The making/evidential reason distinction

Abstract

Stephen Kearns and Daniel Star have made the following interesting proposal concerning the relation between practical reasons and evidence (see, e.g. 2009: 216): Necessarily: A fact F is a reason for you to φ iff F is evidence that you ought to φ We're not sure about this. Although moving from left to right might be OK (on certain accounts of evidence and practical reasons it may be plausible to suppose that a reason for you to φ is evidence that you ought to), the converse is problematic. For example, the fact that your reliable friend told you that you have overriding moral reason to φ is evidence that you ought to φ. But, we think, this fact isn't a reason for you to φ in the relevant practical sense – rather it's an epistemic reason for you to believe that you have such a practical reason. Similarly, the fact that your reliable friend told you that it would be best to φ, although it is evidence that you ought to do so, is not a reason for you to φ in the relevant practical sense. Why not? Given that φ-ing would be best, the reasons for φ-ing are (roughly) the reasons that contribute positively to making φ-ing best; and the fact that your reliable friend told you that φ-ing would be best is not part of what makes it the case that it would be best to φ – rather, as above, this fact is an epistemic reason for you to believe that it would be best to φ.

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