Respect and the Reality of Apparent Reasons Forthcoming in Philosophical Studies Abstract Rationality requires us to respond to apparent normative reasons. Given the independence of appearance and reality, why think that apparent normative reasons necessarily provide real normative reasons? And if they do not, why think that mistakes of rationality are necessarily real mistakes? This paper gives a novel answer to these questions. I argue rst that in the moral domain, there are objective duties of respect that we violate whenever we do what appears to violate our rst-order duties. The existence of these duties of respect, I argue, ensures that apparent moral reasons are exceptions to the independence of appearance and reality. I then extend these arguments to the domain of overall reason. Just as there are objective duties of respect for moral reasons that explain moral blameworthiness, so there are objective duties of respect for reasons (period) that explain blameworthiness in the court of overall reason. The existence of these duties ensures that apparent reasons (period) are exceptions to the independence of appearance and reality. 1 Introduction On a familiar view in meta-ethics, rationality requires us to respond to apparent normative reasons, not normative reasons per se.1 The popularity of this view owes partly to a view about normative reasons on which they are, in the rst instance, facts that count in favor of acts and attitudes. Given this view about reasons, it is natural to think that one can fail to be in a position to appreciate the reasons or the normative relations that they bear to one's acts or attitudes while remaining fully rational. If there is any obvious connection between rationality and normative reasons on this sort of view, it is indirect: one is rational only if one responds correctly to the normative reasons that appear to exist from one's perspective. So understood, rationality has two aspects worth separating. On the one hand, rationality requires us not to ignore our beliefs about what there is reason to do. This dimension of rationality is captured by a class of coherence requirements that includes: 1 The view goes back to Scanlon (1998) and is endorsed by many others, including Dancy (2000), Kolodny (2005), Part (2001), Raz (2011), and Schroeder (2009). "Apparent reason" is Part's term. I prefer this term to "subjective reason", since I'm not persuaded we should accept a dualism of subjective and objective reasons, with each understood at the outset as normative in dierent senses. But the question on which this paper focuses could be raised in the language of subjective reasons: the issue would then be whether subjective reasons and subjective obligations have any objective signicance, or whether their signicance is merely subjective. Yet other terminology could be used. The only assumptions needed to get the puzzle going are (i) that there is a perspective-independent notion of genuine normativity, and (ii) that it is an open question whether one's perspective necessarily has any perspective-transcendent normative signicance. Some might reject these assumptions, but enough philosophers of normativity would grant them that it is worth considering my question without rst defending the assumptions. 1 Enkrasia: Rationality requires one to φ if one thinks there is decisive reason to φ.2 While recent literature focuses heavily on such requirements, we can hold that rationality calls for more than coherence even if we agree that it calls for less than correctness. Some apparent reasons are generated by appearances of a non-doxastic kind. If it looks like there is a red-hot coil on the stove, then there is prima facie rational pressure not to thrust your hand onto the stove. The pressure is not weaker if the appearance misleads, nor if you lack the explicit belief that there is decisive reason not to burn yourself.3 Extending a familiar idiom, I will call the rational pressures exerted by our de dicto beliefs about reasons structural apparent reasons and the rational pressures exerted by other appearances substantive apparent reasons. While these rational pressures are worth distinguishing, they have something in common: they depend on how things appear to us. Because appearances can deceive, a question arises: do we necessarily gain a real reason to φ if there is an apparent reason to φ? It is unclear why this would be so. It is not true in general that apparent Fs are real Fs. So why think that apparent reasons necessarily provide real reasons?4 Sure, they line up with real reasons in many actual cases. In our world, there is a real reason not to thrust your hand onto the stove in the sort of case described earlier: appearances of red-hot coils reliably indicate the presence of red-hot coils. But it is not a necessary truth that perceptual appearances are reliable indicators of the facts. And so it is unclear why apparent reasons would necessarily provide real reasons. Failing to see an optimistic answer to our question, many conclude that apparent rea2 "Enkrasia" is Broome's term. In the literature, people often discuss this simple version of Enkrasia but recognize that the requirement ultimately needs to be formulated in a more complicated way to be plausible. Broome has a much more complicated formulation; see Broome (2013). For these introductory purposes, I set aside the question of how best to formulate the true principle. There are other norms related to Enkrasia (as stated) that fall within the scope of my discussion. Enkrasia focuses on cases in which one thinks there are decisive reasons to φ. But as Fogal (forthcoming) notes, nondecisive rational pressures could be generated by other normative beliefs. Indeed, any non-enticing reason one seems to have which doesn't seem undercut is an apparent reason one ought rationally to take into account. 3I intend the discussion in this paper to be compatible with a range of views about the nature of apparent reasons and subjective reasons; for some options, see Lord (2018), Sylvan (2015), Vogelstein (2012), Whiting (2014), and Wodak (2019). I do assume with these theorists that we should reject Part (2011)'s simple view that apparent reasons are considerations which would be objective reasons if they were true, and I assume with Lord (2018) that apparent reasons must be considerations that one treats or is inclined to treat as objective reasons. Only if apparent reasons are understood in that way do they generate pressures of rationality. I leave the ontology of apparent reasons open, though I will follow many in talking as if apparent reasons were propositions. I will sometimes speak of the appearances as generating or providing appparent reasons; strictly speaking, I leave open whether the appearances themselves might also be reasons, but I take "generate" and "provide" to suggest distinctness. Finally, I assume that it isn't true by denition that the appearances themselves cannot provide or even be objective reasons in some cases. 4I use 'provide' in deliberately exible way: I want to allow that one might positively answer my question either by pointing to distinct real reasons which are generated by the apparent reasons, perhaps in virtue of a substantive principle linking the two, or by being identical to real reasons. The story I will tell is, I think, best told in the former form. For I assume that apparent reasons can be false but do want to think that objective reasons are true. But my view could be developed in either way, and easily so if one allowed that objective reasons might be false (a claim which, however, many would rule out by denition). 2 sons are no exception to the thought that apparent Fs need not be real Fs.5 On this view, rational pressures do not necessarily provide real reasons.6 While this view is tempting, it leaves us with a puzzle. Even from a third-person point of view, it looks like a mistake for someone to φ when she has decisive apparent reasons not to φ. It is not a merely apparent mistake, one might think. But if apparent reasons are not necessarily real reasons, it would seem not necessarily to be a real mistake. If there was no real case against φ-ing, how could it have been a mistake to φ? We can continue to call it a "mistake of rationality" even if it is not a real mistake, just as we can call mistakes of etiquette "mistakes of etiquette" even knowing that they are often not real mistakes. But that merely gives us another way to describe the puzzle. The puzzle, then, is simple. If we accept the tempting view that apparent reasons are not necessarily real reasons, we cannot obviously explain why mistakes of rationality are real mistakes. But if we reject the tempting view, we face an explanatory burden: we must explain what is special about apparent reasons that makes them exceptions to the thought that apparent Fs need not be real Fs. One might try to nd a way between the horns of this dilemma. There is a familiar strategy when it comes to the rational pressure exerted by normative beliefs.7 One can try to understand the requirement to φ if one believes that there is decisive reason to φ in a wide-scope way: Enkrasia–Wide: Rationality requires that [if one thinks there is decisive reason to φ, one φs]. We can hold that failing to comply with this requirement is a mistake even if the belief is false. For one can comply with this requirement in two ways: by revising the belief or by φ-ing. One might then hope that this proposal will generalize. Questions remain, however. One question at the center of the debate about the normativity of rationality is what the reasons for complying with requirements like Enkrasia–Wide would be. The wide-scope understanding of the form of coherence requirements does not answer this question by itself. Indeed, the most prominent wide-scoper confesses that he is unable to nd reasons that would explain the force that rational requirements appear to have.8 So, while wide-scoping might abate the problem, it does not solve it. There are other reasons to doubt that wide-scoping addresses the fundamental problem. Not all appearances are doxastic. It might appear to one that there is decisive reason to φ before one has formed the belief that there is decisive reason to φ.9 Such appearances can 5See e.g. Scanlon (1998), Kolodny (2005), Raz (2005), Part (2011), and Broome (2013). 6Following Fogal (forthcoming), I assume that there are defeasible pressures of merely structural rationality just as there are such pressures of substantive rationality. I don't assume, as Fogal believes, that there are no requirements of structural rationality which don't ow from a balance of pressures. Hence I will speak about both requirements and pressures, and I assume that the question in this paper applies to both. 7 See Broome (1999). 8 See Broome (2005, 2008, 2013). 