Acting for Reasons

The article discusses the relation between skills (or competences), creditability, and aptness . The positive suggestion is that we might make progress understanding the relation between creditability and aptness by inquiring more generally about how different kinds of competences and their exercise might underwrite allocation of credit. Whether or not a competence is acquired and whether or not a competence is actively exercised might matter for the credit that the agent deserves for the exercise of that competence. A fine-grained taxonomy of competences opens up the possibility of instinctual knowledge (knowledge by mere instincts) as well as the possibility of habitual knowledge (knowledge by mere habits), alongside knowledge by skills (or alongside knowledge by yet other sorts of competences). If instinctual knowledge were possible, it is suggested that it might not be of the sort that deserves credit at all. By piggybacking from the literature in evolutionary psychology, I suggest that, as inborn social learners, merely instinctual—and so not fully creditable—knowledge might be a reality for us.

What kind of thing is a reason for action? What is it to act for a reason? And what is the connection between acting for a reason and rationality? There is controversy about the many issues raised by these questions. In this paper I shall answer the first question with a conception of practical reasons that I call 'Factualism', which says that all reasons are facts. I defend this conception against its main rival, Psychologism, which says that practical reasons are mental states or mental facts, and also against a variant of Factualism that says that some practical reasons are facts and others are false beliefs. I argue that the conception of practical reasons defended here (i) provides plausible answers to the second and third questions above; and (ii) gives a more unified and satisfactory picture of practical reasons than those offered by its rivals. Keywords Reasons • Normative • Motivating and explanatory reasons • Facts • Psychologism • Acting for reasons • Rationality 2 Factualism versus psychologism The two conceptions of reasons I shall be assessing can be characterized as follows: Factualism: all reasons are facts; 3 and Psychologism: reasons are mental states of agents. Prima facie these two positions seem committed to different ontological views about reasons, for the first says that reasons are facts and the second that they are mental states, and mental states, unlike facts, are generally thought to be psychological entities. 4 Things, however, are not so straightforward because some supporters of Psychologism hold that reasons are psychological facts. This is because Psychologism 1 I shall also not be concerned in this paper with a use of the word 'reason' to describe goals or aims, which are expressed in infinitival rather than propositional form, as in 'Her reason for writing the book was to tell her side of the story'. First, because these can be paraphrased into propositional form: 'Her reason was that writing the book was a means of telling her side of the story'. Second, more importantly, because the debate about reasons this paper addresses concerns reasons that can be premises in practical reasoning and can, in principle, justify actions. And these reasons are propositional rather than infinitival in form. I discuss this point further in (Alvarez 2010, 93ff). 2 The term is used by opponents of this position, e.g. Turri (2009) and Comesaña and McGrath (2014). The term raises questions about what facts are but it is not necessary to address those here (but see Alvarez 2010, §2.2 and §5.4). For the purposes of this paper, Factualism can be understood as the view that, if someone's reason for ϕ-ing was that p, then p. 3 The following authors have given arguments against Psychologism, although, given the details of their views, not all of them could be said to endorse the version of Factualism I defend here:

This paper discusses Ernest Sosa's account of knowledge and epistemic normativity. The paper has two main parts. The first part identifies places where Sosa's account requires supplementation if it is going to capture important epistemic phenomena. In particular, additional theoretical resources are needed to explain (i) the way in which epistemic aims are genuinely good aims, and (ii) the way in which some forms of reasoning can be epistemically better than others even when they are equally conducive to attaining the truth. The second part focuses on Sosa's claim that there is a kind of belief -- judgmental belief -- that doesn't merely aim at truth but also aims at aptness, and that this kind of belief is central to our mental lives. The paper raises several concerns about this part of Sosa's account, including the concern that aiming at aptness is overly self-directed, and so is more closely tied to vice than epistemic virtue.

