A “Good” Explanation of Five Puzzles about Reasons

Finlay, Stephen

doi:10.1111/phpe.12126

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…The most prominent advocate of good‐explanationism is Stephen Finlay (e.g., Finlay, 2014, 2019; see also Gardner & Macklem, 2004; Maguire, 2016; Wedgwood, ms). Some care is called for, however, because Finlay's subject matter and methodology differ importantly from our own (cf.…”

Section: Explanationism: Against Ought‐ and Good‐based Viewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Finlay doesn't clearly distinguish between the ordinary notion of a reason and the theoretical one that, we think, is of primary interest in normative and metanormative theorizing. Indeed, in recent work he explicitly takes accounts of reasons as “answers to (‘why’) questions” to be roughly equivalent to accounts of reasons as “grounds/truth‐makers” (2019: 62, fn. 1), whereas we want to sharply distinguish them.…”

Section: Explanationism: Against Ought‐ and Good‐based Viewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1616This strategy resembles the one endorsed by Finlay (2019: §4.1) who also seeks to accommodate the idea that goodness‐facts can be reasons by taking them to explain some other kind of goodness‐fact.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Explaining normative reasons

Fogal

Risberg

2021

Nous

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In this paper, we present and defend a natural yet novel analysis of normative reasons. According to what we call support-explanationism, for a fact to be a normative reason to φ is for it to explain why there's normative support for φ-ing. We critically consider the two main rival forms of explanationismought-explanationism, on which reasons explain facts about ought, and goodexplanationism, on which reasons explain facts about goodness-as well as the popular Reasons-First view, which takes the notion of a normative reason to be normatively fundamental. Support-explanationism, we argue, enjoys many of the virtues of these views while avoiding their drawbacks. We conclude by exploring several further important implications: among other things, we argue that the influential metaphor of 'weighing' reasons is inapt, and propose a better one; that, contrary to what Berker (2019) suggests, there's no reason for nonnaturalists about normativity to accept the Reasons-First view; and that, contrary to what Wodak (2020b) suggests, explanationist views can successfully accommodate what he calls 'redundant reasons'.1 Hence, while there are views of normative reasons that sever the seemingly-intimate connection to explanation, we think such views are (other things being equal) at a disadvantage, and engaging with them is beyond the scope of this paper. One example is the view of reasons as premises of good reasoning (see e.g.

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Section: Explanationism: Against Ought‐ and Good‐based Viewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Explanationism: Against Ought‐ and Good‐based Viewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Explaining normative reasons

Fogal

Risberg

2021

Nous

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“…1212See e.g. Finlay (2019, §2) for the former view, and Way (2013) and Kiesewetter (2022) for the latter.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Broome (2004; 2013, Ch. 4); Finlay (2019); Nebel (2019). I assume here that the notion of ‘ought’ referred to in this analysis is normative in a not merely standard‐relative or institutional sense.…”

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confidence: 99%

Are epistemic reasons normative?

Kiesewetter

2021

Nous

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According to a widely held view, epistemic reasons are normative reasons for belief -much like prudential or moral reasons are normative reasons for action. In recent years, however, an increasing number of authors have questioned the normativity of epistemic reasons.In this article, I discuss an important challenge for anti-normativism about epistemic reasons and present a series of arguments in support of normativism. The challenge for anti-normativism is to say what kind of reasons epistemic reasons are if they are not normative reasons. I discuss various answers to this challenge and find them all wanting. The arguments for normativism each stress a certain analogy between epistemic reasons and normative reasons for action. Just like normative reasons for action, epistemic reasons provide partial justification; they provide premises for correct reasoning; they constitute good bases for the responses they are reasons for; and they are reasons for which agents can show these responses without committing a mistake. In each case, I argue that the relevant condition is plausibly sufficient for the normativity of a reason, and that normativism is in any case in a much better position to explain the analogy than anti-normativism.

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The weight of reasons

Fogal

Risberg

2023

Philos Stud

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This paper addresses the question of how the ‘weight’ or ‘strength’ of normative reasons is best understood. We argue that, given our preferred analysis of reasons as sources of normative support, this question has a straightforward answer: the weight of a normative reason is simply a matter of how much support it provides. We also critically discuss several competing views of reasons and their weight. These include views which take reasons to be normatively fundamental, views which analyze reasons as evidence concerning what one ought to do, views which analyze reasons in terms of good reasoning, and views which analyze reasons as explanations of ought-facts, fittingness-facts, or goodness-facts.

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A “Good” Explanation of Five Puzzles about Reasons

Cited by 5 publications

References 84 publications

Explaining normative reasons

Explaining normative reasons

Are epistemic reasons normative?

The weight of reasons

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