Rightness and reasoning: A philosophical investigation

Daniel Edward Palmer, Purdue University

Abstract

Philosophers talk about moral reasons in two distinct contexts. On the one hand, the expression ‘moral reason’ can refer to the reason why an action is right when it is right. Theories concerned with moral reasons in this sense are theories of rightness. On the other hand, the term ‘moral reason’ can refer to a reason that a person has for deciding what she ought, morally, to do. Theories that are concerned with the reasons that agents ought to employ in ethical deliberation are theories of moral reasoning. Although philosophers have directed much attention to each type of theory individually, they have largely left unexamined the connection between the two. I argue for the importance of attending to this relation. In particular, I examine various theories of rightness in order to determine how they articulate the relation between their criterion of the right and an account of moral deliberation. In doing so, I formulate a set of conditions concerning the relation between rightness and reasoning that I argue an adequate and complete theory of the right ought to fulfill. I examine act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, and Ross-style pluralism first. I argue that each of these theories defines the right apart from any consideration of moral reasoning. In doing so, these theories each entail that there is no necessary connection between their criterion of the right and any account of moral deliberation. As such, I argue that none of them can be the proper account of the right. I then examine Kantian and contractarian theories that define the right in conjunction with an account of moral reasoning. I argue that the Kantian treatment makes this relation too strong, and thus fails to meet all of the conditions that we ought to require upon the correct account of the right as well. Finally, I show that a contractarian theory of the right can meet all of the conditions developed in the previous chapters, and is thus the most plausible candidate for the proper account of the right.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Russow, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Philosophy

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