Nomy Arpaly rejects the model of rationality used by most ethicists and action theorists. Both observation and psychology indicate that people act rationally without deliberation, and act irrationally with deliberation. By questioning the notion that our own minds are comprehensible to us--and therefore questioning much of the current work of action theorists and ethicists--Arpaly attempts to develop a more realistic conception of moral agency.

This paper argue that moral ignorance does not excuse. Nobody is off the hook for doing something bad simply because she did it believing ii to be right. The paper uses the Arpaly view that cases of Akrasia can be praiseworthy as one premise in the argument.

Joining the debate over the roles of reason and appetite in the moral mind, In Praise of Desire takes the side of appetite. Acting for moral reasons, acting in a praiseworthy manner, and acting out of virtue are simply acting out of intrinsic desires for the right or the good.

According to Arpaly and to Markovits, actions have moral worth iff they are done for the reasons that make them right. Can this view have implications for normative ethics? I argue that it has such implications, as you can start from truths about the moral worth of actions to truths about the reasons that make them right. What makes actions right is the question of normative ethics. I argue from the moral worth view to a pluralistic view of ethics - (...) not Kantianism or utilitarianism but an account according to which there are at least two important moral factors, one of which is wellbeing. Part of this argument involves objecting to Kant's view of the moral worth of actions performed out of altruism and not universalizability. I also specify various implications for the relationship between the true normative theory and common sense morality. (shrink)

Perhaps everything we think, feel, and do is determined, and humans--like stones or clouds--are slaves to the laws of nature. Would that be a terrible state? Philosophers who take the incompatibilist position think so, arguing that a deterministic world would be one without moral responsibility and perhaps without true love, meaningful art, and real rationality. But compatibilists and semicompatibilists argue that determinism need not worry us. As long as our actions stem, in an appropriate way, from us, or respond in (...) some way to reasons, our actions are meaningful and can be judged on their moral merit. In this highly original work, Nomy Arpaly argues that a deterministic world does not preclude moral responsibility, rationality, and love--in short, meaningful lives--but that there would still be something lamentable about a deterministic world. A person may respond well to reasons, and her actions may faithfully reflect her true self or values, but she may still feel that she is not free. Arpaly argues that compatibilists and semicompatibilists are wrong to dismiss this feeling--for which there are no philosophical consolations--as philosophically irrelevant. On the way to this bittersweet conclusion, Arpaly sets forth surprising theories about acting for reasons, the widely accepted idea that "ought implies can," moral blame, and more. (shrink)

This article discusses the interrelationship of race and religion in law, the subject of Eve Darian-Smith's new book, which seeks to rectify the neglect of religion in the study of race and law and the parallel neglect of race in studies of law and religion. Concurring with the book's basic propositions, that the segregation of race and religion into separate fields of legal studies needs to be overcome and the religious origins of fundamental liberal legal ideas need to be recognized, (...) I tease out different ways in which race and religion can be ‘linked’ and religion can ‘play a role’ in the development of modern law that are not fully parsed out in Darian-Smith's analysis. Applauding her attempt to integrate recent challenges to the long regnant ‘secularization thesis’ into the study of race and law, I point out some unresolved ambiguities in those challenges and their implications for law. (shrink)

I argue that akrasia is not always significantly irrational. To be more precise, I argue that an agent is sometimes more rational for being akratic then she would have been for being enkratic or strong-willed.

