Are intelligible agents square?

Abstract

In How We Get Along, J. David Velleman argues for two related theses: first, that ‘making sense’ of oneself to oneself and others is a constitutive aim of action; second, that this fact about action grounds normativity. Examining each thesis in turn, I argue against the first that an agent may deliberately act in ways which make sense in terms of neither her self-conception nor others' conceptions of her. Against the second thesis, I argue that some vices are such that the agents concerned would make more sense to neither themselves nor others if they were to reform, and, furthermore, that an agent may make more sense to herself and others by becoming more, rather than less, vicious. I conclude that both theses should be rejected.

Keywords:

• agency
• intelligibility
• normativity
• self-conception
• Velleman

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank members of the moral psychology reading group at Cardiff University for illuminating discussions of How We Get Along and the anonymous referees for this journal whose encouragement, criticism and patience greatly improved this paper. Special thanks are due to Jonathan Webber who read several drafts and provided invaluable advice on publication.

Notes on contributor

Clea F. Rees is Lecturer in Philosophy and Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University, working on the relations between agency, emotion, moral development and moral uncertainty.

Notes

1. For a weaker version of the view, see the summary of his earlier claims in Velleman (2002, 94).

2. In Section 3, I raise some doubts about the independence of causal-psychological intelligibility from narrative intelligibility. Although I cannot pursue the point here, one might wonder whether the former is even entirely distinct from the latter.

3. Velleman's argument here assumes that resolving the conflict by abandoning ambitions currently frustrated by her laziness either is not an option for the agent or is one which would result in her making less sense to herself than she would if she overcame her laziness. I doubt that overcoming an acknowledged vice will always make more sense than alternative ways of resolving such conflicts but will not pursue the point here.

4. Velleman borrows this terminology from Frankfurt (1988).