You ought to ϕ only if you may believe that you ought to ϕ

Abstract

In this paper I present an argument for the claim that you ought to do something only if you may believe that you ought to do it. More exactly, I defend the following principle about normative reasons: An agent A has decisive reason to φ only if she also has sufficient reason to believe that she has decisive reason to φ. I argue that this principle follows from the plausible assumption that it must be possible for an agent to respond correctly to her reasons. In conclusion, I discuss some implications of this argument (given that some other standard assumptions about reasons hold). One such implication is that we are always in a position to be justified in believing all truths about what we have decisive reason (or ought) to do. In this paper I present an argument for an interesting claim about normative reasons: The Principle of Decisive Reasons (PDR): Necessarily, if A has decisive reason to φ, then A has sufficient reason to believe that she herself has decisive reason to φ. This claim is interesting because it has substantial consequences for some theories about reasons and for some issues that have recently been the focus of the philosophical debate on normativity. To anticipate one of these consequences, consider the widely shared view that a person's reasons for belief are given by this person's evidence. On this assumption, PDR entails some kind of evidence requirement on the existence of decisive reasons:

Should we be dogmatically conciliatory?

“…12 There is the further related view that says that the relevant truths about rationality are such that we cannot have false but rational beliefs about them because the relevant truths are luminous or lustrous. We might think of Kiesewetter (2016) and Smithies (2012a) as coming close to defending such a view. I'll have more to say about such views below, but I don't think that Titelbaum defends this kind of view because I don't think that he thinks that we're necessarily in the right position to make good use of the propositional justification he thinks we have for believing the relevant truths about the requirements of rationality.…”

“…15 See Smithies (2012b) for a discussion of the difference between the lustrous and the luminous and a defence of the possibility of lustrous conditions in response to Williamson's (2000) anti-luminosity argument. 16 It is difficult to find defenders of the idea that the relevant rational requirements are luminous, but it's possible that Kiesewetter (2016) and Smithies (2012a) come close. For criticism of the luminosity of norms or rational requirements, see Dutant and Littlejohn (2018), Littlejohn (2012), Sorensen (1995), Srinivasan (2015), and Williamson (2000).…”

Objectivism and Perspectivism about the Epistemic Ought

“…We allow that having explicitly normative thoughts can also be a way of being guided by normative requirements and permissions. (Kiesewetter 2016;Setiya 2009). Wedgwood (2015) has recently argued that nothing plays both of the roles we assume reasons play.…”

“…For more on the argument in this paragraph see Way & Whiting (2016). See Kiesewetter (2016) for another argument against objectivism about the practical ought based on perspectivism about the epistemic ought. is misleading.…”

Reasons and Guidance (Or, Surprise Parties and Ice Cream)

“…The most familiar response to self‐effacing reasons is to deny that they are reasons. Indeed, there is some inclination to deny that self‐effacing reasons are reasons precisely because we cannot respond to them (see Kiesewetter Forthcoming; Lord Manuscript; Setiya : 538; Sinclair )…”