Date of Award
5-2-2018
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Philosophy
First Advisor
Christie Hartley
Second Advisor
Tim O'Keefe
Third Advisor
Eric Wilson
Abstract
Much has been written about Bernard Williams' remarks (1981) regarding the (imagined) man faced with the choice of saving either a drowning stranger or his drowning wife. For Williams, the man's justification for saving his wife ought not to be any kind of practical syllogism, but simply, "because she is my wife." Susan Wolf claims (2012) that the standard response to Williams', which she dubs the Standard View, has been inadequate. Wolf then considers and rejects a potential response to the Standard View—what she calls the "virtuous attention" view. Such a view, Wolf argues, is merely a variation of the Standard View. In this paper, I argue that the virtuous attention view is not a variation of the Standard View. While Wolf’s reading of Williams is correct, I argue that a developed version of the virtuous attention view can actually provide support for Wolf's reading of Williams.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/11904658
Recommended Citation
Marrone, Stephen, "The Problems of Impartiality: Attention, Deliberation, and Having "One Thought Too Many"." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2018.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/11904658