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Publications
'Fittingness: The Sole Normative Primitive' [pdf], forthcoming in Philosophical Quarterly. (Previous working title: 'Fitting Attitudes for Consequentialists')
This paper draws on the 'Fitting Attitudes' analysis of value to argue that we should take the concept of fittingness (rather than value) as our normative primitive. I will argue that the fittingness framework enhances the clarity and expressive power of our normative theorizing. Along the way, we will see how the fittingness framework illuminates our understanding of various moral theories, and why it casts doubt on the Global Consequentialist idea that acts and (say) eye colours are normatively on a par. We will see why even consequentialists, in taking rightness to be in some sense determined by goodness, should not think that rightness is conceptually reducible to goodness. Finally, I will use the fittingness view to explicate the distinction between consequentialist and deontological theories, with particular attention to the contentious case of Rule Consequentialism.
'Knowing What Matters' [pdf], forthcoming in Peter Singer (ed.), Does Anything Really Matter? Responses to Parfit.
Parfit's On What Matters offers a rousing defence of non-naturalist normative realism against pressing metaphysical and epistemological objections. He addresses skeptical arguments based on (i) the causal origins of our normative beliefs, and (ii) the appearance of pervasive moral disagreement. In both cases, he concedes the first step to the skeptic, but draws a subsequent distinction with which he hopes to stem the skeptic's advance. I argue, however, that these distinctions cannot bear the weight that Parfit places on them. A successful moral epistemology must take a harder line with the skeptic, insisting that moral knowledge can be had by those with the right kind of psychology -- no matter the evolutionary origin of the psychology, nor whether we can demonstrate its reliability over the alternatives.
Works in Progress
'The Fitting and the Fortunate' [pdf] (under R&R at Nous).
Critics of consequentialism often object to how a consequentialist agent would (allegedly) think. They claim that the consequentialist agent is, in some sense, a bad character: cold and calculating, alienated from themselves and others, etc. Defenders of consequentialism typically dismiss such objections by citing the distinction between 'criteria of rightness' and 'decision procedures'. (Utility provides the criterion that determines the moral status of an act, but it's a further question whether agents ought to attempt to calculate utilities themselves. If it'd have bad results then consequentialists would recommend against it!) However, I argue that the strongest objection in this vicinity is not just that thinking like a consequentialist would have bad results, but that such a psychology would be morally perverse, in a sense that's incompatible with the psychology in question constituting a morally accurate way of thinking. I then assess several instances of this argument form, with particular attention to the 'value receptacle' objection.
'What's Fit for the Fallible' [pdf].
What would a utilitarian agent look like? Some have taken the answer to describe an agent so incompetent and perverse that it casts doubt on utilitarianism itself. In this paper, I develop the strongest form of this 'self-effacingness' objection to utilitarianism, based on the idea of a constitutive link between rationality and normally competent agency. Assuming this understanding of rationality for sake of argument, I then suggest two ways to defend utilitarianism. One appeals to a Railtonian 'sophisticated' or two-level utilitarian psychology, though I suggest some potential problems for this approach. The second involves showing how we can develop a direct utilitarian psychology within rational constraints. In the course of distinguishing these two alternative paths, I make a distinction between dispositions that are 'extrinsically desirable' and those that are desirable in virtue of being 'well calibrated for action' -- a distinction that I then employ to illuminate the Gauthier-Parfit debate about whether it's rational to act on rationally desirable dispositions.
'Mind-Body Meets Metaethics: The Moral Concept Strategy' [pdf] (with Helen Yetter Chappell).
The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between anti-physicalist arguments in the philosophy of mind and anti-naturalist arguments in metaethics, and to show how the literature on the mind-body problem can inform metaethics. Among the questions we will consider are: (1) whether a moral parallel of the knowledge argument can be constructed to create trouble for naturalists, (2) the relationship between such a “Moral Knowledge Argument” and the familiar Open Question Argument, and (3) how naturalists can respond to the Moral Twin Earth argument. We will give particular attention to recent arguments in the philosophy of mind that aim to show that anti-physicalist arguments can be defused by acknowledging a distinctive kind of conceptual dualism between the phenomenal and the physical. This tactic for evading anti-physicalist arguments has come to be known as the Phenomenal Concept Strategy. We will propose a metaethical version of this strategy, which we shall call the ‘Moral Concept Strategy’. We suggest that the Moral Concept Strategy offers the most promising way out of these anti-naturalist arguments, though significant challenges remain.
Old Favourites (unpublished work)
'Modal Rationalism' [pdf] (ANU Honours Thesis, supervised by David Chalmers) explores the relation between apriority and metaphysical necessity.
'Global Rationality' [pdf] argues for rational holism, the view that in any given situation: one rationally ought to act and reason as one would recommend from a timeless perspective.
'Value Holism' [pdf] considers the relation between the value of a whole (person, society) and its parts (timeslices, individuals), arguing that the contributory value of a part cannot be determined in isolation. For example, the value of an additional life may depend on what other lives there are. This has important implications for population ethics, and especially Parfit's 'repugnant conclusion'.
'Rule By The People' [pdf] explores the conditions under which a state might be described as genuinely ruled by the people.
Contact
Richard Yetter ChappellPhilosophy Department
1879 Hall, Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544
Feedback welcome!