Normativity in Comparative Religious Ethics

This essay seeks to clarify the meaning and nature of normativity in metaethics and offers reasons why comparative religious ethics (CRE) must properly address questions about normativity. Though many comparative religious ethicists take CRE to be a normative discipline, what they say about normativity is often unclear and confusing. I argue that the third‐wave scholars face serious questions with respect to not only the justification of moral belief but also the rationality of moral belief and action. These scholars tend to view the justification of moral belief to be a matter of process (that is, discursive social practice) rather than evidence‐possession, thus overlooking crucial differences between the two. They also run the risk of confusing motivating and explanatory reasons with normative reasons for moral belief and action. Consequently, their account of normativity would be insufficient for determining the rationality of moral beliefs and actions as well as for justifying moral beliefs.     

Can Explanatory Reasons Be Good Reasons for Action?

What kind of thing is a reason for action? Are reasons for action subjective states of the agent, such as desires and/or beliefs? Or are they, rather, objective features of situations that favor certain actions? The suggestion offered in this article is that neither strategy satisfies. What is needed is a third category for classifying reasons which makes them out to be neither purely subjective nor purely objective. In brief: a reason for action is a feature of the situation that matters to the agent. On this proposal, subjective states of the agent are indeed indispensable in characterizing reasons for action. Precisely which set of situational features matter to an agent—precisely what shape the agent experiences the situation as having—depends on the agent's psychological makeup. Those features themselves are not psychological states, however, and it is precisely those features that constitute the agent's reasons for action.     

DEMONS AND THE ISOLATION ARGUMENT

Justifying a belief gives reason to think that the belief is true. So our concept of justification contains a 'truth connection'. I canvass a number of proposals for analysing this. In the end, two competing conceptions of the truth connection remain: the first, that justifying a belief makes the belief objectively probable, the second, that justifying a belief makes the belief probable in a world which would make true our other beliefs. I discuss reasons for embracing and rejecting these two versions of the truth connection. Ultimately, the two versions appear to represent distinct but equally plausible conceptions of justification. I conclude by rejecting the proposal that these truth connections respectively capture internalist and externalist conceptions of justification.     

Reasons and psychological causes

The causal theory of reasons holds that acting for a reason entails that the agents action was caused by his or her beliefs and desires. While Donald Davidson (1963) and others effectively silenced the first objections to the theory, a new round has emerged. The most important recent attack is presented by Jonathan Dancy in Practical Reality (2000) and subsequent work. This paper will defend the causal theory against Dancy and others, including Schueler (1995), Stoutland (1999, 2001), and Ginet (2002).Dancy observes that our reasons are neither psychological states nor causes, and that our reasons can be both motivating and normative. I argue that these observations are fully compatible with the causal theory. According to the reductive version I develop for both cognitive and optative reasons, what it is for an action to be done for a reason is for certain beliefs and desires to cause the action in a particular way. Our reasons for action are the objects of some of those beliefs and desires. The causal process has two stages. This theory explains not only Dancys observations, but also many other facts about reasons that alternative theories leave unexplained. I argue against Schueler and others that the non-appetitive desires entailed by acting for reasons are no less distinct and independent causal factors than the beliefs entailed. I go on to rebut arguments that the relation between psychological states and actions cannot be causal because it is non-empirical, rational, normative, or non-deterministic, and that explanations in terms of psychological causes are incompatible with explanations in terms of reasons.I make no claim here about the precise adequacy of the theoretical definitions I present. My goal is to show that a systematic theory along these lines is the most promising and fruitful approach to understanding an important aspect of human nature.     

Human Rights and Human Dignity: A Reply to Doris Schroeder

According to Doris Schroeder, the view that human rights derive from human dignity should be rejected. She thinks that this is the case for three different reasons: the first has to do with the fact that the dominant concept of dignity is based on religious beliefs which will do no justificatory work in a secular society; the second is that the dominant secular view of dignity, which is the Kantian view, does not provide us with a justification of human rights, i.e. rights all humans have; and the third reason has to do with the fact that dignity is understood in too many different ways to provide us with a justification of human rights. It is argued in this paper that none of these reasons for separating human rights from human dignity is convincing. It is true, it will be argued, that some accounts of dignity will not be successful in justifying human rights. But there is no reason to assume that no account of human dignity is capable of doing this. In the final part of the paper a concept of human dignity is presented that could indeed provide us with a justificatory basis for human rights.     

