This chapter contains sections titled: References.

I argue against the tendency in the philosophy of science literature to link abduction to the inference to the best explanation (IBE), and in particular, to claim that Peireean abduction is a conceptual predecessor to IBE. This is not to discount either abduction or IBE. Rather the purpose of this paper is to clarify the relation between Peireean abduction and IBE in accounting for ampliative inference in science. This paper aims at a proper classification—not justification—of types of scientific (...) reasoning. In particular, I claim that Peireean abduction is an in-depth account of the process of generating explanatory hypotheses, while IBE, at least in Peter Lipton's thorough treatment, is a more encompassing account of the processes both of generating and of evaluating scientific hypotheses. There is then a two-fold problem with the claim that abduction is IBE. On the one hand, it conflates abduction and induction, which are two distinct forms of logical inference, with two distinct aims, as shown by Charles S. Peirce; on the other hand it lacks a clear sense of the full scope of IBE as an account of scientific inference. (shrink)

The causal theory of reasons holds that acting for a reason entails that the agents action was caused by his or her beliefs and desires. While Donald Davidson (1963) and others effectively silenced the first objections to the theory, a new round has emerged. The most important recent attack is presented by Jonathan Dancy in Practical Reality (2000) and subsequent work. This paper will defend the causal theory against Dancy and others, including Schueler (1995), Stoutland (1999, 2001), and Ginet (...) (2002).Dancy observes that our reasons are neither psychological states nor causes, and that our reasons can be both motivating and normative. I argue that these observations are fully compatible with the causal theory. According to the reductive version I develop for both cognitive and optative reasons, what it is for an action to be done for a reason is for certain beliefs and desires to cause the action in a particular way. Our reasons for action are the objects of some of those beliefs and desires. The causal process has two stages. This theory explains not only Dancys observations, but also many other facts about reasons that alternative theories leave unexplained. I argue against Schueler and others that the non-appetitive desires entailed by acting for reasons are no less distinct and independent causal factors than the beliefs entailed. I go on to rebut arguments that the relation between psychological states and actions cannot be causal because it is non-empirical, rational, normative, or non-deterministic, and that explanations in terms of psychological causes are incompatible with explanations in terms of reasons. (shrink)

According to Bernard Williams, if it is true that A has a normative reason to Φ then it must be possible that A should Φ for that reason. This claim is important both because it restricts the range of reasons which agents can have and because it has been used as a premise in an argument for so-called ‘internalist’ theories of reasons. In this paper I rebut an apparent counterexamples to Williams’ claim: Schroeder’s example of Nate. I (...) argue that this counterexample fails since it underestimates the range of cases where agents can act for their normative reasons. Moreover, I argue that a key motivation behind Williams’ claim is compatible with this ‘expansive’ account of what it is to act for a normative reason. (Published with Open Access.). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Kant and the Capacity to Judge; Sensibility and Discursivity in the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason by Beatrice LonguenesseMichelle GreerBeatrice Longuenesse. Kant and the Capacity to Judge; Sensibility and Discursivity in the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason. Translation by Charles T. Wolfe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. Pp. xv + 420. Cloth, $59.50.Kant and the Capacity to Judge is a translation (...) of Longuenesse’s Kant et Pouvoir de juger, although Longuenesse has revised and added to the original version. The central argument seeks to demonstrate the essential role played by the logical forms of judgment in the arguments of Kant’s first Critique. Longuenesse emphasizes straight away Kant’s efforts (in the Metaphysical Deduction) to deduce a set of pure concepts from the logical forms of judgment. Against many standard readings, she aims to reveal the very “tight” connection between this attempt and subsequent arguments in the Transcendental [End Page 372] Analytic. That Kant takes the functions of judgment to be relevant to these arguments is hardly a novel claim. The originality of Longuenesse’s work, however, stems both from the central and pervasive role she assigns to the logical forms of judgment, and from the impressive, painstaking effort she makes to sustain the close connection between these forms and Kant’s subsequent arguments. According to Longuenesse, any proper understanding of the arguments of the Transcendental Analytic absolutely depends upon relating these “down to the minutest details of their proofs,” to the role of the logical forms (5).These minute details do not escape Longuenesse in her subsequent elaboration on this original thesis. Given the length and detail of her work, I can only highlight a few of the central points and strategies. One should note from the outset, however, that the detail and the scholarship evinced to support her claims constitute much of what is of value in the book. Many of these “supporting arguments” and discussions, which include efforts to trace Kantian conceptions back to their historical/philosophical origins, stand in their own right as independent contributions to Kant scholarship and interpretation.The work is divided into three parts. The first part is essentially propaedeutic. Longuenesse begins by drawing a distinction between the potential or capacity to judge and judgement itself (i.e., the “actualization” of this judgmental capacity under [externally grounded] sensory stimulation) (7). Taking this distinction as her cue, Longuenesse seeks to reveal the way in which the line of argumentation in the transcendental analytic presents an extended investigation into the formal capacity (ibid). The centrality of the logical forms of judgment is secured early on by assigning them a substantive role in the very presentation of something in intuition “as” an “object.” Insofar as she assigns this role to the logical forms themselves, her account clearly undercuts the primary function of the categories in this regard. Relevant here is Longuenesse’s construal of “appearances” as the intentional correlates of our representational capacities and activities (cf. 20–21). Given this, the problem now motivating the transcendental deduction is how to make sense of the relation between this “internalized” object of (indeterminate) empirical intuition (the appearance) and the object corresponding to intuition which concepts allow one to think in a determinate way (the phenomenon). This ability to think the object in a determinate fashion appears to be the essential contribution made by judgement.These preliminary considerations ground Longuenesse’s efforts (in Part Two) to isolate and examine the discursive activity of judgment. Longuenesse stresses the reflective (and not simply the determinative) role of judgment and its forms. Indeed, she suggests that concepts (not merely empirical concepts, but also the pure concepts of the understanding themselves) are formed by reflecting (through acts of comparison, reflection, and abstraction) on the “sensible given.” Drawing extensively from the Logic, she interestingly argues that the form of judgment itself carries with it some inherent claim to objectivity. Thus, objectivity is folded into the formal activity of judging by being identified as a “normative propensity” inherent in every judgment by virtue of its form alone (87–88). Longuenesse accordingly eschews efforts to downplay the role of the logical use of the... (shrink)

Normativity and the Will collects fourteen important papers on moral psychology and practical reason by R. Jay Wallace, one of the leading philosophers currently working in these areas.The papers explore the interpenetration of normative and psychological issues in a series of debates that lie at the heart of moral philosophy. Part I, Reason, Desire, and the Will, discusses the nexus linking normativity to motivation, including the relations between desire and reasons, the role of normative considerations in (...) explanations of action, and the normative commitments involved in willing an end. Part II, Responsibility, Identification, and Emotion, looks at questions about the rational capacities presupposed by accountable agency and the psychic factors that both inhibit and enable identification with what we do. It includes an interpretation of the Nietzschean claim that ressentiment is among the sources of modern moral consciousness. Part III, Morality and Other Normative Domains, addresses the structure of moral reasons and moral motivation, and the relations between moral demands and other normative domains. Wallace's treatments of these topics are at once sophisticated and engaging. Taken together, they constitute an advertisement for a distinctive way of pursuing issues in moral psychology and the theory of practical reason. The book articulates and defends a unified framework for thinking about those issues, while offering sustained critical discussions of other influential approaches. It should be of interest to every serious student of moral philosophy. (shrink)

