Dignity Beyond Price: Kant and His Revolutionary British Contemporary

Despite their contemporaneity and obvious similarities, Richard Price and Immanuel Kant are rarely discussed together. This essay examines the common background of their work, similarities in their methodology and principles, and their common concern with connecting rationalist philosophical systems with knowledge at the level of ordinary life and politics – all this despite their lack of reference to each other. Their normative principles are assessed in connection with major documents and political events in their revolutionary era. A concluding section evaluates their work in relation to contemporary discussions that concern the relationship between pre-reflective and reflective levels of moral knowledge. The essay draws on the work of contemporary scholars such as Danielle Allen, David Brink, Robert Audi, Sarah McGrath, and Thomas Kelly.

Personal Identity and Impersonal Ethics

On the Reductionist View, the fact of a person’s existence and that of her identity over time just consist in the holding of certain more particular facts about physical and mental events and the relations between these events. These more particular facts are impersonal—they do not presuppose or entail the existence of any person or mental subject. In Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit claims that if the Reductionist View is true, then ‘it is … more plausible to focus, not on persons, but on experiences, and to claim that what matters morally is the nature of these experiences’. But why think that the Reductionist View has this implication? As critics such as Robert Adams, David Brink, Mark Johnston, Christine Korsgaard, and Susan Wolf have suggested, it is not clear why the Reductionist View should have any implications regarding the moral importance of persons. This chapter argues that in contrast to Non-reductionist views, Psychological Reductionism, a version of the Reductionist View that assumes a psychological criterion of personal identity, supports the kind of impersonal moral outlook that Parfit describes.

The Possibility of Temporal Bias

This chapter discusses whether prudential rationality ought to permit of temporal biases: biases toward goods in the near future in comparison to the far future, and goods in the future in comparison to the past. I argue that there are strong rationales for such biases and that extant arguments offered by Meghan Sullivan, David Brink, Meghan Sullivan and Preston Greene, and Tom Dougherty against such biases fail.

FROM THE EDITORS

The last year has seen major changes at Legal Theory. Two of the journals’ editors—David Brink (Professor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego) and Matthew Adler (Professor of Law, Duke Law School)—stepped down after years of outstanding editorial work. We gratefully acknowledge their invaluable contributions in sustaining and improving the journal. As each editor stepped down, a new editor stepped in. Connie Rosati (Professor of Philosophy, University of Arizona) began work as an editor in the fall of 2016. In the spring of 2017, Mitchell Berman (Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School) joined the journal.

Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility Volume 4

This fourth volume of Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility includes twelve new and original essays drawn from the third biennial New Orleans Workshop in Agency and Responsibility (NOWAR). The essays cover a wide range of topics relevant to agency and responsibility. Vida Yao discusses strong-willed akrasia. Kyle Fruh talks about what is involved in being a moral hero. Facundo Alonso discusses what it takes to intend to do something, with appeal to the notion of reliance. Paul Russell outlines his view of free will pessimism. Derk Pereboom discusses how regret and protest are relevant to his skeptical view of free will. Gunnar Bjornsson advocates an explanatory account of culpability. Sara Bernstein talks about degrees of causal responsibility. David Brink offers a new account of criminal attempts. Julia Driver discusses wronging and forgiveness. Manuel Vargas explores responsibility for implicit bias. Finally, George Tsai discusses forward-looking aspects of blame and how it pertains to respect.

Mill’s act-utilitarian interpreters on Utilitarianism chapter V paragraph 14

In the fourteenth paragraph of the fifth chapter of Utilitarianism, J. S. Mill writes that ‘We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow-creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience.’ I criticize the attempts of three commentators who have recently presented act-utilitarian readings of Mill – Roger Crisp, David Brink, and Piers Norris Turner – to accommodate this passage.

The Place of Plural Voting in Mill's Conception of Representative Government

While it may not be surprising that Mill's proposal for a “plural voting” scheme that would award more votes to citizens with more education has few contemporary supporters, it is surprising that so many interpreters take him to regard plural voting as merely a temporary measure meant to ease the transition from restricted to universal suffrage. Contra Amy Gutmann, Maria Morales, Wendy Donner, David Brink, Wendy Sarvasy, Bruce Baum, and Jonathan Riley, I argue that Mill believes that plural voting should always accompany universal suffrage and thus that it should be in place indefinitely.

