Tipping the Scale

In this chapter, the author argues that the weighty reason to use an open donor identified by the Significant Interest view is, normally, a decisive reason. The argument proceeds by first distinguishing between intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for using an anonymous donor and then showing that, generally speaking, there are no intrinsic reasons that outweigh the reason to use an open donor identified by the Significant Interest view. While there might be extrinsic reasons that give some people decisive reason to use an anonymous donor, the author argues that the lack of intrinsic reasons means that we should work to remove extrinsic reasons for using an anonymous donor.

Ein ökonomisches Happy End aus geostrategischen Gründen? Erfolgsaussichten für den Freihandel zwischen der Europäischen Union und Indien

The talks that have been resumed for reaching a free trade agreement between the European Union and India have a good chance for success. Both partners, especially India, have to achieve new economic dynamics in order to be able to face the challenge posed by China. This decisive reason is supported by Brexit, the pandemic and the climate crisis, which also spark an exogenous, geostrategic dynamic that gives new impetus to the paralyzed liberal paradigm of free trade. Taken together, it is likely that exogenous geostrategic factors realign the endogenous economic factors and thus promote a positive outcome despite the ongoing weakness of liberal free trade ideas.

Parfit on the Irrelevance of Deontological Distinctions

This chapter concerns Derek Parfit’s discussion in his On What Matters, volume 3 of the irrelevance of deontological distinctions. Parfit begins by expressing his concern that morality will be undermined because practical reason, which tells us all things considered what to do, will often conflict with what we consider to be morally right. Unlike Sidgwick, Parfit does not begin by identifying morality with a part of impartial practical reason but rather with what he considers common sense deontology. Also, unlike Sidgwick, he thinks it is clear that sometimes self-interest (which provides some reason even impartially considered) is overridden by (other) impartial practical reasons (e.g., there is decisive reason to give one’s penny to save millions of other people). This chapter first considers how Parfit thinks one’s practical reason should reconcile concerns about self-sacrifice, pursuing the greater good, and morality. It then considers his use of case-based reasoning to undermine moral principles embodying such distinctions as harming versus not aiding, harming as a mere means versus as a side effect, and redirecting threats (as in the Trolley Problem) versus starting new ones.

Time and Existence

The nonexistence of the dead is a consequence of the fact that people are objects in time, and something’s position in time determines whether or not it exists. This is known as presentism. Objects like the dead, which belong exclusively to the past, are nonexistent. At least, this is true of time in the intuitive sense. Relativity theory, however, appears to contradict intuitive time, as was argued by Gödel. A defense is offered of Gödel’s argument, based on how Einstein himself understood special relativity, but arguments are also considered which reject the conventional understanding of relativity. Quantum mechanics also conflicts, here, with relativity. The conclusion is that there appears to be no decisive reason to reject intuitive time based on the inconclusive and divided deliverances of physical science, and thus no decisive reason to reject the view that the dead are nonexistent.

Perception and Primary Knowledge

A phenomenological analysis of perceptual experience, conducted with an eye on experimental psychology, addresses a series of questions. What is phenomenology? What makes perception of one’s environment as one’s environment? Does the phenomenal integration of the senses give decisive reason for ‘direct realism’? Do we perceive causal relations, or only infer them? Are we perceptually aware of acting? Are we perceptually aware of the causality of perception itself, and if so, in some cases or in all? It is argued that perceiving is not only direct cognitive contact with reality, but that the perceptual relation is itself an object of perceptual awareness. Accordingly, conscious perceptual knowledge comes with knowledge that and of how one has it. Other forms of knowledge (e.g. a priori knowledge) are analogous. A distinction is drawn between primary and secondary knowledge, such that that there could be no secondary knowledge without some primary knowledge.

What Does Morality Require When We Disagree?

In “Principled Compromise and the Abortion Controversy” Simon C. May argues that we do not have a principled moral reason to compromise. While I seek to understand how more precisely we are to understand this suggestion, I also object to it: I argue that we have a principled moral reason to accept democratic decisions that we disagree with, and that this can only be so if disagreement can change what the all things considered right political position is. But if this is so, then also a principled moral reason to compromise is possible. I suggest that there is a class of procedures, including compromise, voting, expert delegation, and coin flip, such that when we disagree about what justice requires, we have a principled moral reason (though not necessarily a decisive reason) to engage in one of these procedures.

Against Open-Minded Engagement (for Some People)

This chapter argues that you shouldn’t engage open-mindedly with salient counterarguments in some standard situations—those standard situations in which you know that the counterarguments are misleading. This conclusion relies on a general principle: you should do the things that what you know is a decisive reason to do (a principle that has been used to argue for so-called “pragmatic encroachment” in epistemology). That a counterargument is misleading is a decisive reason, in standard situations, to be unwilling to reduce your confidence in response to the counterargument. Therefore, if you know that the counterargument is misleading—which you sometimes do—you should do exactly that. You should be unwilling to reduce your confidence in response to the counterargument and, therefore, you should be closed-minded toward it.

Hume on Laws and Miracles

Hume famously argues that our past experience of the laws of nature provide us with decisive reason to believe that any testimony of a miracle is false. In this paper, I argue that the laws of nature, as such, give us no reason at all to believe that the testimony of a miracle is false. I first argue that Hume’s proof is unsuccessful if we assume the Humean view of laws, and then I argue that Hume’s proof is unsuccessful even if we assume a governing view of laws. I conclude that regardless of which kind of view we adopt, the fact that a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature does not give us any reason to believe it did not happen.

On Some Objections to The Deductive Closure of Legal Systems

I criticize an argument presented by Pablo Navarro and Jorge Rodríguez (2014) against the conception of legal systems as sets of statements closed under logical consequence. First, I show that the example on which they ground their argument incurs in a fallacy of equivocation. Then, I recognize that the authors are right about the fact that two different normative bases can react differently to changes, but I claim that that is not a decisive reason for choosing always the expressly enacted norms as the system’s basis, that the selection of the best basis should be guided by methodological considerations and that, to that purpose, it is necessary to consider the whole set of logical consequences as part of the system.

Rationality, Reasons, and Criticism

Chapter 2 elucidates why the normative question about rationality is important and why the normativity of rationality is plausible. It presents an argument to the effect that the criticizability of irrationality entails the normativity of rationality (2.1). It goes on to explain and support the main premise of this argument, namely that a person is criticizable only if she violates a decisive reason (2.2). This premise is defended against three possible alternative conceptions of criticism, which hold that criticizability can be grounded in the violation of a subjective ‘ought’ (2.3), in malfunctioning (2.4), or in acting in a less than virtuous way (2.5). The other premise of the argument, that irrationality is criticizable, is subsequently discussed. The main conclusion is that those sceptical about the normativity of rationality are committed to a highly revisionary error theory about ordinary attributions of rationality and irrationality (2.6).