How Not to Solve the Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem
Christos Kyriacou
� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
1 Introduction
Recent debates in metanormativity have paid considerable attention to the ‘wrong
kind of reasons’ (henceforth, WKR) problem that afflicts so-called buckpassing
accounts of value.1 Let me very briefly introduce buckpassing accounts of value and
what the WKR problem is about. Roughly, buckpassing accounts of value contend
that for something to be valuable is to have other properties that give reasons for
proattitudes.2 For example, a work of art might be valuable because it has certain
properties (e.g. colourful, soft texture etc.) that give reasons to think it admirable.
Buckpassing accounts, however, seem to run straight into the WKR problem.
Roughly, the problem consists in the fact that agents may very easily have
pragmatic reasons for proattitudes that may have to do with the instrumental value
of having the attitude itself and nothing to do with epistemic reasons about the value
of the object, act, event etc. itself. Thus, buckpassing accounts seem to allow for
C. Kyriacou (&)
University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
e-mail: [email protected]
1 See Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobsen, ‘Sentiment and Value,’ Ethics, Vol. 110, pp. 722–748 (2000);
Wlodek Rabinowicz and Toni Ronnow-Rasmussen, ‘The Strike of the Demon: On Fitting Pro-Attitudes
and Value,’ Ethics ,Vol. 114, pp. 391–423 (2004); Jonas Olson, ‘Buckpassing and the Wrong Kind of
Reasons,’ The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 215, pp. 295–300 (2004); Pamela Hieronymi, ‘The
Wrong Kind of Reason,’ The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 102, No. 9, pp. 437–457 (2005); Mark
Schroeder, ‘Value and the Right Kind of Reason,’ in R. Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies inMetaethics 5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Ulrike Heuer, ‘Beyond Wrong Reasons: The
Buck-Passing Account of Value,’ in M. Brady (ed.), New Waves in Metaethic (Palgrave Macmillan,
Hampshire, 2011), pp. 166–184.2 See Timothy Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1998); D’Arms and Jacobsen, 2000, op. cit.; Rabinowicz and Ronnow-Rasmussen, 2004, op. cit.
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J Value Inquiry
DOI 10.1007/s10790-013-9368-y
such wrong kind of reasons that, intuitively, can’t constitute the right kind of
reasons for proattitudes. They can’t constitute the right kind of reasons because they
are not epistemically justifying reasons.3 Hence, buckpassing accounts seem to get
the facts about what is valuable wrong because they may include as valuable things
that are obviously not valuable and exclude things that are obviously valuable as not
valuable.
For example, suppose I would like to marry someone not because I love him but
because he is rich and can provide for a comfortable life. But this someone is
especially shrewd and can reliably discern who is after his money and who truly
cares about him. So, I need to bring myself to truly love him, if I will manage to
marry him and have access to the comfortable life he can provide. But does the fact
that he has the property of being rich\able to provide a comfortable life give me an
epistemic reason to sincerely love him? Is this the correct (or fitting) proattitude to
the occasion? It seems not. It seems plain wrong to try to fall in love with someone
just in order to have a comfortable life. It is a wrong kind of reason for having the
attitude of love. The problem is, exactly, that a buckpassing account seems to allow
for such cases.
Of important note is that the WKR problem is a thorny problem plaguing all kind of
normative buckpassing accounts: moral/practical, epistemic, aesthetic and other. You
might have a pragmatic reason to believe, to admire, to approve, to respect, to intend, to
plan, to improve etc. that is of the wrong kind.4 Thus, the WKR problem is a quite
general problem that afflicts buckpassing accounts in all their normative applications.
But Heuer (2011) has recently argued that we can easily avoid the problem if we
turn from a buckpassing account of reasons for attitudes to a buckpassing account of
reasons for action. In this paper I argue that Heuer’s (2011) attempt not only fails to
avoid the problem but it actually exacerbates it. Heuer’s proposal is still afflicted by
the WKR problem in regard to reasons for attitudes and is also carried over to
reasons for action. In what follows, in section 1 I briefly present Heuer’s proposal
and in section 2 argue against the proposal. In section 3 I sum up the argument and
close with some rumination about the possible source of the WKR problem.
