Notes on T.M.

Scanlon, Being Realistic About Reasons (2014)

[This is not supposed to be a commentary but a general outline of Scanlons arguments
which may serve as a base for further inquiries]
Gianluca Verrucci
Lecture 1. Reasons Fundamentalism
1
Scanlon argues for a realistic cognitivism about reasons or REASONS
FUNDAMENTALISM:
a view that is cognitivist in holding that claims about reasons for action
CAN BE CORRECT OR INCORRECT,
but realistic also in recognizing that THERE MAY BE LIMITS TO THE
RANGE OF CASES IN WHICH SUCH CLAIMS HAVE DETERMINATE TRUTH
VALUES (2)
Then, he adds, as a qualification of the previous thesis, that TRUTH ABOUT REASONS ARE
FUNDAMENTAL in two senses:
A. They are NOT REDUCIBLE or IDENTIFIABLE WITH NON-NORMATIVE TRUTHS
(physical objects, causes, effects), NOT EXPLAINED IN TERMS OF alleged more
basic NOTIONS OF RATIONALITY OR RATIONAL AGENCY that are not
themselves claims about reasons.
B. OTHER NORMATIVE NOTIONS SUCH AS GOOD AND OUGHT BEING
ANALYZABLE IN TERMS OF REASONS.
Scanlon are going to defend only A, focusing in particular on reasons for action, being B
too much controversial.

2
Some characters of reasons that call for explanation:
RELATIONAL CHARACTER: reasons are considerations that count FOR an agent;
DETERMINATE TRUTH VALUE: reasons are true or false in a way that is mindindependent or opinion-independent (does this pose metaphysical worries?);
SUPERVENIENCE: there seems to be a relation of covariance, if not dependence,
between reasons and non-normative facts;

KNOWLEDGE: how can we come to know normative facts?

PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE: judgment about reasons, i.e. beliefs, show a distinctive
action guiding capacity (how beliefs can do that?);
STRENGHT: reasons seem to have different weigh or strength;
OPTIONALITY: some reasons can, and sometimes MUST, be discarded when in
conflict with others.
3
DESIRE-BASED ACCOUNTS of reasons seem promising. Scanlon mentions two types:
(1) X has a reason to do A just in case doing A would promote the fulfillment
of some desire that X has;
(2) X has reason to do A if doing A would promote the fulfillment of a desire
that X would have if X were fully aware of the relevant non-normative facts
and thinking clearly.
They can easily explain 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, but they run in the face of some counterintuitive
implications concerning 2.
Does a desire a person has to do A gives her ALWAYS a reasons to do A no
matter how foolish would be?
Even a fully informed desire is not ALWAYS capable of providing adequate
MOTIVATION (the problem with counterfactual interpretations of having a
desire seems to be that the agent still needs a reason to comply with the
judgments of his idealized, fully informed counterpart)
But there is a stronger objection against the ILLUSORY EXPLANATORY POTENTIAL of
such theories. Desire-based accounts DBT - may take two forms:
A. DBT may offer a SUBSTANTIVE NORMATIVE CLAIM about reasons people
have.
as a normative theory it cannot resolve metaphysical problems about
irreducibility because it simply states a normative position of that kind;
cannot solve the problem of how we can get to know normative truths,
because it simply offers a normative truth;
Scanlon concludes by saying that DBT1 are compatible with Reasons
Fundamentalism.

B. DBT may be interpreted as offering a REDUCTIVE CLAIM, according to which

for P to be a reason for an agent to do A just is for the truth of P to help explain how
doing A would promote the satisfaction of some desire that the agent has (Schroeder,
Slaves of the Passions, 2007).
It responds to metaphysical (facts about reasons are natural facts) and
epistemological worries (we can come to know truths about reasons
through empirical inquiry),
but leaves unexplained the action guiding force of reasons: it is a causal
or explanatory theory which eliminates normativity (the causal relation
between desire and action, Scanlon seems to think, makes it impossible to
represent the rational tie between believing to have a reason to A and
doing A). Scanlon says he will return on that in chapter 4.
4
There is an alternative to DBT, RATIONALITY-BASED ACCOUNTS or RBA, which
attempts to ground reasons in an idea of rationality:
The fact that P is a reason for a person to do A when and because rationality requires
such a person to count this fact in favor of doing A.
According to Scanlon, RBA view reasons not as conclusions or considerations independent
of the agents mind (mind-independence), as if they were out there (even desires are out
there in this sense, i.e. in peoples mind), but as considerations TREATED AS REASONS in
virtue of their capacity to withstand a qualified process of rational scrutiny (an
example is the Kantian Theory, according to which the capacity to surpass the CI test is
that which makes merely subjective maxims into fully justified reasons for action).
One of the main advantages of this approach to normativity is the capacity to respond to
what Korsgaard named THE NORMATIVE QUESTION. Korsgaards theory is about how
reasons acquire their normative force: a fact in the world concerning what reasons agents
have cannot provide a grip on the agents, because agents can continue to ask why
should I comply?, Is this really a reason?, etc.
Scanlon lays out at least two different interpretations of the Normative Question, or, more
precisely, of the grip the theory is pointing to:
the grip poses the internal question of motivation: how a person can be
motivated by the thought that some fact is a reason for action if this thought is a

mere belief that something is the case. Scanlon says he will return on that in
chapter 3;
the grip poses the external question of motivation: how the fact that P is a
reason for an agent to do A, if it is just a fact, could get the agent to accept that P is
a reason to do A and treat it as such; agents could simply deny that its a reason.
The theory is best accounted for in normative, not in psychological, terms. The problem is
not that of explaining the psychological formation of a proper motivation, but to find,
Korsgaard says, SOMETHING ABOUT THE AGENT IN VIRTUE OF WHICH SHE MUST
ACCEPT THAT p IS A REASON FOR HER TO DO a. Korsgaard believes that this kind of
normativity springs out from rational agency.
According to Scanlon theres no need to invoke a further normative sanction because all
the normativity is already entailed by the conclusive reasons agents have (this means also
that the Normative Question, according to Scanlon, has no definite meaning at all).

