Abstract
This paper is about the relationship between two widely accepted and apparently conflicting claims about how we should understand the notion of ‘reason giving’ invoked in theorising about reasons for action. According to the first claim, reasons are given by facts about the situation of agents. According to the second claim, reasons are given by ends. I argue that the apparent conflict between these two claims is less deep than is generally recognised.
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Notes
Many philosophers identify reasons with facts. Joseph Raz writes: ‘Only reasons understood as facts are normatively significant’ (Raz 1975, p. 18; c.f. Raz 1999, pp. 22–23). Russ Shafer-Landau writes: ‘that some act is (say) fiendish… just is a reason not to undertake it’ (Shafer-Landau 2003, p. 204). John Broome writes: ‘A pro tanto reason for you to F is a fact that plays the F-favouring role’ (Broome 2004, p. 55). Other philosophers equivocate. G. R. Grice writes: ‘It will save verbiage if I speak of the proposition as a reason for acting… Whenever I speak in this way, it is shorthand for referring to either the truth of the proposition or the truth of the proposition that A has good reason for judging it true’ (Grice 1967, pp. 17–20). Stephen Darwall says that ‘reasons for someone to do something are a subclass of the things that can be said, asserted, considered, judged, and so forth’ (Darwall 1983, p. 31), but then goes on to say that ‘[a] fact is a reason for someone if he would be motivated by it on considering it as he rationally ought’ (Darwall 1983, p. 199). Judith Jarvis Thomson writes that ‘any interesting claim we can make about reasons on the supposition that they are propositions has an equally correct or incorrect analogue about reasons on the supposition that they are facts. That is why I take it… that what is in question here is (mere) regimentation’ (Thomson 2001, p. 26). John Broome claims that the fact-based definition ‘tightens up’ loose talk of considerations (Broome 2004, p. 41). This move is arguably too quick. Propositions that give the contents of propositional attitudes are either true or false, yet they can be invoked to explain action either way. Facts identified with (true) propositions or their truth-makers can only explain action if suitably targeted by a propositional attitude, yet they can arguably justify action either way. The question evaded by the equivocators is whether the ‘reasons’ they appeal to in explanation and justification respectively are the same kind of thing. This is a controversial question (c.f. Smith 2004; Dancy 2000). Fortunately, we can ignore it here. The focus of the the present paper is the question of a reason’s justificatory grounds (I prefer to avoid the controversial terminology of ‘truth-makers’ in this context). This is a distinct question from the question of its identity conditions (c.f. Skorupski 1999, p. 58, who identifies reasons with a four-place relation ‘between a fact, a person, a time and a type of action, belief or feeling’ (Skorupski 1999, p. 58). This does not stop him from saying that reasons are given by the facts.) .
Nagel also says that rational agency ‘requires the acceptance of universal practical principles’ (Nagel 1970, p. 108). I shall return to this complication below.
Parfit adds: ‘Even if a reason is not a desire, it may depend on a desire’ (Parfit 1984, p. 121). The distinction between the identity conditions of reasons and their grounds is arguably close to the surface in this passage.
Not all philosophers will accept either a fact-based or an end-based view. These objectors arguably include neo-Kantians such as Onora O’Neill, whose account of reasons ‘focuses on principles rather than ends’ (O’Neill 1996, p. 56; c.f. Korsgaard 1997). I shall remain largely silent about this issue in what follows. The main question of this paper is whether, and if so how, the fact-based view and the end-based view are mutually compatible, not whether either of them is true.
One challenge for a fact-based view is to explain how it is possible for facts about an agent’s situation to give rise to reasons. This difficulty is not solved by pointing out that the status of a given fact as reason giving depends on the presence of a background of so-called ‘enabling’ facts among the agent’s circumstances (c.f. Dancy 2004). This response merely postpones the question of how a more inclusive set of facts, including enabled and enablers, can be reason giving. One response is to point out that some of the facts that make up an agent’s circumstances are facts either about that agent’s existing ends or about ends the agent would favour in certain counterfactual circumstances. Dancy, for example, writes that ‘The only way to understand the notion of meriting a response is to see a merited response as the one that would be elicited in ideal conditions. We can give no good sense to the thought that an object should merit a response which it would never receive, even if in ideal circumstances; that there should be something about a good or right action which lies beyond the possibility of any recognition’ (Dancy 1986, p. 242). On this view, the necessary connection between reasons and the ends favoured by agents in ideal circumstances is what explains how it is possible for any set of facts about an agent’s circumstances to give rise to reasons for action. I shall return to the significance of this possibility below.
One challenge for the end-based view is to explain how the features of an object of merely possible desire can give rise to a reason for action. The grounding of reasons in ends themselves apparently entails the possibility of a reason giving end the normative status of which obtains regardless of any attitude towards it on the part of the agents to whom the reason applies, including their potential for discovering its status as such. For reasons parallel to those given in the previous footnote, this claim is likely to meet with some suspicion. Once more, it may be suggested that reasons are better thought of as grounded in ends favoured by agents in ideal circumstances (c.f. Dancy 1986). I shall return to the significance of this issue below.
It is natural to think that the contents of all desires are propositional in some sense. Thus, my wanting beer is arguably equivalent to my wanting that I have it. There are subtle complications, but it is probably safe to ignore them here.
It may be asked whether the end-based view is implicitly committed to controversial claims about the modal status of claims that attribute reason giving status to ends. For example, it might be thought that ends can only be reason giving in virtue of their intrinsic features if they possess that status necessarily. In fact, however, exactly parallel questions apply to the fact-based view once we take into account both the reason giving fact and its enablers. I shall therefore ignore this question in what follows.
Another potential problem for the end-based view is that it might be thought to assume an overly teleological account of reasons and their grounds (c.f. O’Neill 1996; Hampton 1998). Thus, it might be objected that some (even if not all) reasons are given by structural features of practical principles (such as their consistency, universality or impartiality), regardless of the substantial nature of any ends the application of these principles would promote. Whether this claim constitutes an objection to the end-based view is a topic that falls beyond the scope of the present paper. It is worth noting, however, that certain attractions of a principle-based view of reasons can be captured by thinking of some reasons as given by facts about principles. Whether facts about principles are best thought of as facts about an agent’s situation or not is a question I shall not attempt to address here, although it seems to be of some independent interest (c.f. Cohen 2003).
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Lillehammer, H. Facts, Ends, and Normative Reasons. J Ethics 14, 17–26 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-009-9045-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-009-9045-3