Getting things right : fittingness, reasons, and value / Conor McHugh, Jonathan Way.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McHugh, Conor, author.

Way, Jonathan, author.

Series:

Oxford Academic.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Knowledge, Theory of.

Philosophy.

Ethics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 213 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Fittingness, reasons, and value

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2022]

©2022

Summary:

This book has two main aims. First, it develops and defends a constitutive account of normative reasons as premises of good reasoning. This account says, roughly, that to be a normative reason for a response (such as a belief or intention) is to be premise of good reasoning, from fitting responses, to that response. Second, building on the account of reasons, it develops and defends a fittingness-first account of the structure of the normative domain. This account says that there is a single normative property, fittingness, which is normatively basic, and on which all other normative properties depend. On this view, reasons, oughts, value, and other normative phenomena all ultimately depend on fittingness. The account of normative reasons is a part of this general view of the normative domain. The book begins, in Chapter 1, by motivating the account of reasons as premises of good reasoning. Chapter 2 argues that good reasoning is, roughly, reasoning that preserves fittingness. Chapter 3 addresses the question of what fittingness is. Chapter 4 defends constitutive accounts of evaluative properties, like goodness, in terms of fitting attitudes. Chapters 5 and 6 shows how the view provides an attractive account of how reasons determine the deontic status of a response-whether you ought or may so respond. Chapter 7 addresses some challenges concerning certain reasons for belief, the relationship between reasons for action and reasons for intention, and reasons for emotion.

Contents:

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Reasons

2 Fittingness First

3 Preliminaries

3.1 Strategy and Limits

3.2 Ontology of Reasons

3.3 Normativity

3.4 Constitutive Accounts

3.5 Plan of the Book

1. Reasons

1 Introduction

2 Roles and Features of Reasons: Desiderata for a Constitutive Account

3 Some Theories of Reasons

3.1 Ought-Based Theories

3.1.1 Reasons as Explanations of Oughts

3.1.2 Reasons as Evidence of Oughts

3.2 Value-Based Theories

3.3 Primitivism

4 Reasons as Premises of Good Reasoning

4.1 The Account

4.2 Attractions

4.3 Developing the Account

4.3.1 Conative and Epistemic Conditions

4.3.2 Objective and Subjective Reasons

5 Challenges

5.1 Shouldn't Good Reasoning Be Understood in Terms of Reasons?

5.2 Further Challenges

6 Conclusion

2. Good Reasoning

2 Clarifications and Desiderata

3 The Fittingness View

4 Other Things Equal and Normality

5 Objections

5.1 Reasoning to the Belief that a Fittingness Condition Obtains

5.2 Reasoning from Believing a Means is not Choiceworthy to Believing It's Not Necessary

5.3 Necessarily Fitting Responses, Opaque Necessary Connections

6 Back to Reasons

6.1 First Objection: Very Weak Reasons for Action

6.2 Second Objection: Irrelevant Considerations

6.3 Third Objection: Bare Testimony

6.4 First Implication: The Guidance Condition

6.5 Second Implication: Incentives for Attitudes

7 Conclusion

Appendix 1 Modelling Fittingness-Preservation

Appendix 2 Structural Features of Reasons

3. Fittingness

2 Examples of Fittingness

3 Fittingness and Deontic Status

3.1 Clarifications

3.2 Four Marks

3.2.1 Insensitivity to Incentives

3.2.2 Strength

3.2.3 Absences

3.2.4 Objectivity

4 Fittingness and Reasons

4.1 Reasons Accounts of Fittingness

4.2 Incentives

4.3 Further Problems

4.4 Fittingness and the Balance of Reasons

5 What Makes Responses Fitting?

5.1 Fittingness Conditions

5.2 Fitting Belief

5.3 Fitting Intention

5.4 Fitting Desires and Emotions

4. Value

2 Preliminaries

3 Attractions of Norm-Attitude Accounts

3.1 Between Primitivism and Subjectivism

3.2 Generalizing: Specific Values, Attributive Good, Good-For

3.3 Norms and Values

4 The Wrong Kind of Reason Problem

4.1 Wrong-Kind Reasons and Buck-Passing

4.2 Wrong-Kind Reasons and the Fitting-Attitude Account

5 The Partiality Problem

5.1 The Problem

5.2 The Buck-Passers' Response

5.3 A Fitting-Attitude Solution to the Partiality Problem

5.4 Related Challenges

5. The Explanatory Role of Reasons I: The Weights of Reasons

2 The Simple Approach

3 The Defeasibility Approach

3.1 Introducing the Approach

3.2 Weights and Defeasible Reasoning: Outweighing

3.3 Weights and Defeasible Reasoning: Generalizing

4 Placing Weight

5 Applying the Account

5.1 Simple Outweighing

5.2 Incomparability and Equal Weight

5.3 Failure of Additivity

5.4 Holism I: Attenuating and Disabling

5.5 Holism II: Intensifying and Enabling

5.6 Are Conditions and Modifiers Reasons? Are Disabled Reasons Reasons?

6. The Explanatory Role of Reasons II: From Weights to Deontic Status

2 Overall Strength and Reasons Against

2.1 An Account of Overall Strength, and a Worry

2.2 Reasons Against as Reasons for Absences

2.2.1 Reasons for Absences

2.2.2 Absences, Fittingness, and Reasoning

2.3 Reasons Against as Reasons for Alternatives

3 Strength Amended

4 From Overall Strength to Deontic Status

5 The Balancing Asymmetry

6 Pointless Responses

7 Reasons' Explanatory Role

8 Conclusion

7. Reasons for Belief, Action, and Emotions

2 Reasons for Belief

2.1 Perceptual Reasons

2.2 Weak Reasons, Lottery Reasons

2.3 Reasons for Credences

3 Reasons for Action

3.1 The Problem of Reasons for Action and a Solution

3.2 Two Objections

3.3 The Response Condition

4 Reasons for Emotions

4.1 Emotions and Reasoning

4.2 A Challenge to Reasons for Emotions

5 Conclusion

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on Publisher website; title from home page (viewed on September 20, 2022).

Other Format:

Print version: McHugh, Conor Getting Things Right

ISBN:

0-19-253826-8

0-19-184731-3

0-19-253827-6

Publisher Number:

10.1093/oso/9780198810322.001.0001 DOI