A New Defense of the Motive of Duty Thesis

According to the Motive of Duty Thesis, a necessary condition for an action to have moral worth is that it be motivated at least in part by a normative assessment of the action. However, this thesis has been subject to two powerful objections. It has been accused of over-intellectualizing moral agen...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Wald, Benjamin (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Springer Science + Business Media B. V [2018]
Dans: Ethical theory and moral practice
Année: 2018, Volume: 21, Numéro: 5, Pages: 1163-1179
RelBib Classification:NCA Éthique
VA Philosophie
Sujets non-standardisés:B Motive of duty
B Guise of the good
B Moral Worth
Accès en ligne: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Résumé:According to the Motive of Duty Thesis, a necessary condition for an action to have moral worth is that it be motivated at least in part by a normative assessment of the action. However, this thesis has been subject to two powerful objections. It has been accused of over-intellectualizing moral agency, and of giving the wrong verdict when it comes to people who hold false moral theories that convince them that their actions are in fact morally wrong. I argue that both of these objections can be convincingly answered using resources from the Guise of the Good view, which holds that for an agent to intend to requires that they take ?ing to be good. Furthermore, I argue that combining the motive of duty thesis with the Guise of the Good view allows us to recognize an important further condition on moral worth-namely, that the agent recognize that their reason for action requires, rather than merely permits, their action. Thus, while no action lacks moral worth in virtue of being motivated by no normative evaluation at all, an action can still lack moral worth in virtue of failing to be motived by the correct normative evaluation, namely that the action is required.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contient:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10677-018-9957-8