowledge of what one is doing — that confers the form of intentional action on an event and is the contribution of thought to determining what is intentionally done. This paper argues that the Anscombean view is subject to its own problematic type of deviance: deviant formal causation. What we know non-observationally about what we are doing often includes more than what we intend to be doing; we also know that we are bringing about the foreseen side effects of acting in the intended way. It is argued that the neo-Anscombean view faces difficulty in excluding the expected side effects from the specification of what is intentionally done, whereas the Causal Theory has no such difficulty. Thus, the discussion amounts to an argument in favor of the Causal Theory of Action.

In Defense of the Wide-Scope Instrumental Principle

Tue,01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I make the observation that English sentences such as “You have reason to take the bus or to take the train” do not have the logical form that they superficially appear to have. I find in these sentences a conjunctive use of “or,” as found in sentences like “You can have milk or lemon in your tea,” which gives you a permission to have milk, and a permission to have lemon, though no permission to have both. I argue that a confusion of genuine disjunctions with sentences of the above form has motivated the mistaken acceptance by some philosophers of principles like the one I call “Liberal Transmission.” This is the principle that if you have a reason to do something, then you have a reason to do it in each of the possible ways in which it can be done (though not more than one of them). I argue that Liberal Transmission and its close relatives are false. Wide-scope reasons are defined as reasons that have a conditional or other logical connective within the scope of the reason operator. For example, a wide-scope instrumental reason might be: reason(if you have an end, take the means). By refuting Liberal Transmission, I show that you could have wide-scope instrumental reasons like this while nevertheless lacking any narrow-scope reason to take the means, or narrow-scope reason to not have the end. This enables me to respond to two major objections to the wide-scope approach to the instrumental principle that have been developed by Joseph Raz and by Niko Kolodny.

Meriting Concern and Meriting Respect

Tue,01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Recently there has been a somewhat surprising interest among Kantian theorists in the moral standing of animals, coupled with a no less surprising optimism among these theorists about the prospect of incorporating animal moral standing into Kantian theory without contorting its other attractive features. These theorists contend in particular that animal standing can be incorporated into Kantian moral theory without abandoning its logocentrism: the claim that everything that is valuable depends for its value on its relation to rationality. In this essay I raise doubts about the prospects for accommodating animal moral standing within a logocentric Kantianism. I argue instead that the best way to incorporate animal moral standing into Kantian theory is to admit more radical departures from Kant’s position by maintaining that consciousness is a locus of moral standing independent from rationality. I propose that we should attribute moral standing to all conscious animals because the capacity of consciousness is the criterion distinguishing individuals whose well-being generates reasons from individuals whose well-being fails to do so. We need such a criterion because we speak of the well-being of things, such as artifacts and meteorological phenomena, which clearly lack moral standing. Having already argued against the Kantian view that the criterion of moral standing is rationality, I proceed to argue that consciousness is also superior to its other principal rival for the criterion of moral standing: life. On the view that emerges from this discussion, we have obligations to show concern for conscious individuals by treating their well-being as providing us with reasons for action; the view thus endorses the criterion of moral standing typically advanced by utilitarians. On this view we also have a distinct class of obligations to show respect for conscious rational individuals; the view thus endorses the Kantian claim that persons have a distinctive (and a higher) moral status in virtue of their possession of rational capacities. In this essay thus begin to show how a principal insight of each leading approach to modern moral theory may be captured in a unified theory.

Saving Lives and Respecting Persons

Mon,01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

In the distribution of resources, persons must be respected, or so many philosophers contend. Unfortunately, they often leave it unclear why a certain allocation would respect persons, while another would not. In this paper, we explore what it means to respect persons in the distribution of scarce, life-saving resources. We begin by presenting two kinds of cases. In different age cases, we have a drug that we must use either to save a young person who would live for many more years or an old person who would only live for a few. In different numbers cases, we must save either one person or many persons from certain death. We argue that two familiar accounts of respect for persons―an equal worth account, suggested by Jeff McMahan, and a Kantian account, inspired by the Formula of Humanity―have implausible implications in such cases. We develop a new, “three-tiered” account: one that, we claim, generates results in such cases that accord better with many people’s considered judgments than those produced by its rivals.

Character Traits, Social Psychology, and Impediments to Helping Behavior

Mon,01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

In a number of recent papers, I have begun to develop a new theory of character which is conceptually distinct both from traditional Aristotelian accounts as well as from the positive view of local traits outlined by John Doris. On my view, many human beings do have robust traits of character which play an important explanatory and predictive role, but which are triggered by certain situational variables which preclude them from counting as genuine Aristotelian virtues. Like others in this discussion, I have focused on helping behavior in particular, and have gone on to argue that much of the social psychology literature is compatible with this new approach. The goal of this paper is to develop the model as it pertains to helping behavior further by examining how helping-relevant traits can serve as impediments to helping behavior.

Is a Feminist Political Liberalism Possible?