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This paper critically assesses Sosa’s normative framework for performances as well as its application to epistemology. We first develop a problem for one of Sosa’s central theses in the general theory of performance normativity according to which performances attain fully desirable status if and only if they are fully apt. More specifically, we argue that given Sosa’s account of full aptness according to which a performance is fully apt only if safe from failure, this thesis can’t be true. We then embark on a rescue mission on behalf of Sosa and work towards a weakened account of full aptness. The key idea is to countenance a distinction between negligible and non-negligible types of risk and to develop an account of full aptness according to which even performances that are endangered by risk can be fully apt, so long as the risk is of a negligible type. While this alternative account of full aptness solves the problem we developed for Sosa earlier on, there is also bad news for So...

What kind of thing is a reason for action? What is it to act for a reason? And what is the connection between acting for a reason and rationality? There is controversy about the many issues raised by these questions. In this paper I shall answer the first question with a conception of practical reasons that I call 'Factualism', which says that all reasons are facts. I defend this conception against its main rival, Psychologism, which says that practical reasons are mental states or mental facts, and also against a variant of Factualism that says that some practical reasons are facts and others are false beliefs. I argue that the conception of practical reasons defended here (i) provides plausible answers to the second and third questions above; and (ii) gives a more unified and satisfactory picture of practical reasons than those offered by its rivals. Keywords Reasons • Normative • Motivating and explanatory reasons • Facts • Psychologism • Acting for reasons • Rationality 2 Factualism versus psychologism The two conceptions of reasons I shall be assessing can be characterized as follows: Factualism: all reasons are facts; 3 and Psychologism: reasons are mental states of agents. Prima facie these two positions seem committed to different ontological views about reasons, for the first says that reasons are facts and the second that they are mental states, and mental states, unlike facts, are generally thought to be psychological entities. 4 Things, however, are not so straightforward because some supporters of Psychologism hold that reasons are psychological facts. This is because Psychologism 1 I shall also not be concerned in this paper with a use of the word 'reason' to describe goals or aims, which are expressed in infinitival rather than propositional form, as in 'Her reason for writing the book was to tell her side of the story'. First, because these can be paraphrased into propositional form: 'Her reason was that writing the book was a means of telling her side of the story'. Second, more importantly, because the debate about reasons this paper addresses concerns reasons that can be premises in practical reasoning and can, in principle, justify actions. And these reasons are propositional rather than infinitival in form. I discuss this point further in (Alvarez 2010, 93ff). 2 The term is used by opponents of this position, e.g. Turri (2009) and Comesaña and McGrath (2014). The term raises questions about what facts are but it is not necessary to address those here (but see Alvarez 2010, §2.2 and §5.4). For the purposes of this paper, Factualism can be understood as the view that, if someone's reason for ϕ-ing was that p, then p. 3 The following authors have given arguments against Psychologism, although, given the details of their views, not all of them could be said to endorse the version of Factualism I defend here:

Are reasons for action facts or psychological states? There are two answers in the literature on the ontology of reasons. According to the Standard Story, normative reasons are facts, while motivating reasons are psychological states. According to the factualist, both normative and motivating reasons are facts. In this paper I argue that neither of these views is satisfactory. The Standard Story errs in thinking that the two kinds of reasons are different ontological entities. The factualist gets this right, but incurs some distasteful ontological commitments by thinking of motivating reasons as facts. We should, thus, give a proper hearing to the only serious logically possible alternative to the two existing views: both motivating and normative reasons are psychological states.

This paper critically assesses Sosa's normative framework for performances as well as its application to epistemology. We first develop a problem for one of Sosa's central theses in the general theory of performance normativity according to which performances attain fully desirable status if and only if they are fully apt. More specifically, we argue that given Sosa's account of full aptness according to which a performance is fully apt only if safe from failure, this thesis can't be true. We then B Christoph Kelp

This paper critically assesses Sosa's normative framework for performances as well as its application to epistemology. We first develop a problem for one of Sosa's central theses in the general theory of performance normativity according to which performances attain fully desirable status if and only if they are fully apt. More specifically, we argue that given Sosa's account of full aptness according to which a performance is fully apt only if safe from failure, this thesis can't be true. We then B Christoph Kelp

What kind of thing is a reason for action? What is it to act for a reason? And what is the connection between acting for a reason and rationality? There is controversy about the many issues raised by these questions. In this paper I shall answer the first question with a conception of practical reasons that I call 'Factualism', which says that all reasons are facts. I defend this conception against its main rival, Psychologism, which says that practical reasons are mental states or mental facts, and also against a variant of Factualism that says that some practical reasons are facts and others are false beliefs. I argue that the conception of practical reasons defended here (i) provides plausible answers to the second and third questions above; and (ii) gives a more unified and satisfactory picture of practical reasons than those offered by its rivals.

