Skip to main content
eScholarship
Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (17 results)

  • Article
  • Peer Reviewed
UCLA Previously Published Works (2006)
I hope to show that, although belief is subject to two quite robust forms of agency, "believing at will" is impossible; one cannot believe in the way one ordinarily acts. Further, the same is true of intention: although intention is subject to two quite robust forms of agency, the features of belief that render believing less than voluntary are present for intention, as well. It turns out, perhaps surprisingly, that you can no more intend at will than believe at will. © 2006 University of Southern California and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
    Cover page: CONTROLLING ATTITUDES
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UCLA Previously Published Works (2013)
    Here I defend my solution to the wrong-kind-of-reason problem against Mark Schroeder's criticisms. In doing so, I highlight an important difference between other accounts of reasons and my own. While others understand reasons as considerations that count in favor of attitudes, I understand reasons as considerations that bear (or are taken to bear) on questions. Thus, to relate reasons to attitudes, on my account, we must consider the relation between attitudes and questions. By considering that relation, we not only solve the wrong-kind-ofreason problem, but we also bring into view rational agency-the use of reasons in thought. © 2013 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
      Cover page: The Use of Reasons in Thought (and the Use of Earmarks in Arguments)
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UCLA Previously Published Works (2009)
        Cover page: THE WILL AS REASON
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        UCLA Previously Published Works (2001)
          Cover page: Articulating an Uncompromising Forgiveness
          • Article
          • Peer Reviewed
          UCLA Previously Published Works (2004)
            Cover page: The Force and Fairness of Blame
            • Article
            • Peer Reviewed
            UCLA Previously Published Works (2011)
            Donald Davidson opens 'Actions, Reasons, and Causes' by asking, 'What is the relation between a reason and an action when the reason explains the action by giving the agent's reason for doing what he did?' His answer has generated some confusion about reasons for action and made for some difficulty in understanding the place for the agent's own reasons for acting, in the explanation of an action. I offer here a different account of the explanation of action, one that, though minimal and formal, preserves the proper role for the agent's own reasons for acting. © 2011 The Aristotelian Society.
              Cover page: XIV—Reasons for Action
              • Article
              • Peer Reviewed
              UCLA Previously Published Works (2008)
              Many assume that we can be responsible only what is voluntary. This leads to puzzlement about our responsibility for our beliefs, since beliefs seem not to be voluntary. I argue against the initial assumption, presenting an account of responsibility and of voluntariness according to which, not only is voluntariness not required for responsibility, but the feature which renders an attitude a fundamental object of responsibility (that the attitude embodies one's take on the world and one's place in it) also guarantees that it could not be voluntary. It turns out, then, that, for failing to be voluntary, beliefs are a central example of the sort of thing for which we are most fundamentally responsible. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
                Cover page: Responsibility for believing
                • Article
                • Peer Reviewed
                UCLA Previously Published Works (2008)
                I argue to a conclusion I find at once surprising and intuitive: although many considerations show trust useful, valuable, important, or required, these are not the reasons for which one trusts a particular person to do a particular thing. The reasons for which one trusts a particular person on a particular occasion concern, not the value, importance, or necessity of trust itself, but rather the trustworthiness of the person in question in the matter at hand. In fact, I will suggest that the degree to which you trust a particular person to do a particular thing will vary inversely with the degree to which you must rely, for the motivation or justification of your trusting response, on reasons that concern the importance, or value, or necessity of having such a response.
                  Cover page: The reasons of trust
                  • Article
                  • Peer Reviewed
                  UCLA Previously Published Works (2007)
                    Cover page: RATIONAL CAPACITY AS A CONDITION ON BLAME
                    • Article
                    General Aspects of Law Seminar (2004)

                    The paper argues that there is a hazard to avoid when offering a moral justification: the hazard of relying on what I call "extrinsic reasons." Extrinsic reasons count in favor of performing an action and yet are not reasons for which one can directly perform that action. They are rather reasons for acting upon oneself to make it the case that one performs the action of which they count in favor. Acting upon yourself in this way is the alienation of the paper's title. I argue that, when extrinsic reasons are relied upon in the justification offered by a moral theory, this form of alienation threatens the coherence of the agent. The upshot is that, in offering moral justifications, moral theory must be extremely attentive to the ordinary motivations of the actions it hopes to justify.

                    In addition to the 27 pages of main text, there are an additional 16 or so pages of appendix, providing an interpretation of Williams' criticisms of moral theories according to which those criticisms are continuous with the argument of the main text. (The appendix may provide some background for those unfamiliar with the discussion.)

                      Cover page: Justification and Alienation
                      Top