9See Huemer (2007) and Bengson (2015) for the idea that non-doxastic appearances extend beyond the perceptual case. 3 generate rational pressure: if it non-doxastically appears that there is decisive reason to φ and it does not appear that there are reasons to mistrust that appearance, then there is rational pressure to φ. But one cannot drop the appearance that there is decisive reason to φ through reasoning in the way that one can drop the belief that there is decisive reason to φ through reasoning. If so, this rational pressure would seem to kick in whenever the relevant appearance is present.10 Yet there is no less reason to think that non-doxastic appearances can be misleading than to think that beliefs can be false. Sure, perhaps these appearances exert a dierent kind of rational pressure than that exerted by beliefs. But that fact would just show that our puzzle is more general than many assume. For these reasons, I will assume that wide-scoping does not solve the fundamental puzzle. For one thing, wide-scoping gives us no story about what the reasons for being rational would be, and indeed is consistent with skepticism about the normativity of rationality. For another thing, the fundamental problem is not just a problem about coherence requirements. It is a broader problem about the normativity of apparent reasons. How can we solve this puzzle? Many take it for granted that apparent reasons are not necessarily real reasons, though some have recently held that apparent reasons are normatively signicant in virtue of determining what we ought to do in the deliberative sense of "ought".11 More familiar responses are to (i) tell an error theory, (ii) give an account of the reasons for satisfying wide-scope requirements, or (iii) mimic Prichard on the normativity of morality and hold that there are reasons to be rational without giving an explanation that appeals to reasons from another domain.12 I am not satised with these proposals. But rather than argue against them, I want to pursue a kind of alternative that has been ignored. This alternative simply maintains that having an apparent reason to φ does necessarily give one a real reason to φ, and sets out to explain how this is possible. My account of how this is possible is the Respect-Based Account.13 It says that the problem with someone who is irrational is that she violates an objective duty of respect for reasons. To develop this account, I begin in §2 with a point that I exploit throughout. Whenever a source of reasons calls for respect,14 we nd an exception to the idea that 10 Here I rely on a weak version of what Kolodny (2005) calls the "Reasoning Test". All that my version assumes is that if a rational requirement governing a conict between states A and B is wide-scope, then one can reason one's way out by dropping A or by dropping B. I do not assume that one must be able to reason from B to dropping A and from A to dropping B. 11See, e.g., Ross (2012), Kiesewetter (2017), and Lord (2018). 12 Kolodny (2005, 2008a–c) and Raz (2005) pursue option (i). Southwood (2008) and Hussain (MS) pursue option (iii). Many have pursued option (ii), but most give stories for particular coherence requirements rather than giving a general theory for all rational requirements. Bratman (2009) gives an account of the reason to comply with the wide-scope instrumental principle, while Reisner (2011) gives an account of the reasons to comply with epistemic coherence requirements. 13This account is a generalization of a view I've long held in the epistemic case-see Sylvan (2012, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2020) 14'Reason' can refer either to things that stand in reason-relations or to the abstract reasons that they provide. If so, then reasons (in the rst sense) can be sources of reasons (in the second sense). Accordingly, I will shift between talking about reasons and sources of reasons, where the latter understood broadly as whatever can give a reason, including people, principles, facts, and so on. I leave open which notion is the key notion. Ultimately, 4 having an apparent reason to φ does not guarantee having a real reason to φ. Specically, for any source of reasons X that calls for respect, if ψ-ing would violate a duty one has to X, then if it appears that by φ-ing one would be ψ-ing, one's intentionally φ-ing would violate the duty of respect for X (other things being equal).15 This is because intentionally doing what appears to violate your duties to X is a way to manifest disrespect for X. With these ideas in place, I defend a more ambitious claim in §3: whenever one fails to respond rationally to apparent reasons, one is violating a duty of respect for reasons. This is because failures to respond to the apparent reasons will involve doing what, if the appearances were veridical, would amount to failures to respond to the reasons. And such failures preclude full respect for reasons. From this and the preliminary points made in §2, it will follow that appearances of reasons provide genuine reasons. And these are serious reasons, since they are explained by duties of respect. One might wonder what this duty of respect for reasons involves and where it comes from. Anticipating these questions, I spend time in §2 unpacking the notion of respect in a way that stymies the worry that it is fetishistic. Following Graham (2014), I suggest that respect for morally relevant factors is a requirement we already have reason to accept as a ground of moral blameworthiness. In positing a duty of respect for reasons, I generalize this suggestion to the domain of overall reason: the duty of respect for reasons is the duty we violate whenever we are blameworthy in the court of overall reason. The upshot is that the objective duty of respect explains why there is objective reason to comply with requirements of substantive rationality. I give a similar argument that failing to respond to structural apparent reasons constitutes violation of an objective duty of commitment to reasons-responsiveness, which I formulate to avoid worries about fetishism and rational akrasia. This duty explains the normativity of (enkratic) structural rationality. So two norms explain the normativity of appearance-determined rationality: a norm of respect underpins the normativity of substantive rationality (§3), and a norm of commitment underpins the normativity of enkratic structural rationality (§4). It is compatible with this story that there can be reasons outside a rational agent's ken to which she can fail to conform. But as I explain in §5, if this were true, my view would not predict that we face any incredible dilemma. Competing duties can issue from a single locus. Some values are both ttingly respected and promoted, and respect and promotion can conict. One might wonder, though: if the pressure to conform to all the reasons outweighed the pressure to manifest respect for reasons, would it follow that the I think the key notion is the broad source notion. I also think hold that values understood non-teleologically in the manner of Anderson (1993) and Scanlon (1998: Ch.2) are the relevant sources; hence respect for value is more fundamental, though values are reasons in the source sense. 15 I use this formulation because the point does not turn on one's representing φ-ing as duty-violating. The "other things being equal" is meant to ll in for whatever other conditions might be necessary for the duty to be an apparent duty. On sophisticated accounts of apparent reasons like my own in Sylvan (2015), it is not enough for an apparent fact to be an apparent reason to φ that this fact would, if it obtained, give one a reason to φ. The fact that there are other necessary conditions indicates that we would have to consult the true theory of apparent reasons to remove the "other things being equal". 5 requirements of rationality lack stringency? Not, I argue in §5, any sort of stringency that anyone should have ever demanded of rational requirements. After addressing some other objections, I draw things to a close by taking stock of the main points and how my account meets every constraint that we can reasonably impose. 2 Respect, Obligation, and the Appearances To warm up to my general account, I will begin by arguing in this section that there is a kind of reason in the moral case for which the following thesis holds: Weak Transparency-Substantive: Necessarily, if one has a substantive apparent reason of this kind to φ, then one has an objective reason of this kind to φ. My defense of this thesis will turn on a fact about respect. For any X that calls for respect, if ψ-ing would violate a duty one has to X, then if it appears that by φ-ing one would be ψ-ing, one's intentionally φ-ing would violate the duty of respect for X. So, if one has that kind of apparent reason not to perform that act, one has a real reason not to perform the act. And the reason is a serious one, since it is explained by a duty of respect. Notice that I am not claiming that if it appears to one that some act would violate a duty one has towards X, then intentionally performing that act would violate that very duty. One could call that false claim Strong Transparency. The claim I defend is that there is always a real duty that one would violate if one intentionally performed an apparent duty-violating act: viz., a duty of respect. Using a similar strategy, I will also argue that there is a kind of reason in the moral case for which the following holds: Weak Transparency-Structural: Necessarily, if one has a structural apparent reason of this kind to φ, then one has an objective reason of this kind to φ. This thesis requires separate treatment, since it raises issues that do not arise in the case of Weak Transparency-Substantive. 2.1 Respect and the Appearances Let's consider some examples. Our relationships with others call for respect. They call for other things too, which vary depending on the type of relationship. Suppose you have agreed to have a monogamous relationship with Kris. And suppose that the fact that you agreed to be in this relationship makes it the case that you have a duty not to become romantically involved with other people. The crucial thing to notice is that if you intentionally do what appears to violate this duty, you violate a further duty: you fail to manifest the kind of respect for your relationship (and for Kris) that it (and Kris) demand. 