scholarly journals Motivational Internalism and The Second-Order Desire Explanation

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Second Order ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Rational Agent ◽  
Motivational Internalism

Both motivational internalism and externalism need to explain why sometimes moral judgments tend to motivate us. In this paper, I argue that Dreier’ second-order desire model cannot be a plausible externalist alternative to explain the connection between moral judgments and motivation. I explain that the relevant second-order desire is merely a constitutive requirement of rationality because that desire makes a set of desires more unified and coherent. As a rational agent with the relevant second-order desire is disposed towards coherence, she will have some motivation to act in accordance with her moral judgments. Dreier’s second-order desire model thus collapses into a form of internalism and cannot be a plausible externalist option to explain the connection between moral judgments and motivation.

scholarly journals “An Erring Conscience is an Absurdity”: The Later Kant on Certainty, Moral Judgment and the Infallibility of Conscience

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franz Knappik ◽  
Erasmus Mayr
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
On Certainty ◽  
First Order ◽  
Major Shift ◽  
Characteristic Features

Abstract This article explores Kant’s view, found in several passages in his late writings on moral philosophy, that the verdicts of conscience are infallible. We argue that Kant’s infallibility claim must be seen in the context of a major shift in Kant’s views on conscience that took place around 1790 and that has not yet been sufficiently appreciated in the literature. This shift led Kant to treat conscience as an exclusively second-order capacity which does not directly evaluate actions, but one’s first-order moral judgments and deliberation. On the basis of this novel interpretation, we develop a new defence of Kant’s infallibility claim that draws on Kant’s account of the characteristic features of specifically moral judgments.

Moral Severity is Represented as a Domain-General Magnitude

2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Powell ◽  
Zachary Horne
Keyword(s):  
Response Times ◽  
Distance Effect ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Congruity Effect ◽  
Semantic Congruity ◽  
First Order ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Semantic Congruity Effect

Abstract. The severity of moral violations can vary by degree. For instance, although both are immoral, murder is a more severe violation than lying. Though this point is well established in Ethics and the law, relatively little research has been directed at examining how moral severity is represented psychologically. Most prominent moral psychological theories are aimed at explaining first-order moral judgments and are silent on second-order metaethical judgments, such as comparisons of severity. Here, the relative severity of 20 moral violations was established in a preliminary study. Then, a second group of participants were asked to decide which of two moral violations was more severe for all possible combinations of these 20 violations. Participant’s response times exhibited two signatures of domain-general magnitude comparisons: we observed both a distance effect and a semantic congruity effect. These findings suggest that moral severity is represented in a similar fashion as other continuous magnitudes.

Motivational Internalism and Normativity

Etyka ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 41-57
Author(s):  
Karolina Jasser
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Personality Disorders ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Motivational Internalism ◽  
Counter Argument

Motivational internalism is a view about the connection between motivation and moral judgment. The debate over internalism has long focused on establishing the nature of the connection between moral judgment and motivation. In this paper I argue that recent studies regarding personality disorders such as psychopathy and VM damage, which have been traditionally seen as providing a counter argument to internalism, indicate that motivational deficiencies in the moral sphere are linked to motivational deficiencies in other normative spheres such as prudence. This observation suggests that internalism focus of internalism should not be moral judgments simpliciter but rather the nature of the connection between motivation and the general normative sphere. If this is correct then psychopathy and VM damage should not be treated as disproving internalism, but rather as emphasizing a problem with the traditional ways it has been phrased.

Rationality, Moral Motivation and Psychopathology

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 42-59
Author(s):  
Karolina Jasser
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Personality Disorders ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Direct Proof ◽  
Practical Rationality ◽  
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Psychopathic Personality ◽  
Motivational Internalism

Motivational internalism is a view according to which moral judgments are necessarily motivating. Rationalist internalism (RI) is the most popular version of this view; it limits internalism to people who are practically rational. Motivational internalism, including RI, has been criticized as being incompatible with research into certain personality disorder; in particular psychopathic personality and pathological personality which is the result of damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (shortened to VM damage). In this paper, I argue that many of the features of psychopathic personality and of VM damage, which some philosophers interpreted as direct proof against internalism, should be understood as having an effect on the practical rationality of the patients. This means that these personality disorders cannot be used as counter examples to RI and can, in fact, be seen as supporting RI to some extent . I begin by describing RI. I then turn to I describing the phenomenon of psychopathic personality and VM damage and their philosophically relevant features. Finally I discuss whether the features characterizing psychopathy and VM damage influence the degree to which these disorders can serve as counterexamples to internalism of the rationalist variety.