Fri,01 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Is a feminist political liberalism possible? Political liberalism’s regard for a wide range of comprehensive doctrines as reasonable makes some feminists skeptical of its ability to address sex inequality. Indeed, some feminists claim that political liberalism maintains its position as a political liberalism at the expense of securing substantive equality for women. We claim that political liberalism’s core commitments actually restrict all reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine substantive equality for all, including women and other marginalized groups. In particular, we argue that political liberalism’s criterion of reciprocity limits reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that eliminate social conditions of domination and subordination relevant to reasonable democratic deliberation among equal citizens and that the criterion of reciprocity requires the social conditions necessary for recognition respect among persons as equal citizens. As a result, we maintain that the criterion of reciprocity limits reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that provide genuine equality for women along various dimensions of social life central to equal citizenship.

The Enforcement Approach to Coercion

Fri,01 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This essay differentiates two approaches to understanding the concept of coercion, and argues for the relative merits of the one currently out of fashion. The approach currently dominant in the philosophical literature treats threats as essential to coercion, and understands coercion in terms of the way threats alter the costs and benefits of an agent’s actions; I call this the “pressure” approach. It has largely superseded the “enforcement approach,” which focuses on the powers and actions of the coercer rather than the perspective of the coercee. The enforcement approach identifies coercion with certain uses of the kinds of powers that agents need to accumulate and wield in order to be able to make significant, credible threats. Though there is considerable overlap extensionally in the instances of coercion recognized by the two approaches, the enforcement approach encompasses some uses of power to coerce that do not involve threats (in particular some direct uses of physical force). It also circumscribes which threats should be counted as coercive, though notably it provides a picture of coercion that is non-moralized in its essentials. While there may be specific purposes for which a pressure account is to be preferred, I argue that the enforcement approach better describes how coercion works, and elucidates factors that are often tacitly assumed by pressure accounts. It also is more useful for explaining the social and political significance of coercion, and why coercion is thought to have the implications commonly associated with it. In particular, I argue that it helps us understand why uses of coercion are in general a matter of ethical significance, why state authority depends on commanding a monopoly on the right to use coercion, and why being coerced may reasonably provide one a defense against being held responsible for actions one is coerced into taking.

Agent-Relative Value and Agent-Relative Restrictions

Fri,01 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

In this article I pose a challenge for attempts to ground all reasons in considerations of value. Some believe that all reasons for action are grounded in considerations of value. Some also believe that there are agent-relative restrictions, which provide us with agent-relative reasons against bringing about the best state of affairs, on an impartial ranking of states of affairs. Some would like to hold both of these beliefs. That is, they would like to hold that such agent-relative restrictions are compatible with a teleological theory, one that grounds all reasons for action in considerations of value. This is what I will argue is problematic. I will argue that agent-centered restrictions will not fit into a teleological theory. If the correct moral theory is a teleological one, then there are no agent-relative restrictions. If there are agent-relative restrictions, then teleology is false. My argument challenges a particular project, of showing that all ethical theories are broadly consequentialist. The attraction of this project is that it promises to preserve what is thought to be compelling about consequentialism–its teleology and maximizing–while also preserving elements of commonsense morality–such as agent-relative restrictions–that have typically been thought of as distinctly non-consequentialist in nature. If my argument is correct, then this promise cannot be fulfilled.

Should Desert Replace Equality? Replies to Kagan

Sun,01 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Many people are moved by the thought that if A is worse off than B, then if we can improve the condition of one or the other but not both that it is better to improve the condition of A. Egalitarians are buoyed by the prevalence of such thoughts. But something other than egalitarianism could be driving these thoughts. In particular, such thoughts could be motivated, instead, by a combination of the belief that desert should determine how people fare and the belief that, for the most part, people are equally deserving. Shelly Kagan has pushed this line of argument, suggesting that desert should replace equality as a normative ideal. He argues that desert theory and egalitarianism often agree, and when they don’t intuition favors desert theory. A number of authors have offered responses to Kagan, including Serena Olsaretti, Fred Feldman, and Richard Arneson. However, I maintain that their responses are inadequate, primarily because they simply fail to capture the compelling intuitions that Kagan appeals to in making his case. There are other responses, however, and I consider three, each of which offers an egalitarian position that is compatible with Kagan’s most compelling intuitions. Thus, I maintain that Kagan has not sufficiently established that desert should replace equality as a normative ideal. There is still room for a genuinely egalitarian position, though Kagan’s reflections helpfully force egalitarians to further develop and refine their thinking.

Four Solutions the the Alleged Incompleteness of Virtue Ethics

Sun,01 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

In “Virtue and Right,” Robert Johnson argues that virtue ethics that accept standards such as Virtuous Agent (A’s x-ing is right in circumstances c iff a fully virtuous agent would x in c) are incomplete, since they cannot account for duties of moral self-improvement. In this paper I offer four solutions to the problem of incompleteness. The first discards Virtuous Agent and counts actions as wrong iff a vicious person would perform them. The second retains Virtuous Agent but counts self-improving actions as countererogatory: wrong but nonetheless good to do. The third replaces Virtuous Agent with a standard appealing to the Mengzian virtue of righteousness, understood as situational appropriateness. The fourth replaces Virtuous Agent with a standard that holds an action right if it promotes the agent’s virtue. Each solution accommodates duties of moral self-improvement, so a virtue ethics embracing any of them would not be incomplete.

