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Displaying: 1-5 of 5 documents


1. The Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 117 > Issue: 10
Jessica Isserow Moral Worth: Having It Both Ways
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It is commonly recognized that one can act rightly without being praiseworthy for doing so. Those who act rightly from ignoble motives, for instance, do not strike us as fitting targets of moral praise; their actions seem to lack moral worth. Though there is broad agreement that only certain kinds of motives confer moral worth on our actions, there is disagreement as to which ones are up to the task. Many theorists confine themselves to two possibilities: praiseworthy agents are thought to be motivated by either (1) the consideration that their actions are morally right, or (2) the considerations that explain why their actions are morally right (where the ‘or’ is exclusive). Though there is an important element of truth in these proposals, each has limited explanatory purchase. In this paper, I develop a pluralist conception of moral worth that acknowledges both sorts of motives as grounds for moral praise.
2. The Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 117 > Issue: 10
Michael J. Raven Is Logic Out of This World?
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Is logic out of this world? This elusive question reveals a tension in our thinking about the basis of logic: both worldly and unworldly answers get something right and yet they conflict. My aim is to clarify the question and explore a conciliatory answer. I focus on a characterization of unworldliness in terms of ground. This allows for a distinction between proximal and distal unworldliness. That in turn reconfigures our approach to the question. It may now be taken as asking for the proximal or the distal basis of logic. This helps alleviate the tension because the answer for the one need not conflict with a different answer for the other. I explore a case study culminating in an illustration of how a logical truth may indeed be proximally worldly but distally unworldly. I conclude by considering some potential extensions.
3. The Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 117 > Issue: 10
Johan E. Gustafsson, Wlodek Rabinowicz A Simpler, More Compelling Money Pump with Foresight
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One might think that money pumps directed at agents with cyclic preferences can be avoided by foresight. This view was challenged two decades ago by the discovery of a money pump with foresight, which works against agents who use backward induction. But backward induction implausibly assumes that the agent would act rationally and retain her trust in her future rationality even at choice nodes that could only be reached if she were to act irrationally. This worry does not apply to BI-terminating decision problems, where at each choice node backward induction prescribes a move that terminates further action. For BI-terminating decision problems, it is enough to assume that rationality and trust in rationality are retained at choice nodes reachable by rational moves. The old money pump with foresight was not BI-terminating. In this paper, we present a new money pump with foresight, one that is both BI-terminating and considerably simpler.
4. The Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 117 > Issue: 10
New Books: Anthologies
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5. The Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 117 > Issue: 10
Call for Submissions: The Isaac Levi Prize
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