6 To see why this is plausible, consider a case in which it misleadingly appears that you are becoming romantically involved with someone other than Kris: Disguise: Kris worries that you would cheat if you had the chance. Kris decides to test this hypothesis. With the help of an acting background and some remarkable costuming skills, Kris manages to dress up like a totally dierent person on whom you would have an instant crush. So disguised, Kris has been showing up at coee shops around your workplace to irt with you. You are convinced that you are interacting with someone other than Kris. You now seem to be having a date with this person when Kris allegedly planned to be out of town. Suppose Kris reveals the truth and claims that you have no respect for your relationship. The following would not be a compelling reply: "No, I have full respect: it is you, after all, who are on this date with me!" We would underdescribe this case if we merely say that you did something subjectively wrong. Of course, you did not really violate a duty against cheating on Kris. But you did violate a duty with the same source. Your plans and acts manifested disrespect for your relationship and for Kris. You objectively ought not to manifest such disrespect. The value-the actual value-of your relationship calls for such respect. This case illustrates how the apparent violation of one duty can constitute a real violation of another duty. And so it shows that for one kind of reason, having an apparent reason of that kind ensures having an objective reason of that kind. While the duty of respect has its source in actual value and it is not a merely subjective duty, it imposes a constraint on your subjectivity. You cannot manifest respect for a relationship in virtue of intentionally doing what appears to violate the terms of that relationship. Conversely for disrespect: would it cast doubt on your loyalty if you had a date with someone who managed to look and act just like Kris, and whom you took on this basis to be Kris? No. If Kris were unaware that the person with whom you had the date was dressed up this way, Kris could demand an explanation. But you could show there was no failure of respect. This observation is not conned to intimate relationships. Other relationships-the relationship of promiser to promisee, testier to recipient, or professional to professional-call for the sort of respect that underpins our observation. Suppose you promised Zane that you will φ by April. And suppose that it is now January and you misremember: you mistakenly seem to recall promising that you would φ by February. It turns out that you wrote this mistake into your calendar. If you now make plans to do something incompatible with φ-ing by February and say to yourself, "Ah, who cares what Zane thinks. I'll do it by April," you manifest disrespect for Zane and the constraints his promises impose. He could complain if he overheard you, even though your plans would full the promise actually made. Similar points can be made in the case of testimony. Although the recipient of testimony wants truth or knowledge, it does not follow that the recipient has nothing to complain about if she receives nothing but truth or knowledge. Even if I realize that a testier 7 always speaks the truth about some domain, I have something to complain about if the testier takes himself to be speaking falsely. We care about honesty even if we realize that we will get the truth anyway. Why? Because there is, yet again, a norm of respect in play. The observation is not even conned to relationships. Legitimate rules call not only for conformity but for respect. A person might conform to a rule but do so in spite of being reckless or negligent with respect to it. When we fault this person for recklessness or negligence, what we are faulting them for is for manifesting insucient respect for the rule. That is a real mistake. These observations suggest that when a person has apparent reason relative to some rule to intend to φ, then insofar as that rule is normative, she also has real reason to intend to φ: failure to intend to φ would manifest disrespect for the rule. So there is a kind of objective reason one cannot appear to have without having a reason of that kind. Of course, there is room for a more specic kind of fallibility. It is false that if it appears to us that we are cheating on our partners, breaking our promises, speaking falsely, or violating some principles, we are thereby making these mistakes. But it does not follow that we are not thereby violating other objective duties. This point is often overlooked in discussions of the relationship between blameworthiness and wrongness, with the exception of Graham (2014). Excusable wrongdoing is of course possible, and it is true that one can be blameworthy in doing something permissible.16 But it does not follow that all norms can be blamelessly violated or that there is no norm one violates when one is blameworthy in performing a permissible act. The norm one violates is a norm of respect. And norms of respect cannot be blamelessly violated. 2.2 The Nature and Objects of Respect What is the relevant sort of respect? It need not be second-personal: it is something that one can have with respect to a legitimate rule. It is closer to the broader sort of recognition respect Darwall (1977) had in mind, though I hesitate to use the term because he uses it second-personally in his more recent work.17 He originally described recognition respect for X as "a disposition to weigh appropriately in one's deliberations some feature of [X] and to act accordingly."18 Weighing the feature appropriately, as our examples suggest, means weighing it in the way that the appearances suggest (de re) to be the right way. More precisely, I suggest the following specication of the conditions under which one manifests respect for a source of reasons: Manifesting Respect: S manifests respect for a source of reasons R i S complies with the substantive apparent reasons apparently given by R. 16 The latter is more controversial than the former. For a defense of the idea that one can be blameworthy in doing something permissible, see Zimmerman (1997). 17 Esp. Darwall (2006). 18 Darwall (1977: 38). 8 This is not intended to be an analysis but rather a specication of the conditions under which one manifests respect. To have respect for a source of reasons might then be regarded as having the disposition to manifest respect for that source of reasons. We have seen that this sort of respect can take partners, promisees and interlocutors as objects. These objects of respect are denizens of concrete reality. Still, not every claim of the form "S manifests respect for X-es" entails a claim of the form "There exist some X-es for which S manifests respect". Even if all non-human animals vanished from the face of the earth, one person might manifest a disrespect for non-human animals that the other does not. Suppose that Audrey and Blanche are unaware that all non-human animals have vanished from the face of the earth, and that there are holograms of cats designed to trick them into thinking that some animals remain. Imagine now that Audrey sees a hologram of a cat being bashed and thinks a real cat is being bashed. If Audrey rejoices, we should resent her. What for? Plausibly, for her disrespect. If, by contrast, Blanche seemed to see that she could prevent a cat from being bashed and aimed to do so, she would manifest respect. It is hard to see why Audrey should be less blameworthy for her response or Blanche less praiseworthy for her response than if real cats were involved. Does it follow that the requirements of respect that fundamentally underpin blameworthiness are more abstract than the surface attributions suggest even when relevant concreta exist? It is tempting to say "yes", though one might question the general principle behind this temptation, as disjunctivists in the philosophy of perception do. More cautiously, we can say that even if we are required to respect the relevant concreta when they exist, it does not follow that we lack an equally strong duty of respect when these concreta are missing. We have such duties, and this fact explains why Audrey is blameworthy and Blanche is not. Is it fetishistic to believe in this duty of respect? No. It must be in place to explain the full range of blameworthiness/praiseworthiness facts. If avoiding such disrespect were no duty, it is unclear why Audrey would be blameworthy. Such a norm would be fetishistic only if it got in the way of our caring about concreta. But we are not forced to think that it does. By analogy, we are not forced to think that experience gets in the way of our seeing things if we grant that we would have the same experience when hallucinating. Disjunctivists may disagree, but they are not obviously right. Just as we see things in normal cases partly by being in a state we could be in even when hallucinating on non-disjunctive views, so we manifest respect for concreta in normal cases partly by being in a state that we could be in even when hallucinating these concreta. Respect for non-human animals does not get in the way of caring about particular animals even if it supervenes on the internal, just as experience does not get in the way of seeing particular animals even if it supervenes on the internal. 9 2.3 Commitment and Normative Appearances So far we have been discussing a kind of respect that one can seemingly manifest even in the absence of any relevant normative beliefs. Audrey manifests disrespect for non-human animals even if she lacks the belief that her reaction is wrong, and Blanche manifests respect even if she lacks the belief that her response is right. Our picture of respect respects this fact: substantive apparent reasons are not de dicto appearances of reasons. Still, one might think that there is something problematic about believing that one has a duty to φ and failing to φ. What could explain that? Is there another norm that enjoins de dicto care? 2.3.1 Praiseworthy Akrasia? Let's back up. Answering these questions requires care because there some hold that one's responsiveness to normative beliefs in φ-ing has little or no impact on one's praiseworthiness or blameworthiness in φ-ing. Arpaly (2003) defended such a view. There are also well-known claims to the eect that de dicto concern for rightness is fetishistic. Smith (1994) made this claim. I agree with some existing responses to Arpaly and Smith. I will briey discuss them to bring into focus the norm that answers our questions. Recall one of Arpaly's arguments that acting against one's normative beliefs is not necessarily blameworthy. Huck thinks that turning Jim in is the right thing and feels pangs of conscience when he is loyal to Jim. His decision not to turn Jim in seems praiseworthy when understood not merely as a manifestation of squeamishness but rather as a manifestation of genuine sympathy. Yet Huck acts against his belief that it is wrong to do so, and so allegedly acts akratically. Notably, Arpaly describes Huck as undergoing a "perceptual shift" in the time he spends with Jim, and as manifesting a "visceral egalitarianism". This case may recommend the conclusion that it is possible to judge that φ-ing is wrong while nonetheless being praiseworthy in φ-ing. But it is important to note-and here I follow Smith (2004)-that this praiseworthiness is best viewed as a global or overall kind of praiseworthiness. That Huck is praiseworthy in this sense is compatible with the thought that Huck is failing to comply with a local duty of respect. For one can take overall praise and blame to reect one's compliance or lack of compliance with a whole range of local duties of respect. And there are numerous such duties with which Huck is complying. There are other reasons to doubt that this case shows that there is no duty of responsiveness to de dicto normative appearances. Firstly, as Kriegel (2012) observes, it is natural to regard Huck as having the implicit attitude that turning Jim in is wrong. The earmarks of such an attitude will be present if we understand the case as Arpaly says we must (perceptual shift and all).19 Absent the case for attributing the implicit attitude, Huck might not be praiseworthy. But then the case would suggest that responsiveness to de dicto normative 19 Some theories of apparent reasons require one to have what is naturally understood as the implicit attitude that there is sucient objective reason to φ if one is to have sucient apparent reason to φ-i.e., that one treats one's situation as one in which there is sucient objective reason to φ. See e.g. Lord (2018). 