The Limits of Normativity (2012)

Undergraduate: Matthew Kauffmann

Faculty Advisor: Brendan Boyle
Department: Philosophy

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Many people assume that desires can be reasons. Many others think that the existence of a normative reason requires the existence of a corresponding desire. Some others think that all reasons for action bottom out in desires. Here, I assume that desires never count as reasons in a substantive, non-derivative sense. My view instead accommodates the intuition that desires and other elements of agents’ subjective motivational sets play an important role in how we act, while maintaining the position that reasons do not depend on our motivation for their normative force.