Some philosophers hold that there are nonmoral reasons that can be used to justify being moral and that these are “in a certain way” more fundamental than moral reasons. Presumably these reasons could also be given in some circumstances for not being moral, although this is not clear. Moral reasons, in this view, might be overriding “on the level of everyday life,” but not “at the most fundamental level.” I take this to mean that should (...) there be a conflict between the moral “reasons of everyday life” and those that are “most fundamental” the former must give way, and I take it to mean that the “most fundamental” reasons support the everyday ones and that the latter would collapse without their support. I wish to argue, against this view, that the question “Why should I be moral?” is confused in that it requests a justification where none can be given without radically altering the logic of the discourse that is “supported.”. (shrink)

“The question has, as I have already said, been a central concern of moral philosophers from the time of Plato until the Nineteenth Century. It would be tedious to list the philosophers who have discussed the issue, for the list would exclude hardly any of the major moral philosophers of the past. The names of some of them will occur in the course of this thesis.” … “In the Conclusion, I consider the present state of the question and (...) argue that 'Why should I be moral?', despite its age-old importance, has yet to be answered. I maintain that the question is vital not only to the individual but also to society, and that if changes are made on a social level, it may be possible to answer it. This raises issues of political philosophy. A society in which the question could .be answered would be a step closer to being an ideal society than a society in which this is not the case.”. (shrink)

Can we ever be fully practically justified in acting contrary to moral demands? My contention is that the answer is 'no'. I argue that by adopting a 'buck-passing' account of wrongness we can provide a philosophically satisfying answer to the familiar 'why should I be moral?'. In working my way toward the buck-passing account of wrongness, I outline the metaethical and 'metanormative' assumptions on which my theory stands. I also consider and reject the 'internalist' answer to 'why (...) should I be moral?'. The account I end up with is decidedly non-consequentialist and it is consistent with common-sense morality. It also provides a way of showing why moral considerations are overridingly normative in a way that is consistent with our best current understanding of what practical reason requires of us. (shrink)

It first needs to be shown that this question raises a problem, for many people think it is answered, or at least dissolved, in the following way. There are two independent ways of answering the question “Why should I do X?”; one ultimately in terms of what I want to do, the other ultimately in terms of what I morally ought to do. Thus showing that I morally ought to do something is a final justification of a course of (...) action. No answer can be given to the further question “Given that X is what I morally ought to do, why ought I to do X?”. No further moral reasons can be given as ex hypothese the final moral reasons have already been given. As it is denied that moral reasons can be reduced to reasons in terms of what I want to do, the only other possible kind of reason has been ruled out also. This, however, is said net to matter, because moral reasons are not in need cf any further justification. Moral considerations simply are reasons for action just as much as wanting to do something simply is a reason for doing it. (shrink)

The author sides with the linguistic philosophers in that to analyse 'moral reasoning' is to provide a conceptual description of a prescriptive or normative area of language. He considers the question of why we should adopt a "moral point of view" in terms of toulmin (who thinks it is a meaningless question) and baier and nelson (who think it is legitimate). The author argues that it is a crucial question which must be answered. He concludes that baier (...) has not proven that the normative criteria of justification involved in morality constitute a question for the philosopher. (wstaff). (shrink)

Before we can approach an answer we need to distinguish various meanings of the question and determine what the ultimate question is. In doing this it will be necessary first to analyze some of the principal terms in the question, particularly the terms "I," "why," and "moral.".

The question "Why should I be moral?," taken as a request for reasons to be moral, strikes many philosophers as silly, confused, or otherwise out of line. Hence we find many attempts to dismiss it as spurious. This paper addresses four such attempts and shows that they fail. It does so partly by discussing various errors about reasons for action, errors that lie at the root of the view that "Why should I be moral?" is (...) ill-conceived. Such errors include the mistake of confusing different uses of "moral reason for A to ø" and the mistake of treating as axiomatic, as in need of no argument, the view that moral considerations furnish every agent with practical reasons. Among the philosophers discussed are John Hospers, Philippa Foot, Stephen Toulmin, H. A. Prichard, and William Frankena. (shrink)

