The shape of a life hypothesis holds, very roughly, that lives are better when they have an upward, rather than downward, slope in terms of momentary well-being. This hypothesis is plausible and has been thought to cause problems for traditional principles of prudential value/rationality. In this article, I conduct an inquiry into the shape of a life hypothesis that addresses two crucial questions. The first question is: what is the most plausible underlying explanation of the significance of a life’s shape? (...) The second question is: given its most plausible explanation, what does the shape of a life hypothesis teach us about the nature of prudential value? (shrink)

The current chapter provides an overview of research on responses in moral dilemmas where maximization of outcomes for the greater good (utilitarianism) conflicts with adherence to moral norms (deontology). Expanding on a description of the traditional paradigm to study moral-dilemma judgments (i.e., the trolley problem), the chapter reviews the most prominent dual-process account of moral-dilemma judgments, normative conclusions that have been derived from this account, and criticisms raised against this line of work. The following sections review advances in the development (...) of alternative approaches that aim to address shortcomings of the traditional dilemma paradigm as well as the implications of this work for psychological theories of moral-dilemma judgments and philosophical inferences about the normative implications of moral-dilemma research. The chapter concludes with a review of research on the links between moral-dilemma judgments and social impressions. (shrink)

One important proposal about the nature of well-being, prudential value or the personal good is that intrinsic values for a person ought to ‘resonate’ with the person for whom they are good. Indeed, virtually everyone agrees that there is something very plausible about this necessary condition on the building blocks of a good life. Given the importance of this constraint, however, it may come as something of a surprise how little reason we actually have to believe it. In this paper, (...) I'd like to do two things: first, to illustrate just how philosophically tenuous this thesis is, despite its apparent attraction, and to correct, or at least begin to correct, this state of affairs. My argument—which I call the ‘relationship to value’ argument—focuses in part on what it means to be a valuer—specifically, the peculiar relationship valuing agents bear to objects of value. (shrink)

An important platitude about prudential rationality is that I should not refuse to sacrifice a smaller amount of present welfare for the sake of larger future benefits. I ought, in other words, to treat my present and future as of equal prudential significance. The demands of prudence are less clear, however, when it comes to one’s past selves. In this paper, I argue that past benefits are possible in two ways, and that this fact cannot be easily accommodated by traditional (...) approaches to prudential rationality. Against univocal accounts of prudential rationality, I hold that the possibility of past benefits suggests that a bias toward the present and future is defensible when it comes to some welfare goods, but that prudential reasons are temporally neutral between when it comes to the success or failure of one’s long-term projects. (shrink)

A common presupposition in metaethical theory is that moral assessment comes in two flavors, one of which is sensitive to our epistemic circumstances, the second of which is not so sensitive. Though this thought is popular, a number of questions arise. In this paper, I limit my discussion to what I dub the "explanatory question": how one might understand the construction of subjective moral assessment given an explanatorily prior objective assessment. I argue that a proper answer to this question is (...) important not simply for its own sake, but because it also sheds new light on important challenges to the existence of both objective and subjective moral obligations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Current literature in moral and political philosophy is rife with discussion of adaptive preferences. This is no accident: while preferences are generally thought to play an important role in a number of normative domains, adaptive preferences seem exceptions to this general rule—they seem problematic in a way that preference-respecting theories of these domains cannot adequately capture. Thus, adaptive preferences are often taken to be theoretically explanatory: a reason for adjusting our theories of the relevant normative domains. However, as I shall (...) argue here, the relentless focus on the phenomenon of preference adaptation is a mistake. While I do not take a stand on whether typical examples of adaptive preferences are or are not problematic, I argue here that if they are problematic, it cannot be because they are adaptive. (shrink)

In this article, I articulate and explore a novel constructivist approach to metanormativity that is inspired by David Hume’s metaesthetics. This view, which I call perfectionist Humean constructivism, rejects the claim that practical reasons are constructed by each individual’s valuing attitudes, holding instead that they are constructed by humanity’s shared evaluative nature. I hold that this approach can plausibly respond to a persistent worry for extant versions of Humean constructivism without embracing the commitments of either a Kantian constructivism or a (...) metaphysically robust form of metanormative realism. (shrink)

The preferences of ordinary folks typically display a future‐bias. For instance, we care more about pains and pleasures in our future than pains and pleasures in our past. Indeed, this future‐bias is so pervasive, many have taken it for granted that the preferences of rational agents will, or at least can, display this future‐bias to some degree or other. However, the rationality of future‐biased preferences has recently come in for critique. However, in this article, I offer a defense of future‐biased (...) preferences against three recent attempts – offered by David Brink, Preston Greene and Meghan Sullivan, and Tom Dougherty – to show such preferences irrational. (shrink)