2 Heuer’s (2011) Novel Buckpassing Account
Heuer’s (2011:172-2) interesting paper examines the source of the WKR problem
and reaches the diagnosis that the source of the problem lies in the commitment of
buckpassing accounts to a so-called ‘fitting attitude analysis of value’.5 According
to fitting attitude analyses of value, to be valuable is to be a fitting object of a pro-
attitude like admiration, desirability, love, gratitude, approval etc. It is easy to see
how a buckpassing account of value incorporates such a commitment. It does so
3 See Olson, 2004, op. cit.; Hieronymi, 2005, op. cit.; Schroeder, 2010, op. cit., for proposed solutions to
the problem that try to spell out the right kind of justification.4 See Pascal’s famous wager and Gregory Kavka, ‘The Toxin Puzzle,’ Analysis, Vol. 43, No. 1,
pp. 33–36 (1983).5 See A.C. Ewing. The Definition of Good (London: Macmillan, 1949); Franz Brentano, 1969, op.cit.;
Rabinowicz and Ronnow-Rasmussen (2004: 394–400), op. cit.
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because it relies on the idea that something is valuable only if we have reason to
respond to it with a certain proattitude. And as we have sketched, the WKR problem
arises because we might have reason to respond with a certain proattitude that is not
of the right kind (and, inversely, we might have reason not to respond with a certain
proattitude that is of the right kind).
Heuer argues that what causes the problem is not, as has been identified in
literature, ‘‘that there can be reasons for pro-attitudes towards things that are devoid
of value’’ but rather the commitment to a fitting attitude analysis of value per se,
quite independently of whether the things the pro-attitudes are towards are devoid of
value or not. To illustrate her point, she (2011:172-3) gives the example of a benign
and caring benefactor that wants you to love a beautiful painting that she is going to
bequeath to you. As the example goes, you have one reason for loving the painting,
namely, that it is truly beautiful, and you have a further reason, because your
benefactor wishes you so. Your reason is perhaps a reason of gratitude or a reason
not to disappoint your benefactor. And you would have this further reason even if
your benefactor, not being the best judge in matters aesthetic, were mistaken on this
occasion and the painting were but a poor piece of artwork.
Heuer goes on to correctly point out that, even if the painting is beautiful and
merits admiration, having a reason to love it in order to show gratitude to your
benefactor is a reason of the wrong kind. The aesthetic value of a beautiful painting
consists not in its having properties like being commended by a person you owe a
debt of gratitude to, but consists in its aesthetic properties, no matter what these are
– as she says, this much we know a priori. As the attitude of loving has nothing to do
with the value of the painting but has all to do with other pragmatically justifying
considerations (like showing gratitude to your benefactor), this is again a case of the
familiar WKR problem.
On the basis of this example, she diagnoses that the problem has not been clearly
identified in the literature because ‘‘(i)t is not the problem that there can be reasons for
pro-attitudes towards things that are devoid of value. Some reasons for admiring things
are of the wrong kind, whether or not these things are of value or admirable’’. Given that
reasons for attitude can be of the wrong kind independently of the value of the object, she
concludes that the problem is endemic to reasons for attitudes and, therefore, the source
of the problem is the buckpasser’s commitment to a fitting attitude analysis of value.
As a result of this diagnosis, she formulates a buckpassing account not tied on a
fitting attitude analysis of value (and, hence, reasons for attitudes) but tied on
reasons for action. She is hopeful that such an account could avoid the WKR
problem because, remember, what causes the problem is the commitment to a fitting
attitude analysis of value. Her (2011:179) version of the buckpassing account
proposes that ‘‘‘X is good’ consists in X’s having some other property, P, that
provides a reason for action’’. As she says, her ‘reasons for action’ version of the
buckpassing account dodges the problem because both in cases of instrumental and
final value we do not run into the WKR problem. To illustrate, first, her point about
instrumental value, she (2011:170) gives this nice example:
‘‘Assume that the evil demon orders you to express your admiration for him
(or for a saucer of mud) by bowing three times, or he will torture you. Clearly
How Not to Solve the Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem
123
you have a pro tanto reason to bow three times and do whatever else it takes to
express admiration, and this reason is not of the wrong kind: it is a typical
instrumental reason. If [the buckpassing account] were phrased in terms of
reason for action only, there would be no problem: the value of Uing (bowing,
in our case) may consist in Uing’s having other properties (e.g. being
necessary to averting the demon’s wrath) that give you a reason to U. The
value in question is instrumental value. Thus, there is no problem with giving
a buck-passing account of the value that relates to reasons for action –it is
quite straightforward.’’
