ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I recount how two views which it took me years to work up led me without further effort to see the possibility of a third. The first view is called the holism of reasons; this is the view that what is a reason in one case may be no reason in another. The second view is realism in the theory of motivation, that is, the view that the reason for which one acts need not be restricted to psychological facts about oneself, such as that one believes this and wants that, but can be such facts as that it is a fine sunny day or that she would like an ice-cream. The third view, whose possibility I only came later to see, is that, just like belief, an action can be the conclusion of reasoning and will be when one acts in the light of several considerations which combine to make a case for so acting. I think of this as a form of Aristotelianism in the theory of practical reasoning.
