2 “Manuscript on Morals,” 118, rep. in Prichard, H.A.Moral Writings, ed. MacAdam, Jim (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The question he claims cannot be answered in his earlier essay, “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?”, is less crisply formulated. All references to Prichard are to the MacAdam volume, except for “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?”, Mind 21 (1912): 21-37. While this essay is reprinted in MacAdam, I rely on pagination in the original since it is conveniently available in electronic form at http://www.ditext.com/prichard I mistake.html.

3 Prichard rejects utilitarianism as a theory of what constitutes actions as right. He does not claim, however, that the falsity of utilitarianism is obvious or proved. Nor does he claim that it is a mistake to raise questions about what constitutes actions as right. For Prichard's views on utilitarianism as a constitution theory, see “Does Moral Philosophy … ”, 25; “What is the Basis of Moral Obligation?”, 2-4; and “Manuscript on Morals,” 122, 142-43.

4 “Does Moral Philosophy … ”, 24. Compare “Moral Obligation,” 224-25; “Manuscript on Morals,” 152.

5 The extended discussion of Green is found in “Duty and Interest.” Sidgwick is discussed in “Moral Obligation,” 188. The remaining figures are singled out in “Does Moral Philosophy … ”.

6 “Does Moral Philosophy … ”, 23 (italics in original).

7 Prichard clearly anticipated that a teleological theory could be developed in this way and claims it is defective nonetheless. See “Moral Obligation,” 188, and also “Manuscript on Morals,” 142-43.

8 “Manuscript on Morals,” 128, 144, 166; “Moral Obligation,” 188.

9 Proponents of the myth view include: Raz, Joseph “The Myth of Instrumental Rationality,” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 1 (2005): 2–28;Google ScholarTroy, Jollimore “Why is Instrumental Rationality Rational?” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 35 (2005): 289–308;Google ScholarNiko, Kolodny “How Does Coherence Matter?” Proceedings of tl1e Aristotelian Society 107, part 3 (2007): 229-63.Google Scholar

10 For a more comprehensive discussion of Prichard's views on the authority question, see the Introduction to this volume. My views on Prichard have been shaped by collaboration with Evan Tiffany.

11 Contemporary philosophers who attribute that view to Prichard include Stephen Darwall and T.M. Scanlon. See Darwall's, The Second Person Standpoint (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 17,Google Scholar note 33; and Scanlon, T.M.What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 150.Google Scholar For more general analysis of the concept of a “reason of the wrong kind,“ see Hieronymi, Pamela “The Wrong Kind of Reasons,” Journal of Philosophy 102 (2005): 437-57;CrossRefGoogle ScholarOlson, Jonas “Buck-Passing and the Wrong Kind of Reasons,“ Philosophical Quarterly 54 (2004): 295–300;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRabinowicz, Wlodek and Rasmussen, Toni Rennow “The Strike of the Demon: On Fitting Pro-Attitudes and Value,“ Ethics 114 (2004): 391–423;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Danielson, SvenOlson, Jonas “Brentano and the Buck-Passers,” Mind 116 (2007): 511-22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 See his Practical Reasoning and Ethical Decision-Making (Routledge, 2006), 183.

13 The notion of volatility described in the text is admittedly imprecise. Some philosophers defend substantive conceptions of morality that may appear to be in tension with the proposed non-volatility of the moral point of view. They deny that moral duties take exccptionless priority over non-moral considerations. See Scheffler's, Samuel discussion of agent-centred prerogatives in The Rejection of Consequentialism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982).Google Scholar Scheffler's prerogatives do not, however, lead to extremes of volatility in the moral standpoint, since they only provide a permission to favour personal concerns at the expense of neutral concerns according to a fixed proportion. They thereby concede overall authority or dominance to an agent-neutral standpoint.

