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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
A person who sees that she morally ought to do something might wonder whether it would make sense for her to do it. Perhaps Aurelia is on a crowded bus, standing next to an old man whose wallet is almost falling out of his pocket. She says, “I see that the morally right thing would be to warn this man to take care of his wallet. But why should I do the right thing? In fact, why shouldn't I steal his wallet? It would be wrong of me to do this, but so what? No one is looking. I won't get caught. What's to fear?“
We can imagine different scenarios of this kind. In one scenario, Aurelia is on the verge of deciding to steal the old man's wallet. She believes it would be wrong to do this, and she is asking whether there is any (further) reason not to go ahead.
I am grateful to Sam Black, Josh Gert, Evan Tiffany, and Jon Tresan for helpful and challenging comments on an early draft of this paper.
2 I thank Josh Gert for helpful discussion of this example.
3 Prichard, H.A. “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?”, in Moral Obligatio11: Essays and Lectures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949), 1–17Google Scholar (at 1). This essay was first published in Mind 21 (I 912), 21-37.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., 1-2.
6 Ibid., 1.
7 Ibid., 13-14.
8 Ibid., 16.
9 Ibid., 8.
10 Ibid., 13-14.
11 Ibid., 16.
12 Ibid., 9.
13 Ibid., 7-9.
14 Ibid., 2-7.
15 Ibid., 1.
16 Ibid., 1-2.
17 Ibid., 16.
18 Ibid., 1.
19 I thank Sam Black, Josh Gert, and Evan Tiffany for pressing me to clarify this usage.
20 There is also an explanatory use of “makes sense,” as in the claim that evolutionary biology can “make sense” of biological diversity. I will avoid this usage. All actions can perhaps be explained, at least in principle, but many actions do not make sense (in the sense of the expression that interests me) since people sometimes act without a suitable and sufficient justification.
21 One might of course stipulate that this is how one will use the expression “makes sense.” Obviously I have no objection to this stipulation, but I use the expression differently, as I explain in the text. Allan Gibbard uses the expression as equivalent to “rational” in one use of the latter term. See Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 37.Google Scholar
22 Copp, David “The Ring of Gyges: Overridingness and the Unity of Reason,“ in Copp, DavidMorality in a Natural World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 284–308;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also Copp, David “Normativity, Deliberation, and Queerness,“ in A World without Values: Essays on Jolm Mackie's Error Theory ed. Joyce, Richard and Kirchin, Simon (Berlin: Springer, 2009).Google Scholar
23 See Copp, “Normativity, Deliberation, and Queerness.“
24 Ibid.
25 Wolfe, Susan “Moral Saints.” Journal of Philosophy 79 (1982): 419-39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Nagel, Thomas “The Fragmentation of Value,” in Mortal Problems (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 128-41.Google Scholar
26 See Kavka, Gregory “The Reconciliation Project,” in Morality, Reason, and Truth, ed. Copp, David and Zimmerman, David (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 1984), 297–319.Google Scholar In some discussions of morality and self-interest, the background assumption might be that, rationality aside, people are generally motivated by self-interest. I am not here concerned with questions about motivation.
27 David Copp, “The Normativity of Self-Grounded Reason,” in Copp, Morality in a Natural World (2007), 309-353.
28 Smith, Michael “In Defense of The Moral Problem,” Ethics 108 (1997): 91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29 Copp, “The Normativity of Self-Grounded Reason“; see also Copp, “The Ring of Gyges: Overridingness and the Unity of Reason.“
30 Both of the questions may be motivated by a desire to understand morality and moral reasons rather than by any indecision about how to act or how to live.
31 Gauthier, DavidMorals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar
32 I discussed Gauthier's approach in Copp, David “Contractarianism and Moral Skepticism,” in Contractarianism and Rational Choice: Essays on Gauthier, ed. Vallentyne, Peter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 196–228,Google Scholar and in Copp, DavidMorality, Normativity, and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).Google Scholar See Superson, AnitaThe Moral Skeptic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).Google Scholar
33 Smith, MichaelThe Moral Problem (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).Google Scholar
34 See Smith, MichaelEthics and the A Priori (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
35 I discussed Smith's view in Copp, David “Belief, Reason, and Motivation: Michael Smith's The Moral Problem,” Ethics 108 (1997): 33–54,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and in Copp, David “Review of Michael Smith, Ethics and the A Priori: Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Meta-Ethics,” Mind 115 (2006): 476-81.Google Scholar
36 Korsgaard, ChristineThe Sources of Normativity, ed. O'Neill, Onora (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
37 I discuss Korsgaard's argument in David Copp, “Moral Naturalism and Three Grades of Normativity,” in Copp, Morality in a Natural World, 249-83; and in Copp, David “Korsgaard on Rationality, Identity, and the Grounds of Norrnativity,“ in Rationality, Realism, Revision, ed. Nida-Rumelin, Julian (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999), 572-81.Google Scholar