Many of us have a prereflective sense--or at least, a hope--that there are reasons to be moral which apply to an agent regardless of what his or her existing motivations may be. The view that there are no such reasons may, then, be regarded as a form of moral scepticism. The philosophical position which seems most fit to refute this form of moral scepticism, and hence to support our prereflective sense, is a Kantian view of morality, according (...) to which we are required to be moral solely in virtue of being rational. I examine a number of recent arguments for this position; I conclude that all of them fail, and for similar reasons. Nor, I argue, is there any non-Kantian view which could succeed at the same task. It is thus very tempting to infer that this form of moral scepticism is immune to any simple refutation. However, perhaps the best way to combat scepticism is not to argue for its negation--as do the positions examined so far--but to show that there is something problematic in the sceptic's whole approach to the issue. At this point I turn for enlightenment to an analogy with epistemological scepticism. Here, too, if we try to argue for the negation of scepticism, we seem bound to fail; but here the more subtle strategy of attacking the sceptic's whole approach has actually been attempted. I sketch a number of versions of this more subtle strategy; I then sketch some analogous responses to moral scepticism, and consider whether any of them are successful. I argue that the attempt fails--that even if epistemological scepticism is indeed amenable to this kind of treatment , moral scepticism is not. This conclusion is only strengthened when I argue that another, related strategy, which employs an analogy between morality and mathematics, also falls short at the same point. Moral scepticism therefore survives intact. The appropriate reaction, I suggest, is neither complete despair nor complete equanimity. (shrink)

In any sense of "being good" consequences are of utmost importance.

For a while in this article it seems impossible to articulate a compelling reason for refraining from killing an innocent stranger with the press of a button when this would earn one a small prize and would be done with absolutely guaranteed immunity from any punishment or other harm (including even an instantaneous elimination of any chance of a guilty memory, achieved through hypnosis, and an ironclad commitment from God not to condemn the killing). After many failed attempts, a compelling (...) reason for not pushing the button is finally articulated. A distinction is demonstrated between merely apparent, mistaken desires and real desires. One might, for example, have merely an apparent, mistaken desire to be drinking the stuff in a mug of hot mud if one mistakenly believed that the stuff was hot chocolate. One would not really desire to be drinking that stuff. A desire, which must always be based on some belief about what its object is like, would always be open to correction along with the belief on which it depended. This realisation leads to the sweeping principle that one can only really desire what one would be desiring with a hypothetical perfect grasp of all that is involved. If one desires something only because of not fully grasping what that thing is, then one does not really desire it. What one really desires, then, regarding this stranger and pushing the button has to be what one would desire if fully experiencing, among other things, the entire value of the stranger's life from his own as well as every other angle along with the small value for oneself of the prize received on killing him. This equal concern for all is morality, and what is compelling in morality is that what it commands is what everyone really desires. (shrink)

For Philippa Foot, the essence of morality consists in acting on the reasons on which, qua human being, one ought to act; and this ought is one of “natural normativity”—the same ought that also occurs in statements about what a plant or an animal, qua exhibiting a certain form of life, “ought” to be like in various respects, or how its organs “ought” to function. Of this conception Foot avails herself in order to refute the moral sceptic—an undertaking that (...) raises various critical questions, in particular: 1) Is it the naturally normative ought that also occurs in a practical judgement of the form “I ought to F”? If so, how are we to account for what Foot calls the “practicality” of such a judgement? If not, what kind of intelligible step could an agent take, in order to get from a theoretical statement of natural normativity to a practical judgement that ceteris paribus issues in action? 2) Can we understand the validity of every moral requirement in terms of natural normativity, i.e. of a teleological necessity of individuals’ acting well? 3) If we can, will this understanding rely on premises sufficiently certain to justify morality in a sense suggested by Foot’s anti-sceptical considerations?—I argue that “Natural Goodness” does not satisfactorily answer these questions, and conclude by sketching an account of practical moral knowledge that does not seem to provoke them. (shrink)

Professional philosophers are members of bioethical committees and regulatory bodies in areas of interest to bioethicists. This suggests they possess moral expertise even if they do not exercise it directly and without constraint. Moral expertise is defined, and four arguments given in support of scepticism about their possession of such expertise are considered and rejected: the existence of extreme disagreement between moral philosophers about moral matters; the lack of a means clearly to identify moral experts; (...) that expertise cannot be claimed in that which lacks objectivity; and that ordinary people do not follow the advice of moral experts.I offer a better reason for scepticism grounded in the relation between moral philosophy and common-sense morality: namely that modern moral philosophy views even a developed moral theory as ultimately anchored in common-sense morality, that set of basic moral precepts which ordinary individuals have command of and use to regulate their own lives.Even if moral philosophers do nevertheless have a limited moral expertise, in that they alone can fully develop a set of moral judgments, I sketch reasons – grounded in the values of autonomy and of democracy – why moral philosophers should not wish non-philosophers to defer to their putative expertise. (shrink)