10 implicit attitudes is necessary for praiseworthiness. Secondly, as Holton (MS) observes, it is unclear that Huck has any stable relevant normative beliefs at the time of action. If not, the case is no counterexample to the thought that acting against the de dicto normative appearances renders one blameworthy. Finally, as Arpaly agrees, Huck would be more praiseworthy if he had the knowledge that it is right to help Jim and acted from it: she just denies that this is necessary for him to be praiseworthy. For all we have seen, then, it would be reasonable to maintain that there is a local duty with which Huck fails to comply, where that fact renders him open to local criticism even if his choice is praiseworthy in a global sense. 2.3.2 Fetishism? What is this duty? In answering this question, we must avoid a dierent worry about placing weight on responsiveness to normative beliefs. Respect as discussed earlier is a form of de re concern, and involves responding to non-normative appearances. De dicto normative appearances are another matter. If responding to them grounds a form of concern, one might worry that it is a fetishistic concern for rightness as such. Although this worry continues to prove inuential, I believe it was answered long ago. It is not clear that the only alternative to de re concern is a rst-order concern for acting rightly as such. Dreier (2000) pointed to a further alternative.20 Rather than requiring the rst-order desire to perform right actions for the sake of performing right actions as such, one could require a second-order desire with the following form: (*) One desires that [if φ-ing is morally right, one desires that [one φ for its own sake]]. Being guided by (*) is compatible with acquiring de re desires to perform particular right actions for their own sake. Yet one side of the fetishism worry is that having the de dicto desire will preclude de re caring about right-making features for their own sake. If we enshrine the relevant form of concern in a second-order desire like (*), this worry evaporates. The proponent of the fetishism charge might complain that we have merely moved the lump under the rug. But as Dreier observed, this complaint is unjustied. The second-order desire is hardly objectionable: If [someone] were told that some day in the future she will see clearly what features of actions are the right-making ones, and asked whether she hopes that she will be moved by these features, she surely must say that she does hope so. Otherwise she could hardly be called a good moral agent. So it is not [(*)] itself that provides any ground for complaint.21 What might be objectionable is if the rst-order desires had to be sustained by the secondorder desire. But we are not committed to recommending that dependence. While the 20 Dreier discusses two alternatives. I am discussing the second; see Dreier (2000: 635–38). 21 Dreier (2000: 636). 11 original cause of the rst-order desires will be the second-order desire, these desires can be sustained just by de re awareness of the right-making features. So, there is a non-fetishistic alternative to rst-order de dicto concern for rightness. The fetishism objection to rst-order de dicto concern does not withstand scrutiny anyway.22 This concern would be fetishistic if it were one's sole non-instrumental concern, so that one's de re concerns were merely instrumental. But the relation between the de dicto and de re concerns need not be instrumental. If the relation is not instrumental, the appearance of fetishism disappears. De dicto concern is not fetishistic as such. It is only fetishistic when it plays a certain role-when it gets in the way of non-instrumental caring about particular right actions or valuable things. 2.3.3 Commitment While the fetishism objection to rst-order de dicto concern fails, I prefer a version of Dreier's approach. I want the relevant concern to be a concern one fails to manifest when akratic. I am not sure that (*) is a desire that one cannot manifest when akratic. Mightn't an akratic agent desire that they not be akratic and manifest this desire by bemoaning their akrasia? If so, then if there is something objectionable about akrasia, it is not that this desire is missing or not manifest. It is better, I think, to claim that what is missing is the manifestation of a second-order commitment to intending to perform right actions for their own sake.23 We can replace (*) with: (**) One has the commitment that [if φ-ing is morally right, one intends to [φ for its own sake]]. One could have this commitment while being occasionally akratic at the rst order. But one could not manifest this commitment in being akratic. One does not manifest commitment to intending to φ if φ-ing is right by bemoaning one's akrasia. What one bemoans is that one is not manifesting that commitment! It is plausible that the commitment one nds lacking in those who are insensitive to apparent rightness is the commitment picked out in (**). This commitment is not fetishistic. If we think that people are open to local blame for acting against their beliefs about what is right, we are committed to thinking that rightness calls for such commitment. While there are inuential doubters, their doubts are unfounded, at least if understood as a case against the modest thought that one is open to local blame when akratic. I suspect that what is happening in apparent cases of rational akrasia is that one is not fully responsive to the substantive apparent reasons: if one were, one wouldn't have the false normative belief. The apparent reasons Huck has against turning in Jim are apparent evidence against his false belief. So it is hard to see how Huck could have sucient apparent reason to think that he should turn in Jim in the relevant case. 22 Others have made the point to follow; cf. Brink (1997) and Dreier (2000). 23 This is psychological commitment, not the normative commitment Shpall (2014) discusses. 12 2.4 Assessing Weak Transparency-Structural I have addressed what I take to be the main reasons for rejecting a local norm of de dicto commitment to reasons-responsiveness. Granting that there is such a norm, how does it bear on whether structural apparent reasons are real reasons? So far I have been primarily interested in showing that (i) one can be locally blameworthy for akrasia and that (ii) the norm one violates if one is locally blameworthy for akrasia is a local norm of commitment to reasons-responsiveness. If (i) and (ii) are true, we still strictly speaking only get a reason not to be akratic. That alone, one might think, does not get us the detached reason to act. To get the detached reason, we can attend to two further points. Firstly, when the appearance is non-doxastic, there will be only one way to avoid conict through reasoning. So the pressure will be detachable. Secondly, when the appearance is doxastic, we still get a serious reason to adopt the attitude given the belief: we just also get an equally serious reason to drop the belief.24 By the lights of the norm of commitment, there is no stronger reason for either option. That is not to say that there is no serious reason to φ (given the belief).25 This is a surprising claim in itself. Some think it alone yields unacceptable bootstrapping.26 But we should accept it with some qualications to be discussed in §4. Carefully understood, it does not yield an unacceptable kind of bootstrapping. Indeed, it is plausible that if one's normative belief is false, one will have sucient apparent reason to drop that belief and the norm of respect will push one in that direction. 3 Generalizing, Part I: Respect and Substantive Rationality 3.1 The Thesis The claims defended in the previous section were restricted in certain ways. I will now turn to generalize, beginning with a defense of the following broader relative of the rst core thesis from the last section: Weak Transparency-Substantive+: Necessarily, if one has an undefeated serious substantive apparent reason to φ, one has a serious objective reason to φ. Two remarks about the scope of this thesis are in order. The rst is about why "undefeated" is in the antecedent and not the consequent. It is in the antecedent because the thesis would be indefensible without it there. I want to explain why apparent reasons matter by appealing to an ideal of respect for objective reasons. Acting against undefeated serious apparent 24 Notice that I am not claiming that one gets a reason to adopt the attitude when the doxastic appearance is not in place. I am not relying on the principle that if one has reason to make it true that [p or q], one has a reason to make it true that p and a reason to make it true that q, which Rippon (2011) undermined. 25 Cf. Schroeder (2005) on Raz (2005). 26 Cf. Raz (2005). 13 reasons manifests disrespect for objective reasons. Not so for defeated apparent reasons: acting for them manifests disrespect for objective reasons and ignoring them manifests no obvious disrespect. So I reject the principle that drops "undefeated" from the antecedent. If "undefeated" is in the antecedent, why isn't it in the consequent? Because there can be rebutting defeaters beyond one's ken that outweigh the reasons one gets from the norm of respect.27 This fact does raise questions about how to understand the stringency of substantive rationality, which I will address in §5. The second remark to make is about what "serious" means. So far I have been using "serious" as if it were synonymous with "weighty". The reason why "seriousness" so understood has played a role is that I do not want to defend the uninteresting claim that there is some trivially weak objective reason to heed apparent reasons: the claim is rather that if there is a serious apparent reason to φ, there is a similarly serious objective reason to φ. There is something else that "serious" could indicate. One might think that it is not at all irrational to ignore apparent undefeated enticing reasons.28 So, if one wants to explain why apparent reasons are real reasons by appeal to some ideal of respect for reasons, one might wonder how the story goes for enticing reasons. Frankly, though, I am skeptical that apparent enticing reasons to φ do necessarily yield objective reasons to φ. The project of explaining their normativity strikes me as less pressing than the project of explaining the normativity of apparent peremptory reasons. Indeed, the former project is obviously not part of the standard project of vindicating the normativity of rationality. So by "serious", I'll mean not merely enticing. (Note, however, that peremptory reasons are still defeasible.) 