As for final value, she argues that cases of action that have final value, like doing
one’s duty, pose no threat to her account because in such cases the agent has not a
WKR for action, but only an additional one. As she (2011:170) says: ‘If an evil
demon orders you to do your duty (or else he will torture you), you don’t have a
wrong reason – you just have an additional one.’ And she adds (2011:171) that, even
if the evil demon asks you to express your admiration for his final value (something
he does not have because he is evil), this does not result in a WKR for action
because of the instrumental value of avoiding torture. You can still play-act and
express your admiration in order to avoid torture, even though you don’t believe that
the demon is a right object of admiration, for ‘the problem is with having the
attitude and not with acting in a certain way’. Given, of course, that her version of
buckpassing account does not incorporate a reasons for attitude clause, it evades the
WKR problem; or at least this is the line of thought.
3 The WKR Problem Returns with a Vengeance
Unfortunately, however, eschewing reasons for attitudes and turning to reasons for
action does not seem to insulate Heuer’s own buckpassing account from the WKR
problem. To the contrary, Heuer’s account does not only fail to address the problem
but also seems to exacerbate it. If I am right, the problem both remains in its original
form, that is, in relation to reasons for attitudes, and it is also carried over to reasons
for action. Let me explain.
First, by her theory’s own lights, one may still have WKR, but for action this time.
As we have WKR for attitudes, we can have WKR for action arising by the same sort
of pragmatically justifying considerations that have nothing to do with the value of the
object or action in question. For example, take the case of instrumental value where an
evil demon proposes to grant humanity eternal happiness if only we agree to boil a
baby.6 The (instrumental) value (i.e. eternal happiness) of such an act (i.e. boiling a
baby) consists in a consequentialist property (i.e. say, maximization of aggregate
desire satisfaction) but still, intuitively, we have a WKR for action. We have a WKR
for action because the reason we have is not epistemically justifying and does not
abide by normative standards. Alas, it is only pragmatically justifying and abides by
consequentialist standards and, as we know very well, that is how WKR cases emerge.
6 See Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (London: Penguin Books, 2003).
C. Kyriacou
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Of note is that, plausibly, by any non-consequentialist normative theory’s
conception of moral standards this reason would count as a WKR for action.
Kantians would presumably stress that we have a WKR for action because it is a
reason that does not respect the value of humanity and its inalienable rights and such
reasons for action cannot be considered as justifying reasons that abide by moral
standards. Virtue-ethicists would perhaps stress that in the example we have a WKR
for action because it is a reason for action that does not abide by the moral standards
that any virtuous agent would approve of etc. At any rate, Kantians, virtue-ethicists
and others would concur that such a reason for action is a WKR for action because it
is not epistemically justifying and does not abide by moral standards.
Of course, Heuer could bite the bullet and argue that by the lights of a broadly
consequentialist normative theory we have the right kind of reason to boil the baby
because, according to consequentialist normative standards, this is what we ought to
do. The problem with this response is that most people will be inclined to think that
this is a reason to believe that the consequentialist theory does not provide us with
the correct normative standards and, thus, so much the worse for consequentialism.
