Ezra Cohen | Queen's University at Kingston (original) (raw)
Address: Brighton, Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom
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This thesis argues against the Humean theory of practical reasons, criticising its foundations in... more This thesis argues against the Humean theory of practical reasons, criticising its foundations in philosophical and moral psychology. It develops a realist account of value-based reasons, underpinned by a distinctive cognitivist moral psychology, and a non-causalist account of the rational explanation of action. Contemporary Humeans reject Hume’s own theory of thought, but this leaves the Humean theory of practical reasons without justification for a conception of desire as non-cognitive and not open to fundamental rational evaluation. Two possible strategies for filling this justificatory gap are (i) an appeal to grammatical considerations about the attribution of desires and their content, or (ii) an appeal to distinctions in respect of direction of fit. I argue that neither is successful. Kant’s moral psychology provides the key to an alternative account, but is unsatisfactory due to its acceptance of a theory of thought which is relevantly similar to Hume’s, and of non-compulsor...
This thesis argues against the Humean theory of practical reasons, criticising its foundations in... more This thesis argues against the Humean theory of practical reasons, criticising its foundations in philosophical and moral psychology. It develops a realist account of value-based reasons, underpinned by a distinctive cognitivist moral psychology, and a non-causalist account of the rational explanation of action. Contemporary Humeans reject Hume’s own theory of thought, but this leaves the Humean theory of practical reasons without justification for a conception of desire as non-cognitive and not open to fundamental rational evaluation. Two possible strategies for filling this justificatory gap are (i) an appeal to grammatical considerations about the attribution of desires and their content, or (ii) an appeal to distinctions in respect of direction of fit. I argue that neither is successful. Kant’s moral psychology provides the key to an alternative account, but is unsatisfactory due to its acceptance of a theory of thought which is relevantly similar to Hume’s, and of non-compulsor...