Garret Cullity – Reasons-Responsiveness and Morality

Reasons-Responsiveness and Morality

Conférence par/Conference by Garret Cullity (Australian National University)

31 mars/March 31st, 2023 @ 10:00 – 12:00

Où/Where: Room Leacock 808, McGill University (855 Sherbrooke St W)

*La conférence sera aussi présentée sur Zoom. /The conference will also be presented on Zoom.

Abstract/Résumé: An attractive way to conceive of morally good motivation and action is as proper responsiveness to morally relevant reasons. A kind person sees the helpfulness of an action as counting in its favour, and an honest person sees the deceptiveness of an action as counting against it, in the same sense of “counting in favour” or “against” that an action’s being pleasant or painful to you yourself counts for or against it. Supporting this view requires showing that it makes good overall sense of the structure of moral thought and experience. It also needs to be supported by an account of what it is to be responsive to reasons—an account that is broad enough to accommodate the kinds of moral goodness that we find in cases of innocent error, fluency, inarticulacy, and akrasia. In this talk, I set out an account of responsiveness to reasons that encompasses these four kinds of cases, then draw out some other helpful implications of this account.

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