Do We Have Normative Powers?

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 275-300
Author(s):  
Ruth Chang
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Metaphysical Explanation ◽  
Rational Agency ◽  
The Will ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Normative Powers

Abstract ‘Normative powers’ are capacities to create normative reasons by our willing or say-so. They are significant, because if we have them and exercise them, then sometimes the reasons we have are ‘up to us’. But such powers seem mysterious. How can we, by willing, create reasons? In this paper, I examine whether normative powers can be adequately explained normatively, by appeal to norms of a practice, normative principles, human interests, or values. Can normative explanations of normative powers explain how an exercise of the will can afford us special freedom in determining our reasons? I argue that normative approaches to answering this question prove to be inadequate. To vindicate the thought that normative powers can make our reasons ‘up to us’, we need an altogether different approach to understanding them, one that is located not in the normative but in the metaphysical. I end the paper by sketching a metaphysical explanation of normative powers. This metaphysical defence of normative powers provides a window into a different, more agent-centered way of thinking about rational agency.

Evidence and Its Limits

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clayton Littlejohn
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Evidential Support ◽  
Way Of Thinking

On a standard way of thinking about the relationships between evidence, reasons, and epistemic justification, a subject’s evidence consists of her potential reasons for her beliefs, these reasons constitute the normative reasons that bear on whether to believe, and justification is taken to result from relations between a subject’s potential reasons for her beliefs and those beliefs. This chapter argues that this view makes a number of mistakes about the rational roles of reasons and evidence and explores some parallels between practical and theoretical reasons. Just as justified action is unobjectionable action, justified belief is unobjectionable belief. Just as you cannot object to someone deciding to do something simply on the grounds that their reasons for acting didn’t give them strong reason to act, you cannot object to someone believing something simply on the grounds that they didn’t believe for reasons that gave their beliefs strong evidential support.

Schopenhauer, Buddhism, and Compassion

2020 ◽  
pp. 327-346
Author(s):  
Richard Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Metaphysical Explanation ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
Perfect Duties ◽  
Kantian View ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Way

The focus of this chapter is Schopenhauer’s On The Basis of Morality (1841). His distinctive views are that compassion marks one’s being as spontaneously motivated to relieve another’s suffering as one’s own and that this requires a metaphysical explanation for how one identifies with another. The author defends these views and shows in some detail how they mirror the Mahayana account of compassion in Shantideva’s The Way of the Bodhisattva. Next, the author outlines Schopenhauer’s case for compassion being the sole basis of moral value and defends this claim against the Kantian view that acting beneficently cannot (rationally) override so-called perfect duties to others. Finally, the author explores how Buddha Shakyamuni’s teachings cohere with Schopenhauer’s account of suffering and how mystical consciousness, as represented in Mahayana Buddhism’s “Middle Way,” coheres with Schopenhauer’s asceticism—the “denial of the will”—as the path to overcoming suffering.

scholarly journals APIE (FILOSOFIJOS) PRIGIMTĮ

Problemos ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 8-33
Author(s):  
Skirmantas Jankauskas
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Poetic Discourse ◽  
The Will ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Theoretical Thinking

