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    A rational agent's voluntary response to a reason cannot ... — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    A rational agent's voluntary response to a reason cannot consist in behavior motivated by a desire caused by recognizing that reason

    Free Will & ForeknowledgeMoral Responsibility
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Kant's distinction between acting from duty and merely in accordance with duty shows that genuine rational agency requires the reason itself—not a desire it produces—to be the motivating ground.
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    • 2.If a desire mediates between the recognized reason and the behavior, the agent is ultimately responding to the desire's pull, not to the normative force of the reason as such.
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    • 3.Responding to the normative force of a reason as such is constitutive of rational agency in a way that desire-mediated responses structurally cannot be.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Korsgaard's constitutivism holds that rational agency requires the agent to reflectively endorse the source of motivation, not merely undergo a causal process triggered by reason-recognition.
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    • 2.A desire caused by recognizing a reason is a psychological event that happens to the agent, bypassing the reflective self-governance that distinguishes voluntary rational response from mere causal reaction.
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    • 3.Because the desire is caused rather than constituted by the agent's deliberative endorsement, the resulting behavior traces back to a passively received state, undermining its status as a voluntary response.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Humans cannot desire at will
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    • 2.If humans cannot desire at will, then the causation of a new desire by recognizing a reason is a nonvoluntary response
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    • 3.Behavior motivated by a nonvoluntarily-caused desire does not qualify as a voluntary response to the reason that caused the desire, even if the behavior itself is voluntary
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    Moral ResponsibilityFree Will & Foreknowledge

    Related

    A desire caused by recognizing a reason is a psychological event that happens to...Because the desire is caused rather than constituted by the agent's deliberative...Behavior motivated by a nonvoluntarily-caused desire does not qualify as a volun...Humans cannot desire at will
    +5 moreShow less
    If a desire mediates between the recognized reason and the behavior, the agent i...If humans cannot desire at will, then the causation of a new desire by recognizi...Kant's distinction between acting from duty and merely in accordance with duty s...Korsgaard's constitutivism holds that rational agency requires the agent to refl...Responding to the normative force of a reason as such is constitutive of rationa...

    Similar

    A rational agent's recognition of a reason entails the presence of a r...89%Behavior motivated by a nonvoluntarily-caused desire does not qualify ...85%Some reasons exist precisely because an agent is not fully rational.83%If an agent can be irrational or vicious due to lacking certain desire...83%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: reasons-internal-external
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    A connection is then forged between voluntary behavior and desire. Arguably, a behavior is only voluntary if it is caused by being aimed at. On one theory of desire, aiming at p entails desiring something (either p itself, or something to which p is taken to be a means). It follows that a rational agent’s recognition of a reason entails the presence of a relevant desire. This does not yet rule out externalism, which is compatible with this result if any of a number of different claims are true.
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit