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Filosofiska
Notiser Årgång 7, Nr 2, 2020
Susanne Henningsson
The Role of Identification for the Motivational Force of Moral
Judgments
Abstract
What is the relationship between judging something as good and being
motivated to act on this judgment? Motivational internalism is the
thesis that there is a necessary connection between moral judgments
and motivation. In contrast, externalists typically believe that
a judgment-independent desire is needed for the moral judgment to
be motivating. To bridge the gap between internalism and externalism,
a few philosophers have appealed to theories of identification-based
moral judgments. It has been argued that certain moral judgments
that are incompatible with a person’s identity can be used to show
that not all moral judgments are necessarily motivating, and it
has been suggested that it is possible to define a certain kind
of necessarily motivating identification-based moral judgment. Herein
I will examine the role identification plays for moral motivation.
I will first analyse an argument that aims to show that internalism
is false by claiming that certain identificationincompatible moral
judgments preclude motivation. I will argue that this argument does
not succeed in showing that internalism is false. Second, I will
argue that identification can provide the motivational force needed
to make certain identity-based moral judgments necessarily motivating.
This identification-based account does however, I will argue, not
support internalism; despite presenting a kind of moral judgment
that is necessarily motivating, this account of the connection between
moral judgments and motivation is an externalist account because
a judgment-independent desire is a necessary source of its motivational
force.
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Salomon de Leeuw
Okontrollerat folkstyre? Utvärdering av några vanliga argument
emot direktdemokrati
Abstrakt
Direktdemokrati är ett statsskick som ofta anses underlägsen representativdemokrati,
men vilka argument talar för detta? Syftet med denna uppsats är
att utvärdera huruvida några vanliga argument emot direktdemokrati
är tillräckligt starka för att avfärda påståendet att direktdemokrati
är ett statsskick som förtjänar att undersökas närmare. Frågeställningen
som jag ämnar besvara är således: vilka är några vanliga argument
emot direktdemokrati och hur starka är dessa argument? Först presenteras
några vanliga argument emot direktdemokrati som diskuteras i boken
The New Challenge for Direct Democracy (1996) skriven av
Ian Budge, professor emeritus i statsvetenskap. Därefter framförs
invändningar emot dessa argument. Med hänsyn till dessa invändningar
utvärderas slutligen om, och varför, argumenten emot direktdemokrati
är starka eller inte. Utvärderingens slutsats är att argumenten
emot direktdemokrati endast är starka gentemot stereotypa former
av statsskicket.
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Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup
Essentially Indexical Higher-Order Thoughts and Dispositions
of Inexistent Mental States
Abstract
In a recent paper, Miguel Sebastián has posed an objection to the
higher-order thought theory of consciousness. The higher-order thought
theory of consciousness holds that a mental state is conscious when
it is the intentional object of a higher-order thought (HOT). Often,
the HOT is conceived to be essentially indexical. This means that
the HOT somehow picks out the individual who tokens it. Sebastián
argues that the way David Rosenthal conceives of the essential indexicality
of higher-order thoughts leads to a vicious regress. The regress
is vicious, or so it is argued, because our cognitive capacities
cannot cater to infinite strings of HOTs. Therefore, according to
Sebastián, the higher-order thought theory fails to provide a satisfactory
account of consciousness. In this paper, I argue that the way Sebastián
sets up the regress argument relies on the implausible view that
inexistent mental states have real dispositions on par with the
dispositions of ‘real’ occurrent mental states. This means that
the regress cannot get off the ground. In addition to this, I argue
that the fact that there are limits to the cognitive capacities
of humans is not in itself an argument against the HOT theory. Despite
dismissing Sebastián’s regress argument, I see value in the discussion
of the indexicality criterion, and to precipitate this I consider
the possibility that the indexicality of HOTs may be transitive,
and explore possible ways to ground such a transitive conception
of indexicality.
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Miguel Ángel Sebastián
Vicious Dispositions Back to the problem of essential indexicality
for Higher-Order Theories
Abstract
The Vicious Dispositions argument (Sebastián, 2018a) argues
that Rosenthal’s theory of self-reference —essential for his theory
of consciousness— is inadequate because it is implausible that we
have the cognitive capacities that it demands. Kirkeby-Hinrup (2020)
replies that the argument fails because it assumes that the properties
associated with non-existing states have the same ontological status
as the properties of existing states. He also suggests alternatives
to Rosenthal’s account of self-representation. In this paper I argue
that the vicious dispositions argument does not rest on any ontological
assumption regarding the properties of non-existing objects and
that it only relies on the dispositional characterization of the
required capacity to deploy the self concept. I also cast doubts
on KirkebyHinrup’s positive proposal. My aim is not to argue that
it leads to a dead end, but rather contribute to clarifying what
the theory requires.
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Voltaire Djia
Von Wright and Wittgenstein on Ethics and Logic: Deontic Logic
Against Ethical Mysticism
Abstract
Von Wright’s philosophy is seldom seen as original when compared
to that of his master, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Contrary to that orientation,
this work seeks to establish the opposition of von Wright to Wittgenstein
in relation to the question of whether ethics is an area where logic
can legitimately extend. For Wittgenstein, logic deals with what
is necessarily true. On the basis of this characterization of logic,
Wittgenstein thinks that logic cannot legitimately help to capture
ethics for the reason that the referents of ethical discourse are
not in the world. Only the referents of scientific discourse are
there. For Wittgenstein, therefore, we must adopt a mystical position
in ethics both by giving it the greatest importance but also by
applying the greatest silence. Von Wright admits, following Wittgenstein,
the varieties of goodness. However, he stresses that the varieties
of goodness do not leave room for absolute relativism. Norms have
both a prescriptive dimension that can be relative to a culture,
and a descriptive dimension that makes them assessable to logical
standards.
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