5
Similar accounts are developed by many contemporary theorists.
Gilbert Harman: agents reasons MUST follow from his intentions in order to get a
grip on him;
Bernanrd Williams: agents desires can represent valid claims about reasons only
after following a sound deliberative route; the grip is provided by desires to
which the agent is already committed.
Micheal Smith: reasons are what a person would desire for herself if fully rational.
According to Scanlon, the reference to attitudes and commitments agents already have is
derived by features of the dialectical context in which arguments take place, in which
one person is trying to force some other to agree that he has a reason to act in a certain
way (Scanlon believes the talk of a grip is derived from here).
BUT WHAT IT TAKES FOR A CLAIM TO BE CORRECT NEED NOT BE THE SAME AS
WHAT IT TAKES FOR THE CLAIM TO BE ONE THAT ONES OPPONENT IN ARGUMENT
CANNOT CONSISTENTLY DENY.

We should shift from external reasoning to INTERNAL REASONING: from this point of
view the question of how reasons get a grip on one properly disappears. There is only
the question: what reasons do I have?
According to Scanlon, the substantive merit of the answer we reach from the internal
perspective (whether it is CORRECT, and whether theres any reason to doubt it), is
capable of arresting the regress, or the search for the unconditioned, Korsgaard has
envisioned.

6
In the last paragraph, Scanlon sets out his dialectical strategy:
if DBT and RBA are unsatisfactory,
if expressivism is unsatisfactory,
and unless there is some other account of reasons,
REASONS FUNDAMENTALISM wil be left as the only available option.

Lecture 2. Metaphysical Objections

In this lecture Scanlon is going to argue for the existence of irreducibly normative truths.
The main objection is that these entities are metaphysically odd, incompatible with a
scientific world view.
1
ONTOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Quine and Mackie reduce all there is to what exists in the physical world and impinges on
our sensory surface. However, according to Scanlon, even Quine takes mathematical and
logical truths as part of that theories, and, more importantly, as a crucial part of the
process by which we decide about what the best theory is like (assuming some criteria of
success and simplicity).
QUANTIFYING NUMBERS AND SETS ARE USEFUL IN DECIDEING WHICH THEORY
IS THE BEST SCIENTIFIC THEORY;
We cannot do without numbers and sets;

This consideration urges Scanlon to develop a thesis focusing on the concept of a

DOMAIN.

Main thesis

There is a range of basic domains (including maths, physics, moral reasoning, etc.)

Statements within these domains are capable of being true or false

The truth values of these statements are settled by the standards of the domain
they are about (so, returning to the example of mathematics, questions concerning
the truth value of sets, the existence of numbers, etc., are properly settled only by
mathematical reasoning)

The main thesis is further specified and clarified as follow:

1) A DOMAIN is not a realm of objects, but of CLAIMS, or STATEMENTS, AND
CONCEPTS
2) STANDARDS FOR ANSWERING QUESTIONS: consist of a certain kind of
REASONING, INTERNAL to the domain, which makes use of substantive
principles but can also revise them if needed (scientific method is the
particular kind of reasoning which can settle questions about existential
statements relevant to the empirical sciences domain)
3) PURE STATEMENTS: there is a pure part in each domains constituted by
standards internal to that domain, standards which employ only concepts
peculiar to that domain. There are also mixed claims (typically moral
reasoning, in which we apply both empirical and normative concepts)
4) FIRST-ORDER DOMAINS ARE NOT ENTIRELY AUTONOMOUS: even pure
statements in one domain can entail or presuppose claims in some other
domain; there are important external questions in each domains, as there
are external presuppositions; for example, the existence of a certain kind of
agents is a presupposition of the practical domain which can be
undermined by external argument [for example, deterministic physics
might not allow us to think that that kind of agents exist in any meaningful
sense]
Some conclusions about EXISTENCE
o

WE SHOULD DECIDE WHAT EXISTENTIAL STATEMENTS TO ACCEPT

SIMPLY BY APPLYING THE CRITERIA RELEVANT TO VARIOUS DOMAINS,

TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE INTERACTION BETWEEN DIFFERENT

DOMAINS
o

THE GENERAL IDEA OF EXISTENCE, THAT APPLIES TO EVERYTHING WE

ARE COMMITTED TO QUANTIFYING OVER, IS EMPTY IN CONTRAST TO
THE SIGNIFICANCE THAT IDEAS OF EXISTENCE WITHIN PARTICULAR
DOMAINS CAN HAVE

THERE ARE NO GENERAL, DOMAIN-INDEPENDENT CONDITIONS OF

EXISTENCE

ONTOLOGICAL QUESTIONS ARE DOMAIN-SPECIFIC

The metaphysics of a domain is an inquiry into how that
domain is to be understood
Reasons of simplicity, or Harmans explanatory
requirement, may apply to good scientific practice but not
to other domains such as ontology and moral reasoning

1st OB: too permissive

R1: the real question is not about the existence of strange entities, but about their
significance and indispensability
2nd OB: the idea of existence is too thin or minimal
R2: the idea of thickness is domain-specific (the idea of thickness that is relevant to
existential statements about numbers is provided by the structure of the relevant
mathematical realm)
3rd OB: the truth or significance of claims within certain domains requires that the entities
they deal with exist in a sense that goes beyond what is directly established by ordinary
reasoning within those domain
R3: but the question concerning the existence of the relevant entities (numbers, reasons,
etc.) is settled within the relevant domain (Scanlon argues against Enochs objection that
even if we have reasons which are in conflict with those of others, we cannot help but rely
on the basic normative concept of reasons defined by the relevant domain of normative
reasoning, and the question of which of us is correct can be settled only within that
domain)

