2 I thank Josh Gert for helpful discussion of this example.

3 Prichard, H.A. “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?”, in Moral Obligatio11: Essays and Lectures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949), 1–17Google Scholar (at 1). This essay was first published in Mind 21 (I 912), 21-37.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid., 1-2.

6 Ibid., 1.

7 Ibid., 13-14.

8 Ibid., 16.

9 Ibid., 8.

10 Ibid., 13-14.

11 Ibid., 16.

12 Ibid., 9.

13 Ibid., 7-9.

14 Ibid., 2-7.

15 Ibid., 1.

16 Ibid., 1-2.

17 Ibid., 16.

18 Ibid., 1.

19 I thank Sam Black, Josh Gert, and Evan Tiffany for pressing me to clarify this usage.

20 There is also an explanatory use of “makes sense,” as in the claim that evolutionary biology can “make sense” of biological diversity. I will avoid this usage. All actions can perhaps be explained, at least in principle, but many actions do not make sense (in the sense of the expression that interests me) since people sometimes act without a suitable and sufficient justification.

21 One might of course stipulate that this is how one will use the expression “makes sense.” Obviously I have no objection to this stipulation, but I use the expression differently, as I explain in the text. Allan Gibbard uses the expression as equivalent to “rational” in one use of the latter term. See Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 37.Google Scholar

22 Copp, David “The Ring of Gyges: Overridingness and the Unity of Reason,“ in Copp, DavidMorality in a Natural World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 284–308;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also Copp, David “Normativity, Deliberation, and Queerness,“ in A World without Values: Essays on Jolm Mackie's Error Theory ed. Joyce, Richard and Kirchin, Simon (Berlin: Springer, 2009).Google Scholar

23 See Copp, “Normativity, Deliberation, and Queerness.“

24 Ibid.

25 Wolfe, Susan “Moral Saints.” Journal of Philosophy 79 (1982): 419-39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Nagel, Thomas “The Fragmentation of Value,” in Mortal Problems (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 128-41.Google Scholar

26 See Kavka, Gregory “The Reconciliation Project,” in Morality, Reason, and Truth, ed. Copp, David and Zimmerman, David (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 1984), 297–319.Google Scholar In some discussions of morality and self-interest, the background assumption might be that, rationality aside, people are generally motivated by self-interest. I am not here concerned with questions about motivation.

27 David Copp, “The Normativity of Self-Grounded Reason,” in Copp, Morality in a Natural World (2007), 309-353.

28 Smith, Michael “In Defense of The Moral Problem,” Ethics 108 (1997): 91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Copp, “The Normativity of Self-Grounded Reason“; see also Copp, “The Ring of Gyges: Overridingness and the Unity of Reason.“

30 Both of the questions may be motivated by a desire to understand morality and moral reasons rather than by any indecision about how to act or how to live.

31 Gauthier, DavidMorals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

32 I discussed Gauthier's approach in Copp, David “Contractarianism and Moral Skepticism,” in Contractarianism and Rational Choice: Essays on Gauthier, ed. Vallentyne, Peter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 196–228,Google Scholar and in Copp, DavidMorality, Normativity, and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).Google Scholar See Superson, AnitaThe Moral Skeptic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).Google Scholar

33 Smith, MichaelThe Moral Problem (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).Google Scholar

34 See Smith, MichaelEthics and the A Priori (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 I discussed Smith's view in Copp, David “Belief, Reason, and Motivation: Michael Smith's The Moral Problem,” Ethics 108 (1997): 33–54,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and in Copp, David “Review of Michael Smith, Ethics and the A Priori: Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Meta-Ethics,” Mind 115 (2006): 476-81.Google Scholar

36 Korsgaard, ChristineThe Sources of Normativity, ed. O'Neill, Onora (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 I discuss Korsgaard's argument in David Copp, “Moral Naturalism and Three Grades of Normativity,” in Copp, Morality in a Natural World, 249-83; and in Copp, David “Korsgaard on Rationality, Identity, and the Grounds of Norrnativity,“ in Rationality, Realism, Revision, ed. Nida-Rumelin, Julian (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999), 572-81.Google Scholar

38 Joyce, RichardThe Myth of Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Ibid., 50.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid., 51.