Actions can be moral or immoral, surely, but can also be prudent or imprudent, rude or polite, sportsmanlike or unsportsmanlike, and so on. The fact that diverse methods of evaluating action exist seems to give rise to a further question: what distinguishes moral evaluation in particular? In this article, my concern is methodological. I argue that any account of the distinctiveness of morality cannot be prior to substantive inquiry into the content of moral reasons, requirements, and concerns. The genuine distinctiveness (...) of morality will become clear only after we have determined what those very reasons, requirements, and concerns really are. (shrink)

Quine argues, in “On the Nature of Moral Values” that a coherence theory of truth is the “lot of ethics”. In this paper, I do a bit of work from within Quinean theory. Specifically, I explore precisely what a coherence theory of truth in ethics might look like and what it might imply for the study of normative value theory generally. The first section of the paper is dedicated to the exposition of a formally correct coherence truth predicate, the possibility (...) of which has been the subject of some skepticism. In the final two sections of the paper, I claim that a coherence theory in ethics does not reduce the practice of moral inquiry to absurdity, in practice as well as in principle. (shrink)

In this article, I critique a common claim that instrumental value is a form of extrinsic value. Instead, I offer an alternative dispositional analysis of instrumental value, which holds that instrumental value can, in certain circumstances, be an example of intrinsic value. It follows, then, that a popular account of the nature of final value – or value as an end – is false: the Moorean identification of final value with intrinsic value cannot properly distinguish between value as an end (...) and value as a means. (shrink)

This paper explores a form of communion between persons that the philosophy of value has a tendency to ignore. In discussions of interpersonal relationships and experiences, focus is almost always directed to the phenomenon of friendship and family: two or more individuals that share a history, have longstanding relationships of mutual care. Friendship is said, among other things, to be of intrinsic value, to directly benefit the friend, to generate special obligations, and to yield advances in a person’s virtue. But (...) friendship constitutes a small fraction of the valuable interactions we have with others. Friendship is compatible with, but is not necessary for, what we might call “fellowship": the experience of being _with_ others (whether or not one has any deeper personal relationship with said others). In this paper, I provide an account of the nature of fellowship, and explore its evaluative merit. I argue that there are good reasons to think that, like friendship is often taken to be, fellowship is of intrinsic value, and should be counted as part of the pantheon of robust human goods. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

A number of recent works in the metaethics of practical rationality have suggested that features of a person’s character, commitments, projects, practical identities and social roles have important normative consequences. For instance, I might commit to caring for a loved one, or I might become an artist, or take on the role of father to a child. In each case, it seems right to say that the normative landscape I face has been altered by this new fact – to put (...) them under one general heading, the new fact about my self. In this paper, I explore the normative significance of self and how best it is to be understood. Typically, views that posit the normative significance of self hold that the content of one’s self can create practical reasons to behave in particular ways. For instance, if I become a father, this means that there are additional reasons to care for my child than there were prior to this fact of self. I argue, however, that this suggestion cannot be plausibly sustained – facts of self do not give rise to practical reasons. I show that, while there are two ways that facts of self might give rise to or create new practical reasons, both succumb to very serious problems. However, or so I also argue, we can salvage the normative significance of self via an alternative mechanism. Facts of self, such as the fact that one is an artist or a father, do not create new reasons. Rather, they strengthen certain pre-existing reasons, viz., those reasons to which I am especially susceptible given this fact of self. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate David Hume’s theory of well-being or prudential value. That Hume was some sort of hedonist is typically taken for granted in discussions of his value theory, but I argue that Hume was a hedonist of pathbreaking sophistication. His hedonism intriguingly blends traditional hedonism with a form of perfectionism yielding a version of qualitative hedonism that not only solves puzzles surrounding Hume’s moral theory, but is interesting and important in its own right.