2
THE FACTIVE CHARACTER OF THE NORMATIVE DOMAIN
Irreducibly normative truths do not track special or queer entities, but ORDINARY
FACTS.
The distinctive character of normative truths is a NORMATIVE RELATION between facts
which we may understand as a sort of COUNTING IN FAVOUR OF some action or attitude
or BEING A REASON FOR.
We may represent this normative relation as a four-place relations:
R (p, x, c, a): IS A REASON FOR is a relation holding between a FACT p, an
AGENT x, a set of CONDITIONS c, and an ACTION or ATTITUDE a. (The case of
more strong relations, such as those entailed by is a decisive or conclusive reason
for will be discussed in Lecture 5).
THIS IS THE RELATION THAT HOLDS JUST IN CASE p IS A REASON FOR A PERSON x
IN SITUATION c TO DO OR HOLD a.
The variables are interrelated:
a is normally represented as an ACTION or ATTITUDE TYPE done by x but
specified without reference to x
p con be essentially related to the agent x or not; in the former case R will
be a SUBJECTIVE REASON (my daughter is drowning is a reason for me to
save her) in the latter an OBJECTIVE REASON (a child is drowning is a
reason for everyone to save her)
circumstances c may involve reference to the agent x; for example, p may
be a reason for x to do a because x is in a certain institutional situation in
virtue of which x is eligible or entitled to do a
Two addenda:
1. NORMATIVE FACTS CAN ALSO BE REASONS. The fact that a law is unjust
may be a reason for me to vote against it; circumstances can be specified
in normative as well as non-normative terms (for example, she is in
circumstances in which she has reason to do that)
2. FACTIVE CHARACTER OF MOST STATEMENTS ABOUT REASONS: p is
not a reason for someone in c to do a unless p obtains and the person in
question is actually in circumstances c.

3
RELATION BETWEEN NORMATIVE AND NON-NORMATIVE I
Two characters of normative relations are in need of an explanation, SUPERVENIENCE
and COVARIANCE:
1. Normative claims are about the natural world: they attribute normative
significance to facts. R corresponds to a normative relational property
that holds between things in the natural world.
2. Normative and non-normative are linked: they vary when naturalistic
facts vary, do not vary as long as the naturalistic facts remain the same.
According to Scanlon we should get rid of the belief in the unbridgeable gap between
facts and values, but we should rethink, not abolish, the so called fact/value distinction:
Priors problem: take F (non-normative statement) and N (normative),
then (F v N) will depend on F; so, if N holds will depend on F, which is a
clear case of derivation of a normative truth from a non-normative one.
Lets consider Y1: no claim that R is derivable from any consistent set of
non-normative claims. But if derivable means logically entailment, then
Y is circular and uninformative;
If derivable in Y1 means conceptual entailment, then Y rules out
analytic naturalism and supports the thesis that the concept of a reason is
fundamental in the normative domain;
Lets consider Y2: no claim that R holds or does not hold can be derived
via logical and conceptual entailment from any consistent set of physical
and psychological claims.
o

But are physical claims truly non-normative? Putnam would say

that justification for scientific conclusions often involve epistemic
values such as clarity, simplicity, coherence, and the like.

The same could be said about psychology (believer, rational

agent, are normative infused concepts)

Against Putnam, however, Scanlon remarks that we should

distinguish between the claim that we have sufficient reason for
accepting a theory (which is normative), and the claim made by
that theory (which can be non-normative)

Consider the problem Y3, concerning the factive character of most claims
about reasons: p cannot be a reason for anything unless it is the case the

p. It seems that from the non-normative claim that p does not obtain
would follow the normative claim that R also does not hold.
We can restate Y3 as Y4: no positive atomic statements of the form R
follows via logical and conceptual entailment from any consistent set of
physical and psychological claims.
o

But the content of R is normative irrespective of the fact that p

obtains or not: should p hold then it is a reason for someone in c to
do a. This is a PURELY NORMATIVE CLAIM.

Scanlons thesis: most of our normative claims are MIXED NORMATIVE CLAIMS and the
fact/value distinction captures an important aspect of PURELY NORMATIVE CLAIMS (see
the next paragraph). MIXED NORMATIVE CLAIMS, such as thick ethical concepts,
involve purely normative claims but also make or presuppose claims about the
natural world.
The discussion of Caligula was cruel (as an example of a thick ethical concept)
The claim is psychological, non-normative, but may contain normative elements
too, is a clear case of a MIXED NORMATIVE CLAIM:
Saying that Caligula was indifferent to the suffering of his victims involves
that he should not have been indifferent to such things, because they
really are reasons.
Cruelty is something one has reason to avoid in oneself, and that one has
good reasons to react differently to someone who is cruel than to someone
who is not.
These two considerations are RELATED: the reasons one has to respond
differently depend on the particular reasons that cruel person is insensitive
and rude
These normative elements ARE CENTRAL TO THE CONCEPT OF
CRUELTY; a person who did not understand these normative elements
couldnt grasp the concept and tell which psychological traits count as
cruel.
The same holds for thin ethical concepts such as morally wrong or counterfactuals like
She has a good reason not to do it, since it would hurt her feelings. These are all example
of MIXED NORMATIVE CLAIMS.

First Scanlons provisional conclusion: THE NON-NORMATIVE CONTENT OF THICK

CONCEPTS DEPENDS ON THE NORMATIVE CONTENT OF THESE CONCEPTS IN
COMPLEX WAYS.
Second Scanlons provisional conclusion: THE DOMAIN OF NORMATIVE STATEMENTS,
OR THE DOMAIN OF JUDGMENTS ABOUT WHAT REASONS PEOPLE HAVE, INCLUDES
THICK AS WELL AS THIN CONCEPTS.

4
RELATION BETWEEN NORMATIVE AND NON-NORMATIVE II
Scanlon focuses on the kind of inference that obtains between non-normative and
normative statements. Consider this:
(I) If Jones does not leave the burning building now, he will be killed
(II) Jones has a reason to leave the burning building now
when I is non-normative while II is normative. This appears to be a common inference,
one we are entitled to do on logical basis; how can there be a logical gap between
normative and non-normative?
Consider now this:
(III) Joness situation is such that the fact that doing I is necessary for him to avoid
dying now is a reason for him to do I.
This is a mixed normative claim which allows us to pass from I to II.
III can be restated as a pure normative claim, such as anyone in these circumstances has
a reason to do what is necessary to prolong his life. Remember that purely normative
claims do not contain anything non-normative.
The odd thing is that we can derive a normative claim from a non-normative claim with
the aid of a normative claim: MIXED NORMATIVE CLAIMS DEPEND ON NONNORMATIVE CLAIMS, THIS DEPENDENCE BEING DETERMINED BY PURE NORMATIVE
CLAIMS.