I argue that a right action has moral worth if and only if it is done for the right reasons - that is, for its right-making features. The reasons the agent acts on have to be identical to the reasons for which the action is right. I argue that Kantians are wrong in thinking that a right action has moral worth iff it is done because the agent thinks it is right, giving examples of morally worthy actions that are done (...) by agents who think they are wrong (Huckleberry Finn) and right actions done "because they are right" that have no moral worth. I also discuss degrees of moral worth as well as blameworthiness. (shrink)

Theoretical and practical deliberation are voluntary activities, and like all voluntary activities, they are performed for reasons. To hold that all voluntary activities are performed for reasons in virtue of their relations to past, present, or even merely possible acts of deliberation thus leads to infinite regresses and related problems. As a consequence, there must be processes that are nondeliberative and nonvoluntary but that nonetheless allow us to think and act for reasons, and these processes must be the ones that (...) generate the voluntary activities making up ordinary deliberation. These nondeliberative, nonvoluntary processes by means of which we are able to deliberate for reasons are the fundamental processes by means of which we can think or do anything for a reason: once it has been seen that they must exist, it can be recognized that they are ubiquitous. As a result, the usefulness of deliberation to rational belief and action is intermittent, contingent, and modest. Deliberation is a tremendously valuable tool for increasing human capacities to think and act for good reasons in challenging contexts, but in the end it is merely a tool, wielded by people through the same nondeliberative, nonvoluntary capacities to think and act for reasons that they are enhancing the effectiveness of by deliberating. (shrink)

Discussions of the problem of emergency powers often assume that norms and exceptions constitute its conceptual structure. This perspective is both self-undermining and dangerous. Because even the critics of emergency powers often rely on this dichotomy, clarifying the conceptual terrain might contribute to the development of a safer approach to emergencies. Hence, this article explores the origins and logic of modern exceptionalism by examining instances of its careful articulation in the history of political thought: in the “republican” exceptionalism of Machiavelli (...) and Rousseau and the “decisionist” exceptionalism of Schmitt and Hobbes. (shrink)

What is that makes an act subject to either praise or blame? The question has often been taken to depend entirely on the free will debate for an answer, since it is widely agreed that an agent’s act is subject to praise or blame only if it was freely willed, but moral theory, action theory, and moral psychology are at least equally relevant to it. In the last quarter-century, following the lead of Harry Frankfurt’s (1971) seminal article “Freedom of the (...) Will and the Concept of a Person,” the interdisciplinary nature of the question has been emphasized by various authors. Going beyond the boundaries of the traditional free will debate, they have attempted to describe the requirements for agent accountability by appeal to theories of personality, rational agency, and ethical choice. The approach has been a breath of fresh air in the often-stagnant free will debate, bringing new considerations to bear and provoking new lines of argument, and it is an approach that we will adopt in this paper. In the following pages, we hope to show that an under-noticed phenomenon of moral psychology, inverse akrasia, exemplified by Huckleberry Finn, has something to contribute to the understanding of agency and accountability. After presenting the phenomenon in section I, we will move in section II to a quick survey of a family of Frankfurt-inspired views and a critique of them based on the phenomenon in sections III and IV. A new theory will be offered in section V, and potential objections addressed in the final section of the paper. (shrink)

L’accident nucléaire de Fukushima a engendré une série de problèmes nouveaux. Comme il s’agissait d’une responsabilité stricte, les victimes n’ont pas eu à prouver la négligence mais ils ont entamé une action pour obtenir davantage de dédommagements pour atteinte morale. Ceci conduit à poser la question de la culpabilité pour négligence et stricte responsabilité. Je propose de ne pas entendre culpabilité au sens moral mais d’y voir une déviation par rapport à la norme. Plus grande sera la déviation, plus grande (...) la culpabilité, sans se soucier de ce qui a entraîné la responsabilité. Quant aux dommages, lesquels peuvent être compensés et lesquels ne le peuvent pas, voilà la question. Il était important de trouver des critères pour étayer cette décision et de les justifier. Pour cela, il faut étudier la structure de la responsabilité pour faute (négligence aussi bien que stricte responsabilité) et voir comment les principes fondamentaux de la justice distributive et de la justice commutative s’appliquent à cette structure. (shrink)

