Abstract

By promising, requesting and commanding we can give ourselves and each other reasons for acting as promised, requested, and commanded. Call this our capacity to give reasons robustly. According to the triggering account, we give reasons robustly simply by manipulating the factual circumstances in a way that triggers pre-existing reasons. Here I claim that we ought to reject the triggering account. By focusing on David Enoch’s sophisticated articulation of it, I argue that it is overinclusive; it cannot adequately distinguish between threats and robust reason-giving; and it cannot adequately explain why epistemic reasons cannot be robustly given. I suggest that when we give reasons robustly, we do so directly, without explanatory intermediaries.