42 I proposed a free-standing account in Copp, “The Norrnativity of Self-Grounded Reason.“

43 Copp, David “Toward a Pluralist and Teleological Theory of Normativity,“ Philosophical Issues 19 (2009), 21–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Scanlon, T. M. “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” in Utilitarianism and Beyond, ed. Sen, Amartya and Williams, Bernard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 103–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Pamela Hieronymi, “The Appeal of Contractualism: A(nother) Restatement.“ An unpublished paper presented to the 2008 Dubrovnik Conference in Moral Philosophy.

46 Scanlon, “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” 127.Google Scholar

47 Scanlon, T. M.What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 1.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., 4.

49 Ibid., 153. Scanlon limits the scope of his account to our duties to other people (6).

50 Ibid., 5.

51 Ibid., 11.

52 It follows, that is, that any set of principles (of the right kind) that no one could reasonably reject (for the right purpose) disallows the plot. This entails, on Scanlon's account as he formulates it, that the plot is impermissible. It does not entail that there is a set of principles (of the right kind) that no one could reasonably reject (for the right purpose). For it simply means, on the standard analysis, that if there is a set of principles (of the right kind) that no one could reasonably reject (for the right purpose), that set of principles disallows the plot. This leaves open the possibility that there is no such set of principles. It leaves open the possibility that, say, Gyges could reasonably reject any set of principles that would disallow the plot. I discuss this issue in the text.

53 Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other, 213-14.

54 Ibid., 5

55 Ibid., 10.

56 Copp, Morality, NormatiPity, and Society, and David Copp, Morality i11 a Natural World.

57 Scanlon, Wlzat We Owe to Each Other, 9Google Scholar (emphasis added).

58 Copp, “Toward a Pluralist and Teleological Theory of Normativity.“

59 For more detail, see Copp, “Toward a Pluralist and Teleological Theory of Normativity.“

60 Mackie, J. L.Morality: Inventing Right and Wrong (Harrnondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1977), 121.Google Scholar

61 Ibid., Ill.

62 For more detailed development of this idea, see Copp, “Toward a Pluralist and Teleological Theory of Normativity.“

63 Copp, “The Normativity of Self-Grounded Reason“; and Copp, “Toward a Pluralist and Teleological Theory of Normativity.“

64 I am here focusing on what I call the “basic” society-centered theory. See Copp, Moralitl﹛ in a Natural World, 18-21. The theory I presented originally in 1995 in Morality, Normatil'ity, and Society was not free-standing in the sense I am exploring here. I discussed the differences between the original and the basic theories in Copp, Morality in a Natural World.

65 For some amendments, see David Copp, Morality, Normatility, and Society, 198-200; Copp, David “Moral Knowledge in Society-Centered Moral Theory,“ in Moral Knowledge? New Readings in Moral Epistemology, ed. Armstrong, Walter Sinnott and Timmons, Mark (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 257-58.Google Scholar See also the introduction to Copp, Morality in a Natural World.

66 Copp, Morality, Normativity, and Society; Copp “Moral Knowledge in SocietyCentered Moral Theory“; Copp, Morality in a Natural World, 16-26.

67 I mentioned a ‘functionalist’ interpretation of society-centred theory in Copp, Morality, Nonnativity, and Society, 110-12.

68 Mackie, Morality: inventing Riglit and Wrong, 111.Google Scholar

69 Prichard, “Does Moral Philosophy …”, 3.Google Scholar

70 Darwall, StephenThe Second Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 15–17.Google Scholar

71 Ibid., 17.

72 Ibid., 36.

73 Copp, Morality, Normativity, and Society, 201-9.

74 But see Copp, “Normativity, Deliberation, and Queerness.“