The Good,the Bad,and the Uncertain: Intentional Action under Normative Uncertainty

My focus in this paper is on a type of bad actions, namely actions that appear to be done for reasons that are not good reasons. I take such bad actions to be ubiquitous. But their ubiquity gives rise to a puzzle, especially if we assume that intentional actions are performed for what one believes or takes to be good reasons. The puzzle I aim to solve in this paper is: why do we seem to be getting it wrong so much of the time? I will argue that we can explain the ubiquity of bad action in light of the practical uncertainties that we face. My claim is not just that the more uncertainty we face as agents, the more likely we are to make a mistake about what counts as a good reason for action, although that is certainly one possible effect of practical uncertainty. My main claim is, rather, that practical uncertainty can have an impact on what counts as acting for a good reason for the agent.     

Two Kinds of Purposive Action

It is normally assumed that there is only one kind of purposive action. This article argues that there are two kinds of purposive action, which require different models of explanation. One kind of action is done without awareness of reasons; another kind of action is done because the agent is aware of reasons for that action. The argument starts by noting that philosophers disagree about what explains action. Some claim that actions are explained by impersonal facts, such as facts about how things should be or have been historically (e.g. Millikan, Stout). Others claim that actions are explained by mental states, such as beliefs and desires (e.g. Davidson, Velleman). These philosophers are usually regarded as offering conflicting accounts of one thing. However, they are best understood as giving accounts of different models of action-explanation. Neither model fits every case, so there are at least two kinds of purposive action.     

Right and Wrong Reasons in Folk‐Psychological Explanation

Abstract

Davidson argued that the fact we can have a reason for acting, and yet not be the reason why we act, requires explanation of action in terms of the agent's reasons to be causal. The present paper agrees with Dickenson (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2007) in taking this argument to be an inference to the best explanation. However, its target phenomenon is the very existence of a case in which an agent has more than one reason, but acts exclusively becaue of one reason. Folk psychology appears to allow for this phenomenon. However, appreciation of ‘rationalization’ as a form of contrastive explanation reveals the existence of the Davidsonian possibility to the problematic. Claims that ‘I did it because of R₁, not because of R₂’ are entertained in folk psychology, and may be sincere or insincere. But as reports of conscious practical reasoning, even when sincere, they are not authoritative about the mechanism of motivation.     

Laws,causality and the intentional explanation of action

Whether or not an intentional explanation of action necessarily involves law-like statements is related to another question, namely, is it a causal explanation? The Popper-Hempel Thesis, which answers both questions affirmatively, inevitably faces a dilemma between realistic and universalistic requirements. However, in terms of W.C. Salmon’s concept of causal explanation, intentional explanation can be a causal one even if it does not rely on any laws. Based on this, we are able to refute three characteristic arguments for the claim “reason is not a cause of action,” namely, the “proper logical” argument, the “logical relation” argument, and the “rule-following” argument. This rebuttal suggests that the causal relationship between reason and action can provide a justification for intentional explanations.     

Commanding Intentions and Prize-Winning Decisions

It is widely held that any justifying reason for making a decision must also be a justifying reason for doing what one thereby decides to do. Desires to win decision prizes, such as the one that figures in Kavka’s toxin puzzle, might be thought to be exceptions to this principle, but the principle has been defended in the face of such examples. Similarly, it has been argued that a command to intend cannot give one a justifying reason to intend as commanded. Here it is argued that ordinary agents in ordinary cases can have justifying reasons for deciding that are not and will not be justifying reasons for doing what, in making those decisions, they come to intend to do. The paper concludes with some brief observations on the functions of decision-making.     

Children's Ideas About What Can Really Happen: The Impact of Age and Religious Background

Five- to 11-year-old U.S. children, from either a religious or secular background, judged whether story events could really happen. There were four different types of stories: magical stories violating ordinary causal regularities; religious stories also violating ordinary causal regularities but via a divine agent; unusual stories not violating ordinary causal regularities but with an improbable event; and realistic stories not violating ordinary causal regularities and with no improbable event. Overall, children were less likely to judge that religious and magical stories could really happen than unusual and realistic stories although religious children were more likely than secular children to judge that religious stories could really happen. Irrespective of background, children frequently invoked causal regularities in justifying their judgments. Thus, in justifying their conclusion that a story could really happen, children often invoked a causal regularity, whereas in justifying their conclusion that a story could not really happen, they often pointed to the violation of causal regularity. Overall, the findings show that children appraise the likelihood of story events actually happening in light of their beliefs about causal regularities. A religious upbringing does not impact the frequency with which children invoke causal regularities in judging what can happen, even if it does impact the type of causal factors that children endorse.     

