Fittingness: The Sole Normative Primitive

Abstract

This paper draws on the 'Fitting Attitudes' analysis of value to argue that we should take the concept of fittingness (rather than value) as our normative primitive. I will argue that the fittingness framework enhances the clarity and expressive power of our normative theorizing. Along the way, we will see how the fittingness framework illuminates our understanding of various moral theories, and why it casts doubt on the Global Consequentialist idea that acts and (say) eye colours are normatively on a par. We will see why even consequentialists, in taking rightness to be in some sense determined by goodness, should not think that rightness is conceptually reducible to goodness. Finally, I will use the fittingness view to explicate the distinction between consequentialist and deontological theories, with particular attention to the contentious case of Rule Consequentialism.

Willpower Satisficing

“…Other kinds of judgment‐sensitive attitudes, such as beliefs and emotions, might be subject to non‐consequentialist (e.g. epistemic) norms, and the consequentialist should feel no pressure to deny this (Chappell ). As such, it is open to the consequentialist to draw upon the resources of these non‐consequentialist norms when appropriate.…”

In Defense of the Wrong Kind of Reason

“…We can understand RKRs to ϕ more precisely as considerations that count in favor of ϕ‐ing which go some way towards making it the case that—or explaining why—ϕ‐ing would be, to at least some degree, fitting or correct. For a similar view, see Chappell (). Thanks to an anonymous referee for pressing me to be more precise about the above characterization of RKRs.…”

“…Heathwood () points to the fact that ‘fitting’ is a gradable adjective (p. 58). And so too do Chappell () and Zimmerman (), among others.…”

Reasons as Premises of Good Reasoning

“…As well as the primitivist and value‐based views noted earlier, there is also the view that reasons are evidence, or explanations, of what you ought to do (see, respectively, Kearns and Star, ; Broome, ) or of correctness (Thomson, ; Chappell, ).…”