Desire Satisfactionism and the Problem of Irrelevant Desires

Tue,01 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Desire-satisfaction theories about welfare come in two main varieties: unrestricted and restricted. Both varieties hold that a person's welfare is determined entirely by the satisfactions and frustrations of his desires. But while the restricted theories count only some of a person’s desires as relevant to his well-being, the unrestricted theories count all of his desires as relevant. Because unrestricted theories count all desires as relevant they are vulnerable to a wide variety of counterexamples involving desires that seem obviously irrelevant. Derek Parfit offers a well-known example involving a stranger afflicted with what seems to be a fatal disease. Similar examples are offered by Thomas Scanlon, James Griffin, Shelly Kagan, and others. In this paper I defend a simple unrestricted desire-based theory of welfare from the claim that some of our desires are irrelevant to how well our lives go. I begin by introducing the theory I aim to defend. I then formulate the Irrelevant-Desires Problem and reject a few rationales for its key premise. I then consider and reject a few flawed responses to the problem. I finally offer an obvious but widely overlooked response: I bite the bullet. My overall goal is to dissuade those sympathetic to a desire-based approach to welfare from rejecting unrestricted forms of desire satisfactionism simply because some desires may seem irrelevant to how well our lives go.

When Will Your Consequentialist Friend Abandon You for the Greater Good?

Mon,01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

According to a well-known objection to consequentialism, the answer to the preceding question is alarmingly straightforward: your consequentialist friend will abandon you the minute that she can more efficiently promote goodness via options that do not include her maintaining a relationship with you. The most prominent response to this objection is to emphasize the profound value of friendship for human agents and to remind critics of the distinction between the theory’s criterion of rightness and an effective decision-making procedure. Whether or not this response is viable remains a contentious issue within the now considerable literature generated on the topic, yet it is a curious fact that the debate has unfolded in such a way that the question of when a consequentialist agent ought to break from her indirect methods of promoting the good and revert back to a direct form of consequentialist decision-making has not been decisively settled. In this paper, I claim that the empirical considerations at stake for resolving this question are more complicated than is normally acknowledged; however, I argue that this should not deter sophisticated consequentialists from endorsing flexible psychological dispositions in order to monitor these empirical considerations as best as can be expected for agents with our distinctly human faculties and limitations.

What Knowledge is Necessary for Virtue?

Mon,01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Critics contend that Aristotelianism demands too much of the virtuous person in the way of knowledge to be credible. This general charge is usually directed against either of two of Aristotelianism’oyun indirs apparent claims about the necessary conditions for the possession of a single virtue, namely that 1) one must know what all the other virtues require, and 2) one must also be the master of a preternatural range of technical/empirical knowledge. I argue that Aristotelianism does indeed have a very high standard when it comes to the knowledge necessary for the full possession of a virtue, in both of these respects. However, focus on the necessary conditions for full virtue tends to obscure an important fact: some kinds of knowledge are much more important to various virtues than others are. A proper appreciation of the significance of this fact will go a long way toward answering critics’ worries about Aristotelianism’s knowledge requirements.

Moral Intuitions, Reliability, and Disagreement

Fri,01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

There is an ancient, yet still lively, debate in moral epistemology about the epistemic significance of disagreement. One of the important questions in that debate is whether, and to what extent, the prevalence and persistence of disagreement between our moral intuitions causes problems for those who seek to rely on intuitions in order to make moral decisions, issue moral judgments, and craft moral theories. Meanwhile, in general epistemology, there is a relatively young, and very lively, debate about the epistemic significance of disagreement. A central question in that debate concerns peer disagreement: When I am confronted with an epistemic peer with whom I disagree, how should my confidence in my beliefs change (if at all)? The disagreement debate in moral epistemology has not been brought into much contact with the disagreement debate in general epistemology (though McGrath [2007] is an important exception). A purpose of this paper is to increase the area of contact between these two debates. In Section 1, I try to clarify the question I want to ask in this paper — this is the question whether we have any reasons to believe what I shall call “anti-intuitivism.” In Section 2, I argue that anti-intuitivism cannot be supported solely by investigating the mechanisms thatoyun indir produce our intuitions. In Section 3, I discuss an anti-intuitivist argument from disagreement which relies on the so-called “Equal Weight View.” In Section 4, I pause to clarify the notion of epistemic parity and to explain how it ought to be understood in the epistemology of moral intuition. In Section 5, I return to the anti-intuitivist argument from disagreement and explain how an apparently-vulnerable premise of that argument may be quite resilient. In Section 6, I introduce a novel objection against the Equal Weight View in order to show how I think we can successfully resist the anti-intuitivist argument from disagreement.

Rossian Minimalism

Tue,01 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The main question addressed in this paper is: What is the most promising ethical theory (specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for any action’s being morally right) that can be formulated in terms of the notion of a prima facie duty? I try to show that the answer to this question involves an ethical theory that, despite never having been discussed, is nevertheless worthy of serious consideration. The theory, Rossianoyun indir Minimalism, says, roughly, that an act, A, is morally right iff no alternative to A would constitute less of a violation of prima facie duties than A.

