6395

Tentative Weekly Assignments

Week 1

Introduction

Week 2

Bratman, Intention, Plans and Practical Reason, Chs 1-3

(Velleman, “Epistemic Freedom”)

Week 3

Frankfurt, “Freedom of the will and the concept of a Person”

(Watson,

(Kant, Groundwork, ak. 428-437)

Week 4

Velleman, “What Happens when someone Acts?”

Week 5

Scanlon, What we owe . . ., Ch. 1

Week 6

Velleman, “A Theory of Value”

Week 7

Frankfurt, “Identification and externality”

(“Identification and Wholeheartedness”)

Bratman, “Identification, decision and treating as a reason”

Week 8

Bratman, “Planning Agency, Autonomous Agency”

Week 9

Frankfurt, “The importance of what we care about”

Frankfurt, “Rationality and the unthinkable.”

Week 10

Velleman, How we get along, 1-58

Week 11

Velleman, 59-114

Week 12

Velleman, 115-158

Week 13

Velleman, 159-207

Papers for classes:

For Tuesday, Sept. 8

Write up to one page on one of the following:

1. Bratman and Frankfurt each think we have a capacity to make decisions, to “settle on” what to do. For each, who (or what?) does the deciding? What “settles” it?

2. If you start with Frankfurt’s ideas, where would they fit into Bratman’s scheme? What, if anything do they add? Are they an improvement? Why?

For Tuesday, Sept. 22

Write up to one page on the following:

Explain how Scanlon thinks reasons and desires are related.

Final Paper

Due last day of class (Before final exam period.)

Roughly 15 pages.

The following are some suggested topics. You need not stick to these topics. Whether or not you do, however, you are required to provide me with a short (one page) proposal and plan to meet with me to discuss it the first week of November. As you think about topics and proposals, I can suggest further reading.

1. Explain the distinctions among, and relations among, desires, intentions, and reasons. Part of the question here is what distinctive roles we take these things to play in explaining, understanding, and justifying actions. (Davidson, Bratman, Scanlon (on blame and on responsibility), Frankfurt)

2. Do our capacities for self-governance, if any, contribute to our ability to behave and live rationally?

3. To what extent does any of the theories of action we have discussed imply that we are, or are capable of being, autonomous, or self-governing, in any interesting sense? What implications might this have for issues about our capacity to act morally, or for whether it is appropriate to hold people responsible for their actions? (Scanlon, Velleman, Bratman, Frankfurt)

4. To shat extent—and how successfully—does Velleman, or Frankfurt provide anything that looks like a defense of morality? Specifically, do they offer reasons to conclude that morality is consistent with rationality or is grounded in rationality? Contrast with Scanlon.

5. Discuss the role, and significance, of the idea of self-presentation in Velleman’s account of rationality and of the basis for morality. (The other side of this topic is the issue of privacy and shame, addressed in separate articles by Velleman and Nagel.)

6. Is there any important respect in which Velleman’s theory is relativistic or subjective? What are the issues about relativism? (Separate articles by Scanlon, Foot.)