Prudence as a System of Categorical Imperatives

Dear Prudence ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 13-32
Author(s):  
Guy Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Prudential Value

This chapter examines whether there are prudential reasons. After clarifying the nature of prudential reasons (what it would take for there to be such reasons) it examines, and rejects, various positions that entail the denial of the existence of prudential reasons. These include forms of nihilism about prudential value, the view that all reasons are agent-neutral, and (its most pressing opponent) the view that all reasons are Humean, or fundamentally desire-based, in nature. The chapter aims to establish the following thesis: Prudential Value Matters (PVM) — Evaluative prudential facts generate directive prudential facts (including facts about prudential, normative, reasons for action and for attitudes).

Internalism and Externalism about Reasons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hille Paakkunainen
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action

Internalism about normative reasons for action, in its broadest characterization, holds that each agent A’s reasons to act are constrained by some motivational fact, M, about A. Different versions of internalism differ on what M is. This chapter examines Bernard Williams’s (1981) influential version of, and argument for, internalism, in a broadly sympathetic vein. I isolate the key assumptions driving Williams’s argument, tracing their influence on Williams’s views and on the literature he sparked; and arguing that each assumption, when properly understood, is more plausible than some recent critics think. The upshot is that Williams’s internalism, and the assumptions that generate it, remain serious contenders on the contemporary scene.

Might Desires Be Beliefs about Normative Reasons for Action?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Weakness Of Will ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Direction Of Fit

This paper examines the view that desires are beliefs about normative reasons for action. It describes the view, and briefly sketches three arguments for it. But the focus of the paper is defending the view from objections. The paper argues that the view is consistent with the distinction between the direction of fit of beliefs and desires, that it is consistent with the existence of appetites such as hunger, that it can account for counterexamples that aim to show that beliefs about reasons are not sufficient for desire, such as weakness of will, and that it can account for counterexamples that aim to show that beliefs about reasons are not necessary for desire, such as addiction. The paper also shows how it is superior to the view that desires are appearances of the good.

Moral Error Theory

2019 ◽  
pp. 7-29
Author(s):  
Christopher Cowie
Keyword(s):  
Error Theory ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Moral Error Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Judgements ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
The Relationship

Two varieties of moral error theory are identified. According to the first—the internalism-based error theory—moral judgements are committed to the existence of categorical normative reasons for action. These are incompatible with plausible constraints on the relationship between one’s reasons and one’s psychology. So they do not exist. According to the second—the irreducibility-based error theory—moral judgements are committed to the existence of irreducibly normative properties and relations. These are incompatible with plausible assumptions about the constituents of the world. So they do not exist. The differences and commonalities between these two varieties of moral error theory are identified.

scholarly journals Authoritatively speaking : a speech pragmatic analysis of authority and power

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alek Willsey
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Normative Reason ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Normative Influence ◽  
Pragmatic Analysis ◽  
Normative Status

A speaker needs authority to perform some speech acts, such as giving orders. A paradigm example of this is when a manager orders their employee to take out the trash; ordinarily, these words will give the employee a normative reason of considerable strength for them to take out the trash, and so they should take out the trash, all things considered. I will explore three related problems regarding a speaker's authority. First, there is the problem of defining how and within what scope a speaker has the capacity to set norms for others -- I will call this the Authority Problem. An answer to the Authority Problem would settle what constitutes a manager's capacity to change the normative status of their employee. Second, there is the problem of showing how a speaker uses their authority to produce felicitous authoritative speech -- I will call this the Illocutionary Authority Problem. An answer to this problem will show how a manager exercises their capacity to alter the normative status of their employee, assuming they have such a capacity. Third, there is the problem of explaining how a speaker's right to produce authoritative speech can be systematically infringed -- I will call this the Problem of Discursive Injustice. An answer to this problem will explain how a manager can have their orders systematically misfire despite exercising their capacity to alter the normative status of others in the usual way, such as when the employee routinely misapprehends their manager's orders as being requests. To answer each of these problems within the philosophy of language, I draw on recent work in social and political philosophy. I defend the view that a speaker's authority to alter what someone else ought to do (by giving them and taking away normative reasons for action) is constituted entirely by the respect their addressee(s) have for their use of power directed at them. Further, a speaker's powers are the linguistic tools by which they attempt to exert this normative influence over their addressee(s). Finally, a speaker may be discursively entitled to use their power in specific institutions because of the role they occupy, and this speech can systematically misfire despite this entitlement because they are wrongfully deprived of the respect they deserve.

