Toward a Funcational Apporach to Normative Reasons
A satisfactory analysis of normative reasons has evaded the field of metaethics for a long time. I argue that this is because of confusion at the conceptual level. Beginning with the debate between Reasons Internalists and Reasons Externalists, I develop an account of our concept of normative reasons that gives place to the functional role that those reasons have played in our acquisition of the concept. Assuming realism about reasons, I argue that their functional role is that of eliciting the basic normative experience in well-functioning agents. I call this experience “<to-be-done-ness>”. From this experience, we acquire the concepts of [to-be-done-ness] and [normative reason]. If our concept of a normative reason tracks anything in the real world, it must track the things that give rise to the basic normative experience. In the process of making this argument, I offer some admittedly speculative suggestions about how this experience of <to-be-done-ness> should be characterized and categorized among the range of human experiences. I also defend a weak form of empiricism that allows our normative concepts to be derived from this experience. Finally, I suggest that there are numerous pay-offs to adopting my functional account of normative reasons. Epistemologically, it explains how it is that we are able to apprehend the normative world. Metaphysically, it answers some long-standing metaethical questions as well as dissolves long-standing debates, including the one between the Reasons Internalists and Reasons Externalists.
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