For countless citizens in the United States, guns are objects of personal attachment that provide strong feelings of power and security. I argue that a key reason for such tight affective bonds is that, under certain conditions, guns become integrated into their owners’ embodied experience. To flesh out this view, I explain (a) how firearms, as material artifacts, can become a part of the feeling body and (b) how this integration impacts one’s experience of self, others, and the world. I (...) first apply the distinction between body-incorporation and body-extension by De Preester and Tsakiris (Phenomenol Cogn Sci 8:307–319, 2009) to delineate how guns can (and cannot) be integrated into lived bodies. I then introduce Ihde's (Technology and the life world: from garden to earth, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1990) notion of embodiment relations to elaborate on the key experiential features of technologically extended bodies and complement the previous, sensorimotor-centric accounts of bodily extension with Colombetti's (Phenomenology for the twenty-first century, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2016) concept of affective incorporation. With this theoretical framework in place, I proceed to examine the motives and affective dynamics involved in the incorporation of guns, the practices by which this incorporation is constituted, and its impact on gun carriers’ habitual comportment. In doing so, I identify two notable contradictions: first, between a desire for the power afforded by firearms and the lack in oneself that this power implies, and second, between one’s seemingly beneficial feelings of confidence/safety and potentially harmful transformations in one’s perceptions of threat. To conclude, I discuss how my analysis challenges current theorization on technologically extended bodies and consider its relevance for ongoing debates over gun policy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:205 TIME AND THE IDEA OF TIME Hume entitled Part II of Book I of the Treatise "Of the Ideas of Space and Time." Students of this most obscure Part of the Book are aware, however, that he spends little time in it on time. The main reason for his concentration on space. is polemical. In Part II his primary object is to exhibit the contradictions and absurdities implicit (...) in the science of his day with its postulation of empty space and of the mathematics with its notion of infinite divisibility, and then to show how these difficulties can be overcome by the adoption and implementation of the theory of ideas he had developed in Part I. As a result, with the exception of a discussion that occupies approximately three pages in Section III, most of his references to time in Part II are little more than brief appendages tacked on to his arguments concerning space. Hume commentators have generally taken their cue from him. Although the literature contains substantial analyses of his views about space, very little can be found on the subject of time. In this paper, I shall attempt to add something to that slim literature. As its title indicates, this paper will be concerned with two subjects, time and the idea of time. Hume accepts the ordinary distinction between thé two. Time and our idea of time are separate realities, the former being a part of the world independent of us and the latter being a part of the content of our consciousness. I shall observe this distinction, beginning with an account of what Hume means by time and following that with an explanation of his theory of the origin and nature of the idea of time. After finishing these two expository sections I shall devote 206 the remainder of the paper to a critical examination of Hume's views on both subjects, ending with a suggestion about a possible alternative route he might have followed in his argument about time and the idea of time in Part II. A final preliminary point: Although Hume devotes most of his attention to space in Part II, he makes it clear that, because space and time (as well as our ideas of them) are analogous to each other in certain vital respects, his views concerning the former can easily be transferred and applied to the latter. 1. Time Hume states or implies several things about the nature of time in Part II. (1)He equates time with duration, treating the two terms as equivalent throughout his discussion. (2)Time is an objective reality, or aspect of the external world. This interpretation may be questioned because Hume never asserts an objectivistic view of time unequivocally and in certain passages writes in a way that could be interpreted as implying that time is a characteristic of our conscious experience. "As 'tis from the disposition of visible and tangible objects we receive the idea of space, so from the succession of ideas and impressions we form the idea of time..." (T 35). But later he writes: "...time is nothing but the manner, in which some real objects exist..." (T 64). Also, in the titles of his first two sections he makes a clear distinction, labelling Section I "Of the infinite divisibility of our ideas of space and time" and Section II "Of the infinite divisibility of space and time." Since, in Section II, it is apparent that he is talking about space as a part 207 of the external world, the natural inference is that he is talking about time in the same way, as, for example, when he writes, "The infinite divisibility of space implies that of time, as is evident from the nature of motion" (T 31). (3)Time is not infinitely divisible but is made up of parts Hume calls 'moments' (T 31). These moments are the 'building blocks' of time and are ultimate and indivisible. They are analogous to the ultimate, indivisible parts of space, which Hume labels 'mathematical points' (T 40). (4)The moments of time are not co-existent but successive. In this respect time differs from space. "'Tis also evident, that these parts [of... (shrink)

For quite some time now philosophers have stressed the need to distinguish between explanatory (motivating) reasons and justifying (good) reasons. The distinction is often illustrated with an example of someone doing something that is intended to strike the reader or listener, at least at the outset, as incomprehensible. The story of Abraham on Mount Moriah, who decided to sacrifice his son, Isaac, illustrates this pattern. Killing one’s own child is a horrific thing to do, and (...) it is hard to understand what would drive a parent to do such a thing. But once we are informed that Abraham actually believed God had told him to do so, we can see (allegedly) that there is at least an explanation of why he decided to kill his son. In the eyes of most people the planned act remains awful. But once we assume that Abraham was mistaken (say, because the best explanation in this case need not postulate the existence of God), we can see that his decision to kill his son is not a response to a normative good reason.1 So in a few lines we have outlined two reason notions: explanatory and normative (good) reasons. Cases like this afford an intuitive grasp of the distinction between explanatory and normative reasons — the difference between what explains Abraham’s motivation and behaviour and the good or bad reasons that apply to him. However, more recently (see e.g. Dancy 2000) the picture such cases present has been supplemented, or perhaps even corrected. There is a further feature of the Abrahamic story that needs to be teased out — one that gives a finer-grained understanding of what is going on than that provided by talk of the agent’s explanatory reasons. I share this view, and so what I will be doing in this paper is mainly to underline the need to dig a bit deeper. Motivation, as I shall argue, comes in different forms . (shrink)

Theories of practical reason must meet a psychological requirement: they must explain how normative practical reasons can be motivationally efficacious. It would be pointless to claim that we are subject to normative demands of reason, if we were in fact unable to meet those demands. Concerning this requirement to account for the possibility of rational motivation, internalist approaches are distinguished from externalist ones. I defend internalism, whilst rejecting both ways in which the belief‐desire model can be (...) instantiated. Both the Humean and the Kantian instantiation of that model fail to account for the internal connection between normative and motivating reasons required by internalism. The two classes of reasons rather come to be seen as mutually exclusive. Opposing the belief‐desire model, I argue that rational motivation can only be established by reference to emotion. Emotions are affective perceptions. They have motivational force so that they can contribute to the explanation of action. At the same time they can rationalise actions because they have an intentional content which resembles the content of sensory perception in being representational. Because of this, the emotions can noninferentially justify judgements, which in turn can justify actions. I conclude by outlining the Aristotelian account of practical reason and ethics that emerges from integrating the emotions into practical reasoning. Doing the right thing is much more a matter of seeing things right than of drawing the right inferences. Seeing things right, in its turn, is not only to justify an action: it necessarily implies to be motivated to act accordingly. (shrink)

Reasons matter greatly to us in both ordinary and theoretical contexts, being connected to two fundamental normative concerns: figuring out what we should do and what attitudes to have, and understanding the duties and responsibilities that apply to us. This book introduces and critiques most of the contemporary theories of normative reasons considerations that speak in favor of an action, belief, or emotion - to explore how they work. Artūrs Logins develops and defends a new theory: (...) the Erotetic view of reasons, according to which normative reasons are appropriate answers to normative why questions (Why should I do this?). This theory draws on evidence of how why-questions work in informal logic, language and philosophy of science. The resulting view is able to avoid the problems of previous accounts, while retaining all of their attractive features, and it also suggests exciting directions for future research. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

Hegel’s “Philosophy of Spirit” applies two different notions of ‘social practice’ – one as a condition of possibility for intentional action and another one as the living actuality within which an action is initiated and takes place. Both notions go hand in hand with their own logically distinct form of normativity – social normativity and the normativity of right. Whereas the first one can already be understood from the standpoint of subjective spirit, the second notion is at home in (...) objective spirit or Hegel’s Rechtsphilosophie. Stressing this distinction has consequences not only for a more differentiated account on Hegel’s philosophy of action, but also for an interpretation of ethical life – which should not be equated with the first notion of social practice. In order to mark the importance of ethical life for Hegel’s Rechtsphilosophie, the relevance of objectivity for objective spirit needs to be highlighted, which according to Hegel cannot be derived from a process of inner transformation of changing attitudes of the acting subject towards the norms of her action. (shrink)

In virtue of what are we responsible for our beliefs? I argue that doxastic responsibility has a crucial social component: part of being responsible for our beliefs is being responsible to others. I suggest that this responsibility is a form of answerability with two distinct dimensions: an individual and an interpersonal dimension. While most views hold that the individual dimension is grounded in some form of control that we can exercise over our beliefs, I contend that we are answerable (...) for our beliefs as long as they reflect our evaluative commitments and dispositions, or are products of our reasoning, where this does not amount to a form of control. I next argue that answerability has a second, largely neglected dimension: the interpersonal dimension, which is grounded in what I call our relations of doxastic dependence. As social creatures, we depend on one another in our capacity as believers. We depend on one another as believers not only in epistemic ways, but also in practical ways, because our beliefs inform and motivate our actions, and allow us to participate in shared practical goals. Depending on one another in these ways is an unavoidable part of cooperating in the shared project of pursuing epistemic and practical success, and it makes us vulnerable to both epistemic and moral harm. It is because of this, I argue, that answerability has interpersonal normative force upon us: we are subject to legitimate expectations associated with participating in relations of doxastic dependence. (shrink)

