Acting for Reasons, Apt Action, and Knowledge - Synthese 2013

Episteme, 2019

This paper discusses Ernest Sosa's account of knowledge and epistemic normativity. The paper has two main parts. The first part identifies places where Sosa's account requires supplementation if it is going to capture important epistemic phenomena. In particular, additional theoretical resources are needed to explain (i) the way in which epistemic aims are genuinely good aims, and (ii) the way in which some forms of reasoning can be epistemically better than others even when they are equally conducive to attaining the truth. The second part focuses on Sosa's claim that there is a kind of belief -- judgmental belief -- that doesn't merely aim at truth but also aims at aptness, and that this kind of belief is central to our mental lives. The paper raises several concerns about this part of Sosa's account, including the concern that aiming at aptness is overly self-directed, and so is more closely tied to vice than epistemic virtue.

Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 2011

This paper argues that we need to distinguish between two different ideas of a reason: first, the idea of a premise or assumption, from which a person's action or deliberation can proceed; second, the idea of a fact by which a person can be guided, when he modifies his thought or behaviour in some way. It argues further that if we have the first idea in mind, one can act for the reason that p regardless of whether it is the case that p, and regardless of whether one believes that p. But if we have the second idea in mind, one cannot act for the reason that p unless one knows that p. The last part of the paper briefly indicates how the second idea of a reason can contribute to a larger argument, showing that it is better to conceive of knowledge as a kind of ability than as a kind of belief.

What is the relationship between knowledge and action? Hawthorne and Stanley (2008) propose an intimate connection between the two. They offer a knowledge-norm account of action comprised of two principles, which they take to be jointly necessary and sufficient conditions for rational ac- tion. They believe these principles capture the way we blame and criticize agents for reasoning or acting upon premises that fall short of knowledge. However their account is unable to accommodate ascriptions of blame or criticism in ethical situations, where unknown moral facts seem to be in force. There seems to be a tension between what Hawthorne and Stanley are committed to saying is proper reasoning, and what intuitively seems to be improper and blameworthy reasoning/action. This paper highlights this problem, and considers two ways in which Hawthorne and Stanley might try to respond, ultimately concluding that their view is unable to do so.

What is the relationship between knowledge and action? Many philosophers in recent years have proposed a very intimate connection between these two concepts. John Hawthorne and Jason Stanley—among others—have proposed that knowledge is both a necessary and sufficient condition for rational deliberate action, citing only that an agent must use reasons that are both known and relevant in their decision making. They also argue that an agent is blameworthy and deserving of criticism for failing to adhere to this knowledge norm of action. This thesis examines Hawthorne and Stanley’s norm, pulling apart concepts such as ‘relevance’ and ‘reasons’ to try and better understand what this knowledge norm of action entails. Ultimately this thesis proposes that Hawthorne and Stanley’s principles (and those like it) fail to adequately capture the scope of what a general norm of action should, and proposes tentative suggestions for what features a knowledge norm of action should have.

Synthese

This paper develops a novel, functionalist, unified account of the epistemic normativity of reasoning. On this view, epistemic norms drop out of epistemic functions. I argue that practical reasoning serves a prudential function of generating prudentially permissible action, and the epistemic function of generating knowledge of what one ought to do. This picture, if right, goes a long way towards normatively divorcing action and practical reasoning. At the same time, it unifies reasoning epistemically: practical and theoretical reasoning will turn out to be governed by the same epistemic norm—knowledge—in virtue of serving the same epistemic function: generating knowledge of the conclusion.

Nous, 1998

The Philosophical Review, 2006

Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2021

We conceive of ourselves as beings capable of acting in response to normative reasons. Given that our normative reasons are usually facts, this self-conception entails that we are capable of acting in response to facts. Arguments from error cases might seem to force us to deflate that self-conception, for they seem to show that to act in light of a fact must simply be a way of acting in light of a belief. The goal of this article is to argue against this deflationary view. I offer a counterexample to it and argue that in order to reject the argument from error on which it is grounded we should adopt a disjunctive view of acting in light of a consideration. According to this view there are two subjectively indistinguishable but distinct ways of acting in light of a consideration: acting in light of a fact and acting in light of a belief. This view allows us to take seriously the idea that our motivating reasons can be identical to facts and not mere true considerations and thus to take seriously our self-conception as beings that respond to and are capable of being moved by normative reasons for action.

Law and Philosophy, 2000

In Kelsen's formalist and reductionist theory of law, the concepts of `authority' and`competence' may be explained exclusively in terms of those norms on which the validity of other legalnorms or of legal acts is dependent. Kelsen describes the nature of these norms in different ways; at least three different conceptions can be distinguished. A rational reconstruction of the most plausible of these conceptions will understand sentences expressing such`norms of competence' either to state truth conditions for normative sentences of a lower level or to state criteria for an act to be a legal act. In both functions, norms of competence regulate the creation of normative facts.

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2005

Why do agent-relative reasons have authority over us, reflective creatures? Reductive accounts base the normativity of agent-relative reasons on agent-neutral considerations like 'having parents caring especially for their own children serves best the interests of all children'. Such accounts, however, beg the question about the source of normativity of agent-relative ways of reason-giving. In this paper, I argue for a non-reductive account of the reflective necessity of agent-relative concerns. Such an account will reveal an important structural complexity of practical reasoning in general. Christine Korsgaard relates the rational binding force of practical reasons to the various identities or self-conceptions under which we value ourselves. The problem is that it is not clear why such self-conceptions would necessitate us rationally, given the fact that most of our identities are simply given. Perhaps, Harry Frankfurt is right in arguing that we are not only necessitated by reason, but also, and predominantly by what we love. I argue, however, that "the necessities of love" (in Frankfurt's phrase) are not to be separated from, but should be seen as belonging to the necessities of reason. Our loves, concerns and related identities provide for a specific and important structure to practical reflection. They function on the background of reasoning, having a specific default role: they would lose their character as concerns, if there was a need for them to be cited on the foreground of deliberation or if there was a need to justify them. This does not mean that our deep concerns cannot be scrutinised. They can only be scrutinised in an indirect way, however, which explains their role in grounding the normativity of agent-relative reasons. It appears that this account can provide for a viable interpretation of Korsgaard's argument about the foundational role of practical identities.