Do you see what I know? On reasons,perceptual evidence,and epistemic status

Our epistemology can shape the way we think about perception and experience. Speaking as an epistemologist, I should say that I don't necessarily think that this is a good thing. If we think that we need perceptual evidence to have perceptual knowledge or perceptual justification, we will naturally feel some pressure to think of experience as a source of reasons or evidence. In trying to explain how experience can provide us with evidence, we run the risk of either adopting a conception of evidence according to which our evidence isn't very much like the objects of our beliefs that figure in reasoning (e.g., by identifying our evidence with experiences or sensations) or the risk of accepting a picture of experience according to which our perceptions and perceptual experiences are quite similar to beliefs in terms of their objects and their representational powers. But I think we have good independent reasons to resist identifying our evidence with things that don't figure in our reasoning as premises and I think we have good independent reason to doubt that experience is sufficiently belief‐like to provide us with something premise‐like that can figure in reasoning. We should press pause. We shouldn't let questionable epistemological assumptions tell us how to do philosophy of mind. I don't think that we have good reason to think that we need the evidence of the senses to explain how perceptual justification or knowledge is possible. Part of my scepticism derives from the fact that I think we can have kinds of knowledge where the relevant knowledge is not evidentially grounded. Part of my scepticism derives from the fact that there don't seem to be many direct arguments for thinking that justification and knowledge always requires evidential support. In this paper, I shall consider the three arguments I've found for thinking that justification and knowledge do always require evidential support and explain why I don't find them convincing. I think that we can explain perceptual justification, rationality, and defeat without assuming that our experiences provide us with evidence. In the end, I think we can partially vindicate Davidson's (notorious) suggestion that our beliefs, not experiences, provide us with reasons for forming further beliefs. This idea turns out to be compatible with foundationalism once we understand that foundational status can come from something other than evidential support.     

D. Z. Phillips and reasonable belief

As an illustration of what Phillips called the “heterogeneity of sense,” this essay concentrates on differences in what is meant by a “reason for belief.” Sometimes saying that a belief is reasonable simply commends the belief’s unquestioned acceptance as a part of what we understand as a sensible outlook. Here the standard picture of justifying truth claims on evidential grounds breaks down; and it also breaks down in cases of fundamental moral and religious disagreement, where the basic beliefs that we hold affect our conception of what counts as a reliable ground of judgment. Phillips accepts the resultant variations in our conceptions of rational judgment as a part of logic, just as Wittgenstein did. All objective means of determining the truth or falsity of an assertion presume some underlying conceptual agreement about what counts as good judgment. This means that the possibility of objective justification is limited. But no pernicious relativism results from this view, for as Wittgenstein said, “After reason comes persuasion.” There is, moreover, a non-objective criterion of sorts in the moral and religious requirement that one be able to live with one’s commitments. In such cases, good judgment is still possible, but it differs markedly from the standard model of making rational inferences.     

Diachronic agency and practical entitlement

As diachronic agents, we deliberate and decide in the present to perform future courses of action. Such future‐directed decisions normally enjoy a distinctive species of rational authority over subsequent thought and action. But what is the nature of this authority, and what underwrites its normative force? In this paper, I argue that our answer to this question must begin by situating future‐directed deciding within an intrapersonal model of cross‐temporal influence. The role of future‐directed deciding (and intending), then, is not to generate a novel decision‐based reason for action, but instead to preserve a certain positive normative status over time. I develop an entitlement approach to decisional authority, according to which an agent who rationally decides to ? enjoys a practical entitlement, rather than a reason‐based practical justification, to ? at the appointed time. This entitlement is underwritten, I argue, by the warrant‐preserving nature of the sequence taking an agent from deliberation to subsequent action.     

Epistemic justification and premise acceptability

In this paper, we want to explore the connection between premises' being acceptable and their being in some sense justified. The equivalence of premise acceptability and justification seems intuitively correct. But to argue for such a connection, we need to analyze the concepts of acceptability and justification. Such an analysis also seems necessary if this equivalence is to advance our understanding of premise acceptability. Following L. J. Cohen, we may say S believes that p when S is disposed to feel it true that p, while S accepts that p when S takes that p as a premise for further deliberation or action. Reasons for belief are reasons for acceptance, and epistemological (as opposed to pragmatic) reasons for acceptance are reason for belief. Following William P. Alston, we may explicate being a justifying reason for belief through the notion of an adequate ground on which the belief is based. In turn, adequacy of ground means that the mechanism grounding the belief is reliable. Given these notions, we may define a concept of justification in terms of presumptive adequacy.     

