T. M. Scanlon offers a qualified defense of normative cognitivism--the
view that there are irreducibly normative truths about reasons for
action. He responds to three familiar objections: that such truths
would have troubling metaphysical implications; that we would have no
way of knowing what they are; and that the role of reasons in
motivating and explaining action could not be explained if accepting a
conclusion about reasons for action were a kind of belief. Scanlon
answers the first of these objections within a general account of
ontological commitment, applying to mathematics as well as normative
judgments. He argues that the method of reflective equilibrium,
properly understood, provides an adequate account of how we come to
know both normative truths and mathematical truths, and that the idea
of a rational agent explains the link between an agent's normative
beliefs and his or her actions. Whether every statement about reasons
for action has a determinate truth value is a question to be answered
by an overall account of reasons for action, in normative terms. Since
it seems unlikely that there is such an account, the defense of
normative cognitivism offered here is qualified: statements about
reasons for action can have determinate truth values, but it is not
clear that all of them do. Along the way, Scanlon offers an
interpretation of the distinction between normative and non-normative
claims, a new account of the supervenience of the normative on the
non-normative, an interpretation of the idea of the relative strength
of reasons, and a defense of the method of reflective equilibrium.
Les mer
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780191003158
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Oxford University Press Academic UK
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter