Steven Arkonovich

It is common sense to say that, at least sometimes, what one has reason to do depends on what one wants. In contemporary ethical theory, "internalists" and "externalists" divide over the issue whether one's practical reasons are always dependent on one's desires. Internalists insist, while externalists deny, that an agent has reason to act only if that agent wants, or could come to want, to so act. ;The present investigation attempts to adjudicate the issue dividing internalists and externalists by assessing the ability of each theory to meet two challenges. The first challenge is to satisfy two general requirements on any theory of reasons. The "internalism requirement" holds that reasons for action must be capable of motivating the agent for whom they are reasons. The "content requirement" holds that a theory of reasons must specify some distinctive and plausible content for claims ascribing reasons to agents. I argue, first, that these are genuine requirements, and that they place substantive constraints on the form a theory of reasons can take. Second, against contemporary and influential arguments to the contrary, I show that internalist views can meet these constraints and that leading externalist views cannot. ;The second challenge is to show how the favored theory of reasons can accommodate familiar facts about practical irrationality. A theory of reasons must have the resources to explain how an agent might fail to be motivated to act in the face of an acknowledged reason. Externalists have argued that internalist theories do not have the resources to explain such motivational failures. I argue that this charge is based on an inadequate conception of desire, one according to which to have a desire is necessarily to be motivated to pursue its object. In response, I develop and argue for a more sophisticated conception of desire. I argue that desires can play various roles within the psychology of the agent, and that only one of their roles is to bring about their own satisfaction. Because a desire's role might not involve motivating an agent to bring about its satisfaction, internalist theories can account for motivational failures

In the opening chapter of What We Owe To Each Other, Tim Scanlon produces a sustained critique of a Humean conception of practical reason. Scanlon claims he will argue that unless having a desire just is to see something as a reason, desires play no role in the explanation or justification of action. Yet his specific arguments against Humeanism all employ a very austere understanding of desire , and attempt to show that desires so understood are not up to any explanatory or justificatory task. Since the standard model represents only one understanding of desire his specific arguments cannot establish his stated general thesis. I show how a more robust conception of desire will leave the Humean account safe from Scanlon’s specific arguments

Under what conditions do you have a reason to perform some action? Do you only have reason to do what you want to do? Reasons-motives internalism is the appealingly simple view that unless an agent is, or could be, motivated to act in a certain way, he has no normative reason to act in that way. Thus, according to reasons-motives internalism, facts about an individual’s motivational psychology constrain what is rational for that agent to do. This article canvasses several ways of formulating the view and considers some advantages and disadvantages of each.

The paper has two goals. First, it defends one type of subjectivist account of reasons for actions—deliberative accounts—against the criticism that they commit the conditional fallacy. Second, it attempts to show that another type of subjectivist account of practical reasons that has been gaining popularity—ideal advisor accounts—are liable to commit a closely related error. Further, I argue that ideal advisor accounts can avoid the error only by accepting the fundamental theoretical motivation behind deliberative accounts. I conclude that ideal advisor accounts represent neither a substantial departure from, nor a substantial improvement upon, deliberative accounts

This paper is an attempt to come to a better understanding of desire through an examination of certain kinds of conflict of desire. Standard accounts of conflict of desire involve a two-part analysis. First, desires are held to conflict just in case the satisfaction of one precludes the satisfaction of the other; second, a desire is said to be satisfied just in case the propositional content of the desire is true. I argue that this account of conflict rests in an inadequate notion of desire satisfaction, and suggest a revision of our understanding of desire satisfaction to yield a better account of conflict of desire. This account of satisfaction requires that we recognize as a fundamental feature of desire, alongside the desire ’s strength and content, the desire ’s role. For some conflicts of desire are best understood as conflicts of role, not conflicts of content