Each of the three essays constituting the dissertation's body explores a theoretical approach to conceptual content, as well as to particular kinds of concepts. A concluding chapter defends a distinction between two varieties of intentionality. ;Chapter 1 identifies a distinctive model of intentionality in Locke's discussion of our "ideas of the sorts of substances." Properly understood, his doctrine of the "inadequacy" of substance-ideas reveals that the sort represented by such an idea isn't settled by the idea's descriptive content. (...) The key to his compromise between classificatory conventionalism and essentialism is an injunction to "rectify" each substance-idea, one that reflects a norm governing natural-historical inquiry. Interestingly, Locke regards the resulting picture of the natural kinds represented by substance-ideas as compatible with his descriptivist account of how the extensions of substance-names are fixed. ;Chapter 2 examines Gupta and Belnap's theory of "circular concepts," which likewise appeals to a semantic "revision rule." Besides promising to explain semantic paradox when applied to the concept of truth, their theory significantly liberalizes the framework of truth conditional semantics. I criticize the rationale behind that liberalization by investigating the significance attributed to the revision rule, and propose invoking pragmatic ideas to do justice to some of the theory's motivating intuitions. ;Chapter 3 first argues that Brandom's appeal to normatively characterized linguistic practice subserves two approaches to content: one expressivist and the other reductionist. The criterion of adequacy motivating his "inferentialist" reduction of contentfulness, I then argue, is one he should dismiss in view of his deflationism about truth. Moreover, Brandom fails to vindicate the priority of attributions of inferential norms over attributions of propositional content. This criticism doesn't affect the expressivist elucidation of intentional concepts resulting from Brandom's normative-pragmatic description of assertional practice. ;My conclusion draws on this elucidation to defend a distinction prefigured in my construal of Locke as divorcing the aboutness of substance-ideas from assessments of truth. I argue that we should distinguish between a "representational" kind of intentionality whose attribution subserves explanations of successful inductive and explanatory practices, and a "semantic" kind whose attribution makes explicit normative features of the essentially communicative practice of assertion. (shrink)

In virtue of what are we responsible for our beliefs? I argue that doxastic responsibility has a crucial social component: part of being responsible for our beliefs is being responsible to others. I suggest that this responsibility is a form of answerability with two distinct dimensions: an individual and an interpersonal dimension. While most views hold that the individual dimension is grounded in some form of control that we can exercise over our beliefs, I contend that we are answerable (...) for our beliefs as long as they reflect our evaluative commitments and dispositions, or are products of our reasoning, where this does not amount to a form of control. I next argue that answerability has a second, largely neglected dimension: the interpersonal dimension, which is grounded in what I call our relations of doxastic dependence. As social creatures, we depend on one another in our capacity as believers. We depend on one another as believers not only in epistemic ways, but also in practical ways, because our beliefs inform and motivate our actions, and allow us to participate in shared practical goals. Depending on one another in these ways is an unavoidable part of cooperating in the shared project of pursuing epistemic and practical success, and it makes us vulnerable to both epistemic and moral harm. It is because of this, I argue, that answerability has interpersonal normative force upon us: we are subject to legitimate expectations associated with participating in relations of doxastic dependence. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Action Intentional vs Unintentional Action Autonomous Action Action for Reasons References Further reading.

A putative problem for the moral particularist is that he or she fails to capture the normative relevance of certain considerations that they carry on their face, or the intuitive irrelevance of other considerations. It is argued in response that mastery of certain topic-specific truisms about a subject matter is what it is for a reasonable interlocutor to be engaged in a moral discussion, but the relevance of these truisms has nothing to do with the particularist/generalist dispute. Given that (...) practical reasoning is plausibly a form of abductive reasoning, and is therefore non-monotonic, any arbitrary addition of information can change the degree of support evidence offers for a conclusion. Given this arbitrariness, it is no objection to the particularist if he or she represents the ‘normative landscape as flat’ in a way that does not display the ‘obvious’ relevance of certain considerations. The normative landscape is flat and our best account of practical reasoning represents it precisely as such. Appealing to a distinction between practical reasoning and moral reasoning does not help to resurrect this pseudoproblem for particularism. Key Words: abductive inference • default reasons • moral particularism • practical reasoning. (shrink)

What is the connection between reasons and motives? According to Reasons Internalism there is a non-trivial conceptual connection between normative reasons and the possibility of rationally accessing relevant motivation. Reasons Internalism is attractive insofar as it captures the thought that reasons are for reasoning with and repulsive insofar as it fails to generate sufficient critical distance between reasons and motives. Rather than directly adjudicate this dispute, I extract from it two (...) generally accepted desiderata on theories of normative reasons and argue that a new theory can satisfy both. The new theory locates part of the meaning of normative reason statements in their role in normative discussion. It generates a view of the connection between reasons and motives that is distinct from Reasons Internalism, yet distinctively in its spirit. (shrink)

To later generations, much of the moral philosophy of the twentieth century will look like a struggle to escape from utilitarianism. We seem to succeed in disproving one utilitarian doctrine, only to find ourselves caught in the grip of another. I believe that this is because a basic feature of the consequentialist outlook still pervades and distorts our thinking: the view that the business of morality is to bring something about . Too often, the rest of us have pitched our (...) protests as if we were merely objecting to the utilitarian account of what the moral agent ought to bring about or how he ought to do it. Deontological considerations have been characterized as “side constraints,” as if they were essentially restrictions on ways to realize ends. More importantly, moral philosophers have persistently assumed that the primal scene of morality is a scene in which someone does something to or for someone else. This is the same mistake that children make about another primal scene. The primal scene of morality, I will argue, is not one in which I do something to you or you do something to me, but one in which we do something together. The subject matter of morality is not what we should bring about, but how we should relate to one another. If only Rawls has succeeded in escaping utilitarianism, it is because only Rawls has fully grasped this point. His primal scene, the original position, is one in which a group of people must make a decision together. Their task is to find the reasons they can share. (shrink)

This study examines values and value types as well as scores in levels of moral reasoning for␣students enrolled in a business program. These two factors are measured using the Schwartz Personal Values␣Questionnaire and the Defining Issues Test 2. No statistically significant differences in levels of moral␣reasoning, rankings of values, and value types could be attributed to gender. However, eight significant correlations between value types and levels of moral reasoning provide evidence that a systematic relationship exists. The relationships are not (...) only internally consistent but also consistent with the model of values based on motivational goals (Schwartz S. H. and K. Boenke: 2004, Journal of Research in Personality, 38 230–255). (shrink)

This essay is concerned with the relation between motivating and normative reasons. According to a common and influential thesis, a normative reason is identical with a motivating reason when an agent acts for that normative reason. I will call this thesis the ‘Identity Thesis’. Many philosophers treat the Identity Thesis as a commonplace or a truism. Accordingly, the Identity Thesis has been used to rule out certain ontological views about reasons. I distinguish (...) a deliberative and an explanatory version of the Identity Thesis and argue that there are no convincing arguments to accept either version. Furthermore, I point out an alternative to the Identity Thesis. The relation between motivating and normative reasons can be thought of as one of representation, not identity. (shrink)

In a famous debate on jurisprudence held in 1958 between H. L. A. Hart and Lon Fuller, the protagonists argued about the nature of the law. On one side was H. L. A. Hart, who was a staunch defender of two ideas, first, that law was to be separated from morals, and secondly, that law as it is should be separated from law as it ought to be. These two ideas are subtly different. On the other side, is Fuller, (...) who argues that law cannot be understood apart from its reason for being formulated in the first place. In relation to Hart's two ideas, the paper shows how both rest upon an unstated hidden motivating assumptions, clues to which can be found in both "Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals" and 'The Concept of Law'. This assumption is that Hart is committed to a distinctively liberal account of morality which finds expression in the rule of law. The paper argues that the project of finding a purely descriptive account of law is impossible in the Hartian sense since the descriptive/evaluative dichotomy is a false dichotomy. This is achieved by means of the Kovesian analysis of concept formation. (shrink)

