On Reasoning about Values
Wilfrid Sellars
Abstract
Abstract This essay is a contribution to the logic of intentions, and to Sellars’s project of interpreting the moral “ought” in terms of “shall.” Using “shall” as an operator to denote the expression of an intention (e.g., “Shall [I go to the park]”), Sellars outlines a number of logical principles which must govern inferences among such intention-expressions. However, the moral “ought” cannot be analyzed in terms of ordinary intention-expressions, for the latter lack the necessary elements of intersubjectivity. Sellars argues that a particular kind of intentions—we-intentions—can have the requisite kind of intersubjectivity, and offers an account of what distinguishes we-intentions from ordinary, egocentric intentions. He concludes with reflections on the moral community, arguing that it is in virtue of sharing the intrinsically reasonable intention Shall [each of us do that which, in the circumstances, promotes the happiness of each and every one of us, all relevant things considered]. that one is a member of the moral community, a community we must treat as comprising rational beings, generally.