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Butler's Stone
Author(s) -
Tilley John J.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/papq.12221
Subject(s) - argument (complex analysis) , hedonism , pleasure , value (mathematics) , philosophy , inference , eleventh , epistemology , stepping stone , sociology , psychoanalysis , psychology , mathematics , medicine , physics , acoustics , statistics , neuroscience , economics , unemployment , economic growth
In the eleventh of Joseph Butler's Fifteen Sermons we find his best‐known argument against psychological hedonism. Elliott Sober calls that argument Butler's stone , and famously challenges it. I consider whether Butler's stone has value. In doing so I examine, and reject, two possible responses to Sober's objection. This involves, in part, discussing Lord Kames's version of the stone argument, which has hitherto escaped scholarly attention. Finally, I explain an important value of Butler's stone, which I have not found previously discussed. Butler's stone blocks an inference, persuasive to many people, which purports to show that we intrinsically desire only pleasure.