In this article, I present a neo-Confucian answer, by Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, to the question, "Why should I be moral?" I argue that this answer is better than some representative answers in the Western philosophical tradition. According to the Chengs, one should be moral because it is a joy to perform moral actions. Sometimes one finds it a pain, instead of a joy, to perform moral actions only because one lacks the necessary (...) genuine moral knowledge—knowledge that is accessible to every common person as long as one makes the effort to learn. One should make the effort to learn such knowledge—to seek joy in performing moral actions—because to be moral is a distinguishing mark of being human. This neo-Confucian answer seems to be egoistic, as its conception of motivation for morality is based on self-interest: to seek one's own joy. However, since it emphasizes that one's true self-interest is to seek joy in things uniquely human, which is to be moral, self-interest and morality become identical; the more a person seeks one's self-interest, the more moral the person is, and vice versa. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Richard Price, the Debate on Free Will, and Natural RightsGregory I. MolivasWhen Richard Price projected metaphysical assumptions onto his ethical theory, he elaborated a conception of man as a normatively self-regulating being. Endowed with rationality, man is a “law unto himself.” Price’s political writings postulated accordingly that man should be his own legislator. The first proposition appeared in his ethics in the context of man’s identification with his (...) higher faculties, and the second in the context of man considered as a member of civil society. Crucial to the transition from the first context to the second was Price’s notion of man’s inward constitution as permeating his conception of practical virtue, a view he expanded in his discussion on free will. This conception was built on a sharp contrast between reason and passion, which he described in terms of a relationship like that of sovereign to subject. The contrast is between those faculties which are destined to command, and those who ought to obey. This analogy facilitated comparison with normative relationships obtaining in civil society, where Price identified subservience to passion with obedience to an external-to-the-“self “ power, which in a political context manifested as the wishes of other people.These successive steps from ethical supposition to political claims, formed a body of assumptions underlying beliefs that were shared by many of his contemporaries. They did not constitute a unified system of principles, and it is vain to seek theoretical consistency in all those who seemed to have espoused ideas similar to those of Price. His assumptions do, however, help to explain why some of his contemporaries found his ideas familiar or self-evident, while to others they were incomprehensible. Nor is it a coincidence that Price’s most able critics happened to be psychological determinists (Richard Hey, John Lind, Edmund Burke), who attacked his conception of political liberty after undermining, or disputing, Price’s conception of man. [End Page 105]I. In the writings of all those who inveighed against the rights of man, the words “natural rights” and “metaphysics” are often found together. Thomas Paine was accused of having “crudely stolen” his “crazy metaphysics” from others, 1 and studies of Edmund Burke have continuously pointed to his dislike of the “professor of metaphysics.” Burke’s aversion to abstract speculation and metaphysics has often been interpreted as the natural reaction of an English politician confronting the generalities of continental writers. Frederick Dreyer, however, argues that when Burke wrote his Reflections, he had in mind Price’s philosophical arguments rather than the events of the French Revolution. 2 According to him, the anonymous “metaphysician” whom Burke so often and so vehemently denounced was, in fact, Richard Price.In substantiating his position Dreyer quotes, among other things, a revealing passage from Burke: “There are people who have split and anatomized the doctrine of free government, as if it were an abstract question concerning metaphysical liberty and necessity, and not a matter of moral prudence and natural feeling.” 3 Although Dreyer does not pursue the full implications of the evidence he presents, this is a remarkable statement, because it indicates what Price had undertaken in his political writings. In his philosophical works Price had defended the idea of metaphysical or philosophical liberty as a precondition of moral agency. In the first and most important theoretical section of his influential Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, 4 which set out to analyze the nature of liberty, Price summarized his earlier philosophical views. As William King noted in this section of his political pamphlet Price was “totally out in his philosophy.” 5Price defined liberty as the power of self-government and approached it through its four general divisions: physical liberty, moral, religious, and civil liberty. Commentators on Price have often acknowledged that his conception of liberty, as expounded in his political pamphlet, is indebted to his earlier philosophical work and notably his Review of the Principal Questions in Morals; 6 but they have not followed up with a clear exposition of how the divisions of liberty Price put forward in his Observations are related. [End Page 106]Although J. C. D. Clark claims that... (shrink)

