Moore’s paradox in belief and desire
Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
3-2014
Abstract
Is there a Moore’s paradox in desire? I give a normative explanation of the epistemic irrationality, and hence absurdity, of Moorean belief that builds on Green and Williams’ normative account of absurdity. This explains why Moorean beliefs are normally irrational and thus absurd, while some Moorean beliefs are absurd without being irrational. Then I defend constructing a Moorean desire as the syntactic counterpart of a Moorean belief and distinguish it from a ‘Frankfurt’ conjunction of desires. Next I discuss putative examples of rational and irrational desires, suggesting that there are norms of rational desire. Then I examine David Wall’s groundbreaking argument that Moorean desires are always unreasonable. Next I show against this that there are rational as well as irrational Moorean desires. Those that are irrational are also absurd, although there seem to be absurd desires that are not irrational. I conclude that certain norms of rational desire should be rejected.
Keywords
Moore, paradox, Belief, Desire, Norms, Absurdity, Irrationality
Discipline
Philosophy
Research Areas
Humanities
Publication
Acta Analytica
Volume
29
Issue
1
First Page
1
Last Page
23
ISSN
0353-5150
Identifier
10.1007/s12136-013-0189-1
Publisher
Springer Verlag
Citation
WILLIAMS, John N..(2014). Moore’s paradox in belief and desire. Acta Analytica, 29(1), 1-23.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1362
Copyright Owner and License
Author
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-013-0189-1