This article presents a limited defense of Humeanism about practical reason. Jonathan Dancy and other traditional objective-reasons theorists argue that all practical reasons, what we think about when we deliberate, are facts or states of affairs in the world. On the Humean view, the reasons that motivate us are belief-desire combinations, which are in the mind. Thus, Dancy and others reject Humeanism on the grounds that it cannot allow that anyone acts from a normative reason. I (...) argue, first, that this critique fails. What we deliberate about prior to action in cases of conflict sometimes are our desires: we consider our wants from a “normative” perspective. So normative reasons are also desire-based, but involve appeal to desires of a higher order. These second-order desires can motivate. Second, I argue that objective-reasons theorists have a reverse problem with explanation of behavior. If reasons are considerations in the world, a person has reasons to do any number of actions at any given time. I charge that theories that exclude desire-based reasons cannot explain why an agent does one particular action rather than another. Recent philosophers strike a compromise position, allowing for normative reasons in terms of facts and motivating reasons in other terms. However, I suggest that they may be subject to the same difficulty because of the relation between normative and motivating reasons that each has. (shrink)

In this book, I will discuss three main topics: the roots and aims of scientific knowledge, scientific knowledge in society, and science and values I understand scientific knowledge as being a planned and continuous production of the general and common knowledge of scientific communities. I begin my discussion with a brief analysis of the main differences between sciences, on the one hand, and everyday experience, philosophies, religions, and ideologies, on the other. I define the concept of science as a (...) set of family resemblances (in Wittgenstein's sense). The sciences can be distinguished along three lines, in terms of the difference between empirical and non-empirical sciences, differences in degrees of theoretical and methodological structure among individual sciences and scientific disciplines. Scientific knowledge is based upon some grounds, paradigmatic knowledge bases. Scientific knowledge is founded on a unified paradigmatic knowledge base. The latter includes fundamental theories, basic facts, generally accepted empirical regularities (laws), scientific research methods, scientific explanations, and established relations to other sciences. Scientific knowledge in general is defined well in classical terms by the definition that knowledge is a true and rationally-justified belief. In this connection, scientific truth is relative, depending on the given paradigmatic knowledge base and on the precision and accessibility of the measurements and observations involved. In the book's first part, I consider the production and testing of scientific hypotheses, scientific explanations, the structure of scientific theories, and the problem of scientific realism. I consider explanation an integral part of a wider nexus of heuristic and theoretical activities in science like giving reasons, understanding, clarification, and founding. Continuous production of scientific explanations is a necessary condition for the systematic reproduction of scientific knowledge. Accordingly, it does not suffice to describe them in terms of the logical structure of the arguments on which they are based, but rather, scientific explanations ought to be given complete with an epistemic and pragmatic context of the explanation. I consider especially deductive-nomological, inductive-statistical, dispositional, teleological-functional, and genetic explanations. I emphasize the ever-increasing importance of explanations by analogy and by model. Orthogonal to these distinctions lies the distinction between causal and epistemic explanation. Epistemic explanations relate scientific discoveries to epistemic progress, and causal explanations are these epistemic explanations that relate scientific discoveries to reality too. Causal explanations inform us that certain changes occur in the world as agents of other changes, or rather, that certain changes are real consequences of other changes. Thus, by having explanations of causes, we can intervene in the world to induce by design certain changes in some course of phenomena. I consider scientific theories as logically and epistemically ordered wholeness of scientific knowledge in a realm of research that enables us to construct useful models of reality. After the discussion of different 'statement' views on theories and different interpretations of the theory-experience relation, I introduce the 'model' theoretical (non-statement) views on theories, especially the structural theory of science. The model views on theories transcend the realism-antirealism dualism by introducing models between theory and reality. Therefore, the question of scientific realism is not merely whether and, if so, which element(s), of scientific theories represent reality, but rather which conditions suffice to infer from a theory that one of its models truly expresses reality. In other words, under which conditions do models of a theory represent models of reality? Generally, models are just as much images of reality in a theory as they are images of a theory in reality. The actual problem of scientific realism doesn't originate in the observable-unobservable distinction (even if this distinction is otherwise theoretically loaded), but rather in ontological quandaries, of the sort especially encountered in modern physical theories such as quantum mechanics, relativity theory, and cosmological theories, although they are known to arise in other sciences as well. Scientific theories may be real, even if they describe nothing about the world. However, such theories can be given this status only if their formal, mathematical postulates exhibit some formal homology between reality and mathematical forms. The very fact that it is possible to describe reality with the help of mathematics even in cases, where every (representational, conceptual) language and thought fall short, would indicate that even mathematics itself is, in some sense, a part of reality, although 'outside' of the empirical world. It follows we have to distinguish the non-empirical reality and the empirical world. Formal objectivity and non-arbitrariness of theories do not emerge from either our language or thoughts, or from the world of facts, causes, and effects, but rather from non-empirical reality, which frames the world as some kind of objective transcendental condition for the possibility of the existence of the world, thoughts, and language. In the second part of the book, I consider the incorporation of scientific work and scientific knowledge into modern society and its relations to values and ethics. Production of scientific knowledge goes on as a parallel distributed process of a special kind of social (shared) cognition. The central part of this cognition is the presentation of parts of the world by scientific (theoretical) models which are warranted by the shared and public practice of justification, and in reflective acting in the world as it would. I consider various formal concepts of collective propositional knowledge (distributed, mutual, common knowledge). Scientific knowledge is an achievement to be ascribed to a scientific community or, indirectly, to all those who apply or expand it, rather than to individuals per se. It presents the continuous and partially planned production of non-trivial common knowledge of the research communities in modern societies. However, besides common knowledge, shared dispositional knowledge (knowledge how of scientific teams) and shared knowledge by acquiring (knowledge of fundamental similarities and differences in scientific teams) are parts of the real body of scientific knowledge. Scientific common knowledge implies the projection into idealized universal knowledge of all real or potentially rational and well-informed individuals. The respect of scientific knowledge thus presents the norm of rationality. Science as the intensively shared and socially distributed kind of cognition enters into modern society as a special kind of work (general work), as a productive force (social invention drive), and as a form of capital (human, social, cultural, informational, etc.). However any of these categories can adequately represent the socio-economical role of science in modern societies, and we are still waiting for a more adequate general concept that would theoretically cover the 'scientification' of modern societies. My thesis is that the most important general effect of scientification is (and will be) the growth of social processes that structurally resemble parallel distributed shared social cognition of science, and not so much the rise of the use of scientific knowledge and scientifically based information in all kinds of production. Scientification of modern societies inevitably includes a much stronger need for moral and social responsibility of scientists for their work and its effects in their local society and the global world. This need comes in contradiction with the quite large accepted idea (and even the 'norm') on value-free research. I discuss to some degree different arguments for the absence of non-epistemic values and ethical reasoning from science and find them non-convincing. The sound idea of value-free research lies in the need for the absence of categorical value statements from scientific explanations and theoretical deductions. Values and ethical judgment have, and sometimes they even have to play an important role in another part of research and its application in science or outside it. Not the value-loudness of research is a danger for science but its blind, non-reflective use. It leads to the ideologization and politicization of science. A similar danger lies in the purely value-neutrality of research. It leads to the instrumentalization of science to the technical or bureaucratic means for 'any' aims. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Kant's Tribunal of Reason: Legal Metaphor and Normativity in the Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. 208. Hardback, $105.00. -/- Even those with a passing knowledge of Kant's system will recognize his sustained use of legal metaphor and his appeal to lawfulness as a beacon of philosophical progress. He famously begins one of the most important (and impermeable) sections of the Critique of Pure (...) Reason with the juridical distinction between quid juris (what is the law) and quid facti (what is the fact) (A 84/B 116), insisting—against the empiricists—that the critique of our cognitive faculty must speak to the former and requires a Transcendental Deduction of the categories. In her book, Sofie Møller delves into the historical context and philosophical significance of such legal metaphors to reveal that their roots spread to the deepest foundations of Kant's project. In doing so, she contends that we should understand "philosophical systematicity as legal systematicity" (15). According to Møller, to accept this reading of Kant is to acknowledge that the legal system provides not just one helpful type of metaphor to be appreciated alongside many others, but the only proper symbol of the abstract nature of reason itself (173).For those interested in Kant's engagement with the natural-rights theory that prevailed during his lifetime, or in his familiarity with the concrete legal practices of eighteenth-century European courts, Møller's book proves to be thoroughly researched and informative. As the first English-language book-length study providing a comprehensive account of the legal aspects influencing Kant's system, it should serve as a valuable catchall resource. There are limits to its accessibility, however, as familiarity with basic legal distinctions—e.g. between civil and criminal codes—is assumed, and Latin terms and phrases often go untranslated. At times, this makes for a difficult intersection between the arduousness of Kant's own prose and the equally technical legal terminology that is meant to explain it. However, this barrier is mitigated by Møller's own interpretive work, which cautions that we should not let indeterminate legal terminology fix too much in our reading of Kant's texts, especially when considering the Transcendental Deduction and its reliance on the quid juris/quid facti distinction. As she concludes at the end of chapter 3, the procedure of legal deduction that Kant invokes "could be an investigation, an exposition, a thorough consideration, a review, explanation, description, account, dispute or procedure" (64). Thus, despite Kant's historically demonstrable familiarity with legal-deduction writings, on their own, they "do not present a sufficiently uniform argument structure to settle the question of the structures of the two versions of the transcendental deduction" (64). This observation serves both as a general warning as well as a criticism of Dieter Henrich's approach to Kant's system, which popularized attention to legal metaphor in Kant scholarship in the twentieth century. For Møller, little philosophical insight is won through Henrich's approach, since it "places too much weight on the importance of an origin" (60), taking its cue from a particular type of legal deduction whose assumption is unsupported, and which cannot be accurately projected onto Kant's text. As Møller argues, "The validity of the categories is not only grounded in their origin in pure apperception but in their being the necessary structures in the synthesis which creates objects of experience, which is an act of pure apperception" (60). Møller's suggestion, instead, is to read the Deduction as adopting the twofold structure of "judicial imputation," which does a more faithful job of capturing the structuring activity that Kant accords to the understanding. With the latter reading, emphasis shifts from whether the categories' application to objects of experience is valid because of their a priori origin, to the spontaneous activity of the judging subject as the originator of experience (75). Part of what is unique about this approach is that it does not read the... (shrink)

