The Attitudes We Can Have

Philosophical Review 129 (4):591-642 (2020)
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Abstract

I investigate when we can (rationally) have attitudes, and when we cannot. I argue that a comprehensive theory must explain three phenomena. First, being related by descriptions or names to a proposition one has strong reason to believe is true does not guarantee that one can rationally believe that proposition. Second, such descriptions, etc. do enable individuals to rationally have various non-doxastic attitudes, such as hope and admiration. And third, even for non-doxastic attitudes like that, not just any description will allow it. I argue that we should think of attitude formation like we do (practical) choices among options. I motivate this view linguistically, extending "relevant alternatives'' theories of the attitudes to both belief and to the other, non-doxastic attitudes. Given a natural principle governing choice, and some important differences between doxastic and non-doxastic "choices'', we can explain these puzzling phenomena.

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Daniel Drucker
University of Texas at Austin

Citations of this work

Good Guesses.Kevin Dorst & Matthew Mandelkern - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 105 (3):581-618.
Questions in Action.Daniel Hoek - 2022 - Journal of Philosophy 119 (3):113-143.
Question-Sensitive Theory of Intention.Bob Beddor & Simon Goldstein - 2022 - Philosophical Quarterly 73 (2):346-378.
Minimal Rationality and the Web of Questions.Daniel Hoek - forthcoming - In Dirk Kindermann, Peter van Elswyk, Andy Egan & Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini (eds.), Unstructured Content. Oxford University Press.
Attitudes as Positions.Daniel Drucker - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

Naming and Necessity: Lectures Given to the Princeton University Philosophy Colloquium.Saul A. Kripke - 1980 - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Edited by Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel.
Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The Varieties of Reference.Gareth Evans - 1982 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by John Henry McDowell.
Intention.G. E. M. Anscombe - 1957 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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