Epistemic partialism is the view that friends have a doxastic duty to overestimate each other. If one holds that there are no practical reasons for belief, we will argue, one has to deny the existence of any epistemic duties, and thus reject epistemic partialism. But if it is false that one has a doxastic duty to overestimate one’s friends, why does it so often seem true? We argue that there is a robust causal relationship between friendship and overestimation that can (...) be mistaken for a constitutive relationship; we also argue that one can still accept some of the normative intuitions that motivate epistemic partialism even if one rejects epistemic partialism itself. Along the way, we consider and reject a watered-down version of epistemic partialism—call it epistemic partialism-light—according to which one has a duty to take steps to create in oneself a disposition to overestimate one’s friends. (shrink)

I argue that unless belief is voluntary in a very strict sense – that is, unless credence is simply under our direct control – there can be no practical reasons to believe. I defend this view against recent work by Susanna Rinard. I then argue that for very similar reasons, barring the truth of strict doxastic voluntarism, there cannot be epistemic reasons to act, only purely practical reasons possessed by those whose goal is attaining knowledge or justified belief.

_How constructions of time shape political beliefs about what is possible—and what is inevitable_ To secure power in a crisis, leaders must sell deep change as a means to future good. But how could we know the future? Nomi Claire Lazar draws on stories across a range of cultures and contexts, ancient and modern, to show how leaders use constructions of time to frame events. These frames carry an implicit promise to secure or subvert an expected future, shaping belief (...) in what is possible—and what is inevitable. “Ranging imaginatively across history and geography, this elegant book probes temporal sources of order and transformation. Its analytical wisdom discloses how calendars and representations of time shape political legitimacy, dispositions, and action.”—Ira I. Katznelson, author of _Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time_ “Great political leaders, for good or ill, seek to shape our daily lives by playing with time itself. That is the central insight of this elegant, erudite volume, one that means I will henceforth listen to speeches and manifestos with new ears and new tools to rebut them.”—Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO, New America “Nomi Lazar gives us a fascinating exploration of the political construction of time itself, as structured by calendars, dating systems, and other mechanisms used for legitimation, revolution, and a myriad of other political purposes. A memorable and endlessly interesting book.”—Adrian Vermeule, Harvard Law School. (shrink)

In ‘The End of Law’, Bill Scheuerman illustrates the ways normativity, context and decision interlace, putting the lie to Carl Schmitt’s claim that decision is pure will. In doing so, Scheuerman gestures toward a truth about the alchemical nature of constitutions. Like decisions, I argue, constitutions are alchemical mechanisms for actualizing norms and normativizing facts. They accomplish this in part through mediating between dynamic selves before and after the moment of decision or coming-into-force. Schmitt’s error – or perhaps his strategy (...) – is to make static this dynamic process of political self-formation. Viewed as static, it is more difficult to discern the process of normativizing facts and concretizing norms. I show how contemporary populist authoritarians are particularly skilled at harnessing this strategy. Populist authoritarians often use constitutional change to consolidate not just power but constructed identity. They are able to do so because constitutions provide this strategy of dynamic identity formation, which, by generating new normative imperatives, in turn shores up legitimacy. (shrink)

Open-mindedness appears to be a cognitive disposition: an open-minded person is disposed to gain, lose, and revise beliefs in a particular, reasonable way. It is also a moral virtue, for we blame, for example, the man who quickly comes to think a new neighbor untrustworthy because he drives the wrong car or wears the wrong clothes—for his closed-mindedness. How open–mindedness could be a moral virtue is a puzzle, though, because exercises of moral virtues are expressions of moral concern, whereas gaining, (...) losing, and revising beliefs are not actions and so cannot be actions taken out of moral concern. Solving this puzzle is the purpose of this essay. (shrink)

Many psychiatrists tell their clients that any mental disorder is ‘‘a disease, just like diabetes’’. This slogan appears to suggest that mental states and behavior that are classified ‘‘mental disorders’’ are somehow radically different from other mental states and behaviors—both when it comes to simply understanding people and when it comes to moral assessments of mental states and of actions. After all, mental illness is just like diabetes, while other human conditions are not. That sounds like a huge difference. I (...) think this suggestion is misleading. (shrink)

Harry Frankfurt introduces the concept of externality. Externality is supposed to be a fact about the structure of an agent's will. We argue that the pre-theorethical basis of externality has a lot more to do with feelings of alienation than it does with the will. Once we realize that intuitions about externality are guided by intuitions about feelings of alienation surprising conclusions follow regarding the structure of our will.

