Do You Have a Reason Only If You Want To?

The Onion Ring Problem

Max loves onion rings. The Alcove diner down the street serves them the size of doughnuts. For Max, the fact that the Alcove has those onion rings is a reason to go there. But his friend Caroline thinks onion rings are greasy and disgusting. Does Caroline also have a reason to go to the Alcove just because the onion rings are huge? Most of us would hesitate. She doesn’t want them. So it’s hard to see why she should go.

This little puzzle is not just about onion rings. It’s about whether any reason for doing something depends on what you want, or whether some reasons exist no matter what you feel. To think clearly about this, philosophers distinguish two very different ideas that both go by the name “reason.”

A normative reason is a consideration that counts in favor of doing something — it justifies the action. The onion rings being huge is a normative reason for Max. A motivating reason is what actually explains why someone did something — it’s the real psychological push. If Max’s mouth waters and he heads to the Alcove, the onion rings gave him a motivating reason.

The big question that divides philosophers: are normative reasons always tied to motivation? The view called reasons internalism (or just “internalism”) says yes. At its simplest, it claims that a normative reason for someone to act must be connected to that person’s motivations in some important way. The rival view, reasons externalism (“externalism”), denies this. Externalists argue that at least some normative reasons exist even if a person has no relevant desires or motivation at all.

What Counts as a Reason?

Internalism isn’t just one claim — it’s a family of related ideas. All of them say roughly: every reason for action must bear relation R to motivational fact M. Different internalists fill in R and M in different ways.

One of the oldest and most famous versions is the Humean Theory of Reasons, named after the philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) but not necessarily his exact view. It says: If there is a reason for someone to do something, then she must have some actual desire that would be served by doing it. And more than that — her reason exists because she has that desire. So Max’s reason to go to the Alcove comes from his desire for onion rings.

Other internalists don’t insist on an actual desire right now. Counterfactual versions say that you have a reason if, under some special conditions, you would be motivated or would desire something. These conditions might be perfect information, or being fully rational, or thinking clearly from your existing desires. Bernard Williams (1929–2003), a hugely influential internalist, argued that an agent has a reason only if she could, through sound deliberation from her current “motivational set” (her desires, projects, and loyalties), come to be motivated to do it.

Importantly, not all internalist views are equally strong. Some are so weak that they barely count. But the ones that cause real fireworks are those that make reasons depend on the agent’s actual psychology — her real desires.

The Hitler Puzzle

The reason internalism creates heated debate is because of a puzzle about morality. Think about an appalling historical action — for instance, Hitler ordering a brutal program of genocide. Most of us would say that what he did was morally wrong, period. And it was wrong for him no matter what he wanted, even if it served his twisted desires perfectly.

This idea is called Moral Absolutism: some actions are morally wrong for any agent, no matter what motivations and desires they have. Combined with Moral Rationalism — the claim that if an action is morally wrong for you, then you have a reason not to do it — we get a problem. If reasons internalism (like the Humean Theory) is true, then Hitler had a reason not to commit genocide only if he had some desire that would be served by not doing it. But if he had no such desire, then on that view he had no reason. And that seems to clash violently with Moral Absolutism and Moral Rationalism — two very appealing thoughts.

So we seem to face a forced choice: give up Moral Absolutism, give up Moral Rationalism, or give up this sort of reasons internalism. Most philosophers want to hang on to the idea that some acts are wrong for everyone, no matter what. That is why many reject the view that reasons always track actual desires. But internalists have strategies to respond, especially those who accept counterfactual versions that don’t tie reasons to the agent’s actual wants.

Would a Perfectly Rational You Want It?

To avoid the Hitler puzzle, some internalists propose that the relevant motivational condition is not about what you actually desire, but about what you would desire or be motivated to do if you were fully rational.

Christine Korsgaard (born 1952) argues that being practically rational requires thinking according to stable principles that give you a practical identity. If you’re rational, you will be motivated in certain ways. So you have a reason to do something if, under the condition of being fully rational, you would be motivated to do it. This is still internalism — it still links reasons to motivation — but the motivation is not tied to whatever desires you happen to have right now. Instead, it comes from a demand of rationality itself.

Michael Smith (born 1954) offers a different counterfactual. He says an agent has a reason to do A if, were a fully informed, perfectly rational version of her to survey her actual situation, that version would want her to do A. This is called the advice model. It gets around a problem called the conditional fallacy: some reasons exist only because you are not in the ideal condition. For example, an angry squash player might have a reason not to cross the court to shake hands because he might hit his opponent. A fully rational version of him wouldn’t need that reason. But Smith’s advice model says his better self would see his actual anger and advise him not to cross the court. So the reason survives.

These counterfactual versions try to preserve internalism while avoiding the Central Problem — but critics wonder whether the idealized self’s desires are really independent of the agent’s actual ones, and how we explain why they want anything at all.

If It Were About Beliefs…

Externalists often push an analogy. Normative reasons come in two types: practical reasons (for actions) and theoretical reasons (for beliefs). A theoretical reason to believe something is a fact that supports or justifies the belief. And here’s the crucial observation: most of us think reasons for belief don’t depend on our desires. If there is strong evidence that your friend borrowed your book, that’s a reason for you to believe she borrowed it — even if you really, really want to believe she didn’t. Believing against the evidence just because you wish it were otherwise is irrational.

If theoretical reasons are already external (not dependent on desires), why think practical reasons must be internal? Perhaps just as new experiences can reveal unknown reasons for belief, so too new experiences can reveal reasons for action we never desired. Externalists point out that we often think people have moral or prudential reasons they don’t yet care about — and that seems structurally similar.

Internalists have replies. They can argue that all belief ascription assumes a background desire for truth, so even theoretical reasons are internal at a deep level. Or they can claim that belief and action are fundamentally different: belief aims at truth, while action aims at desire-satisfaction. The debate remains open, but the analogy puts pressure on internalists to explain what’s so special about actions.

Why This Fight Matters

At the heart of the debate lies a very ordinary human practice: blame. When someone does something wrong — say, a classmate spreads a cruel rumor — we blame him. Blame, many philosophers argue, involves the judgment that the person had a reason not to do what he did. But if his actual desires gave him no such reason, then (on a strict internalist view) maybe we cannot fairly blame him. That would force us to rethink our everyday moral reactions.

Bernard Williams, the prominent internalist, thought blaming could still work — sometimes by actually creating a reason for the wrongdoer. Blame itself might act as a pressure that makes him care about others’ respect, giving him an internal reason he lacked before. But many find this instrumental view of blame uncomfortable: if he still doesn’t care, can we really say he deserved to be blamed? Something deeper about worth and responsibility seems to be missing.

The externalist camp finds this a powerful argument: because we do hold people responsible regardless of their desires, we’re already committed to the existence of external reasons. The internalist camp sees the very messiness of blame — that it sometimes generates reasons, sometimes just expresses them — as evidence that reason and motivation cannot be cleanly separated.

So the puzzle returns to you. Next time you think someone “should have known better,” you’re taking a stand in a philosophical dispute. You’re either assuming that the reason was there all along, waiting for them to notice — or that it only becomes fully real once it could genuinely move them.

Think about it

1. Imagine someone who feels no sympathy and doesn’t care about being a good person. Could it still be true that she should help a friend in need? Why or why not?
2. If a future computer could predict every choice you’ll ever make based on your brain’s wants, would it still be fair to blame you for bad decisions?
3. Think of a time you didn’t want to do something but felt you had a reason anyway. What made that reason feel real — and where did it come from?