Conor Mchugh
Biographic Data
| ID | 1040955 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Conor Mchugh |
| GIVEN NAMES | Conor |
| FAMILY NAME | Mchugh |
| SIGNATURE | MCHUGH C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southampton |
| ORCID | 0009-0009-6730-1442 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 49 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Logic and Norms of Reasoning
This paper defends the view that logic gives norms for reasoning. This view is often thought to be problematic given that logic is not itself a theory of reasoning and that valid inferences can lead to silly or pointless beliefs. To defend it, I highlight an overlooked distinction between norms for reasoning and norms for belief. With this distinction in hand, I motivate and defend a straightforward account of how logic gives norms for reasoning,…
Norms of Reasoning
When we reason, we can be assessed against diverse norms. Unfortunately different types of such norms are often conflated. This article distinguishes some different types of norms to which we are subject when we reason, and shows how this can help to clarify certain philosophical debates. It then considers, briefly, 'norms of starting points', and, at more length, 'norms of transitions'. In closing it briefly considers whether we might expect to …
All Reasons Are Fundamentally for Attitudes
As rational agents, we are governed by reasons. The fact that there is beer at the pub might be a reason to go there and a reason to believe you will enjoy it. As this example illustrates, there are reasons for both action and for belief. There are also many other responses for which there seem to be reasons—for example, desire, regret, admiration, and blame. This diversity raises questions about how reasons for different responses relate to each…
Normativity
What should I do? What should I think? Traditionally, ethicists tackle the first question, while epistemologists tackle the second. This division of labour corresponds to a distinction theorists draw between practical and epistemic normativity, where normativity is a matter of what one should or may do or think, what one has reason or justification to do or to think, what it is right or wrong to do or to think, and so on. Philosophers have tended…
Two Theses about the Distinctness of Practical and Theoretical Normativity
In a tradition linked to Aristotle and Kant, it has become common for contemporary philosophers to treat practical and theoretical normativity as constituting two genuinely distinct domains. Despite this, it remains unclear what it is, or would be, for practical and theoretical normativity to in fact be distinct domains. This chapter considers the question of what it is for normative domains to be distinct and proposes that there are two differen…
Engel on doxastic correctness
Attitudinal control
Fittingness First
According to the fitting-attitudes account of value, for X to be good is for it to be fitting to value X. But what is it for an attitude to be fitting? A popular recent view is that it is for there to be sufficient reason for the attitude. In this article we argue that proponents of the fitting-attitudes account should reject this view and instead take fittingness as basic. In this way they avoid the notorious ‘wrong kind of reason’ problem and c…
What is Good Reasoning
What makes the difference between good and bad reasoning? In this paper we defend a novel account of good reasoning—both theoretical and practical—according to which it preserves fittingness or correctness : good reasoning is reasoning which is such as to take you from fitting attitudes to further fitting attitudes, other things equal. This account, we argue, is preferable to two others that feature in the recent literature. The first, which has …
The Truth Norm of Belief
I argue that, if belief is subject to a norm of truth, then that norm is evaluative rather than prescriptive in character. No prescriptive norm of truth is both plausible as a norm that we are subject to, and also capable of explaining what the truth norm of belief is supposed to explain. Candidate prescriptive norms also have implausible consequences for the normative status of withholding belief. An evaluative norm fares better in all of these …
Belief and aims
Epistemic Deontology and Voluntariness
Exercising Doxastic Freedom
This paper defends the possibility of doxastic freedom, arguing that doxastic freedom should be modelled not on freedom of action but on freedom of intention. Freedom of action is exercised by agents like us, I argue, through voluntary control. This involves two conditions, intentions‐reactivity and reasons‐reactivity, that are not met in the case of doxastic states. Freedom of intention is central to our agency and to our moral responsibility, b…
What Assertion Doesn't Show
Some recent arguments against the classical invariantist account of knowledge exploit the idea that there is a ‘knowledge norm’ for assertion. It is claimed that, given the existence of this norm, certain intuitions about assertability support contextualism, or contrastivism, over classical invariantism. In this paper I show that, even if we accept the existence of a knowledge norm, these assertability‐based arguments fail. The classical invarian…
Self-knowledge and the KK principle
Judging as a non-voluntary action
Exercising Doxastic Freedom
This paper defends the possibility of doxastic freedom, arguing that doxastic freedom should be modelled not on freedom of action but on freedom of intention. Freedom of action is exercised by agents like us, I argue, through voluntary control. This involves two conditions, intentions‐reactivity and reasons‐reactivity, that are not met in the case of doxastic states. Freedom of intention is central to our agency and to our moral responsibility, b…
What is Good Reasoning
What makes the difference between good and bad reasoning? In this paper we defend a novel account of good reasoning—both theoretical and practical—according to which it preserves fittingness or correctness : good reasoning is reasoning which is such as to take you from fitting attitudes to further fitting attitudes, other things equal. This account, we argue, is preferable to two others that feature in the recent literature. The first, which has …