14 For proposals that attempt to reconcile duty and interest by appealing to indirect decision-making, see: Hursthouse, RosalindOn Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 172-73;Google Scholar and Overvold, Mark Carl “Morality, Self-Interest, and Reasons to be Moral,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Researclz 44 (1984): 493–506Google Scholar

15 See: Gauthier, David “Assure and Threaten,” Ethics 104 (1994): 690–721;CrossRefGoogle ScholarKuhn, Steven “Agreement Keeping and Indirect Moral Theory,” journal of Philosophy 93 (1996): 105–128.Google Scholar

16 For a deflationary proposal of that kind, see Gauthier's, DavidMorals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986),Google Scholar and his “Why Contractarianisrn?”, in Contractarianism and Rational Choice, ed. Peter Vallentyne (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 15-30.

17 See Raz, Joseph “Incommensurability and Agency,” in Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason, ed. Chang, Ruth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997): 110-28Google Scholar (at 111). Compare his Value, Respect, and Attaclzment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 3-5. Both Raz and Michael Bratman have done much to emphasize the centrality of evaluative indeterminacy for decision-making. In addition to incommensurability, Bratman maintains that value uncertainty and value equality are other important sources of indeterminacy. See Bratman’s “A Desire of One's Own“; “Three Theories of Self-Governance” (at 235-40); and “Planning Agency, Autonomous Agency“ (at 205-6), all reprinted in his Structures of Agency (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

18 “Incommensurability and Agency,” 127.

19 My sense of what is psychologically possible evidently differs from that of David Wiggins. See his “Incommensurability: Four Proposals,” in Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason, ed. Ruth Chang (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997): 52-66 (at 64), where Wiggins mentions duty in the form of ‘justice’ as being potentially incommensurable with other non-moral values from which a person may choose. Focussing on uncertainty also avoids having to address the complaint that the very idea of incommensurable values is misguided, as John Skorupski charges. The core of Skorupski's argument is that reasons are subject to what he calls a “convergence requirement” such that if I believe that I have a reason to x, then I must believe that a similarly situated person has reason to x. Skorupski is explicit, however, that the convergence requirement applies only to flat out evaluative beliefs, and not to propositional attitudes that fall short of belief. See Skorupski, JohnEthical Explorations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 35, 73.Google Scholar

20 For defence of the claim that moral reasons fail to commensurate with other kinds of practical reason, see David Copp, “The Wrong Answer to an Improper Question,” this volume; Evan Tiffany, “Deflationary Normative Pluralism,” this volume.

21 Holton, Richard “Partial Belief, Partial Intention,” Mind 117 (2008): 27–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar (at 39). See also Keith, Frankish “Partial Belief and Flat-out Belief,” in Degrees of Belief An Anthology, ed. Huber, F. and Schmidt-Petri, C. (No City Given: Springer, 2009), 75–96.Google Scholar

22 See, Audi, Robert “Faith, Belief, and Rationality,” Philosophical PcrspcctiPcs 5 (1991): 213-39Google Scholar (215-19). See also Pojman, Louis P. “Faith, Hope and Doubt,“ in Philosoplzy of Religion, ed. Pojman, L. (Wadsworth, 2003): 436-46Google Scholar (at 438). In a related discussion, Alvin Plantinga describes “semi-beliefs” held with a probability of less than 1 I 2 and claims that these can form part of an agent's noetic structure. See Plantinga, AlvinWarrmzt: The C11rrent Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Plantinga's semi-beliefs are, however, ambiguous between flat out beliefs assigned a low probability and partial beliefs.

23 Adams, R.M. “Moral Faith,” reprinted in his finitemzd Infinite Goods (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 373-89Google Scholar (at 373).

24 I claim that the attitude of partial belief helps elucidate the admittedly controversial distinction between choice under uncertainty and choice under risk. Some decision theories collapse the two by treating all probabilities as subjective, coupled with the claim that decision-makers assign subjective probabilities over all states of affairs. For recent criticism of decision theories that eliminate uncertainty in this way, see Pollock, JohnThinking about Acting: Logical Decisions for Rational Decision Making (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 81–99;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Gardensfors, Peter and Sahlin, Nils-Eric “Unreliable Probabilities, Risk Taking, and Decision Making,” Synthese 53 (1982): 361-86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 See Joyce, James M. “How Probabilities Reflect Evidence,” Philosophical Perspectives 19 (2005): 153-78CrossRefGoogle Scholar (at 154-57).

