The Claimability of Directed Duties
Standard analyses of so-called ‘directed duties’ take them to be correlative with claim-rights, where to have a claim-right is, among other things, to have the authority to demand performance of the duties. But there is intuitive evidence that some duties have direction and yet cannot be claimed in this sense by those towards whom they’re directed. I discuss some accounts of the moral framework that might make sense of this evidence and propose my own view. According to that view, what justifies some directed duties also implies that the value of their performance is undermined if they’re not performed for certain reasons that an authoritative demand for their performance would exclude from the duty-bearer’s practical reasoning. These duties are directed but unclaimable. By contrast, what justifies other directed duties doesn’t imply this. These duties are directed and claimable.
Date:
23 January 2017, 16:30
Venue:
Radcliffe Humanities, Woodstock Road OX2 6GG
Venue Details:
Lecture Room, Second Floor
Speaker:
Tom Sinclair (University of Oxford)
Organising department:
Faculty of Philosophy
Organiser:
Prof Jeff McMahan (University of Oxford)
Part of:
Moral Philosophy Seminar
Topics:
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editors:
Andy Davies,
Annelies Lawson
