Nomy Arpaly (Brown University): “Deliberation and Fetish”

We often take it as speaking well of a person that before she has acted, she deliberated as to what the right thing to do would be. We often at least partially excuse such a deliberator if she does the wrong thing in a situation where it is hard to figure out what the right thing is. These facts pose a challenge for the view that praiseworthy moral motivation is concerned with the right de re and not de dicto. I will take up this challenge and answer the relevant objections by providing alternative explanations for such reactions to moral deliberation. I will also point to a connection between disagreeing over the value of moral motivation de dicto and the more venerable staring contest between the Neo-Humean view of moral motivation and its competitors.