Darwall on Action and the Idea of a Second-Personal Reason
Draft - July 2012
(Fabian Börchers)
Stephen Darwall’s “The Second-Person Standpoint” is probably the most influential of a
number of publications by different authors that have brought the topic of “the second person”,
i.e. of the logically peculiar relationship in which a subject can stand to another subject, to the
fore in recent analytic philosophy. 1 Among these publications Darwall’s book is inter alia
noteworthy for binding the importance of “the second person” exclusively and tightly to the
area of practical philosophy. That is, whereas other philosophers who work on this topic find
“second-personal” phenomena in various areas of what is commonly called “theoretical
reason” (most prominently in the acquisition of knowledge through testimony), Darwall
claims that the reference to another person is of fundamental importance only when we
confine our attention to the sphere of rational human action. Only in the field of action is it the
case that the demands of another person can establish the ultimate ground of what can count
as rational behaviour in a given situation; and only when we see that this can be the case –
that what it is rational to do can rest on what another person expects or demands from us – can
we understand what is traditionally understood to be the core of practical human conduct:
rational moral action. The device of which Darwall most centrally makes use in his argument
is the idea of a second-personal reason: A reason which I have for doing something that is
given to me by another person and that cannot be reduced to any person-neutral “thirdpersonal” fact of what a situation demands from me.
In this paper I try to question the exclusive connection between philosophical questions
concerning the second person and practical reason in the way Darwall in which draws it.
More particularly, I will argue that Darwall’s argument works with a philosophical framework
which forces him to distinguish kinds of reason only by their source and not by their
“structure” (or in other words: that he lacks the idea of a form of reason). Given this
framework, reasons in themselves seem to be generally the same and are only differentiated
into different kinds by external criteria (by whom they are given to us). If you think of reasons
this way, I am going to argue, neither will you be able to really grasp the difference between
first- and second-personal rational relationships nor the difference between theoretical and
practical exercises of reason. But if you drop this framework and replace it with something
1
Others beeing e.g. Moran (2005), Ripstein (2009), Thompson (2004), Weinrib (1995).
1
else, the floor is open for a far greater variety of second-personal rationality than Darwall
seems willing to accept (the unity and form of which would still have to be elucidated).2
2. Darwall’s motive for making a rigorous distinction between the realm of the theoretical and
the realm of the practical when it comes to the possibility of genuinely second-personal
rationality can be summarized like this:
Thinking and acting are both normatively oriented forms of conduct. In both thought and in
action we try to get things right. In this, thought and action are different from other forms of
behaviour or going-ons that can be attributed to us as human beings (reflexes, lower bodily
functions) or maybe to animals. Now, in thought getting things right means exactly one thing:
To come to believe what really is the case. Regardless of through which of the acceptable
ways one arrives at a given belief, may it be via sense perception, logical inference or
testimony, in the end there is just one criterion of correctness and that is the fact in question.
The world always has the last word about correctness of belief – and because this is so, one in
principle can always test the information which one attains through another person by thirdpersonal inquiry, for instance by checking whether the informant stands in the right relations
to the facts. On might put this train of thought like this: In theoretical thought the channels
through which I attain the knowledge I have may involve other persons, whereas the source of
that knowledge must always be the world itself.3 Or as Darwall has it: In thought, reasons can
only be “superficially second-personal”, they are not “second-personal all the way down”. At
the bottom there is always a third personal-reason.4
In the practical sphere however, says Darwall, things are different. Here, another person may
not only be a channel through which I derive a reason but the source of the reason itself. One
can see this when one regards moral philosophers’ favourite examples like treading on
another person’s foot or promising. When I have given you a promise, I have a reason to keep
2
Basic ideas of this paper show a certain similarity to a number of related points Jay Wallace has risen in his
comment on Darwall in “Reasons, Relations, and Commands: Reflections on Darwall” (Ethics 118 (October
2007), 24-36). This is no coincidence as the reading of Wallace text helped me to focus on certain aspects in
“The Second-Person Standpoint” that didn’t deem me entirely satisfactory. However, I am far from sure that the
diagnosis I give of certain structural shortcomings of Darwall’s in terms of the form-content distinction will find
Wallace’s applause. I will briefly come back to Wallace’s paper and a reply of Darwall’s to it at the end of this
essay.
3
Darwall himself uses the notion of a (second-personal) source of a reason (cf. i.e. Darwall 2006 p5 where he
introduces the idea of a second-personal reason). In evaluating the picture that is in play in this way of talking I
have added the corresponding notion of a channel. I believe it captures quite well some ideas of Darwall’s
argument (not all of the ideas of Darwall’s book as there are strong pulls into a more relational picture aswell as
we will see).
4
Cf. p57. More precisely, Darwall writes that in testimony the authority of the one who testifies is not “all the
way down” but since for Darwall the notions of authority and second-personal reason are interdefined the result
is that there can’t be all the way down second-personal reasons as well.
