This investigation challenges Michael Smith's claims about moral norms and rational agency, suggesting limitations in his arguments.
According to Michael Smith’s constitutivist account, moral norms are grounded in rational requirements. These requirements, he argues, can be derived from constitutive features of ideal agency. We target a key component of Smith’s account, namely the thesis that a rationally ideal agent has intrinsic desires to help and not interfere with other agents’ rational capacities. We cast doubt on two arguments for this thesis put forward by Smith (2015, 2020).
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Montminy et al. (2025) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: