Not So Enticing Reasons

Abstract

A common view of the relation between oughts and reasons is that you ought to do something if and only if that is what you have most reason to do. One challenge to this comes from what Jonathan Dancy calls 'enticing reasons.' Dancy argues that enticing reasons never contribute to oughts and that it is false that if the only reasons in play are enticing reasons then you ought to do what you have most reason to do. After explaining how enticing reasons supposedly work and why accepting them may appear attractive, I firstly show why we are not committed to accepting them into our conceptual framework and then argue that no reasons work in the way enticing reasons are claimed to. Thus we should reject the category of enticing reasons entirely.

Possessing Love’s Reasons: Or Why a Rationalist Lover Can Have a Normal Romantic Life

“…4. See Parfit (2011), Portmore (2011), andRobertson (2008) for examples. Though there might be independent arguments to reject Choice, I will bracket them for the purposes of this paper.…”

“…Second, Robertson (2008) has pointed out that non-requiring reasons are supposed to never play a role in determining deontic verdicts. But they intuitively can once we combine them with other non-requiring reasons.…”

Epistemic constraints on practical normativity

“…Dancy 2004, Chap. 2;Broome 2004;Robertson 2008Robertson , 2009 3), in the sense of specifying the action (or range of actions) most strongly favoured by whatever reasons there are in that situation. So, just as 'A is not (morally) permitted to φ' entails that 'A has a (moral) obligation not to φ', we can understand 'permissible' (unmodified) in relation to 'ought' (unmodified) analogously: 'if A is not permitted to φ, then A ought not φ'.…”

“…At least given some further claims about the connections between 'ought', 'most reason' and 'a reason'-seeRobertson 2008Robertson , 2009 …”

Is Meaning Fraught With Ought?

“…This is a salutary reminder that reasons, and so the corresponding oughts, need not carry much weight, which is absolutely not to say that they do not carry any weight at all. Thus, to lean on Robertson again, ‘failure to do what you have most reason to do need not be strongly criticisable’ (2008, p. 268). Likewise, to return to the case at hand, doing what you have reason not to do – misapplying an expression perhaps – need not be strongly criticisable (which is not to say that it would not be criticisable at all).…”