PHIL 440A:

STUDY QUESTIONS ON WILLIAMS, KORSGAARD, AND HAMPTON

Questions on Williams:

1. What is the sub-Humean model of practical reasoning? Does Williams accept it?

2. What kind of reasoning does Williams count as practical reasoning?

3. What does Williams mean by a subjective motivational set?

4. What does Williams mean by an internal reason?

5. What does Williams mean by external reason?

6. How does Williams use the Owen Wingrave example to argue that there are no external reasons?

Questions on Korsgaard:

7. What does Korsgaard mean by content skepticism and motivational skepticism? Which one is her paper about?

8. What does Korsgaard mean by an internalist and an externalist moral theory?

9. Korsgaard provides an analogy to theoretical reasoning (reasoning about what it is rational to believe). What is the analogy? What does it show?

10. What is Korsgaard's internalism requirement for practical reason? [Hint: It is not the same as Williams's claim that all practical reasons are internal reasons, in his sense. Why not?] What is the corresponding internalism requirement for theoretical reason?

11. What are Korsgaard's examples of the prudent person and the determined or resolute person intended to show?

12. What does Korsgaard mean by "pure practical reasons"?

13. What is Korsgaard's reply to Williams?

14. What does Korsgaard mean when she says, "The necessity is in the law, not in us."?

Questions on Hampton:

15. What does Hampton mean by "the revisers" and "the overhaulers"?

16. What does Hampton mean by a norm?

17. How does Hampton use the "companions in guilt" strategy?

18. What does Hampton mean when she says, "To be able to reason instrumentally, we must be able to reason non-instrumentally? [For your information, transitivity is the requirement that one not prefer A to B and B to C and C to A.]

19. What is Hampton's Consequentialist Norm? [We will call it the Instrumentalist Norm.]

20. What does the example of Hampton's curmudgeon show about the Instrumentalist Norm?