Paper Proposal: The Reasons We Should Have

Well, I am going to see if I can present my objections to the entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to a body of concerned professionals.

The Rocky Mountain Ethics Conference has asked for abstracts for possible papers to potentially present.

How does this sound?


The Reasons We Should Have

In the Stanford Encyclopedia for Philosophy entry, “Reasons for Action: Justification, Motivation, Explanation”, the desire-based theory of normative reasons is expressed as:

Roughly, someone’s having a reason to act requires their having some motivation that would be served by acting in the way favoured by the putative reason.

When the discussion changes to criticisms of the theory, the language changes from talking about “having a reason” to “there is a reason”.

But desire-based accounts fare less well in accommodating another central claim about normative reasons. For it seems equally plausible that there are reasons (for instance, moral reasons) that apply to agents regardless of their motivations.

This is more explicit in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry, “Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External”.

Humean Theory of Reasons (revised): If there is a reason for someone to do something, then she must have some desire that would be served by her doing it, which is the source of her reason.

This implies that a desire-based theorist cannot talk about “reasons there are” that are distinct from “the reasons she has.”

This problem is associated with the criticism that desire-based theories cannot handle moral reasons.

But desire-based accounts fare less well in accommodating another central claim about normative reasons. For it seems equally plausible that there are reasons (for instance, moral reasons) that apply to agents regardless of their motivations.

I, as I desire-based theorist, hold that I am not the only person in the world. The set of “reasons there are” is significantly larger than the set of “reasons I have”. There are the reasons that other people have.

Your aversion to pain is one of the “reasons there are” for me to refrain from actions that will cause you pain. When I say this, all I am saying is that your reason exists and that I can avoid bring about the state you have reason to avoid if I refrain from causing you pain.

Under this definition, we can update the Humean Theory of Reasons as follows:

HTR (further revised): If there is a reason for someone to do something, then there must be a desire that would be served by her doing it; and if she has a reason for someone to do something, then she must have some desire that would be served by her doing it, which is the source of her reason.

In saying that this reason – your aversion to pain – exists I am not saying that it has any automatic relevance to my rationality or motivation. If, for example, I have a desire of putting you in a situation that you have a reason to avoid being in, then the fact that you have an aversion to pain means that I have a reason to cause you pain.

However, your aversion to pain means that you have a reason to get me to avoid actions that will result in you being in such a state.

One of the ways you can do that is to offer to reward me (promise to bring about a state that I have reason to see realized if I refrain) or threaten to punishment me (promise to bring about a state I have reason to avoid if I do not refrain).
I, the desire-based theorist, know that you have this reason to reward or punish.

Your aversion to pain also means that you have reason to cause within me a reason to avoid actions that would result in you experiencing pain.

Creating in me an aversion to causing pain has an important advantage over threatening punishment. Threats of punishment give me no reason to avoid causing you pain if I can cause you pain without getting caught.

However, if you can create in me an aversion to causing you pain, then I have a reason not to cause you pain even when I can get away with it. This is true in the same way that I have a reason to avoid being in pain myself even if I could get away with it.

One of the principle ways to create such desires and aversions in others is by using reward and punishment - including praise and condemnation. Consequently, when I recognize that there are reasons to promote a universal aversion to causing pain, I recognize that there are reasons to praise and reward those who refrain from causing pain and to condemn and punish those who do not refrain.

So, there are the reasons that I have (and do not have) for performing some action. And there are the reasons that people generally have reason to cause everybody to have or not have by using rewards and punishments, praise and condemnation.

When the SEP presents objections to desire-based theory, it states:

Arguably, we all have reason to do what morality dictates, whether or not we are (or would be, if we reasoned consistently from our current motivations), motivated by those reasons.

Without getting into a discussion over “what morality dictates” consists in, the desire-based theorist can still claim to know, as a fact, that there are a lot of reasons to promote, universally, an aversion to causing pain to others, an aversion to breaking promises, a desire to pay one’s debts, and several other reasons for action universally.

We do not, in fact, all have reason to do what morality dictates. However, we all should have those reasons in that there are reasons to give us those reasons. This accounts for the fact that when the discussion shifts from what an agent rationally or practically ought to do to what the agent morally ought to do, the language shifts from “she has reasons” to “there are reasons” – the latter language refers to the reasons that others generally have reasons to (that “there are reasons to”) encourage or discourage.

Ultimately, what I wanted to show was that the desire-based theorist can and should reject the reduction of all “reasons there are” to “reasons she has”. The desire-based theorist knows that there are other reasons out there and that they provide reasons to praise and condemn.