Beyond History: The Ongoing Aspects of Autonomy

Sun,01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Historical accounts of autonomy hold that the autonomy of pro-attitudes depends, at least in part, on the way in which they came about. Understandably, such accounts tend to focus the bulk of their attention on identifying the historical conditions necessary for the development of autonomous pro-attitudes. As Alfred Mele has argued, however, in addition to autonomy with respect to the development of one’s pro-attitudes, full or robust personal autonomy requires as well that one be autonomous with respect to the continued possession of one’s pro-attitudes, and with respect to the influence those pro-attitude have on one’s behavior. These non-historical aspects of personal autonomy have not, though, been adequately addressed by recent historical accounts. This paper aims to draw attention to, and hopefully go some way toward remedying, the need for further illumination of the two ongoing aspects of oyun indirautonomy. I argue first that in order for a pro-attitude to be autonomously possessed, it is not enough that it developed in an autonomous manner; it must also be maintained in an autonomous manner. I examine two proposed “autonomous-maintenance” conditions, one by Mele, the other by Richard Arneson, and argue that, as those conditions stand, neither is satisfactory. What we need, I argue, is an autonomous-maintenance condition that adjusts and combines the requirements of those two conditions, such as that I go on to offer. According to that condition, the autonomous possession of a pro-attitude requires that the agent remain disposed and able to review the pro-attitude in the light of new and relevant evidence, and that she is capable of shedding the pro-attitude should such review issue in a rational judgment that it is best to do so. I then examine Mele’s discussion of the behavioral aspect of autonomy relative to a pro-attitude. I argue that by requiring that an agent be able to construct and execute a plan for acting on the basis of a pro-attitude that has some objectively determined likelihood of success, Mele’s treatment of the behavioral aspect of autonomy confuses the ability to autonomously pursue one’s ends with the ability to achieve them. The behavioral aspect of autonomy, I argue, ought instead require merely that an agent be able to employ her adequate self-control capacities in determining for herself whether and how to go about acting on her autonomously possessed pro-attitudes.

What Is Wrong with Kamm's and Scanlon's Arguments Against Taurek

Thu,01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Abstract: In forced choices between lives, where one group is larger than the other, Taurek claims you can save the few. Kamm and Scanlon argue that this is unfair. I argue it is fair. By Kamm’s and Scanlon’s own lights, it is fair. Kamm and Scanlon also try to explain why you are, in these forced choices, required to save the many. These attempts can be interpreted in three ways. I argue none works. By Kamm’s and Scanlon’s own lights, the most promising one does not work.

A danger of definition: Polar predicates in moral theory

Tue,01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In this paper, I use an example from the history of philosophy to show how independently defining each side of a pair of contrary predicates is apt to lead to contradiction. In the Euthyphro, piety is defined as that which is loved by oyun indirsome of the gods while impiety is defined as that which is hated by some of the gods. Socrates points out that since the gods harbor contrary sentiments, some things are both pious and impious. But “pious” and “impious” are contrary predicates; they cannot simultaneously characterize the same thing. Euthyphro changes his definition, but the problem of recognizing emotional ambivalence is only side-stepped. I go on to show how contemporary philosophers run into a similar problem. According to Prinz, something is good if and only if we harbor positive sentiments towards it and bad if and only if we harbor negative sentiments towards it. Thus, if we are ambivalent towards something (if we harbor both positive and negative sentiments towards it), then it is both good and bad. Like “pious” and “impious”, “good” and “bad” are contraries. Next, according to the fitting-attitude theory first elaborated by Brentano and favored by contemporary meta-ethicists like Blackburn, Brandt, Ewing, Garcia, Gibbard, McDowell, and Wiggins, something is good if and only if it is a fitting (appropriate) object of approbation, and something is bad if and only if it is a fitting (appropriate) object of disapprobation. I argue that moral ambivalence is sometimes appropriate, i.e., that the correct response to some things is to both love and hate them. Hence, according to the fitting-attitudes theory, some things are both good and bad. I conclude by discussing a variety of ways in which the problem of ambivalence may be solved, suggesting that attitudes of approbation and disapprobation be further individuated by the reasons for them.

Preferentism and the Paradox of Desire

Tue,01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The basic idea behind actualist preferentism is that getting what one wants makes one's life go better. A recent objection to preferentism is the ``paradox of desire.'' In a nutshell, this objection goes like this. I can certainly desire to be badly off. But if a desire-satisfaction theory of welfare is true, oyun indir Pitbull bitkisel mucizeler then---under certain assumptions---the hypothesis that I desire to be badly off entails a contradiction. So much the worse for desire-satisfaction theories of welfare. In this paper I show how to formulate preferentism so that the hypothesis that I desire to be badly off does not entail a contradiction. The key is to allow how close someone's desires are to being satisfied to play a role in determining their level of welfare. My version of preferentism implements this idea by allowing desire satisfaction to come in degrees.

