Some of the most challenging questions in philosophical ethics concern the justification of action. Can you have reasons to do something that you are not, and perhaps cannot be, motivated to do? If reasons rest on desires, why respect the rights and interests of others when doing so prevents us from getting what we want? In other words, why be moral? In his 1979 essay, "Internal and External Reasons," Bernard Williams framed the dispute about reason and motivation in a way that captured the philosophical imagination. An explosion of work on reasons and action followed, with influential...
Some of the most challenging questions in philosophical ethics concern the justification of action. Can you have reasons to do something that you a...
Can we have objective knowledge of right and wrong, of how we should live and what there is reason to do? The thought that we can is beset by sceptical problems. In the face of radical disagreement, can we be sure that we are not deceived? If the facts are independent of what we think, is our reliability a mere coincidence? Can it be anything but luck when our beliefs are true? In Knowing Right From Wrong, Kieran Setiya confronts these questions in their most compelling and articulate forms: the argument from ethical disagreement; the argument from reliability and coincidence; and...
Can we have objective knowledge of right and wrong, of how we should live and what there is reason to do? The thought that we can is beset by sceptica...