This paper presents an account of the virtuous person, which I take to be the same as the good person. I argue that goodness in a person is based on her desires. Contra Aristotelians, I argue that one does not need practical wisdom to be good. There can be a perfectly good person with mental retardation or autism, for example, whether or not such conditions are compatible with the Aristotelian kind of wisdom. Contra Kantians, I argue that the sense of (...) duty - which does exist! - is compatible with a desire-based moral psychology. (shrink)

This introduction to the role of information structure in grammar discusses a wide range of phenomena on the syntax-information structure interface. It examines theories of information structure and considers their effectiveness in explaining whether and how information structure maps onto syntax in discourse. Professor Erteschik-Shir begins by discussing the basic notions and properties of information structure, such as topic and focus, and considers their properties from different theoretical perspectives. She covers definitions of topic and focus, architectures of grammar, information structure, (...) word order, the interface between lexicon and information structure, and cognitive aspects of information structure.In her balanced and readable account, the author critically compares the effectiveness of different theoretical approaches and assesses the value of insights drawn from work in processing and on language acquisition, variation, and universals. This book will appeal to graduate students of syntax and semantics in departments of linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive science. (shrink)

Amanda works in a library, and a patron asks for her help in learning about duty-to- rescue laws in China. She throws herself into the task, spending hours on retrieving documents from governmental and non-governmental sources, getting electronic translations, looking for literature on Scandinavian duty-to-rescue laws that mention Chinese laws for comparison, and so on. Why? She likes to gain this sort of general knowledge of the world; perhaps the reason she works so hard is that she is learning fascinating (...) facts in doing so. She is also a proud librarian; perhaps the reason she works so hard is that a patron needs her assistance. She is a library employee; perhaps her reason for working so hard is that this sort of effort is noted by her employer and gives her career a boost, or perhaps it is just that doing this sort of work is the condition of her continued employment. Perhaps the reason is that the patron is charming. (shrink)

I argue that despite it being said often that the concept of personal autonomy is important for grounding moral responsibility and in applied ethics, a certain type of theories of autonomy and identification, descended from the work of Harry Frankfurt starting 1971, are not relevant in an obvious way to either moral responsibility or applied ethics.

ABSTRACT I argue that Broome's view of the distinction between rationality and normativity needs more to be said for it to be preferable to more mundane views that connect reasons and rationality more intimately, and that it has curious implications about the connection between whether an agent does what she ought to do and the results of her action. I also argue that the etymology and history of words like ‘reason’ and ‘rational’ have absolutely no bearing on the issue at (...) hand. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that benevolence is not the whole of the moral life, but it is not as widely appreciated that benevolence is an irreducible part of that life. This paper argues that Kantian efforts to characterize benevolence, or something like it, in terms of reverence for rational agency fall short. Such reverence, while credibly an important part of the moral life, is no more the whole of it than benevolence.

I argue that when it comes to understanding other people, humans have a problem that involves a combination of poor imagination and excessive trust in this imagination. Often, the problem has to do with what I call "runaway simulation" - clinging to the assumption that another person resembles you despite glaring counter-evidence. I then argue that the same type of problem appears intra-personally, as we fail miserably to imagine potential and future selves. Finally, I argue that this fact goes a (...) long way to explain the phenomenology of many transformative experiences, an explanation that does not require a special kind of knowledge to exist along the lines of "knowing what it's like". (shrink)