2
it not because there is now a person-neutrally measurable fact in the world which I would
have to take into account but because you can demand it from me. It is your demand backed
by the moral authority you have as the addressee of my promise that gives me the reason I
have (after all you are the one who can release me of it). Likewise, you can give me a special
sort of reason to take my foot from yours by addressing me with this demand, a reason that is
quite different from a reason which can be formulated in terms of person-neutral facts (i.e.
that it is bad if my foot is in that position) which I might have without your address. Both
these reasons would not exist were it not for your authority and demand; they spring into life
through the stance which you take in respect to me. Or in other words: They are ultimately
given to me by you and not by “the world” at large or “the facts” – where the facts don’t
involve a doing or attitude of yours.5
These considerations (and the by far more elaborated characterisations Darwall gives in the
first two Chapters of his book) are meant to lend some prima-facie plausibility to the claim
that you can differentiate reasons according to their source: whether they are derived from the
world or from another person. In Chapter 11 Darwall reinforces this appeal to our differential
intuition with a more technical explanation of the same difference by means of the traditional
notions of the true and the good: That the only standard of correctness of our theoretical belief
is the actual beschaffenheit of the world is caught by the widely accepted idea that there exists
a fundamental relationship between belief and truth. Some attitude only counts as a belief if it
is oriented to truth, and this just means: if it aims to belief what is really the case. That,
however, in action we can have reasons of a different sort (and source), according to Darwall,
denies two things: First, of course, that action as such is in the same way oriented to truth.
Second (and a little more surprisingly) that the idea, held in some branches of our
philosophical tradition, that there must be a parallel relationship between action and the good
must be false as well. Because if there were such a fundamental relationship between a
unitary aim and action as such we could not understand how in action there could be different
kinds of reasons, namely at least third and second-personal reasons.
3. Before we go more deeply into the way in which Darwall works out the difference between
third and second-personal reasons by means of the true and the good, notice that in the
preceding summary of (some aspects of) Darwall’s position two different distinctions are
drawn into operation.
5
In this formulation already lurks the devil that will spring at us in §9.
3
On the one hand there is the distinction between third and second-personal reasons. Here
“reason” is meant to denote something like an individual entity to which one refers in
sentences, frequently used in current philosophical debates, like “the reason for which I acted
is this:…” or maybe “A practical reason is constituted by a belief and a desire”.
On the other hand there is the distinction between the spheres of theoretical and practical
reason. Here “reason” rather means something like the capacity to engage into a certain kind
of behaviour – thought and action – which is characteristic for human beings and
fundamentally different from what i.e. animals exhibit.6
These two distinctions at least appear to be situated on different levels: Within each of the two
capacities (or maybe just different modes of exercise of one capacity) the question seems to
be open whether there are several kinds or is just one kind of reason available which then give
or gives rise to the exercise of the capacity. Within the capacity of theoretical reason there
happens to be just one kind of reason (namely to belief whatever the world dictates is true).
Within the capacity of practical reason the situation is more complex as there seem to be both
third- and second-personal practical reasons available. But in the case of both capacities there
is at least the logical space for the distinction between different kinds of reasons – should
there be more then one kind or not.
On first sight this seems to be just what Darwall has in mind: Theoretical exercises of reason
are guided only by what the world gives me reason to belief. In the practical case I have to
distinguish between those actions which are done for the reason that someone demands them
from me (as is the case when I take my foot from yours because you told me so) and those
which I do because the world kind of demands them from me because they help to accomplish
an agent-neutral standard of goodness (like, as Darwall’s example goes, when I take my foot
from yours – not because you told me so but because I see the pain in your eyes; or, for that
matter, when I take my foot of the tail of an animal or the blossom of a rare flower). The first
kind of action might be called moral, the second maybe utilitarian. 7 Practical Reason is
therefore special in that there are different kinds of reasons with different sources available
and this circumstance can therefore be used to “single out” practical reason but this singling
This distinction is more easily made in German where reason in the first sense translates as „Grund“, reason in
the second sense as „Verstand“ or „Vernunft“. But the fact that there are translations at hand for these two terms
which I coin (I hope) in a Darwallian spirit doesn’t mean that the interpretation I have given to the first sense of
reason is correct. In fact part of the aim of this paper is to raise some doubts about the very idea of a reason
which you can examine in isolation in the way you could examine a single material object.
7
Darwall draws the distinction between consequentialist conceptions of morality which only accept thirdpersonal practical reasons and Darwall’s own conception which sees the moral character of morality in the
second-personal quality of moral reasons (cf. p280-286, cf. also chapters 4 and 5).
6
4
out would not be the same as drawing the distinction between the theoretical and the practical.
Rather it would be making use of a handy characteristic mark or sign.
But already the characterization of Darwall’s position that I gave in the preceding section
indicates that with Darwall things are not this simple. For in Darwall there is also a tendency
to equate the distinction between the theoretical and the practical with the distinction between
third-personal and second-personal reasons. This tendency is located in Darwall’s talk of
third-personal practical reasons as given by (evaluative) facts (just as third-personal
theoretical reasons are given by non evaluative facts) and it comes to the fore more obviously
in his introduction of the idea of a second-personal reason where he claims in a Fichtean spirit
that in giving these reasons one person works directly on the will of another person whereas
in pointing out a third-personal reason to another person one is directing the other
“epistemically rather than practically albeit on a question of practical reason.”8 Here the idea
is that with third personal reasons one must see a fact that is there anyway. This fact is
somehow of practical relevance – it gives you a practical reason – but ones relationship with it
is of epistemic, and that means: theoretical, character.