Besides, this is one of the reasons why many philosophers have serious qualms
about consequentialist theories of value. It is because consequentialist theories seem
too permissive and often count certain cases of moral value where, intuitively, these
cases are not of moral value.7
Thus, it seems that as we have WKR for attitudes in Scanlon’s original
buckpassing account, despite being otherwise beneficial having the attitude, we
have WKR for action in Heuer’s buckpassing account, despite being otherwise
beneficial acting accordingly. WKR either for attitudes or for reasons arise in
exactly the same pattern: because of pragmatic considerations. True enough,
consequentialist properties often realize value and provide us with the right kind of
reason for action but not always. In the context of the boiling baby example,
intuitively, the consequentialist property that realizes instrumental value does not
provide us with the right kind of reason.8
But I might have been too quick here and credulously relied on my own anti-
consequentialist intuitions. This might look like cheating because it is a common
place that intuitions (moral and other) can and often do prove misguiding.9 Besides, a
staunch consequentialist might be willing to go as far as claiming that we do have the
right kind of reason to boil the baby because consequentialist standards are the correct
ones and this is what they prescribe. Accordingly, we should quell our moral
intuitions that seem to ask us to desist from such an act and do what consequentialism
obliges us to do. Obviously, I can’t really delve here into any lengthy discussion of the
7 See Scanlon 1998:78–94, op. cit.; John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1971); Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London: Fontanapress,
1985) for some criticism of consequentialism.8 I forgo discussion of Heuer’s account in relation to final value as discussion of instrumental value has
already shown that the theory is problematic and this suffices for our purposes here.9 See Stephen Laurence and Eric Margolis, ‘Concepts and Conceptual Analysis,’ Philosophy andPhenomenological Research, Vol. 67, No. 2, pp. 253–282 (2003); Michael DePaul, ‘Intuitions in Moral
Inquiry,’ in David Copp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Moral Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006), pp. 595–623.
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plausibility of consequentialism, which is a very intricate and complicated matter in
normative theory. What I can do here is to draw two important points that make
explicit the very contentious assumptions that such a line of defence needs to uphold.
These two contentious assumptions render the theory, I think, rather implausible. Let
me elaborate.
First, if Heuer’s proposal relies on the idea that consequentialism is the correct
normative theory, then at least her theory depends on a very contentious normative
theory. I have already made this clear above and I think that even a staunch
consequentialist can’t deny this much. Second, we should be careful here to
distinguish between normative and metanormative theory. For, even if some form or
other of consequentialism can be vindicated as the correct normative theory, it
doesn’t follow that consequentialism is the correct metanormative theory. It could
be that consequentialism is the right normative theory but the right metanormative
theory is expressivist or fictionalist (or some other).10 The independence of the
normative from the metanormative domain seems to be something like an
established orthodoxy in metanormativity debates because of the logical compat-
ibility of different normative with metanormative theories.11
With the distinction between normative/metanormative theory at hand now, the
important thing to notice is that Heuer’s buckpassing account does not only require
that consequentialism is the right normative theory but also the right metanormative
theory – which is even more contentious. For, if her theory is to avoid the objection
I have called attention to she must ground reasons for action, not just on the correct
consequentialist normative theory, but also consider consequentialism as the correct
metanormative theory. Otherwise, one may question in Moore-style: ‘I see that this
reason maximizes overall expected utility but is it the right kind of reason for
action? I don’t quite see that it is the right kind of reason’.12
It seems that such a Moorean ‘open question’ remains wide open and the speaker
will have second thoughts about whether the consequentialist reason is the right
kind of reason. The ‘open feel’ semantic intuitions of the speaker constitute prima
facie evidence that consequentialist reasons for action are not the right kind of
reasons for action. This is, however, what Heuer’s theory boils down to:
consequentialist reasons are invariantly the right kind of reasons for action because
of their instrumental value and, therefore, the WKR problem evaporates because it
afflicts only reasons for proattitudes but not (instrumental) reasons for action.
Thus, Heuer’s theory not only needs to assume consequentialism as a normative
theory but also as a metanormative theory. These are very, very contentious
assumptions and by no means easy to discharge. Especially so the metanormative
10 G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903/2000) combined
nonnaturalist metaethics with utilitarian normative ethics. Richard Hare, The Language of Morals(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952) and Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963)
advocated metaethical expressivism coupled with utilitarian normative theory. John Mackie, Ethics:Inventing Right and Wrong (London: Penguin Books, 1977) was an error theorist about metaethics and a
contractualist about normative ethics.11 See for example Ralph Wedgwood, The Nature of Normativity (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007).12 See Moore, 1903/2000, op. cit.
C. Kyriacou
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assumption because, under the influence of Moore’s ‘open question argument’, few
metanormativists are analytic reductionists today.13 That is, believe that we can
analyze normative concepts like ‘good’ or ‘justice’ or, in our case above, ‘right kind
of reason’ in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. No doubt, Heuer could
still persevere and argue that the Moorean open question can and should be resisted.