The article analyzes the theoretical foundations of the modern project of rational ethics, in which the ethics of discourse is interpreted as a critical theory of society and a critic of modern morality. I. Kant was one of the first to offer the possibility of generalizing the norms of morality and perception of ethics as a transcendental critique of morality. Neo-Kantianism develops ethics as the most important part of the philosophical system and fixes its scope by the idealistic theory of (...) morality. In Russian philosophy, modern ethics is perceived as a normative theory that has to do with issues of self-determination, moral regulation, and freedom of choice. The origins of discourse ethics in the philosophy of the 20th century go back to the “pragmatic turn” and to vigorous discussions about hermeneutics of language and its a priori status in German philosophy, and in analytical philosophy regarding the understanding of metaetics. The modern program of ethics of discourse receives meaningful justification as the logic of moral argumentation in the social philosophy of J. Habermas and in the transcendental pragmatics K.-O. Apel. The ethics of discourse is born from the real need to justify moral requirements and norms. Ethics as a critique of moral argument is associated with the pre-reflexive horizon of the life world, why it is a deontological, formalistic and universal ethics. Two significant projects of discourse ethics, presented in the article as an analysis, should be defined as “weak and strong” variants of philosophical transcendental idealism in modern science. (shrink)

Even given the final truths of what is right and wrong, good and bad, ethics is not complete. For one may yet ask “Why should I be moral?” Of course, we have no prior assurance that it will be possible to provide a non-moral and justifiable answer to the rational and self-interested person. Nevertheless, I claim that reasons for being moral can be provided even for the rational, self-interested, and remorseless individual who knows he will not (...) be caught. In defending my claim I will draw on empirical data from recent social psychology and game theory. Actual human selves are malleable in a number of ways. I will show that it is rational for the self-interested person to modify selves in such a way that moral actions are increasingly preferred. Specifically, I will argue that it is in one’s rational self-interest to enhance empathy in others and future selves in such a way that for increasing numbers other-injury becomes a component of self-injury, and other-benefit becomes a component of self-benefit. This will allow a linkage to be drawn from rational and self-interested action to moral action. The development of this theory will begin by distinguishing my approach from that of Gauthier, then three interpretations of the “Why be moral?” question will be delineated, next the decision theoretic components of my account will be presented, and finally the role of empathy will be considered in detail. (shrink)

Professors Bill Shaw and John Corvino, in a response article published in the July, 1996 issue of Business Ethics Quarterly, provide a clearly courteous and obviously well-intended criticism of my original (1994) position on the question of why a manager, and in consequence an organization, should be moral. I disagree with their reasoning and, because I believe that this form of the “Why Be Moral?” question lies at the heart of any potential juncture between our field of (...) business ethics and the economic and behavioral disciplines of business management, I should like to reply in what I hope will be equally courteous and well-intended terms. (shrink)

D. R. Fisher; IV*—Why Should I Be Just?, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 77, Issue 1, 1 June 1977, Pages 43–62, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristote.

SummaryThe prevalent view that a question expressed by the interrogative title must be absurd and in no need of a reasoned response is rejected. Popper's contention that commitment to rationality has only an irrational basis is criticised. A preliminary attempt is made to resolve some genuine perplexities about the justification of rationality by invoking the notion of a “quasi‐rationality” shared by human beings and other animals. Ah appendix on the metaphor of support is attached.RésuméĽauteur rejette ľopinion prédominate selon laquelle la (...) question contenue dans ce titre doit être absurde et ne mérite de ce fait aucune réponse raisonnée . Il critique ľaffimation de Popper que ľengagement en faveur de la rationalité ait une base uniquement irrationnelle. Il tente un premier essai pour résoudre quelques perplexités quant à la justification de la rationalité en introduisant la notion de quasi‐rationalité que partagent les êtres humains et autres animaux. Suit un appendice sur la métaphore anglaise support.ZusammenfassungDer Verfasser verwirft die überwiegende Auffassung, dass die im Titel aufgeworfene Frage absurd sein müsse und keiner rationalen Antwort zugänglich sei . Er kritisiert auch Poppers Behauptung, dass Rationalität nur irrational begründbar sei. Es wird versucht, einige echte Verlegenheitsmomente bei der Rechtfertigung von Rationalität zu überwinden, indem der von Menschen und Tieren geteilte Begriff einer Quasirationalität eingeführt wird. In einem Appendix wird die Metapher der Stützung erörtert. (shrink)

