Browsing by Subject "Reasons"
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Item Authority and self-knowledge(2010-05) Sevel, Michael Allen; Deigh, John; Martinich, AloysiusPhilosophers have long thought that practical authority is morally problematic. The most familiar explanation is that exercising authority (for example, by the giving of commands) interferes with a subject’s responsiveness to the reasons that apply to her; in this sense, authority is thought to be irrational or somehow inconsistent with autonomy. This explanation of the problem presupposes an account of what it is to exercise authority: to exercise authority over a subject is to intentionally change the reasons that apply to that subject. In this paper, I begin to develop a new account of authority’s problematic nature by focusing on the relation between the content of authoritative directives and an agent’s intention in obeying. In cases of personal authority, the issuing of a command involves the giving of an intention to act to the subject; I argue that this breaks down the self-other asymmetries which theorists of self-knowledge assume exist with respect to the ‘privileged access’ one is said to have of one’s own mind. This understanding of the problem is missed if we think about authority primarily in terms of reasons and reason-giving, as in the case of Raz’s service conception.Item Moral reasons and moral sentiments(2010-05) Vogelstein, Eric; Deigh, John; Dancy, JonathanMost philosophers believe that morality gives us reasons, and that those reasons apply necessarily and universally. I refer to this rather general view as the Normativity Thesis. My dissertation is (1) a defense of the Normativity Thesis, and (2) an inquiry into what form the Normativity Thesis should take. I defend the Normativity Thesis on the grounds that morally wrong action always provides sufficient reason for criticism of the wrongdoer. I then argue that sufficient reason to criticize always involve the failure on the part of the criticizable person to respond to her own reasons. Thus, morally wrong action involves the failure to respond to reasons. It is commonplace to capture the relationship between reasons and morality as follows: Necessarily, for all A, x: if A’s doing x was morally wrong, then when A did x, there was a reason for A not to do x. This thesis, however, is in tension with a prominent theory about reasons for action, Humeanism: Necessarily, for all A, x: if A has a reason to do x, then A has some desire that will be served by doing x. The tension results from the fact that it appears to be possible that someone lacks any desire that is served by ii refraining from immoral action. I provide a novel argument for Humeanism, inspired by Bernard Williams’ famous argument for that thesis. Thus, I argue, since we have very good reason to accept Humeanism, the standard way of specifying the Normativity Thesis is problematic. I suggest that given Humeanism, we are compelled towards a specification of the Normativity Thesis that gives a central role to what I call moral sentiments: compassion and respect. On my view, the normativity of morality derives from reasons to have those sentiments, rather than reasons for action. Finally, I suggest that this view of the normativity of morality provides strong but non-conclusive reason to adopt a particular view about the nature of the property of moral wrongness, or what it fundamentally is to be morally wrong -- a view that again places moral sentiments at center stage.Item The normativity and reasonability of human rationality(2009-05) Williams, Fred Madison; Asher, NicholasIn my dissertation, I argue that rationality, for real humans, is best understood as a strategy for communication and interacting in a social environment. In particular, I argue that humans are rational to the extent that they are able to understand and be understood by others, to the extent that they can give and accept reasons and explanations. This raises a pair of questions. The first concerns the source of the norms for giving and accepting reasons. The second is why we should accept and follow these norms if they are not guaranteed to preserve truth or optimize outcomes. I address the first question by arguing that these norms function as constraints on our imaginations, on the ways in which we can think about or understand the world. This goes beyond the traditional view that these norms govern acceptable inferences. Rather, I argue, the more significant function of these norms is to govern the structure of our reasoning in the sense of guiding considerations about the relevance and form of our understandings of situations. This suggests an answer to the second question. We ought to accept these norms because they are self-confirming. Following them allows us to communicate and interact with others who follow these same norms. In those endeavors that require interaction and coordination in a social group, being understood is frequently more important than being right.Item Reasons, objective and explanatory : an Anscombean defense of reasons externalism(2013-12) Davey, Stephen Robert Alan; Dancy, JonathanThis is an essay about reasons for action. It begins with two rather ordinary observations. The first is that these two uses of the term ‘reason’ roughly correspond with the two main roles that a reason can play: the role of favoring a prospective course of action, and the role of explaining action. Each of these roles seems crucial to a philosophical account of reasons, and it is not obvious that either has claim to priority. The second observation is that accommodating each of these roles seems to place restrictions on what we can say about reasons for action, and those who lean toward giving priority to one role rather than the other tend also to give priority to the corresponding set of restrictions. They take that set as given, and then focus their efforts on finding a way to meet the other set if they can. Accommodating the explanatory role has seemed to many to require that a reason bear some relation to the motivations of the agent for whom it is reason. One might wonder: what sense could there be in calling something a reason for me to act if it were not in any way capable of explaining my being moved to act? I argue, however, that accepting this sort of internalist condition on something’s being a reason to act precludes accepting a condition of objectivity that is imposed on us if we wish to accommodate the favoring role: sometimes, at least, when we have a reason to act, we could not cease to have that reason simply by having a (perhaps radically) different set of attitudes. I then consider whether the reverse might be true of externalist theories. Does taking the favoring role as one’s starting point preclude a full account of the explanatory role of reasons? I argue that it does not. I show that an Anscombean conception of intentional action allows for a fairly clean solution to a pair of puzzles that motivate this worry. This approach relieves much of the pressure to think of reasons as being tied to motivational attitudes.