in Philosophical Studies, Dec 2001, pp. 340-380.

In this paper I consider whether there can be such things as epistemic reasons for action. I consider three arguments to the contrary and argue that none are successful, being either somewhat question-begging or too strong by ruling out what most epistemologists think is a necessary feature of epistemic justification, namely the epistemic basing relation. I end by suggesting a "non-cognitivist" model of epistemic reasons that makes room for there being epistemic reasons for action and suggest that this model may (...) support moral realism. (shrink)

This paper presents an objection to the view that intentions provide reasons and shows how this objection is also inherited by the more commonly accepted Tie-Breaker view, according to which intentions provide reasons only in tie-break situations. The paper also considers and rejects T. M. Scanlon's argument for the Tie-Breaker view and argues that philosophers might be drawn to accept the problematic Tie-Breaker view by confusing it with a very similar, unproblematic view about the relation between intentions and reasons in (...) tie-break situations. (shrink)

An autonomous reason for intending to A would be a reason for so intending that is not, and will not be, a reason for A-ing. Some puzzle cases, such as the one that figures in the toxin puzzle, suggest that there can be such reasons for intending, but these cases have special features that cloud the issue. This paper describes cases that more clearly favour the view that we can have practical reasons of this sort. Several objections to this view (...) are considered and rejected. Finally, it is considered whether the existence of such reasons would conflict with an attractive coherence principle linking the rationality of intending with that of acting as intended. The paper concludes with a qualified affirmation of autonomous reasons for intending. (shrink)

Jonathan Dancy’s Practical Reality makes a significant contribution to clarifying the relationship between desire and reasons for acting, both the normative reasons we seek in deliberation and the motivating reasons we cite in explanation. About the former, Dancy argues that, not only are normative reasons not all grounded in desires, but, more radically, the fact that one desires something is never itself a normative reason. And he argues that desires fail to figure in motivating reasons also, concluding that neither the (...) fact nor the state of desire is ever a motivating reason for acting. I am in significant agreement with Dancy about these matters, but I want to register some reservations nonetheless. Dancy is certainly right to reject the DBR (desire-based reasons) thesis that all normative reasons are grounded in desires.1 Desires, he points out, call for reasons no less than do actions. But I think he insufficiently appreciates a way in which facts about the agent’s desires and related practical psychic states can provide normative reasons. Not that this gives away anything to Dancy’s Humean opponents. What gives an agent’s desires, values, and moral convictions normative weight, I shall suggest, is her dignity and integrity as an individual person. (shrink)

Simon Blackburn has shown that there is an analogy between the problem of moral motivation in ethics (how can moral reasons move us?) and the problem of what we might call the power of logical reasons (how can logical reasons move us, what is the force of the 'logical must?'). In this paper, I explore further the parallel between the internalism problem in ethics and the problem of the power of logical reasons, and defend a version of psychologism about reasons, (...) although not one of the Humean form. I discuss two forms of cognitivism: (i) a pure cognitivism and 'hard' realism modelled after Dancy's parallel conception in ethics: when we grasp logical reasons we grasp facts, which are directly known to us; (ii) a Kantian form of cognitivism, based on the idea that compulsion by reason goes with the capacity of reflection. I argue that (i) is implausible, and that (ii) fails to meet the internalist requirement. One would then seem to be left with what Dancy calls, about practical reasoning, psychologism about reasons. I sketch what might be such a psychologism. But it fails to account for the objectivity of logical reasons. I argue that the relevant state here is a form of dispositional knowledge of logical reasons. (shrink)

Bernard Williams's motivational reasons-internalism fails to capture our first-order reasons judgements, while Derek Parfit's nonnaturalistic reasons-externalism cannot explain the nature or normative authority of reasons. This paper offers an intermediary view, reformulating scepticism about external reasons as the claim not that they don't exist but rather that they don't matter. The end-relational theory of normative reasons is proposed, according to which a reason for an action is a fact that explains why the action would be good relative to some end, (...) where the relevant end for any ascription of reasons is determined by the speaker's conversational context. Because these ends need not be the agent's ends, Williams is wrong to reject the existence of external reasons. But contra Parfit, a reason for action is only important for an agent if it is motivationally internal to that agent. (shrink)