These two tendencies in Darwall appear to lie in conflict with each other: If third-personal
reasons were per se theoretical rather than practical how could there be third-personal
practical reasons (as Darwall claims there are)? The matter will become clearer when we get
to grips with the explanation that Darwall gives of his distinctions by means of the
philosophical notions of truth and goodness. In fact it will turn out that a certain conception of
how belief is connected to truth forces Darwall to regard what he calls third-personal practical
reasons rather as a kind of theoretical reasons (although he doesn’t want to say precisely this)
and therefore to misconceive the difference between theoretical and practical reason
altogether. But to show this takes some care and attention. For in order to understand the way
in which Darwall frames what he thinks is a fundamental disanalogy between the theoretical
and the practical we first have to understand how the general framework works that is in play
when he describes the characteristic of rational activities. Following Darwall’s own
methodology we can see this when we have a closer look at the theoretical case first.
4. That there is an intimate relation between belief (or judgement) and truth is a view widely
shared among philosophers: Someone, to give a very casual gloss of this idea, only counts as
8
Cf p 6f. To be fair, Darwall writes that in the case of pointing out third personal reasons (like groaning in order
to give you a reason to take your foot of mine) the situation is “structurally analogous” to the “purely epistemic
case” (and not identical) (p.5). However, the character of this analogy has still to be worked just as the role of the
“purely” in the given quotation.
5
believing something if he believes it to be true. Consequently, what it means to belief
something is bound to truth as its peculiar standard: A belief can only be a right or a correct
belief if it is a true belief. The nature of this intimate relationship, however, is spelled out
quite differently by different theoreticians. Darwall’s own account of this matter is derived
from David Velleman.9 According to their view, truth is the “substantive aim” of belief.10
That truth is the substantive aim of belief means that it is not the formal aim. To show what
this contrast is meant to capture, Velleman uses the example of competitive games: When
taking part in such a game, the formal aim of your doings can be specified as “winning”.
What it means to win something, on the other hand, just is what we aim for in a competitive
game, so that as an aim it can be specified, as Velleman has it, “solely in terms of, or in terms
that depend on, the very concept of being the object of that enterprise [of taking part in a
competitive game].” But for the same reason pointing out the formal aim of an activity to
someone is not a very informative move. To know that you have to win does not tell you
anything more than that you are taking part in a game. It doesn’t help you to figure out what
to do. For that you need to know something more substantive, e.g. that checkmating the
opponent’s king does count as winning. Accordingly, argues Velleman, every activity that has
a formal aim does also need a substantive aim for otherwise there would be nothing that
would count as a formal goal.
Now, as I have said, both Velleman and Darwall regard truth as the substantive goal of the
activity of thought rather than as its formal goal. Why is this so? Darwall puts it like this:
Cf. Darwall p279, Vellemans account is developed in “The Possibility of Practical Reason”, reprinted in
Velleman 2000, 170-199.
10
Darwall p279. Velleman actually doesn’t talk of “the substantial aim“ but of a “more substantive aim” in
comparison to the formal aim. The technical term that Velleman uses for truth rather is “the constitutive aim” of
belief. The difference in terminology between Velleman and Darwall turns into a difference in analysis when we
turn to practical reason. Velleman, unlike Darwall who beliefs that there can be different substantial aims of
action, thinks that there is a constitutive aim of action, as well (although both agree in their opposition to
Aristotelian thinkers in claiming “the good” cannot be action’s constitutive aim).
This difference between their accounts of practical reasons is more important than Darwall seems to belief (in
fact he does not mention it). In Velleman’s account, the whole layout of his theory of more substantive and
formal aims serves the purpose of preparing the ground for his particular view of practical reason. This is the
view that what elevates human action from animal behaviour is not a categorically different aim or attitude but
just an ordinary aim, which in itself is not different from any aim an animal could have, but the presence of
which just is what turns mere animal behaviour into action and therefore is constitutive of action. That is the aim
of understanding what one is doing (or to do what one beliefs one will be doing). The core of Velleman’s theory
of practical reason is that we are not fundamentally different from animals but just have one more aim that feeds
back into our practical deliberations and by that means makes our behaviour special. In order to formulate this
difference the central aim of human action must not be situated on a formal level (which, as we will see, amounts
to saying that the way actions aim at something is different from the way animals aim at something). Therefore,
Velleman must argue that for instance “the good” is no formal aim of action and, as a preparation for that thesis
that truth is not the formal aim of belief. Darwall does not share Velleman’s view of practical reason – so it is not
obvious why he should buy in his way of drawing the distinction between formal and substantive aims of
thought and action.
9
6
“What makes truth, or believing only truth, a substantive aim of belief is that satisfying it is
conceptually distinguishable from satisfying belief’s (explicitly normative) formal aim: being
what one should believe […]. ‘What should I believe?’ is a different question from ‘what is
true’?”11
The formal aim of belief is merely to believe what one should belief or, as he writes a bit
earlier, what one has reason to believe. This might sound odd. After all, is to ask what is true
about a certain subject-matter really a different question from the question what I believe
about it? Of course there is the difference in the words used but can that difference qualify the
sense of the questions to be different? Let’s try to understand what Darwall has in mind. The
idea of his way of talking appears to be the following: Thought, as everyone agrees, is a
rational activity. Its defining characteristic is that it is guided by reasons (rather than caused
by non rational impulses). Since this is what makes it different from other doings, a merely
formal characterization, that is a characterization only in terms of what defines thought, can
only be: to think as I should in order to think rationally, and that is: in order to belief things in
accordance with my reasons to belief. Any further characterization of what exactly it takes to
do this would give a characterization that does not live up to the standard of formality, it
would have to tell me something further (answer a different question) and therefore would
have to be substantial. It would have to tell me what it means to believe as I should or as I
have reason to believe. It would have to give an explanation of the idea of believing for a
reason.