To be sure, from the very time of its inception Moore’s argument came under
criticism for begging the question and relying on antiquated assumptions about
meaning and analysis.14 Heuer could exploit such lines of criticism of the argument
and stick to her guns.
But a thorough discussion of Moorean open question arguments would have led
us too far afield because the plausibility of the argument, even how to exactly
understand the argument, remain debatable. Still, there is significant general
consensus among metanormativists that while Moorean arguments have their soft
spots they are ‘onto something important’.15 Here I will assume myself that such
arguments are ‘onto something important’, namely, that normative concepts are
unanalysable (in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions) and leave this as a
challenge for Heuer’s account. I conclude that the contentious assumption that
consequentialism is the right normative\metanormative theory renders her proposal
rather implausible.
Leaving this first objection to one aside, one may wonder whether Heuer’s
proposed solution to the problem doesn’t run into a straight reductio. For if typical
instrumental reasons for action are legitimate to count as right kind of reasons for
action then, by parity of reasoning, we could extend this to reasons for proattitudes.
Instrumental\pragmatic reasons for proattitudes should by parity of reasoning be
legitimate to count as right kind of reasons for attitudes. If this solution works for
reasons for action, there is no special reason why it shouldn’t work for reasons for
proattitudes. And if there is such a reason, Heuer definitely did not make it explicit,
as she did not really explain why instrumental reasons for action are legitimate
while instrumental reasons for proattitudes are not.
She simply assumed that the thorny problem arises for reasons for attitudes but
can be dispelled for reasons for action at ease. I suspect that she implicitly holds this
13 Nonnaturalists like Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005)
and Wedgwood, 2007, op. cit., expressivists like Simon Blackburn, Ruling Passions (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1998) and error theorists like Mackie, 1977, op. cit. accept some form or other of the argument.14 See William Frankena, ‘The Naturalistic Fallacy,’ Mind XLVIII, 465–477 (1939); David Brink, MoralRealism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Michael Smith,
The Moral Problem (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), Richard Boyd, ‘How to be a Moral Realist,’ in Russ
Shafer Landau and Terence Cuneo (eds.), Foundations of Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007),
pp. 163–185; Andrew Cullison, ‘Three Millian Ways To Resolve Open Questions,’ Journal of Ethics andSocial Philosophy Vol. 3 (2009).15 I quote from Stephen Darwall, Allan Gibbard and Peter Railton, ‘Toward Fin de siecle Ethics: Some
Trends,’ The Philosophical Review, Vol. 101, No. 1, pp. 115–189 (1992:116). For discussion of how to
exactly understand the argument see Nicholas Sturgeon, ‘Moore on Ethical Naturalism,’ Ethics, Vol. 113,
pp. 528–556 (2003); Connie Rosati, ‘Agency and the Open Question Argument,’ Ethics, Vol. 113,
pp. 490–527 (2003); Mark Kalderon, ‘Open Questions and the Manifest Image,’ Philosophy andPhenomenological Research, Vol. 68, pp. 251–289 (2004); Fred Feldman, ‘The Open Question
Argument: What It Isn’t; And What It Is,’ Philosophical Issues 15, Normativity, pp. 22–43 (2005).
How Not to Solve the Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem
123
assumption because she bears consequentialist leanings about normative ethics and
sees nothing questionable in regard to instrumental reasons for action. I conclude
that, if Heuer’s proposal were plausible enough, it would have applied to WKR
problems for attitudes and the problem wouldn’t have arisen in the first place.
Hence, the proposal that instrumental reasons are reasons of the right kind seems
misguided from the start.
But even if Heuer is prepared to go all the way down in order to defend her
buckpassing account against the above objections, she will still have to face a third
even more intractable objection. As Heuer (2011: 180) seems to hint at some point,
certain reasons for action cannot be disentangled from reasons for attitudes and, if
that is the case, then the original version of the problem in regard to attitudes, as
initially stated by Rabinowicz and Ronnow-Rasmussen (2004), returns.
