The Formulation of Disjunctivism About φ-ing for a Reason

Abstract

Agents can act and hold attitudes (in general: ϕ) in response to facts they treat as normative reasons to do so. When they do, a rationalising explanation of why they ϕ can be provided using an instance of the following schema, where 'p' stands-in for the relevant fact: (¬ψ) S ϕs because p Agents can also ϕ under the impression that they are responding to a fact, even though they are not. When that's so, we cannot provide a rationalising explanation of why they ϕ using an instance of the (¬ψ) schema, but only by using an instance of the following schema: (ψ) S ϕs because S believes that p According to the Disjunctive View, there is an important sense in which the explanation providable using an instance of (¬ψ) is different from the explanation providable using a corresponding instance of (ψ): an explanation of the former variety is in some important sense available at all only if the relevant fact is on the scene. 1 According to the Common Kind View, the two explanations are the same, in the relevant sense. 2 * Ancestors of this paper were presented to audiences at the Universities of Warwick and Cardiff. I would like to thank those present for helpful feedback, objections, and suggestions for improvement. Particular thanks go to Matthew Soteriou, Johannes Roessler, Barnaby Walker, Guy Longworth, Maria Alvarez, and my anonymous referee at The Philosophical Quarterly whose very detailed feedback helped improve the paper immeasurably.