3.2 The Argument in Outline With these clarications in mind, let's consider the argument that I will use to defend Weak Transparency-Substantive+. The Respect Argument 1. There is an objective duty to manifest respect for objective reasons. 2. One manifests respect for objective reasons i one heeds undefeated serious apparent reasons. 3. So, there is a derived objective duty to heed undefeated serious apparent reasons. 4. If (3), then if one has an undefeated serious apparent reason to φ, one has a serious objective reason to φ. 5. So, if one has an undefeated serious apparent reason to φ, one has a serious objective reason to φ. 27 I do not think there can be objective undercutting defeaters in the relevant cases: respect-based objective reasons give one a safeguard against them. A totally objectively undercut reason is not really an objective reason. But the norm of respect will convert an undefeated apparent reason into an objective reason. 28 On enticing reasons, see Dancy (2004). 14 I will devote §3.3 and §3.4 to defending (1) and (2). Since (3) follows from (1) and (2), (4) is obvious, and (5) follows from (3) and (4), this will secure the argument. 3.3 Defending (1): Domain-Relative Blameworthiness, Blameworthiness in the Court of Overall Reason, and Respect What is the duty of respect for objective reasons? Why think we have this duty? Let's back up. It is plausible that for every domain (e.g., morality, prudence, epistemology...), there is a norm of respect for the reasons in the domain, where these reasons are the things that bear the domain-relative reason-for relation to acts and attitudes. What makes these various norms of respect belong to a unied class is the role they play. The norm of respect for moral reasons explains the force of assessments of moral blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. The norm of respect for prudential reasons explains the force of assessments of prudential blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. The norm of respect for epistemic reasons explains the force of assessments of epistemic blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. And so on. One might be skeptical that there is such a thing as non-moral blameworthiness. But this skepticism is at best terminologically justied. Perhaps "blame" is the wrong word to use because it has a special tie to reactive attitudes like resentment and indignation. But it does not follow that in other domains, there is no functional analogue of blame. In every domain, there is a distinction between inexcusable and excusable rst-order norm violation. If there is no apparent reason to think that by φ-ing you would be ψ-ing, where ψ-ing would violate some norm, you are ceteris paribus excusable for φ-ing if φ-ing in fact violates this duty. If there is sucient apparent reason to think that by φ-ing you would be ψ-ing, where ψ-ing violates some norm, your φ-ing is ceteris paribus inexcusable. One is excusable in the domain in the same conditions in which one avoids violating the relevant norms of respect in the domain. One is inexcusable in the domain in the same conditions in which one violates such a norm. The reason why the analogues of blame have force is that they amount to pointing to the fact that one has violated a norm of respect in the domain. Of course, it is possible to do something blameworthy while doing (accidentally) what the rst-order reasons in the domain favor. But it does not follow that there is not necessarily any objective norm one violates when one is blameworthy. Whether one wants to mark the more general contrast between inexcusable and excusable rst-order norm violation using "blame" talk is a terminological matter. There are analogues of blame-things that play a similar role-in other domains. To say that these things play a similar role to blame is not to say that all the roles of blame are paralleled: they simply parallel each other when it comes to the role of carving out the inexcusable/excusable violation distinction. So, I think we have as much reason to think that there are norms of respect for objective reasons in non-moral domains as there is to think that there is a norm of respect for objective reasons in the moral domain. 15 Now, I have been talking as if there is some overarching norm beyond particular norms of respect for objective reasons in particular domains. On an opposing view, there is no overarching norm of respect but rather just a collection of norms of respect in various domains. Clearly, this opposing view is simpler. Is that reason enough to dismiss my view? Only if there are no appraisals we need to explain that cannot be explained by particular norms of respect in particular domains. But there must be such a thing as blameworthiness and praiseworthiness in the court of overall reason. Reasons of morality and reasons of prudence can be placed on a single scale to yield an overall fact about what one has most reason to do. Similarly for apparent reasons: what one has most apparent reason to do will not be relativized to any domain. We should expect there to be a distinctive appraisal we can make of someone who fails to heed the balance of apparent reasons (all domains considered), and of someone who heeds the balance of apparent reasons (all domains considered). One way to describe these appraisals is with the phrases "blameworthiness in the court of overall reason" and "praiseworthiness in the court of overall reason". This yields a nice symmetry. But there are ordinary words that do the job: namely, "irrationality" and "rationality". We need a norm of respect to explain the force of these appraisals. The norm is the norm of respect for objective reasons (period). So, we have good reason to accept premise (1) in the Respect Argument. We are already committed to norms of respect for the reasons of particular domains by our practice of agent-directed criticism and praise for each domain. But we have a need for assessments that reect the balance of these norms of respect-a need for praise and blame in the court of overall reason. Those assessments just are assessments of substantive rationality. The duty of respect for objective reasons is the duty that backs those assessments. 3.4 Why Heeding Apparent Reasons Fullls this Duty How can the duty of respect for objective reasons be the duty that backs assessments of substantive rationality? How-as premise (2) says-can heeding apparent reasons be a way to manifest respect for objective reasons? Remember that one can manifest disrespect for non-human animals even if there are no particular non-human animals that one is disrespecting. Hence, if it supports resenting Audrey, the requirement to not manifest disrespect for animals must not presuppose that there are any animals toward which Audrey manifests disrespect. Perhaps Audrey would be more blameworthy if a real cat were being run over. But she is still blameworthy for her reaction. So there is a duty of respect that she violates. We can generalize this observation: similar points can be made about other examples in the moral case and about examples in non-moral cases. For every kind of blameworthiness we can imagine, there will be a corresponding norm of respect, where the sort of respect that gures in that norm can be manifest toward Fs even if there are no actual Fs. It will be a requirement of respect for moral reasons that one can violate even if one is 16 not disrespecting any standard concrete providers of moral reasons. Now, suppose that charges of substantive irrationality simply amount to charges of blameworthiness in the court of overall reason. And suppose that the fundamental requirement in the court of overall reason is the requirement to correctly respond to the overall balance of objective reasons. Then it will be plausible that what underpins charges of substantive irrationality is the requirement of respect for objective reasons (period). One can violate this requirement even if one is not disrespecting any concrete providers of objective reasons (period). Just as one can manifest disrespect for objective moral reasons by failing to heed the apparent moral reasons, so one can manifest disrespect for objective reasons (period) by failing to heed the apparent reasons (period). So, while premise (2) in the Respect Argument can sound incredible on rst blush, it is perfectly sensible on second blush. Once we note that respecting Fs doesn't require there being any particular Fs that one respects, we nd that there is a clear case for (2). 4 Generalizing, Part II: Commitment to Reasons and the Reality of Structural Apparent Reasons 4.1 The Thesis and the Argument in Outline The point of this section will resemble that of the last. The point will be to defend the following generalization of the second core thesis from §2: Weak Transparency-Structural+: Necessarily, if one has an undefeated serious structural apparent reason to φ, one has a serious objective reason to φ. The argument for this thesis parallels the Respect Argument: The Commitment Argument 1. There is an objective duty to manifest commitment to objective reasons-responsiveness. 2. One fullls this duty i one heeds one's de dicto beliefs about the presence of undefeated serious objective reasons. 3. So, there is a derived duty to heed one's de dicto beliefs about the presence of undefeated serious objective reasons. 4. If (3), then if one has an undefeated serious structural apparent reason to φ, one has a serious objective reason to φ. 5. So, if one has an undefeated serious structural apparent reason to φ, one has a serious objective reason to φ. My defense of this argument will sound familiar. I will devote §4.3 and §4.4 to defending premises (1) and (2). I will also address some worries about (4) in §4.4. Since (3) follows from (1) and (2) and (5) follows from (3) and (4), this will suce to defend the argument. 