Motivating Reasons and Normative Reasons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David McNaughton ◽  
Piers Rawling
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Future Contingents ◽  
Causal Account ◽  
Motivational Internalism ◽  
Normative Realism ◽  
Reasons Internalism ◽  
Motivating Reasons

Reasons for action are traditionally divided into “motivating reasons,” which explain why someone did something, and “normative reasons,” which concern why she should (or should not) have done it. We explore various positions concerning both types of reason, and the relations between them. We discuss Davidson’s causal account of action, reasons internalism and externalism, constructivism, motivational internalism and externalism, and practical normative realism (PNR)—the view that there are truths concerning what you have reason to do (this is opposed by error theorists and noncognitivists, whose views we also briefly address). In our account of PNR, we distinguish between what you ought to do and what you have most reason to do, by appealing to the idea of reasonable credences. And we include two appendices, one resisting Lewis’s argument to the effect that advocates of PNR must reject motivational internalism, the other responding to a concern about future contingents.

scholarly journals Descriptive Rules and Normativity

Disputatio ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (57) ◽  
pp. 167-180
Author(s):  
Adriana Placani
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Limited Role ◽  
Desirable Outcome ◽  
Orthodox View

AbstractThis work offers a challenge to the orthodox view that descriptive rules are non-normative and passive in their role and usage. It does so by arguing that, although lacking in normativity themselves, descriptive rules can be sources of normativity by way of the normative attitudes that can develop around them. That is, although descriptive rules typically depict how things are, they can also play a role in how things ought to be. In this way, the limited role that this type of rule can play as either a basis for the development of normative reasons, or as explanatory reasons for action is identified and clarified. One desirable outcome of the analysis is a more complete view of what descriptive rules are and how they are utilized by agents.

scholarly journals Primary Reasons as Normative Reasons

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-111
Author(s):  
Nathan Howard ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Motivating Reasons

I argue that Davidson’s conception of motivating reasons as belief-desire pairs suggests a model of normative reasons for action that is superior to the orthodox conception according to which normative reasons are propositions, facts, or the truth-makers of such facts.

scholarly journals Evaluative Beliefs First

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Bramble
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
External World ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Motivational Systems ◽  
Opposite View ◽  
Evaluative Beliefs ◽  
Evaluative Thinking

Many philosophers think that it is only because we happen to want or care about things that we think some things of value. We start off caring about things, and then project these desires onto the external world. This chapter makes a preliminary case for the opposite view, that it is our evaluative thinking that is prior. On this view, it is only because we think some things of value that we care about or want anything at all. This view explains (i) the special role that pleasure and pain play in our motivational systems, (ii) why phenomenal consciousness evolved, and (iii) how the two main competing theories of normative reasons for action—objectivism and subjectivism—can be reconciled. The chapter responds to the most serious objections to this view, including that it cannot account for temptation and willpower, or for the existence and appropriateness of the reactive attitudes.

Should Utilitarianism Be Scalar?

Utilitas ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
GERALD LANG
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Moral Duties

Scalar utilitarianism, a form of utilitarianism advocated by Alastair Norcross, retains utilitarianism's evaluative commitments while dispensing with utilitarianism's deontic commitments, or its commitment to the existence or significance of moral duties, obligations and requirements. This article disputes the effectiveness of the arguments that have been used to defend scalar utilitarianism. It is contended that Norcross's central ‘Persuasion Argument’ does not succeed, and it is suggested, more positively, that utilitarians cannot easily distance themselves from deontic assessment, just as long as scalar utilitarians admit – as they should do – that utilitarian evaluation generates normative reasons for action.

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