Implanted Desires, Self-Formation, and Blame

Sat,01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Some theories of moral responsibility assert that whether a person is accountable for her behavior depends partly on facts about her personal history. Those who advocate such a “historicist” outlook often hold, for example, that people who Pitbull bitkisel mucizeler unwillingly acquire morally corrupt dispositions are not blameworthy for the wrong actions that issue from these dispositions; this contention is frequently supported by thought experiments involving instances of forced psychological manipulation that seem to call responsibility into question. I argue here against the historicist perspective on moral responsibility and in favor of the conclusion that the process by which a person acquires values and dispositions is largely irrelevant to moral responsibility. While the thought experiments introduced by historicists raise perplexing questions about personal identity and involve clear instances of moral wrongs done to the manipulated subjects, neither of these considerations typically have a direct bearing on the question of moral responsibility. Rather, questions about moral responsibility in manipulation cases should be answered, I argue, by considering whether a manipulated agent is capable of expressing through her actions the objectionable attitudes that make blame appropriate in normal cases of wrongdoing.

In Defense of the Primacy of Virtues

Sat,01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In this paper I respond to a set of basic objections often raised against those virtue theories in ethics which maintain that moral properties such rightness and goodness (and their corresponding concepts) are to be explained and understood in terms of the virtues or the virtuous. The objections all rest on a strongly-held intuition that the virtues (and the virtuous) simply must be derivative in some way from either right actions or good states of affairs. My goal is to articulate several distinct, though related, objections grounded in this intuition, and to argue that virtue ethicists have ample resourcesoyun indir to respond to these worries. The explanatory primacy of the virtuous over the right Pitbull bitkisel mucizeler or the good emerges as a distinct and viable position.

Moorean Arguments and Moral Revisionism

Mon,01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

G. E. Moore famously argued against skepticism and idealism by appealing to their inconsistency with alleged certainties, like the existence of his own hands. Recently, some philosophers have offered analogous arguments against revisionary views about ethics such as metaethical error theory. These arguments appeal to the inconsistency of error theory with seemingly obvious moral claims like “it is wrong to torture an innocent child just for fun.” It might seem that such ‘Moorean’ arguments in ethics will stand or fall with Moore’s own arguments in metaphysics and epistemology, in virtue of their shared structure. I argue that this is not so. Pitbull bitkisel mucizelerI suggest that the epistemic force of the canonical Moorean arguments can best be understood to rest on asymmetries in indirect evidence. I then argue that this explanation suggests that Moorean arguments are less promising in ethics than they areoyun indir against Moore’s own targets. I conclude by examining the competing attempt to vindicate Moorean arguments by appealing to Rawls’s method of reflective equilibrium.

Three Millian Ways to Resolve Open Questions

Wed,01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Millianism is a thesis in philosophy of language that Pitbull oyun indir bitkisel mucizeler the meaning of a proper name is simply its referent. Millianism faces certain puzzles called Frege's Puzzles. Some Millians defend the view by appealing to a metaphysics of belief that involves Ways of Believing. In the first part of this paper, I argue that ethical naturalists can adopt this Millian strategy to resist Moore’s Open Question argument. While this strategy of responding to the Open Question Argument has already appeared in the literature, I show that the Millian strategy can be easily extended to other versions of the Open Question Argument that are alleged to be stronger than the original formulation. The allegedly stronger versions of the Open Question Argument are not straightforwardly Frege's Puzzles, but they still have analogue versions that have been presented against Millianism. What the Ways Millian can say against those analogue versions can easily be applied to these other versions of the Open Question Argument.

Saving People and Flipping Coins

Sun,01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Suppose you find yourself in a situation in which you can either save both A and B or save only C. Pitbull oyun indir bitkisel mucizeler A, B and C are relevantly similar — all are strangers to you, none is more deserving of life than any other, none is responsible for being in a life-threatening situation, and so on. John Taurek argued that when deciding what to do in such a situation, you should flip a coin, thereby giving each of A, B and C a 50% chance of survival (Taurek 1977: 303). Only by doing this can we treat each person with the appropriate degree of respect. Taurek seemed to be employing the “Equal Greatest Chance” principle (EGC), according to which, when deciding whom to save, one must give each person the greatest possible chance of survival consistent with everyone else having the same chance. An obvious alternative is the “Save the Greater Number” principle (SGN). I describe an example that shows that EGC is false. I show that the example also demonstrates the falsity of other related views, including Jens Timmermann’s “Individualist Lottery Principle.” I conclude that SGN is true. And I extend the argument to other kinds of cases, showing that which person should be saved may depend on whether some additional well-being may be gained for someone in the process.

