Reasons as right-makers

Schroeter, Laura; Schroeter, François

doi:10.1080/13869790903067691

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…) Suppose that evidence of a right-making feature is not a reason for acting (cf. Broome 2004;Schroeter & Schroeter 2009). In that case, an action might have moral worth even if it is not done for a reason.…”

Section: Moral Worthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemic Worth

Whiting¹

2020

Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

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Actions can have, or lack, moral worth. When a person's action is morally worthy, she not only acts rightly, but does so in a way that reflects well on her and in such a way that she is creditable for doing what is right. In this paper, I introduce an analogue of moral worth that applies to belief, which I call epistemic worth. When a person's belief is epistemically worthy, she not only believes rightly, but does so in a way that reflects well on her and in such a way that she is creditable for believing what is right. While the notion of epistemic worth is independently interesting, the main aim is to show that appealing to it provides a response to arguments against the view that truth is the fundamental norm for belief and, thereby, to arguments for the view that knowledge is the fundamental norm for belief. The direction of travel does not only run from ethics to epistemology. In closing, I tentatively suggest that some of the points to emerge when developing the account of epistemic worth might prompt revisions to the account of moral worth. 'Truth, schmuth,' Captain Sham said. If you don't care about something, one way to demonstrate your feelings is to say the word and then repeat the word with the letters S-C-H-M replacing the real first letters. Somebody who didn't care about dentists, for instance, could say 'Dentists, schmentists'. But only a despicable person like Captain Sham wouldn't care about the truth.

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Section: Moral Worthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemic Worth

Whiting¹

2020

Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

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“…2 If you doubt this last point, notice that a substantive view here is that we can analyze the favoring relation in terms of the grounding relation: to be a reason is to be a 'right-maker,' or a fact that grounds rightness. (For views in this ballpark, see Schroeter and Schroeter 2009, Markovits 2010, Alvarez 2010, Broome 2013, and Hyman 2015. For a recent discussion of some of the problems that they face, see Whiting 2017.)…”

Section: The Unity Of Reasonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Objectivist's Guide to Subjective Reasons

Wodak¹

2019

Res Phil.

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The distinction between objective and subjective reasons plays an important role in both folk normative thought and many research programs in metaethics. But the relation between objective and subjective reasons (or, more aptly, objective and subjective favoring) is unclear. This paper explores problems related to the unity of objective and subjective reasons for actions and attitudes and then offers a novel objectivist account of subjective reasons. The distinction between objective and subjective reasons plays an important role in both folk normative thought and many research programs in metaethics. But what is the relation between objective and subjective reasons? Are they species of a genus? If so, what is their essence, and what is the differentia? Does one reduce to the other? If so, how does the reduction go? Or are they utterly dissimilar entities, like jadeite and nephrite? There's much at stake between these options. As Schroeder (2018, 290) points out, the "core case" that motivates the Reasons First program is that what we ought to do is determined by what we have reason to do. But since we need to distinguish "a subjective 'ought' of rationality" from "an objective 'ought' of advisability," with subjective reasons explaining the former and objective reasons explaining the latter, there must be a "close relationship between objective and subjective reasons." Reasons First would be an unattractive research program if it posited that normativity is explained in terms of utterly dissimilar entities. The most popular option in the current literature is 'objectivism.' The objectivist claims that subjective reasons reduce to objective reasons. Despite being the most common view in the literature (endorsed, in different forms, in influential work by Mark Schroeder, Derek Parfit, Jonathan Way, Eric Vogelstein, Kurt Sylvan, and Daniel Whiting), prominent forms of objectivism face serious-perhaps fatal-objections. I have two main aims in this paper. The first is to offer a new objection to prominent forms of objectivism. Unlike many objections in the current literature, it does not focus on extensional problems for objectivists. It turns on whether objectivists can deliver a unified account of favoring.

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“…The precise connections between favoring and fittingness can be fleshed out in different ways. For instance, it can be claimed that reasons are facts that make a response fitting in some respect (Schroeter and Schroeter, ) or that reasons are evidence that there are such fitting‐making facts (Whiting, ). I remain neutral about whether we should understand reasons in terms of fittingness (McHugh and Way, ), the other way around (Scanlon, ; Schroeder, ; Parfit, ), or whether none of these notions is more fundamental than the other.…”

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confidence: 99%

No Reasons to Believe the False

Salas¹

2019

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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I argue that if there are nondisabled reasons to believe p, then there cannot be nondisabled reasons to believe something incompatible with p. I first defend a restricted version of the view, which applies only to situations where the relevant agent has complete evidence. Then, I argue for a generalized version of the view, which holds regardless of the agent's evidence. As a related result, I show that, given plausible assumptions, there cannot be nondisabled reasons to believe something false.

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Reasons as right-makers

Cited by 14 publications

References 11 publications

Epistemic Worth

Epistemic Worth

An Objectivist's Guide to Subjective Reasons

No Reasons to Believe the False

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