The goal of my paper is to consider how one chooses one’s own action. First, I will try to understand how both his past and his environment can condition someone's action. According to Sartre, we can act without being determined by our past which is always separated from us. It will be important to understand how such a process is possible. Is man completely free to act? Then I will raise the question of our reasons for acting in order to show that reasons do not pre-exist in the world. Motives are always motives for an agent who gives them meaning. They never condition the action completely. By his project, the agent reveals some reasons to act and these reasons have a value only in relation to the project adopted by the agent. Therefore, we can say that everyone is condemned to be free.

We conceive of ourselves as beings capable of acting in response to normative reasons. Given that our normative reasons are usually facts, this self-conception entails that we are capable of acting in response to facts. Arguments from error cases might seem to force us to deflate that self-conception, for they seem to show that to act in light of a fact must simply be a way of acting in light of a belief. The goal of this article is to argue against this deflationary view. I offer a counterexample to it and argue that in order to reject the argument from error on which it is grounded we should adopt a disjunctive view of acting in light of a consideration. According to this view there are two subjectively indistinguishable but distinct ways of acting in light of a consideration: acting in light of a fact and acting in light of a belief. This view allows us to take seriously the idea that our motivating reasons can be identical to facts and not mere true considerations and thus to take seriously our self-conception as beings that respond to and are capable of being moved by normative reasons for action.

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The goal of my paper is to consider how one chooses one’s own action. First, I will try to understand how both his past and his environment can condition someone's action. According to Sartre, we can act without being determined by our past which is always separated from us. It will be important to understand how such a process is possible. Is man completely free to act? Then I will raise the question of our reasons for acting in order to show that reasons do not pre-exist in the world. Motives are always motives for an agent who gives them meaning. They never condition the action completely. By his project, the agent reveals some reasons to act and these reasons have a value only in relation to the project adopted by the agent. Therefore, we can say that everyone is condemned to be free.

In Judgment and Agency, Ernest Sosa argues for a particular methodology -what he calls ‘metaphysical analysis’- whose aim is to provide a specific sort of explanation of knowledge -a metaphysical explanation-. As I read it, this revolutionary step points to the bulk of the ontological dispositional web that necessarily sustains a virtue epistemology, contributes to a proper understanding of accidentality in epistemology, and breaks the hold of Humean contingency. I will argue that Sosa’s account of the constitution of knowledge is not only able to rule out apparent counterexamples to a robust virtue epistemology, as well as to combine rational integration and knowledge explanation, but that also breaks the Pyrrhonian (and internalist) impasse. I will also argue that a principled distinction between cases of knowledge and cases of mimicking is prevented for anti-luck virtue epistemologists, so that they face a dilemma between their theory collapsing into a robust virtue epistemology or its collapsing into a form of nomic virtue epistemology. What binds anti-luck virtue epistemologies and nomic theories together is a common problem in binding, one that is absent from a theory, such as Sosa’s theory, that locates knowledge in the domain of higher-order competences and rational guidance.

KEYWORDS: Anti-luck virtue epistemology; dispositional directedness; Humean contingency; mimics; nomic necessities.

Are reasons for action facts or psychological states? There are two answers in the literature on the ontology of reasons. According to the Standard Story, normative reasons are facts, while motivating reasons are psychological states. According to the factualist, both normative and motivating reasons are facts. In this paper I argue that neither of these views is satisfactory. The Standard Story errs in thinking that the two kinds of reasons are different ontological entities. The factualist gets this right, but incurs some distasteful ontological commitments by thinking of motivating reasons as facts. We should, thus, give a proper hearing to the only serious logically possible alternative to the two existing views: both motivating and normative reasons are psychological states.

