The Humean Theory of Motivation Reformulated and Defended

Sinhababu, Neil

doi:10.1215/00318108-2009-015

Cited by 73 publications

(32 citation statements)

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“…I thank an anonymous referee for raising this issue. 21 Someone in philosophy who holds a simple belief view is Sinhababu (2009 Norenzayan (2012) show that for both religious and non--religious people, having to perform an analytic task, such as math problems, reduces the tendency to report belief in supernatural beings. Even looking at an image of Rodin's thinker has this tendency.…”

Section: Factual Belief: the Ancestor Is A Lifeless Corpsementioning

confidence: 99%

Religious credence is not factual belief

2014

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Section: Factual Belief: the Ancestor Is A Lifeless Corpsementioning

confidence: 99%

Religious credence is not factual belief

2014

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“…Moreover, according to the Humean, desires can fill this gap in a way that suggests elegant explanations of both widespread moral motivation and motivational failures associated 1 Proponents of some version or another of this view include Foot (2002), Stocker (1979), Williams (1981), Brink (1986;1997), Railton (1986), Smith (1994, ch. 4), Mele (1995;1996;, Svavarsdóttir (1999), Roskies (2003), Zangwill (2008a;2008b) and Sinhababu (2009). 2 The labels "internalism" and "externalism" derive from Falk (1986).…”

Section: Humean Externalism and The Argument From Depressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humean Externalism and the Argument from Depression

Swartzer

2017

JESP

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Several prominent philosophers have argued that the fact that depressed agents sometimes make moral judgments without being appropriately motivated supports Humean externalism – the view that moral motivation must be explained in terms of desires that are distinct from or “external” to an agent’s motivationally inert moral judgments. This essay argues that such motivational failures do not, in fact, provide evidence for this view. I argue that, if the externalist argument from depression is to undermine a philo-sophically important version of internalism, it must make use of a general assumption about motivational states. However, at a reasonable level of abstraction, the needed assumption also implies that even desires could not be effective sources of motivation. For, just as depressed agents might sometimes lack motivation to act consistently with their moral judgments, they also sometimes lack motivation to pursue their desires. Moreover, the most plausible responses that Humeans can give to this general argument undermine the externalist case against internalism. Thus, there is a deep tension between the argument from depression for externalism and a fundamental Humean commitment.

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“…Williams (1979Williams ( /1981, Velleman (1992), Lenman (1996), Zangwill (2003), Mele (2003), Finlay (2007), Sinhababu (2009). 4 E.g.…”

Section: Humeanism Vs Rationalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But they appeal to the famed razor to shift the case in their favor. Sinhababu (2009) has recently employed this strategy in an explicit way:…”

Section: Parsimonymentioning

confidence: 99%

Because I Believe It’s the Right Thing to Do

May

2012

Ethic Theory Moral Prac

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Abstract:Our beliefs about which actions we ought to perform clearly have an effect on what we do. But so-called "Humean" theories-holding that all motivation has its source in desire-insist on connecting such beliefs with an antecedent motive. Rationalists, on the other hand, allow normative beliefs a more independent role. I argue in favor of the rationalist view in two stages. First, I show that the Humean theory rules out some of the ways we ordinarily explain actions. This shifts the burden of proof onto Humeans to motivate their more restrictive, revisionary account. Second, I show that they are unlikely to discharge this burden because the key arguments in favor of the Humean theory fail. I focus on some of the most potent and most recent lines of argument, which appeal to either parsimony, the teleological nature of motivation, or the structure of practical reasoning.

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The Humean Theory of Motivation Reformulated and Defended

Cited by 73 publications

References 0 publications

Religious credence is not factual belief

Religious credence is not factual belief

Humean Externalism and the Argument from Depression

Because I Believe It’s the Right Thing to Do

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