17 4.2 Commitment to Objective Reasons-Responsiveness What is the duty of commitment? Why think that we have this duty? Let's back up once again. It is plausible that for every domain (morality, prudence, epistemology, etc.), there is a second-order duty that one manifest commitment to heeding rst-order reasons in the domain. What makes these various duties of commitment belong to a unied class is the role they play. The duty of commitment to moral reasonsresponsiveness is what explains the force of ascriptions of recklessness and conscientiousness in the moral domain. The duty of commitment to prudential reasons-responsiveness explains the force of ascriptions of recklessness and conscientiousness in the prudential domain. The duty of commitment to epistemic reasons-responsiveness explains the force of ascriptions of recklessness and conscientiousness in the epistemic domain. And so on. As I granted in §2, recklessness is at best one local dimension of blameworthiness and conscientiousness is at best one local dimension of praiseworthiness. It is compatible with violating a duty of commitment that one is praiseworthy in a global sense. It is also compatible with complying with a duty of commitment that one is blameworthy in a global sense. But none of this shows that there is no duty of commitment. It only shows that duties of commitment are not the only second-order duties to consider when determining whether someone is blameworthy or praiseworthy. Duties of respect also play a role. To determine how much weight considerations of commitment have in global assessments of praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, we need to know more about what the norms of commitment require and which kinds of recklessness are incompatible with these norms. I have already suggested that in the moral case, the norm calls for one to manifest the following second-order commitment: (**) One has the commitment that [if φ-ing is morally right, one intends to [φ for its own sake]]. Hence, the norm of commitment in the moral case is the following: (MC) One ought morally to have and manifest one's commitment that [if φ-ing is morally right, one intends to [φ for its own sake]]. In §2, I suggested that it is impossible to manifest this commitment through recklessness. As I noted in discussing Arpaly's argument, it is not obvious what level of acceptance matters for determining whether someone is reckless. Is it reckless to act against one's explicit judgment that φ-ing is morally right if one has a powerful competing implicit attitude or felt attraction toward the proposition that φ-ing is not morally right? Maybe. But perhaps it is more blameworthy if one acts against normative implicit attitudes or felt attractions to assent to propositions. I will not try to settle which level of acceptance matters most for determining whether someone has violated the norms of commitment. I point to the variety of levels only to stress that the norm of commitment may be more obviously relevant 18 to overall praiseworthiness and blameworthiness if we take other levels than the level of explicit, conscious judgment into account. What matters more for now is that within each domain, there is a norm of second-order commitment to rst-order reasons-responsiveness that grounds assessments of recklessness and conscientiousness. Given this point, it is easy to defend (1) in the Commitment Argument in the same way that we defended (1) in the Respect Argument. Again, it would be simpler to claim that there is no norm of commitment to objective reasons-responsiveness beyond particular norms of commitment in particular domains. But parsimony only yields a reason to reject such a norm if there are no appraisals whose force we need such a norm to explain. There is such a thing as recklessness from the point of view of overall reason. To determine whether someone is reckless from the point of view of overall reason, we need to attend to this person's views about what she has overall reason to do. What is recklessness from the point of view of overall reason? "Recklessness from the point of view of overall reason" is just another name for the canonical form of structural irrationality: akrasia. Conversely for conscientiousness. If one thinks at every level that commonsense morality is not normative, it would hardly manifest conscientiousness if one did what one believed commonsense morality required anyway because one thought commonsense morality required it. To determine whether one is conscientious full-stop, we need to attend to one's views about what one has overall reason to do and how these views aect one's decisions or thoughts. What is conscientiousness full-stop? "Conscientiousness full-stop" is just another name for the canonical example of structural rationality: namely, enkrasia. We could have arrived at our conclusion on other grounds. We will fail to fully describe normative reality if we simply describe what the various normative domains require. Perhaps the most important normative facts are facts about how the reasons from various domains weigh up to yield facts about what there is overall most reason to do. We should expect there to be corresponding appraisals that turn on what there is overall most structural apparent reason for a particular agent to do and how well the agent is responding to these structural apparent reasons. These appraisals need to be backed by a norm of commitment just as much as appraisals of conscientiousness, hypocrisy, and recklessness within particular domains need to be backed by domain-relative norms of commitment. 4.3 Being Enkratic and Meeting the Duty of Commitment So much for a defense of premise (1) in the Commitment Argument. Premise (2) in the Commitment Argument is more straightforward than premise (2) in the Respect Argument. It is clear that one can manifest one's commitment to norm-responsiveness without conforming to the norm to which one is manifesting commitment, so long as that non-conformity was unexpected. I can manifest my commitment to driving legally by always driving in the ways that I believe to be legally permitted. But sometimes I might be mistaken about 19 what is legally permitted. The speed limit might change without my receiving any notice. So manifesting my commitment may not guarantee that I am driving legally. If conformity is not required for one to manifest commitment to a norm, what is required? The obvious answer is that what is required is that (i) one be so disposed that if there are decisive structural apparent reasons relative to the norm to φ, one φs, and (ii) one manifest this disposition. But one has to be enkratic with respect to the norm to meet these conditions. The norm to which one is manifesting commitment when one satises enkratic requirements is the norm of objective reasons-responsiveness. Hence, satisfying enkratic requirements is the way to fulll the duty of commitment. 4.4 Some Worries about (4) Addressed I turn to address some worries about premise (4). One worry about this premise stems from the thought that it is usually possible to remove the pressure of a structural apparent reason by dropping the belief that generates it. If so, how can an apparent reason to φ together with the duty of commitment ever provide one with an objective reason to φ? The question rests on a confusion. If there is a duty to φ when one ψs, then if one is ψ-ing, there will be a reason to φ. The fact that the existence of this reason is conditional on one's ψ-ing does not show that it is not a reason. There is some reason to speak French when in France. If one is in France, one could leave and thereby escape the pressure to speak French. But one does have a reason to speak French as long as one remains in France. That this reason would cease to exist when one leaves France does not mean that it is not there when one is in France. Since we are granting that there is a duty to manifest commitment to reasons-responsiveness, we have an answer to the worry. But what if the best way of understanding structural apparent reasons is the widescope way? Aren't we then committing the fallacy of detachment? While there is a fallacy of detachment in the case of wide-scope all-things-considered oughts, there is no obvious fallacy of detachment for wide-scope reasons. Yes, it does not follow from the claim that one all-things-considered ought to [φ if one ψs] and the claim that one is ψ-ing that one all-things-considered ought to φ. Perhaps one should not be ψ-ing. But even if one should not be ψ-ing, it could be true that there is a serious reason to φ. Plausibly, a reason remains: one would be meeting the duty of commitment by φ-ing. It would be better if one dropped the belief and avoided meeting the duty of commitment in this way. But the fact that one would be meeting the duty of commitment by φ-ing is a serious reason anyway, even if it is outweighed by whatever overwhelming reason there might be not to φ. This is not to say that the duty of commitment is less stringent than whatever overwhelming reason outweighs the detached reason. That detached reason will not have the deontic force of the duty of commitment that generates it because heeding one's belief here is not necessary for meeting the duty, but just sucient. What if the belief is unalterable? Here it is false that heeding the belief will necessarily 20 facilitate manifesting commitment. Suppose you have a compulsive belief that you have conclusive reason to wash your hands 100 times after eating tomatoes. You know it is a compulsive belief, but you cannot get yourself to drop it. I cannot see that heeding this belief is a way to manifest commitment to objective reasons-responsiveness. This fact suggests that the norm of commitment does not vindicate an unrestricted version of Enkrasia on which you are rationally required to heed your belief that you ought to φ by φ-ing even when that belief is itself structurally irrational. But we should reject that version. What if the belief is unalterable but not structurally irrational?29 I nd it hard to see how a belief could be unalterable but structurally rational ex post. For if this belief is unalterable, it would not be revisable in response to shifts in the balance of structural apparent reasons to the contrary. Even if it is not structurally irrational, this belief is still not structurally rational ex post: unalterability undermines rational control, which is plausibly a precondition for ex post assessment.30 But we shouldn't accept an unrestricted form of Enrkasia on which we ought rationally to heed beliefs that are not structurally rational. 5 Objections Answered (and Desiderata Claried) Having nished sketching and directly defending my view, I turn to answer some objections. In doing so, I will clarify some familiar but unclear desiderata on accounts of the normativity of rationality and show that my account satises them. 5.1 What about Stringency? It is often said that a satisfactory account of the normativity of rationality must explain its apparent stringency. Of course, rationality can make requirements even if it is not robustly normative, just like etiquette. So there is a trivial way in which any theory can predict stringency. But that is not the relevant kind of stringency. The thought is rather that if rational requirements have real force, this force must be stringent. One might think my view cannot explain this intuition. It was supposed to explain the objective normativity of substantive apparent reasons. But surely I cannot deny that the substantive apparent reasons might rationally require one to refuse to do something that there is overwhelming objective reason to do. For example, the appearances might suggest that the glass is lled with poison when it is in fact lled with an elixir that will cure all my ills. Here it would be irrational for me to drink from the glass even though there is overwhelming objective reason for me to drink from the glass. If so, how can I claim that we have anything more than a trivial objective reason to drink from the glass? 