Stephen Darwall: Attitudes of the Will and Attitudes of the Heart

Centre for Philosophy, Ethics and Religion at CU FA, Sekyra Foundation and Institute of Philosophy at the Czech Academy of Sciences invites to a public lecture by Stephen Darwall (Yale University) that will take place on 16 March 2023 from 5 pm in the room P300 in the main building of the faculty at CU FA (nám. Jana Palacha 1/2, Prague 1).

Abstract:

The reactive attitudes through which we hold people accountable (resentment, guilt, and blame) have been much studied. But P. F. Strawson gave other examples – love, gratitude, and “hurt feelings”. I present an analysis of these attitudes as “second-personal attitudes of the heart.“ Whereas the deontic moral attitudes are attitudes of the will – expressing demands from one will to another – second-personal attitudes of the heart open one’s heart to another’s in the hope that theirs will be open to one’s heart in return. In the process we arrive at a perfectly general account of attitudes as “reciprocating attitudes.”