Third version

Finally, let us turn to the third version of the Model. It gives us a mixture of the previous two positions. Just like the first position, this version also begins with the instrumental principle. But then it makes exactly the opposite move. Instead of deriving the normativity of rationality from the normativity of reason, it does the reverse. Just as in the case of belief, here too there are two options. We can equate the reason-relation with the rationality-relation, or we can understand the reason-relation in terms of the rationality-relation. And just as in the case of belief, here too I think that the first reading is wrong because it does not explain reason in terms of rationality but simply eliminates it. We should therefore turn to the second reading.

The question now is how to flesh out this strategy. There are two well-known ways to carry out this task. Kantian constructivism offers the first solution. Roughly, constructivists hold that there are procedures humans have to obey in order to bring normative facts into being, i.e.

confer the status of a reason on features of their situation. (Korsgaard 1996b, 35-7; 2003, 117) These procedures, moreover, are governed by principles of rationality. Now, it is no doubt possible for constructivists to claim that the only relevant practical principle is the instrumental principle. But they need not agree to this and, what is more important, they do not typically do.

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Today’s constructivists are dominantly Kantians who claim that the relevant procedures are those the human will must conform to; more precisely, as I show it in Appendix II, these procedures constitute the human will. (Korsgaard 1996b, 36; 1997, 245) And being Kantians they are fiercely against the idea that there is only one such procedure, namely the one governed by the instrumental principle. (Korsgaard 1996b, 120-3; Korsgaard 1997) They emphasize that the phenomenon of commitment in willing, which is their version of the consistency relation typical of rationality, appears not only in the form of the instrumental principle.²⁴ And this is a problem because the Model demands exclusivity: it supposes that the instrumental principle is the only principle of practical rationality.

There is, however, another, perhaps even more prominent way to carry out this project. To present it, we have to adopt the idealizing account of the previous version of the Model. This reading says that what we have reason to do is what we would desire to do in condition C. This is a picture of the reason-relation along the lines mentioned in the previous section. There is no talk of consistency between desire and action; what the desire does is to relate some feature of the agent’s situation to what he may do in that situation. Yet, and this is where the crucial bit comes, we can understand the idealized situation in terms of rationality. We can speak of a situation in which we ask what the agent would desire were he to be fully rational.²⁵ This brings with it certain changes in our understanding of condition C. As to the epistemological conditions, since we now speak of rationality, it is not facts that count as information but beliefs, true and false

24 The other problem with constructivists is that we always have to pay attention to what they are constructivist about. There are only few who are constructivist over the entire range of normative concepts; in fact, I only know of one: Christine Korsgaard. Others are more ‘picky’ in their choice. Scanlon is a constructivist about moral principles, just as Rawls is about justice. But Scanlon is a non-naturalist about reason and goodness, whereas Rawls is a naturalist about these concepts. See Korsgaard (2003), 115-118; Scanlon (1998), Chapters 1-2; Rawls (1971), pp. 46.

25 Among others Brandt (1979), Chapter 1; Smith (1994), Chapter 4; Williams (1981a) appear to endorse this view.

There is plenty of ambiguity in the writings of these authors, though. Pertinent to the present case, it is not clear whether they make the proposal discussed in the text, or they just conflate (because, say, not aware of) the distinction between reason and rationality. We don’t have to be concerned with this problem here, however. Sobel (2001b) gives a good discussion of this issue and Kolodny (2005), pp. 510 note 2 locates Smith’s theory in the present framework.

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alike.²⁶ As to the reasoning conditions, here we should be aware that it is conceivable, though, of course, needs to be argued for that consistency appears elsewhere in practical rationality. This is, recall, just what Kantian constructivists claim to be the case.

If we go along with this suggestion, we reduce reason to rationality. To speak more ‘meta-ethically’, facts about the reason-relation make reference to facts about the rationality-relation.

The question is what sort of facts these are: we have to clarify the meta-ethical background of this version of the Model. Unsurprisingly perhaps, it can only be naturalist. Let me explain. We can set aside constructivism because, as noted, Kantians do not accept the Model. Non-cognitivists, as much as I can make out, do not endorse the idea of reducing reason to rationality. At least, this is what Gibbard’s strategy seems to suggest. After defining reason, he gives a definition of rationality on the basis of reasons. (Gibbard 1990, 163) And he doesn’t speak of normative facts anyway.

This leaves us with a choice between naturalism and non-naturalism. The former interprets facts about rationality as being identical with psychological facts of consistency. The latter claims that there are in reality two facts: psychological facts of consistency and irreducible facts of rationality. Now, it can be claimed that non-naturalists are not among the Model’s ‘fans’

because they can hold that there are practically irrational acts other than those that fail to meet the instrumental principle. But naturalists can make the same claim. They can also say that

26 We should therefore be careful not to conflate the two versions of the Model when formulating the epistemic condition. Indeed, the situation is made worse by the fact that beliefs, even false beliefs can figure in an account of the reason-relation that does not make reference to rationality. One such way we have already seen (in note 19 above): the case when beliefs serve as facts on the left-hand side of the reason-relation. And there are other roles beliefs can play that are consistent with the reason-relation understood as the only real normative relation. False beliefs, for instance, often serve as excuse: they make the agent’s action pardonable by allowing the agent to point out that there were good grounds to believe what the agent believed. See Dancy (2000b), pp. 6-7, 106-107. But they play no normative role: they don’t qualify as a normative reason, though we may take them to justify the agent’s act in some sense. Beliefs can also function as constraints on reasons for action: a consideration can be a reason for the agent, i.e. appear on the left-hand side of the reason-relation only if he can come to believe it. This is a version of the

‘ought implies can’ principle. In this way beliefs may serve as epistemic filters selecting out those features of the situation that are, in some sense, epistemically accessible to the agent. See (Ibid.) 56-7, 65. But it is these features that function as normative reasons and not the agent’s belief that is targeted at them.

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consistency appears elsewhere in human practice. The real reason why we need naturalism as the background for the Model in the present case is the same as before. Just as with the previous version, here too a non-naturalist account of condition C would mean invoking normative judgments to select among desires and this would surely mean the end of the Model.

Since we have here an account of the Model very similar to the previous version, let me highlight in what respect this is a new version and in what respect it repeats the previous version.

In what it is different is its underlying philosophical rationale: the idea that the normativity of the reason-relation is derived from the normativity of the rationality-relation. This means that here we have normativity emanating from the instrumental principle and not from desire; so this is a consistency-based version of the Model, more than the first one where it was the supporting reasons that lend normativity to the principle. Yet, this version is also importantly similar to the previous version in that it also gives an account of the reason-relation in terms of desire.

Moreover, it also does this in a naturalist framework. Hence everything I said about the tracking role of desire applies to this third version of the Model as well.