If this really is the idea at work in the passage that I have quoted, the difference between a
formal and substantive aim relies on the sense of “explanation” that is involved here, i.e. on
the relevant sense of what it means, in this particular case, to give some further information in
order to classify the aim of belief. At this point, at least for heuristic purposes, Velleman’s
introductory examples, the formal and substantial aim of playing a game and of hunting,
should come of use. Just in the way in that you say something more substantive than simply
that you should aim to win a competitive game when you give the further information that in
this particular game winning the game consists in checkmating the opponent’s king (or that in
this particular hunt you should aim at shooting the fox), you should be saying something more
substantive than merely that you should believe what you should believe when you explain
that in this particular case of rational activity you should believe what is true.
But the analogy doesn’t seem to work. In fact, it doesn’t fit at both ends:
11
Darwall p279.
7
First, the characterization of the formal aim of a belief as to believe what one should believe
seems to be more anaemic than the instruction that in playing a competitive game you should
aim at winning. In the latter case, there is something you can learn through this information –
it helps you to understand what a competitive game is. But does the instruction help in the
former case? What if we said that the formal aim of playing a competitive game is to do what
you should be doing in playing a competitive game? That would be silly. So why should it not
be silly to say the same thing in the case of belief (it certainly sounds a bit silly!)? In the spirit
of the understanding of the distinction between “formal” and “substantive” which appears to
be in play here, one might say that compared to the formal aim of competitive games, the
formal aim of belief is just a bit too formal (i.e. useless).
Second, the substantive characterization of the aim of belief seems to be less substantive than
the substantive characterization of a given game. To know that I have to checkmate the
opponent’s king helps me to understand what playing chess is about. It gives some order to all
the moves which I might have learned before. It partly teaches me how to play a particular
game. In comparison, to be told to aim at truth doesn’t help me in the same way to know what
I am on about in believing something. That is something which I should have known from the
very beginning or I could never have understood the instruction that I was given (and a way to
see this is that there appears to be no room for different kinds of belief in the way there is
room for different games).
Both shortcomings of the analogy point in the same direction: Truth appears to be less than a
substantive goal of thought and seems to be more like a characterization that is in play insofar
one can think at all (i.e. a formal characterization), whereas “to believe what one should”
appears to be less than a formal aim but rather seems to be a tautology that is not elucidative
of anything. Up to this point, given the introduction of the terminology of formal and
substantive aims that we have found in Velleman, Darwall’s view that truth defines the
substance of the rational activity of thought is still puzzling. We still have to understand the
deeper motive of this claim.
A possible answer (not explicitly endorsed by Darwall or Velleman) which one might wish to
give to both these objections is that the reason for what looks like a disanalogy here just is
that figuring out what to believe is a more general normative attitude than playing a game (in
fact, to use a phrase which Frege once coined, it might be the most general of these attitudes).
To think just is to figure out the reasons for believing anything (and not just something about
games) so to figure out reasons as such. Therefore, the formal aim of thought must be to think
what one has reason to think which just is to think what one should think. And, likewise,
8
because thought is the most general normative activity the substantive aim of thought must be
the most general of substantive aims, too, and so it looks less informative than the very
particular game of playing chess, but this is so because the aim of belief is so grand rather
than because it is so shallow.
However, this answer would not work. The difference between thought considered as such
and thought involved in certain areas (e.g. games) is not a matter of generality. Believing is
not, so to speak, the most general of all games, the aim of belief not the most general of all
aims. It is not so that in thought about certain subject-matters there are certain specific aims
which are more particular versions of the grand overarching aim of finding truth. Rather, as
Frege already noted (though he struggled with this insight), truth-directedness is what is
involved in all kinds of judgements – neither in the sense of a hidden aim that is added to the
aim of thinking correctly about whatever subject matter on is judging about, nor as a more
general description of the specific epistemological aim that one has but insofar as it
characterises what a judgement is, what it means to have an aim in this “epistemological”
sense at all.12 When I figure out what to belief about the health of the flower on the window
sill, I do not have the aim to be informed about exactly this and to hit the truth about it. Nor
am I in aiming to know something about the poor delicate little thing aiming at a particular
instance of truth in general. Rather I aim to know something about a particular content and the
character of this “aiming-to-know” can be elucidated by the use of the word truth. This
elucidation is not giving the aim further substance, it qualifies the relevant sense of “aiming”
and thereby clarifies what it means to have a substantial aim in ones beliefs. What is true is
not a further question to ask when I wonder what I should belief but merely an elucidation of
what this question is about. It is already contained in the question what I should belief.
All this should give at least prima facie support to the idea that the “truth” if it is an aim of
belief at all, should rather be considered as its formal aim than as anything substantive, that it
is, if the analogy can be made to work at all, much closer to “winning” in playing a game than
to checkmating the opponents king. But so far, these considerations are just a detour. We have
to closer look at Darwall’s own explanation of his view that truth should be regarded as a
substantial aim rather than as a formal aim.
