Abstract

Implicit in common views about morality is the assumption that the grip of morality is inescapable in the sense that moral considerations give reasons for acting to everyone. On the basis of this assumption, it is claimed that there is a necessity associated with behaving morally, even when we are not compelled to do so, and that while one may reasonably dismiss certain non-moral requirements with a "So what?" one cannot reasonably offer this in response to a statement about the dictates of morality. This picture is at odds, however, with an influential thesis, advanced and defended by Bernard Williams, according to which an agent's only reasons for action are provided by the agent's current subjective motivational set. According to this thesis, which I refer to as the desire thesis, whether an agent has reason to, say, keep her promises or benefit others, depends on how these things fit with her desires . Building on views about reasons for action that I propose and defend, my dissertation undermines the desire thesis, and thereby contributes to a vindication of the assumption that morality has universal rational authority. ;I begin by explaining the nature of the conflict, which Williams misrepresents, between the desire thesis and the supposition that moral considerations give reasons for acting to everyone. Next, I show that there are two sorts of reason-statements that figure as conclusions of practical deliberation and correspond to two senses of the term reason, namely reasons in the instrumental intention-based sense and reasons in the potentially non-intention-serving sense. Using this distinction, I show that the desire thesis is accountable to our ordinary reason talk in a way that Williams does not recognize. I then introduce the notion of a basic reason-giving consideration. This allows me I pick out the two ways of interpreting the desire thesis, which have been alluded to but never clearly articulated. I argue that, given either interpretation, the desire thesis must be rejected, since, according to one interpretation, the thesis conflicts with a conceptual truth about reasons for action, and according to the other, the thesis is completely implausible