In Between Facts and Norms, Jürgen Habermas works out the legal and political implications of his Theory of Communicative Action (1981), bringing to fruition the project announced with his publication of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere in 1962. This new work is a major contribution to recent debates on the rule of law and the possibilities of democracy in postindustrial societies, but it is much more. The introduction by William Rehg succinctly captures the special nature of the (...) work, noting that it offers a sweeping, sociologically informed conceptualization of law and basic rights, a normative account of the rule of law and the constitutional state, an attempt to bridge normative and empirical approaches to democracy, and an account of the social context required for democracy. Finally, the work frames and caps these arguments with a bold proposal for a new paradigm of law that goes beyond the dichotomies that have afflicted modern political theory from its inception and that still underlie current controversies between so-called liberals and civic republicans. The book includes a postscript written in 1994, which restates the argument in light of its initial reception, and two appendixes, which cover key developments that preceded the book. Habermas himself was actively involved in the translation, adapting the text as necessary to make it more accessible to English-speaking readers. (shrink)

The market failures approach is amongst the most influential theories of business ethics. Its interest within the field is, in large part, a result of its rejection of moralism and any sort of applied ethics approach, favouring, in contrast, a focus on the institutionally embodied goal of economic activity, which it takes to be that of Pareto efficiency. From this articulation of the goal, or purpose, of markets, a set of efficiency imperatives are derived that are taken to comprise the (...) implicit morality of the market. However, the market failures approach has not adequately explained the basis of market actors’ moral motivation, that is, the reasons individuals have to self-consciously adhere to moral norms governing market transactions. This failure, I argue, stems from its misspecification of the purpose of the market. After explaining this failure to address the problem of moral motivation, I argue that a distinctive mode of freedom understood as a form of self-authorship is better seen as the purpose of the market, a goal that actually animates individual market participants. I then argue that this notion of freedom is intrinsically linked to a conception of responsibility and that this notion of responsibility can be more adequately conceptualized as involving a set of market virtues focused on promoting mutually beneficial transactions. Thus, the link between freedom and responsibility, stemming from an individual’s need to legitimize their freedom in a market context, provides the basis for a self-conscious sense of moral motivation. As such, this approach better captures the implicit morality of the market while also addressing the problem of moral motivation. (shrink)

In the thesis I criticize the project of showing that the primary qualities mentioned in a special "scientific" or "objective" conception of the world enjoy a status that secondary qualities do not, and suggest how the appeal of such a distinction might be overcome. ;Descartes argued that we erroneously ascribe illusory "secondary" qualities to the world. In the painting analogy of the First Meditation I identify a line of reasoning that has been previously overlooked yet is crucial to the (...) success of Descartes's project. I show why Descartes's explanation of how we come to have the supposedly erroneous beliefs is unacceptable, and that contemporary accounts of so-called projective error fail for similar reasons. These failures suggest that an explanation of the thoughts we do have cannot succeed without appeal to more than the limited resources Descartes took to be available. ;Pursuing this suggestion I examine alternatives to the form of anti-skeptical reasoning of the painting analogy. I develop a modified transcendental strategy that resembles aspects of Davidson's treatment of error, while respecting the realism that motivates the project in question. I argue that beliefs about the colors of objects, for example, are systematically related and that the attribution of systematic disagreement cannot be justified. This shows that the systematic error Descartes claimed to find in our ordinary judgements is not fully intelligible. ;Finally I survey some contemporary alternatives to Descartes's account. Many dispositional analyses of qualities aim to revise our ordinary understanding of these qualities, thus taking for granted a prior demonstration of the distinction in question. I argue that no non-revisionary dispositional analysis of these qualities can succeed. I show that the notion of "anthropocentricity" is irrelevant to the project. Lastly I consider accounts that characterize primary qualities by their explanatory power. Previous arguments show that identifying some objects as possessing certain qualities is a condition of identifying beliefs as beliefs about those qualities. I end with a lesson about the limits of the explanatory power of a special austere conception of the world. (shrink)

Abstract:Since the birth of autism as a psychiatric category, autistic individuals have been described as preoccupied with the world of objects and detached from the world of subjects, thus marking a distinction between the “social” and the “non-social” still prevalent in autism research and diagnostic criteria. The aim of this article is to question this distinction by examining the role of things in autistic forms of social interaction. Drawing on qualitative data from an ongoing qualitative and phenomenological (...) study on social interaction among youth with autism, I argue that material things enjoy a sustaining and facilitating role in autistic social interaction for two reasons: First, by being sensible things open to tactile, auditory, and visual engagement, and second, by being things that incorporate normative practices. This relation between the material and the social in which the latter is mediated by the former, is beneficial to individuals with autism because it exploits a particular relation to materiality to consolidate a shaky attunement to the social world. I propose a materially mediated mode of interaction guided by the approaches to perception, embodiment, and materiality developed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and James Gibson. This account puts pressure on the phenomenological emphasis on the face-to-face encounter and brings intersubjectivity into view as a many-faceted phenomenon realizable not only through interbodily dynamics but also through the material landscapes situating social encounters. (shrink)

In this article I advocate a worldly account of normative reasons according to which there is an ontological gap between these and the premises of practical thought, i.e. motivating considerations. While motivating considerations are individuated fine-grainedly, normative reasons should be classified as coarse-grained entities, e.g. as states of affairs, in order to explain certain necessary truths about them and to make sense of how we count and weigh them. As I briefly sketch, (...) acting for normative reasons is nonetheless possible if the connection between normative reasons and motivating considerations is a competence-based correspondence. (shrink)

This paper examines Heidegger’s position on a foundational distinction for Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy: that between acting ‘in the light of’ a norm and acting ‘merely in accordance with it’. In section 1, I introduce the distinction and highlight several relevant similarities between Kant and Heidegger on ontology and the first-person perspective. In section 2, I press the Kantian position further, focusing on the role of inferential commitments in perception: this provides a foil against which Heidegger’s (...) account can be In section 3, I contrast this Kantian approach with Crowell’s highly sophisticated reading of Heidegger on care: I argue that, subject to certain conditions on how we view explanation, the two approaches are compatible and indeed mutually supporting. I close in section 4 by addressing an importantly distinct dimension of normativity, that marked by critique, broadly construed. I argue that we ultimately need to locate Heidegger in a context that. (shrink)

In Between Facts and Norms Jürgen Habermas works out the legal and political implications of his Theory of Communicative Action, bringing to fruition the project announced with his publication of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere in 1962. This new work is a major contribution to recent debates on the rule of law and the possibilities of democracy in postindustrial societies, but it is much more.The introduction by William Rehg succinctly captures the special nature of the work, noting (...) that it offers a sweeping, sociologically informed conceptualization of law and basic rights, a normative account of the rule of law and the constitutional state, an attempt to bridge normative and empirical approaches to democracy, and an account of the social context required for democracy. Finally, the work frames and caps these arguments with a bold proposal for a new paradigm of law that goes beyond the dichotomies that have afflicted modern political theory from its inception and that still underlie current controversies between so- called liberals and civic republicans.The book includes a postscript written in 1994, which restates the argument in light of its initial reception, and two appendixes, which cover key developments that preceded the book.Habermas himself was actively involved in the translation, adapting the text as necessary to make it more accessible to English-speaking readers. (shrink)