Abstract: The point of this paper is to undermine the support that particularism in the domain of epistemic reasons might seem to give to particularism in the domain of practical reasons. In the epistemic domain, there are two related notions: truth and the rationality of belief. Epistemic reasons are related to the rationality of belief, and not directly to truth. In the domain of practical reasons, however, the role of truth is taken by the notion of objective rationality. Practical reasons (...) are directly relevant to this objective notion, and therefore the reasons to expect holism and particularism in the epistemic domain do not transfer to the domain of practical rationality. (shrink)

While objective values need not be intrinsically motivating, need not actually motivate us, they would determine what we ought to pursue and protect. They would provide reasons for actions. Objective values would come in degrees, and more objective value would provide stronger reasons. It follows that, if objective value exists, we ought to maximize it in the world. But virtually no one acts with that goal in mind. Furthermore, objective value would exist independently of our subjective valuings. But we have (...) no way of measuring amounts of such values independently of the ways we value objects. While a subjectivist can account for mistaken values, a fully impersonal viewpoint, from which objective values would appear, seems instead to cause all values to disappear. Nor does the moral point of view, which requires more impartiality than agents usually exhibit, reveal fully objective values. The paper closes with an examination of the most widely endorsed candidates for states having positive and negative objective values: pleasures and pains. It concludes again that, once we adjust for worthiness of the object and desert of the subject for such states, there is no way to measure their supposed objective value. (shrink)

Consider Jim Dixon. He has just concluded a phone call with his nemesis, the insufferable Bertrand Welch. Dixon’s academic employment rests precariously in the hands of the daft and irrational Professor Welch, Bertrand’s father. But this has not stopped Dixon from phoning the younger Welch and impersonating a newspaper reporter, as a first step in a “campaign” to humiliate his enemy. Immediately following this, Dixon pauses to consider his chances at success: Before making any move … he threw back his (...) head and gave a long trombone-blast of anarchistic laughter. It was all so wonderful, even if it did go wrong, and it wouldn’t. The campaign against Bertrand that he’d fantasized about … had begun, and with a dazzling tactical success. A warning voice told him that this campaign, even so far, was too dangerous for a man in his precarious position, that the joy of battle was submerging his prudence, but he drowned it in more laughter of the same sort. (Amis 1976, p. 103) Dixon engages here in (some kind of) wishful thinking: he believes that his campaign will be a success (that it will not “go wrong”) at least partly because it is “all so wonderful,” i.e. at least partly because he very much wants it to succeed. He ignores evidence to the contrary – his “precarious position – by “drowning” the “warning voice” that tells him to temper his optimism. However, Dixon has two good reasons to believe that his campaign will be a success. First, Dixon has compelling reasons to engage in his campaign: to allow Bertrand’s pretentiousness to go unpunished is out of the question, and to forsake revenge against the Welches, in general, is even worse. Without confidence of victory, Dixon’s resolve simply won’t hold up: he doesn’t have that sort of bravery. He needs to believe that he stands a good chance of success, if he is to stand any chance of success. So given his interest in a successful campaign against Bertrand, Dixon has reason to believe that said campaign will be a success.. (shrink)

The paper offers an explanation of what reasons for belief are, following Paul Grice in focusing on the roles of reasons in the goal-directed activity of reasoning. Reasons are particularly salient considerations that we use as indicators of the truth of beliefs and candidates for belief. Reasons are distinguished from enabling conditions by being things that we should be able to attend to in the course of our reasoning, and in assessing how well our beliefs are supported. The final section (...) argues that epistemic virtues have a role in enabling us to identify reasons and explores this by reference to the example of being observant. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to frame a theory of reasons--what they are, how they support actions or conclusions--using the tools of default logic. After sketching the basic account of reasons as provided by defaults, I show how it can be elaborated to deal with two more complicated issues: first, situations in which the priority relation among defaults, and so reasons as well, is itself established through default reasoning; second, the treatment of undercutting defeat and exclusionary reasons. Finally, and (...) by way of application, I show how the resulting account can shed some light on Jonathan Dancy's argument from reason holism to a form of extreme particularism in moral theory. (shrink)

The dispute between Kantians and Humeans over whether practical reason can justify moral reasons for all agents is often characterized as a debate over whether reasons are hypothetical or categorical. Instead, this debate must be understood in terms of the distinction between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons. This paper considers Alan Gewirth’s Reason and Morality as a case study of a Kantian justification of morality focused on deriving categorical reasons from hypothetical reasons. The case study demonstrates first, the possibility of categorical (...) agent-relative reasons, and second, that inattention to this possibility has caused considerable confusion in the debate between Kantians and Humeans. (shrink)

