Reason and Love: a non-reductive analysis of the normativity of agent-relative reasons

Why do agent-relative reasons have authority over us, reflective creatures? Reductive accounts base the normativity of agent-relative reasons on agent-neutral considerations like ‘having parents caring especially for their own children serves best the interests of all children’. Such accounts, however, beg the question about the source of normativity of agent- relative ways of reason-giving. The aim of this paper is to provide for a non-reductive account of the reflective necessity of agent-relative concerns. Korsgaard’s account relates the rational binding force of agent-relevant concerns to the various identities or self-conceptions under which we value ourselves. The problem is that it is not clear why such self-conceptions would necessitate us rationally, given the fact that we are simply landed with most of our identities. More helpful is Harry Frankfurt’s idea that we are not only necessitated by reason, but also, and predominantly by what we love. I argue, however, that “the necessities of love” (in Frankfurt’s phrase) are not to be separated from, but should be seen as belonging to the necessities of reason. Our loves, concerns and related identities provide for a specific and important structure to practical reflection. They function on the background of reasoning, having a specific default role: they would loose their character as agent-relative concerns if there was a need for them cited on the foreground of deliberation or if there was a need to justify them. This does not mean that agent-relative concerns cannot be scrutinised. They can only be scrutinised in an indirect way, however, which explains their role in grounding the normativity of agent-relative reasons.