Periodic Reporting for period 1 - REASONS F1RST (The Structure of Normativity)
Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2025-03-31
Some of the core fields of philosophy – including moral philosophy, value theory, and epistemology – are, at their heart, concerned with normative questions: questions about what is good or bad, right or wrong, justified or unjustified. These questions concern the content of judgements that human beings are constantly making and that structure our way of thinking, feeling, and acting. But while there is wide agreement in contemporary philosophy that normative judgements form a unified and important category of human thought, philosophers still struggle to understand what normativity actually is. One highly attractive hypothesis is that normativity can be analysed in terms of reasons – i.e. in terms of the factors that count in favour of or against actions or attitudes. The aim of REASONS F1RST is to systematically explore this Reasons-First Approach on a large scale and across various philosophical subdisciplines. Fostering multidisciplinary conversations between moral philosophy, epistemology, value theory, aesthetics, the philosophy of emotions, and related areas, the project will develop novel analyses of normative phenomena. It also seeks to address recent challenges to the Reasons-First Approach and to compare it to competing approaches. REASONS F1RST thus pursues a twofold objective: (i) to assess the merits and demerits of the Reasons-First Approach compared to alternative proposals, and (ii) to work out in detail how different normative phenomena – including values, obligations and rights, the justification of beliefs, as well as appropriateness norms for emotions – can be explained in terms of reasons.
The work programme of REASONS F1RST is carried out in four work packages (WPs): (WP1) “Reasons and Value”; (WP2) “Reasons and Ought”; (WP3) “Reasons and Knowledge”; and (WP4) “Reasons and Fittingness”. Each of these WP focuses on the relation between reasons and one other key normative category. Each of these categories stands for a field of normativity that a Reasons-First Approach has to account for in one way or another, and each has been put forward as an alternative candidate for a fundamental explanation of normativity. Moreover, each WP corresponds to one (and in one case more than one) philosophical subdiscipline. For the first three WPs, these are value theory, moral theory, and epistemology. The fourth WP touches upon aesthetics, moral psychology, the philosophy of mind, and epistemology in equal shares.
The work programme of REASONS F1RST is carried out in four work packages (WPs): (WP1) “Reasons and Value”; (WP2) “Reasons and Ought”; (WP3) “Reasons and Knowledge”; and (WP4) “Reasons and Fittingness”. Each of these WP focuses on the relation between reasons and one other key normative category. Each of these categories stands for a field of normativity that a Reasons-First Approach has to account for in one way or another, and each has been put forward as an alternative candidate for a fundamental explanation of normativity. Moreover, each WP corresponds to one (and in one case more than one) philosophical subdiscipline. For the first three WPs, these are value theory, moral theory, and epistemology. The fourth WP touches upon aesthetics, moral psychology, the philosophy of mind, and epistemology in equal shares.
So far, the project has focused on work packages WP1 (“Reasons and Value”) and work package WP2 (“Reasons and Ought”). In addition, we have conducted research at the intersection between WP1 and WP3 (“Reasons and Knowledge”) as well as foundational research that concerns all four work packages. Within the first two years of the project, we have already achieved significant results. All research outputs (publications, works in progress, presentations and talks) are documented on our website (see https://thestructureofnormativity.net/output(opens in new window)).
We have also organized a workshop (“Reasons in Ethics and Epistemology”) and a conference (“Normative Reasons, Grounding and Explanation”) with a number of international experts on the project theme. Another workshop (“Rights and Reasons”) has been announced for January 2025. All project events are announced and documented on our website (see https://thestructureofnormativity.net/events(opens in new window)).
We have also organized a workshop (“Reasons in Ethics and Epistemology”) and a conference (“Normative Reasons, Grounding and Explanation”) with a number of international experts on the project theme. Another workshop (“Rights and Reasons”) has been announced for January 2025. All project events are announced and documented on our website (see https://thestructureofnormativity.net/events(opens in new window)).
A considerable number of our project results advance the research field beyond the state-of-the-art. These include:
1. An innovative theory of moral obligations, which explains such requirements in terms of reasons for actions and reasons for expectations.
2. The outline for a novel theory of moral rights, according to which such rights are reasons that prevent certain other competing reasons from aggregating.
3. A new account of right-making, according to which right-makers are facts that ground rightness by way of providing a normative reason.
4. New arguments against competitors to the Reasons-First approach, including the Value-First Approach, the Ought-First Approach and other approaches that take normative reasons to be explanations of normative facts.
5. A new argument for the buck-passing account of value, which explains value in terms of reasons.
Further research is necessary to substantiate and apply these results to other fields as well as to process work packages WP3 & WP4.
1. An innovative theory of moral obligations, which explains such requirements in terms of reasons for actions and reasons for expectations.
2. The outline for a novel theory of moral rights, according to which such rights are reasons that prevent certain other competing reasons from aggregating.
3. A new account of right-making, according to which right-makers are facts that ground rightness by way of providing a normative reason.
4. New arguments against competitors to the Reasons-First approach, including the Value-First Approach, the Ought-First Approach and other approaches that take normative reasons to be explanations of normative facts.
5. A new argument for the buck-passing account of value, which explains value in terms of reasons.
Further research is necessary to substantiate and apply these results to other fields as well as to process work packages WP3 & WP4.