Reasons, rationality, and opaque sweetening: Hare's “No Reason” argument for taking the sugar

Abstract

Caspar Hare presents a compelling argument for “taking the sugar” in cases of opaque sweetening: you have no reason to take the unsweetened option, and you have some reason to take the sweetened one. I argue that this argument fails—there is a perfectly good sense in which you do have a reason to take the unsweetened option. I suggest a way to amend Hare's argument to overcome this objection. I then argue that, although the improved version fares better, there is still room to resist Hare's argument—in a way that raises interesting questions about rational agency. In short, rationality is not about doing what one has the most reason to do; rather, it is about aiming to do what there is most reason to do.