Getting Things Right: Fittingness, Reasons, and Value

by Conor McHugh, Jonathan Way

Overview

Some of our attitudes are fitting, others unfitting. It seems fitting to admire Mandela, but not Idi Amin, and to believe that the Seine flows through Paris, but not that the Thames does. Fitting attitudes get things right. Conor McHugh and Jonathan Way argue that fittingness is the key to understanding the normative domain—the domain of reasons, obligations, and value. They develop and defend a novel 'fittingness first' approach, on which fittingness is a normatively basic property and all other normative properties depend on fittingness. They show how this approach illuminates central questions in ethics and epistemology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198810322
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/28/2023
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Conor McHugh, University of Southampton, Jonathan Way, niversity of Southampton

Conor McHugh is Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Southampton. He has worked on a range of topics in epistemology, value theory, and philosophy of mind. These include the nature of belief and of attitudes more generally, normativity, reasons and reasoning, mental agency, doxastic non-voluntarism, and self-knowledge. He has published on these topics in leading journals such as Ethics, Mind, and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. He is the co-editor, with Jonathan Way and Daniel Whiting, of Normativity: Epistemic and Practical (OUP, 2018) and Metaepistemology (OUP, 2018).

Jonathan Way is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton. He works on a range of topics in ethics and epistemology. He is especially interested in questions about reasons, rationality, value, and normativity, across the epistemic, practical, and affective domains. He has published on these issues in leading journals such as Ethics, Mind, and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. He is the co-editor, with Conor McHugh and Daniel Whiting, of Normativity: Epistemic and Practical (OUP, 2018) and Metaepistemology (OUP, 2018).

Table of Contents

AcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Reasons2. Good Reasoning3. Fittingness4. Value5. The Explanatory Role of Reasons I: The Weights of Reasons6. The Explanatory Role of Reasons II: From Weights to Deontic Status7. Reasons for Belief, Action and EmotionsConclusionBibliographyIndex

Editorial Reviews

"A model of clarity, packed with arguments. A must-read for anyone working on normativity." — Hille Paakkunainen, Syracuse University

"This excellent book offers the most comprehensive and compelling development to date of the important fittingness-first approach to normative theorizing. It is essential reading for philosophers interested in the nature of normative reasons and normativity more broadly." — Justin Snedegar, University of St. Andrews

From the Publisher