5. Even if considerations about the generality of truth (the sense in which all beliefs are aimed
at truth) are a detour, they become helpful when we regard the further explanation which
Darwall in fact gives about why the question “what is true?” is a different question from
12
Cf Frege Der Gedanke and „Meine Grundlegenden logischen Einsichten“ (in Nachgelassene Schriften Bd.1)
9
“what should I believe?” Here are Darwall’s words from the paragraph that directly follows
the last quotation:
“Trivially, we should believe, whatever would satisfy belief’s formal aim, just as, trivially, we
should do whatever we should do, hence whatever would satisfy action’s formal aim. But
with belief we can say something more substantive owing to the nature of belief. Belief is the
mental state of representing the way things are with the aim of getting it right, that is aiming
to represent things as they actually are or to belief only truths. Consequently, that we should
belief only what is true […] follows from the nature of belief. True beliefs are correct, where
being correct is conceptually distinct from being true. If someone makes a counterfactual
supposition just to see what would follow from it, it is a bad joke to say that his supposition is
mistaken or incorrect.”13
Now it becomes clearer how truth can be a more substantive aim: It is the step from the trivial
to what lies in the nature of belief. This sounds very close to what we have argued for in the
preceding section so that one might assume that what is going on is merely a battle for words.
Darwall just uses “substantial” as we would use “formal” (regardless of how Velleman
introduced the term): as marking the character of belief as such. But since this idea can again
be spelled out in different ways, the closeness is only apparent. This comes to the fore in the
second half of the quotation. Here what makes truth as the aim of belief substantial is
explained through the difference between a (full fledged) belief and a (mere) supposition:
Both are in some respect the same but have different standards of correctness. They are the
same because both are representing something as true. They are different because only belief
aims at hitting the true and so only belief can be called correct or incorrect in dependence of
whether it does so or not. The difference results from something additional that is present in
belief, a very special aim of its own. Because this aim is special it is substantive – only
through this aim is belief marked out in a class of truth directed attitudes. Therefore it this aim
that can instruct you what to do in order to belief, even if you already know what it means to
be truth-directed in the relevant sense and therefore it can count as a substantive aim: “You
know to what it means to form ideas about the world – today you will learn what it takes to
believe: try to get your ideas to fit!”
Of course, in this explanation everything relies on that you can actually understand what a
truth-directed attitude in the relevant sense is before you understand what it means to aim at
hitting the truth (otherwise there would be no step to substance involved but rather the
learning of a form). And this again, as Velleman in his dealing with the topic explicitly
13
Darwall p279f. There is just one sentenced left out in which Darwall merely draws the conclusion that
10
recognizes, means that there must also be a belief-independent understanding of what truth
is.14You need both a sense of the activity of representation that does not already involve a
normative standard of correctness and a non-normative understanding of truth15 so that when
you add the further and therefore substantive aim to aim at truth in your representation you
gain the normatively guided activity of believing something. The general picture that is
expressed in these claims is this: There are a number of different states or minds or activities
which all have in common that they give a representation of the world. That is, they all give a
certain content which at the same time they present as true – but without actually caring if it
really is true. Darwall has the example of a supposition: When we suppose something to be
true we regard it as true but don’t endorse (yet) that it really is or must be true. Likewise,
Velleman gives the example of a fantasy: If we fantasize something to be true we fantasize
something as true (it is not that in our fantasy we would regard it as false) but, of course, since
we only entertain a fantasy we don’t aim at getting the fantasy “right” (there would be no use
of fantasies if we had to do that!).16 So since we can understand what it means for a mental
state to represent the world as true without taking care that we correctly represent it as true,
this taking care must add something new that is independent from “representing as true” and
this new element is the substantive character of belief.
Yet, there is something curious about these formulations. For what is it that enters when we
step from supposition or fantasy to belief? According to what Darwall says it’s the aim of
getting it right. But isn’t this aim already present in supposition or fantasy? Both are said to
present something as true. But, Velleman and Darwall add, they do so without aiming to be
really true to the facts. But how can you represent something as true without aiming to be true
to the facts? One immediate answer would be that you can do this by not being serious about
what you represent. But this answer, though it seems right, works exactly the other way round
than any answer Darwall or Velleman would have to give. For seriousness is nothing you add
to an activity that is perfect in itself. Rather seriousness is inherent in any full account of a
given activity. It is the lack of seriousness that has to be explained in an additional step.
Certainly, you can do something without doing it seriously (“in play”, say or “kidding” or
“just to get an idea of it”) but what you do can only be understood as a secondary enterprise,
depending conceptually of what it would mean to do what you are doing in earnest.
14
Cf. Velleman pxy.
Darwall p280: „Thus, from the fact that it is not logically open to ask without conceptual confusion, ‚I grant
that p ist rue, but is there any reason to believe that p?’ it would be a mistake to conclude that truth is a
normative concept […]. What closes the question is […] what we noted above about the concept of belief. We
simply don’t count a way of representing or regarding p as true as a belief that p, unless it is a species of
representing or regarding with the aim of so representing p only if p.”
16
Cf Velleman p183.
15
11
Accordingly, you cannot understand belief as a kind of fantasy plus added seriousness. Rather
you have to understand fantasy as a variety of idle belief. Turning back to the formulations of
supposition and fantasy given above, you can make this dependency on belief explicit by
saying that in fantasy or in a supposition something is represented not as true but as if it were
true. But in saying this you deny that anything substantive is added to a supposition when it is
turned into belief. There is no extra substantive aim but “representation as true” is exercised
in its primary mode i.e. in the mode that defines what we mean by “saying how it is”.
