XV—Agents and Patients, or: What We Learn About Reasons for Action by Reflecting on Our Choices in Process‐of‐Thought Cases

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 112 (3pt3):309-331 (2012)
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Abstract

Can we draw substantive conclusions about the reasons for action agents have from premisses about the desires of their idealized counterparts? The answer is that we can. The argument for this conclusion is Rawlsian in spirit, focusing on the choices that our idealized counterparts must make simply in virtue of being ideal, and inferring from these choices the contents of the desires that they must have. It turns out that our idealized counterparts must have desires in which we ourselves figure as both agents and patients, and in which others must figure too, though only as patients.

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Michael Smith
Manchester Metropolitan University

References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Joseph Margolis - 1984 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (2):311-327.
The Possibility of Altruism.John Benson - 1972 - Philosophical Quarterly 22 (86):82-83.
Michael Smith: The Moral Problem. [REVIEW]James Lenman - 1994 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1 (1):125-126.

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