Straipsnyje aptariama graikiškojo filosofavimo genezė, t. y. nagrinėjamos pirmojo filosofijos teiginio susiklostymo prielaidos ir tų prielaidų numanoma teiginio prasmė. Filosofijos istorijoje nusistovėjusios pirmųjų filosofų teiginių interpretacijos kilmė siejama su Aristotelio filosofija. Teigiama, kad Aristotelis graikiškąjį filosofavimą jau visiškai įkurdina rašte. Iš rašto pozicijų Aristotelis žvelgia ir į pirmųjų filosofų ištaras, todėl suvokia jas vien kaip rašto (teorinio mąstymo) elementus. Straipsnyje daroma prielaida, kad filosofavimas prasidėjo ne kaip raštas, o kaip su žmogaus veikla susijęs tradicinis kalbėjimas. Filosofavimo kaip konstruktyvios kalbėjimo atmainos specifiką lėmė antikoje susiklosčiusi refleksijos situacija, kuri siejama su septynių išminčių imperatyvu ‘Pažink save!’ Parodoma, kad šis imperatyvas steigia skirtį tarp logo ir kosmo, kurią antikos išminčius išgyvena kaip sinkretinio gyvenimo vidujybės netektį. Straipsnio autorius interpretuoja filosofavimą kaip kalbėjimą ir veikimą, kuriais antikos išminčius siekia susigrąžinti ikirefleksinę būseną. Teigiama, kad sinkretinių mąstymo įgūdžių nepraradęs antikos išminčius savąjį filosofavimą linkęs aiškinti kaip pritapimo prie kosmo būdą. Kadangi refleksija įkurdina žmogų teorinio mąstymo erdvėje, tai pritapimo prie kosmo veiksmas tegalimas mąstymo plotmėje, todėl filosofavimą steigianti skirtis tarp logo ir kosmo besiplėtojančiame filosofavime nuaidi skirtimis kosme. Tačiau pirmieji išminčiai dar tikisi pilnatviško pritapimo prie kosmo ir tokio pritapimo regimybę jie dar pelno kosmo kaip grožio išgyvenimu, kurį Platonas ir Aristotelis sieja su nuostaba. Pirmoji kanonizuotoji filosofijos ištara interpretuojama kaip estetinį pritapimą prie kosmo referuojantis poetinis bylojimas.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: raštas, priežastis, refleksija, kosmas, pritapimas, archė, grožis, tiesa, būtis.On the Nature (of Philosophy)Skirmantas Jankauskas   SummaryThe paper deals with the genesis of Greek philosophy. The circumstances of the appearance of the first utterance in Greek philosophy and their impact upon its meaning are revealed. The traditional interpretation of the first utterances in the early Greek philosophy is attributed to Aristotle. The latter is said to have transferred Greek philosophizing totally into writing and subsequently to treat the first utterances as elements of writing. In the article, the suggestion is put forward that philosophizing did not begin as a writing but rather as a talking activity immersed in human activity in general. The specificity of philosophizing as constructive talking is related to the situation of reflection, caused by the imperative of the Seven Sages, namely by the imperative ‘Know thyself!”. It is shown here that the imperative introduces the difference between logos and cosmos, which is experienced by a Greek Sage as a loss of sincretic life. Philosophizing is then introduced as an activity of talking, provoked by the will to reestablish the original sincretic state. The author argues that because of syncretist skills, this activity is treated by early Greek philosophers as a way of partaking in cosmos. As reflection conveys a philosopher into the realm of theoretical thinking, partaking in cosmos is possible only as a way of thinking. Consequently, the difference between logos and cosmos in philosophizing resolves itself in the differences of cosmos. Nevertheless, the first philosophers still retained some hope for complete partaking in cosmos, and they gained the illusion of such a partaking by aesthetic experience of cosmos, which was attributed by Plato and Aristotle to wondering. Consequently, the first utterance of Greek philosophy is interpreted in this article as a kind of poetic discourse that refers to the activity of aesthetic partaking in cosmos.Keywords: writing, reason, reflection, cosmos, partaking, arche, the beautiful, truth, being.

Normativity and the Will

2004 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 195-216
Author(s):  
R. Jay Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Rational Agency ◽  
The Will

If there is room for a substantial conception of the will in contemporary theorizing about human agency, it is most likely to be found in the vicinity of the phenomenon of normativity. Rational agency is distinctively responsive to the agent's acknowledgment of reasons, in the basic sense of considerations that speak for and against the alternatives for action that are available. Furthermore, it is natural to suppose that this kind of responsiveness to reasons is possible only for creatures who possess certain unusual volitional powers, beyond the bare susceptibility to beliefs and desires necessary for the kind of rudimentary agency of which the higher animals are arguably capable.

Rational Agency

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Kosch
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Causal Efficacy ◽  
Practical Deliberation ◽  
Rational Agency ◽  
The Will ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility

Chapter 2 presents Fichte’s conception of rational agency and of the psychological dispositions and capacities on which he takes it to depend. It begins with an examination of Fichte’s notion of the spontaneity of the will, and compares his account of it to Kant’s. It then explains Fichte’s account of practical deliberation and its necessary conditions. Practical deliberation is means/ends or part/whole reasoning toward the end (viz. independence) provided by practical reason. Its conditions of possibility include empirical cognition, a set of naturally given conative attitudes, embodiment, causal efficacy, social interaction, and a sense of itself as one individual among others. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the variability of rational agency among individuals and the reasons for it.

