J. David Velleman | New York University (original) (raw)
Papers by J. David Velleman
The Winnower, 2007
By "deciding how to decide", I mean using practical reasoning to regulate one's pri... more By "deciding how to decide", I mean using practical reasoning to regulate one's principles of practical reasoning. David Gauthier has suggested that deciding how to decide is something that every rational agent does. (2) Whether or not we agree with Gauthier about agents in general, we might think that his suggestion applies well enough to many of us moral philosophers. We assess rival principles of practical reasoning, which tell us how to choose among actions; and assessing how to choose among actions certainly sounds like deciding how to decide. One of my goals in this essay is to argue, in opposition to Gauthier, that assessing rival principles of practical reasoning is a job for theoretical rather than practical reasoning. How to decide is something that we discover rather than decide. The idea that our principles of practical reasoning can be regulated by practical reasoning is essential to Gauthier's defense of his own, somewhat unorthodox conception of thos...
How We Get Along begins with a sob: you are crying uncontrollably. But then you get a hold of you... more How We Get Along begins with a sob: you are crying uncontrollably. But then you get a hold of yourself and settle down to have a good cry. I ask: what has changed? Whatever it is, it’s what makes the difference between behavior that is out of your control and therefore not an action of yours, on the one hand, and behavior that is in your control and therefore an action, on the other. I contend that whereas the uncontrolled crying is simply the manifestation of hurt or grief, the controlled crying manifests something further, namely, your awareness of the hurt or grief, and your resulting perception of crying as what it makes sense to do. Had you been unable to think of what you might be crying about, you would have asked yourself “Why am I crying?”, and your tears would have tapered off. Because you do know what you’re crying about, however, you keep crying, but now with the concurrence of that self-understanding, which transforms your crying from mere behavior into an action. What ...
Inquiry
Michael’s Planning, Time, and Self-Governance collects his most recent contributions to the philo... more Michael’s Planning, Time, and Self-Governance collects his most recent contributions to the philosophy of action, further developing his agendasetting theory of agency. Michael calls it a planning theory, because it treats the mental state of intention as the basic unit in the infrastructure of rational agency, and it treats future-directed plans as the paradigm for all intentions, including intentions directed at present or immediately forthcoming actions (4). Future-directed plans serve two practical purposes, according to Michael. First, they facilitate scheduling of deliberative effort, by enabling us to deliberate in advance, when time and materials for deliberation are plentiful, and then to store the results until the occasion for action arrives, when resources for deliberation may be scarce. Second, plans facilitate coordination of actions, by committing us to future actions whose performance we and others can count on in our broader decision-making. Plans can serve these purposes because they embody commitments that are, in Michael’s terminology, both volitional and reasoning-centered. In their volitional aspect, plans determine our behavior: unless we change our minds, we will do what we plan, when the time arrives. In their reasoning-centered aspect, plans set the agenda for, and constrain the scope of, further deliberation. Michael analyzes the latter, reasoning-centered aspect of plans in terms of norms and corresponding dispositions of practical reason. First, a plan is rationally required to resist reconsideration, so as to constitute a stable making-up of our minds. Second, a plan is rationally required to be means-end coherent – that is, to be filled in with the necessary instrumental details in time for its execution. Third, plans are rationally required to be
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
Konrad Morgen, 2015
We have already seen Morgen’s 1964 testimony about how he found his way to Auschwitz. Customs ins... more We have already seen Morgen’s 1964 testimony about how he found his way to Auschwitz. Customs inspectors discovered clumps of gold that had been shipped from Auschwitz to a private address, and they suspected criminal activity.1 It was no secret that concentration camps harvested gold from the teeth of corpses and sent it to the Reichsbank, but so far as Morgen knew, the corpses were those of inmates who had died of natural causes or legal executions. Seeing the size of the confiscated nuggets, however, Morgen inferred that they must come from 50,000 to 100,000 corpses, which could only be the product of mass murder. So he traveled to Auschwitz—“this little-known Auschwitz, whose location I had to look up with some difficulty”—where he saw the gas chambers and crematoria.
