Blind rule-following and the regress of motivations

Bibliographic Data

ID21335484
AuthorsZachary Mitchell Swindlehurst (aSchool of Philosophy, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume66
Issue6
Pages1170-1183
Publication date2023-07-03
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInquiry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-174X • E-ISSN: 1502-3923
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0020174x.2020.1799858
OpenAlexW3047579012
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited35

Normativists about belief hold that belief formation is essentially rule- or norm-guided. On this view, certain norms are constitutive of or essential to belief in such a way that no mental state not guided by those norms counts as a belief, properly construed. In recent influential work, Kathrin Glüer and Åsa Wikforss develop novel arguments against normativism. According to their regress of motivations argument, not all belief formation can be rule- or norm-guided, on pain of a vicious infinite regress. I argue that the regress of motivations argument is unsuccessful: an appeal to the notion of blind rule-following, drawn from a plausible interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following, stops the regress of motivations in its tracks

Appeal · Argument (complex analysis) · Cognitive psychology · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy) · Mental state · Norm (philosophy) · Political science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology · Social Psychology · Theology and Philosophy of Evil

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