The wrong kind of reason

Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 102, Issue 9, 2005, Pages 437-457

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EID: 34547150589     PISSN: 0022362X     EISSN: 19398549     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/jphil2005102933     Document Type: Review

References (37)

1. See, for example, Jonathan Dancy, Practical Reality (New York: Oxford, 2000);
2. Derek Parfit, "Rationality and Reasons," in Dan Egonsson et al., eds., Exploring Practical Philosophy (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001), pp. 17-39;
3. Joseph Raz, Practical Reason and Norms (London: Hutchinson, 1975; reprint, Princeton: University Press, 1990);
4. Raz, Engaging Reason: On the Theory of Value and Action (New York: Oxford, 1999);
5. T.M. Scanlon, "What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge: Harvard, 1998);
6. J. David Velleman, The Possibility of Practical Reason (New York: Oxford, 2000). Obviously, these writers have in mind what are sometimes called "justifying" reasons. What are sometimes called " explanatory" reasons would require different treatment. John Broome takes the explanatory role of reasons as primary, and identifies a justificatory (or "normative") reason as a fact that explains an ought claim.
7. See Broome, "Reasons," in R. Jay Wallace et al., eds., Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz (New York: Oxford, 2004), pp. 28-55.
8. See, for example, Jonas Olson, "Buck-Passing and the Wrong Kind of Reasons," The Philosophical Quarterly, LIV, 215 (2004): 295-300;
9. Justin D'Arms and Daniel Jacobson, "Sentiment and Value," Ethics, CX (2000): 722-18;
10. Wlodek Rabinowicz and Toni Ronnow-Rasmussen, "The Strike of the Demon: On Fitting Pro-Attitudes and Value," Ethics, CXIV (2004): 391-423. The "wrong kind of reasons" problem, as identified by these authors, concerns reasons for "valuing" or for those "pro-attitudes" or "sentiments" that are thought to be appropriate when their object is valuable. So understood, the wrong kind of reasons problem is thought to challenge the viability of a certain account of value (the "fitting- attitudes" or "neo-sentimentalist" account). In fact, I believe this discussion involves several distinguishable issues, only one of which I will address: I will consider the question of how to distinguish the "right" reasons for an attitude from the "wrong" kind. I will not focus particularly on "valuing" or on "pro-attitudes, " because, as noted by D'Arms and Jacobson, as well as by Parfit and Christian Piller (references below), there is a quite general problem about identifying the appropriate reasons for attitudes, a problem that is not restricted to reasons for those attitudes involved in valuing. I hope to resolve this broader problem about the "wrong kind of reason." Even if I am successful, problems about value will remain. I consider these briefly late in the paper.
11. Donald Davidson is often associated with the view that reasons for actions are belief/desire pairs. See, for example, Davidson, "Actions, Reasons, and Causes," in Essays on Actions and Events (New York: Oxford, 1980), pp. 3-19. It is not at all clear to me, however, that Davidson had the distinction in question in mind. The view the reasons for action are belief/desire pairs has been recently defended by, among others, Michael Smith.
12. See, for example, "The Possibility of Philosophy of Action," in Jan Bransen and Stefaan E. Cuypers, eds., Human Action, Deliberation, and Causation (Boston: Kluwer, 1998), pp. 17-41
13. and The Moral Problem (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994). The contrasting view has been argued by, among others, Stephen Darwall, Thomas Nagel, Raz, Warren Quinn, and Scanklon.
14. Raz notes that it is natural to think of a reason for action as a relation between "a fact which is the reason...a (class of) person(s) and an action (-type)" ("Agency, Reason, and the Good," in Engaging Reason, p. 22).
15. See also Raz, Practical Reasons and Norms. John Skorupski gives a similar, though more complex, account of what he calls "the reasons relation." He analyzes reasons for action as follows: "the fact that p gives [person] x reason of degree d at time t to unknown sign, where unknown sign ranges over action-types." He provides a parallel account of reasons for belief, "the fact that p gives [person] x reason of degree d at time t to believe that q," and for what he calls "reasons to feel," "the fact that p gives [person] x reason of degree d at time t to feel Ψ, where Ψ ranges over types of feelings (that is, emotions, moods, and desires)" ("Reasons and Reason," in Garrett Cullity and Berys Gaut, eds., Ethics and Practical Reason (New York: Oxford, 1997), pp. 345-67, on p. 346).
16. According to Scanlon, the relevant relation is "counting in favor of" some other item. Scanlon takes a reason to be a consideration that counts in favor of something (What We Owe to Each Other, pp. 17-18).
17. As Scanlon's discussion proceeds, one learns that the particular item reasons seem to count in favor of are what he calls "judgment-sensitive attitudes," attitudes such as belief, desire, intention, fear, resentment, or jealousy. So long as any action involves an intention, Scanlon's account will cover both reasons for actions. Parfit puts his similar view quite simply: "Facts give us reasons...when they count in favour of our having some belief or desire, or acting in some way" ("Rationality and Reasons," p. 18).
