Abstract

You can't just believe whatever you want to. You can only believe what you think is true. Why? Because if you don't think something is true, you don't believe it. You only act as if you do. ;You can't be kind, or just, or courageous for just any reason. Why not? Because an action is kind, or just, or courageous only if it's done for certain reasons. Done for other reasons, it won't be a kind, just, or courageous action. It will be an imitation of virtue. ;I hope to defend the truth in these two sets of claims, develop the parallel between them, and explore their implications for moral theory and practice. I will, in the process, consider a third set: ;You can't justify moral actions or attitudes for certain reasons. Why not? Because, if you try to do so, you will justify something other than moral actions and attitudes. Those who accept your justification will then only imitate the actions or attitudes you meant to justify. ;By arguing for this final set of claims, and showing its parallel to the first two, I hope to place some restrictions on the ambitions and execution of moral theory and to illuminate some familiar recent criticisms of it. ;In the first three chapters I suggest that the truth in these sets of claims, and the parallel between them, can be understood in terms of one general argument. This argument distinguishes two sorts of reasons and claims that one sort is "practically self-defeating." ;The fourth chapter argues that moral theory cannot rely on these self-defeating reasons, and therefore faces some restrictions: Moral theory cannot answer the moral skeptic and, when providing an account of moral justification, must be responsible to our everyday notions of virtue. ;I end by suggesting that certain familiar criticisms of moral theory---those which complain that morality is too impartial or impersonal to claim authority over our lives---can be well understood in these terms