29 Setiya (2007) and Schroeder (2009) draw attention to these cases. 30Since I think it is defensible to claim that assessability for ex ante (ir)rationality requires assessability for ex post (ir)rationality, I think we can drop the 'ex post' qualier; for a defense of some views which are sucient to vindicate this assumption, see Sylvan (2015) and Sylvan and Sosa (2018). 21 Reply. The apparent force of this objection rests on assumptions about stringency that everyone should reject. The objection also gets the dialectic wrong. Everyone should think (i) that there are some detachable rational pressures (viz., substantive apparent reasons), (ii) that the puzzle about the normativity of rationality extends to these pressures, and (iii) that these pressures can be outweighed by unapparent objective reasons. So, everyone must agree that there can be a stronger objective reason to do what substantive rationality requires us not to do. If so, stringency cannot be understood as the objection assumes. More specically, the following cannot be the way to understand objective stringency: Conclusive Objective: If a norm has objective stringency, then there are conclusive objective reasons to comply with this norm. What could stringency involve, if not backing by conclusive objective reasons? My answer will rely on three suggestions: (1) there are independent illustrations of stringent objective norms that can be objectively outweighed, (2) we have good reason to treat the norms of respect that give force to charges of blameworthiness in particular domains as further illustrations, and (3) all the crucial points about these norms extend to the norms of respect that give force to charges of irrationality. The norms of respect that underpin blameworthiness show that the puzzle about stringency is more general than is often supposed. But the puzzle is solvable once we see that there is a familiar category of the strict-but-outweighable of which norms of respect are an illustration.31 The duty to keep one's promises provides support for (1). Consider an example from Shpall (2014: 159). Imagine that President X promises to repeal a law but fails to even try to keep this promise. Even if there were stronger objective reasons to keep the law in place, X gives us sucient grounds for a complaint. It cannot be grounded merely in some slack, trivial reason. After all, there is slack, trivial reason for him to give everyone candy. But if X ignores this reason, no one can lodge a similar complaint. The natural conclusion is that there is such a thing as the strict but outweighable. The slack/stringent distinction is not the same as the outweighable/conclusive distinction. Dancy's enticing/peremptory distinction provides one way to understand this. An older way is to think that it is possible to have a duty to φ even if there are stronger objective reason not to φ. We already have the key to understanding what this distinction is tracking. It is staring at us in the description of the case: it is proper to fault X for failing to try to fulll his promise even if there are sucient reasons not to fulll it, but improper to fault X for not even trying to give everyone candy. More generally: Faultworthy: If a norm N has objective stringency, then if it appears that one can only heed N by φ-ing and one doesn't φ, it is proper to fault one for not φ-ing. 31 Cf. Lord and Maguire (2016). Shpall (2014: 158–161) gives great examples that I will mention, though I do not accept his diagnosis of these examples. 22 This constraint on stringency poses no problem for my view. Indeed, it coheres perfectly with my view. I hold that the duties that underpin blameworthiness and praiseworthiness are duties of respect. I hold that a more general duty of respect for objective reasons underpins blameworthiness/praiseworthiness in the court of overall reason, which is just the same thing as irrationality/rationality. If so, my view accommodates stringency. Duties of respect aord illustrations of the stringent but outweighable of a piece with the example given by the duty to keep one's promises. They ought to be canonical illustrations, since they are the fundamental grounds of fault. Since I have already argued that we need a duty of respect for objective reasons to back assessments of blameworthiness in the court of overall reason, we can extend the conclusion, and claim that the rational norms grounded by this duty of respect have the same kind of stringency. This is the best we can do to vindicate the objective stringency of rationality, given that one can be required by rationality to do something that there is not conclusive objective reason to do. 5.2 But Isn't Bootstrapping Impossible? Another important objection is very simple. Bootstrapping seems bad. My account, however, seems to permit bootstrapping. How is this not a reductio of it? Reply. My strategy here will resemble my strategy for replying to the last objection. I agree that bootstrapping is bad. I disagree, however, that my account permits bootstrapping when we properly understand what bootstrapping is and why it is objectionable. Sometimes it is claimed a view licenses bootstrapping if it predicts that the belief or appearance that one has a strong reason to φ gives one a strong reason. But it is implausible that this is all that bootstrapping involves. Many epistemologists think that apparent evidence about the quality of one's evidence can aect what it is rational to believe at the rst order. It is hard to see how that thought alone legitimates bootstrapping. Bootstrapping seems best understood as something you do, not something that happens just in virtue of the appearances conguring themselves in some way. For what seems bad is the idea that you can generate a sucient reason to φ just by making it seem to yourself that you have sucient to φ. But my account doesn't tolerate this. My account does not imply that you can use the sheer fact that it seems to you that you have an undefeated reason to φ as a basis for justiably φ-ing. Respect places constraints not only on what combinations of mental states are permitted, but also on how you reason to new mental states. You cannot manifest respect for reasons by intending to φ on the basis of the sheer fact that it seems to you that you have sucient reason to φ. It is also implausible to think that if you delude yourself so that it seems to you that you have an undefeated reason to φ, you are manifesting respect or commitment. Note also that my account does not entail that undefeatedness is transparent: you can believe that you have an undefeated serious reason to φ without getting an undefeated 23 serious reason to φ. If your belief is not rational, the duty of respect will require you to drop that belief or ignore it in deliberation. That you would manifest commitment to reasons-responsiveness by heeding your belief does, I think, give you a serious reason to heed that belief. But I do not think this implication by itself is objectionable. This reason is not a sucient reason. It is equally good by the lights of the commitment norm to abandon an irrational belief if you can do so rationally or to ignore the belief in deliberation if you cannot abandon it rationally (and similarly for non-doxastic seemings). 5.3 How Are Norms of Respect Objective? One might agree that there are norms of respect that underpin blameworthiness both in particular domains and in the court of overall reason while wondering why we should call these norms "objective". Why do that? And how can we square this way of talking with the common view that our conclusions about whether someone is blameworthy turn on how this person is heeding her subjective obligations? Reply. Let me take these questions in reverse. The last question has a simple answer: there is an objective norm that we violate in virtue of doing something subjectively wrong. It is the norm of respect. The norm of respect is the norm that makes the subjective "ought" matter. So, although it is true that we can draw conclusions about someone's blameworthiness on the basis of how well she is heeding her subjective obligations, these conclusions only have normative signicance in virtue of a more fundamental objective norm. Of course, this answer just assumes that the norm that gives force to the subjective "ought" is an objective norm. One might still wonder why that is so. To bring out one answer, consider norms of respect in particular domains. Recall the rst example I gave in §2. The actual value of your relationship with Kris called for you to manifest respect for that relationship. You fail to manifest respect for that relationship if you fail to respond to the relevant apparent reasons even if the appearances are factually misleading. A similar point holds for all domain-relative norms of respect. There will be corresponding values-real, not merely apparent-that call for respect. At any rate, this will be plausible if we accept a conception of value that is not essentially teleological-e.g., one like Anderson (1993)'s or Scanlon (1998)'s, on which values are tting objects of proattitudes (which include respect and commitment). But a norm that calls for the tting response to a value is an objective norm, not a subjective norm. Does this point still if we grant that (dis)respecting Fs doesn't require the existence of any particular Fs that one (dis)respects? It does if we abandon a teleological conception of value and realize that values do not merely include states of aairs. Like Anderson and Scanlon, I would view the tting object of any pro-attitude as a value. It is not just states of aairs and existing objects that can have value in this sense, but also the properties that make particulars valuable or confer status on them. When one exhibits respect for other 24 people in a world where the "other people" are holograms, what makes it true that one is manifesting respect for other people is that one is manifesting respect for the status that attaches to personhood. That status is not itself a particular. Nonetheless, it can be legitimately regarded as a real value if we are not working with a purely teleological conception of value. Friendship is another good example: one can manifest insucient respect for friendship in a hologram world even if one has no actual friends. As I argued in §2, there is nothing fetishistic about these claims. None of these claims commits us to thinking that respect for particulars is an instrumental or secondary concern. None of these claims entails that caring about properties gets in the way of non-instrumental caring about particulars. So, I think we have sucient reason to regard the norms of respect within particular domains as objective. The norm of respect for overall reason can then be seen as reecting all the values at stake. Given a non-teleological conception of value, we can naturally regard norms of rexpect as value-based. They articulate a tting way of caring about the important if the important is understood widely (as it should be). 