Self-knowledge and the KK principle
Attitudinal control
Norms of Reasoning
When we reason, we can be assessed against diverse norms. Unfortunately different types of such norms are often conflated. This article distinguishes some different types of norms to which we are subject when we reason, and shows how this can help to clarify certain philosophical debates. It then considers, briefly, 'norms of starting points', and, at more length, 'norms of transitions'. In closing it briefly considers whether we might expect to …
Engel on doxastic correctness
Judging as a non-voluntary action
What Assertion Doesn't Show
Some recent arguments against the classical invariantist account of knowledge exploit the idea that there is a ‘knowledge norm’ for assertion. It is claimed that, given the existence of this norm, certain intuitions about assertability support contextualism, or contrastivism, over classical invariantism. In this paper I show that, even if we accept the existence of a knowledge norm, these assertability‐based arguments fail. The classical invarian…
Self-knowledge and the KK principle
Belief and aims
Epistemic Deontology and Voluntariness
Exercising Doxastic Freedom
This paper defends the possibility of doxastic freedom, arguing that doxastic freedom should be modelled not on freedom of action but on freedom of intention. Freedom of action is exercised by agents like us, I argue, through voluntary control. This involves two conditions, intentions‐reactivity and reasons‐reactivity, that are not met in the case of doxastic states. Freedom of intention is central to our agency and to our moral responsibility, b…
The Truth Norm of Belief
I argue that, if belief is subject to a norm of truth, then that norm is evaluative rather than prescriptive in character. No prescriptive norm of truth is both plausible as a norm that we are subject to, and also capable of explaining what the truth norm of belief is supposed to explain. Candidate prescriptive norms also have implausible consequences for the normative status of withholding belief. An evaluative norm fares better in all of these …
Fittingness First
According to the fitting-attitudes account of value, for X to be good is for it to be fitting to value X. But what is it for an attitude to be fitting? A popular recent view is that it is for there to be sufficient reason for the attitude. In this article we argue that proponents of the fitting-attitudes account should reject this view and instead take fittingness as basic. In this way they avoid the notorious ‘wrong kind of reason’ problem and c…
What is Good Reasoning
What makes the difference between good and bad reasoning? In this paper we defend a novel account of good reasoning—both theoretical and practical—according to which it preserves fittingness or correctness : good reasoning is reasoning which is such as to take you from fitting attitudes to further fitting attitudes, other things equal. This account, we argue, is preferable to two others that feature in the recent literature. The first, which has …
Engel on doxastic correctness
Attitudinal control
Normativity
What should I do? What should I think? Traditionally, ethicists tackle the first question, while epistemologists tackle the second. This division of labour corresponds to a distinction theorists draw between practical and epistemic normativity, where normativity is a matter of what one should or may do or think, what one has reason or justification to do or to think, what it is right or wrong to do or to think, and so on. Philosophers have tended…
Two Theses about the Distinctness of Practical and Theoretical Normativity
In a tradition linked to Aristotle and Kant, it has become common for contemporary philosophers to treat practical and theoretical normativity as constituting two genuinely distinct domains. Despite this, it remains unclear what it is, or would be, for practical and theoretical normativity to in fact be distinct domains. This chapter considers the question of what it is for normative domains to be distinct and proposes that there are two differen…
All Reasons Are Fundamentally for Attitudes
As rational agents, we are governed by reasons. The fact that there is beer at the pub might be a reason to go there and a reason to believe you will enjoy it. As this example illustrates, there are reasons for both action and for belief. There are also many other responses for which there seem to be reasons—for example, desire, regret, admiration, and blame. This diversity raises questions about how reasons for different responses relate to each…
Norms of Reasoning
When we reason, we can be assessed against diverse norms. Unfortunately different types of such norms are often conflated. This article distinguishes some different types of norms to which we are subject when we reason, and shows how this can help to clarify certain philosophical debates. It then considers, briefly, 'norms of starting points', and, at more length, 'norms of transitions'. In closing it briefly considers whether we might expect to …
Logic and Norms of Reasoning
This paper defends the view that logic gives norms for reasoning. This view is often thought to be problematic given that logic is not itself a theory of reasoning and that valid inferences can lead to silly or pointless beliefs. To defend it, I highlight an overlooked distinction between norms for reasoning and norms for belief. With this distinction in hand, I motivate and defend a straightforward account of how logic gives norms for reasoning,…
Epistemology (16 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (13 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Free Will and Agency (9 works) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (7 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (7 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Metaphysics (5 works) · Philosophy of language (5 works)