Caring and the Boundary-Driven Structure of Practical Deliberation

Sat,01 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

When a reasonable agent deliberates about what to do, she entertains only a limited range of possible courses of action. A theory of practical reasoning must therefore include an account of deliberative attention: an porno porn ihracat fazlasi porno oyun indir köpek pornaccount that both explains the patterns of deliberative attention that reasonable agents typically display and allows us to see why these patterns of deliberative attention are reasonable. I offer such an account, built around two, central claims. (i) A reasonable agent who cares about some end is disposed to exclude courses of action which she believes to be incompatible with that end from the range of possibilities that she will entertain as options in practical deliberation. As I shall put it, an agent’s cares establish deliberative boundaries for her practical thought. (ii) The stability of a deliberative boundary varies with the depth of the care that explains it. These two claims motivate the Boundary-Driven Model of the path that a reasonable agent’s deliberative attention will take in temporally extended deliberation. If we locate the model within a maximizing conception of practical rationality, then boundary-driven deliberation, of the sort that the model describes, can be understood and justified instrumentally, as a heuristic device. But if we suppose that there is no single index of value that successful practical choice maximizes, then boundary-driven deliberation is partly constitutive of reasonableness in practical thought. It allows an agent facing plural and incommensurable values to frame her deliberative problems narrowly enough that, in conjunction with deliberative devices which are not part of the model but which are compatible with it, she may be able to reach a non-arbitrary decision — and so give a determinate, verdictive sense to the phrase “the best course of action available to me” in cases in which a determinate meaning for this phrase would otherwise be lacking.

Moral Principles Are Not Moral Laws

Sat,01 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

What are moral principles? The assumption underlying much of the generalism—particularism debate in ethics is that they are (or would be) moral Pitbull bitkisel mucizeler oyun indir laws: generalizations or some special class thereof, such as explanatory or counterfactual-supporting generalizations. I argue that this law conception of moral principles is mistaken. For moral principles do at least three things that moral laws cannot do, at least not in their own right: explain certain phenomena, provide particular kinds of support for counterfactuals, and ground moral necessities, “necessary connections” between obligating reasons and obligations. Moreover, neither a best-systems theory of moral principles nor any of the competing theories of moral principles proposed by Sean McKeever and Michael Ridge, Pekka Väyrynen, and Mark Lance and Margaret Little could vindicate the law conception of moral principles. I conclude with some brief remarks about what moral principles might be if they are not moral laws.

Hume's Internalism Reconsidered

Fri,01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A standard reading of Hume on the nature of practical reasons holds that he is a normative internalist; that, for Hume, legitimate practical reasons must be linked to an agent’s set of desires or motivating passions. Though the internalist reading of Hume is popular, it gives rise to serious puzzles of interpretation. To Pitbull bitkisel mucizeler oyun indir pick one nearly at random, it appears that, on an internalist reading, Hume has serious difficulties in establishing that the so-called “artificial" virtues of justice and promise-keeping are reason-giving, especially when it comes to characters like the sensible knave. Some, skeptical of the internalist reading, have argued that Hume is in fact a nihilist about practical reasons, and admits no reasons for action at all. Against the internalist and skeptical readings, I argue that there is substantial reason to believe that Hume’s corpus is compatible with a far more robust account of normativity than even internalism allows. If so, I argue, Hume has a genuine response to the sensible knave that establishes the knave’s obligation to justice. As it turns out, Hume’s considered view is unique, underexplored, and merits further philosophical investigation.

Contractualism, Reciprocity, Compensation

Sat,01 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I argue that it is not possible to give an adequate account, within a Scanlon-style contractualist moral theory of the moral duties to reciprocate benefits one has received from others and to compensate harms one oyun indir Pitbull bitkisel mucizeler has done to others. The problem, very simply put, is that there is no room within such a theory for the fact that the content of these obligations must be proportionate to the value of the actions that bring them into being in the first place. As a consequence, I point to a wider a moral about contractualism. This is that while that doctrine may provide an adequate account of obligations that we have to others on account simply of their status as persons, it cannot handle obligations that arise as a response to actions that these others, or we ourselves, have performed.

'Simply in Virtue of Being Human': the Whos and Whys of Human Rights

Fri,01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In this paper I raise some questions about the familiar claim, recently reiterated by James Griffin, that human rights are rights that humans have 'simply in virtue of being human'. I ask, in particular, Pitbull bitkisel mucizeler how we are to read the words 'simply in virtue of'. Are we speaking of who has the rights (A has them if and only if he or she is human) or why they have the rights (A has them because and only because he or she is human)? Griffin brings the two readings together, as two sides of the same coin. He offers a (more or less) universalistic case for (more or less) universalistic rights. I try to show how the two readings can be driven apart, how the universality of human rights need not be undermined merely by there being no adequate universalistic case for them. On the strength of this discussion I suggest an inversion of the relationship that is often thought to hold between human rights and human dignity. In a way our rights give us our dignity, not vice versa. And in a way this helps to make the case for the universality of human rights.

