Leonhard Schneider

This essay raises a novel objection against Kearns & Star’s (Kearns S. and Star D. 2008. ‘Reasons: Explanations or Evidence?’ Ethics 119(1), 31–56; Kearns S. and Star D. 2009. ‘Reasons as Evidence.’ Oxford Studies in Metaethics 4: 215–42.) influential account of normative reasons – the Reasons as Evidence (short: RaE) view. The RaE view’s basic idea is that normative reasons can be analysed in terms of another concept, namely evidence for ought-propositions. This view, I argue, faces an ‘asymmetry charge’. That is, evidence for ought-propositions and reasons relate differently to (potential) ought-facts and behave differently in our deliberations about what we ought to ‘do’ (in a broad sense, including action and belief). On the one hand, normative reasons, if sufficiently strong, are connected to a determinate ought (statement). On the other hand, evidence for ought-statements, even if strong and assessed correctly, can be misleading. I consider potential replies to the alleged asymmetry of reasons and evidence for ought-propositions – either accommodating it or explaining it away. These replies, based on different (perspectivist and objectivist) accounts of ‘ought’, however, are inconsistent with the RaE view – or so I argue. This essay focuses on epistemic normativity, i.e. on reasons and oughts that are concerned with beliefs (not actions). I think, however, that similar arguments could be made about cases of practical normativity (concerned with action) as well.

This paper analyses and (tentatively) rejects Julian Fink's argument for the existence of normative process-requirements. According to Fink, only process-requirements allow us to give appropriate normative credit to a subject S who violates certain state-requirements but is undergoing a process that will eventually lead to their satisfaction. I will show that Fink's argument applies, at best, only to a restricted set of cases—namely, when S's undergoing a process has not resulted in the formation of new mental states. In these remaining cases, however, it is implausible to give S normative credit for undergoing the relevant process. Thus, we can assign the correct degree of the corresponding normative property solely in terms of state-requirements. To the extent that this holds, Fink's argument does not entail that there are normative process-requirements.

This paper argues that Reason Responsiveness (RR) accounts of rationality, proposed for example by Benjamin Kiesewetter and Error Lord, fail to explain structural irrationality (i.e., the irrationality involved in holding incoherent attitudes). Proponents of RR hold that rationality consists in correctly responding to available reasons. Structural irrationality, they argue, is just a “by‐product” of incorrect reason‐responding. Applying this idea to cases of means–end incoherence, this paper shows that RR accounts must rely on a certain transmission principle. Roughly, this amounts to the principle that necessarily, if (1) A has decisive available reason to intend to E and (2) A has decisive available reason to believe that intending to M is necessary for E‐ing, it follows that (3) A has decisive available reason to intend to M. By considering an example, this paper argues that even the most plausible version of this transmission principle does not hold true. It follows that one can correctly respond to one's available reasons while being means–end incoherent.