In How We Get Along, philosopher J. David Velleman compares our social interactions to the intera... more In How We Get Along, philosopher J. David Velleman compares our social interactions to the interactions among improvisational actors on stage. He argues that we play ourselves-not artificially but authentically, by doing what would make sense coming from us as we really are. And like improvisational actors, we deal with one another in dual capacities: both as characters within the social drama and as players contributing to the shared performance. In this conception of social intercourse, Velleman finds rational grounds for morality, though not a rational guarantee. He maps a middle course between skepticism and rationalism, arguing that practical reasoning is "pro-moral" without requiring moral action. The result is what he calls a "kinda Kantian metaethics." Written in an accessible and engaging style, How We Get Along is the summation of Velleman's thinking to date, incorporating and unifying previous work on agency, the self, the emotions, narrative, and Kantian moral theory.
Philosophical Studies, 2005
Konrad Morgen, 2015
In March 1942, Morgen reached a crisis. Invited to lead a new court in Lemberg (Lvov), he writes ... more In March 1942, Morgen reached a crisis. Invited to lead a new court in Lemberg (Lvov), he writes to the personnel department of the SS Judiciary Head Office in Munich asking to be spared the assignment. He asks instead to be transferred out of the General Gouvernement, preferably to Norway or the Balkans.1 In support of this request, he recites the record of his accomplishments in the region: the number of the indictments he has filed, the number of defendants he has tried, and the travels he logged in the Sauberzweig case, which he calls a Korruptionsherd—a “focus of corruption,” on the analogy of a Krankheitsherd, a focus of disease. In closing, he offers a further argument: The corruption in the General Gouvernement is so great, and the number of capital crimes and noxious offenses so high, that I am utterly convinced that any judge would in time become jaded and therefore run the risk of injury to his natural sense of justice. So you will understand, Obersturmbannfuhrer, if I have the urgent wish to go back now to live once again in a different, healthier atmosphere than that of the General Gouvernement.
Konrad Morgen, 2015
Morgen installed an investigative commission in Auschwitz in the fall of 1943. He then opened an ... more Morgen installed an investigative commission in Auschwitz in the fall of 1943. He then opened an investigation into Maximilian Grabner, Chief of the Auschwitz Gestapo, on suspicion of murdering roughly 2000 inmates of the camp’s arrest bunker. Grabner was tried by a Special Purpose Court (Gericht zur besonderen Verwendung) that Himmler had established within the SS Judiciary, at Morgen’s request. Significantly, the idea for establishing the court originated with Konrad Morgen.
Konrad Morgen, 2015
In the fall of 1944, the SS Judiciary Head Office was bombed and forced to move to Prien am Chiem... more In the fall of 1944, the SS Judiciary Head Office was bombed and forced to move to Prien am Chiemsee, a lakeside resort in Bavaria, about 80 km from Munich. While working in Prien, Morgen was often melancholic. Even in rural Bavaria the war could now be felt. In a letter to his fiancee, Maria Wachter, he writes,1 It is not only the oncoming fall which turns one’s thoughts to mortality. Every day it suddenly comes into view in a different form. Today and yesterday noon there were alerts. Some 350 bombers, shining like silver, passed at 4000 meters towards their site of destruction. Further away a small payload fell on peaceful farmhouses. One could feel the ground shake.
Philosophical Quarterly, 2010
ABSTRACT Splitting the difference between internalism and externalism about reasons.
The Galilean Intuition Does modern science imply, contrary to the testimony of our eyes, that gra... more The Galilean Intuition Does modern science imply, contrary to the testimony of our eyes, that grass is not green? Galileo thought it did: Hence I think that these tastes, odors, colors, etc., on the side of the object in which they seem to exist, are nothing else than mere names, but hold their residence solely in the sensitive body; so that if the animal were removed, every such quality would be abolished and annihilated. Nevertheless, as soon as we have imposed names on them, particular and different from those of the other primary and real accidents, we induce ourselves to believe that they also exist just as truly and really as the latter.2 [S]ince in fact we apply color predicates to physical objects and never to sensations, ideas, experiences, etc., the account of their semantics recommended by the Principle of Charity is one that makes them truly applicable to tomatoes and lemons rather than to sense experiences thereof.3
Abstract: I offer a new interpretation of Harry Frankfurt's philosophy of action, as it was ... more Abstract: I offer a new interpretation of Harry Frankfurt's philosophy of action, as it was presented in his book The Importance of What We Care About. I then suggest that kinds of activity celebrated in the Daoist doctrine of wu wei and in Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi's theory of "flow" would ...
