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Which Passions Rule?
Author(s) -
Smith Michael
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
philosophy and phenomenological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1933-1592
pISSN - 0031-8205
DOI - 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2002.tb00191.x
Subject(s) - passions , philosophy , analytic philosophy , epistemology , contemporary philosophy
Non-cognitivists hold that when we make claims about what it is desirable or undesirable to do (or good or bad, or right or wrong, or sensible or stupid-from here-on I will omit these) we thereby express desires and aversions, in some suitably broad sense, rather than beliefs. But which desires and aversions? This question is far more difficult for non-cognitivists to answer than they typically admit. On the one hand, non-cognitivists must agree that that not just any old desire or aversion is such that, when we express it, we make a normative claim. For example, they must agree that an unwilling addict could rightly claim that it is in no respect desirable for him to take the drugs he takes, notwithstanding the fact that he desires to take them. Whatever form of words he uses to express his addictive desires, then, that form of words must not be interpreted as the making of a normative claim. On the other hand, however, non-cognitivists must also insist that whenever someone makes a normative claim there are desires or aversions which