Welfare, Achievement, and Self-Sacrifice

Sat,01 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Many philosophers hold that the achievement of one's goals can contribute to one's welfare apart from whatever independent contributions that the objects of those goals or the processes by which they are achieved make. Call this the Pitbull bitkisel mucizelerAchievement View, and call those who accept it achievementists. In this paper, I argue that achievementists should accept both (a) that one factor that affects how much the achievement of a goal contributes to one’s welfare is the amount that one has invested in that goal and (b) that the amount that one has invested in a goal is a function of how much one has personally sacrificed for its sake, not a function of how much effort one has put into achieving it. So I will, contrary to at least one achievementist (viz., Keller 2004, 36), be arguing against the view that the greater the amount of productive effort that goes into achieving a goal, the more its achievement contributes to one's welfare. Furthermore, I argue that the reason that the achievement of those goals for which one has personally sacrificed matters more to one’s welfare is that, in general, the redemption of one's self-sacrifices in itself contributes to one’s welfare. Lastly, I argue that the view that the redemption of one's self-sacrifices in itself contributes to one's welfare is plausible independent of whether or not we find the Achievement View plausible. We should accept this view so as to account both for the Shape of a Life Phenomenon and for the rationality of honoring "sunk costs."

Well-Being and Virtue

Wed,01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Perfectionist views of well-being maintain that well-being ultimately consists, at least partly, in excellence or virtue. This paper argues that such views are untenable, focusing on Aristotelian perfectionism. The argument appeals, first, to Pitbull bitkisel mucizeler intuitive counterexamples to perfectionism. A second worry is that it seems impossible to interpret perfection in a manner that yields both a plausible view of well-being and a strong link between morality and well-being. Third, perfectionist treatments of pleasure are deeply implausible. Fourth, perfectionism rests on a misunderstanding about the nature of our interest in prudential and perfectionist values. Finally, perfectionism’s appeal seems to depend heavily on a failure to distinguish the notions of well-being and the good life.

A Unified Moral Terrain?

Sun,01 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In his book What We Owe to Each Other, Thomas Scanlon proposes what he calls a ‘contractualist’ explanation of what he describes as ‘a central part of the territory called morality’, i.e. our duties to other rational creatures. If Scanlon is right, Pitbull bitkisel mucizeler the fact that another creature is rational generates a particular kind of moral constraint on how we may act towards it: one should ‘treat rational creatures only in ways that would be allowed by principles that they could not reasonably reject insofar as they too were seeking principles of mutual governance which other rational creatures could not reasonably reject’. This is then used to explain what makes actions right, at least within his central moral area. Such actions will be right because they are permitted by principles that cannot reasonably be rejected. In this essay, I question both whether Scanlon succeeds in identifying a proper part of the moral terrain as a subject for his account and also what, if any, is the contractualist content of that account. I argue that he equivocates between two distinct and incompatible conceptions of the justifiability of principles. According to the first, justifiability is a relation between principles and people, whilst according to the second, for a principle to be justifiable is for it to be justified. For his explanation of morality to have any contractualist force, justifiability needs to be understood as a relation, but for that explanation to have any plausibility, justifiability must be understood nonrelationally. Because of this, the account is unstable and fails to describe any part of the moral landscape.

Egalitarian Justice and Innocent Choice

Mon,01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In its standard formulation, luck-egalitarianism is false. Disadvantages that result from free choice to take a risk can constitute egalitarian injustice–so long as that free choice is morally praiseworthy or at least neutral. A modified Pitbull bitkisel mucizeler formulation of luck-egalitarianism avoids these problems. The formulation offered here focuses on the notion of innocence: lack of free and morally wrong choice to take a risk. Innocent disadvantage negates justice in both punitive and distributive contexts, suggesting that it may negate justice “itself.” The modified formulation of luck-egalitarianism may thus shed light on distributive justice and perhaps on the essence of justice itself; applying it to the punitive context can also illuminate some of the discussion of moral luck.

Strict Liability and the Mitigation of Moral Luck

Tue,01 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT

The general problem of moral luck–that responsibility is profoundly affected by factors beyond the control of the person held responsible–is often said to cause special problems for strict liability, as opposed to negligence liability. Negligence, the argument runs, holds people responsible for both fault and fate whereas strict liability holds people accountable solely for fate. This criticism is off the mark, both in its specific claim and in its general implications. The specific criticism is mistaken because the choice between negligence and strict liability holds the contributions of fate constant. Strict liability holds people accountable for harms attributable to their agency, whereas negligence liability holds people accountable for harms attributable to their culpable agency. The more general thesis that strict liability puts agents at the mercy of fate is mistaken because the most important form of strict liability–strict enterprise liability in the law of torts–actually softens the blows of fate. In a world where the costs of accidents can be dispersed across the activities which engender them, strict enterprise liability Pitbull bitkisel mucizeler substitutes certain but manageable insurance premiums for unpredictable but potentially catastrophic liability, and replaces less certain compensation for serious injury with more certain compensation. By subjecting us to a lottery some of whose spins of the wheel impose financial ruin, it is fault liability that puts our actions at the mercy of luck.

Explaining Reasons: Where Does the Buck Stop?

