Full-Information Theories of Individual Good (original) (raw)
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Full Information, Well-Being, and Reasonable Desires
Utilitas, 2011
According to Railton:x is good for me iff my Fully Informed Self (FIS) while contemplating my situation would want me to want x.I offer four interpretations of this view. The first three are inadequate. Their inadequacy rests on the following two facts: (a) my FIS cannot want me to want what would be irrational for me to want, (b) when contemplating what is rational for me to want we must specify a particular way in which I could rationally acquire the recommended desire. As a result, what my FIS could reasonably want me to want is limited by what information my FIS could reliably convey to me. And therefore what my FIS could reasonably want me to want cannot be grounded in changes in desires that my FIS cannot publicly justify. The fourth interpretation limits the scope of what my FIS could want me to want in a way that avoids these problems, but conflicts with standard intuitions about what is a non-moral good.
Well-informedness and rationality: a philosophical overview
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 2009
There is a strong tendency in modern moral philosophy to impose restrictions on the range of desires that are to count as genuinely contributive to the desirer’s welfare. Perhaps the most frequent among such proposals is that only appropriately “informed” or “rational” desires are to count. I shall argue that the philosophical assumptions that underlie such suggestions suffer from the influence of equilibrium methodology and thus fall prey to the same shortcomings as it does. I shall also point to the similarities between the Austrian approach to rationality and the concept of “satisficing” (under a particular interpretation), which entered moral philosophy from the rational choice literature. Finally, I shall note that one crucial aspect of rationality that is ordinarily taken by the Austrians to be implicit in human action (i.e., the ability to grasp the logical relationship between the concepts that comprise the content of one’s aims and desires) should not be considered as such.
2007
Preface Very Brief Overview For more than thirty years, Robert Audi has been one of the most creative and influential philosophical voices on a broad range of topics in the fields of ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind and action, and philosophy of religion. This volume features thirteen chapters by renowned scholars plus new writings by Audi. Each paper presents both a position of its author and a critical treatment of related ideas of Audi's, and he responds to each of the other contributors in a way that provides a lively dialogue on the topic. The book begins with an introduction by Audi that presents a thematic overview of his philosophy and connects his views in ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind and action. Each of the thirteen chapters that follow concentrates on one or another of these three main areas. The chapters are followed by Audi's replies. The exchanges between Audi and his critics in any one of the areas provides ample material for seminar discussions or researches in that field. Ethics. Audi is the leading contemporary proponent of moral intuitionism. His 2004 book, The Good in the Right, defends a systematic ethical theory that provides a moderate intuitionist account of moral justification and knowledge together with a conception of morality and its pluralist structure that combines elements from the moral philosophies of Ross and Kant. Part 1 of this volume, "Problems and Prospects for Intuitionist Ethics," includes essays by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Roger Crisp, and Hugh J. McCann that challenge various key elements in Audi's moral intuitionism, especially its epistemology. Sinnott-Armstrong challenges Audi's distinction between "conclusions of reflection" and "conclusions of inference"-a distinction that plays an important role in Audi's defense of moral intuitionism. Crisp raises problems about the bearing of actual and hypothetical disagreement on the plausibility of Audi's intuitionism. McCann, though generally sympathetic to moral intuitionism, proposes to develop what may be described as a 'conativist' version of moral intuitionism that he presents as a corrective to the sort of 'cognitivist' view held by Audi. vi Preface The other chapters in part 1, by Bernard Gert, Thomas Hurka, and Candace Vogler, concentrate on Audi's conception of morality and his attempt to integrate Ross's moral pluralism with a Kantian unification of morality under the categorical imperative. Gert contrasts two conceptions of morality-a 'wide' conception prominent in such philosophers as Aristotle, Kant, Ross, and now Audi, and a 'narrower' conception to be found in the writings of Hobbes and Mill, and which Gert himself defends. One central element in Audi's normative moral theory is his attempt to integrate a plurality of Rossian moral principles with the Kantian categorical imperative as he interprets it. Audi calls his view Kantian intuitionism. In his paper, Hurka argues that this "marriage" of Kant with Ross does not yield the advantages to a Ross-style ethical pluralism that Audi claims. Finally, Vogler's paper challenges Audi's Kantian intuitionism by arguing that it fails to make proper contact with the views of either Kant or Ross. Epistemology. Audi's epistemology is experientialist, moderately rationalist, foundationalist, realist, and aimed at being throughout consonant with a plausible philosophy of