Moorean Promises

Ethics 135 (3):395-427 (2025)
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Abstract

“I promise to mow your lawn, but I don’t know whether I will.” Call promises of this form “Moorean,” based on their resemblance to Moore’s paradox. Moorean promises sound absurd. But why? In the literature on assertion, many have used Moore’s paradox to motivate a knowledge norm of assertion. I put forward an analogous norm on promising, according to which one should only make a promise if one knows that one will fulfill it. A knowledge norm explains why Moorean promises are absurd, accounts for a variety of linguistic data, and sheds light on how promises generate obligations.

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Bob Beddor
University of Florida

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References found in this work

Intention, plans, and practical reason.Michael Bratman - 1987 - Cambridge: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language.John Rogers Searle - 1969 - Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (210):105-116.
Knowledge and Action.John Hawthorne & Jason Stanley - 2008 - Journal of Philosophy 105 (10):571-590.
Content preservation.Tyler Burge - 1993 - Philosophical Review 102 (4):457-488.

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