Now Scanlon is able to solve the problem of COVARIANCE:

The normative facts that vary as non-normative facts vary, are facts that
consist in the truth of mixed normative claims
MIXED NORMATIVE CLAIMS DEPEND ON NON-NORMATIVE FACTS
But WHICH NON-NORMATIVE FACTS THEY DEPEND ON IS A NORMATIVE
MATTER DETERMINED BY THE TRUTH OF PURE NORMATIVE CLAIMS
THE TRUTH OF PURE NORMATIVE CLAIMS DOES NOT DEPEND, AND COVARY WITH, NON-NORMATIVE FACTS.
and SUPERVENIENCE:
Pure normative facts do not vary, they are not contingent
So, MIXED NORMATIVE FACTS THAT DEPEND ON THEM SUPERVENE ON
NON-NORMATIVE FACTS
THIS IS A CASE OF NORMATIVE NECESSITY
PURE NORMATIVE CLAIMS HAVE THE FUNCTION TO ASSIGN NORMATIVE
SIGNIFICANCE TO NON-NORMATIVE CLAIMS.
The case of moral judgments, such as X is morally good, may seem puzzling because is
not clear the relation between normative and non-normative elements. This kind of
judgments seem to assign NORMATIVE PROPERTIES to their subjects. So the question
arises about the relation between having this property and having various natural
properties.

5
NORMATIVE PROPERTIES
Scanlon is concerned with the distinction between normative CONCEPTS and normative
PROPERTIES. He maintains that R (p, x, c, a) is a relational, and fundamental, normative
CONCEPT.
How does this concept relate to the notion of PROPERTY of being a reason for? Are there
any PROPERTIES which are signified by that concept?
Gibbards proposal: there are normative concepts but the corresponding properties can be
analyzed in naturalistic terms as follow: if P1 is the thing to do in C1, the property that

constitutes the normative concept being the thing to do is the property of having the
property P1 in C1. P1 and C1 are thus necessarily coextensive.
Scanlons observes that: this account refers to what things are good rather than to what
good is.
Schroeders proposal: for p to be a reason for a person x etc., means there to be some q
such that x has a desire whose object is q and the truth of p is part of what explains how
xs doing a promotes q.
Scanlons remarks:
part of Schroeders proposal appeal consists in the presumed ability to
explain why the reasons that some people have may differ from the
reasons of others (basically, they differ in the set of their desires they have,
so in psychological elements)
but why x have to satisfy the realization of q? Schroeder would reply that:
its because x finds the satisfaction of the desire to q pleasant. But there is
another explanation available here: that the fact that x finds the realization
of q pleasant is a reason for her to do that. Schroeders account cannot
solve the dispute.
what allows us to distinguish the reasons of two people is not the desire
they have but the facts the one enjoys doing q and the other not (whether
or not they desire pleasant experiences as a background condition).
even if is conceded that in certain cases the presence of some desire is
crucial to the explanation of the fact that agents have reasons, this cannot
be true of all cases.
Jacksons objection: how can be determined when, in addition to some purely descriptive
property, there is a normative property coextensive with it.
Scanlons reply: is a matter of normativity, not of empirical findings; it depends on
whether a particular p actually is a reason for someone in c to do a. Thats a question that
can be settled only within the normative domain.
Conclusion: THER ARE IRREDUCIBLE NORMATIVE TRUTHS ABOUT REASONS, BUT
THERE ARE NOT NATURALISTIC RELATIONAL PROPERTIES CORRESPONDING TO
THE RELATIONAL NORMATIVE CONCEPT OF A REASON.

Lecture 3. Motivation and the Appeal of Expressivism.

1
An appealing line of argument in favour of expressivistic accounts of reasons normativity,
and against cognitivism, says that an account that interprets judgments about reasons as
BELIEFS is unable to explain the PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE of such judgments.
Beliefs seem to be the inadequate to motivate action.
MOTIVATION can be interpreted in two ways: 1) as the causal efficacy that a certain
element has in directing our action, or 2) as the capacity to rationalize action, makes is
understandable.
According to Scanlon, a BELIEF is perfectly well suited to do the job required by 2) just as
well as desire. The first option requires more accurate treatment.
Scanlon maintains that if its possible to provide an adequate account of how beliefs
CAN EXPLAIN action, then the problem posed by 1) disappears.
Scanlon relies upon the CONCEPT OF RATIONAL AGENT, which is able to explain the
PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE of beliefs about reasons:
o

one that is capable of thinking about reasons, and reaching conclusions

about which of these are good

the judgments that he makes about reasons make a difference to the

actions and attitudes he has

if believes that p is a conclusive reason to do a, generally will do a, and do it

for this reason

when asked about the reason he had to do something, he cites the fact that
he takes to count in favor of a; the fact that p is a reason to a comes later

objection: when an agent fails intentionally to do what is required to do by his beliefs

about reasons, what is missing is a proper motivation to do that. This means that beliefs
about reasons alone cannot explain action: a further motivational element is needed.
Scanlons reply: the problem is not of a lack of some element different from beliefs, but in
the fact that the normal processes have failed to work (by failing to connect the
consideration he judges to be conclusive with the corresponding motivation and actions)

2
Scanlons account differs from other similar ones (Hares and Gibbards) in two important
ways:
1. in the description of the reflective state with which the process begins:
practical commitment (expressivism), judging something to be true or
having a certain belief (Scanlon)
2. expressivists are concerned with what it is to judge something to be a
reason, while Scanlon with what it is for something TO BE a reason.
Scanlon attributes to rational agents beliefs about which things ARE
reasons.
Conclusion: THE CONNECTION BETWEEN BELIEFS AND ACTIONS IS NOT
CONTROVERSIAL AT ALL: IT IS PART OF THE IDEA OF RATIONALITY WE NORMALLY
EMPLOY.

