Doing what is best

Philosophical Quarterly

Volumn 50, Issue 199, 2000, Pages 208-226

  Piller, Christian ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF YORK   (United Kingdom)

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Indexed keywords

EID: 60949332937     PISSN: 00318094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9213.00180     Document Type: Article

References (10)

1. See D.K. Lewis, 'Desire as Belief', Mind, 97 (1988), pp. 323-32;
2. its sequel 'Desire as Belief II', Mind, 105 (1996), pp. 303-13.
3. The view expressed here makes all theories teleological: what one rationally ought to do is determined by what is good. Deontological theories would form a subgroup distinguished from the others by their account of what makes an option good. For example, an action whose maxim does not pass the categorical imperative test can never be good. For further discussion of this view see J. Broome, Weighing Goods (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), pp. 1-16.
4. Such a view is developed in M. Slote, Beyond Optimizing (Harvard UP, 1989).
5. I have simplified a bit. (P3) does not allow for degrees of goodness - either something is good or it is not. It allows for degrees of beliefs in respect to goodness, but these cannot capture degrees of goodness. There is a difference between being totally convinced that my phone only works half the time and thinking that there is a 50-50 chance that my phone works perfectly. Lewis' proof is not affected by removing this simplification. See Lewis, 'Desire as Belief' pp. 330-1; and §IV below.
6. Huw Price, 'Defending Desire-as-Belief', Mind, 98 (1989), pp. 119-27.
7. Price, 'Defending Desire-as-Belief';
8. J. Broome, 'Desire, Belief and Expectation', Mind, 100 (1991), pp. 265-7;
9. G. Oddie, 'Harmony, Purity, Truth', Mind, 103 (1994), pp. 451-72.
10. The same criticism applies to the three lemmas derived in Lewis, 'Desire as Belief II' pp. 310-II, where Lewis criticizes Price's suggestion mentioned above.