John Searle has recently developed a theory of reasons for acting that intends to rescue the freedom of the will, endangered by causal determinism, whether physical or psychological. To achieve this purpose, Searle postulates a series of "gaps" that are supposed toendowthe self with free will. Reviewing key steps in Searle's argument, this article shows that such an undertaking cannot be successfully completed because of its solipsist premises. The author argues that reasons for acting do not have a subjective, I-ontology (...) but a first-person plural, Weontology that better accounts for agency and responsibility. Key Words: free will • agency • reasons for acting • ontology. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue for a particular informative and unified analysis of normative reasons. According to this analysis, a fact F is a reason to act in a certain way just in case it is evidence that one ought to act in that way. Similarly, F is a reason to believe a certain proposition just in case it is evidence for the truth of this proposition. Putting the relatively uncontroversial claim about reasons for belief to one side, we present (...) several arguments in favor of our analysis of reasons for action. We then turn to consider a series of objections to the analysis. We conclude that there are good reasons to accept the analysis and that the objections do not succeed. (shrink)

This paper is about the relationship between two widely accepted and apparently conflicting claims about how we should understand the notion of ‘reason giving’ invoked in theorising about reasons for action. According to the first claim, reasons are given by facts about the situation of agents. According to the second claim, reasons are given by ends. I argue that the apparent conflict between these two claims is less deep than is generally recognised.

It’s natural to say that when it’s rational for me to φ, I have reasons to φ. That is, there are reasons for φ-ing, and moreover, I have some of them. Mark Schroeder calls this view The Factoring Account of the having reasons relation. He thinks The Factoring Account is false. In this paper, I defend The Factoring Account. Not only do I provide intuitive support for the view, but I also defend it against Schroeder’s criticisms. Moreover, I show that (...) it helps us understand the requirements of substantive rationality, or what we are rationally required to do when responding to reasons. (shrink)

This essay examines the thought that our right actions have moral worth only if we perform them for the right reasons. It argues against the view, often ascribed to Kant, that morally worthy actions must be performed because they are right and argues that Kantians and others ought instead to accept the view that morally worthy actions are those performed for the reasons why they are right. In other words, morally worthy actions are those for which the reasons why they (...) were performed (the reasons motivating them) and the reasons why they morally ought to have been performed (the reasons morally justifying them) coincide. The essay calls this the Coincident Reasons Thesis and argues that it provides plausible necessary and sufficient conditions for morally worthy action, defending the claim against proposed counterexamples. It ends by showing that the plausibility of the thesis, which it argues is largely independent of any particular ethical standpoint, gives us some reason to doubt a class of ethical theories that includes utilitarianism. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to consider Joshua Gert’s novel view of subjective practical rationality in his book Brute Rationality. After briefly outlining the account, I present two objections to his view and then consider his own objections to a rival approach to understanding subjective rationality which I take to be much more plausible.

A state-based reason for one to intend to perform an action F is a reason for one to intend to F which is not a reason for one to F. Are there any state-based reasons to intend? According to the Explanatory Argument, the answer is no, because state-based reasons do not satisfy a certain explanatory constraint: namely, that a reason for one to intend to F must be such that it could be the reason for which one intends to F. (...) I have some reservations about the explanatory constraint; but I argue that whether or not the constraint is correct, the Explanatory Argument is unsound, because state-based reasons do satisfy the constraint. The considerations that undermine the Explanatory Argument also generate a strong, positive case for the existence of state-based reasons to intend. (shrink)

When we have a normative reason, and we act for that reason, it becomes our motivating reason. But we can have either kind of reason without having the other. Thus, if I jump into the canal, my motivating reason was provided by my belief; but I had no normative reason to jump. I merely thought I did. And, if I failed to notice that the canal was frozen, I had a reason not to jump that, because it was unknown to (...) me, did not motivate me. Though we can have normative reasons without being motivated, and vice versa, such reasons are closely related to our motivation. There are, however, very different views about what this relation is. This disagreement raises wider questions about what normative reasons are, and about which reasons there are. After sketching some of these views, I shall discuss some arguments by Williams, and then say where, in my opinion, the truth lies. [...] I [will] suggest why, as I believe, we should be non-reductive normative realists, and should regard all reasons as external. (shrink)

What are reasons? For example, if you’re aware that your secretary plans to expose you, and you resign to avoid a scandal, what is your reason for resigning? Is your reason the fact that your secretary plans to expose you? If so, what kinds of facts are eligible to be reasons? Can merely possible facts be reasons (for actual subjects)? Can merely apparent facts? Or are reasons rather attitudes? Are your reasons for resigning your belief that your secretary plans to (...) expose you, and your desire to avoid a scandal? Or are reasons propositions? If so, which propositions? Only propositions that the subject believes and desires? Only propositions that are true? (On some views, those will be facts; on other views, not.). (shrink)

The paper argues that normative reasons are of two fundamental kinds, practical which are value related, and adaptive, which are not related to any value, but indicate how our beliefs and emotions should adjust to fit how things are in the world. The distinction is applied and defended, in part through an additional distinction between standard and non-standard reasons (for actions, intentions, emotions or belief).

