Loving the Bad & Not Giving a Damn: A Defense of Psychic Disharmony Public Deposited

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Last Modified
  • March 21, 2019
Creator
  • Yao, Vida
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Philosophy
Abstract
  • We tend to think that it is better that one loves what one believes good, and hates what one believes bad. Similarly, we tend to think that it is a mark of virtue or rationality that one does what she judges she ought to do, and refrains from doing what she judges she ought not do. I argue that these “akratic disharmonies”, which occur between one’s evaluative judgments and one’s emotional or motivational responses, need not indicate her irrationality or a defect in her character, and that in fact, that her mind is disharmonious may be a sign that she is fully sensitive to the features of her situation. Moreover, her willingness or ability to sustain certain kinds of akratic disharmony can be the basis of underappreciated virtues such as graciousness, humility, self-esteem, and solidarity with her fellow human beings. Not only, then, is it possible for one’s mind to be akratic in the ways that I have described, there may be goodness in knowingly desiring, loving, or intending the bad.
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Rights statement
  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Wolf, Susan
  • Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey
  • MacLean, Douglas
  • Hill, Thomas E.
  • Preston-Roedder, Ryan
Degree
  • Doctor of Philosophy
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Graduation year
  • 2016
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