Abstract
I consider a wide variety of objections, including concerns about regresses, authority, ontological extravagance, and supposed threats to normative theorizing. In all cases the objections are shown either to be misguided or question begging.
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- 1.
My imaginary critic is, I think, confusing explanatory reasons with normative reasons. If Reason favours me getting a drink due to the fact I am thirsty, then something about me—my being in a state of thirst—is causally responsible for Reason’s attitudes. And we often refer to the causes of things as ‘reasons’. “The earthquake was the reason the bridge collapsed” for instance. And thus, it may true that there are reasons—causes—for all of Reason’s attitudes. But explanatory reasons are not necessarily normative reasons, and so from the fact—if it is a fact—that there explanatory reasons for Reason’s attitudes it does not follow that there are normative reasons for Reason’s attitudes.
- 2.
Scanlon (2003) makes the same point, though from a non-naturalist perspective (p. 14).
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For instance, a philpapers survey of philosophy faculty shows that at present only 14.6% of respondents accept or lean toward theism (https://philpapers.org/surveys/).
- 4.
This is not to dismiss the idea that the natural world might be composed of the mental states of a mind, as someone like Berkeley would maintain. The claim that nature is a mind, or is minded, is distinct from the claim that it is constituted by a mind’s mental states.
- 5.
Here my view contrasts somewhat with Aristotle’s that it is the older generation that are likely to possess greater moral insight.
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Harrison, G.K. (2018). A Miscellany of Objections. In: Normative Reasons and Theism. Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90796-3_9
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