The article seeks to answer the question: Why should I be ethical? For an answer, it examines Mahabharata, the ancient Indian epic. It seeks to explore the complex ethical issues posed by Mahabharata, how they are relevant to us as individuals and to us as managers and teachers of management in business schools and enables us to understand how possibly we could use the insights to better our lives and of those around us. Mahabharata’s central message, concludes the article, (...) is that ethics is not for convincing anyone; it is about convincing oneself. Mahabharata tells us that ethics is what makes life meaningful, at the individual level, group level and at the level of society, and cannot be justified in a consequentialist framework. (shrink)

In Why Be Moral: Learning from the Neo-Confucian Cheng Brothers, Yong Huang presents a comparative study on the moral philosophy of the Cheng brothers as how comparative philosophy should be done: to engage in contemporary philosophical problems and to propose solutions that could be gleaned from the ideas of ancient Chinese philosophers. His analysis provides a paradigm for comparative philosophy. I think this is the right way to do comparative philosophy—to focus on problem solving rather than textual (...) comparison. I am very impressed both with the breadth of his knowledge of Western moral philosophy and with the depth of his analysis of the moral philosophy of the Cheng brothers. Since I share his view on how to... (shrink)

In this paper I consider recent discussions within the representationalist theories of phenomenal consciousness, in particular, the discussions between first order representationalism (FOR) and higher order representationalism (HOR). I aim to show that either there is only a terminological dispute between them or, if the discussion is not simply terminological, then HOR is based on a misunderstanding of the phenomena that a theory of phenomenal consciousness should explain. First, I argue that we can defend first order representationalism from Carruthers' (...) attacks and ignore higher order thoughts in our account of phenomenal consciousness. Then I offer a diagnostic of Carruthers' misunderstanding. In the last section I consider further reasons to include mindreading abilities in an explanation of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

Why should we become posthuman? There is only one morally compelling answer to this question: because posthumanity will be a more beneficial state, better than present humanity. This is the Posthuman Beneficence Argument, the centerpiece of the liberal transhumanist defense of “directed evolution.” In this article, I examine PBA and find it deficient on a number of lethal counts. My argument focuses on the writings of transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom, who has developed the most articulate defense of PBA and (...) disclosed its metaethical framework. I begin by locating PBA in the context of wider transhumanist claims for the desirability of posthumanity. I identify two crucial components: a model of deliberative rationality, requiring reasons to endorse claims; and the reasons themselves. I examine these two conditions, in turn, specifying the claims that they ask us to accept. Following Bostrom, I argue that there is a need for a foundationalist approach that assures us of some universality in the process of valuation. This is required to appropriately ground the moral continuity and appeal to universality that PBA demands. I examine the reasons why this approach ultimately fails, leaving posthumanity as an unintelligible concept with no moral force. I conclude by identifying a more mature approach to the debate on human enhancement, one that forfeits the grandiose but baseless claims too often found in transhumanist defenses of directed evolution. In short, posthumanity may be a good science fiction trope, but it has no normative force in the moral philosophy of human enhancement. (shrink)

In this article, I argue for a reconsideration of the taxonomy of the Histrionic Personality Disorder. First, HPD does not carry the negative ethical implications of the other Cluster Bs, which are Anti-Social, Borderline, and Narcissistic. Using Aristotelian notions of character as a heuristic device, I argue that ontologically HPD is not a personality disorder, but instead a cultural disorder, a result of attitudes toward traditionally feminine styles of interaction. This explains the confusion in the research between HPD and hysteria (...) and also the curious paucity of literature on HPD itself in contrast to the other Cluster Bs. (shrink)

