Moral Rationalism and the Normative Status of Desiderative Coherence
Journal of Moral Philosophy 7 (2):227-252 (2010)
| Abstract | This paper concerns the normative status of coherence of desires, in the context of moral rationalism. I argue that 'desiderative coherence' is not tied to rationality, but is rather of pragmatic, instrumental, and sometimes moral value. This means that desire-based views cannot rely on coherence to support non-agent-relative accounts of moral reasons. For example, on Michael Smith's neo-rationalist view, you have 'normative reason' to do whatever your maximally coherent and fully informed self would want you to do, whether you want to do it or not. For these reasons to be non-agent-relative, coherence would have to be grounded in rationality, but I argue that it is not. I analyze, and reject, various strategies for establishing a coherence-rationality connection, considering in detail a purported analogy between desires and a priori beliefs, with particular attention to the case of mathematics | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesKeith Lehrer (2005). Coherence and the Truth Connection. Erkenntnis 63 (3):413 - 423.
Alan H. Goldman (2005). Reason Internalism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (3):505 - 533.
Barbara Baum Levenbook (1984). The Role of Coherence in Legal Reasoning. Law and Philosophy 3 (3):355 - 374.
Stephen Darwall (2003). Desires, Reasons, and Causes. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2):436–443.
Bernward Gesang (2010). Are Moral Philosophers Moral Experts? Bioethics 24 (4):153-159.
Dale Dorsey (2006). A Coherence Theory of Truth in Ethics. Philosophical Studies 127 (3):493 - 523.
Lyle Zynda (1996). Coherence as an Ideal of Rationality. Synthese 109 (2):175 - 216.
Douglas W. Portmore (forthcoming). Consequentialism and Moral Rationalism. Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics.
Edward Harcourt (2004). Instrumental Desires, Instrumental Rationality. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 78 (1):111–129.
Michael Smith (2004). Instrumental Desires, Instrumental Rationality. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 78 (1):93–109.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-08-16Total downloads37 ( #31,946 of 549,122 )Recent downloads (6 months)5 ( #15,205 of 549,122 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