mind. Part 2, "Knowledge, Justification, and Acceptance," features essays by Laurence BonJour, Elizabeth Fricker, Timothy Williamson, and William Alston. Although BonJour shares Audi's epistemological foundationalism, he is critical of Audi's view that perceptual beliefs are among the types of foundational belief. Another important element of Audi's epistemology is his view about the social sources of justification and knowledge, particularly the epistemic status of testimony. The central epistemological question about testimony is how justification and knowledge arise from it. Fricker's paper is critical of Audi's view on this matter and defends her alternative against Audi's. Internalism and externalism are typically conceived as competing views. Audi, however, has defended an internalist view of justification and an externalist view of knowledge. Audi's blend of these views is the focus of Timothy Williamson's paper in which, among other things, he argues that this particular blend is unstable and, on some points, in error. Another element of Audi's overall epistemology is his conception of rationality in relation to religious faith. Audi has proposed a conception of such faith that expands the scope of rationality in the realm of cognitive attitudes to include what he calls 'nondoxastic faith', a fiduciary attitude that has less stringent rationality conditions than faith as usually understood. Although Alston agrees with Audi that this kind of positive attitude toward religious propositions is distinct from belief, Alston argues that Audi has not properly characterized the attitude in question. Action, Mind, and Practical Rationality. Audi has also developed one of the most comprehensive and nuanced accounts of rational action and practical reasoningan account that includes views on the concepts of intention and reasons for action that are crucial for ethics, particularly as they bear on matters of moral psychology. The chapters by Frederick Adams, Alfred Mele, and Raimo Tuomela in part 3 take up Audi's influential views on the topics of intention, self-deception, and reasons for action. Adams's paper is concerned with the concepts of intending and trying, arguing against Audi's view that trying is not entailed by intending. Relying partly on psychiatric studies, Mele is critical of Audi's views on self-deception and delusion. Finally, Tuomela defends a view of motivating reasons for both individuals and groups, contrasting his view with some aspects of Audi's theory of practical reasons. Preface vii In part 4, "Reason and Intuition in Thought and Action," Audi engages his critics by responding to their objections and, in many cases, refining and extending his own philosophical views. The responses are written to be read either straight through or in sections or subsections along with a single paper or section in the body of the book. Taken in the context of the many critical points Audi addresses, they constitute a rich source for continuing debate.
Rationality, Rules, And Utility: New Essays On The Moral Philosophy Of Richard B. Brandt
1994
Book Reviews 189 do, wq need to know about the agent's values, goals, ends, aims, desires, preferences and so forth. And how does the fact, if it is one, that we can be motivated without such antecedent conative states challenge this view? The normative theory is concerned not with the explanation of action but with its justification. Despite what seem to me to be flaws in several of Dancy's central arguments, there is much to be admired in this book-not the least of which is Dancy's inclusion of his own list of weak points in his argument. Refreshing candor.
This paper aims at providing a perspective against the dominating idea within traditional moral philosophy and moral psychology, according to which there is a tight and direct bond between evaluative and motivational states, such that holding a belief that something is good implies having a desire for pursuing it. This idea, founded in Socratic moral intellectualism, and frequently regarded as the sub specie boni scheme of explanation of agency, states that any action can be explained with reference to an ultimate ‘believed good’, for the sake of which all relative means and ends are desired, even if these appear to be, at first glance, desires for something that the agent does not conceive as being good. In this sense, what is valuated as good, and only this, can be motivationally efficient. Such an explanation scheme renders phenomena as incontinence, self-harm, choosing the less beneficial of two alternatives, or in general ‘desiring the bad’, as misconstruals of explanations, or mere false appearances, hence denying the possibility of what seem to be common cases of human wickedness or moral deficiency. Against this idea, the paper explores the sufficiency and adequacy of the supposed straightforward bond between evaluative and motivational states, by introducing some considerations, stemming from Michael Stocker’s work, that moods, emotional states, energy, interest, preoccupation and similar psychological factors are what serve as bridges between mentioned states in the production of actions. The idea is that by making the relation between evaluation and motivation more complex by way of this introduction, it will be possible not only to give satisfactory explanations of those cases that the sub specie boni scheme adequately accounted for, but also to make way for explanations of common phenomena that under such scheme resulted in the contradiction of many of our intuitions regarding agency. What this serves, in the end, is the purpose of making way for a better moral psychology.
