著者

田村 圭一

出版者

The Philosophical Association of Japan

雑誌

哲学 (ISSN:03873358)

巻号頁・発行日

no.55, pp.206-217,30, 2004

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Cognitivism in ethics can be divided into two branches. One is naturalism and the other is intuitionism. Intuitionism is cognitivist internalism, that is, the claim that cognitive states, i. e., beliefs, can motivate an agent to action without the assistance of desires. But cognitivist internalism faces two kinds of problems, i. e., weakness of will and accidie. In order to clear cognitivist internalism of these difficulties, we have to revise Humean motivational theory. Humeanism is the claim that beliefs cannot motivate an agent without the assistance of relevant desires. Only desires can motivate in their own right and their motivation is <I>necessary</I>. T. Nagel's cognitiv-ist internalism and J. McDowell's are partially committed to Humeanism, because they tacitly admit that cognitive states should <I>necessarily</I> motivate. J. Dancy tries to revise Humeanism. According to him, cognitive states can motivate in their own right, but their motivation is <I>contingent</I>.<BR>Dancy's cognitivist internalism accepts particularism, which adopts a holistic un-derstanding of the behaviour of moral reasons.Particularists reject the generalist as-sumption that a cognitive state which behaves in a given case in favour of an action should behave similarly in every case. Cognitivist internalists, therefore, can escape their traditional difficulties when they adopt particularism.