Weak Motivational Internalism, Lite: Dispositions, Moral Judgments, and What We're Motivated to Do

2009 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Jesse Steinberg
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Motivational Internalism ◽  
Central Thesis ◽  
Course Of Action

Motivational internalists hold that there is a necessary connection between an agent's moral judgments and what she is motivated to do. One way to express the central thesis of this view is as follows:Necessarily, for any agent 5, if 5 judges that some available action is morally right (or good, or obligatory, or …) for 5 to perform (or to refrain from performing), then 5 is motivated, at least to some extent, to perform (or to refrain from performing) that action.This is, to borrow a phrase from David Lewis, quite an unlovely mouthful. Perhaps a simpler way of articulating things would be:Necessarily, an agent's sincere moral judgment that she ought to φ provides her with some motivation to φ.Yet another formulation of motivation internalism is:Necessarily, if an agent makes a moral judgment, then she has some desire that favours, inter alia, any course of action that judgment entails.

scholarly journals THE NATURE OF NORMATIVE MORAL JUDGMENTS

Adam alemi ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (86) ◽  
pp. 129-135
Author(s):  
Almira Omarova
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Philosophical Issue ◽  
First Order ◽  
Moral Statement ◽  
The Subject

Moral judgements have been a crucial subject-matter of a discussion in the domain of normativity. Many thinkers argue moral judgments are necessarily action-guiding, which prescribe what one ought to do and what ought to be the case. The moral statement “killing is wrong” is prescriptive and locates in the purview of first-order ethical questions. Moral realists widely accept that moral judgments represent propositions, therefore they are subject to truth and false conditions. Thus, moral conclusions can be derived logically from valid premises. How to derive the conclusion “killing is wrong”? How to justify the statement? What does “wrong” mean in this context? This kind of philosophical issue has been labeled as the second-order questions, which is in the purview of metaethics. This article is devoted to the subject of normativity and the nature of moral judgments advocated by metaethicists David Copp and Ralph Wedgwood. The purpose of this article is to outline the current debate on the nature of normative moral judgments. In conclusion, I shall agree with both Copp and Wedgwoodon two points. One, normative moral judgment can be subject to cognition. Two, there are true and false beliefs about particular moral facts which constitute the significant part of the reality we live in.

Cautiously optimistic rationalism may not be cautious enough

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin F. Landy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Judgments

Abstract May expresses optimism about the source, content, and consequences of moral judgments. However, even if we are optimistic about their source (i.e., reasoning), some pessimism is warranted about their content, and therefore their consequences. Good reasoners can attain moral knowledge, but evidence suggests that most people are not good reasoners, which implies that most people do not attain moral knowledge.

Disappearance Voltage Determinations Using a Convergent Beam

1971 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 184-185
Author(s):  
W. L. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Second Order ◽  
Objective Method ◽  
Uniform Thickness ◽  
Rocking Curve ◽  
Crystal Perfection ◽  
Kikuchi Line ◽  
Central Maximum ◽  
Diffraction Patterns ◽  
Convergent Beam ◽  
Beam Technique

Disappearance voltages for second order reflections can be determined experimentally in a variety of ways. The more subjective methods, such as Kikuchi line disappearance and bend contour imaging, involve comparing a series of diffraction patterns or micrographs taken at intervals throughout the disappearance range and selecting that voltage which gives the strongest disappearance effect. The estimated accuracies of these methods are both to within 10 kV, or about 2-4%, of the true disappearance voltage, which is quite sufficient for using these voltages in further calculations. However, it is the necessity of determining this information by comparisons of exposed plates rather than while operating the microscope that detracts from the immediate usefulness of these methods if there is reason to perform experiments at an unknown disappearance voltage.The convergent beam technique for determining the disappearance voltage has been found to be a highly objective method when it is applicable, i.e. when reasonable crystal perfection exists and an area of uniform thickness can be found. The criterion for determining this voltage is that the central maximum disappear from the rocking curve for the second order spot.

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