18. Dancy says, "a reason is a consideration that speaks in favor of action (or belief)" (Practical Reality, p. 144). However, Dancy provides some further reflection on what he calls the "ground" for a reason. Whereas, for Scanlon, the notion of "counting in favor of is primitive (and values are understood through this notion, via the account of reasons), for Dancy reasons are grounded in values, and thereby count in favor of things. My account is closer to Scanlon's, in that it does not make explicit use of a conception of value. 6 It also creates difficulty for the already difficult project of explaining action. I consider the explanation of action, and argue for my preferred account of a reason, in "Reasons for Action."
19. Cf. Gregory Kavka, "The Toxin Puzzle," Analysis, XLIII (1983): 33-36.
20. See Parfit, "Rationality and Reasons"; Piller, "Normative Practical Reasoning," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. LXXV, 1 (2001): 195-216
21. and "Content-Related and Attitude-Related Reasons for Preferences," Philosophy (forthcoming).
22. Piller, who notes that he does not aim to give a precise definition, says, "Take some propositional attitude for which there could be reasons, like wanting p, intending that p, or believing that p. Something is a content-related reason if it refers to some appropriate feature of p. For example, believing that p is useful would be a content-related reason for wanting that p. In other words, p's usefulness is a consideration that speaks in favor of wanting that p. Believing that p is the best explanation of q, where q is something believed to be true, is a content-related reason for believing that p.... Something is an attitude-related reason for a propositional attitude if it refers to some appropriate feature of the attitudes as a whole and not only to a feature of the content of the attitude. Take wanting that p. One of the features of the attitude as a whole would be that wanting that p is useful. Believing that wanting that p is useful would then be an attitude-related reason for wanting that p" ("Normative Practical Reasoning," pp. 204-05). The account lacks precision because of its reliance on 'appropriate'.
23. See Piller, "Normative Practical Reasoning," p. 206. He argues against this view in "Content-Related and Attitude-Related Reasons for Preferences."
24. Rabinowicz and Ronnow-Rasmussen agree with me in this: "Surely, if we are supposed to have reasons for actions when the actions have useful effects or are valuable for their own sake, why shouldn't we have reasons for attitudes in comparable circumstances?" ("Strike of the Demon," p. 413).
25. Gibbard notes the connection between reasons and rationality in Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (Cambridge: Harvard, 1990). He distinguishes the rationality of "feeling or believing something" from the rationality of "wanting to feel or believe it" at p. 37. D'Arms and Jacobson discuss his treatment.
26. See "Sentiment and Value," pp. 412-15.
27. Both treatments are discussed by Rabinowicz and Ronnow-Rasmussen, "Strike of the Demon," pp. 412-15.
28. For an argument that pragmatic considerations do not rationalize belief, see Thomas P. Kelly, "The Rationality of Belief and Some Other Propositional Attitudes," Philosophical Studies, CX (2002): 163-96.
29. For an argument that epistemic rationality does not reduce to instrumental rationality, see Kelly, "Epistemic Rationality as Instrumental Rationality: A Critique," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXVI, 3 (2003): 612-40.
30. Gilbert Harman has done much to differentiate reasoning from argument. See, for example, Change in View (Cambridge: MIT, 1989). I do not mean, here, to assimilate them, nor to choose between an account of reasoning as something concrete agents undertake in time and space and an account of reasoning as a set of abstract relations.
31. A point (almost) made by G.E.M. Anscombe, Intention (Oxford: Blackwell, 1957).
32. See "Controlling Attitudes."
33. D'Arms and Jacobson talk about the "norms of fittingness" for different attitudes. See "The Moralistic Fallacy: On the 'Appropriateness' of Emotion," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXI (2000): 65-90
34. and "Sentiment and Value." They express their doubts about what they call "quasi-judgmentalist" accounts of emotion in Anthony Hatzimoysis, ed., "The Significance of Recalcitrant Emotion (or, Anti-Quasijudgmentalism)," in Philosophy and the Emotions (New York: Cambridge, 2003), pp. 127-45.
35. Elsewhere I have considered whether resentment might be understood as the settling of a complex set of questions - about the genuineness of the wrong, the status of the wrongdoer, one's own status, and the ongoing significance of the wrong done. Settling these questions would be constitutive of resentment, and reasons that bear on them would be constitutive reasons for resenting. Other reasons, which show resentment useful or costly or inconvenient, would be extrinsic reasons for or against resenting. Forgiveness and excuse, I have suggested, should concern the constitutive reasons for resentment. Excusing involves changing one's answer to one of the first three questions. In so doing, one undermines resentment. Forgiveness could be understood as overcoming resentment by revising one's answer to the last of these questions. In contrast, the fact that resentment is a costly and destructive emotion counts in favor of overcoming or eliminating it, but is an extrinsic reason for its elimination; one could not excuse or forgive for such a reason. Rather, one might undertake some sort of drug treatment aimed at eliminating the emotion. See "Articulating an Uncompromising Forgiveness," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXII, 3 (2001): 529-55
36. and "The Force and Fairness of Blame," Philosophical Perspectives, XVIII, 1 (2004): 115-48.
37. In "Reasons for Action," I consider another advantage.