What Matters in Survival

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Ehring
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Error Theory ◽  
Normative Reason ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Motivating Reasons ◽  
What Matters In Survival ◽  
Extreme View ◽  
What Matters

This work is about what matters in survival, that is, about what relation to a future individual gives you a reason for prudential concern for that individual. For common sense there is such a relation and it is identity, but according to Parfit, common sense is wrong in this respect. Identity is not what matters in survival. In this work, it is argued that this Parfitian thesis, revolutionary though it is, does not go far enough. The result is the highly radical view, “Survival Nihilism,” according to which nothing matters in survival. Although we generally have motivating reasons to have prudential concern, and perhaps even indirect normative reasons for such concerns—such as a commitment to find a vaccine for the Covid-19 virus—there is no relation that gives you a basic, foundational normative reason for prudential concern. This view goes beyond what Parfit calls the Extreme View. It is the More Extreme View, and is, in effect, something like an error theory about prudential reason as a special kind of normative reason.

Achievements and Intelligibility

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Errol Lord
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Causal Chain ◽  
Normative Reason ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Motivating Reasons ◽  
Causal Theories ◽  
In Virtue Of

The type of view defended about correctly responding to normative reasons doesn’t fit nicely into the landscape of views in the philosophy of mind and action about reacting for reasons. This is because it doesn’t account for cases where we react for reasons that are not normative reasons—i.e., cases where we merely react for motivating reasons. This chapter defends a view about what it is to react for motivating reasons. According to this view, what it is for A to X for a consideration r is for A to X in virtue of the fact that A conceives of r as a normative reason to X. It is argued that this account solves the classic deviant causal chain problems for causal theories of reacting for reasons. Finally, disjunctivism about reacting-for-reasons is defended: the view that reacting for motivating reasons is different in kind from reacting for normative reasons.

Parfit’s Reorientation

2021 ◽  
pp. 195-212
Author(s):  
Ingmar Persson
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
The Third ◽  
Rule Consequentialism ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Significant Change ◽  
Common Sense Morality ◽  
What Matters

This paper aims to show that between Reasons and Persons and On What Matters the orientation of Derek Parfit’s philosophy underwent a significant change. The approach of Reasons and Persons is largely revisionist, which is exemplified by his reductionist account of personal identity. This account is omitted in On What Matters apparently because it does not fit in with the conciliationist project of this work. The aim of the first two volumes of that work is to show that, on the basis of a non-naturalist theory of normative reasons, three supposedly irreconcilable moral theories—rule-consequentialism, Kantian and Scanlonian contractualism—could converge to form a single Triple Theory. In the third volume, the conciliationist approach is carried further by Parfit’s attempt to show both that his metaethical position is in essential agreement with rivals, such as Gibbard’s expressivism, and to reconcile parts of common-sense morality and consequentialism in order to bring them together in the Triple Theory. This chapter argues that the failure of these attempts as well as the fact that the most controversial revisionist claims in Reasons and Persons are left out throw doubt on the feasibility of Parfit’s conciliationalist undertaking.

scholarly journals Grounding Personal Persistence

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet E. Baber
Keyword(s):  
Counterpart Theory ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Ordinary Objects ◽  
Plausible Account ◽  
Temporal Properties ◽  
What Matters In Survival ◽  
What Matters

Abstract Modal counterpart theory identifies a thing’s possibly being F with its having a counterpart that is F at another possible world; temporal counterpart theory identifies a thing’s having been F or going to be F, with its having a counterpart that is F at another time. Benovsky, J. 2015. “Alethic Modalities, Temporal Modalities, and Representation.” Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 29: 18–34 in this journal endorses modal counterpart theory but holds that temporal counterpart theory is untenable because it does not license the ascription of the intuitively correct temporal properties to ordinary objects, and hence that we should understand ordinary objects, including persons, as transtemporal ‘worms’. I argue that the worm theory is problematic when it comes to accounting for what matters in survival and that temporal counterpart theory provides a plausible account of personal persistence.

Placebos and Movies: What Do They Have in Common?

2021 ◽  
pp. 096372142110038
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Benedetti
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Placebo Effect ◽  
Psychological Factors ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Physiological Responses ◽  
Therapeutic Effects ◽  
Physiological Effects ◽  
Placebo Effects ◽  
What Matters

Placebos are fake therapies that can induce real therapeutic effects, called placebo effects. It goes without saying that what matters for inducing a placebo effect is not so much the fake treatment itself, but rather the therapeutic ritual that is carried out, which is capable of triggering psychobiological mechanisms in the patient’s brain. Both laypersons and scientists often accept the phenomenon of the placebo effect with reluctance, as fiction-induced clinical improvements are at odds with common sense. However, it should be emphasized that placebo effects are not surprising after all if one considers that fiction-induced physiological effects occur in everyday life. Movies provide one of the best examples of how fictitious reality can induce psychological and physiological responses, such as fear, love, and tears. In the same way that a horror movie induces fear-related physiological responses, even though the viewer knows everything is fake, so the sight of a syringe may trigger the release of pain-relieving chemicals in the patient’s brain, even if the patient knows there is a fake painkiller inside. From this perspective, placebos can be better conceptualized as rituals, actions, and fictions within a more general framework that emphasizes the power of psychological factors in everyday life, including the healing context.

Respect for persons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Respect For Persons ◽  
Moral Requirement ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Theoretical Status ◽  
Moral Duties ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Common Sense Morality

The idea that one should treat persons with due respect is an important part of common sense morality, but opinions differ about when respect is called for, what it requires, and why. Respect for persons is also a central concept in many ethical theories. Some theories even hold respect for persons to be the foundation of all other moral duties and obligations. Respect is distinguished commonly, on one side, from fear and submission, and on another, from admiration, liking and affection. Respect for all persons as such is distinguished normally from esteem or special regard for persons of unusual merit. Some philosophers identify respect with agapē, a special kind of love, but respect is perhaps most often regarded as a distinct attitude that should constrain and complement the promptings of love. Kant, for example, held that the requirements of respect and love are different, though compatible, and that both are dependent upon the more general and fundamental idea that humanity in every person is an end in itself. Other key issues in discussions of respect for persons include: what moral requirement, if any, there is to respect all persons; what the grounds, scope, and theoretical status are of that requirement; whether one can forfeit all claim to respect as a person; what ‘respect for persons’ demands with regard to specific problems, such as conflicts rooted in race and gender differences; and whether there is the same ground and obligation to respect oneself as to respect others.

Parfit on what matters in survival

1993 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Brueckner
Keyword(s):  
What Matters In Survival ◽  
What Matters

On What Matters in Survival

Mind ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol LXXXIX (355) ◽  
pp. 406-411
Author(s):  
NICHOLAS MEASOR
Keyword(s):  
What Matters In Survival ◽  
What Matters

Reasons, Choices, and Responsibility

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Kearns
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Motivating Reasons ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter is divided broadly into two parts. The first part examines the idea that agents choose for (motivating) reasons. After an investigation of what this idea amounts to, arguments for the claim the agent always chooses for reasons and for the claim that agents never choose for reasons are set out and critiqued. It is concluded that, at the very least, there are deep problems with the idea that agents choose for reasons. The second part examines what light the relationship between (normative) reasons and responsibility can shed on the nature of reasons. Roughly, it is argued that, given reasons-responsive accounts of responsibility, reasons are best cashed out as being evidence of the normative or evaluative status of actions.

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