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    Internalism's necessary condition claim entails that agen... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Extensional counterexamples involving unusual desires (eating mud, counting grass, turning on radios) do not refute internalism about practical reasons

    Internalism's necessary condition claim entails that agents with radically deviant desires (e.g., counting grass) can have reasons others lack, which is itself a counterintuitive result.

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    1 reason for
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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Internalism makes reasons dependent on agent desires; grass-counting desires generate grass-counting reasons for that agent alone.
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    • 2.This consequence reveals internalism conflicts with our intuition that reasons are objective and shared across agents.
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    • 3.Counterintuitive results that follow necessarily from a theory's core commitments are evidence against that theory's truth.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Why assume 'counterintuitiveness' tracks truth? Folk intuitions about reasons often reflect limited experience, not metaphysical reality.
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    • 2.Internalism's result—that grass-counters have grass-counting reasons—is actually coherent and defensible, not absurd on reflection.
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    • 3.Objectivity of reasons doesn't require uniformity across agents; agent-relative reasons can still be real and rationally binding.
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    Key Terms

    Counterintuitive(describes the strange result that the statement's logic produces)
    A conclusion that seems wrong or goes against what we'd normally expect, even if it might be logically correct.
    Internalism(Moral psychology; used to characterize the relationship between moral judgment and motivation)
    The view that it is a logical or conceptual truth that some degree of motivation is internal to a moral judgment itself — that making a genuine moral claim entails being motivated to some degree.
    agent(Economics terminology applied to medical ethics)
    The party in a principal-agent relationship who is instructed to produce the good or service on the principal's behalf — in the medical context, the doctor
    entails(describes a logical relationship between statements)
    Logically forces or guarantees; if A entails B, then whenever A is true, B must also be true.
    necessary condition(Counterfactual analysis of causation; Mackie 1965, 1974)
    A condition C is necessary for event E if E would not have occurred in the absence of C

    Connections

    2 topics

    Truth & Knowledge1 linkedMoral Responsibility1 linked

    Related

    Counterintuitive results that follow necessarily from a theory's core commitment...Extensional counterexamples involving unusual desires (eating mud, counting gras...Internalism makes reasons dependent on agent desires; grass-counting desires gen...Internalism's result—that grass-counters have grass-counting reasons—is actually...
    +3 moreShow less
    Objectivity of reasons doesn't require uniformity across agents; agent-relative ...This consequence reveals internalism conflicts with our intuition that reasons a...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    Why assume 'counterintuitiveness' tracks truth? Folk intuitions about reasons of...