The impact of our desires and preferences upon our ordinary, everyday beliefs is well-documented [Gilovich, T. . How we know what isn’t so: The fallibility of human reason in everyday life. New York: The Free Press.]. The influence of such motivational factors on delusions, which are instances of pathological misbelief, has tended however to be neglected by certain prevailing models of delusion formation and maintenance. This paper explores a distinction between two general classes of theoretical explanation for (...) delusions; the motivational and the deficit. Motivational approaches view delusions as extreme instances of self-deception; as defensive attempts to relieve pain and distress. Deficit approaches, in contrast, view delusions as the consequence of defects in the normal functioning of belief mechanisms, underpinned by neuroanatomical or neurophysiological abnormalities. It is argued that although there are good reasons to be sceptical of motivational theories , recent experiments confirm that motives are important causal forces where delusions are concerned. It is therefore concluded that the most comprehensive account of delusions will involve a theoretical unification of both motivational and deficit approaches. (shrink)

This work belongs to what Adam Smith called "the theory of moral sentiments," in particular, it is concerned with the operation of sympathetic affections, which are termed "vicarious affects"; and their rationality and legitimate role in moral theory. Professor Rescher forcefully argues for the thesis that the crucial aspect of vicarious affects lies in their function as motivational factor or reason rather than as a cause of personal conduct. A formal machinery is proposed for the quantitative aspect of the workings (...) of vicarious affects and applied to the problem of the "prisoner’s dilemma." In the latter connection, Rescher shows with insight that there is really nothing paradoxical about the "prisoner’s dilemma." The apparent paradox arises only because the game theorist failed to distinguish sharply rationality and prudence. "It is a travesty... to construe rationality in terms of prudential self-advantage, for there is nothing in any way inherently unreasonable or irrational about a concern for others." "There is no reason why ’self-interest’ should not be construed in an enlightened and widened sense to include the interests of others, through the operation of the vicarious affects." Rescher also points out that there are two alternatives, other than prudence, to the "solution" of conflict interaction situations, i.e., negotiation and impartial arbitration, when both are construed as tacit rather than explicit processes. One chapter is devoted to a fuller analysis and defense of the "impartial arbiter" approach as superior to the negotiation approach, and followed by a sustained critique of utilitarian doctrine of morality. Complex distinctions and arguments are set forth. The fatal weakness of utilitarianism, of various versions, is said to lie in its failure to distinguish de facto utilities and de jure utilities. De jure utilities have rational warrant "exterior to the utilitarian perspective." "An evaluative assessment of the means by which such legitimate human ends as welfare requires the background of a larger vision of the ends of man." The final chapter elaborates this vision as Hegelian in character. While the gap between morality and self-interest is recognized, Rescher postulates as a regulative ideal "a reciprocal coordination of personal and social advantage." But this larger vision includes welfare-transcending considerations, e.g., the various ideals of the quality of life, those "higher" aspirations. "Excellence, dignity, and the sense of worth are its leading themes." In the Primacy of Practice, one finds a fuller discussion of moral excellence, but on the whole Rescher has not offered us a detailed account of this ideal dimension of morality. For the present work, at any rate, Rescher has succeeded in arguing for the significant role of vicarious affects in moral philosophy and its implication for the legitimacy of differential treatments based on personal relationships. It is hoped that, in some future work, Professor Rescher will systematically integrate this role of vicarious affects in an ideal moral theory.—A.S.C. (shrink)

According to a number of recent philosophers, knowledge has an intimate relationship with rationality. Some philosophers hold, in particular, that rational agents do things for good motivating reasons, and that p can be one’s motivating reason for -ing (acting/believing/fearing/etc.) only if one knows that p. This paper argues against this view and in favor of the view that p cannot be one’s motivating reason for -ing—in the relevant sense—unless there is an appropriate explanatory connection between (...) the fact that p and one’s -ing. I argue that this view offers a better account of the cases alleged to support the knowledge view. (shrink)

Lorenz proposed in his (1935) articulation of a theory of behavioral instincts that the objective of ethology is to distinguish behaviors that are “innate” from behaviors that are “learned” (or “acquired”). Lorenz’s motive was to open the investigation of certain “adaptive” behaviors to evolutionary theorizing. Accordingly, since innate behaviors are “genetic”, they are open to such investigation. By Lorenz’s light an innate/acquired or learned dichotomy rested on a familiar Darwinian distinction between genes and environments. Ever since Lorenz, ascriptions (...) of innateness have become widespread in the cognitive, behavioral, and biological sciences. The trend continues despite decades of strong arguments that show, in particular, the dichotomy that Lorenz invoked in his theory of behavioral instincts is literally false: no biological trait is the product of genes alone. Some critics suggest that the failure of Lorenz’s account shows that innateness is not well-defined in biology and the practice of ascribing innateness to various biological traits should be dropped from respectable science. Elsewhere (Ariew 1996) I argued that despite the arguments of critics, there really is a biological phenomenon underlying the concept of innateness. On my view, innateness is best understood in terms of C.H. Waddington’s concept of “canalization”, i.e. the degree to which a trait is innate is the degree to which its developmental outcome is canalized. The degree to which a developmental outcome is canalized is the degree to which the developmental process is bound to produce a particular endstate despite environmental fluctuations both in the development’s initial state and during the course of development. The canalization account differs in many ways to the traditional ways that ethologists such as Konrad Lorenz originally understood the concept of innateness. Most importantly, on the canalization account the distinction between innate and acquired is not a dichotomy, as Konrad Lorenz had it, but rather a matter of degree difference that lies along a spectrum with highly canalized development outcomes on the one end and highly environmentally sensitive development outcomes on the other end. Nevertheless, I justified the canalization account on the basis of a set of desiderata or criteria that I suggested falls-out of what seemed uncontroversial about Lorenz’s account of innateness (briefly): innateness is a property of a developing individual, innateness denotes environmental stability, and innate-ascriptions are useful in certain natural selection explanations (more below). From that same set of desiderata I argued (in my 1996) that neither the concept of heritability nor of norms of reactions—two concepts from population genetics—suffice to ground innateness. In this essay, I wish to provide further support of the canalization account in two ways. First, I wish to better motivate the desiderata by revisiting a debate between Konrad Lorenz and Daniel Lehrman over the meaning and explanatory usefulness of innate ascriptions in ethology. Second, I wish to compare my canalization account of innateness with accounts proposed by contemporary philosophers, one by Stephen Stich (1975), another by Elliott Sober (forthcoming), and a third by William Wimsatt (1986). (shrink)

There was a time when meta-ethical expressivism seemed to be the only game in town for meta-ethical non-representationalists. In recent years, though, meta-ethical inferentialism has emerged as a promising non-representationalist alternative. So far, however, inferentialists lack something that would really allow them to draw level with expressivists. This is an explanation for the distinctive difference between normative and descriptive vocabulary when it comes to disagreement—something expressivists can explain in terms of the difference between representational and desire-like (...) states and which constitutes one of the primary motivations for expressivism. This paper develops a novel and distinctive account for this difference on behalf of inferentialists, based on the different functions of these two vocabularies. Not only does this account help inferentialists, it also shows how non-representionalist accounts can capture the relevant disagreement phenomena without appealing to the sorts of desire-like states expressivists tend to appeal to. (shrink)

I defend and revise the systematic account of normative functions (teleofunctions), as recently developed by Gerhard Schlosser and by W. D. Christensen and M. H. Bickhard. This account proposes that teleofunctions are had by structures that play certain kinds of roles in complex systems. This theory is an alternative to the historical etiological account of teleofunctions, developed by Ruth Millikan and others. The historical etiological account is susceptible to a general ontological problem that has been (...) under-appreciated, and that offers important reasons to adopt the systematic account. However, the systematic account must be revised to allow for two distinct kinds of teleofunctions in order to avoid another ontological problem. (shrink)

