Abstract

"[R]easons for action must have their source in goals, desires, or intentions....[T]he possession of rationality is not sufficient to provide a source for relevant reasons,...certain desires, goals, or intentions are also necessary." ;So says Gilbert Harman. So say many other philosophers, from Aristotle to Hume to Harman and David Gauthier. To these many philosophers, this is a home truth, as obvious as the nose on your face. And yet as many philosophers---from the Stoics to Kant to Nagel and Korsgaard---reject this view, and could not find it more obviously false. Any disagreement of this nature, which forces the disputants to find arguments for claims that seem to them self-evident and undeniable, is likely to generate a long, complicated and nasty war. Fortunately for the world, already subject to more fundamentalist clashes than one cares to count, this particular war stays mostly on paper and inside the walls of the academy, without any literal casualties. ;In this dissertation, I join the ranks of those who oppose Harman and his compatriots. I bring what I believe is a new strategy to the field of engagement. The strategy involves two stages. First, we are to undertake a thorough examination of what our opponents mean when they say that goals, desires, or intentions are the "source" of reasons; no one has ever satisfactorily cashed in this metaphor, and I propose to do so. The second stage follows naturally from the first, for in seeing what our opponents mean, we see a crucial weakness in their position: their troops are mercenary, and can be recruited to our side. The second stage is this recruitment