Enticing Reasons

Abstract

This is a paper in the theory of reasons. Reasons to act are commonly understood in terms of the ways in which they can combine to make it the case that one ought to act or vice versa; what one ought to do is what one has most reason to do. The paper argues that this approach founders on the possibility of enticing reasons, which, no matter how ‘strong’ they are, are not in the business of making it the case that one ought to act as they suggest. It makes some suggestions about what enticing reasons do, if they don’t do that. The might, for instance, manage to establish that an action would be fun, and recommend it therefore and in that way, without thereby showing that it is what one has most reason to do, which is what reasoning to action is standardly understood as trying to show.