Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Sources
- Introduction
- Part One Moral Psychology
- 1 Internal Reasons
- 2 The Incoherence Argument: Reply to Schafer-Landau
- 3 Philosophy and Commonsense: The Case of Weakness of Will (co-authored with Jeanette Kennett)
- 4 Frog and Toad Lose Control (co-authored with Jeanette Kennett)
- 5 A Theory of Freedom and Responsibility
- 6 Rational Capacities
- 7 On Humeans, Anti-Humeans, and Motivation: A Reply to Pettit
- 8 Humeanism, Psychologism, and the Normative Story
- 9 The Possibility of Philosophy of Action
- Part Two Meta-Ethics
- Index
- References
2 - The Incoherence Argument: Reply to Schafer-Landau
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Sources
- Introduction
- Part One Moral Psychology
- 1 Internal Reasons
- 2 The Incoherence Argument: Reply to Schafer-Landau
- 3 Philosophy and Commonsense: The Case of Weakness of Will (co-authored with Jeanette Kennett)
- 4 Frog and Toad Lose Control (co-authored with Jeanette Kennett)
- 5 A Theory of Freedom and Responsibility
- 6 Rational Capacities
- 7 On Humeans, Anti-Humeans, and Motivation: A Reply to Pettit
- 8 Humeanism, Psychologism, and the Normative Story
- 9 The Possibility of Philosophy of Action
- Part Two Meta-Ethics
- Index
- References
Summary
Russ Schafer-Landau's “Moral Judgement and Normative Reasons” is admirably clear and to the point (Schafer-Landau 1999). He presents his own version of the argument for the practicality requirement on moral judgement – that is, for the claim that those who have moral beliefs are either motivated or practically irrational – that I gave in The Moral Problem (Smith 1994), and he then proceeds to identify several crucial problems. In what follows I begin by making some comments about his presentation of the argument. I then confront the problems.
DOES SCHAFER-LANDAU ADEQUATELY REPRESENT THE ARGUMENT?
Shafer-Landau represents my argument, which he usefully labels “the incoherence argument,” as comprising four premises (Schafer-Landau 1999: 34–35).
The first
(1) If S believes that an action is right, then S believes that S has a normative reason to do it
is a premise that I accept, provided the normative reasons mentioned are understood to be pro tanto normative reasons. Since, as I point out (Smith 1994: 183), moral reasons have to be weighed against other sorts of reasons, (1) would be implausible if the normative reasons it mentions were understood to be all things considered normative reasons.
The second premise
(2) S has a normative reason to do x in C if and only if, and because, S's fully rational counterpart (i.e., S if possessed of all true beliefs, no false ones, and a maximally coherent set of desires) would advise S to do x in C is misleading.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ethics and the A PrioriSelected Essays on Moral Psychology and Meta-Ethics, pp. 43 - 55Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
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