There have been a number of efforts to distinguish object-given reasons from state-given reasons. It is not clear whether these accounts have been wholly successful for all cases. For our purposes, a rough-and-ready account of the difference will do. It is incomplete, but it will give a suitable general idea of what theorists who work on this problem are after.

In this paper I argue against the stronger of the two views concerning the right and wrong kind of reasons for belief, i.e. the view that the only genuine normative reasons for belief are evidential. The project in this paper is primarily negative, but with an ultimately positive aim. That aim is to leave room for the possibility that there are genuine pragmatic reasons for belief. Work is required to make room for this view, because evidentialism of a strict variety (...) remains the default view in much of the debate concerning normative reasons for belief. Strict versions of evidentialism are inconsistent with the view that there are genuine pragmatic reasons for belief. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that we can give a plausible account of how to compare pragmatic and evidential normative reasons for belief. The account I offer is given in the form of a ‘defeasing function’. This function allows for a sophisticated comparison of the two types of reasons without assigning complex features to the logical structures of either type of reason.

In a recent contribution to Grazer Philosophische Studien, Booth argues that for S to have an epistemic reason to ψ means that if S ψ's then he will have more true beliefs and less false beliefs than if he does not ψ. After strengthening this external account in response to the objection that one can improve one's epistemic state in other fashions, e.g. by having a gain in true beliefs which outweighs one's gain in false beliefs, I provide a challenge (...) to it. My main objection, which I advance with the aid of several examples, is that such epistemic reasons could not motivate any action whatsoever. I close by developing an alternative account, which avoids this problem by appeal to internal considerations. (shrink)

In this essay I defend the claim that all reasons can ground final requirements. I begin by establishing a prima facie case for the thesis by noting that on a common-sense understanding of what finality is, it must be the case that all reasons can ground such requirements. I spend the rest of the paper defending the thesis against two recent challenges. The first challenge is found in Joshua Gert’s recent book, Brute Rationality. In it he argues that reasons play (...) two logically distinct roles – requiring action and justifying action. He argues, further, that some reasons – ‘purely justificatory’ reasons – play only the latter role. Jonathan Dancy offers the second challenge in his Ethics Without Principles, where he distinguishes between the ‘favoring’ and ‘ought-making’ roles of reasons. While all reasons play the former role, some do not play the latter, and are therefore irrelevant to what one ought to do. My contention is that both Gert and Dancy are going to have trouble accounting for our intuitions in a number of cases. (shrink)

Forthcoming in Philosophical Studies. (207k .pdf file - 26 pages with references).

(160k .pdf file - 21 pages with references) Forthcoming in Philosophical Studies.

This paper offers a simple and novel motivation for the Humean Theory of Reasons. According to the Humean Theory of Reasons, all reasons must be explained by some psychological state of the agent for whom they are reasons, such as a desire. This view is commonly thought¹ to be motivated by a substantive theory about the power of reasons to motivate known as reason internalism, and a substantive theory about the possibility of being motivated without a desire known as the (...) Humean Theory of Motivation. Such a motivation would place substantial constraints on what form the Humean Theory of Reasons might take, and incur substantial commitments in metaethics and moral psychology. The argument offered here, on the other hand, is based entirely on relatively uncontroversial methodological considerations of perfectly broad applicability, and on the commonplace observation that while some reasons are reasons for anyone, others are reasons for only some. The argument is a highly defeasible one, but is supposed to give us a direct insight into what is philosophically deep about the puzzles raised for ethical theory by the Humean Theory of Reasons. I claim that it should renew our interest in the relationship between these two kinds of reason, and in particular in the explanation of reasons which seem to depend on desires or other psychological states. (shrink)