The Winnower, 2007
By "deciding how to decide", I mean using practical reasoning to regulate one's pri... more By "deciding how to decide", I mean using practical reasoning to regulate one's principles of practical reasoning. David Gauthier has suggested that deciding how to decide is something that every rational agent does. (2) Whether or not we agree with Gauthier about agents in general, we might think that his suggestion applies well enough to many of us moral philosophers. We assess rival principles of practical reasoning, which tell us how to choose among actions; and assessing how to choose among actions certainly sounds like deciding how to decide. One of my goals in this essay is to argue, in opposition to Gauthier, that assessing rival principles of practical reasoning is a job for theoretical rather than practical reasoning. How to decide is something that we discover rather than decide. The idea that our principles of practical reasoning can be regulated by practical reasoning is essential to Gauthier's defense of his own, somewhat unorthodox conception of thos...
How We Get Along begins with a sob: you are crying uncontrollably. But then you get a hold of you... more How We Get Along begins with a sob: you are crying uncontrollably. But then you get a hold of yourself and settle down to have a good cry. I ask: what has changed? Whatever it is, it’s what makes the difference between behavior that is out of your control and therefore not an action of yours, on the one hand, and behavior that is in your control and therefore an action, on the other. I contend that whereas the uncontrolled crying is simply the manifestation of hurt or grief, the controlled crying manifests something further, namely, your awareness of the hurt or grief, and your resulting perception of crying as what it makes sense to do. Had you been unable to think of what you might be crying about, you would have asked yourself “Why am I crying?”, and your tears would have tapered off. Because you do know what you’re crying about, however, you keep crying, but now with the concurrence of that self-understanding, which transforms your crying from mere behavior into an action. What ...
Inquiry
Michael’s Planning, Time, and Self-Governance collects his most recent contributions to the philo... more Michael’s Planning, Time, and Self-Governance collects his most recent contributions to the philosophy of action, further developing his agendasetting theory of agency. Michael calls it a planning theory, because it treats the mental state of intention as the basic unit in the infrastructure of rational agency, and it treats future-directed plans as the paradigm for all intentions, including intentions directed at present or immediately forthcoming actions (4). Future-directed plans serve two practical purposes, according to Michael. First, they facilitate scheduling of deliberative effort, by enabling us to deliberate in advance, when time and materials for deliberation are plentiful, and then to store the results until the occasion for action arrives, when resources for deliberation may be scarce. Second, plans facilitate coordination of actions, by committing us to future actions whose performance we and others can count on in our broader decision-making. Plans can serve these purposes because they embody commitments that are, in Michael’s terminology, both volitional and reasoning-centered. In their volitional aspect, plans determine our behavior: unless we change our minds, we will do what we plan, when the time arrives. In their reasoning-centered aspect, plans set the agenda for, and constrain the scope of, further deliberation. Michael analyzes the latter, reasoning-centered aspect of plans in terms of norms and corresponding dispositions of practical reason. First, a plan is rationally required to resist reconsideration, so as to constitute a stable making-up of our minds. Second, a plan is rationally required to be means-end coherent – that is, to be filled in with the necessary instrumental details in time for its execution. Third, plans are rationally required to be
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
Konrad Morgen, 2015
We have already seen Morgen’s 1964 testimony about how he found his way to Auschwitz. Customs ins... more We have already seen Morgen’s 1964 testimony about how he found his way to Auschwitz. Customs inspectors discovered clumps of gold that had been shipped from Auschwitz to a private address, and they suspected criminal activity.1 It was no secret that concentration camps harvested gold from the teeth of corpses and sent it to the Reichsbank, but so far as Morgen knew, the corpses were those of inmates who had died of natural causes or legal executions. Seeing the size of the confiscated nuggets, however, Morgen inferred that they must come from 50,000 to 100,000 corpses, which could only be the product of mass murder. So he traveled to Auschwitz—“this little-known Auschwitz, whose location I had to look up with some difficulty”—where he saw the gas chambers and crematoria.