This takes us back to the brief remarks on Frege’s dealing with the concept of truth: Frege
famously introduced the notion of the “assertive force” with which a judgement is made and
which differentiates it from (among other things) a mere assumption. This idea is meant to
rule out that judgment adds content to what is judged: When one judges one does not add a
special predicate to the thought entertained, namely “is true”.17 Rather, the claim to truth is
inherent in any thought qua being a thought (it lies, as Frege puts it “in the form of an
assertive sentence”)18. In this sense, as we argued above, truth-directedness cannot be part of
the content of judgement or a thought but must be a formal characteristic of what it is. If
judgement (or belief) has truth as its substantive goal it cannot be so through the content of
what is judged or believed. But, as the considerations of this section illustrate, Frege must at
the same time deny that the assertive force adds any substantive goal to mere assumption. For
if it did one would have to be able to spell out what is aimed at in judgement and here one
could only say that it takes the though it entertains seriously. But this is no substantive
characterization of assertive force but simply the formal characterisation of what it means to
entertain a thought in its full sense: one seriously thinks what one thinks in a thought. This
would go against Frege’s teachings if this meant that in a supposition there would have to be
less than a thought (half a thought, maybe) but this is exactly not right: In an assumption one
forcefully withholds the full exercise of the capacity to judge.19 This is what is meant in not
being entirely serious about the thought: The content of the thought is there but in secondary
sense. It is there, maybe provisionally, as if it were true.
If this is right, then Darwall’s and Velleman’s claim that there is something substantive to say
about belief that singles it out from other truth directed attitudes cannot be right. Rather, there
17
Frege: Der Gedanke px, Funktion und Begriff py. Thomas Ricketts give a helpful interpretation of this aspect
of Frege’s thinking in Ricketts (1986) and Ricketts (1996).
18
Frege: Der Gedanke px.
19
In a number of places Frege’s own formulations suggest a reading according to which grasping a thought and
judging are independently conceivable steps (cf. e.g. Der Gedanke px, …). That this is not the most fruitful way
of reading his distinctions (even if, from time to time, Frege might have endorsed it himself) does not only
follow from systematic considerations which respect the fundamental status Frege gives to judgement (cf. here
again Ricketts 1986) but is indicated in a formulation which he uses in his late “Meine grundelgenden logischen
Einsichten”: [Ein Gedanke muss aus einem Urteil herausgeschält werden].
12
is something to say about truth-directed attitudes that are not beliefs. What there is to say
about belief in order to show that it is by its nature, as Darwall aptly puts it, truth-directed is
nothing that could be explained by an aim over and above serious representation. What is left
to do is to give an elucidation of what we mean by being truth directed, that is an elucidation
of the form of belief.
If these considerations are correct, they are of double relevance for our enterprise of
understanding Darwall’s distinction between third- and second-personal reasons. First, they
show that truth is the formal aim of belief rather than its substantive aim and that will be of
importance when we turn to the way in which Darwall draws the distinction between
theoretical and practical reason. Second, it shows in Darwall’s book (following Velleman)
there is a misconception at work about what a formal charactarization of exercises of reason
might be. Darwall draws the contrast between a formal and a substantive characterization of
exercises of reason as that between a mere tautology (to do what one has reason to do) and
that of a composition of a more general attitude or activity and an additional aim. For Darwall,
it seems that any explanation of what it means to have a reason must be substantive in this
way: it must isolate an independently intelligible element that lends the rationality to the
composed attitude (representation + aim to get it right) by having as its content what should
formally characterise the rational attitude in its nature.20
6. When Darwall turns to practical reason, the main area of interest for his purposes, he uses
his very brief account of theoretical reason for the elucidation of a disanology between these
two areas of reason. In practical reason, he claims, there is no simple analogue to the
substantive aim of thought (i.e. truth). This is so because in practical reason we cannot simply
derive our reasons from one single source that would be analogous to the world. His argument
goes like this:
20
This is all more explicit in Velleman: As noted above (fn 10) and in analogy to his view of practical reason,
Velleman calls the substantive aim of belief its “constitutive aim”. His idea is this: It is exactly this aim what
makes a belief into a belief. Whereas we can all hold things to be true in various kinds of activities, we become
believers in this activities when an extra aim is added, namely to hold only true what is really true, which
therefore is constitutive of belief and theoretical rationality in general. Both representation and the constitutive
aim taken on its own are subrational – only in their combination do they turn us into rational animals. Again as
noted above, in Velleman, this composite-view partly serves the purpose of providing a basis for a neat analogy
to his conception of practical reason. Darwall follows Velleman in the theoretical case but not in the practical –
partly because he wants to deny that there is one substantive goal in action which is meant to give room to the
idea of acting on the reason that you tell me to do so. This might be the reason why Darwall drops the notion of a
constitutive aim. But although he drops the idea of the constitutive aim of practical reason the general outline of
his account of an exercise of reason remains true to Velleman.