Allow me to rehearse a familiar scenario. We all know that which ends you have has something to do with what you ought to do. If Ronnie is keen on dancing but Bradley can’t stand it, then the fact that there will be dancing at the party tonight affects what Ronnie and Bradley ought to do in different ways. In short, (HI) you ought, if you have the end, to take the means. But now trouble looms: what if you have (...) dreadful, murderous ends? Ought you to take the means to them? Seemingly not. But fortunately, an assumption made by deontic logics1 comes to the rescue. Since ‘‘ought’’, according to this assumption, is a sentential operator, HI must really be ambiguous. It could be read either as (Narrow) You have the end ! O(you take the means) or as (Wide) O(you have the end ! you take the means). Now if Narrow is true, then you really ought to take the means to your murderous ends. But this doesn’t follow from Wide. All that follows from Wide is that you ought to either take the means to these ends or else give them up. Conclusions: (1) Since HI is on some reading true, but Narrow isn’t, Wide is true. (2) Wide accounts for the relationship between your ends and what you ought to do. This elegant scenario repeats itself in many other domains in which it seems like something can have a bearing on what some particular agent ought to do. Does what you know affect what you ought to do? Do your beliefs about what you ought to do affect what you ought to do? Do your promises affect what you ought to do? Do your beliefs affect what you ought to believe? On each of these counts, the intuitive answer is ‘‘yes’’. And so each of these questions leaves something for the moral philosopher or the epistemologist to investigate. On each count, it seems that what we all know, is that (Account) you ought, if p, to do A. But on each count, the Narrow-scope reading of the ‘‘ought’’ in this claim yields unintuitive consequences. So since Account is true, it must be true on the Wide-scope reading.. (shrink)

Long claimed to be the dominant conception of practical reason, the Humean theory that reasons for action are instrumental, or explained by desires, is the basis for a range of worries about the objective prescriptivity of morality. As a result, it has come under intense attack in recent decades. A wide variety of arguments have been advanced which purport to show that it is false, or surprisingly, even that it is incoherent. Slaves of the Passions aims to set the record (...) straight, by advancing a version of the Humean theory of reasons which withstands this sophisticated array of objections. Schroeder defends a radical new view which, if correct, means that the commitments of the Humean theory have been widely misunderstood. Along the way, he raises and addresses questions about the fundamental structure of reasons, the nature of normative explanations, the aims of and challenges facing reductive views in metaethics, the weight of reasons, the nature of desire, moral epistemology, and most importantly, the relationship between agent-relational and agent-neutral reasons for action. (shrink)

In this paper I offer two arguments designed to defend the existence of categorical reasons, which I define as those justifying considerations that obtain independently of their relation to an agent's commitments. The first argument is based on certain paradigm cases meant to reveal difficulties for practical instrumentalism—the view, as I define it here, that categorical reasons do not exist, because all reasons must serve the commitments of the agents to whom they apply. The second argument relies on considerations of (...) responsibility and blame to establish the existence of categorical reasons. (shrink)

This widely anticipated book offers a systematic introduction to and striking analysis of the central issues animating current debate in moral philosophy. It will be of interest to anyone with a serious interest in the philosophical foundations of ethics. Topics discussed include: realist vs. anti-realist accounts of moral truth, cognitivist vs. expressivist accounts of moral judgment, internalist vs. externalist accounts of the relation between moral judgment and the will, Humean vs. anti-Humean theories of motivation, and the debate between those who (...) think that morality is a system of hypothetical imperatives and those who think that moral requirements are categorical imperatives. (shrink)

Can we adequately account for our reasons of mere taste without holding that our desires ground such reasons? Recently, Scanlon and Parfit have argued that we can, pointing to pleasure and pain as the grounds of such reasons. In this paper I take issue with each of their accounts. I conclude that we do not yet have a plausible rival to a desire-based understanding of the grounds of such reasons.

What is required for one thing to be a reason for another? Must the reason, more precisely, be or involve a principle? In this essay I target the idea that justification via reasons of one's beliefs (e.g., epistemic or moral) requires that the 'justifying reasons' be or involve (substantive and significant) principles. I identify and explore some potential sources of a principles requirement, and conclude that none of them (i.e., the normative function of reasons, the abstract structure of reasons, the (...) universalizability constraint on [moral] reasons, and even the pragmatic considerations that attenuate 'real-world' reason-giving) mandate that reasons be principles. I then explore implications of this conclusion, and note especially the resultant and paradoxical permissibility of justifying reasons that manage to be lawlike (a sine qua non for justifying reasons) even while consisting of highly-detailed and situation-specific proposition sets, e.g., novel-length narratives. (shrink)