Abstract

The idea of a reason for acting is ubiquitous in philosophy, social science, and the law. When someone does something intentionally, we often want to know why they did it-what their reason for acting was (or, perhaps equivalently, their goal, intention, purpose, or motive for acting). In addition to asking what an agent's reason for acting was, we also ask whether their reason was a good one-whether their reason genuinely justified them in acting the way they did. Against contemporary orthodoxy, Reasons Last argues that these two concepts of reasons must be understood in relation to each other: there is a deep unity between the concepts of motivating reasons and normative reasons. This Unity Argument supports two novel theses. The first is the eponymous Reasons Last principle. Against to the recently fashionable Reasons First thesis, Asarnow argues that the idea of a reason for action comes last-or, at any rate, pretty far along-in the order of analysis. The second thesis is the Reasoning View about reasons for action. What makes something a reason for action-whether motivating or normative-is that it is a premise in a pattern of good reasoning of some kind. Reasons Last is the first book-length development of the Reasoning View, a theory which has been gaining currency over the last decade. It develops and responds to objections to the versions of the Reasoning View that Asarnow has defended in other publications.