On the Tightrope. The Normative Access in Practical Reality

Abstract

This paper presents an alternative account to the dichotomy between normative and motivating reasons. In Practical Reality (PR), Dancy argues that both types of reasons should be identified with external states of the agent —"identity thesis" (IT). There are two arguments in PR for the IT: one is based on an externalist interpretation of expressions like "A has a reason to x". The other is an indirect argument that claims that the ascription of reasons grounded on internal states cannot be central instances in normative explanations. Both arguments ignore a strong intuition: the "epistemic access". If this is a persuasive intuition, internal psychological states cannot be eliminated.