Con-reasons and the causal theory of action

A con-reason is a reason which plays a role in motivating and explaining an agent's behaviour, but which the agent takes to count against the course of action taken. Most accounts of motivating reasons in the philosophy of action do not allow such things to exist. In this essay, I pursue two aims. First, I argue that, whatever metaphysical story we tell about the relation between motivating reasons and action, con-reasons need to be acknowledged, as they play an explanatory role not played by pro-reasons (the reason the agent takes to count in favour of the action taken). Second, I respond to an argument recently developed by David-Hillel Ruben to the effect that a causal theory of action – still known as ‘the standard story’ – cannot account for con-reasons. His argument attempts to show that a fundamental principle of the causal theory cannot be reconciled with the role con-reasons play in a certain kind of imagined case. I first argue that a causal theorist is not, in fact, committed to the problematic principle; this argument has an added benefit, since the principle has been taken by many to show that the causal theory generates a puzzle about the possibility of weak-willed action. I then argue that a causal theorist has good reason to reject the possibility of Ruben's imagined cases. If successful, my arguments make clearer the commitments of the causal theory and show that it can accommodate con-reasons in the way I think they ought to be accommodated.     

Do Normative Facts Need to Explain?

Much moral skepticism stems from the charge that moral facts do not figure in causal explanations. However, philosophers committed to normative epistemological discourse (by which I mean our practice of evaluating beliefs as justified or unjustified, and so forth) are in no position to demand that normative facts serve such a role, since epistemic facts are causally impotentas well. I argue instead that pragmatic reasons can justify our continued participation in practices which, like morality and epistemology, do not servethe function of causal explanation.     

The interventionist account of causation and the basing relation

It is commonplace to distinguish between propositional justification (having good reasons for believing p) and doxastic justification (believing p on the basis of those good reasons).One necessary requirement for bridging the gap between S??s merely having propositional justification that p and S??s having doxastic justification that p is that S base her belief that p on her reasons (propositional justification).A plausible suggestion for what it takes for S??s belief to be based on her reasons is that her reasons must contribute causally to S??s having that belief. Though this suggestion is plausible, causal accounts of the basing relation that have been proposed have not fared well. In particular, cases involving causal deviancy and cases involving over-determination have posed serious problems for causal accounts of the basing relation. Although previous causal accounts of the basing relation seem to fall before these problems, it is possible to construct an acceptable causal account of the basing relation. That is, it is possible to construct a causal account of the basing relation that not only fits our intuitions about doxastic justification in general, but also is not susceptible to the problems posed by causal deviancy and causal over-determination. The interventionist account of causation provides the tools for constructing such an account. My aim is to make use of the insights of the interventionist account of causation to develop and defend an adequate causal account of the basing relation.     

Infinitism and probabilistic justification

According to infinitism, beliefs can be justified by an infinite chain of reasons. So far, infinitism has rarely been taken seriously and often even dismissed as inconsistent. However, Peijnenburg and Atkinson have recently argued that beliefs can indeed be justified by an infinite chain of reasons, if justification is understood probabilistically. In the following, I will discuss the formal result that has led to this conclusion. I will then introduce three probabilistic explications of justification and examine to which extent they support Peijnenburg’s and Atkinson’s claim.     

A justification for excuses: Brown’s discussion of the knowledge view of justification and the excuse manoeuvre

In Fallibilism: Evidence and Knowledge, Jessica Brown identifies a number of problems for the so-called knowledge view of justification. According to this (unorthodox) view, we cannot justifiably believe what we do not know. Most epistemologists reject this view on the grounds that false beliefs can be justified if, say, supported by the evidence or produced by reliable processes. We think this is a mistake and that many epistemologists are (mistakenly) classifying beliefs as justified because they have properties that indicate that something should be excused. Brown thinks that previous attempts to make this case have been unsuccessful. While the difficulties Brown points to are genuine, I think they show that attempts to explain a classificatory judgment haven't been successful. Still, I would argue that the classification is correct. We need a better explanation of this classificatory judgment. (The situation is similar to the one in which we correctly distinguish knowledge from non-knowledge but then embarrass ourselves trying to explain what this difference consists in.) I will try to clarify the justification-excuse distinction and explain why it's a mistake to insist that beliefs that violate epistemic norms might be justified. Just as it's possible for a rational agent to act without justification in spite of her best intentions (e.g., by using force or violence in trying to defend another from a merely apparent threat), it's possible that a rational thinker who follows the evidence and meets our expectations might nevertheless believe without sufficient justification. If our justified beliefs are supposed to guide us in deciding what to do, we probably should draw on discussions from morality and the law about the justification/excuse distinction to inform our understanding of the epistemic case.