Consequentialism and Moral Rationalism
Commonsense ConsequentialismWherein Morality Meets Rationality, 2011
IN THIS PAPER, I make a presumptive case for moral rationalism: the view that agents can be morally required to do only what they have decisive reason to do, all things considered. 1 And I argue that this view leads us to reject all traditional versions of act-consequentialism. I begin by explaining how moral rationalism leads us to reject utilitarianism. §1 The too-demanding objection: How moral rationalism leads us to reject utilitarianism Utilitarianism holds that an act is morally permissible if and only if it maximizes aggregate utility. 2 This view is too demanding. It implies that agents are morally required to sacrifice their projects, interests, and special relationships whenever doing so would produce more, even just slightly more, aggregate utility than not doing so would. Thus, according to utilitarianism, I'm morally required to sacrifice my life, to neglect my relationship with my daughter, and to abandon my project of completing this paper if I could thereby produce more, even just slightly more, aggregate utility. To demand that I make such sacrifices for the sake of such miniscule gains in aggregate utility is to demand more from me than can be rightfully or reasonably demanded of me. To say that a given theory is too demanding is not merely, or even necessarily, to say that it demands quite a lot from agents in certain circumstances. After all, almost all moral theories demand quite a lot from agents in at least some circumstances. 3 What's more, a theory can be too demanding in part because some of its demands, though quite small, are 1 I assume, contrary to COPP 1997, that there is a normative standpoint from which we can judge what an agent has decisive reason to do, all things considered-in other words, that there is a normative standpoint from which we can judge what an agent just plain ought to do. See MCLEOD 2001 for a reply to Copp. 2 The aggregate utility produced by an act is the sum of all the utility it produces minus the sum of all the disutility it produces, where utility is a measure of whatever it is that enhances a subject's welfare, and disutility is a measure of whatever it is that diminishes a subject's welfare. An act maximizes aggregate utility just when there is no available alternative act that would produce more aggregate utility than it would. And note that I use 'utilitarianism' as shorthand for 'maximizing act-utilitarianism'. 3 Paul Hurley (2006, p. 681) makes this point as well.
Knowledge and Rational Desirability
Dialogue, 2012
The pursuit of knowledge is something that philosophers are most notably associated with. But this concept of knowledge that is so sought after by philosophers is a difficult one to grasp. For instance, what is knowledge if it is more than a justified true belief? Are there necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge? The difficulty in finding a satisfactory theory for knowledge has led to the development of theories concerning knowledge that posit conditions on knowledge that are impossible to meet. I argue that given the strict criteria for knowledge, we are better off having strongly justified beliefs. Additionally, I argue that the desire for arriving at knowledge is highly irrational. Although desires are typically thought to be arational, I argue that desires, once broken down to their propositional content, can be evaluated on a true or false basis.
Imperfect Reasons and Rational Options
Noûs, 2011
Agents often face a choice of what to do. And it seems that, in most of these choice situations, the relevant reasons do not require performing some particular act, but instead permit performing any of numerous act alternatives. This is known as the basic belief. Below, I argue that the best explanation for the basic belief is not that the relevant reasons are incommensurable (Raz) or that their justifying strength exceeds the requiring strength of opposing reasons (Gert), but that they are imperfect reasonsreasons that do not support performing any particular act, but instead support choosing any of the numerous alternatives that would each achieve the same worthy end. In the process, I develop and defend a novel theory of objective rationality, arguing that it is superior to its two most notable rivals. Agents often face a choice of what to do. And it seems that, in most of these choice situations, the relevant reasons do not require performing some particular act, but instead permit performing any of numerous act alternatives. 1 It seems, for instance, that I could now, in accordance with reason, do any of the following: watch TV, read a novel, practice the piano, volunteer for Oxfam, work on this paper, play with my daughter, or prepare for my next lecture. Following Joseph Raz, I will call this the basic belief. Raz calls it the basic belief, because it seems to be sufficiently well entrenched in our commonsense thinking that we should give it "credence unless it can be shown to be incoherent or inconsistent with some of our rightly entrenched views" (1999, 100). As he sees it, then, the basic belief is one of our starting points, and our task is to explain it rather than to defend it. However, even just explaining it is not an easy task, for it seems that there could be such rational options only if there were exactly equal reason to perform each of the optional act alternatives, and yet it is difficult to believe that such is the case. 2 For instance, it is difficult to believe that I have just as much reason to watch TV as to either volunteer for Oxfam or work on this paper. After all, volunteering for Oxfam seems vastly superior to watching TV in terms of the amount of impersonal good that it would do, and working on this paper seems vastly superior to watching TV in terms of the amount of good it would do meassume that I'm not at this moment too tired to work productively on this paper. 3 Moreover, the fact that, in many of these choice situations, the relevant act alternatives remain rationally optional even after there has been a slight increase