Sarah Köglsperger
University of Fribourg
Attitudes and emotions are commonly taken not to be under our direct voluntary control. Thus, it also seems impossible for there to be obligations to have certain attitudes and emotions since the inability to voluntarily control them seems to violate the “ought implies can” principle. Call this the Control Problem. However, we often expect others to not only treat us in certain ways but also to have certain attitudes and emotions towards us and hold them responsible if they fail to do so. Motivated by this phenomenon, some authors tried to address this Control Problem by arguing that we have sufficient (even if not voluntary) control over our attitudes to be appropriately held responsible for them and that this implies that there are attitudinal obligations. Call this the Responsibility Argument for Attitudinal Obligations. In this paper, I discuss the Responsibility Argument as a response to the Control Problem. I argue that the Responsibility Argument fails. Its main problem is that the type of control that we have over our attitudes and emotions, according to its proponents, is always indirect. Accordingly, there can then only be obligations to perform certain actions that tend to bring about certain attitudes, but no obligations to have certain attitudes. Lastly, I point out that just because the Responsibility Argument fails as a general argument for attitudinal obligations it does not mean that there cannot be any attitudinal obligations. Attitudes plausibly vary in the kind of control we have over them, and there may be some attitudes over which we have direct control. Whether we have an obligation to have a specific attitude must then be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Chair: Sanjar Akayev
Time: 03 September, 14:00 – 14:30
Location: SR 1.004
SOPhiA 2026 