In How We Get Along, philosopher J. David Velleman compares our social interactions to the intera... more In How We Get Along, philosopher J. David Velleman compares our social interactions to the interactions among improvisational actors on stage. He argues that we play ourselves-not artificially but authentically, by doing what would make sense coming from us as we really are. And like improvisational actors, we deal with one another in dual capacities: both as characters within the social drama and as players contributing to the shared performance. In this conception of social intercourse, Velleman finds rational grounds for morality, though not a rational guarantee. He maps a middle course between skepticism and rationalism, arguing that practical reasoning is "pro-moral" without requiring moral action. The result is what he calls a "kinda Kantian metaethics." Written in an accessible and engaging style, How We Get Along is the summation of Velleman's thinking to date, incorporating and unifying previous work on agency, the self, the emotions, narrative, and Kantian moral theory.
Philosophical Studies, 2005
Konrad Morgen, 2015
In March 1942, Morgen reached a crisis. Invited to lead a new court in Lemberg (Lvov), he writes ... more In March 1942, Morgen reached a crisis. Invited to lead a new court in Lemberg (Lvov), he writes to the personnel department of the SS Judiciary Head Office in Munich asking to be spared the assignment. He asks instead to be transferred out of the General Gouvernement, preferably to Norway or the Balkans.1 In support of this request, he recites the record of his accomplishments in the region: the number of the indictments he has filed, the number of defendants he has tried, and the travels he logged in the Sauberzweig case, which he calls a Korruptionsherd—a “focus of corruption,” on the analogy of a Krankheitsherd, a focus of disease. In closing, he offers a further argument: The corruption in the General Gouvernement is so great, and the number of capital crimes and noxious offenses so high, that I am utterly convinced that any judge would in time become jaded and therefore run the risk of injury to his natural sense of justice. So you will understand, Obersturmbannfuhrer, if I have the urgent wish to go back now to live once again in a different, healthier atmosphere than that of the General Gouvernement.
Konrad Morgen, 2015
Morgen installed an investigative commission in Auschwitz in the fall of 1943. He then opened an ... more Morgen installed an investigative commission in Auschwitz in the fall of 1943. He then opened an investigation into Maximilian Grabner, Chief of the Auschwitz Gestapo, on suspicion of murdering roughly 2000 inmates of the camp’s arrest bunker. Grabner was tried by a Special Purpose Court (Gericht zur besonderen Verwendung) that Himmler had established within the SS Judiciary, at Morgen’s request. Significantly, the idea for establishing the court originated with Konrad Morgen.
Konrad Morgen, 2015
In the fall of 1944, the SS Judiciary Head Office was bombed and forced to move to Prien am Chiem... more In the fall of 1944, the SS Judiciary Head Office was bombed and forced to move to Prien am Chiemsee, a lakeside resort in Bavaria, about 80 km from Munich. While working in Prien, Morgen was often melancholic. Even in rural Bavaria the war could now be felt. In a letter to his fiancee, Maria Wachter, he writes,1 It is not only the oncoming fall which turns one’s thoughts to mortality. Every day it suddenly comes into view in a different form. Today and yesterday noon there were alerts. Some 350 bombers, shining like silver, passed at 4000 meters towards their site of destruction. Further away a small payload fell on peaceful farmhouses. One could feel the ground shake.
Philosophical Quarterly, 2010
ABSTRACT Splitting the difference between internalism and externalism about reasons.
The Galilean Intuition Does modern science imply, contrary to the testimony of our eyes, that gra... more The Galilean Intuition Does modern science imply, contrary to the testimony of our eyes, that grass is not green? Galileo thought it did: Hence I think that these tastes, odors, colors, etc., on the side of the object in which they seem to exist, are nothing else than mere names, but hold their residence solely in the sensitive body; so that if the animal were removed, every such quality would be abolished and annihilated. Nevertheless, as soon as we have imposed names on them, particular and different from those of the other primary and real accidents, we induce ourselves to believe that they also exist just as truly and really as the latter.2 [S]ince in fact we apply color predicates to physical objects and never to sensations, ideas, experiences, etc., the account of their semantics recommended by the Principle of Charity is one that makes them truly applicable to tomatoes and lemons rather than to sense experiences thereof.3
Abstract: I offer a new interpretation of Harry Frankfurt's philosophy of action, as it was ... more Abstract: I offer a new interpretation of Harry Frankfurt's philosophy of action, as it was presented in his book The Importance of What We Care About. I then suggest that kinds of activity celebrated in the Daoist doctrine of wu wei and in Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi's theory of "flow" would ...