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Colloquium Series

"Reasons-Responsiveness and Morality"

聽(Australian National University)

Friday, March 31, 2023
3:30-5:30 PM EST
Leacock 927

础产蝉迟谤补肠迟:听An attractive way to conceive of morally good motivation and action is as proper responsiveness to morally relevant reasons. A kind person sees the helpfulness of an action as counting in its favour, and an honest person sees the deceptiveness of an action as counting against it, in same sense of 鈥渃ounting in favour鈥� or 鈥渁gainst鈥� that an action鈥檚 being pleasant or painful to you yourself counts for or against it. Supporting this view requires showing that it makes good overall sense of the structure of moral thought and experience. It also needs to be supported by an account of what it is to be responsive to reasons鈥攁n account that is broad enough to accommodate the kinds of moral goodness that we find in cases of innocent error, fluency, inarticulacy, and akrasia. In this talk, I set out an account of responsiveness to reasons that encompasses these four kinds of case, then draw out some other helpful implications of this account.