TRYING TO DEFEND ATTEMPTS: REPLIES TO BRATMAN, BRINK, ALEXANDER, AND MOORE

This essay replies to the thoughtful commentaries, by Michael Bratman, David Brink, Larry Alexander, and Michael Moore, on my book Attempts.

PRESCRIPTIVE REALISM

In my book God’s Call1 I gave an historical account of the debate within twentieth century analytic philosophy between moral realism and expressivism. Moral realism is the view that moral properties like goodness or cruelty exist independently of our making judgements that things have such properties. Such judgements are, on this theory, objectively true when the things referred to have the specified properties and objectively false when they do not. Expressivism is the view that when a person makes a moral judgment, she is expressing emotion or desire or will. I used the term ‘orectic’ (from the Greek orexis) to refer to these mental states, because we do not have in English a sufficiently general term. In God’s Call, I started with a moral realist whom I called a ‘platonist’, G. E. Moore, and then I traced the argument through the emotivists, A. J. Ayer and Charles Stevenson, and the prescriptivist, R. M. Hare, and Iris Murdoch, whom I called a ‘humble platonist’, and J. L. Mackie’s ‘error theory’, and John McDowell, whose theory I call ‘disposition theory’, and David Brink, the ‘new-wave realist’, and Allan Gibbard, who calls his own theory ‘norm expressivism’. My project was to collect together the concessions that the two sides of the debate have made to each other over the course of this history, and then to construct a position which molds these concessions into a single coherent theory. I called this theory ‘prescriptive realism’.

From Moral Realism to Moral Relativism in One Easy Step

En años recientes, las defensas del realismo moral han adoptado lo que llamamos la “semántica moral de la nueva ola”, la cual analiza las formas semánticas de funcionar de los términos morales tales como “bueno” y “correcto” semejantes a las formas semánticas de funcionar de los términos para clases naturales en la ciencia, y se inspira también en temas funcionalistas de la filosofía de la mente. Este tipo de perspectiva semántica que encontramos en las perspectivas metaéticas de David Brink, Richard Boyd, Peter Railton y otros, es el cimiento semántico crucial de una clase naturalística de realismo moral que estos filósofos apoyan —una perspectiva que promete dar una forma fuerte de realismo moral. Nosotros sostenemos que la semántica moral de la nueva ola nos conduce, de una u otra forma, al relativismo moral —una perspectiva que no es compatible con el tipo de realismo moral que estos filósofos pretenden defender. Es así que nuestra discusión muestra que si la semántica moral de la nueva ola es la mejor esperanza para defender el realismo moral naturalístico, entonces este tipo de perspectiva es insostenible. Nuestro trabajo está dividido en 7 secciones además de una conclusión. En la sección 1, explicamos la motivación que hay detrás de la semántica moral de la nueva ola. En la sección 2, pasamos al trabajo de Brink y Boyd cuyas perspectivas combinadas producen una perspectiva metaética, según la cual los términos morales como “bueno” y “correcto” quieren referir rígidamente a las propiedades funcionales de segundo orden cuya esencia funcional la revela cualquier teoría moral que surge de la aplicación correcta de la metodología coherentista. La perspectiva Brink- Boyd toma como modelo al psicofuncionalismo de la filosofía de la mente para entender las propiedades morales. En la sección 3, diferenciamos las diferentes formas del relativismo, arguyendo que ciertas formas son culpables de chauvinismo, y luego, en la sección 4, sostenemos que el psicofuncionalismo de la filosofía de la mente es culpable de una forma chauvinista de relativismo conceptual. En la sección 5, mostramos entonces cómo la versión Brink-Boyd de la semántica moral de la nueva ola también es culpable de un relativismo conceptual chauvinista en la ética. En la sección 6, pasamos a la propuesta de Railton (inspirada por la versión de la teoría de identidad psicofísica defendida por D.M. Armstrong y David Lewis) de que hay que comprender los términos morales en tanto que refieren no-rígidamente a las propiedades naturales. En la sección 7, sostenemos que en una interpretación de la propuesta de Railton, su perspectiva es culpable de un relativismo conceptual chauvinista, y en una interpretación alternativa, su perspectiva es culpable de una indeterminación moral radical. Ambos modos, tanto la perspectiva de Railton como la perspectiva de Brink-Boyd, no ayudan en la defensa de una forma fuerte de realismo moral: irónicamente, la semántica moral de la nueva ola nos conduce a un relativismo moral. [Traducción: Claudia Chávez A.]