13
In thought, the substantive aim of what we do is defined by the notion of an independent
reality. What substantially singles out belief from fantasies etc. is the aim to really keep track
of the world. In this sense it is the world that gives us reasons: It gives us the target we aim
for. In action, however, things are different. But it is important to show why this is so. Things
would not be different, argues Darwall, if we could show that action had a unitary substantive
aim in an analogous sense to thought. As the quotation in the preceding section has shown,
Darwall does hold that action has a formal aim. Just as the formal aim of thought it is the aim
of acting according to reason or: “as one should”. But whereas this aim is just as trivial (or
empty) as in the theoretical case, no single substantive aim can be given. Such an aim would
have to be derived from the nature of action (just as the substantive aim is defined by the
nature of thought) and it would have to introduce the one subject of our aims that is common
to all our actions. Now, Darwall does not give an abstract argument for why this is not
possible but he argues against a representative view that holds that there is such an aim:
Moore’s claim that all actions aim at achieving the good.21
Both the choice of the example and the way it is represented is telling for Darwall’s frame of
thought. He presents Moore as an exemplary figure for all kinds of consequentialist and neoAristotelian views because Moore claims that bringing about intrinsically good states of
affairs is the one general aim of action. Darwall at once admits that Moore himself believes
that this is actually the formal aim of action but dismisses this quickly on the ground that there
is at least room for the question whether one should really bring about the most valuable state
of affairs.22 He only considers his view as a candidate for the demonstration of a substantive
aim of action. Moreover, he claims that Moore’s view would be correct if there were only
third-personal practical rationality.23 But, so he argues, Darwall’s argument that sometimes
we act out of the reason that other persons have the authority to demand this from us shows
that there is another kind of reason. And even more: If there were only Moore’s kind of firstpersonal-consequentialist reasons we would not have the kind of freedom we have in practical
reason (which Kant has called autonomy) but only a freedom of the far more restricted kind
that we have in thought: to agree with what seems to be right.24 In fact, as we will presently
see, Darwall actually is lead to claim that the freedom we have in this kind of first-personpractical-rationality just is the freedom of thought because in fact first-person-practical reason
21
Cf. Darwall (2006) pp282-291.
Cf. Darwall (2006) pp 282-284.
23
Cf. Darwall (2006) p286. Darwall says that this is the view that is accepted by what he calls the “naïve
practical standpoint” (which only allows for third-personal practical reasons). In what follows he does not argue
that this view gets third-personal reasons wrong but only that it has no grasp of the specific character of secondpersonal reasons.
24
Cf. Darwall (2006) pp287-291.
22
14
just turns out to be a variety of theoretical reason: reasoning about values. We (thirdpersonally and for ourselves) figure out what we think we should do – and that just is: we
figure out what we believe would be the most valuable state of affairs that we can bring about.
Given this very rough sketch of Darwall’s argument, one can see that it is shaped by his
conception of the contrast between the formal and the substantive aim in thought. Caught by
his understanding of truth as a substantial aim, he is pressed by considerations of analogy to
look out for a position that presents the good as a substantive aim of action, too. And, in spite
of his claim to the contrary, Moore’s consequentialist aristotelianism is indeed an apt target.
For according to this view, the good that is meant to constitute the aim of an action is
described as the state at which the action is aimed. As this state, or rather as a characteristic of
this state, the good figures as the content of the aim of a goal-directed action. That an action is
aimed at something good is, according to this view, not much different in principle from an
action being aimed at something blue. And considered like this, the claim that every action
must, by its very nature, necessarily be aimed at something good, is indeed implausible.
But there is no need to conceive of the Aristotelian idea that actions as such are directed at
something good in this consequentialist manner if you are not already set to the idea that the
good must play a substantive role in defining action through its aim. The idea fits pretty well
to Darwall’s conception of truth as the content of the defining aim which is present in belief
over and above its representing character. Here, we have another content that defines a
rational attitude of ours. But, first, this idea blocks a more interesting and charitable idea of
Aristotle (something Moore was probably aiming at when he tried to conceive of the good, as
Darwall puts it in his own idiom, as the formal aim of action). And secondly it leads to a
wrong conception of the difference between theoretical and practical reason and,
consequently, to a misunderstanding what an action actually is.
7. [As has been shown above, Darwall identifies the formal aim of action with the aim to do
what one has reason to do (just as the formal aim of thought is the aim to believe what one has
reason to believe). He quickly rejects Moore’s idea that the good could play the role of the
formal aim of action if it is understood as a characteristic of certain states of nature. So
understood, the good just is a specific kind of aim and consequently there is room for the
question why one should follow exactly this particular kind of aim. With this question being
open, good states of affairs are disqualified as formal aims.]
15
But this is not the only way to understand the idea that “the good” is the formal aim of action
(or maybe better: that the notion of goodness plays a formal role in the characterization of
action). In fact, this view is the counterpart to the view to which Frege objects in the realm of
thought (cf. §5 above). According to that view, truth is part of the content of thoughts, a
particular kind of property predicated of contents of thought (p is true/corresponds with the
world/…). If this were a correct understanding of truth, the aim of judgement would be to
undertake a specific form of predication (form a specific kind of content) and, in analogy to
Darwall’s questioning of Moore, one could ask why one should belief exactly those specific
contents.25 Frege’s response to this was that truth should not be conceived as a property of
thoughts which one tries to keep track of in judgement but, rather, that the truth-directedness
of thought lies in the specific force with which a judgement is undertaken, an idea which we
have reformulated as the idea that truth-directedness is what formally qualifies judgement.
Turning now to practical reason, one can form the strict analogue to Frege’s point by claiming
that the good is not a content that we aim at in action but that goodness-directedness is the
formal characterization of what it means to engage in intentional goal directed actions. If one
argues like this, the Aristotelian thesis that every action is undertaken “under the guise of the
good”, as it is often formulated, is not taken to be a substantial definition of the goal of
actions but understood as an elucidation of the specific rational character that wanting or
willing takes in human action (as opposed to the goal directedness of the drives in animals or
of mere desires in human beings). That actions aim at the good is not the claim that all of our
actions aim at the same sort of thing but that our aiming is of a particular kind. In action, we
follow goals consciously and rationally. Part of this special character is that we can, as
Anscombe has famously put it, answer the question why we are doing something in a
particular way, that we can give a desirability-characterization of our action.26 But of course
to give this characterization in words, and so as the content of theoretical thought, is not the
same as to act (or: to aim at something in a certain “practical” manner) – the capacity to do
this is just a necessary part of the capacity that allows us to act.
