Abstract
Historically, the most persuasive argument against external reasons proceeds through a rationalist restriction: For all agents A, and all actions Φ, there is a reason for A to Φ only if Φing is rationally accessible from A’s actual motivational states. Here I distinguish conceptions of rationality, show which one the internalist must rely on to argue against external reasons, and argue that a rationalist restriction that features that conception of rationality is extremely implausible. Other conceptions of rationality can render the restriction true, but then the restriction simply fails to rule out external reasons.
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Notes
Some such view is now represented in one form or another in Williams (1981, 1995a, 1995b); Smith (1994, 2004); Korsgaard (1996, 1997); Goldman (2005), Pettit and Smith (2006); Setiya (2007) and others, though, as discussed below, some thinkers, like Setiya, would not see the principle as a genuine restriction. Also, some of these thinkers would make rational accessibility both necessary and sufficient for A’s having a reason (e.g., Smith 1994, Ch. 5), but here we focus on the necessity condition.
Throughout the locutions ‘A has reason to Φ’ and ‘there is reason for A to Φ’ are used interchangeably. Though some use the former expression to signal that a reason has been internalized by A in some sense, e.g., it is believed or known by A, or believed or known to be a reason by A, the phrase doesn’t require this reading, and I will not use it in this way.
Here, I have David Velleman (2000) in mind.
Here, I have Joshua Gert (2004) in mind.
Cf. Williams (1995b, p. 186).
Incidentally, a case like this is troubling for anyone who would argue for the rationalist restriction on the grounds that A’s reasons must have some connection to explaining A’s actions. Williams says, “If there are reasons for action, it must be that people sometimes act for those reasons, and if they do, their reasons must figure in some correct explanation of their action” (1981, p. 102). And Pettit and Smith say “[W]hen someone has a normative reason, this must be the sort of consideration that could figure in an explanation of her conduct, in not on that occasion, as least on others” (2006, p. 143). How could Nate’s reason to go into the living room explain his behavior? It wouldn’t explain the behavior of a version of him who is aware of the party that awaits, for that version of him wouldn’t go into the living room. For a nice critique of this explanatory link see Robert Johnson’s 1999. I think the imaginative projection model, given below, captures the explanatory dimension of normative reasons as well as can be expected.
Thanks to an anonymous referee for helpful discussion of this character.
Also, the fact that they interchange the terms ‘principles of rationality’ and ‘principles of reason’ (2006, p. 145) invites us to neglect the distinction between reason-loaded and reason-neutral rationality.
Joshua Gert takes the concept of rationality to be analytically prior to the concept of a reason (2004, Ch. 4, esp. 62–63, 77). This opens up the possibility of having a reason-neutral conception of rationality, a conception that is prior to reasons, and in virtue of which particular considerations are reasons (and other considerations are not), and which might rule out certain reasons externalists think we have. Alternatively, we might read Gert as we read Setiya, where there is some interdependence among rationality and reasons.
McDowell (1995) denies that one’s actual motivations and deliberative reasoning limit one’s reasons. He countenances possible individuals who would be motivated to do that which they have reason to do only by “conversion,” or some other non-rational route at the end of which one simply “sees reasons aright.” And Shafer-Landau (2003, pp. 185–188) says that there can be agents for whom some act is not within the deliberative reach of their current motivations, and yet they still have reason to perform those actions because they would come to endorse them given a change of heart. These can be read as denials of any reason-neutral conception of rationality, or as denials that a reason-neutral conception of rationality restricts reasons.
The reference to promoting the objects of one’s motivations in typical circumstances excludes cases of manipulation by an evil demon, where things like means-ends reasoning would not generally promote one’s ends.
Thus the kind of give and take normative pressures I’m talking about differ from what Philip Pettit and Michael Smith call “deliberative exchange,” which is essentially an exploration of antecedent reasons for action that is epistemic and analogous to the intra-personal deliberation with which we are familiar. See Pettit and Smith 2004.
One recent normative theory that takes normative pressure into account is Darwall’s (2007) second person standpoint. He stresses the importance of second personal demands and claims we make on one another, the authority to make such demands, and the ability to determine one’s will by recognizing the second personal reasons addressed in authoritative second personal demands and claims.
Coercion is a bit of red herring. When one is coerced, one is forced to choose between antecedent motivations. Coercion is not a way of directly changing one’s motivational profile, but a way of engaging and exploiting means-ends reasoning in objectionable ways, so it does not expand upon the norms of rationality already countenanced by internalists.
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Bedke, M.S. Rationalist restrictions and external reasons. Philos Stud 151, 39–57 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9421-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9421-7