Document Type
Journal article
Source Publication
Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition
Publication Date
3-2016
Volume
173
Issue
3
First Page
629
Last Page
663
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Keywords
Reasons, Obligations, Normative conflicts, Deontic logic
Abstract
One of the popular albeit controversial ideas in the last century of moral philosophy is that what we ought to do is explained by our reasons. And one of the central features of reasons that accounts for their popularity among normative theorists is that they can conflict. But I argue that the fact that reasons conflict actually also poses two closely related problems for this popular idea in moral philosophy. The first problem is a generalization of a problem in deontic logic concerning the existence of conflicting obligations. The second problem arises from a tension between the fact that reasons can conflict and a model of how reasons explain ‘ought’s that has been widely accepted. Having presented each of these problems, I develop a unified solution to them that is informed by results in both ethics and deontic logic. An important implication of this solution is that we must distinguish between derivative and nonderivative reasons and revise our conception how it is that reasons explain ‘ought’s .
DOI
10.1007/s11098-015-0511-4
Print ISSN
00318116
E-ISSN
15730883
Publisher Statement
Copyright © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015.
Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.
Full-text Version
Accepted Author Manuscript
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Nair, S. (2015). Conflicting reasons, unconflicting ‘ought’s. Philosophical Studies. 173(3), 629-663. doi: 10.1007/s11098-015-0511-4