• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • UA Graduate and Undergraduate Research
    • UA Theses and Dissertations
    • Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • UA Graduate and Undergraduate Research
    • UA Theses and Dissertations
    • Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of UA Campus RepositoryCommunitiesTitleAuthorsIssue DateSubmit DateSubjectsPublisherJournalThis CollectionTitleAuthorsIssue DateSubmit DateSubjectsPublisherJournal

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    About

    AboutUA Faculty PublicationsUA DissertationsUA Master's ThesesUA Honors ThesesUA PressUA YearbooksUA CatalogsUA Libraries

    Statistics

    Most Popular ItemsStatistics by CountryMost Popular Authors

    The Fundamentality of Fit

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    azu_etd_15692_sip1_m.pdf
    Size:
    573.4Kb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Howard, Christopher
    Issue Date
    2017
    Advisor
    Timmons, Mark
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Publisher
    The University of Arizona.
    Rights
    Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
    Embargo
    Release after 06-Sep-2019
    Abstract
    Normative reasons for attitudes are facts that count in favor of those attitudes, but a fact can favor an attitude in two very different ways. One way in which a fact can favor an attitude is by making the attitude fitting (apt, merited, correct). For example, the fact that Sharon spends much of her time doing charity work is a fact that favors admiring Sharon, since it’s a fact that makes her admirable, and so fit to admire. Call any fact that favors an attitude by making it fitting a "fit-related reason." A second way in which a fact can favor an attitude is by making the attitude somehow valuable, or good to have. For example, the fact that an evil dictator will order my execution unless I admire him is a fact that favors my admiring the dictator, since it's a fact that makes my admiring him good. Call any fact that favors an attitude by making it somehow good to have a "value-related reason." This dissertation has two main goals. The first is to develop an ontology of normativity that can accommodate a view on which both fit- and value-related reasons are genuine reasons. Many authors, including Derek Parfit, T.M. Scanlon, and Mark Schroeder, favor a "reasons-first" ontology of normativity: they take reasons to be normatively basic, and claim that all other normative facts, properties, and relations can be analyzed or accounted for in terms of the reason relation. A central alternative, famously defended by G.E. Moore in Principia Ethica, is the "value-first" ontology—an ontology that takes value or goodness to be normatively basic and claims that the rest of the normative can be accounted for in terms of the property of being good. In the opening chapter of my dissertation, "The Fundamentality of Fit," I advance an ontology of normativity, originally suggested by Franz Brentano and A.C. Ewing, according to which fittingness is the basic normative relation, in terms of which the rest of the normative can be explained. I argue that neither the reasons- nor the value-first ontology can accommodate a view on which both fit- and value-related reasons are genuine reasons. Then I explain how my "fittingness-first" ontology can. Of course, any threat to the plausibility of the view that both fit- and value-related reasons are genuine reasons would undermine the case for my ontology of normativity. And so a full defense of my fittingness-first ontology will require a systematic defense of the substantive normative view it's designed to accommodate. The second goal of my dissertation is to provide this defense. A normative view that says that both fit- and value-related reasons are genuine reasons consists in three component claims: (1) that fit-related reasons are genuine reasons; (2) that value-related reasons are genuine reasons; and (3) that fit- and value-related reasons can be compared against one another to yield univocal verdicts concerning what attitudes one ought, all-things-considered, to have. The first of these claims—that fit-related reasons are genuine reasons—is among the most widely shared in contemporary normative theory. The latter two, however, are more controversial. In the second and third chapters of this dissertation, I defend each of these claims in turn. One way to showcase the plausibility of a normative view that says that both fit- and value-related reasons are genuine reasons is to show that it explains our intuitions in a variety of substantive normative debates. This would, in turn, provide support for my fittingness-first ontology, since, relative to its main competitors, my ontology uniquely accommodates and predicts such a view. In the final chapter, I put this methodological observation into practice by testing the substantive normative predictions of my fittingness-first view against our intuitions in the debate concerning what kinds of considerations can provide reasons for love. I argue that acknowledging the existence of both fit- and value-related reasons for love solves a number of persistent problems in this debate.
    Type
    text
    Electronic Dissertation
    Degree Name
    Ph.D.
    Degree Level
    doctoral
    Degree Program
    Graduate College
    Philosophy
    Degree Grantor
    University of Arizona
    Collections
    Dissertations

    entitlement

     
    The University of Arizona Libraries | 1510 E. University Blvd. | Tucson, AZ 85721-0055
    Tel 520-621-6442 | repository@u.library.arizona.edu
    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2017  DuraSpace
    Quick Guide | Contact Us | Send Feedback
    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.