5.4 Don't Cases Like Three Envelopes Show that Rationality Isn't about Manifesting Respect for Objective Reasons? Consider a familiar case: Three Envelopes. Chester can choose one of three envelopes. He is correctly told by a reliable informant that there is $800 in Envelope 1. He is also correctly told there is $1000 in either Envelope 2 or 3, and that the envelope that lacks it is empty. But he cannot learn anything else about which might contain the $1000.32 Chester ought rationally to pick Envelope 1. But Chester can know that there is more objective reason to do otherwise. For he can know that either (i) there is more objective reason to choose Envelope 2 or (ii) that there is more objective reason to choose Envelope 3. After all, there is $200 more in one of them. If this is right, how can rationality require us to manifest respect for objective reasons? Reply. Manifesting respect for objective reasons requires not manifesting disrespect for objective reasons. Randomly picking one of the two envelopes carries a serious risk of getting an envelope there is no objective reason to take. Doing that would manifest disrespect for objective reasons. Since $800 provides a good enough objective reason such that heeding it manifests some respect for reasons, and there no other apparent reason such that heeding it would manifest greater respect, the norm of respect recommends Envelope 1. In other words: minimizing expected non-conformity with objective reasons is constitutive of avoiding disrespect, and maximizing expected conformity with objective reasons is constitutive of manifesting respect. If we regard maximizing expected conformity with 32 This formulation is from Ross (2012). 25 objective reasons to be constitutive of respect for reasons, does that mean that our position simply collapses into a familiar approach? No. Until we realize that maximizing expected conformity with reasons constitutes something further-namely, respect for objective reasons-we are left with no explanation of why badly failing to minimize expected non-conformity with objective reasons is a mistake. We can only see that it is a mistake by seeing that it would constitute something further-namely, a failure of respect. 6 Concluding Remarks Let's take stock. I began with a puzzle. On the one hand, it is hard to see why apparent reasons would be an exception to the general thought that apparent Fs need not be real Fs. On the other hand, it looks like a genuine mistake simply to ignore the apparent reasons, not merely an apparent mistake. Yet it is hard to see how it could be a genuine mistake unless apparent reasons are an exception to the thought that apparent Fs need not be real Fs. So we have a puzzle. I observed that this puzzle is more general than the literature assumes, and is not limited to cases in which the appearances are doxastic. I then proceeded to develop a new solution, which I dubbed the Respect-Based Account. I began by defending the more modest claim that for any X that calls for respect, if we do something that appears to violate one of our duties towards X, we thereby violate the further duty of respect for X. I pointed to a number of examples that lend support to this thought, and I explained why we cannot accommodate the intuitions about these cases merely by saying that someone has violated their subjective obligations. We need an explanation of why violating one's subjective obligations is a genuine mistake, not merely an apparent mistake. Positing a norm of respect provides a natural explanation. I then argued that norms of respect do not merely accompany a limited class of duties, but rather are second-order duties that accompany any rst-order duty. I distinguished norms of respect for moral reasons from norms of commitment to moral reasonsresponsiveness, which are the norms that give force to structural moral norms (e.g., those that back assessments of conscientiousness). Following earlier writers, I showed that we can accept norms of commitment without fetishism. These arguments provided a local vindication of the thought that apparent reasons are exceptions to the independence of appearance and reality. I proceeded to generalize these arguments to apparent reasons in general. Just as norms of respect for moral reasons and commitment to moral reasons-responsiveness underpin charges of moral blameworthiness, so norms of respect for reasons (period) and commitment to reasons-responsiveness (period) underpin charges of blameworthiness in the court of overall reason. But charges of blameworthiness in the court of overall reason just are charges of irrationality. So the account shows that there are genuine norms that one is violating when one is structurally and substantively irrational. The existence of these norms entails that apparent 26 reasons across the board are exceptions to the independence of appearance and reality. Or near enough, at any rate. The appearances can mislead us about the presence of specic reasons. But if we have an undefeated serious apparent reason, we thereby have a serious real reason. Together with norms of respect, appearances generate real reasons.33 References Anderson, E. 1993. Value in Ethics and Economics. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP. Arpaly, N. 2003. Unprincipled Virtue. Oxford: OUP. Bengson, J. 2015. "The Intellectual Given." Mind 124: 707–760. Bratman, M. 2009. "Intention, Practical Rationality, and Self-Governance." Ethics 119: 411–43. Brink, D. O. "Moral Motivation." Ethics 108: 4–32. Broome, J. 1999. "Normative Requirements." Ratio 12: 398–419. Broome, J. 2005. "Does Rationality Give Us Reasons?" Phil. Issues 15: 321–337. Broome, J. 2008. "Is Rationality Normative?" Disputatio 11: 153–71. Broome, J. 2013. Rationality through Reasoning. Oxford: Blackwell. Dancy, J. 2000. Practical Reality. Oxford: OUP. Dancy, J. 2004. "Enticing Reasons" in Wallace, R. J., Pettit, P., Scheer, S. and Smith, M. (eds.) Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz. Oxford: OUP. Darwall, S. 1977. "Two Kinds of Respect." Ethics 88: 36–49. Darwall, S. 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP. Dreier, J. 2000. "Dispositions and Fetishes: Externalist Models of Moral Motivation." PPR 61: 619–638. Fogal, D. Forthcoming. "Rational Requirements and the Primacy of Pressure." Mind. Holton, R. Unpublished. "Inverse Akrasia and Weakness of Will." Huemer, M. 2007. "Compassionate Phenomenal Conservatism." PPR 74.1: 30–55. Hussain, Nadeem. MS. "The Requirements of Rationality." Kiesewetter, B. 2017. The Normativity of Rationality. OUP. Kolodny, N. 2005. "Why Be Rational?" Mind 114: 509–560. Kolodny, N. 2007a. "How Does Coherence Matter?" Proc. Arist. Soc. 107:1: 229–63. Kolodny, N. 2007b. "State or Process Requirements?" Mind 116: 371–385. Kolodny, N. 2008a. "The Myth of Practical Consistency." European J. Phil. 16:3: 366–402. Kolodny, N. 2008b. "Why Be Disposed to Be Coherent?" Ethics 118:3: 437–63. Kriegel, U. 2012. "Moral Motivation, Moral Phenomenology, and the Alief/Belief Distinction." Australasian J. Phil. 90.3: 469–486. Lord, E. 2018. The Importance of Being Rational. OUP. Lord, E. and Maguire, B. 2016. "An Opinionated Guide to the Weight of Reasons" in Lord, E. and Maguire, B. (eds.) Weighing Reasons. Oxford: OUP. Part, D. 2001. "Rationality and Reasons" in Exploring Practical Philosophy. Aldershot: Ashgate. Part, D. 2011. On What Matters. Oxford: OUP. Raz, J. 2005. "The Myth of Instrumental Rationality." JESP 1.1. Raz, J. 2011. From Normativity to Responsibility. Oxford: OUP. Reisner, A. 2011. "Is there Reason to Be Theoretically Rational?" in Reisner, A. and SteglichPetersen, A. (eds.) Reasons for Belief. Cambridge: CUP. 33Acknowledgements: This paper was intended to be the nal chapter of my dissertation but was composed under its present title in summer 2014; before then, its key example and other ideas had been circulated under the title 'Perspective and the Objectively Normative', a paper written in late 2010 and early 2011, and which was also briey given the title 'The Objective Signicance of the Subjective'. For important feedback on one or more of these papers, thanks are especially owed to Ruth Chang, Alex Gregory, Conor McHugh, Errol Lord, Daniel Singer, Holly Smith, Ernest Sosa, Jonathan Way, Daniel Whiting, two anonymous referees for another journal, one anonymous referee for this journal, members of Daniel J. Singer's 2014 seminar on epistemic normativity, and audiences at Cardi University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 27 Rippon, S. 2011. "In Defense of the Wide-Scope Instrumental Principle." Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 5.2. Ross, J. 2012. "Rationality, Normativity, and Commitment." Oxford Studies in Metaethics 7. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scanlon, T. M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Schroeder, M. 2005. "Instrumental Mythology." JESP 1.1. Schroeder, M. 2009. "Means-End Coherence, Stringency, and Subjective Reasons." Phil. Studies 143: 223–248. Setiya, K. 2007. "Cognitivism about Instrumental Reason." Ethics 117.4: 649–673. Shpall, S. 2014. "Moral and Rational Commitment." PPR 88.1: 146–172. Smith, M. 1994. The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell. Smith, M. 2004. "The Structure of Orthonomy." Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 55: 165–193. Southwood, N. 2008. "Vindicating the Normativity of Rationality." Ethics 119: 9–30. Sylvan, K. 2012. "Truth Monism without Teleology." Thought 1(3): 161–169. Sylvan, K. 2014. On the Normativity of Epistemic Rationality. PhD Thesis, Rutgers University. Sylvan, K. 2015. "What Apparent Reasons Appear to Be." Philosophical Studies 172: 587–606. Sylvan, K. 2017. "Responsibilism out of Character" in Alfano, M. and Fairweather, A. (eds.) Epistemic Situationism. Oxford University Press. Sylvan, K. 2018. "Veritism Unswamped." Mind 127: 381–435. Sylvan, K. 2020. "An Epistemic Non-Consequentialism." Philosophical Review 129: 1–51. Sylvan, K. and Sosa, E. 2018. "The Place of Reasons in Epistemology" in Star, D. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity. OUP. Vogelstein, E. 2012. "Subjective Reasons." Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15: 239–257. Way, J. 2009. "Two Accounts of the Normativity of Rationality." JESP 4.2. Way, J. 2010. "Defending the Wide Scope Approach to Instrumental Reason." Phil. Stud. 147: 21–233. Whiting, D. 2013. "Keeping Things in Perspective: Reasons, Rationality, and the A Priori." JESP 8.1. Wodak, D. 2019. "An Objectivist's Guide to Subjective Reasons." Res Philosophica 96: 229-244. Zimmerman, M. 1997. "A Plea for Accuses." American Phil. Quarterly 34: 229–243.