Colloquium 2 How to Argue about Aristotle about Practical Reason

In this paper, I consider Aristotle’s views in relation to the Humean theory of motivation (HTM). I distinguish three principles which HTM is committed to: the ‘No Besires’ principle, the ‘Motivation Out—Desire In’ principle, and the ‘Desire Out—Desire In’ principle. To reject HTM, one only needs to reject one of these principles. I argue that while it is plausible to think that Aristotle accepts the first two principles, there are some grounds for thinking that he might reject the third.

Colloquium 2 Commentary on Pearson

The Humean interpretation of Aristotle takes him to say that the goals of action are ultimately specified by desire. The Combo interpretation takes Aristotle to say that the goals of action are ultimately specified, sometimes by reason, other times by desire, and yet other times by both. I agree with Pearson that there are passages supporting each side and that the passages Pearson introduces into the debate support the Combo interpretation. To further support the Combo interpretation, I identify four features that Humeans want in a moral theory, and then show that a Humean interpretation of the passages bearing directly on the debate blocks the attribution of these features to Aristotle. A Humean interpretation may produce an Aristotle who is technically Humean, but this Aristotle will not accept the doctrines that make a Humean theory of motivation attractive to Humeans in the first place.

What the Humean Theory of Motivation Gets Wrong

I show that defenses of the Humean theory of motivation (HTM) often rely on a mistaken assumption. They assume that desires are necessary conditions for being motivated to act because desires (and other non-cognitive states) themselves have a special, essential, necessary feature, such as their world-to-mind direction of fit, that enables them to motivate. Call this the Desire-Necessity Claim. Beliefs (and other cognitive states) cannot have this feature, so they cannot motivate. Or so the story goes. I show that: (a) when pressed, a proponent of HTM encounters a series of prima facie counterexamples to this Claim; and (b) the set of claims that seem to naturally complement the Desire-Necessity Claim as well as provide successful responses to these counterexamples turn out to deny the truth of this same claim. As a result, the Humean implicitly grants that it is at least equally plausible, if not more plausible, to claim that desires are not able to motivate in virtue of what they necessarily possess. Instead, desires contingently possess features that enable them to motivate.

Why Moral Status Matters for Metaethics

I show that an overlooked feature of our moral life—moral status—provides a route to vindicating naturalist moral realism in much the same way that the Humean theory of motivation and judgment internalism are used to undermine it. Moral status presents two explanatory burdens for metaethical views. First, a given view must provide an ecumenical explanation of moral status, which does not depend on the truth of its metaethical claims (say, that there are mind-independent facts about moral status). Second, its explanation must be consistent with persistent normative ethical disagreement about what constitutes moral status. I conclude that naturalist moral realism succeeds, while quasi-realism fails because it cannot meet the latter requirement. This argument has three results: we have a new route for metaethical vindication more generally and for naturalist moral realism in particular; quasi-realism's plausibility is undermined by an inability to explain disagreement, but not for the familiar reasons.

The Abductive Case for Humeanism Over Quasi-Perceptual Theories of Desire

A number of philosophers have offered quasi-perceptual theories of desire, according to which to desire something is roughly to “see” it as having value or providing reasons. These are offered as alternatives to the more traditional Humean theory of motivation, which denies that desires have a representational aspect. This paper examines the various considerations offered by advocates to motivate quasi-perceptualism. It argues that Humeanism is in fact able to explain the same data that the quasi-perceptualist can explain, and in one case the Humean explanation is superior. Quasi-perceptual accounts of desire, the paper concludes, are for the most part unmotivated.

Hume on Practical Reason

Hume’s views about practical reason are often characterized in terms of his “double Humeanism”— i.e. the conjunction of the Humean Theory of Motivation (HTM) and the Humean Theory of Reasons (HTR). But Hume actually endorsed neither the HTM nor the HTR. Instead, the purpose of his discussion of these issues was to attack certain claims about the role of the faculty of reason in the practical domain. As such, Hume’s discussion is part of a far more radical philosophical project than anything in contemporary “Humeanism”: a wholesale assault on the idea that the faculty of reason has any special normative authority in either the theoretical or practical sphere. In this way, it is only by resisting the attribution of the HTM and HTR to Hume that we can see just how deep Hume’s antirationalism extends.