Abstract

Ms. Dimitriou's motivist view has a simple upshot: for at least some cases, our moral assessment of an action should depend on the motives behind it (Dimitriou, passim). This may be contrasted with the antimotivist position, the view that argues motives should not figure into our moral assessment of an action. She presents two provocative cases where an agent’s motive “infects” the concomitant action. One example involves racist thinking and the other a form of sexual self-gratification. Given that we would never find the action that accompanies these motives morally acceptable once we know what the motives are, Ms. Dimitriou has argued that we ought to embrace motivism. In this brief commentary, I would like to present a few cases that seemingly show the motivist position is flawed. I want my comments to generate a discussion of how Ms. Dimitriou’s position can handle these weird cases, even though my presentation will likely come off as a direct assault of her view.