Michael Vollmer
University of Innsbruck
The recent literature has seen a renewed interest in the concept of fittingness. Next to the long-standing analyses of, say, ‘desert’ in terms of fittingness of certain treatments, or ‘value’ in terms of fitting pro-attitudes, scholars have revisited the idea that even deontic notions qua an analysis of normative reasons can be related to fittingness. However, in all of these debates, it is not always clear whether ‘fittingness’ is used in the same way. It is supposed to be equivalent to ‘being merited’ or ‘being called for’. Yet, these latter terms are also used in different ways. In my talk, I contrast three usages of ‘fittingness’ which can be identified in the literature.
First, there is an objectual form of fittingness between attitudes and their objects. This sense of fittingness is quite prevalent in the analysis of ‘value’, the literature on emotions, as well as in epistemology. For instance, an admirable person is one who makes one’s admiration objectually fitting.
Second, some authors talk about a situational form of fittingness between responses and the circumstances to which one responds. This view is at the heart of some proponents of the so-called fittingness-first program. For instance, that it is rainy today makes it situationally fitting to take an umbrella to work.
Finally, one might also envisage a cosmic form of fittingness between two states of affairs. This notion of fittingness is sometimes at work in the literature on desert. It is analogous to what Chisholm called ‘requirement’. Symmetry in architecture or compositional aspects of music might all fall under this broad sense of fittingness.
I maintain that only the first form of fittingness constitutes a distinct category in that it is a peculiar subset of correctness. The other two usages of fittingness, however, can be easily accounted for in terms of other normative notions: situational fittingness is nothing but the (agglomeration of) objective normative reasons and cosmic fittingness is pro tanto goodness in disguise.
Chair: Sebastián Sánchez Martínez
Time: September 6th, 16:50-17:20
Location: SR 1.004
SOPhiA 2026 