One topic that exercises those who think about the interrelations between different normative concepts is the question whether one of these concepts is somehow basic, and if so which one. A concept might be normatively basic in either of two ways. We might be able to define all the other normative concepts in terms of it, but unable to define it in terms of others. In that case it would be definitionally basic. Alternatively, we might be able to understand the normativity of other normative concepts in terms of the normativity of the basic concept, but not vice versa. In this case it might be called normatively basic. The most plausible candidates for either of these roles are the concepts of ‘ought’ and of ‘reason’. Concentrating on the definitionally basic, theorists have been attracted by three different positions with respect to these two concepts. The first is that ‘ought’ is basic. The second is that ‘reason’ is basic. The third is that neither is uniquely basic; but these two concepts together form a local holism. What this means is that one cannot have either concept without also having the other, but that the two concepts are not interdefinable.
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