Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
|
Daily Overview |
| Session | |
|
S31: Metaethics, Rationality & Decision Theory 3 Location: 23.01 3B Session Chair: Benjamin Kiesewetter | |
| Presentation 2 | |
2:15pm - 3:00pm
Moral Requirements, Practical Reasons, and Supererogation University of Bern, Switzerland What determines the moral requirements that we have? According to the widely held practical reasons view, what we are morally required to do is determined by practical reasons – reasons for performing or refraining from actions. I argue that proponents of the practical reasons view face a dilemma if they attempt to make room for supererogation by appealing to the distinction between moral and non-moral reasons. In most cases where actions are judged to be supererogatory, they must either regard them as morally required or as rationally objectionable. If the moral reasons for these so-called supererogatory actions are stronger, they must regard them as morally required; if the non-moral reasons are stronger, they must regard them as rationally objectionable. Both alternatives are undesirable, and the occasions on which neither is the case are rare. The distinction between moral and non-moral reasons does not help us out of this dilemma; rather, it leads us into it. For the practical reasons view to be defensible, it needs to be adapted so that it is no longer vulnerable to the dilemma. This applies, for example, to de Kenessey’s (2023) view, which, in the form in which it is presented, seems untenable. | |

