beliefs about x, vs facts, casual reasons v reasons

Question 1

be able to distinguish what someone believes about morality, reasons, authority from what is true about these subjects

Answer 1

• beliefs: what an individuals believes to be true, independent of what actually is true
• truth: a feature of the outside world that obtains/ what is actually objectively true
• you can believe someone is an authority because they occupy a certain position of power, however upon further inspection you find out that they have a questionable past and are not an expert on your current situation example- parents being an authority about certain things
• can think you have reasons for action but actually don’t (????)
• think that you are doing something moral but it isn’t- saving a baby- but the baby is actually a monster

Question 2

casual/explanatory reasons

Answer 2

why things happen

Question 3

reasons (justifying/requiring)

Answer 3

should things happen (moral)

Question 4

example of a casual reason and regular reason

Answer 4

• karen has had a really rough day everything that could have gone wrong has, she goes to the grocery store and asks an employee if they have any of her favorite candy left, when the employee says no she starts viciously berating the employee. The casual/explanatory reason here is that karen was likely very overwhelmed because of the day she had and reacted on impulse to finding out her favorite candy was out of stock. there is no justifying reason here though because according to morality karen should not have yelled at the employee.

Question 5

how does the distinction between beliefs and facts connect to the problem of gaps in the law and authority

Answer 5

• Doing what is actually right and doing what you think is right are two different things
• Raz thinks that the only thing that matters is doing what is actually right
• when deciding whether or not to follow the law in a gap case, one must consider whether following the law or doing what is believed to be morally right is actually the right thing to do.
• Raz believes that following authority gives you better odds of doing what is actually right so you should always follow authority
• Hurd on the other hand thinks that you should look to authority for guidance and the command of the authority should be weighed against what you believe to be true