This paper addresses some connections between conceptions of the will and the theory of practical reason. The first two sections argue against the idea that volitional commitments should be understood along the lines of endorsement of normative principles. A normative account of volition cannot make sense of akrasia, and it obscures an important difference between belief and intention. Sections three and four draw on the non-normative conception of the will in an account of (...) instrumental rationality. The central problem is to explain the grip of instrumental requirements even in cases in which agents do not fully endorse the ends they are pursuing. The solution I propose appeals to coherence constraints on the beliefs that condition the distinctive volitional stance of intention. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.3 (2002) 539-545 [Access article in PDF] Lewis White Beck on Reasons and Causes Paul Guyer Essays by Lewis White Beck: Five Decades as a Philosopher. Edited by Predag Cicovacki. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1998. Pp. xxxii, 244. This volume reissues twelve previously uncollected pieces by the late Lewis White Beck (1913-1997) and also includes a reminiscence by a former colleague, (...) an introduction by the editor, and a bibliography of Beck's work. Beck was of course the most distinguished American Kant scholar of his time, who made enduring contributions to scholarship with his translations of Kant's writings in moral philosophy, originally published in Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy (Chicago, 1949); his trenchant articles on the analytic-synthetic distinction from the early 1950s, collected in his Studies in the Philosophy of Kant (Indianapolis, 1965); his unsurpassed A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago, 1960); his monumental Early German Philosophy: Kant and His Predecessors (Cambridge, Mass., 1969); his various articles on Kant's treatment of causation, collected in Essays on Kant and Hume (New Haven, 1978); and in his independent philosophical work, The Actor and the Spectator (New Haven, 1975). The present volume, edited by a student from Beck's last years at the University of Rochester, where he spent most of his career, includes articles on a variety of subjects published between 1939 and 1984, and it might seem to be little more than an act of piety toward a now departed but still revered teacher. But a core group of these articles are intimately connected with Beck's central scholarly and philosophical concerns and are well worth republication and renewed study.The articles included in the volume are three early pieces on several central issues in the philosophical debates of the time, "The Synoptic Method" (1939), "The Formal Properties of Ethical Wholes" (1941), and "The Principle of Parsimony in Empirical Science" (1943); an early piece on aesthetics, "Judgments [End Page 539] of Meaning in Art" (1944); two pieces on the tensions between causal explanations and rational evaluations of human behavior, "Psychology and the Norms of Knowledge" (1954) and "Conscious and Unconscious Motives" (1966); Beck's 1971 Presidential Address to the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, a skeptical discussion of "Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life"; an overview of philosophies of time, "World Enough, and Time" (1979); a piece on styles of philosophical writing called "Philosophy As Literature" (1980); and then three pieces on Kant, published after the second of Beck's two earlier anthologies of his articles on Kant: "Kant on the Uniformity of Nature" (1981), "Five Concepts of Freedom in Kant" (1987), and "What Have We Learned from Kant?" (1984). With the last paper, the editor departs from the strictly chronological order he has previously employed, presumably in order to end the volume on a suitably general and retrospective note.I will focus my comments on the two systematic papers on psychological explanation and rational evaluation as well as on the first two Kant papers, all of which touch upon the issues that were central to Beck in his philosophically most important works, the 1960 Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason and the 1975 The Actor and the Spectator, and which point toward what was Beck's leading idea in both his philosophical and interpretative work: it concerns the idea that the causal explanation of human behavior as a subset of natural events and the rational explanation and justification of human actions are two entirely separate perspectives on the same subject-matter that can be rendered compatible only by the thought that each, causal explanation of behavior on the one hand and rational assessment of actions on the other, is only a regulative ideal for our conduct of inquiry and thus that neither represents a metaphysically privileged point of view. This was an approach that Beck claimed to have been foreshadowed in Kant's resolution of the "Antinomy of Teleological Judgment" in his last great critique, the Critique of the Power... (shrink)

Although explanation is a central topic in the philosophy of science, there is an important issue concerning explanation that has not been discussed much, namely, why some phenomena need an explanation while some do not. In this paper we first explain why this is an important issue, and then discuss two accounts of the need for explanation that can be gathered from the literature. We argue that both accounts are inadequate. The main purpose of the paper (...) is, however, to offer a normative account of the need for explanation. On this account, a demand for explanation is possible only against the background of a certain understanding of the world. It is the map we are using that provides us with the concepts and beliefs in terms of which we can ask for an explanation. And a phenomenon needs explanation only when it does not fit the map—the phenomenon’s not fitting the map is a good reason for us to look for an explanation of it. This account not only captures our pre-theoretical understanding of the need for explanation, but also is in accordance with our practice of demanding an explanation. (shrink)

This book offers a new account of what it is to act for a normative reason. The first part of the book examines the problems of causal accounts of acting for reasons and suggests to solve them by a dispositional approach. The author argues for a dispositional account which unites epistemic, volitional, and executional dispositions in a complex normative competence. This ‘Normative Competence Account’ allows for more and less reflective ways of acting for (...) normative reasons. The second part of the book clarifies the relation between the normative reason that an agent acts for and his or her motivating reasons. It refutes the widely held ‘identity view’ that acting for a normative reason requires the normative reason to be identical with a motivating reason. The author describes how normative reasons are related to motivating reasons by a relation of correspondence, and proposes a new understanding of how normative reasons explain those actions that are performed for them. Determined by Reasons engages with current debates from a wide range of different philosophical areas, including action theory, metaethics, moral psychology, epistemology, and ontology, to develop a new account of acting for normative reasons. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On the Importance of Conceptual ContrastsMadness, Reason, and Mad PrideAwais Aftab, MD (bio)Garson (2023) offers an engaging historical and philosophical discussion around the importance Late Modern thinkers assigned to the task of differentiating madness from idiocy (or more specifically, to the tripartite distinction of sanity, madness, and idiocy). Based on this analysis, Garson’s identifies the need to offer a positive account of mental illness—one that does not (...) define the essence of mental illness exclusively as the absence, lack, or failure of the power of reasoning. Following the Late Modern thinkers (Locke, Kant, Wigan, and Heinroth), Garson concludes that madness is infused with reason, and what characterizes madness is the presence of reason in an altered and mutated form. This is all worth taking seriously. My own assessment of this historical and philosophical material nonetheless differs from that of Garson. To recognize madness as possessing reason within it in an altered form may be of less profound significance than he thinks it is. Garson’s discussion commendably highlights the importance of making conceptual contrasts explicit in definitional debates, and this should indeed lead us to search for contrasts that are more philosophically illuminating (what is better will depend on the context of inquiry). However, in my view, the recognition of madness as altered reason neither reframes the project of defining “mental disorder” nor does it provide an intellectual scaffolding for mad activism.The significance of “madness contains reason within in but in an altered or perverse form” is difficult to translate into contemporary scientific terms, and the fuzziness and historical baggage around the terms “madness,” “reason,” and “perversion” does not make it easy. “Mental disorder” or “psychopathology” means to us something quite different than what madness meant to Late Modern thinkers, and while “madness” remains a popular term in philosophical literature, there is no clarity on the nature of overlap between the domain of madness and the domain of conditions currently classified by the diagnostic manuals. Mental disorders, as currently conceptualized, include a motley of conditions that were previously characterized using terms such as idiocy, madness, neuroses, and psychopathic personalities. [End Page 297]From our contemporary vantage point, to compare idiocy and madness is to make a distinction within the domain of psychopathology. We are comparing two groups of psychiatric conditions. The lessons we derive from this comparison do not necessarily extrapolate well to a comparison of mental disorders with something outside the domain of psychopathology. To the extent that psychopathology is inclusive of both idiocy and madness, psychiatric disorders both contain and do not contain “reason” within them. The domain is heterogenous in this regard, and broad generalizations about the nature of reason in the mental disorders would be simplistic at best and inaccurate at worst. Other distinctions that we have made within the domain of psychopathology have included organic versus functional, neurosis versus psychosis, categories versus continua, and distinctions used within nosology have included operationalized criteria versus phenomenology, idiographic versus nomothetic, medical versus non-medical, description versus explanation, and so on (Aftab & Ryznar, 2021; Zachar, Banicki, & Aftab, 2023), all of which have the potential to offer a positive account of some aspect of psychopathology.It is worth nothing that the distinction between “absence of reason” versus “perversion of reason” is analogous to the common distinction between absence of function and altered function in patho-physiology. Such a distinction exists for almost every function that exists. Consider vision: absence of vision (blindness) and altered vision (illusions, distortions, hallucinations). Consider hypoesthesia (reduced sense of touch) and paraesthesia (altered sense of touch—tingling, pricking, burning, etc.). Garson alludes to diminished sexual capacity versus paraphilia as an analogy, but he does not seem to appreciate that the analogy applies much more broadly. Is the distinction between absence of reason versus perversion of reason of any greater significance than the distinction between blindness and hallucination? If we were to say, “What distinguishes hallucination from blindness is not the failure, absence, or lack of sight, but its presence—albeit in a perverse and mutated form,” how profound would it really be for our notions of disorder? Or imagine some Late Modern physician saying that a disturbance of speech and... (shrink)

