Motives as the heart of ethics and agency
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This work situates motives at the heart of a number of longstanding themes for ethics and agency. I begin by advancing the thesis that motives have intrinsic significance independent of outcomes: while one moral standard of rightness assesses acts according to their outcomes, a second standard assesses acts according to the motives underlying them. The dualism of being for what matters and bringing about what matters is central to ethics. I also argue that agents directly control their motives. Whereas many philosophers think that we can control our motives only indirectly, by acting on them, I hold to the contrary that this basic control over motives is what facilitates control over actions in the first place. My position implies that morality might place daunting demands on motivational capacities, an extreme example being that you ought to love your enemy. Given that your enemy may merit hate, however, the grounds for such love must lie in your own background experiences with unmerited love.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2023; ©2023 |
| Publication date | 2023; 2023 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | McDougal, Austen Drew |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Wenar, Leif |
| Thesis advisor | Wenar, Leif |
| Thesis advisor | Bobonich, Christopher |
| Thesis advisor | Dannenberg, Jorah, 1979- |
| Thesis advisor | Hussain, Nadeem J. Z |
| Thesis advisor | Maguire, Barry |
| Degree committee member | Bobonich, Christopher |
| Degree committee member | Dannenberg, Jorah, 1979- |
| Degree committee member | Hussain, Nadeem J. Z |
| Degree committee member | Maguire, Barry |
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Humanities and Sciences |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Philosophy |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Austen McDougal. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Philosophy. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2023. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/gh636cn5164 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2023 by Austen Drew McDougal
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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