In class yesterday I alluded to an argument due to Michael Smith. The argument, recall, was meant to show that no mental state could have both world to mind and mind to world directions of fit. For those of you who are curious, this is the paper I had in mind.

Here is a representative passage (p. 56):

For, as we have understood the concept of direction of fit, the direction of fit of a state with the content that p is determined, inter alia, by its counterfactual dependence on a perception with the content that not p. A state with both directions of fit would therefore have to be such that both, in the presence of such a perception it tends to go out of existence, and, in the presence of such a perception, it tends to endure, disposing the subject that has it to bring it about that p. Taken quite literally, then, the idea that there may be a state with both directions of fit is just plain incoherent.

UPDATE: In answer to Matt’s question: the passage is repeated verbatim on Ch. 4 of The Moral Problem (p. 118).