Taking motivating reasons’ deliberative role seriously

Abstract

A motivating reason is a reason an agent acts for. There are two pre-theoretical intuitions about motivating reasons that seem irreconcilable. One intuition suggests that motivating reasons are factive, and the other says the opposite. As a result, a divide exists between philosophers, each side prioritizing one intuition to the detriment of the other. In this essay, I present the deliberate theory of motivating reasons and defend the second intuition that motivating reasons are non-factive. To do this, we must understand motivating reasons’ role in our deliberation. I show that non-factive motivating reasons are compatible with the underlying role which gives rise to the intuition of reasons’ factivity.