Moral error theorists hold that morality is deeply mistaken, thus raising the question of whether and how moral judgments and utterances should continue to be employed. Proposals include simply abolishing morality, adopting some revisionary fictionalist stance toward morality, and conserving moral judgments and utterances unchanged. I defend a fourth proposal, namely revisionary moral expressivism, which recommends replacing cognitivist moral judgments and utterances with non-cognitivist ones. Given that non-cognitivist attitudes are not truth apt, revisionary expressivism (...) does not involve moral error. Moreover, revisionary expressivism has the theoretical resources to retain many of the useful features of morality, such as moral motivation, moral disagreement, and moral reasoning. Revisionary expressivism fares better than the three major alternatives in both avoiding moral error and preserving these useful features of morality. I also show how this position differs from the “revolutionary expressivism” of Sebastian Köhler and Michael Ridge. (shrink)

Suppose someone is brought up as an orthodox Jew, and so only eats kosher, is very conservative sexually, etc. Suppose they then find out that this Judaism stuff is just all a big mistake. If they then regret all the shrimp they could have eaten, all the sex!, this makes perfect sense. Not so, however, if someone finds out that moral realism is false, and they now regret all the fun they could have had hurting people’s feeling, etc. Even (...) if this does make sense, there’s a strong disanalogy between the moral and the religious case. This asymmetry, on a realist picture of morality, calls for explanation. This chapter tries to explain it. The discussion engages some topics familiar from objections to Robust realism—the why-be-moral challenge, the status of de-dicto moral motivation, and whether and why we should care about the moral properties, robustly realistically understood. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 25 Moral error theorists hold that morality is deeply mistaken, thus raising the question of whether and how moral judgments and utterances should continue to be employed. Proposals include simply abolishing morality, adopting some revisionary fictionalist stance toward morality, and conserving moral judgments and utterances unchanged. I defend a fourth proposal, namely revisionary moral expressivism, which recommends replacing cognitivist moral judgments and utterances with non-cognitivist ones. Given that non-cognitivist attitudes are (...) not truth apt, revisionary expressivism does not involve moral error. Moreover, revisionary expressivism has the theoretical resources to retain many of the useful features of morality, such as moral motivation, moral disagreement, and moral reasoning. Revisionary expressivism fares better than the three major alternatives in both avoiding moral error and preserving these useful features of morality. I also show how this position differs from the “revolutionary expressivism” of Sebastian Köhler and Michael Ridge. (shrink)

The adversarial legal system is traditionally praised for its normative appeal: it protects individual rights; ensures an equal, impartial, and consistent application of the law; and, most importantly, its competitive structure facilitates the discovery of truth – both in terms of the facts, and in terms of the correct interpretation of the law. At the same time, legal representation is allocated as a commodity, bought and sold in the market: the more one pays, the better legal representation one gets. In (...) this article, I argue that the integration of a market in legal representation with the adversarial system undercuts the very normative justifications on which the system is based. Furthermore, I argue that there are two implicit conditions, which are currently unmet, but are required for the standard justifications to hold: that there is (equal opportunity for) equality of legal representation between parties, and that each party has (equal opportunity for) a sufficient level of legal representation. I, therefore, outline an ideal proposal for reform that would satisfy these conditions. (shrink)

The question ‘Why care about being an agent?’ asks for reasons to be something that appears to be non-optional. But perhaps it is closer to the question ‘Why be moral?’; or so I shall argue. Here the constitutivist answer—that we cannot help but have this aim—seems to be the best answer available. I suggest that, regardless of whether constitutivism is true, it is an incomplete answer. I argue that we should instead answer the question by looking at our (...) evaluative commitments to the exercise of our other capacities for which being a full-blown agent is a necessary condition. Thus, the only kind of reason available is hypothetical rather than categorical. The status of this reason may seem to undermine the importance of this answer. I show, however, that it both achieves much of what we want when we cite categorical reasons and highlights why agency is valuable. (shrink)

Why should a citizen vote? There are two ways to interpret this question: in a prudential sense, and in a moral sense. Under the first interpretation, the question asks why—or under what circumstances—it is in a citizen's self-interest to vote. Under the second interpretation, it asks what moral reasons citizens have for voting. I shall mainly try to answer the moral version of the question, but my answer may also, in some circumstances, bear on the prudential (...) question. Before proceeding to my own approach, let me briefly survey alternatives in the field. (shrink)

