Sympathy, discernment, and reasons

Abstract

According to “the argument from discernment”, sympathetic motivation is morally faulty, because it is morally undiscriminating. Sympathy can incline you to do the right thing, but it can also incline you to do the wrong thing. And if so, it is no better as a reason for doing something than any other morally arbitrary consideration. The only truly morally good form of motivation—because the only morally non-arbitrary one—involves treating an action’s rightness as your reason for performing it. This paper attacks the argument from discernment and argues against its conclusion.