A fitting-attitude analysis which understands value in terms of reasons and pro- and con-attitudes allows limited wriggle room if it is to respect a radical division between good and good-for. Essentially, its proponents can either introduce two different normative notions, one relating to good and the other to good-for, or distinguish two kinds of attitude, one corresponding to the analysis of good and the other to good-for. It is argued that whereas the first option faces a counterintuitive scope issue, an (...) attitudinal approach couched in terms of ‘for someone's sake’ attitudes has the unwelcome consequence that whatever is good for someone is also necessarily good. It is argued that this consequence can be avoided if we modify the standard way of formulating the fitting-attitude analysis of final impersonal value. (shrink)

This paper offers a defence of the distinction between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons for action from scepticism aired by Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen. In response it is argued that the Nagelian notion of an agent-neutral reason is not incomprehensible, and that agent-neutral reasons can indeed be understood as obtaining states of affairs that count in favour of anyone and everyone performing the action they favour. Furthermore, I argue that a distinction drawn between agent-neutral and agent-relative reason-statements that express the salient features of (...) reason-constitutive states of affairs is neither reductive in the sense of reducing normative reasons to the propositional content of an agent’s mental state, nor trivial in the sense of locating the distinction merely in an agent’s description of the world. (shrink)

Reasons are facts, i.e., they are constituted by facts. Given a popular view that conceives of facts as thin abstract rather than thick concrete entities, the dichotomy between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons is not particularly problematic. It is argued that it would be preferable if we could understand the dichotomy even if we had a thick noton of fact in mind. It would be preferable because it is better if our notion of a reason is consistent with a wider rather (...) than narrower set of plausible metaphysical views. But, more importantly, it would also be preferable because the thin approach trivializes an interesting issue among practical philosophers. Moreover, as an additional drawback, the thin account is in one respect less appealing than its thick cousin. The latter is not flawless, though. Some major objections to the thick notion is discussed. (shrink)