In defense of exclusionary reasons

Abstract

Forthcoming in Philosophical Studies. Please refer to the published version. AbstractExclusionary defeat is Joseph Raz's proposal for understanding the more complex, layered structure of practical reasoning. Exclusionary reasons are widely appealed to in legal theory and consistently arise in many other areas of philosophy. They have also been subject to a variety of challenges. I propose a new account of exclusionary reasons based on their justificatory role, rejecting Raz's motivational account and especially contrasting exclusion with undercutting defeat. I explain the appeal and coherence of exclusionary reasons by appeal to commonsense value pluralism and the intermediate space of public policies, social roles, and organizations. We often want our choices to have a certain character or instantiate a certain value and in order to do so, that choice can only be based on a restricted set of reasons. Exclusion explains how pro tanto practical reasons can be disqualified from counting towards a choice of a particular kind without being outweighed or undercut.1 Although we sometimes we refer to a fact as the same reason across cases because it can be in more than one reason, I will avoid this; the reason is the relation between the fact, object, and agent, not the fact alone.

Determination from Above

“…Legal prohibitions restrict our options, though the law can also provide the institutional framework for new forms of agential possibilities (and so increases freedom). We could also consider how the law enters our reasoning (e.g., Ehrenberg 2013, 2015, 2016; Adams, 2021), and this could matter for whether the law counts as the source of our conduct.…”

From Fragmented Legal Order to Globalised Legal System: Towards a Framework of General Principles for the Consistency of International Law

“…Notice that the reason provided by lex specialis is a second-order reason (or a meta-reason) that affects how we should treat or respond to first-order reasons. Second-order reasons are reasons for (or against) φ-ing on account of a first-order reason in favour (or against) φ-ing (Adams 2021;Moreso 2023;Raz 2021). To put it another way, while first-order reasons are reasons to perform a specific action, second-order reasons guide how we should respond to those first-order reasons.…”

The Concept of Legitimacy

“…Law can declare entire practices illegal, i.e., there is no legal version of those practices, thereby instantiating a version of society where those practices do not exist or exist only in liminal forms.22 Choosing how to act all things considered is always a matter of choosing how to situate practices and the demands made on us in virtue of our roles. One way of conceptualizing this is with the notion of exclusionary reasons(Adams 2021).23 Thus, the gatekeeping account falls along similar lines to Buchanan's (2018) metacoordination view.Canadian Journal of Philosophy 391…”

“… 22 Choosing how to act all things considered is always a matter of choosing how to situate practices and the demands made on us in virtue of our roles. One way of conceptualizing this is with the notion of exclusionary reasons (Adams 2021). …”