3
Expressivists claim that their theories are capable of grant the internal adequacy a theory
of normativity should have to represent agents point of view when appropriately
motivated.
Scanlon responds that they cannot account for the common meaning of ADVISE and
JUSTIFICATION.
1. if we take the notion of planning as the correct analysis of having a reasons,
like in Gibbards theory, then it is not clear why the interlocutor to which Im
offering an ADVISE should care about my plan to do something (the same for
higher-order level)- Why should she care what I plan to do?
2. if having a good reason would amount to expressing my plan to weight
something in favour of some action I have done, then it wouldnt be clear how I
can respond to people who ask me why? with a complaining tone: it is already
clear that I planned to behave that way. But this is what the person is objecting to.
Scanlons positive proposal:
1. In advising someone that p is a reason for him to do a, Im calling that persons
attention to what I claim to be a fact, independent of both of us, about what one
has reason to do. The INDEPENDENCE of that fact supports the possibility of

discussion and disagreement. The NORMATIVE FORCE of my claim rests in the

correctness of it, only if it is true the p actually is a reason for him to do a.
2. The same for justification.
It is part of the internal adequacy account to represent the thought that our judgments can
be mistaken, and if they are correct, would be correct even if we did not make them.
On Gibbards view we can regard our plan-judgments as mistaken only in the light of
higher-order norms that govern our acceptance of first order plans.
According to Scanlon, even higher-order norms can be mistaken, and that prevents the
possibility to represent the difference between changes in attitude that are corrections
and those that are errors.
Cognitivism cuts off the regress at the start by holding that the judgment is correct rather
than merely expressing an acceptance.

4
Blackburns objection: the cognitivist way of understanding ethical judgment is
destabilized by questions of epistemology (that Scanlon is going to tackle in Lecture 4) and
of why we should be concerned about ethical properties of things.
Why should we care about the ethical rightness of our actions?
Scanlons reply: this is a normative question which asks for a reason and is answered by
giving one. We might interpret that question in various ways:
a) As the question why we should care about what reasons one has.
b) A question concerned with the rational authority of reasons, a version of
Korsgaards normative question.
The first is non-sensical.
The second involves the assumption that reasons must be grounded in something that an
agent already accepts. But now the problem is that THE NORMATIVE FORCE OF MY
PLAN FOR ME DEPENDS ON MY ASSUMPTION THAT I HAVE GOOD REASONS TO HAVE
IT.
Expressivist accounts are threatened by a regress: ANY PLAN NEEDS TO BE BACKED UP
BY A JUDGMENT OF ANOTHER SORT, ONE ABOUT REASONS. The question is not Do I
plan that? but Should I plan that?, which is clearly a request for a good reason.

Conclusion: But a conclusion about what an agent must do (or must see as a reason)
insofar as he or she is not irrational is not the same thing as a conclusion about what the
agent has reason to do. A conclusion of the latter kind depends not only on the agents own
states of mind (plans or other attitudes), but also on the reasons that support them. And
this is true even from the agents own point of view. (p. 64).

5
The direction of fit argument: no states can have both a mind-world direction of fit
(standards of correctness) and world-to-mind direction of fit (rational connection to
intention and action). A person is open to rational criticism if she does not modify her
beliefs that p in the face of credible evidence that p is false. But the same person is not
open to the same kind of criticism when she has a good reason p to do a: if she believes p
but fails to treat it as a reason is open to rational criticism only if p is really a reason to do
a. There is a disanalogy between the two: in the second scenario, world-to-mind, the
belief is not fitting the world, so cannot be rationally tied to action.
Scanlons reply: the argument is valid only on the assumption that the belief in question is
a belief about the natural world. But if the belief is about other entities, such as reasons,
then it is true simply in virtue of being what it is. If I believe that p is a good reason to do a,
and then I do not do a, Id be open to rational criticism as if I believed that p is true without
credible evidence.
Conclusion: NORMATIVE JUDGMENTS CAN BE FORM OF BELIEFS RATIONALLY
RELATED TO INTENTION AND ACTION. A PERSON WHO HAS SUCH A BELIEF CAN BE
OPEN TO RATIONAL CRITICISM FOR NOT TREATING THE FACT THE SHE BELIEVES
AS A REASON.

Lecture 4. Epistemology and Determinateness.

1
Scanlon is going to argue against Mackies objection that truths about reasons are queer
and require a special faculty such as intuition in order to be known.

Scanlons strategy comprises two stage. A NEGATIVE part: devoted to argue against the
idea that normative facts would be a special kind of entity, which we could get in touch
with only through a faculty analogous to sensory perception. A POSITIVE part: an account
of the kind of thinking through which we can come to know normative truths.
Some preliminaries:

We should reject the idea of a region of existence outside of space and time
(i.e. platonism)

We can discover mathematical truths simply by thinking about them

So, we need to describe, this is the content of the positive part, that ways of
thinking in a way that makes plausible the claim that they are ways of
arriving at knowledge about the subjects matter in question

It would be helpful to provide AN OVERALL CHARACTERIZATION of the

domains in question in order to a) providing assurance that at least many
statements about the subject have DETERMINATE TRUTH VALUES, and
b) these truths values are INDEPENDENT OF US

Objection: this just pushes the epistemological problem back one step. An overall account
will be a general normative claim: so, again, how can we know this claim to be true.
Scanlons reply: the method of Reflecting Equilibrium provides a satisfactory answer.

2
THE EXAMPLE OF SET THEORY
This paragraph illustrates, by referring to the current debate about the foundation of Set
Theory, how the axioms of Set Theory can be ultimately justified without making use of
both conceptual or intuitive method (we dont need to enter into the detail of the matter in
dispute). The new method, Scanlon maintains it has been actually employed in recent
discussions, is Rawlss Reflective Equilibrium (from now on simply RE).
Scanlons observations:
1. Both conceptual (deriving axioms from conceptual truths involved in the
concept of set) and intuitive method (deriving axioms from some kind of
perception of the realm of sets) cannot define the overall content of set
axioms.

2. The new method involves a kind of MENTAL PICTURING, a matter of

representing to ourselves how one set can be characterized in terms of
others, in a way that is so clear as to leave us with no doubt that there is
such a set
3. first approximation to RE: conclusions about sets relies on the plausibility
of some particular judgments about sets, which seem clearly correct even
after careful reflection. Additional claims are then justified on the basis of
their ability to explain and unify these judgments (p. 74).