Dale Jacquette charts the development of Schopenhauer's ideas from the time of his early dissertation on The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason through the two editions of his magnum opus The World as Will and Representation to his later collections of philosophical aphorisms and competition essays. Jacquette explores the central topics in Schopenhauer's philosophy including his metaphysics of the world as representation and Will, his so-called pessimistic philosophical appraisal of the human condition, his examination of the (...) concept of death, his dualistic analysis of free will, and his simplified non-Kantian theory of morality. Jacquette shows how these many complex themes fit together in a unified portrait of Schopenhauer's philosophy. The synthesis of Plato, Kant and Buddhist and Hindu ideas is given particular attention as is his influence on Nietzsche, first a follower and then arch opponent of Schopenhauer's thought, and the early Wittgenstein. The book provides a comprehensive and in-depth historical and philosophical introduction to Schopenhauer's distinctive contribution to philosophy. (shrink)

This paper considers a pair of mutually puzzling first-order intuitions: a case in which it seems both supererogatory for an agent to perform a specified act, and also seems as though were that act not performed, this would have been a failure of moral obligations. I argue that these intuitive reactions are difficult to dislodge and resist accommodation by standard accounts of supererogation. I then argue that this puzzle motivates a new form of supererogatory action: action that, though morally required, (...) is responding to moral circumstances or facts that the ordinary upright agent would typically overlook. (shrink)

Actions are usually grouped into one of several moral categories. Familiar ones include the morally required, the morally permitted, and the morally prohibited. These categories have been expanded and/or refined to include the supererogatory and the “suberogatory”. Some eschew deontic categories such as the above, but nevertheless allow the existence of two comparative moral categories, i.e., the morally better or morally worse. At the risk of adding to the clutter, I want to explore the possibility of yet a further category, (...) viz., amoral action, or actions that, strictly speaking, lack any moral status whatsoever. I think admitting the existence of amoral actions is not only plausible in its own right, but has consequences for our understanding the nature of moral obligation. (shrink)

We discuss two problems for a general scientific understanding of language, sequences and synergies: how language is an intricately sequenced behavior and how language is manifested as a multidimensionally structured behavior. Though both are central in our understanding, we observe that the former tends to be studied more than the latter. We consider very general conditions that hold in human brain evolution and its computational implications, and identify multimodal and multiscale organization as two key characteristics of emerging cognitive function in (...) our species. This suggests that human brains, and cognitive function specifically, became more adept at integrating diverse information sources and operating at multiple levels for linguistic performance. We argue that framing language evolution, learning, and use in terms of synergies suggests new research questions, and it may be a fruitful direction for new developments in theory and modeling of language as an integrated system. (shrink)

In this article, I subject the claim that autonomous choice is an intrinsic welfare benefit to critical scrutiny. My argument begins by discussing perhaps the most influential argument in favor of the intrinsic value of autonomy: the argument from deference. In response, I hold that this argument displays what I call the ‘Autonomy Fallacy’: the argument from deference has no power to support the intrinsic value of autonomy in comparison to the important evaluative significance of bare self-direction or what I (...) call ‘self-direction tout court’. I defend the claim that the Autonomy Fallacy really is a fallacy, and show that my examination of the argument from deference has wider reverberations. Once we clearly distinguish between autonomy and self-direction tout court, it becomes much less plausible to say that autonomy of itself is an intrinsic welfare benefit. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe wishes of the dead seem to have normative significance. We not only respect last wills and testaments, but we take seriously what the dead loved, what they valued, even after they have long escaped this mortal coil. But this presents a philosophical puzzle. Is this a normatively justified practice? Why should the fact that some dead person preferred state of affairs x to state of affairs y be a reason to bring about x rather than y—especially if there is (...) otherwise reason to promote y rather than x? In this paper, I argue that extant solutions to this problem are inadequate and propose an alternative. I argue that the normative significance of the wishes of the dead is to be found not in the dead's well-being or interests, but instead in the relations of friendship we bear to the dead. (shrink)

The axiological phenomenon of ill-being has been thought to be a special problem for subjectivist theories. I argue here that this common supposition is false. I argue that no leading theory of subjectivism need be unable to accommodate the phenomenon of ill-being. In addition, subjectivists on the whole are licensed to adopt somewhat more outré alternatives, including adopting a disunified approach to ill-being, or rejecting the notion altogether.

