Abstract
One Humean view holds that motivation requires beliefs and desires, which are separate and
distinct mental states. Beliefs are disposed to fit the world, and desires are disposed to make the
world fit them. This view is thought to eliminate besire theory, according to which moral
judgments have both a world-mind direction of fit by representing the ethical facts of the matter,
and a mind-world direction of fit by motivating action accordingly. Here I argue that besires are
fully consistent with the Humean view. The Humean view should be cast at the level of types,
while besire theory is supported by introspection on psychological tokens. Existent Humean
arguments against besires do not go through, and besire theory remains a viable option—indeed,
the option best supported by the evidence—without rejecting the Humean view.
1
A Case for Besires
According to the Humean view of motivation, beliefs alone cannot motivate. According
besire theory,1 some first person moral judgments (judgments of the form ‘I morally ought to Φ’)
are both belief-like and desire-like in that they represent things as they morally are, and motivate
appropriate actions. For example, on besire theory my judgment ‘I ought to visit my
grandmother in the hospital’ can both represent a factual moral obligation and motivate me to
visit my grandmother without the help of some separate desire-type psychological state.
Can besire theory be right? Not under the Humean view, for on that view besire theory
mistakenly attributes motivationally hot, desire-like properties to a certain class of beliefs. It
would seem that our options are highly constrained: either we embrace the Humean view, and
characterize first person moral judgments as belie...
... middle of paper ...
...o necessary connections between distinct mental state tokens, simpliciter internalism entails
besire theory.
12 Shafer-Landau argues for a similar position, though he calls some beliefs “intrinsically”
motivating. Shafer-Landau 2004, 147-48.
13 Only when we combine besire theory with an essentialist claim, for example, that no state
counts as a besire unless it actually motivates, do we get the result that moral judgments
necessarily motivate. This essentialist claim is too strong for any desire-type state, for even
occurent, normal desires combined with relevant means-related beliefs can fail to realize their
functional role.
14 One might think that the standard cognitive view of moral judgments evades the burden of
showing how moral motivation fails, but thereby gains the burden of explaining the reliable
connection between moral judgments and motivation.
Rest, J., Narvaez, D., Thoma, S., & Bebeau, M. (1999). DIT2: Devising and testing a revised instrument of moral judgment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(4), 644-659.
In this paper I discuss both Hume’s and Anscombe’s view on causation. I begin with Hume and his regularity theory; then I move onto Anscombe where I provide a rebuttal of Hume’s regularity theory, and later I explain how Hume would respond to Anscombe’s objection to Hume’s regularity theory.
(1) Schafer, Karl. "Assessor Relativism and the Problem of Moral Disagreement." The Southern Journal of Philosophy 50.4 (2012): 602-20. Web.
...sions and ideas. This is because it acts as a counter-example to this account. I believe that Hume’s response to the “missing shade of blue” is satisfactory because the arguments of atomism and the non-genetic thesis are more convincing than Morreall’s objection. The two arguments cause the “missing shade of blue” to no longer be a counter-example.
(Jensen, 2005, p. 69) could be compared with the importance of desired moral reasoning. The
Russell, Paul. “Hume on Free Will.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, CSLI, Stanford University, 14 December 2007.
Desire Satisfaction Theory states that: a life goes best if and only if desires for that life are satisfied. The variability of desires from person to person, along with Desire Satisfaction Theory, makes it possible to have many types of lifes that are different yet all of them making the life of anyone who desire to live them go well; for example if someone desires to make a living as an engineer, the fulfillment of that desire makes his life go best, and at the same time another person who desires to write music would be better off studying music rather than engineering.
In the Second Analogy, Kant argues that we must presuppose, a priori, that each event is determined to occur by some preceding event in accordance with a causal law. Although there have been numerous interpretations of this argument, we have not been able to show that it is valid. In this paper, I develop my own interpretation of this argument. I borrow an insight offered by Robert Paul Wolff. In Kant's argument, our need to presuppose that the causal determination of each event rests not upon our need to impose a 'necessary' and 'irreversible' temporal order upon representations of the states of an object, as Kant is usually interpreted, but upon our need to generate a comprehensive representation that includes a certain a priori conception of events in the world around us. Although the argument I attribute to Kant is valid, it cannot compel the Humean skeptic to accept the necessity of presupposing the causal determination of each event: Kant has not successfully responded to Hume in the Second Analogy.
... The psychological argument Hume proposes supports his claim, and also suggests the cyclic behavior human beings take. While his philosophical contributions are more extreme than Locke’s, Hume’s definition of liberty and the psychological component to his proposition provide an argument for proving all things are determined, but free will is still possible.
The theory of Cognitive Dissonance states that when individuals are presented with information that implies we act in a way that contradicts our moral standards, we experience discomfort (Aronson, Wilson, and Akert, 1998, P. 191). This is considered Cognitive Dissonance,
Hume distinguishes two categories into which “all the objects of human reason or enquiry” may be placed into: Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact (15). In regards to matters of fact, cause and effect seems to be the main principle involved. It is clear that when we have a fact, it must have been inferred...
Moral realism makes it conceivable to relate rules of reason to arbitrate moral statements. Thus, a moral conviction can be labeled as untrue or conflicting similar to truthful beliefs. Moral realism shines when there are moral discrepancies about the integrity of particular moral views. Moral realism considers that if two theories are opposing then clearly only one of them is true, and therefore the attention should be on looking for the factual moral belief. A moral realist is of the assessment that, amid all the facts, there is one moral fact which is significant and cannot be put on the back burner. According to moral realism, moral declarations are on occasion right. The influential element is the presence of a truth-making relation which brands the moral proclamations true. Accordingly, the things that create the truth of moral statements must actually be. For instance, a moral declaration such as “Cheating is bad” must be assessed in terms of its fact or falseness. It has to then be determined in terms of everyday associations established on its benefits and hindrances to an individual and the
Hume’s first reflection focuses on worldly bodies. Assuming that a “necessary connexion” exists between cause and effect, this effect could be determined, without prior experience, through reasoning, upon observation of the cause alone. We, however, observe the body and we observe the effect on the body or system but “the power or force, which actuates the whole machine [universe or chain of effects] is entirely concealed from us, and never discovers itself in any of the sensible qualities of body” (42). Hence, this situation demonstrates no impression of, and therefore no idea of, “necessary connexion” in “single instances of their (bodies) operation” (42).
Hume, David. “A Treatise of Human Nature. Excerpts from Book III. Part I. Sect. I-II.”
As a result of his previous focus on necessity in section VII, Hume’s tactic in this section is to repeat his thoughts on the nature of necessity. He begins by examining “what we are pleased to call physical necessity,” (Hume 526) and try to present an argument of how human actions are necessary (i.e. causally determined). According to Hume, there are laws in nature that are “actuated by necessary forces and that every natural effect is so precisely determined by the energy of its cause that no other effect, in such a particular circumstances, could possibly have resulted from it” (Hume 523). Hume a...