Jonathan Way
Biographic Data
| ID | 3597512 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jonathan Way |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jonathan |
| FAMILY NAME | Way |
| SIGNATURE | WAY J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southampton |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0610-5279 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 63 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
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…
A puzzle about enkratic reasoning
Enkratic reasoning—reasoning from believing that you ought to do something to an intention to do that thing—seems good. But there is a puzzle about how it could be. Good reasoning preserves correctness, other things equal. But enkratic reasoning does not preserve correctness. This is because what you ought to do depends on your epistemic position, but what it is correct to intend does not. In this paper, I motivate these claims and thus show that…
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: Epistemic and Practical
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…
Reasons as Premises of Good Reasoning
Many philosophers have been attracted to the view that reasons are premises of good reasoning – that reasons to φ are premises of good reasoning towards φ‐ing. However, while this reasoning view is indeed attractive, it faces a problem accommodating outweighed reasons. In this article, I argue that the standard solution to this problem is unsuccessful and propose an alternative, which draws on the idea that good patterns of reasoning can be defea…
Once I found out: Awareness of and attitudes toward coyote hunting policies in Massachusetts
Lethal management of large carnivores such as wolves, cougars, bear, bobcat, and coyotes has been found to have negative ecological, behavioral, and socio-political consequences, and has contributed to human–wildlife conflict. Recent research has documented an increase in the popularity of large predators and decrease in support for their lethal removal, particularly when methods are perceived as inhumane or unfair. Our survey results indicated t…
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 …
Two Arguments for Evidentialism
Evidentialism is the thesis that all reasons to believe p are evidence for p. Pragmatists hold that pragmatic considerations-incentives for believing-can also be reasons to believe. Nishi Shah, Thomas Kelly and others have argued for evidentialism on the grounds that incentives for belief fail a ‘reasoning constraint’ on reasons: roughly, reasons must be considerations we can reason from, but we cannot reason from incentives to belief. In the fir…
Transmission and the Wrong Kind of Reason
This essay defends fitting-attitudes accounts of value against the wrong kind of reason problem. I argue for the skeptical view that putative reasons of the wrong kind are reasons to want and bring about certain attitudes but not reasons for those attitudes. The argument turns on the transmission of reasons: the familiar fact that there is often reason for one action or attitude because there is reason for another. I argue that putative reasons o…
Two Accounts of the Normativity of Rationality
Recent views of reasons and rationality make it plausible that it can sometimes be rational to do what you have no reason to do. A number of writers have concluded that if this is so, rationality is not normative. But this is a mistake. Even if we assume a tight connection between reasons and normativity, the normativity of rationality does not require that there is always reason to be rational. The first half of this paper illustrates this point…
The Normativity of Rationality: The Normativity of Rationality
This article is an introduction to the recent debate about whether rationality is normative – that is, very roughly, about whether we should have attitudes which fit together in a coherent way. I begin by explaining an initial problem – the ‘detaching problem’– that arises on the assumption that we should have coherent attitudes. I then explain the prominent ‘wide‐scope’ solution to this problem, and some of the central objections to it. I end by…
Transmission and the Wrong Kind of Reason
This essay defends fitting-attitudes accounts of value against the wrong kind of reason problem. I argue for the skeptical view that putative reasons of the wrong kind are reasons to want and bring about certain attitudes but not reasons for those attitudes. The argument turns on the transmission of reasons: the familiar fact that there is often reason for one action or attitude because there is reason for another. I argue that putative reasons o…
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 …
Two Arguments for Evidentialism
Evidentialism is the thesis that all reasons to believe p are evidence for p. Pragmatists hold that pragmatic considerations-incentives for believing-can also be reasons to believe. Nishi Shah, Thomas Kelly and others have argued for evidentialism on the grounds that incentives for belief fail a ‘reasoning constraint’ on reasons: roughly, reasons must be considerations we can reason from, but we cannot reason from incentives to belief. In the fir…
The Normativity of Rationality: The Normativity of Rationality
This article is an introduction to the recent debate about whether rationality is normative – that is, very roughly, about whether we should have attitudes which fit together in a coherent way. I begin by explaining an initial problem – the ‘detaching problem’– that arises on the assumption that we should have coherent attitudes. I then explain the prominent ‘wide‐scope’ solution to this problem, and some of the central objections to it. I end by…
Two Accounts of the Normativity of Rationality
Recent views of reasons and rationality make it plausible that it can sometimes be rational to do what you have no reason to do. A number of writers have concluded that if this is so, rationality is not normative. But this is a mistake. Even if we assume a tight connection between reasons and normativity, the normativity of rationality does not require that there is always reason to be rational. The first half of this paper illustrates this point…
The Normativity of Rationality: The Normativity of Rationality
This article is an introduction to the recent debate about whether rationality is normative – that is, very roughly, about whether we should have attitudes which fit together in a coherent way. I begin by explaining an initial problem – the ‘detaching problem’– that arises on the assumption that we should have coherent attitudes. I then explain the prominent ‘wide‐scope’ solution to this problem, and some of the central objections to it. I end by…
Transmission and the Wrong Kind of Reason
This essay defends fitting-attitudes accounts of value against the wrong kind of reason problem. I argue for the skeptical view that putative reasons of the wrong kind are reasons to want and bring about certain attitudes but not reasons for those attitudes. The argument turns on the transmission of reasons: the familiar fact that there is often reason for one action or attitude because there is reason for another. I argue that putative reasons o…
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 …
Two Arguments for Evidentialism
Evidentialism is the thesis that all reasons to believe p are evidence for p. Pragmatists hold that pragmatic considerations-incentives for believing-can also be reasons to believe. Nishi Shah, Thomas Kelly and others have argued for evidentialism on the grounds that incentives for belief fail a ‘reasoning constraint’ on reasons: roughly, reasons must be considerations we can reason from, but we cannot reason from incentives to belief. In the fir…
Reasons as Premises of Good Reasoning
Many philosophers have been attracted to the view that reasons are premises of good reasoning – that reasons to φ are premises of good reasoning towards φ‐ing. However, while this reasoning view is indeed attractive, it faces a problem accommodating outweighed reasons. In this article, I argue that the standard solution to this problem is unsuccessful and propose an alternative, which draws on the idea that good patterns of reasoning can be defea…
Once I found out: Awareness of and attitudes toward coyote hunting policies in Massachusetts
Lethal management of large carnivores such as wolves, cougars, bear, bobcat, and coyotes has been found to have negative ecological, behavioral, and socio-political consequences, and has contributed to human–wildlife conflict. Recent research has documented an increase in the popularity of large predators and decrease in support for their lethal removal, particularly when methods are perceived as inhumane or unfair. Our survey results indicated t…
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: Epistemic and Practical
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…
A puzzle about enkratic reasoning
Enkratic reasoning—reasoning from believing that you ought to do something to an intention to do that thing—seems good. But there is a puzzle about how it could be. Good reasoning preserves correctness, other things equal. But enkratic reasoning does not preserve correctness. This is because what you ought to do depends on your epistemic position, but what it is correct to intend does not. In this paper, I motivate these claims and thus show that…
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…
Epistemology (11 works) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (7 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Economics (4 works) · Free Will and Agency (4 works) · Positive economics (4 works) · Sociology (4 works)