Dispositional Theories of Value

(3) Motivating reasons are constituted, inter alia, by desires. The apparent inconsistency can be brought out as follows. From (1), the state expressed by a valuation is a belief, which, from (2), is necessarily connected in some way with having a motivating reason; that is, from (3), with having a desire. So (1), (2) and (3) together entail that there is some sort of necessary connection between distinct existences: a certain kind of belief and a certain kind of desire. But there is no such connection. Believing some state of the world obtains is one thing, what I desire to do in the light of that belief is quite another. Therefore we have to reject at least one of (1), (2) or (3). Call this the 'moral problem', and call those who respond 'revisionists' and 'reconciliationists'.1 Revisionists accept the inconsistency, and so seek to explain away the apparent plausibility of at least one of (1), (2) and (3). Thus, for example, emotivists, prescriptivists and projectivists