Wed,01 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

The buck-passing account of values offers an explanation of the close relation of values and reasons for action: of why it is that the question whether something that is of value provides reasons is not ”open.” Being of value simply is, its defenders claim, a property that something has in virtue of its having other reason-providing properties. The generic idea of buck-passing is that the property of being good or being of value does not provide reasons. It is other properties that do. There are, however, at least three versions of the account which differ in their understanding of those “other properties.” The first two versions both assume that non-normative properties provide reasons, the difference being that the second allows that normative properties also provide reasons. Both run into difficulties, which I explain, in trying to defend the claim that non-normative properties provide reasons for action. The third version of the buck-passing account which explains being of value in terms of more specific evaluative Pitbull bitkisel mucizeler properties that are reason-providing remains unpersuasive as well. Once we understand the relation between general and specific properties as a difference in degree, there is no space for a reduction of the one kind of properties to the other. In section II I sketch an alternative account of the relation between reasons and values, which is based on a thesis that I call the Conceptual Link and the claim that values are not just co-extensive with reasons, but explain them.

First Force

Tue,01 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

The state’s very existence seems morally problematic: there may be a justification, but there had better be. A vivid way of putting this is to say that gunmen, and the state as “gunman writ large,” threaten first force, while individuals who make conspicuous their readiness to defend what is theirs threaten not first but second force. But the “No First Force” maxim—originally Kant’s—must be relaxed if any institution of private property is to get off the ground. Property begins not in nature but in acts of appropriation, which in turn involve the use and threatened use of force against persons who might carry off the thing that has become property. Is it possible to relax the stricture against first force in a way that allows appropriation and transfer while maintaining a moral presumption against compulsory redistributive measures like those characteristic of modern welfare states? I argue that it is not.

Cudworth and Normative Explanations

Sat,01 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Moral theories usually aspire to be explanatory — to tell us why something is wrong, why it is good, or why you ought to do it. So it is worth knowing how moral explanations differ, if they do, from explanations of other things. This paper uncovers a common unarticulated theory about how normative explanations must work — that they must follow what I call the Standard Model. Though the Standard Model Theory has many implications, in this paper I focus primarily on only one. It plays a crucial role in an argument originally due to Cudworth that has been widely held to conclusively establish that voluntaristic ethical theories are incoherent. But if Cudworth’s argument works, then so would similar arguments against many other moral theories. All of these theories therefore need a different model for how normative explanations can work. So I also motivate and sketch one such alternative model. The result enables us to make progress in evaluating the prospects for a successful reductive view about the normative.

Is Gibbard a Realist?

Mon,01 Aug 2005 00:00:00 GMT

In Thinking How to Live, Allan Gibbard claims that expressivists can vindicate realism about moral discourse. This paper argues that Gibbard’s expressivism does not provide such a vindication.

Essentially Comparative Concepts

Wed,01 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This paper examines Larry Temkin’s notion of an ‘essentially comparative’ concept and the uses to which he puts it. It is suggested that this notion is a conflation of two distinct notions which need not go together. This leads to a critical examination of Temkin’s arguments that certain central ethical concepts (equality, maximin, utility) are essentially comparative. These arguments are often found wanting, as is Temkin’s treatment of the Person Affecting View.

The Good, the Bad, and the Blameworthy

Wed,01 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

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

The Myth of Instrumental Rationality

Fri,01 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

The paper distinguishes between instrumental reasons and instrumental rationality. It argues that instrumental reasons are not reasons to take the means to our ends. It further argues that there is no distinct form of instrumental reasoning or of instrumental rationality. In part the argument proceeds through a sympathetic examination of suggestions made by M. Bratman, J. Broome, and J. Wallace, though the accounts of instrumental rationality offered by the last two are criticised.

"The Government Beguiled Me": The Entrapment Defense and the Problem of Private Entrapment

Fri,01 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Defendants who are being tried for accepting a temptation issued by the government sometimes employ the entrapment defense. Acquittal of some of them is thought to be justified either on the grounds that culpability was undermined by the temptation (the “subjective” approach) or on the grounds that the government acted objectionably in issuing the temptation (the “objective” approach). Advocates of the objective approach often criticize those who employ the subjective by citing what is here called “the problem of private entrapment”: we don’t grant a defense to those who accept temptations issued by private parties, and so it can’t be, it is claimed, that temptation undermines culpability. This paper argues that there is a difference in culpability between a defendant who accepts a government-issued temptation and a defendant who accepts a temptation issued by a private party. This claim is supported by identifying a necessary condition for desert of legal punishment and arguing that the privately entrapped satisfy that condition while the governmentally entrapped do not. The difference, it is argued, is rooted in the fact that the government aims to cause the defendant to act illegally, while private parties, except in extraordinary cases, aim only to cause the defendant to act in a way that happens to be illegal. The paper also argues that, despite appearances to the contrary, advocates of the objective approach also encounter the problem of private entrapment.

Two Approaches to Instrumental Rationality and Belief Consistency

Fri,01 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

R. Jay Wallace argues that the normativity of instrumental rationality can be traced to the independent rational requirement to hold consistent beliefs. I present three objections to this view. John Broome argues that there is a structural similarity between the rational requirements of instrumental rationality and belief consistency. Since he does not reduce the former to the latter, his view can avoid the objections to Wallace’s view. However, we should not think Broome’s account explains the whole of instrumental rationality since agents with consistent intentions can still fail in their instrumental reasoning. This consideration makes Broome’s approach vulnerable to a line of criticism that both he and Wallace present against Christine Korsgaard’s conception of instrumental rationality.