Whatever the finer details, Francis Hutcheson is clearly some form of proto-, quasi-, pseudo-utilitarian. But for any utilitarian, the full picture of their moral theory will only emerge once we understand their theory of the good. What, according to said utilitarian, is the nature of happiness? How do we aggregate happiness across persons? In this paper, I discuss two important aspects of Hutcheson's utilitarian axiology each with their own puzzles of interpretation. The first involves Hutcheson's theory of happiness or the (...) ‘natural good’. Hutcheson appears to vacillate between a quantitative hedonism and a qualitative hedonism. The second concerns Hutcheson's aggregative axiology. Hutcheson appears to offer three inconsistent approaches to understanding the overall good. Bringing these puzzles to light, I think, brings forward a number of challenges in understanding the normative ethics of a key figure in the development of utilitarian moral thought. (shrink)

In 1963 Niko Tinbergen published a paper, "On Aims and Methods of Ethology," dedicated to his friend Konrad Lorenz. Here Tinbergen defines ethology as "the biological study of behavior," and seeks to demonstrate "the close affinity between Ethology and the rest of Biology." Tinbergen identifies four major areas of ethology: causation, survival value, evolution, and ontogeny. Our goal is to attempt for cognitive ethology what Tinbergen succeeded in doing for ethology: to clarify its aims and methods, to distinguish some of (...) its varieties, and to defend the fruitfulness of the research strategies that it has spawned. (shrink)

In this paper I show that the definition of convention offered by david lewis in his book "convention: a philosophical study" fails to shed much light on "our common, Established concept of convention." first I set out lewis' definition of convention. I then show, Via counterexample, That satisfaction of lewis' definition is not a necessary condition for something to be a convention. I also show via counterexample that it is doubtful that satisfaction of lewis' definition is a sufficient condition for (...) something to be a convention. I conclude that lewis has invented a new concept of convention that is seriously at odds with the established concept of convention. (shrink)

Standard accounts of prudential rationality enjoin temporal neutrality. “Rationality,” or so says Rawls, “requires an impartial concern for all parts of our life.” And while I accept this form of temporal neutrality, I argue in this paper that a powerful rationale exists for a competing form of prudential rationality according to which it is permissible to be biased toward near-future rather than far-future parts of one’s life. After arguing that traditional defenses of temporal neutrality do not succeed against this rationale, (...) I offer a new proposal, drawn from the phenomenon of intrapersonal reactive attitudes. (shrink)

A practical reason is the sort of thing that is supposed to, as it were, “count in favor of” my doing something. That a proposition p is true is reason for me to believe it. In the same way, the fact that some act is, say, morally required, prudentially required, aesthetically beautiful, etc., might be reasons to perform it. Intuitively speaking, if I could save millions from devastating poverty, I have a reason to do it–a reason that, again intuitively speaking, (...) appears decisive. In this way it is proper to say that practical reasons are normative: they appear to answer the question: “how ought I to live?”. (shrink)

In this essay I critically assess Larry S. Temkin’s new book, Rethinking the Good: Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning. While I find that there is much to praise about this work, I focus on two points of critique. Generally, Temkin’s aims in this book are to expose a radical tension in our beliefs about value, and to show that one potentially palatable option is to reject the transitivity of the predicate “better than”. However, I argue that in (...) both his motivation for claiming that such a tension exists, and one of his arguments that transitivity is a palatable option, his discussion is missing a crucial step: a first-order discussion of the relationship between intrinsic values; both personal welfare goods and impersonal goods. (shrink)

Based on an original synthesis of the work of Marx and Bergson, the key theorists of capitalism and creativity, the book presents an astonishing analysis of ...

Psychologism is the target of vehement disapproval in much of mainstream philosophy from Kant to the present day. Yet although antipsychologistic rhetoric is adamant, there is little substantive argument against psychologism to be discovered in contemporary discussions of the problem. Many recent influential philosophical projects, moreover, including intuitionistic logic, conceptualism in the ontology of mathematics and the program to naturalize epistemology, are in different ways efforts to apply modern psychology in the service of philosophical theory. In this essay, I critically (...) survey the history of attacks on psychologism and conclude with a refutation of eight of the most important objections of the theory. My purpose is both to try to clarify the concept of psychologism and to encourage a renewed dialectical interaction between proponents and opponents of the philosophical merits of psychologism. (shrink)

In classical Greek poetry there is a familiar distinction between verse which repeats line upon line, and that which forms patterns liable to closure at intervals, in stanzas or lyric sections. This is often equated with the distinction between spoken and sung verse, but the equation is only approximate. At an earlier stage all verse had some musical accompaniment—so much can be deduced from a number of passages in Homer, and is in any case implicit in the nature of quantitative (...) verse. By Hellenistic times it seems that, in new composition, the more complex lyric structures had died out, while of the simpler ones more and more were being taken over as spoken verse. In the fifth century—and this can probably be extended to at least the late sixth and most of the fourth—only two kinds of verse are known to have dispensed with music altogether in performance: the heroic hexameter and the iambic trimeter. (shrink)

This paper offers an argument against V. H. Dudman's view about future conditionals.