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2007-2010

Belief, Responsibility, and Action (HUM2006-04907/FISO)

Main Researcher: Carlos Moya

Universitat de Valčncia

 

The general aim of the project is to elucidate of the connection between belief, action and responsibility. To this end, we intend to inquire into a number of closely related questions.

 First of all, we investigate the nature of reasons (especially beliefs) and their relationship to action. One of the hypotheses we want to explore is that, unlike what has been traditionally assumed, reasons are not mental states, but states of affairs, as such authors as Dancy or Raz have sustained. Moreover, motivational force would belong to those states of affairs, rather than to the agent’s propositional attitude.

 The second central aspect of our project is the problem of responsibility, with respect to which we intend to show that, traditional views to the contrary notwithstanding, beliefs can contribute to grounding responsibility attributions. This is the basis of what might be called a cognitive approach to moral responsibility, which contrasts with traditional conative or volitive approaches and allows for a novel treatment of some sceptical positions. Even if beliefs do not depend on the will, we can none the less have some form of control over them and indeed a control that is deep enough for us to be justifiably held praise- or blameworthy for having them and for the actions they may give rise to. This research hypothesis is intended to continue and develop further Carlos Moya’s Moral Responsibility: the ways of scepticism.

 Such a perspective will also allow us to account for self-knowledge (understood as immediate, non-inferential and at the same time epistemologically privileged knowledge of our own mental states and attitudes) in a way that keeps it closely connected with agency (as Richard Moran has recently insisted) while simultaneously avoiding voluntaristic positions according to which agents’ control over their mental life would rest on their will and choices.

   

2003-2006

Motivation, Reasoning and Truth (BFF2003-08335-C03-01)

Coordinator: Josep E. Corbí Fernández de Ibarra

Universitat de Barcelona, Universidad de Murcia and Universitat de Valčncia

 

The dominant conception of the self is inspired in the ideal of a pure deliberator who reasons appropriately by controlling her passions. Desires, emotions and interests are viewed in this picture as arbitrary data about the subject's psychology that can only be rationally assessed from an instrumental point of view. This picture of the self and of the role of desires and emotions in the search of truth derives from an epistemology that emphasizes careful observation, experimental design and unprejudiced experimental reports. This epistemology has favored the enormous scientific and technological progress of the last centuries.

 The aim of the Coordinated Research Project is to explore the virtues and limitations of this picture of ideal reasoning and the subsequent conception of the self. It will adopt two complementary perspectives which, we hope, will converge in a stimulating discussion and a significant refinement of the detailed philosophical proposals that we may eventually make.

 The subproject of Barcelona will try to show that there is nothing genuinely special about the so called special contexts, like moral and aesthetical discourse, or even fiction. They will defend that the features of truth and its cognates in 'normal' (i.e. descriptive or theoretical) discursive contexts also suffice to account for the use of such notions in so called special discourses.

 The subprojects of Murcia and Valencia will focus on moral and aesthetic experiences. They will try to show that the analysis of these experiences naturally leads to a notion of a competent deliberator that challenges the dominant conception of the self and of reasoning. This alternative conception also applies to theoretical and descriptive discourse and cast light on some central philosophical issues like the foundationalism-relativism dilemma, the fact/value distinction or free will.

 

2003-2006

Creencia, Motivación y Verdad (BFF2003-08335-C03-01)

Main Researcher: Josep E. Corbí Fernández de Ibarra

Universitat de Valčncia

2000-2003

Deliberación, Realismo y verdad  (BFF2000-1073-C04-03)

Main Researcher: Josep E. Corbí Fernández de Ibarra

Universitat de Valčncia

Universitat de Valčncia