Moral Philosophy Seminar (Monday - Week 7, MT26)

Abstract: Sometimes we create, through our actions, reasons that either we or others wouldn’t have had otherwise. When you recklessly step into a road, you may create a reason for the driver of an oncoming car to hit the brakes that they would not have had but for your action. When you validly promise to do something, you put yourself under an obligation to act as promised which you wouldn’t have had otherwise. I make a case for the explanatory role of normative powers for certain kinds of reason-giving (e.g. promises, but not ‘reckless pedestrian’) and explore in what ways exercises of normative powers adhere to and differ from Enoch’s model of ‘triggering reasons.’ The rationale for normative powers that I offer brings out the differences but also helps to dissolve the puzzlement that afflicts them.

Registration: If you do not hold a university card, please contact the seminar convenor or admin@philosophy.ox.ac.uk at least two working days before a seminar to register your attendance.

_{Workshop in Moral Philosophy Convenor: David Owens}