Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T15:38:36.212Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Figuring Out How to Proceed with Evaluation After Figuring Out What Matters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2016

CHRISOULA ANDREOU
CHRISOULA ANDREOU*
Affiliation:
University of Utah
*
*<[email protected]>
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I focus on David Gauthier’s intriguing suggestion that actions are not to be evaluated directly but via an evaluation of deliberative procedures. I argue that this suggestion is misleading, since even the most direct evaluation of (intentional) actions involves the evaluation of different ways of deliberating about what to do. Relatedly, a complete picture of what an agent is or might be (intentionally) doing cannot be disentangled from a complete picture of how s/he is or might be deliberating. A more viable contrast concerns whether actions and deliberative procedures are properly evaluated on the whole or, instead, through time.

Dans cet article, je concentre mon attention sur l’intrigante suggestion de David Gauthier voulant que les actions ne doivent pas être évaluées directement, mais par le biais d’une évaluation des procédures délibératives. Je soutiens qu’il s’agit d’une fausse piste, car même l’évaluation la plus directe d’actions (intentionnelles) implique l’évaluation de différentes façons de délibérer sur la conduite à tenir. De façon connexe, on ne peut dresser un portrait complet de ce qu’un agent fait ou pourrait faire (intentionnellement) en faisant abstraction du portrait complet de la façon dont il ou elle délibère ou pourrait délibérer. Il est plus viable de se demander si les actions et les procédures délibératives sont évaluées correctement en entier ou, plutôt, à travers le temps.

Keywords

constrained maximizationDavid Gauthierdeliberative frameworkdeliberative procedureintentional actionrationalitytoxin puzzle
Type
Special Topic: Gauthier’s Contractarian Project
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 621 - 637
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreou, Chrisoula 2014 “The Good, the Bad, and the Trivial,” Philosophical Studies 169 (2), 209–225.Google Scholar
Andreou, Chrisoula 2009 “Taking On Intentions,” Ratio 22 (2), 157–169.Google Scholar
Andreou, Chrisoula 2006a “Temptation and Deliberation,” Philosophical Studies 131 (3), 583–606.Google Scholar
Andreou, Chrisoula 2006b “Might Intentions Be the Only Source of Practical Imperatives,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 9 (3), 311–325.Google Scholar
Bratman, Michael 1987 Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gauthier, David 2013 “Twenty-Five On,” Ethics 123 (4), 601–624.Google Scholar
Gauthier, David 1998 “Rethinking the Toxin Puzzle,” in Coleman, J.L. and Morris, C.W. (eds.), Rational Commitment and Social Justice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 47–58.Google Scholar
Gauthier, David 1994 “Assure and Threaten,” Ethics 104 (4), 690–721.Google Scholar
Gauthier, David 1986 Morals by Agreement, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kavka, Gregory 1983 “The Toxin Puzzle,” Analysis 43, 33–36.Google Scholar
MacIntosh, Duncan 1991 “Preference’s Progress,” Dialogue 30 (1–2), 3–32.Google Scholar
Superson, Anita 2009 The Moral Skeptic, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, Michael 2008 Life and Action, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Velleman, David 2000 “Deciding How to Decide,” in The Possibility of Practical Reason, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 221–243.Google Scholar