Martin Luther and the Theology of the Two Kingdoms

2020 ◽  
pp. 82-103
Author(s):  
William Bain
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Political Order ◽  
External Relations ◽  
The Will ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Way Of Knowing ◽  
Two Kingdoms

This chapter explores the nominalist orientation of Martin Luther’s separation of sacred and secular, signified by his two kingdoms framework. The aim is to show that his thinking about the nature of God, character of creation, and authority of Scripture resonates with the theory of imposed order. Luther gives priority to the will, as against reason, which follows from his preoccupation with God’s freedom and power. This points to an inner unity in Luther’s thought, whereby his theology informs a parallel understanding of reality that emphasizes the contingency of singular things, a system of external relations, and explanation in terms of efficient causes. Luther’s importance in this context is not discerned in what he contributes to political theory; he transmits the nominalist way of knowing and explaining reality that others would use to theorize political order. Consequently, his separation of the earthly kingdom and the spiritual kingdom does not de-theologize politics as much as signal the ascendency of the theory of imposed order and its theological commitments. In this respect, he contributes indirectly to a way of thinking and speaking about political order that stresses the nominalist vocabulary of will and artifice.

The theological value of autonomy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adiel Zimran
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Will ◽  
Abrahamic Religions ◽  
Age Of Enlightenment ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Will Of God

Abstract Western liberalism is based on two different humanistic traditions: First, the biblical tradition of the Abrahamic religions, according to which man was created in the image of God; and, second, the tradition that developed in the age of Enlightenment, which claims man’s absolute independence of any heteronomous or transcendental being and views the very existence as a goal in and of itself. Each one of these two traditions restricts the autonomy of the individual in different ways, thus influencing the constitutional structure one of whose principal functions is to safeguard the autonomy of the citizens. This article deals with the theological value of autonomy. It analyzes the tension between the humanistic-anthropocentric worldview, which sanctifies human freedom, and the humanistic-theocentric way of thinking, which sees God as the source of all norms and holds that the freedom of man is limited by the divine imperative. Subsequently, the article presents three different models of understanding the relations between the will of God and the will of man, through an analysis of the exegesis of three Jewish thinkers on the stories of man’s creation in the image of God and the sin of the Primordial Man. These models represent three attitudes towards the theological value of autonomy. After having presented the different models, I shall compare them to each other and explicate the conceptual differences between them. To conclude, I shall further assess the contribution of these models to contemporary discourse on autonomy and liberty.

Will, Obligatory Ends and the Completion of Practical Reason: Comments on Barbara Herman's Moral Literacy

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrews Reath
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Rational Agency ◽  
The Will

AbstractThis paper discusses three inter-related themes in Barbara Herman's Moral Literacy – the idea that, for Kant, the will is a ‘norm-constituted power’ whose activity is guided by its own internal norm, that the obligatory ends are reasonably viewed as the ends of all rational choice, and that morality ‘completes’ practical reason or rational agency.

scholarly journals Relacje między teologią a naukami przyrodniczymi w kontekście edukacji

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 439-444
Author(s):  
Sławomir Śledziewski
Keyword(s):  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Way Of Thinking

Man, wanting to progress, must educate himself, the sense of attaining education is formed both by „the deeper desire in the human being”, which leads him to reflect on the subject of God and by the will to study natural sciences, which have permanently changed our way of thinking about the world surrounding us and about ourselves. In the process of cognition faith cannot take the place of reason, nor reason the place of faith, these are two ways of arriving at the truth, which must collaborate in agreement with each other, thus education should concentrate on outlining the relation between theology and natural sciences. Such complementing leads to the cognition and fathoming of the truth, and this, besides the attainment of wisdom, is one of the main assumptions of education.

Reason, Freedom and Kant: An Exchange

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Hanna ◽  
A.W. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Structural Property ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Rational Agency ◽  
Wrong Thing ◽  
Innate Capacity ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Right ◽  
Short Essay

According to Kant, being purely rational or purely reasonable and being autonomously free are one and the same thing. But how can this be so? How can my innate capacity for pure reason ever motivate me to do anything, whether the right thing or the wrong thing? What I will suggest is that the fundamental connection between reason and freedom, both for Kant and in reality, is preciselyour human biological life and spontaneity of the will, a conjunctive intrinsic structural property of our animal bodies, which essentially constitutes human personhood and rational agency. I say ‘suggest’ because, obviously, no proper argument for such a conclusion could ever be worked out in a short essay. I would nevertheless like to motivate my suggestion by way of a commentary on the second part of Adrian Moore's extremely rich and interesting recent book,Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty(henceforth,NIR).

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