Moral worth

Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 99, Issue 5, 2002, Pages 223-245

  Arpaly, Nomy ^a  

^a RICE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34548701994     PISSN: 0022362X     EISSN: 19398549     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3655647     Document Type: Article

References (18)

1. Note that the moral worth of an action is the extent to which the agentdeserves praise or blame for the action, not the extent to which the agentshould be morally praised or blamed for it. The purpose of this work is tocapture the conditions under which praise or blame is warranted, not those underwhich it is required. See my "Hamlet and the Utilitarians, "Philosophical Studies, XCIX (2000): 45-57.
2. Alasdair Maclntyre, "Is Akratic Action Always Irrational?," in Owen Flanagan and Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, eds., Identity, Character and Morality(Cambridge: MIT, 1990), pp. 379-400;
3. and Robert Audi, "Weakness of Will and Rational Action, "Australasian Journal of Philosophy, LXVIII (1990): 271-81. The case of Neoptolemus as described in the Nicomachean Ethics also counts as a case ofinverse akrasia, so long as we have a Davidsonian and not an Aristotelianconcept of akrasia in mind.
4. The Works of Mark Twain, Volume 8 (Berkeley: California, 1988).
5. "The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn," Philosophy, XLIX (1974):123-34.
6. For an alternative, sophisticated treatment of Huckleberry Finn, see Thomas Hill, "Four Conceptions of Conscience," Nomos, LX (1998):13-52.
7. Julia Driver also takes for granted that Huckleberry's action is meant tobe understood as praise-worthy, but her account of this praiseworthiness iscompletely independent of Huckleberry's motives and reasons; see her "The Virtues and Human Nature," in Roger Crisp, ed., How Should One Live? Essayson the Virtues (New York: Oxford, 1996), pp. 111-30.
8. On Virtue Ethics (New York: Oxford, 2000).
9. For a sense of the diversity of prevailing views, see, for example, Fred Dretske, Explaining Behavior (Cambridge: MIT, 1988);
10. Robert Stalnaker, Inquiry (Cambridge: MIT, 1984);
11. Galen Strawson, Mental Reality (Cambridge: MIT, 1994).
12. My discussion of the philanthropists owes a lot to Rosalind Hursthouse,"Ethics and the Emotions," in Daniel Statman, ed., Virtue Ethics(Washington, DC: Georgetown, 1997), pp. 99-118;
13. and Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices (Berkeley: California UP, 1978).
14. For a discussion of related themes, see John McDowell, "Virtue and Reason," The Monist, LXII (1979): 331-50.
15. See John Doris, Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior (New York: Cambridge, forthcoming);
16. and Gilbert Harman, "Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology:Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Error," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, XCIX (1998-99): 315-31.
17. Hill, "Four Conceptions of Conscience," Nomos, LX (1998):13-52.
18. The Sources of Normativity (New York: Cambridge, 1996), p. 105.