Aesthetic Reasons and Aesthetic Shoulds

Abstract

Some questions about normative structure are global. We can ask how we should live, or what we ought to do all things considered, or whether there are any categorical oughts. But we can also examine local normative structure. We might ask ourselves about what we should do from the moral point of view rather than the prudential one, or discuss promissory obligation in contrast with what friendship demands. How should we understand such localized forms of normativity? We argue that a plausible sounding treatment of the distinction cannot account for what we call the “interrelatedness” of reasons from different domains.