For example, having a reason to act out of admiration seems to entail having a
reason for feeling admiration and then the problem in its original form returns. It
returns because, for example, an evil demon may order us to act out of sincere
admiration and praise his acts (or otherwise he will torture us) and this, intuitively,
will give us a (wrong) reason for feeling admiration.16 For it is, intuitively, a WKR
to feel admiration for a demon’s acts (that are also devoid of value) just in order to
avoid torturing. It is a reason that is not epistemically justifying for having the
attitude and does not abide by the correct normative standards.
Of note is that the entailment from reason for action to reason for attitude is not,
strictly speaking, logical. It is not logical because there is nothing incoherent in
conceiving a possible world where some counterparts, let us call them schuman,
have certain reasons for action but don’t have respective reasons for attitude.
Schumans could have a very different psychological constitution from humans and
because of their peculiar psychology reasons for action are systematically disjoined
from the respective reasons for attitudes.
Rather, the entailment seems to be one of human rationality. Intuitively, it would
seem that conceiving a possible world where schuman counterparts have certain
reasons for action but don’t have respective reasons for attitude seriously strains
what we think humanly rational is. We expect rational human agents to display
some systematic correlation between what reasons for action they have and what
respective feelings they have. Systematically disjoining reasons for action from
respective reasons for attitudes seems to go against what we think human rationality
16 See Rabinowicz and Ronnow-Rasmussen, 2004, op. cit. pp. 402–403, 419 for the classic statement of
such ‘evil demons.’ Of importance is that stating the problem in terms of evil demons cases is not
necessary. As Rabinowicz and Ronnow-Rasmussen, 2004, op. cit., p. 403 rightly stress, we can state it,
for example, in terms of ‘the hedonism paradox.’ That is, the paradox that arises because, although
hedonism takes only pleasure to be of final value, it would be self-defeating to seek only pleasure as such
a single-minded pursuit would undercut maximization of pleasure itself. In such a case, by the theory’s
lights, one may have a (wrong) kind of reason to pursue things that lack final value, exercise, let us say,
but still be beneficial to have such a reason because it would be conducive to the maximization of
pleasure. If this is still too theoretic, then think of everyday examples like having wrong reasons to admire
someone, or to find something laudable or comic etc. ( D’Arms and Jacobsen, 2000, op. cit.). At any
event, people sceptical of the value of thought experiments are not yet off the hook just by dismissing
such thought experiments for methodological reasons (though, like most philosophers, I find this
scepticism unfounded).
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requires. Schuman rationality may not require the systematic conjoining of reasons
for action and respective reasons for attitudes but this is not our human rationality.
For example, suppose I have a reason to act out of sincere gratitude and thank
someone, say, because as a random donor gave a sample of bone marrow and saved
my life. It would seem that, if I am (humanly) rational enough, I would also have a
corresponding reason for feeling gratitude. If I systematically lack corresponding
reasons for attitudes then it seems that I am missing an affective psychological
component that is essential for being (humanly) rational. Spock-like schumans may
be properly rational and missing this affective psychological component but their
rationality is not human rationality for sure.17
That human rationality requires the systematic conjoining of reasons for action
and respective reasons for attitudes is plain folk psychology indicating that feelings,
to some reasonable extent at least, should follow judgement about reasons for
action. This is a quite old idea that goes back to Plato and Aristotle and one can still
find it in the work of virtue ethicists. Our affective psychology (emotions, attitudes,
desires, intentions etc.) should comply with our best judgement.18 In conclusion, the
entanglement of reasons for action with reasons for attitudes allows the WKR in its
original statement in regard to attitudes to return with a vengeance. Thus, turning
from a reasons for attitudes to a reasons for action buckpassing account won’t tackle
the WKR problem. The problem remains intact and as sharp as ever.
But on the basis of the overall discussion of Heuer’s proposal, let me now close
with some speculative thoughts about the possible source of the WKR problem.
Heuer, recall, diagnoses that the source of the problem is the commitment to reasons
for proattitudes. So she turns from reasons for proattitudes to reasons for action with
the intent to get rid of this troubling commitment. But this, as I have argued, makes
things even worse.
