Prudence, Morality, and the Humean Theory of Reasons

Philosophical Quarterly 65 (259):220-240 (2015)
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Abstract

Humeans about normative reasons claim that there is a reason for you to perform a given action if and only if this would promote the satisfaction of one of your desires. Their view has traditionally been thought to have the revisionary implication that an agent can sometimes lack any reason to do what morality or prudence requires. Recently, however, Mark Schroeder has denied this. If he is right, then the Humean theory accords better with common sense than it has been thought to. I argue that Schroeder is mistaken, even if welfare is understood in terms of the satisfaction of one’s desires: any Humean must concede that one can sometimes lack any reason to act morally or prudently. I also identify a novel variant on Humeanism that could perhaps avoid its revisionary implications about prudence if desire satisfactionism is the correct theory of welfare

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Eden Lin
Ohio State University

Citations of this work

Justifying Partiality.Errol Lord - 2016 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (3):569-590.
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References found in this work

A Treatise of Human Nature.David Hume & A. D. Lindsay - 1958 - Philosophical Quarterly 8 (33):379-380.
Moral realism.Peter Railton - 1986 - Philosophical Review 95 (2):163-207.
The Possibility of Practical Reason.J. David Velleman - 2000 - Philosophical Studies 121 (3):263-275.

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