26 My account of doxastic commitment to a practical ideal has benefitted from Michael Bratman's discussion of self-governing policies. According to Bratman, while value judgments are subject to intersubjective constraints, self-governing policies are not. A person who endorses a self-governing policy needn't believe that an identically situated person with a different self-governing policy is unreasonable. See, Structures of Agmcy, 209, 239-40. Commitments to practical ideals similarly defy a convergence requirement. But practical ideals differ from policies. Ideals are normally criterial for policies, and also have a content that is not exhausted by the policies a person has adopted. If you adopt justice as your practical ideal, your policies will normally be consistent with that ideal. But that ideal can also entail choices in circumstances for which you lack policies.

27 For other recent discussions of the normative considerations governing evaluative choice under uncertainty, see: Smith, Michael “Evaluation, Uncertainty, Motivation,” in Ethics and tile A Priori (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 343-58;CrossRefGoogle Scholar“Moore on the Right, the Good, and Uncertainty,” in Metaetl!ics After Moore, ed. Horgan, T. and Timmons, M. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 133-48.Google Scholar Ted Lockhart deals mainly with uncertainty about morality's content rather than its authority in Moral Uncertainty and Its Consequences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). But see the discussion on p. 8, regarding skepticism about the overriding character of moral reasons as a ground for uncertainty.

28 For a proposal of that kind, see Broome, John “Are Intentions Reasons?” in Practical Rationality and Preference: Essays for David Gauthier, ed. Morris, C. and Ripstein, A. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 98–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Broome notes that the resulting widescope requirements are both synchronic and diachronic.

29 On derivative justifications for pro tanto reasons to adopt the means to one's ends, see Michael Bratman's suggestive discussion of what he calls the “Strawsonian strategy,” in “Intention, Belief, Practical, Theoretical,” forthcoming in Spheres of Reason, ed. Jens Timmerman et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 35-38, and Bratman's account of the ideal of “self-governance” in, “Intention, Practical Rationality, and Self-Governance,” Ethics 119 (2009): 411-43 (at 429).

30 For an argument that appeals to heteronomous ends against the claim that the principle of instrumental reason is a practical requirement, see Setiya, Kieran “Cognitivism about Instrumental Reason,” Ethics 117 (2007): 649-73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 See David Copp, “The Normativity of Self-Grounded Reason,” Social Philosophy and Policy (2005): 165-203 (at 166). For an example of a modest account of personal autonomy that is externalist and historical, see Alfred Mele, Autonomous Agents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 171. Bratman claims that his account of agential authority can be supplemented with an external and historical condition. See Structures of Agency, 138, note 3, and 199.

32 For recent defences of ethical intuitionism that exploit these strategies, see Schafer-Landau, RussellMoral Realism: A Defence (Oxford: Clarendon, 2003), 210;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Robert Audi, The Good in the Right.

33 See Zimmerman, David “Why Richard Brandt Does not Need Cognitive Psychotherapy, and Other Glad News about Idealized Preference Theories in Meta-Ethics,” Journal of Value Inquiry 33 (2003): 373-94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 William James provides the classic statement. For a recent and sophisticated defence of fideism, see Bishop, JohnBelieving by Faith (Oxford: Clarendon, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 See Secorzd Person Standpoilzt, 17, note 33.

36 Secolld Persall Stalldpoillt, 16.

37 For a recent defence of pragmatism, see Reisner, Andrew “Weighing pragmatic and evidential reasons for belief,” Philosophical Studies 138 (2008): 17–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 See Feldman, Richard “The Ethics of Belief,” in Earl Conee and Richard Feldman, Evidelltialism: Essays in Epistemology (Oxford: Clarendon, 2004), 166-96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar