Kenta Sekine

Some philosophers and legal theorists believe that certain fundamental normative phenomena cannot be adequately explained without appeal to second-order reasons—that is, reasons to act (or not to act) for certain reasons. Others are resistant to such an appeal. This resistance takes a robust form in the Credit Argument, which holds that, since we cannot act for a reason for a reason, the very idea of second-order reasons must be incoherent. In this paper, I do several things. Firstly, I clarify in just what sense the Credit Argument supposes it is not ‘possible’ to act for a reason for a reason. Secondly, I propose a novel typology of second-order reasons. Thirdly, using these insights, I demonstrate that the Credit Argument is weak at several points and should therefore be roundly rejected. This amounts to a partial defence of the appeal to second-order reasons in the explanation of fundamental normative phenomena.

Contractual inflationists claim that contractual relationships are a source of noninstrumental value in our lives, to be engaged with for their own sake. Some inflationists take this to be the value of “personal detachment.” I argue that though personal detachment can indeed be valuable, that value is not plausibly considered noninstrumental. Even on the most charitable reading of personal detachment—its potential to emancipate us from traditional social relations—these inflationists overlook that it may just as much lead to domination as traditional society does, only this time, due to alienation under market conditions. To salvage our intuitive sense of the emancipatory potential of contract, we can consider the detachment it makes possible to be a form of technology, casting the value of contract in a “merely” instrumental role. I conclude that if we are to reinvigorate the politics of the appeal to personal detachment in contract theory, we have to deflate its value.