I argue for the viewthat there are important similarities between knowledge and acting for a normative reason. I interpret acting for a normative reason in terms of Sosa’s notion of an apt performance. Actions that are done for a normative reason are normatively apt actions. They are in accordance with a normative reason because
of a competence to act in accordance with normative reasons. I argue that, if Sosa’s account of knowledge as apt belief is correct, this means that acting for a normative reason is in many respects similar to knowledge. In order to strengthen Sosa’s account of knowledge, I propose to supplement it with an appeal to sub-competences. This clarifies howthis account can deal with certain Gettier cases, and it helps to understand how exactly acting for a normative reason is similar to apt belief.

This essay is concerned with the claim that when an agent acts for a normative reason, that normative reason is identical with his or her motivating reason. I will call this thesis the 'Identity Thesis'. Many philosophers treat the Identity Thesis as a commonplace or a truism, and some claim that it plays the role of a constraint on every theory of reasons (Dancy 2000). Accordingly, the Identity Thesis has been used to rule out certain ontological views about reasons. I argue that the Identity Thesis can be read in different ways and that each of its interpretations is controversial. My conclusion is that there is no convincing argument for the Identity Thesis and that there is a viable alternative to the Identity Thesis, namely, to think of the relation between motivating and normative reasons as one of representation, not identity. This allows for ontological views about reasons that are incompatible with the Identity Thesis. Therefore, the Identity Thesis need not be accepted as a truism or as a constraint on every theory of reasons.

Many epistemologists are attracted to the claim that knowledge possession excludes luck. Virtue epistemologists attempt to clarify this idea by holding that knowledge requires apt belief: belief that is true because of an agent’s epistemic virtues, and not because of luck. Thinking about aptness may have the potential to make progress on important questions in epistemology, but first we must possess an adequate account of when a belief is true because of luck. Existing treatments of aptness assume a simple and natural view of luck attribution, according to which the success of a performance is attributable to luck if one of the principal causes of the success is a lucky event. I show that this view is false, and should be replaced. This has major implications for virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge, as well as the role of luck in epistemology more generally.

One of the guiding ideas of virtue epistemology is to look at epistemological issue through the lens of practical philosophy. The Gettier Problem is a case in point. Virtue epistemologists, like Sosa and Greco, see the shortcoming in a Gettier scenario as a shortcoming from which performances in general can suffer. In this paper I raise some doubts about the success of this project. Looking more closely at practical philosophy, will, I argue, show that virtue epistemology misconceives the significance of Gettier structures in the practical domain.

One of the guiding ideas of virtue epistemology is to look at epistemological issue through the lens of practical philosophy. The Gettier Problem is a case in point. Virtue epistemologists, like Sosa and Greco, see the shortcoming in a Gettier scenario as a shortcoming from which performances in general can suffer. In this paper I raise some doubts about the success of this project. Looking more closely at practical philosophy, will, I argue, show that virtue epistemology misconceives the significance of Gettier structures in the practical domain.

There is some consensus that for S to know that p, it cannot be merely a matter of luck that S’s belief that p is true. This consideration has led Duncan Pritchard and others to propose a safety condition on knowledge. In this paper, we argue that the safety condition is not a proper formulation of the intuition that knowledge excludes luck. We suggest an alternative proposal in the same spirit as safety, and find it lacking as well.

Many epistemologists are attracted to the claim that knowledge possession excludes luck. Virtue epistemologists attempt to clarify this idea by holding that knowledge requires apt belief: belief that is true because of an agent's epistemic virtues, and not because of luck. Thinking about aptness may have the potential to make progress on important questions in epistemology, but first we must possess an adequate account of when a belief is true because of luck. Existing treatments of aptness assume a simple and natural view of luck attribution, according to which the success of a performance is attributable to luck if one of the principal causes of the success is a lucky event. I show that this view is false, and should be replaced. This has major implications for virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge, as well as the role of luck in epistemology more generally.