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Personal ideals and rationally impotent desires

Reitsma, Regan Lance
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1190123916

Abstract Details

2007, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Philosophy.
A practical reason, in my terminology, is a consideration in favor of doing something, a normative entity that ought to be weighed in when deciding what to do. A neo-Humean subjectivist about practical reasons thinks that there is, in the very least, a standard connection between having a basic, unmotivated desire and having a practical reason to take the means to its satisfaction. Harry Frankfurt, a neo-Humean, believes that this standard connection is sometimes severed. In some instances, an agent has a basic desire, recognizes one or more adequate means, and yet has no practical reason whatsoever to take any of these means because the desire itself “does not deserve a voice” in practical deliberation. Call a desire that is not able to generate practical reasons a “rationally impotent desire.” Is Frankfurt correct? Are there rationally impotent basic desires? And is the neo-Humean able to explain how a basic desire is able to be rendered rationally impotent? I argue that there are rationally impotent basic desires; that the neo-Humean is able to account for them, by appealing to volitional norms contained in personal ideals; and that my subjectivist account of rationally impotent basic desires is stronger and more plausible than the proposals made by Kant and the neo-Kantian Christine Korsgaard.
Donald Hubin (Advisor)
321 p.
Philosophy
Hume; Kant; Frankfurt; Korsgaard; practical reason; rationally impotent desires; categorical norms; personal ideals; the will

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Reitsma, R. L. (2007). Personal ideals and rationally impotent desires [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1190123916

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Reitsma, Regan. Personal ideals and rationally impotent desires. 2007. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1190123916.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Reitsma, Regan. "Personal ideals and rationally impotent desires." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1190123916

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1190123916
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© 2007, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.