Can Reasons Fundamentalism Answer the Normative Question?

Abstract

There is a reasonably well-known objection to metanormative realism, which Christine Korsgaard calls “The Normative Question” argument. Derek Parfit has a reply to this argument, and to similar arguments from Nowell-Smith, Hare, Gibbard, and Bernard Williams, in On What Matters. This chapter argues that the objection is a serious one. The first section sets out several versions of the objection and Parfit’s replies. The second section provides an interpretation of the objection and formulates it in a way that shows how the replies miss the point. The third section argues that the kernel of the problem lies in the question of how reasons, motivations, and rationality are connected: the critics who pressed the objection have illuminating explanations of this nexus, while Parfit’s realism apparently has none. The fourth section sketches further arguments that deepen the difficulty.

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