3
REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM
Brief characterization of the method:
1. IDENTIFICATION OF A SET OF CONSIDERED JUDGMENTS, OF ANY
LEVEL OF GENERALITY, ABOUT THE SUBJECT MATTERS
2. FORMULATION OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES THAT WOULD ACCOUNT
FOR THESE JUDGMENTS
a. Principles such that in trying to applying them one is led to the
same set of judgments;
b. If not successful one must decide how to respond to the divergence
between judgments and principles:
i. give up the judgments that the principles fail to account for,
ii. or modify the principles, o a combination of both.
iii. One is then to continue in this way, working back and forth
between principles and judgments until one reaches a set of
principles and a set of judgments that account for them;
3. This is not a state we are currently in, but an IDEAL, the struggle to attain
which continues indefinitely.
4. There is no guarantee that this method will yield general principles
accounting for our considered judgments.
This method is not a way to describe what we actually think, but FOR DECIDING WHAT
TO THINK: Rawlss idea, as I will understand him, is rather that seeing what principles
would or would not account for a given judgment may lead us to change our mind about
that judgment and to reassess the reasons why it might have seemed plausible. (p. 78)

Q1: Why look for more general principles that would account for our considered
judgments? Why ii?
R1: for three reasons.

We may have reason to want an overall account of the subject matter in

question (determinate answers, etc.)

The process might lead to the discovery, if not of general principles, at least
of intermediate-level ones that would help to answer questions that are not
settled by our current considered judgments

May cast new interpretative light on those considered judgments (what

they come to, why they might seem plausible, etc.)

Q2: Why should the fact that a judgment is among our judgments in equilibrium mean that
we are justified in accepting that judgment?
R2: The response in quite complex.

First of all, the crucial point is not consistency. The JUSTIFICATORY

FORCE lies in THE DETAILS OF HOW THE EQUILIBRIUM IS REACHED;

Consider the case in which different people reach different equilibria: the
fact that the other person has reached equilibrium is not important for us.
The important point is the way in which she has reached equilibrium:
Did the person begin with different considered judgments?
If so, should I accept them?
Did the person consider different principles? Did the person
make different choices about how to revise those
principles? If so, should I have made these different choices
as well?
Then, if our answers are positive, we can change our
judgments accordingly, otherwise

suspend the judgment, at least temporarily

acknowledge that there are two overall account of

the subject matter: PLURALISM

Q3: why should we regard the justification provided by the fact that a judgment has
survived this process as a sufficient justification?

R3: sufficient justification might have two meanings:

sufficient to make the persons beliefs SUBJECTIVELY RATIONAL: the

person is not open to criticism in holding her beliefs, given her subjective
epistemic situation (position, available information, etc.), and other more
objective elements, such as whether the judgments the person took as
considered were ones that the person had no good reasons to doubt;

OBJECTIVELY RATIONAL, whether it is something that it is reasonable to

believe and there are no reasons to doubt

CONCLUSION: the JUSTIFICATORY FORCE of the fact that we have arrived at certain
judgments in reflective equilibrium depends on the substantive merits of the judgments
we make along the way, in beginning with certain considered judgments and in modifying
these judgments and others as we progress (p. 82)
Objection: the conclusions it reaches are justified only if the considered judgments with
which it begins are justified in some way other than by the method itself, i.e. the
justificatory force depends only on the credibility of the judgments with which the process
begins.
Scanlons reply: judgments are considered not when they are very confidently held. On
the contrary, it should be something that seems true when Im thinking about the matter
under good conditions.
DECIDING TO TREAT SOMETHING AS A CONSIDERED JUDGMENT
INVOLVES DECIDING THAT THE FACT THAT SEEMS TRUE UNDER
CERTAIN CONDITIONS IS GROUND FOR TREATING IT AS BEING TRUE.
Three more crucial observations:
o

Deciding to treat something as a considered judgment is not

separate from the method of RE but is part of it;

We start by asking if judgments have any implausible implications

and presuppositions, then we test whether that preliminary
conclusion was correct by considering what general principles
would account for the judgment. If the judgments survive this
examination then we can consider them something to be believed;

Finding general principles have important benefits

(determinateness, check the plausibility of judgments, etc)

CONCLUSION: So even though equilibrium in itself is not important, and whether or not
we reach it, the process of pursuing reflective equilibrium, which involves identifying our
considered judgments, learning more about them, and perhaps modifying them in the
process of considering principles that would account for them, is the way we manage to
recognize the grasp facts of the relevant kind. It is thus an interesting part of the story
indeed, it is the story itself (p. 84).

4
PRACTICAL REASONING
Scanlon maintains that there are some similarities between the points just made about Set
Theory and parallel points concerning the domain of Practical Reasoning.
1. The problem of how we can come to know truths about reasons is not a problem
about how we could be in touch with facts. The question whether something is a
reason is a question we can understand and think about in familiar ways;
2. To provide assurance that claims about reasons for action in general have
determinate truths values we need a general characterization of the domain of
practical reason, a basis on which to argue for general principles which could be
used to support more specific claims about reasons.
3. A general characterization of practical reason must be supported by a reflective
equilibrium argument: a) it must lead to plausible consequences, b) it must
explain these consequences in a plausible way.

NORMATIVE DESIRE THEORIES cannot accomplish these tasks:

It misrepresent the relation between desires and reasons from an agents
point of view: having a desire typically involves thinking that there is
something to be said for doing it. It is the considerations in favour of doing
that, that are seen as desiderable, that provide reasons fro acting.
It answer only an explanatory question, and does so by citing psychological
considerations about what operative reasons an agent actually has. But
cannot respond to the question about what reasons an agent has in the
normative sense.
It can be added a normative element by an appeal to rationality, e.g. it is
rational to act on ones own desire. But this interpretation seems to

confuse two very different questions: What must a person, insofar as hes
rational, see as a reason for doing a, given his other attitudes?, with the
other, more fundamental one, What does someone in this situation have
reason to do?.
What about IDEAL DESIRE THEORIES? They hold that one has reason to do what would
fulfill the desires one would have in his present circumstances under ideal conditions (full
information, etc.).
Scanlons reply: but why what a person would desire under these ideal conditions is
supposed to be relevant to what one should do now? Now ideal desire theorists have two
answers at their disposal:
i.

because it helps getting things right. BUT, Scanlon objects, in this way what does
the relevant normative work is the facts that ones desires under ideal conditions
would be responsive to. So we dont end up with a desire theory anymore.

ii.

because it indicates what would best promote agents present desires. BUT,
Scanlon objects, this seems to rely on a rationality-based argument: it delivers only
conclusions about what an agent must, insofar as hes not irrational, recognize as a
reason given his present desires. It avoids the normative question: what reasons
that agent has reason to do.