38 Joyce, RichardThe Myth of Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
39 Ibid., 50.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid., 51.
42 I proposed a free-standing account in Copp, “The Norrnativity of Self-Grounded Reason.“
43 Copp, David “Toward a Pluralist and Teleological Theory of Normativity,“ Philosophical Issues 19 (2009), 21–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
44 Scanlon, T. M. “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” in Utilitarianism and Beyond, ed. Sen, Amartya and Williams, Bernard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 103–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
45 Pamela Hieronymi, “The Appeal of Contractualism: A(nother) Restatement.“ An unpublished paper presented to the 2008 Dubrovnik Conference in Moral Philosophy.
46 Scanlon, “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” 127.Google Scholar
47 Scanlon, T. M.What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 1.Google Scholar
48 Ibid., 4.
49 Ibid., 153. Scanlon limits the scope of his account to our duties to other people (6).
50 Ibid., 5.
51 Ibid., 11.
52 It follows, that is, that any set of principles (of the right kind) that no one could reasonably reject (for the right purpose) disallows the plot. This entails, on Scanlon's account as he formulates it, that the plot is impermissible. It does not entail that there is a set of principles (of the right kind) that no one could reasonably reject (for the right purpose). For it simply means, on the standard analysis, that if there is a set of principles (of the right kind) that no one could reasonably reject (for the right purpose), that set of principles disallows the plot. This leaves open the possibility that there is no such set of principles. It leaves open the possibility that, say, Gyges could reasonably reject any set of principles that would disallow the plot. I discuss this issue in the text.
53 Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other, 213-14.
54 Ibid., 5
55 Ibid., 10.
56 Copp, Morality, NormatiPity, and Society, and David Copp, Morality i11 a Natural World.
57 Scanlon, Wlzat We Owe to Each Other, 9Google Scholar (emphasis added).
58 Copp, “Toward a Pluralist and Teleological Theory of Normativity.“
59 For more detail, see Copp, “Toward a Pluralist and Teleological Theory of Normativity.“
60 Mackie, J. L.Morality: Inventing Right and Wrong (Harrnondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1977), 121.Google Scholar
61 Ibid., Ill.
62 For more detailed development of this idea, see Copp, “Toward a Pluralist and Teleological Theory of Normativity.“
63 Copp, “The Normativity of Self-Grounded Reason“; and Copp, “Toward a Pluralist and Teleological Theory of Normativity.“
64 I am here focusing on what I call the “basic” society-centered theory. See Copp, Moralitl﹛ in a Natural World, 18-21. The theory I presented originally in 1995 in Morality, Normatil'ity, and Society was not free-standing in the sense I am exploring here. I discussed the differences between the original and the basic theories in Copp, Morality in a Natural World.
65 For some amendments, see David Copp, Morality, Normatility, and Society, 198-200; Copp, David “Moral Knowledge in Society-Centered Moral Theory,“ in Moral Knowledge? New Readings in Moral Epistemology, ed. Armstrong, Walter Sinnott and Timmons, Mark (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 257-58.Google Scholar See also the introduction to Copp, Morality in a Natural World.
66 Copp, Morality, Normativity, and Society; Copp “Moral Knowledge in SocietyCentered Moral Theory“; Copp, Morality in a Natural World, 16-26.
67 I mentioned a ‘functionalist’ interpretation of society-centred theory in Copp, Morality, Nonnativity, and Society, 110-12.
68 Mackie, Morality: inventing Riglit and Wrong, 111.Google Scholar
69 Prichard, “Does Moral Philosophy …”, 3.Google Scholar
70 Darwall, StephenThe Second Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 15–17.Google Scholar
71 Ibid., 17.
72 Ibid., 36.
73 Copp, Morality, Normativity, and Society, 201-9.
74 But see Copp, “Normativity, Deliberation, and Queerness.“