This paper addresses some connections between conceptions of the will and the theory of practical reason. The first two sections argue against the idea that volitional commitments should be understood along the lines of endorsement of normative principles. A normative account of volition cannot make sense of akrasia, and it obscures an important difference between belief and intention. Sections three and four draw on the non-normative conception of the will in an account of (...) instrumental rationality. The central problem is to explain the grip of instrumental requirements even in cases in which agents do not fully endorse the ends they are pursuing. The solution I propose appeals to coherence constraints on the beliefs that condition the distinctive volitional stance of intention. (shrink)

I suggest that looking at how Kant’s arguments relate to the stand of the discussion on the relationship between right and ethics in his times contributes to a better understanding of his own position in this matter. I contrast the terms of the pre-Kantian debate with Kant’s take on the matter, in order to point out how Kant gains a new perspective concerning the rela- tionship between ethics and right. While the most prominent pre-Kantian view construed right and (...) ethics as either resulting from the application of a general principle to di erent domains or reciprocally independent, Kant’s own account centres on the difference between outer and inner freedom. I argue that Kant thereby only differentiates two relations of freedom to different hindrances, without implying any separation. This distinction allows him to construe right and ethics as sharing the same normative force of moral obligation. Therefore I suggest that Kant’s view understands the relationship between right and ethics neither as dependence nor as independence, but highlights the normative continuity throughout morals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:46. ARTIFICIAL VIRTUE, SELF-INTEREST, AND ACQUIRED SOCIAL CONCERN I One of Hume's most celebrated contributions to moral philosophy is his distinction between natural and artificial virtue. This is obviously intended to be an important distinction but its significance is less than obvious. Many modern commentators view both as interest based, with the natural virtues related to our immediate interests while the artificial are linked to our (...) enlightened long-term interests. Despite the fact that this standard reading does have some textual support (e.g., T535, 2 537), it is not without its difficulties. The major problem lies in the account of why artificial virtues are, in fact, virtues. Natural and artificial virtues frequently encourage conflicting actions. For example (T497498 ), the repayment of a loan to a "seditious bigot" may be in accord with the artificial virtue attached to justice, but nevertheless may thwart public as well as individual interest and consequently clash with natural virtue. As a result, we are faced with two alternatives: We can either accept the standard interpretation and its attendant incoherencies or we can re-examine Hume's natural/artificial distinction in hopes of arriving at a reading capable of avoiding these complications. What follows is an attempt to exploit the second option. In essence, I shall urge that a sharper distinction is needed between the artificial and natural virtues. The present deficiency clearly emerges once we realize that the standard account totally overlooks a critical aspect of Hume's doctrine. Not only does Hume provide a speculative history of how societal conventions arose from the state of nature (an essentially diachronic account), but he also offers an explanation of why we now attach moral approbatior to actions falling within these conventions (an essentially 47. synchronie account). It is the latter that enables Hume to explain the connection between moral sentiment and the artificial virtues; yet this aspect is completely neglected on the popular interpretation. These two accounts must be distinguished and clarified in order to understand Hume's intent and position. II Hume's distinction between natural and artificial virtue is roughly this: Natural virtue is attributable to those sentiments and passions which, if acted upon, generally tend to yield pleasing results to ourselves or others. On the other hand, we ascribe artificial virtue to actions which constitute a certain practice, the observance of which tends towards the good of mankind. Thus, an action is naturally virtuous if it is motivated by a sentiment which, if regularly acted upon, would have pleasant results. Because of this, naturally virtuous actions usually have pleasing consequences. It is in our own self-interest to promote the natural virtues and the actions they engender. Meanwhile, we attach artificial virtue to actions falling under a practice or convention. In effect, we view the entire practice as well as its particular constituent actions as virtuous. This distinction seems fairly simple; nonetheless it has two significant consequences. First, in both cases, virtue is attributed to the motives behind rather than the specific actions themselves. For instance, Hume argues that benevolence is a natural virtue (E295-302), therefore any action following from this motive will be virtuous. However, the same action fails to be virtuous if it does not stem from the sentiment of benevolence. It is the motive that bestows virtue upon the action. Similarly, an action is artificially virtuous if it arises from an artificially virtuous motive. For example, an action is 48. artificially virtuous if it springs from the desire to do what is just (an artificially virtuous motive) ; yet the same action is not virtuous if it is inspired by a nonvirtuous motive or mere caprice. Just as with their natural counterparts, artificially virtuous motives are responsible for the actions they induce. But it is here that the similarity ends, for natural virtue is assigned to motives to perform immediately agreeable actions while artificial virtue is connected with motives to act within institutions deemed to be in the interest of society. To return to the earlier examples, actions arising from benevolence will almost always have an immediately agreeable affect, although, as Hume admits (T497-498, 597; E286, 304), there are exceptions. Of course actions performed for the... (shrink)

In this chapter, we critically examine the most important extant ways of understanding and motivating the idea that reasons for belief are normative. First, we examine the proposal that the distinction between explanatory and so-called normative reasons that is commonly drawn in moral philosophy can be rather straightforwardly applied to reasons for belief, and that reasons for belief are essentially normative precisely when they are normative reasons. In the (...) course of this investigation, we explore the very nature of the reasons-for-belief relation, as well as the ontology of such reasons. Second, we examine the idea that the normativity derives from the internal connection between reasons for belief and epistemic justification, distinguishing between two distinct normativist accounts of justification, a weaker and a stronger one. We argue that neither line of argument is compelling. Pending further arguments, we conclude that normativism about reasons for belief is not supported. (shrink)

Many have been attracted to the idea that for something to be good there just have to be reasons to favour it. This view has come to be known as the buck-passing account of value. According to this account, for pleasure to be good there need to be reasons for us to desire and pursue it. Likewise for liberty and equality to be values there have to be reasons for us to promote and preserve them. (...) Extensive discussion has focussed on some of the problems that the buck-passing account faces, such as the 'wrong kind of reason' problem. Less attention, however, has been paid as to why we should accept the buck-passing account or what the theoretical pay-offs and other implications of accepting it are. The Normative and the Evaluative provides the first comprehensive motivation and defence of the buck-passing account of value. Richard Rowland argues that the buck-passing account explains several important features of the relationship between reasons and value, as well as the relationship between the different varieties of value, in a way that its competitors do not. He shows that alternatives to the buck-passing account are inconsistent with important views in normative ethics, uninformative, and at odds with the way in which we should see practical and epistemic normativity as related. In addition, he extends the buck-passing account to provide an account of moral properties as well as all other normative and deontic properties and concepts, such as fittingness and ought, in terms of reasons. (shrink)

Recent work in English speaking moral philosophy has seen the rise to prominence of the idea of a normative reason1. By ‘normative reasons’ I mean the reasons agents appeal to in making rational claims on each other. Normative reasons are good reasons on which agents ought to act, even if they are not actually motivated accordingly2. To this extent, normative reasons are distinguishable from the motivating reasons agents appeal to (...) in reason explanations. Even agents who fail to act on their normative reasons can be said to act on reasons insofar as their actions are rationally intelligible. Thus, when it is said that agents may never use violence in self-defence, this is naturally interpreted to mean that there are powerful normative reasons not to use violence even in selfdefence, even though some agents would use violence in selfdefence. Normative reasons are reasons to pursue ends, where by ends I mean a subset of objects of possible desire, such as taking a stroll or giving all your money to charity. The set of objects of possible desire might include items that are not straightforwardly ends of action. For example, you might want the world to be a better place, or want a secure basis in knowledge of relevant facts to be assigned the highest priority in the assessment of people’s preferences. Objects of possible desire are a subset of objects of possible response, where by ‘response’ I mean the whole range of prepositional attitudes, including desires, preferences, beliefs, commitments and so on. I use the term ‘option’ to refer to objects of possible response in this wider sense. Recent philosophical claims about the grounds of normative reasons can be divided into two strands. Each strand takes as its starting point what is perceived to be a fundamental constraint embodied in normative reason attributions.. (shrink)

I suggest that part of the reason the on-going debate in the West between the liberal democrats and the communitarians about the future and/or the ills of democracy is futile because both sides are committed to conceptually different accounts of democracy. The roots of communitarianism in the Athenian polis and that of liberalism in the atomistic individualism of the Enlightenment are contrasted in order to discern the motivating visions and overarching structures of both. Whereas communitarian democracy is willdominated, (...) liberal democracy is choice-dominated. My purpose here is not to argue for the supremacy of one over the other, but to call attention to the distinctions between the two that are often blurred in contemporary discussion about democracy. (shrink)