Abstract
There are at least two basic normative notions: rationality and reasons. The dominant normative account of reasons nowadays, which I call primitive pluralism about reasons, holds that some reasons are normatively basic and there is no underlying normative explanation of them in terms of other normative notions. Kantian constructivism about reasons, understood as a normative rather than a metaethical view, holds that rationality is the primitive normative notion that picks out which non-normative facts are reasons for what and explains why those normative relations hold. By supposing that there is a plurality of primitive reasons, I argue that primitive pluralism about reasons lacks sufficient normative unity and structure. But Kantian constructivism about reasons faces a dilemma of its own: Either a conception of rationality is thick enough to capture the reasons of commonsense, in which case it cannot play the explanatory role assigned to it, or a conception of rationality is genuinely explanatory, in which case it is too thin to generate the reasons we recognize in commonsense. The aim of this paper is to suggest that if Kantian constructivism about reasons were built on a substantive, rather than merely formal, conception of rationality then it would stand a better chance at unifying the particular reasons we would endorse on due reflection. The groundwork I lay in this paper, I explain, is an essential first step in the larger project of developing a version of Kantian constructivism about reasons that might eventually explain all reasons in terms of rationality.
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Notes
This way of describing the distinctive aims and subject-matter of normative theory is generalized from Rawls’ understanding of moral theory: “There are three basic moral notions: the good, the right, and the morally good (moral worth of persons). The structure of a moral theory depends on how these notions are defined and related to one another. It is characteristic of teleological theories that they start with an independent definition of the good and then define the right as maximizing this good.” (Rawls 1999a: 242)
Proponents of substantive realism about reasons include (Dancy 2004; Nagel 1978; Parfit 2009; Raz 1999; Scanlon 1998). Scanlon claims that all reasons are normatively basic in this sense, in part because he believes in buck-passing accounts of value, while others claim that some, but not all, reasons can be explained in terms of values.
The term ‘Kantian constructivism’ can be used to name a metaethical and a normative view. The term ‘intuitionism’ suffers from the same kind of ambiguity: As a metaethical theory, intuitionism holds that there is an independent moral order that we know by intuition, and our beliefs about it in turn motivate us to act in virtue of our psychological nature as rational agents. But as a normative theory, intuitionism can also mean that there is a plurality of basic and conflicting values or principles that have to be weighed against one another on the basis of intuition to determine how we ought to act. One can be an intuitionist in the first sense but not the second (e.g. Sidgwick), in the second but not the first (e.g. perhaps Bernard Williams), or in both senses (e.g. W.D. Ross) Similarly, Kantian constructivism, as a metaethical view, can mean that the truth of all moral judgments is determined by the reactions of rational agents, but as a normative view, it can mean that some normative claims are valid or reasonable valid in virtue of being outcomes of a “procedure of construction” in which actual or hypothetical agents react to, choose or otherwise settle on principles of justice, moral rules, values, etc. Normative constructivists need not deny the existence of an independent moral order; they can allow that some moral claims are true in virtue of facts, entities or truths that exist independent of their procedures of construction. My focus in this essay is on Kantian constructivism about reasons, understood as a normative rather than as a metaethical theory.
My concern in this essay is not about metaethics at all; instead, I take up a “first-order,” normative, question about how two basic normative notions, rationality and reasons, should be interpreted and related to one another in a normative framework. The best analogy to the issue I am raising is the longstanding debate in normative ethical theory about whether or not the “right” is prior to the “good.” Consequentialists, for example, hold that there are values that are independent of moral principles of right and that such principles are defined by what maximizes the good. Some non-consequentialists, by contrast, claim that moral principles of right do not always depend on what is antecedently valuable. The various normative ethical theories that interpret and relate the normative concepts of right and good are consistent with most any metaethical view about the truth-makers of moral judgments. Similarly, I claim, normative theories must also take a position on whether they regard reasons as primitive normative notions or whether they explain reasons in terms of other normative concepts, such as the concept of rationality. No matter which way this normative question is settled, the resulting frameworks are also consistent with moral realist, expressivist or Kantian constructivist metaethical theories.
The most common conceptions of rationality in the contemporary literature make rationality purely formal, a matter of the consistency and coherence of our mental states (Broome 2010; Kolodny 2005; Smith 2004) although there is a Kantian tradition that makes rationality a matter of being reasonable as well (Hill 1991, 1992a, b; Rawls 1999a, b).
This strategy is most prominent in (Scanlon 1998).
W.D. Ross argued for a version of primitive pluralism about reasons that seems sensible as a sort of default position in ethical theory, but there is a natural drive for an underlying explanation of the “unconnected heap” of prima facie duties he proposed and for more determinate guidance about what to do when they conflict.
(O’Neill 1990). A maxim is internally consistent, according to O’Neil, if it does not contain incompatible aims that cannot be achieved (O’Neill 1990). Volitional consistency, which holds between a maxim and the specific intention(s) we adopt in pursuit of it or between the specific intentions themselves, is determined by further principles of practical prudential reason (O’Neill 1990). O’Neil discusses five “Principles of Rational Intending” without denying that there could be others (O’Neill 1990). All of them seem to have a “formal character” because they concern the relationship among mental states. First, if we will a maxim then we are rationally required to adopt a specific intention to pursue all necessary and available means to the goal contained in that maxim. Second, rationality also requires us to intend some sufficient means to what we fundamentally intend. Third, rationality requires us to intend to make available all necessary and some sufficient means to what we fundamentally intend when they are unavailable. Fourth, rationality also requires us to intend all necessary and some sufficient components of what we fundamentally intend. Fifth, the specific intentions we adopt in pursuit of a maxim must be consistent with one another. Finally, rationality requires that the “foreseeable results of the specific intentions adopted in acting on a given underlying intention be consistent with the underlying intention” (O’Neill 1990).
(O’Neill 1990. See also p. 92).
Rawls calls this a “reasonable moral psychology.”
Objections of this sort are raised by (Rawls 1993).
Korsgaard argues roughly as follows: When we deliberate, we suppose that we can stand apart from our various incentives to act. We always take ourselves to be acting on maxims that can be willed as universal laws, but this does not mean that what we do is always morally justified. In some cases, we may be swept away by natural impulses, which would mean we did not exercise our will in behaving in that way, for the will is identified with practical reason. There can be misuses of our practical reason when we think our maxims are morally justified even though they are not, in which case our choices are not genuine acts of will but rather defective actions that were aiming to be morally appropriate.
One can certainly argue that apparent similarities mask deep underlying differences – in spite of their common etymologies, for example, John Broome claims that “the connection between rationality and reasons is not very close” (Broome 2010; Rawls 1999b; Scanlon 1998) because being a rational person is a matter of good mental house-keeping while reasons tend to be substantive considerations that count in favor of adopting attitudes.
Such a procedure may simply be an epistemic device for getting at independent moral facts; it could also be that some moral claims are true in virtue of resulting from this procedure. I do not take a position on this metaethical dispute here; instead, I say that moral claims are valid, reasonable or justified because they result from a rational procedure of construction while leaving open what determines their truth or falsity.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the following people for their helpful feedback on this paper: Thomas Hill, Thomas Scanlon, Pamela Hieronymi, Brad Hooker, Markus Kohl, Samuel Freeman, Nathaniel Jezzi, participants at the 2012 Tennessee Value and Agency Conference, as well as two anonymous referees.
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Cureton, A. Unity of Reasons. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 19, 877–895 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-016-9704-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-016-9704-y