The normative insignificance of the will

Abstract

Clearly, the fact that you are committed to these projects and those people is practically relevant. For example, a commitment to gardening can make it especially sensible for me to garden this afternoon, even in the presence of an equally and sufficiently good alternative like woodworking. We might capture commitment’s distinctive import by saying that it puts us in a ‘special relationship’ to the projects to which we are committed. But how do we go beyond the metaphor? After discussing the view that commitments bear on action by virtue of being a kind of normatively efficacious willing, I suggest that we reconceive commitment as a source of rational requirements. On my preferred view, a commitment to gardening strictly requires me to conduct my deliberation in a gardening-friendly way insofar as I remain committed. The distinctive way in which my commitment to gardening constrains my deliberation gives content to the metaphor without admitting special reasons or a powerful will. If my analysis is correct, then commitment’s practical import lends little support to voluntarist conceptions of normativity.