When someone does something for a reason, what are the reasons for which she does what she does? What is her ‘motivating reason’, as it is sometimes put? The simple answer is: it depends on what is meant by ‘motivating reason’. Non-Psychologists hold that motivating reasons are what the agent believes. I have shown that given that we understand ‘motivating reasons’ as what I term 'grounds', this is quite correct, as what we believe is what plays the role of a (...) ground. However, we have to be careful not to confuse the role of a ground and the role of an explanans. For the conflation of those two roles can occlude the truth in Non-Psychologism. What the Non-Psychologist about Grounds should say is that what plays the role of an explanans, when someone acts on a ground, is a motivation-fact. She should also say that there are two kinds of motivation-facts: those that include normative reasons and those that do not. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Gregory defends the claim that a normative reason is a good basis for Φ-ing. He claims that a “basis” is what is commonly known as a motivating reason. By “good” Gregory means good in its attributive sense, as something which is good as a kind. In this paper I argue that it is not plausible that normative reasons are motivating reasons that are good as an instance of their kind. I argue that in order to assess (...) this claim, pace Gregory, we need to know what it is for a motivating reason to be good as a kind. I canvas some potential answers to this question provided by Gregory, first that motivating reasons are things that play a role in a causal structure, and second that motivating reasons are what is believed to be a normative reason. I argue that since neither of these is plausibly good as a kind, we should reject RGB. (shrink)