Educators who are reflective about their educational endeavours ask themselves questions like: What is the aim of education? What moral, methodological, or other constraints govern our educational activities and efforts? One natural place to look for answers is in the philosophy of education, which (among other things) tries to provide systematic answers to these questions. One general answer offered by the philosophy of education is that the aim of education consists in fostering the development of students' rationality. On this (...) view, education has as its fundamental task both the development of students' reasoning ability, and also the fostering of a complex of attitudes, habits of mind, dispositions and character traits, such that students are not only able to reason well; they also care about reasons, and organize their beliefs, judgments and actions in accordance with the deliverances of the reasoned evaluation of reasons. Argumentation theory is also concerned with the analysis of the power and convicting force of reasons. When do reasons for a claim warrant acceptance of that claim? By what criteria are reasons evaluated? How are these criteria themselves justified? Such questions as these are the meat and potatoes of argumentation theory, which, in pursuing these questions, promises to shed light on the character of rationality as the aim of education. Rationality, which links education and argumentation theory, provides educators with a reason to care about argumentation-if rationality can be cogently defended as an educational ideal. In this paper I will try to provide such a defense, and in doing so explain why educators should care about argumentation. The defense will be a moral one: I will argue that we are morally obliged to endeavour to foster the rationality of students, because that is what is required to meet our obligations to treat students with respect as persons. I will also consider some general criticisms of the Enlightenment ideal of rationality, offered by Feminist, Multiculturalist, and Postmodemist scholars. If these criticisms are cogent, then both argumentation theory and the view that the aim of education is the fostering of rationality are threatened. I will argue that the criticisms, while important and instructive, are not so destructive of the ideal of rationality as some contemporary scholars suppose. (shrink)

H.A. Prichard argued that the “why should I be moral?” question is the central subject matter of moral theory. Prichard famously claimed to have proved that all efforts to answer that question are doomed. Many contributors to this volume of contemporary papers attempt to reconstruct Prichard’s argument. They claim either explicitly or implicitly that Prichard was mistaken, and philosophy can contribute to meaningful engagement with the ‘why be moral?’ question. A theme to emerge from these papers (...) is that arguments like Prichard’s rely on numerous philosophical presuppositions. The volume therefore touches on a wide range of topics and treatments. Is there one kind of practical reason or multiple kinds of reasons? Are there separate facts that determine the rationality and reasonableness of persons? Does the conception of a practical reason found in classical philosophy have the resources to undercut Prichard’s argument? Does it make sense to hold people morally accountable for their actions if it cannot be demonstrated that there are reasons to be moral? Does applied ethics have anything to contribute to the debate on morality’s rational authority? This volume will be useful for advanced undergraduates and specialists working on the foundations of morality, and morality’s intersection with reason and rationality. The detailed introduction enhances the collection’s accessibility by providing a detailed exposition of Prichard’s renowned thesis that draws on his lesser-known, mature papers. It then carefully situates the volume’s contents against that background. (shrink)

Let it be allowed, though virtue or moral rectitude does indeed consist in affection to and pursuit of what is right and good, as such; yet, that when we sit down in a cool hour, we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit, till we are convinced that it will be for our happiness, or at least not contrary to it.—Butler, Sermon XIThere are a number of different grounds on which philosophers have argued that the question (...) “Should I be moral?” is unintelligible or at least somewhat odd. Some evidently are unable to understand ‘should’ in any other way than ‘morally ought’, with the consequence that the question can admit of no answer but the affirmative. Others, influenced by the later Wittgenstein, hold that, although ‘should ’-questions have a role within the moral language game, the ‘should’ in the question above has no real function, it is like a ‘machine idling,’ and we can attribute no real sense to it. Now I consider neither of these arguments to be successful or even very plausible, but I do wish to consider a further argument which is logically independent of the above and which appears, initially at least, to be quite plausible. (shrink)

I argue that no classical theist, and even more no orthodox Christian, should affirm compatibilism in our world. However plausible compatibilism may be on atheistic assumptions, bringing God into the equation should radically alter our judgment on this ongoing controversy. In particular, if freedom and determinism are compatible, then God could have created a world in which all persons freely did only the good at all times. Given this implication of compatibilism, three issues that are already challenging become (...) extraordinarily more difficult, if not insuperable, namely: moral responsibility, the problem of evil, and the orthodox doctrine of eternal damnation. (shrink)