Perhaps then, if (which is, admittedly, a big if) her initial diagnosis is to the right
theoretical direction, the source of the problem is the commitment to reasons per se,
independently of whether such reasons are for proattitudes or for action. Moreover,
if this is the source of the problem, then it seems that buckpassing accounts of value
are doomed because it is an essential commitment of buckpassing accounts to
analyse value in terms of reasons (for proattitudes or, even in Heuer’s version, for
action). This might lead us to speculate that the whole buckpassing project relies on
a dubious methodological principle, namely, that of analysing value in terms of
reasons (and not vice versa).
17 See Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error (New York: Putnam Book, 1994); Dylan Evans, Emotion: AVery Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) for discussion of how the affective
psychological component is essential for human rationality.18 This idea can be found in Plato’s tripartition of the soul in the Republic and in Aristotle’s distinction
between the virtuous and the continent in Nicomachean Ethics. Contemporary virtue ethicists still employ
the idea. See John McDowell, ‘Virtue and Reason,’ in Mind, Value and Reality (London: Harvard
University Press, 1998), pp. 50–73; Rosalind Hursthouse, ‘Are Virtues the Right Starting Place for
Morality?,’ in James Dreier (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, 2006), pp. 99–112.
How Not to Solve the Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem
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For it is far from coincidental that buckpassers analyse value in terms of
reasons.19 They reverse the order of explanatory priority between value and reasons
and analyse value in terms of reasons (instead of analysing reasons in terms of
value) because they aspire to sidestep the hard metaphysical, epistemological and
semantic puzzles that beset the notion of value. In this way they ‘pass the buck’
from value to reasons for attitudes (or action). That was the explicit intent of
Scanlon (1998) himself when he introduced his own buckpassing account of
value.20 His intent was to demystify our normative practices by giving a theory that
addresses the semantic challenge of Moore’s ‘open question argument’ without
resorting to any questionable nonnaturalist ontology and intuitionist epistemology.21
But if the buckpassing project is erected on the methodological principle of
analyzing value in terms of reasons, in order to avoid the semantic, epistemological
and ontological puzzles that beset value, and this can’t be made to work because of
WKR problems, then it seems that we have run into a dialectical deadlock. Either
we reverse the order of explanation and endeavour to analyze reasons in terms of
value (and struggle along with the semantic, epistemological and ontological
puzzles) in the hope of evading WKR problems or we keep working in terms of an
analysis of value in terms of reasons and run into inevitable WKR problems. Neither
horn offers an easy choice.
4 Conclusion
I have argued that Heuer’s account not only retains the WKR problem in its original
form of reasons for attitudes, but worse it allows to be carried over to reasons for
action. Thus, insofar we want to solve the problem, abandoning orthodox
buckpassing accounts that incorporate a fitting attitude analysis of value and
turning to reasons for action won’t do. A solution to the WKR problem won’t come
from this direction.
19 See Pekka Vayrynen, ‘A Wrong Turn to Reasons?,’ M. Brady (ed.), New Waves in Metaethics(Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 185–207, for a questioning of this recent turn to ‘reasons
first.’ Vayrynen questions whether this methodological ‘turn to reasons’ can offer any dialectical
advantages in explaining normativity. If the above hypothesis of the source of the WKR problem is to the
right direction, then not only the turn to reasons does not offer any dialectical advantages, but in addition
it incurs a dialectical disadvantage as such approaches are bound to run into WKR problems.20 See for example how Scanclon, 1998, op. cit. thinks that his buckpassing account can account for the
‘open feel’ semantic intuitions in Moore’s ‘open question argument’ but without going nonnaturalist. For
discussion of Scanlon’s buckpassing account in this respect see Brad Hooker and Philip Stratton-Lake,
‘Scanlon Versus Moore on Goodness,’ in T. Horgan and M. Timmons (eds.), Metaethics After Moore(2006), pp. 149–168. This is also how Rabinowicz and Ronnow-Rasmussen, 2004, op. cit., understand the
motivation behind the buckpassing project. But also see how D’Arms and Jacobsen, 2000, op. cit., use
Moore-style arguments to bring to the surface the WKR problem and defeat ‘neo-sentimentalist’
approaches that assume the ‘reasons first’ methodological starting point.21 For some more theoretical virtues of the buckpassing project see Olson, 2004, op. cit.
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