Acting for the Right Reasons, Abilities, and Obligation

In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Volume 10. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Objectivists about obligation hold that obligations are determined by all of the normatively relevant facts. Perspectivalists, on the other hand, hold that only facts within one's perspective can determine what we are obligated to do. In this paper I argue for a perspectivalist view. On my view, what you are obligated to do is determined by the normative reasons you possess. My argument for my view is anchored in the thought that our obligations have to be action-guiding in a certain sense--we have to be able to act for the reasons that obligate us. I argue that we have this ability--the ability to act for the right reasons--only if we possess those reasons. Thus, objectivism is false. In the second half of the paper I argue that problems having to do with new information do not plague my particular perspectival view.

Other Versions

original Lord, Errol (2015) "Acting for the Right Reasons, Abilities, and Obligation". Oxford Studies in Metaethics 10():

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

What We Together Ought to Do.Alexander Dietz - 2016 - Ethics 126 (4):955-982.
Perspectivism and the Argument from Guidance.Jonathan Way & Daniel Whiting - 2017 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20 (2):361-374.
The Importance of Being Rational.Errol Lord - 2013 - Dissertation, Princeton University
Things That Make Things Reasonable.John Gibbons - 2010 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81 (2):335-361.
How Do Reasons Accrue?Shyam Nair - 2016 - In Errol Lord & Barry Maguire (eds.), Weighing Reasons. New York, NY: Oxford University Press USA. pp. 56–73.
What ability can do.Ben Schwan - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (3):703-723.

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-09-11

Downloads
498 (#57,456)

6 months
8 (#610,780)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Errol Lord
University of Pennsylvania

Citations of this work

The Normativity of Rationality.Benjamin Kiesewetter - 2017 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
What is Good Reasoning?Conor McHugh & Jonathan Way - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:153-174.
Veritism Unswamped.Kurt Sylvan - 2018 - Mind 127 (506):381-435.
Epistemology without guidance.Nick Hughes - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 179 (1):163-196.
Against Second‐Order Reasons.Daniel Whiting - 2017 - Noûs 51 (2):398-420.

View all 39 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The moral problem.Michael R. Smith - 1994 - Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Philosophy 76 (297):460-464.
Unprincipled virtue: an inquiry into moral agency.Nomy Arpaly - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 25 references / Add more references