ABSTRACT
The subject of this chapter is the ontology and typology of epistemic and non-epistemic reasons. The chapter sets out the distinction between normative reasons (roughly, good reasons for doing things) and motivating reasons (roughly, the reasons for which we do things) and argues that the same things must be able to play both of those roles. It argues for statism, or psychologism, about reasons in general, which is the view that reasons consist of mental states, such as beliefs and desires. The main alternative is propositionalism, or factism. The chapter argues against the popular “favouring” argument for propositionalism about reasons, as well as against Timothy Williamson’s arguments for propositionalism about evidence, and then offers a positive argument for statism.
The chapter then suggests that reasons can be divided in arbitrarily many different ways; that one of those ways is into reasons consisting of evidence for beliefs, and reasons which do not; and that we should divide epistemic and non-epistemic reasons simply by identifying epistemic reasons with evidential reasons. It concludes with an argument against the view that epistemic reasons should be identified with reasons for belief and non-epistemic reasons should be identified with reasons for action.