5
CONSTRUCTIVIST ACCOUNTS
Scanlon devotes subsequent paragraphs to the discussion of constructivists theories of
Practical Reasoning. Constructivist approaches seem promising because they seem to give
us:
i.

a way of explaining how normative judgments can have determinate truth

values that are independent of us

ii.

a basis for our epistemological access to these truths

iii.

an explanation of their practical significance

Rawlss account
It holds that facts about justice are facts about what principles would be arrived at
through a process of a certain kind, the decision procedure carried out in Original Position.
i.

The judgments employed to arrive at a set of principles are not based on

consideration of justice but on individual practical rationality (this
excludes circularity)

ii.

Rawlss argument is based on RE: the result fits with what are our
considered judgments about justice and provides a satisfactory explanation
of these judgments

iii.

Principles have a kind of IMPARTIAL JUSTIFICATION, which is grounded

on the sense of justice, i.e. the cooperative attitude which characterizes
citizens

iv.

It provides an explanation of the OBJECTIVITY of claims about justice in

terms of independence of us

We can interpret the notion of INDEPENDENCE OF US in various ways:

1. JUDGMENT-INDEPENDENCE OBJECTIVITY: a subject matter is independence of
us if it is possible to be mistaken about it. Judgments are judgment-independent
not because there is a de facto agreement, but because
a. there is a tendency of the judgments of different competent judges to
converge, and
b. our judgments are stable;
2. CHOICE-INDEPENDENCE OBJECTIVITY: in addition to being judgmentindependent, our judgments do not depend on what we collectively have done,
chosen or adopted;
3. INDEPENDENT OF WHAT WE ARE LIKE: this is an extremely strong kind of
objectivity that many truths about reasons dont have. Mixed normative
statements cannot have this kind of objectivity wile they can be considered
objective in the previous senses.
According to Scanlon, Rawls maintains that judgments about justice are objective in the
first sense. They depend on other choices made by the participants in the Original
Position, such as decision of how to define Original Position itself. But this does not
undermine Rawls constructivism because the process of deciding the set of principles is
grounded only in conditional normative judgments (what the parties in OP have reasons
to choose are only a kind of hypothetical judgments about what parties have reasons to

choose given that they has reasons to achieve certain specified aims and given certain
background information).
Rawls provides an account of the truth values of judgments about justice,
which depends only on conditional normative claims (he saves the
determinateness of the truth value of these judgments)
and an account of the significance of such judgments, which depends on
unconditional claims about reasons (about what one has reasons to do in
certain circumstances), whose objectivity may be more controversial
Scanlon confronts his own Contractualist Theory with Rawlss one in this way: In contrast
to Rawls construcivist account of justice, however, my constructivist account makes the
truth values and the objectivity of moral judgments depend on fully normative judgments
about reasons for action. These are judgments about what individuals in specified
circumstances who, among other things, care about finding principles others could also
accept, would have reason to have. (p. 97)

Is it possible a constructivist account of these more basic normative judgments?

Scanlon thinks not.
Such an account would involve a process for arriving at conclusions about whether a given
consideration is or is not a reason for a person in certain circumstances to act in a certain
way.
1. KANTS CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE PROCEDURE, is a test of the acceptability of
maxims which are policies of taking certain considerations as reasons. But the test
of Universalizability is too permissive: it may allow people to do things that they
dont have reasons to do (this appears to be a charge of formalism)
2. KORSGAARDS ACCOUNT:
I. the judgments about reasons that follow from the CI may be
judgment-independent and also choice-independent;
II. but reasons from practical identities are not choice-independent,
and depend on having good reasons to adopt those identities in the
first place;
III. Scanlon says that he cannot see convincing arguments regarding
the fact that we must see the principles of morality as binding on us
insofar as we see ourselves as rational agents at all (without this

foundation of normativity on rational agency Korsgaard seems to

reduce the adoption of any end to a source of reasons)
What is missing is an account of RATIONALITY which, in addition to providing a
STANDARD OF CORRECTNESS, is also able to account for the PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE
of the judgments about reasons. But according to recent researches in the filed, such as
those of Broome, principles of rationality cannot have substantive implications about the
reasons people have.

6
Maybe there could be a constructivist account that drops the second aforementioned
requirement. It may be said that CONSTRUCTIVISM IS LOCALLY TRUE; in fact, reasons
depend on others reasons as on a normative background from which we may be able to
work out what reasons follow from it. However, this account cannot be generalized: THE
RANGE OF NON-DERIVED ELEMENTS IN THE DOMAIN OF REASONS FOR ACTION IS
TOO VARIED TO BE PLAUSIBLY EXPLAINED BY A SYSTEMATIC OVERALL ACCOUNT.
THE ONLY WAY TO COMING TO KNOW PARTICULAR NON-DERIVATIVE TRUTHS
ABOUT REASONS IS THE METHOD OF REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM.
Could this method be seen as a constructivist account itself?
Sharon Streets view: the truth of a judgment that R (p, x, c, a) is a function of whether
such a judgment would be among xs evaluative judgments in RE.
Scanlons reply:
i.

It is necessary to add the clause: IF THE JUDGMENTS X MADE IN

ARRIVING AT THIS EQUILIBRIUM WERE SOUND;

ii.

The right question is not Will this judgment be among those I would arrive
at if I reached RE?, but Is this judgment correct?. That formula cannot be
an account of the subject matter of practical reasoning.

Conclusion: THE DOMAIN OF PRACTICAL REASONS SI NOT A UNIFIED SUBJECT

MATTER, we have local reasoning about reasons in various areas, dependent on a diverse
set of normative starting points which are themselves supported by a process of reflective
equilibrium.

CONSTRUCTIVISM MAY BE TRUE IF APPLIED TO JUSTICE AND MORAL RIGHTNESS,

BUT IS NOT CONVINCING AS A GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE TRUTH VALUES OF
JUDGMENTS ABOUT REASONS.

