Abstract
In an overlooked section of his influential book What We Owe to Each Other Thomas Scanlon advances an argument against the desire-model of practical reasoning. In Scanlon’s view the model gives a distorted picture of the structure of our practical thinking. His idea is that there is an alternative to the “weighing behavior” of reasons, a particular way in which reasons can relate to each other. This phenomenon, which the paper calls “silencing”, is not something that the desire-model can accommodate, or so Scanlon argues. The paper first presents and interprets Scanlon’s challenge. After this, the paper argues, through the examination of three responses, that Scanlon is right in claiming that the model cannot accommodate the phenomenon as he describes it. However, the paper further argues that there is no need to accept Scanlon’s depiction of silencing: advocates of the model can give an alternative account of what happens in cases of silencing that is just as plausible as Scanlon’s own. Scanlon’s challenge is thus, the paper concludes, illegitimate. (169)
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Notes
To my knowledge the only discussion is in Arkonovich (2001), section 4.
Admittedly, my understanding of practical reasoning, hence the connection between the two desire-models, presupposes the idea that practical deliberation is about reasons. This is not an undisputed thesis, but since, as far as I know, Scanlon himself adheres to it, I think there is no need to defend it in this paper. For a discussion and defense see Schroeder (2007), pp. 26–9; Goldman (2005), pp. 505–9 and (2006), p. 472.
Although Scanlon (1998: 33–41) argues that seemings of reasons motivate in their own right, this need not falsify this claim. First, it is not clear that he thinks that only seemings can motivate; hence it is unclear whether he would hold that in the absence of normative seemings, no motivation is possible. It is more likely that he would instead point out that the result of subjective silencing is that the agent does not judge some consideration to be a reason that appears to him to be a reason; or that even if subjective silencing takes away both judgment and seeming, the temptations cited are either not desires or are urges that cannot provide reasons.
Arkonovich (2001: 517–8) also advances this response. His idea is that, once we admit that it is not an ad hoc feature of desires in the subjective desire-model that they have a deliberative role, Scanlon’s challenge is disarmed. However, from the claim that desires have also a deliberative role, it does not follow that they have the particular role that a response to Scanlon’s challenge needs.
This idea is inspired by G. H. von Wright’s (1963) account of preferences.
Hubin’s words suggest that a version of Bernard Williams’ “one thought too many” argument may also be used to explain cases of swamping. The claim would be that it is unattractive to consider some consideration as a reason in the face of certain other reasons, even if these reasons apply to the case. This addition, however, is not about the structure of practical reasoning but about its content; hence it is of no interest to us.
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Acknowledgments
This paper has benefited from the comments of audiences in Stockholm and Konstanz. My conversations, in these and other occasions, with Christoph Fehige were particularly instructive for writing the section on the idea of conditioning. I would also like to thank an anonymous referee of this journal for very helpful comments that have led to a major restructuring and revision of the paper. Research on this paper has been funded by a project grant of the German Research Foundation (Grant number: TA 820/1-1).
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Tanyi, A. Silencing Desires?. Philosophia 41, 887–903 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-012-9407-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-012-9407-0