Reasons-based accounts of our normative conclusions face difficulties in distinguishing between what ought to be done and what is required. This article addresses this problem from a formal perspective. I introduce a rudimentary formalization of a reasons-based account and demonstrate that that the model faces difficulties in accounting for the distinction between oughts and requirements. I briefly critique attempts to distinguish between oughts and requirements by appealing to a difference in strength or weight of reasons. I then present a formalized (...) reasons-based account of permissions, oughts and requirements. The model exploits Joshua Gert (2004; 2007) and Patricia Greenspan’s (2005; 2007; 2010) suggestion that some reasons perform a purely justificatory function. I show that the model preserves the standard entailment relationships between requirements, oughts and permissions. (shrink)

This paper concerns the relation between goodness, or value, and practical reasons, and in particular the so-called ‘buck-passing’ account (BPA) of that relation recently offered by T. M. Scanlon, according to which goodness is not reason-providing but merely the higher-order property of possessing lower-order properties that provide reasons to respond in certain ways. The paper begins by briefly describing BPA and the motivation for it, noting that Scanlon now accepts that the lower-order properties in question may be evaluative. He also (...) insists that the BPA is not biconditional (wisely, since otherwise goodness becomes a ‘Cambridge property’), which leaves him with the task of explaining why goodness arises only in a sub-set of cases in which lower-order properties ground reasons. Having rejected two attempts to do this, based on elucidation of the responses and of the reasons, I suggest that Scanlon may claim that goodness arises in, and only in, cases where the lower-order properties are evaluative and that goodness itself provides us with a way of distinguishing the evaluative from the non-evaluative. In other words, he should retain the negative component of BPA, according to which being good is not itself reason-providing, while surrendering the positive, according to which the property of goodness is merely the higher-order property of having lower-order properties that provide reasons to respond. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Nowadays businesses are often expected to create not just financial, but multiple kinds of value—and they report on this using numbers and narratives. Multiple-value accounting narratives, such as those required by the Integrated Reporting framework, are often met with suspicion: accounting scholars have argued that inconsistencies between narratives and performances show that narratives are used for impression management rather than to accurately report the (ir)responsible behavior of companies. This paper proposes to assess narratives beyond inconsistencies with reported performances. Starting from (...) the idea that performances are delivered in response to the kinds of value in the situation of the company, we argue that narratives and performances should be analyzed together as interrelated elements and considered in relation to the kinds of value in the situation. The paper transforms the common consequentialist view on which value should be “increased,” into the value pluralist view that something being of value can require many different performances such as for example respecting, maximizing, admiring, maintaining, using, and bringing it about. From this perspective, multiple-value accounting narratives logically precede the reporting of performances and should identify the kinds of value in the situation to which the company ought to respond, which performances are required by these kinds of value, and which indicators and targets should be used to report on these performances. A brief analysis of the annual report of Unilever illustrates how such metaethical criteria can help assess and develop multiple-value accounting narratives. (shrink)