Abstract
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.
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Notes
Note that this entails that there can be reasons that no one has. When we say that someone ‘has’ a reason, we mean that there is a fact about the world that favors some person performing some action, where that person is both aware of the fact and aware that it favors performing that action. My definition of ‘reason’ has the consequence that there can be a reason of which the person to whom it applies is unaware. I take this to be intuitively plausible. If, unbeknownst to me, there is a tiger creeping up behind me, then there is a reason for me to run away, though I am unaware of it.
White (2004)
The reader may notice some similarities between my notion of a “normative standard” and David Copp’s notion of a “standard,” in Copp (1995). I was already several drafts into this essay before I read Copp’s book, therefore those similarities are (I hope) simply a matter of the two of us independently grasping the truth about standards, as opposed to my making use of his work.
Specifically, one’s strongest overall, as opposed to basic, reason. So, for instance, my overall reason to go to the grocery store is the combination my reason to get eggs, my reason to get milk, my reason to get bread, etc.
Gert (2004). All references to Gert in this chapter are from this book. My comprehension of Gert’s book has been greatly aided by extensive correspondence and conversation with him, for which I am appreciative.
Gert’s T1 and T2 (p. 16)
It has been suggested to me that it is irrational to do what one believes one is rationally required not to do. The account of Gert’s that we are considering cannot accommodate this intuition. Realizing this, Gert argues that this sort of behavior is only subjectively irrational, not objectively irrational. This response seems adequate.
This is a combination of Gert’s A1 and A2 on p. 140.
Gert’s T6 (p. 17).
Gert originally makes this claim on p. 9.
This might seems overly simplistic, since we often think that the wrongness of an action supervenes on much less basic properties of the action: for instance, whether that action was an instance of rights-violation. Notice, however, that the property of being a violation of rights is an intrinsic property of an action (since it supervenes on the properties of the action that make it the action it is – like that it was a killing), and therefore wrongness remains an intrinsic property of an action even if it supervenes on the property of being a rights-violation.
Dancy (2004a). All references to Dancy are from this book, unless otherwise specified.
Dancy does not distinguish between different kinds of oughts, so we cannot know for sure that by ‘ought’ he means ‘finally ought.’ But if there are reasons that are not relevant to what one ought to do, then a fortiori there are reasons that are not relevant to what one finally ought to do. So Dancy is, indeed, committed to denying the claim that it is in the nature of reasons to generate final requirements.
He does say that the reason for having your brakes checked is peremptory Dancy (2004b). This reason, it seems to me, is evaluative.
Perhaps such claims are simply universally false (although I don’t think we should concede even this). However, at the very least it is false that people ought to eat fewer healthful foods. But if there were even the slightest peremptory reason in favor of eating fewer healthful foods, then Dancy would have to deny this claim as well! For on this interpretation of Dancy, he, unlike Gert, is committed to the claim that there is an entire class of reasons that can neither establish nor undermine ought claims. The reason in favor of eating more healthful foods, on this interpretation, is one of these reasons, and thus it cannot outweigh even the weakest contrary peremptory reason.
Ibid., p. 114. See also p. 99.
Ibid., pp 100 and 105.
Dancy mentions that he got the idea for this response from John Broome. Ibid., pp 101–102. In the paper, unlike in his book, Dancy is explicit about not wanting to concede that enticing reasons can ground oughts – even “weak” ones. He does, however, recognize that he is under significant pressure to make this concession.
I borrow this example, of course, from Thomas Nagel, although Nagel uses it in the service of a different point. Nagel (1974).
One might think that the fact of supererogation demonstrates that there can be reasons that don’t require. (I would deny this straight off, since I don’t believe that supererogation is possible. But I understand that this is a minority view, so I will make my response without assuming its truth.) Suppose Φ-ing would be supererogatory. Two things seem to follow from this. First, there is at least one reason to Φ, and second, one is not morally required to Φ. So, it seems, the reason to Φ cannot ground a moral requirement, from which we can reasonably infer that it cannot ground a final requirement either. But this appearance is deceiving. All moral reasons can ground moral requirements. It’s just that some never, in fact, do. For instance, the moral reason to save X’s life, where X can be saved only by receiving a heart transplant with you as the donor (perhaps you both have a rare kind of blood), never in fact grounds a moral requirement. This is because in order to save X’s life, one would have to sacrifice one’s own, and one is never morally required to sacrifice one’s own life to save that of a stranger. Such an act is supererogatory. Nevertheless, were it possible to save X’s life while making little or no sacrifice, then one would be morally required to do so. This shows that the moral reason to save X’s life can ground moral requirements. The same story could be told with respect to other reasons to engage in acts that are supererogatory.
References
Copp D (1995) Morality, normativity, & society. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Dancy J (2004a) Ethics without principles, chapter 2. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Dancy J (2004b) Enticing reasons. In: Wallace RJ et al (eds) Reason and value: themes from the moral philosophy of Joseph Raz. Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp 91–118
Gert J (2004) Brute rationality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Nagel T (1974) What is it like to be a bat? Philos Rev 83:435–450
White H (2004) Foundationalism and the metaphysics of practical reasons. Auslegung 27(1):47–64
Acknowledgements
Previous versions of this paper were presented to audiences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Washington State University, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the 2006 APA Pacific Division Annual Meeting. I received several helpful suggestions during these sessions, particularly from Bekka Williams, Hallie Liberto and Joshua Gert. In addition, I am deeply grateful to Russ Shafer-Landau, Dan Hausman, Rob Streiffer and two anonymous reviewers for this journal for their comments on previous drafts of this paper.
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Sachs, B. Reasons and Requirements. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 11, 73–83 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-007-9086-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-007-9086-2