Reasons First

Abstract

This chapter extends the buck-passing account of value and morality motivated and defended in the rest of the book to provide an account of all of practical normativity in terms of reasons. In doing so, this chapter argues that accounts of what it is to be a normative reason in terms of ought, evidence of what ought to be done, being good as a basis, and fittingness, should be rejected; and that ought and fittingness should instead be analysed in terms of reasons. So this chapter argues that reasons are more fundamental than oughts and fittingness. The combination of the view that reasons are the most basic normative property in terms of which other normative properties can be analysed and the buck-passing accounts of value and morality in terms of reasons provides an illuminating and fruitful account of all of practical normativity in terms of reasons. This chapter shows how the case for the buck-passing account of value and morality can be extended to make a case for a reasons-first or reasons fundamentalist account of practical normativity.