Against Some Recent Arguments for ‘Ought’ Implies ‘Can’: Reasons, Deliberation, Trying, and Furniture

Theoretical Motivation of “Ought Implies Can”

“…The fact that not having an ability seems relevant to explaining the absence of obligation in a particular circumstance does not justify the conclusion that obligation entails ability, just as for any A and B, the observation that not-B seems related to not-A fails to justify the claim that A entails B. In the present case, this conclusion is not justified, of course because it is possible that inability sometimes or even frequently limits certain moral obligations involving, say, time travel or health miracles without moral obligation going so far as to entail ability (for other challenges and responses to the argument, see Henne et al 2019;Streumer 2018). And when appealing to an inference to the best explanation, and especially in the context of points raised above, the possibility of weaker relationships between these concepts should be preferred over the strongest possible relationship between them.…”

Recent experimental work on “ought” implies “can”

“…Kohl, ; Ranganathan, ; Stern, ), Sidgwick (), Moore (), Parfit (), Zimmerman (), Vranas (), and many others endorse this principle. Some philosophers provide arguments for (Streumer, , , ) and against (Brownlee, ; Henne, Semler, Chituc, De Brigard, & Sinnott‐Armstrong, ; Heuer, ) OIC. Many philosophers, however, simply assume the principle.…”

Recent Experimental Work on ‘Ought’ Implies ‘Can’

“…Stern 2004;Ranganathan, 2010;Kohl, 2015), Sidgwick (1907), Moore (1922), Parfit (1984), Zimmerman (1996), Vranas (2007), and many others endorse this principle. Some philosophers provide arguments for (Streumer, 2007; and against (Brownlee, 2010;Heuer, 2010;Henne & Semler et al, 2018) OIC. Many philosophers, however, simply assume the principle.…”