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ABSTRACT
In a recent paper, Daniel Whiting has argued that there are no exclusionary reasons (i.e., second-order reasons not to act for a reason). The premise of the argument is what he calls the motivation constraint, according to which for the fact that p to be a reason for you to ϕ, it must be possible for you to ϕ for the reason that p. However, the argument goes, it is not possible to act (or not to act) for a reason for a reason. Therefore, he concludes, there are no second-order reasons. In this paper, I shall argue that Whiting's argument ought to be rejected. Thus, I will argue that we should not accept the motivation constraint on which it is based. It is true that for the fact that p to be a reason for you to ϕ, it must be possible for you to ϕ guided in the right way by the consideration that p favours you ϕing. However, I shall argue that it is possible for exclusionary reasons to guide us in the right way, even if it not possible for us to not to ϕ for a reason for a reason.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Joseph Raz, Practical Reason and Norms (OUP 1999).
2 Daniel Whiting, ‘Against Second-Order Reasons’ (2017) 51 Noûs 398.
3 I will have more to say about the guidance condition later on, but this should do to get the discussion off the ground.
4 Joseph Raz, ‘On Exclusionary Reasons’ (2021) <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3933033>.
5 ibid.
6 Raz, Practical Reason and Norms (n 1) 189.
7 Joseph Raz, ‘Promises and Obligations’ in PMS Hacker and Joseph Raz (eds), Law, Morality and Society (OUP 1977).
8 Joseph Raz, ‘Permissions and Supererogation’ (1975) 12 American Philosophical Quarterly 161.
9 Raz, Practical Reason and Norms (n 1).
10 Raz, ‘Promises and Obligations’ (n 7).
11 Joseph Raz, The Authority of Law (2nd edn, OUP 2009). See also Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford University Press 1986) on the preemptive character of authoritative reasons.
12 In particular, that they cannot be grounded in virtue of the fact that by not acting for certain reasons we will end up improving our conformity with them, which underlies Raz's famous service conception of authority.
13 See my ‘Obligations, Exclusionary Reasons, and Accountability’ (ms).
14 See Michael Moore, ‘Authority, Law, and Razian Reasons’ (1989) 62 Southern California Law Review 827.
15 Whiting (n 2).
16 ibid 404.
17 ibid 403. Note that this argument does not assume that wrong kind of reasons are not genuine reasons, as many people believe.
18 Whiting (n 2) 409.
19 David Enoch, Taking Morality Seriously (OUP 2011) 225.
20 Joseph Raz, ‘Facing Up: A Reply’ (1989) 62 Southern California Law Review 1176.
21 For further details, see n (23).
22 It is controversial whether second-order reason can tip the balance when first-order reasons against ϕing are weightier than first-order reasons for ϕing. I want to remain uncommitted here.
23 Indeed, reasons for action and all things considered oughts respond to different transmission principles. Reasons for action respond to the:
Principle of satisfactoriness for reasons: If you have a reason to ϕ, and ψing is a way of ϕing, then you have a reason to ψ
But they do not respond to the following pattern:
Necessity for reasons: If you have a reason to ϕ, and you cannot ϕ without ψing, then you have a reason to ψ
To see this, consider the following case. Suppose you have a reason to read this paper, say, that I requested that you do so. And let us assume that in order to read my paper, you would need to print it. Does it follow that you have a reason to print it? The answer is no. To see why, let us further suppose that, in addition to your reasons to read you paper, you also have weightier reasons not to read it (that you are tired, etc.), so that all things considered you ought not to read it. Furthermore, you are aware that this is the case and you have no intention of reading my paper. In this case, it seems to me, it is clear that you have no reason to print my paper just because you have a reason to read it and you wouldn't be able to do so without printing it. In fact, why would you have a reason to do something just because it is necessary for you to do something you ought not to do and have no intention of doing?
All things considered oughts, however, are different. In fact, all things considered oughts do not respond to:
Principle of satisfactoriness for ATC oughts: If all things considered you ought to ϕ, and ψing is a way of ϕing, then all things considered you ought to ψ.
It is easy to see why this is so. In fact, there might be particular reasons against ϕing in that specific way (i.e., by way of ψing) that are not reasons against all forms of ϕing. Thus, although every reason to ϕ is also a reason to ψ (in accordance to the principle of satisfactoriness for reasons), and those reasons defeat your reasons against ϕing, they need not defeat your reasons against ϕing by way of ψing.
In contrast, all things considered oughts do respond to:
Necessity for ATC oughts: If all things considered you ought to ϕ, and you cannot ϕ without ψing, then all things considered you ought to ψ
Again, it is easy to see why. If it were not the case that all things considered you ought to ψ, then your reasons against ψing would have to be undefeated. But since not ψing is a way of not ϕing, all your reasons not to ψ are also reasons not to ϕ (in virtue of the principle of satisfactoriness for reasons). But these, ex hypothesi, have been defeated by your reasons to ϕ. Hence, all things considered you ought to ψ.
24 Whiting (n 2) 407.
25 Raz, ‘Promises and Obligations’ (n 7).
26 Raz, ‘Facing Up: A Reply’ (n 20) 1165.