Lecture 5. Reasons and their Strength

In this lecture Scanlon is going to discuss the STRENGHT and the OPTIONALITY of
reasons. Consider the relation SR (p, x, c, a).
1
First of all we need to discard two related accounts of optionality:
The countervailing approach: a person in c who fails to respond to the
appropriate reason fro doing a is not liable to rational criticism only
because there is some counterbalancing factor q in c such that SR (q, x, c,
b), where b is a course of action incompatible with doing a. THIS IS A TOO
WEAK CHARACTERIZATION OF OPTIONALITY
The competing forces model: if two reasons for incompatible courses of
action were of equal force then it could be rational to do either of these
things. But in this way, if there is some stronger reasons that it wouldnt
make sense not to act on, then we lose the OPTIONALITY
The concept of optionality Scanlon is seeking must contain:
Rational eligibility as distinct from rational requiredness: reasons can
render an action rationally eligible without making it rationally required in
the absence of some countervailing reason;
Reasons themselves are not optional: a consideration is a reason in a
certain situation or it is not. What is optional is acting on certain reasons;
This brings us to the consideration of the relative STRENGHT of reasons. Scanlon proposes
the following definition for THE RELATION OF OUTWEIGHING:
One consideration q, outweighs another, p, if the following hold: R (p, x, c, a), R (q,
x, c, b), where b is a course of action incompatible with a, and SR (q, x, c, b) but
not SR (p, x, c, a) where c is a set of circumstances as normatively similar to c as
possible except that q does not obtain in c.

Objection 1: does not cover claims about the relative strength of two considerations as
reasons for the same action. Scanlon will return on that.
Objection 2: it does not reflect the fact that a consideration outweighs another because it is
a stringer reasons. Strength appears to be an independent property of individual reasons.
How is to be understood this idea of STRENGTH?
Scanlon rejects the so called ATOMISTIC ACCOUNTS: desire-based (utility-based or
hedonistic), teleological view, etc: they explain the normative force of a reason with an
amount of something that is associated with it (motivational force, increments of pleasure
or some other good)
Agents do not always have reason to do what will satisfy their desires or
preferences.
According to Scanlon, also the PROPERTY ACCOUNTS should be rejected: there is a
property the amount of which determines the strength of reasons for action.
Not all reasons for action derive from the value of the states of affairs that
those actions would yield.
Scanlons conclusion: THE STRENGHT OF A REASON IS AN ESSENTIALLY
COMPARATIVE NOTION, UNDERSTOOD ONLY IN RELATION TO OTHER PARTICULAR
REASONS. THE IDEA OF THE STRENGHT OF A REASON HAS NO SIGNIFICANCE FOR US
APART FROM CONSIDERATION OF SOME POTENTIAL CONFLICTS.
Scanlons TOP-DOWN ACCOUNT: insofar as there are facts about the relative strength of
reasons, these facts are fully captured by normative relations such as SR and CR (sufficient
and conclusive), which express general principles about the roles properly given to
certain considerations in deciding what to do and in justifying ones actions.

2
How do we arrive at conclusions about the strength of reasons? How do we decide when it
is the case that SR or that CR? Non necessarily by actually comparing weighs.
There some cases:
QUANTITATIVE CASES: we decide taking into account some background
normative assumptions (such as that difference in money is significant in
Scanlons example, which does not involve a process of weighing)

BROADER CLASS DOMINANCE CASES non necessarily quantitative: C and

D are two courses of action which provide the same degree of help to a
friend, but C is more profitable for me due to my career ambition, etc. Also
in these kind of cases there is no comparing of weighs.
MULTILEVEL CASES: they involve general policy to give some reasons
priority over others in particular cases which are justified by reasons for
having these general policies rather than by comparisons of reasons
provided by the factors at stake. .They can be instrumental, e.g. to lose
weight by dieting against pleasure and convenience, or non-instrumental
e.g. friendship and moral reasons. All these cases involve TAKING
CERTAIN VIEWS OF THE REASONS ONE HAS.
3
How does Scanlons view relate with PARTICULARISM?
Scanlon may agree with particularists that the strength a reason has depends on the
agents circumstances (Dancys holism against desire-based atomism). But particularists
goes on to say that is impossible to finitely specify valid and meaningful practical
principles because we can always imagine a further factor which would undercut the
reason strength.
Scanlon thinks that this problem in part explains the difference between R and SR and CR.
Claims concerning SR and CR must take into account the possibility of conflicting reasons
whose range is unlikely to be finitely expressible in non-normative terms.
Why should we be concerned with these principles? Scanlon answer:
WE CANNOT AVOID DOING SO AS LONG AS WE THINK AT ALL ABOUT
WHAT REASONS WE HAVE, SINCE EVERY CONCLUSION ABOUT OUR
REASONS FOR ACTION IS A GENERAL PRINCIPLE OF THIS KIND
THE PROCESS OF REFLECTION ON THESE PRINCIPLES IS A PROCESS
OF COMING TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE REASONS WE
TAKE OURSELVES TO HAVE
PARTICULARISM poses the same problem for MORAL REASONING. The claim that there
are, or that we need, moral standards we have reason to follow because they are supposed
to serve as basis for criticism and justification (e.g. the principle that states the
obligatoriness of promise) , could be undermined by the fact that they cannot play this role
if further moral reasoning is required in order to see what they require in individual cases

(it is impossible to fully specify the vast range of possibilities or circumstances in which
that principle can be correctly applied).
Scanlons reply:
1. Principles may serve as standards of justification because we already share
a clear enough idea of what the non-normative conditions are that fulfill
these normative requirements. WHEN DIFFICULT CASES ARISE WE NEED
TO BE GUIDED BY A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF THE RELEVANT
MORAL FRAMEWORK: e.g. an understanding of why promises generally
obligate and if there are exceptions and in which kind of circumstances, etc.
2. When we reflect on a principle we are not just deriving a conclusion from
some given rule, but WE ARE ALWAYS ENGAGING IN MORAL
REASONING: TO SEE A PRINCIPLE AD HAVING MORAL FORCE ALWAYS
INVOLVES SEEING WHAT IT REQUIRES AS THE CONTENT OF A
JUSTIFIABLE SET OF INTERPERSONAL STANDARDS.

Scanlon then ends up reviewing the answers he offered as solutions to the questions about
reasons set out at the beginning of Lecture 1.