All of this would need further philosophical elaboration but for the moment it suffices to say
that there is at least a philosophical option that Darwall does not consider: The option to
regard the goodness-directedness of action as the formal characteristic of what it means to
pursue goals rationally. That in action we aim at the good is an elaboration of the idea that
In this passage I draw upon a rendering of Frege’s argument against the definability of truth in „Der
Gedanke“ that is given by Thomas Ricketts (1986). A helpful reformulation of this argument can be found in
Michael Kremer (2000).
26
Cf. Anscombe (1957) esp. §5 and §37.
25
16
actions are practical exercises of reason. To entertain this philosophical option, together with
the view on the truth-directedness of thought that we recommended, means to regard the
difference between theoretical and practical exercises of reason as a difference of form rather
than as a difference of content (or, less clearly, “substance”).
That, at least on first sight, there is this other option, however, would not be enough to
recommend it to Darwall if there were not reasons to believe that this option helps to avoid a
philosophical problem with which Darwall himself struggles. Over the course of the next two
sections I want to show that it does exactly this, and this will finally bring us back to the
question of the hierarchy of the distinctions of the theoretical/practical and the third/secondpersonal with which we motivated this long detour in §3.
8. When Darwall argues for the genuine character of second-personal reasons, he claims that
it is only through second-personal address, i.e. only through giving each other secondpersonal reasons, that we can work “directly” on each other’s will.27 This entails that telling
someone that he has a good third-personal reason to do something does not count as acting
directly on the others will, and this again can at least be read as containing the claim that
coming to know a (decisive) third-personal reason is no direct act of a person’s will. I want to
argue that there is indeed an important truth that gives rise to this train of thought but that
Darwall’s particular argument, which rests on his substantive understanding of goodness as
the aim of action, effectively leads him to deny that there are third-personal practical reasons
at all.
Darwall denies that the good, conceived of as an inherent character of state of affairs, can be
the formal aim of action but he agrees that it is a candidate for the substantial aim of action as
such. In fact, he argues that it would be the substantial aim of action if there were only thirdpersonal reasons for action, and so one can say that, according to Darwall, the good is the aim
of all actions that are guided by third-personal reasons. As we have just seen, he is sceptical,
however, that there is a direct act of will involved in recognizing an intrinsically good state of
affairs as a possible aim of action. And rendered this way, his doubts are well pointed: For it
follows from Darwall’s (and that of Moore in the hands of Darwall) substantive understanding
of what it is to be good that the good is a characteristic of a certain state of the world.
Consequently, to make this good one’s aim is to rationally accept that this fact about the
goodness of something is indeed a fact and that, therefore, one should act in such a way as to
bring about this favourable state of affairs. To be aware of a third-personal reason for action,
27
Darwall (2006) p6f.
17
on this reading, therefore is an achievement of thought, it is an insight into the truth about the
good. It is, in other words, a theoretical exercise. And Darwall comes very close to agreeing
with this. He writes:
“In fact, we might regard [advice] as a special instance of theoretical reasoning, one in which
the beliefs in question concern the practical question of what one should do.”28
But the problem is not that action, so conceived, is only rational in a theoretical sense – the
problem is that understood in a merely theoretical sense it becomes incomprehensible how an
action can be an exercise of reason at all. This is the point of Anscombe’s now famous
example of the mince-pie syllogism. In her attempt to render the idea implausible that
practical reasoning (that is: the practical exercise of reason) could be understood as “ordinary
reasoning”29 – “reasoning towards the truth of a proposition”30 – she writes:
“Contemplating the accounts given by modern commentators, one might easily wonder why
no one has ever pointed out the mince pie syllogism: the peculiarity of this would be that it
was about mince pies, and an example would be ‘All mince pies have suet in them – this is a
mince pie – therefore etc.’ Certainly ethics is of importance to human beings in a way that
mince pies are not; but such importance cannot justify us in speaking of a special sort of
reasoning.”31
On a conception of practical reasoning where what is practical about the reasoning is that it
has “the practical” (e.g. what one ought to do) as its content so that it aims at finding out the
truth about these practical matters, practical reasoning is no more a peculiar kind of reasoning
than is any reasoning about any other kind of content. This would be alright if we could now
shrug our shoulders and say: “Well, good, so there is only one kind of reasoning (call it
theoretical if you like!), and it turns out that it is behind our actions as well (making things
philosophically simpler, which is after all a desirable outcome).” But we cannot. Because the
very idea of practical reasoning was to describe the way in which our actions, qua rational
activity, aim at the good. And this drops out of the picture entirely.
One can see this if one considers for a moment where a deliberation that is “practical” in this
sense would lead us to. Being “ordinary reasoning” towards the truth of a proposition, it
28
Darwall (2006) p289. In this passage Darwall is writing about advice and not the kind of practical deliberation
that one carries out for oneself. He thereby alludes to Locke’s famous distinction between command and counsel.
Advise is the case in which I agent-neutrally point out third-personal reasons to another person and it is therefore
distinct from the second-personal case of directing a demand at someone. But since it is exactly Darwall’s point
that for third-personal reasoning it plays no role who the person is who directs one’s attention to them (as long as
they are good reasons), for Darwall there should be no important difference between the case where someone
else points out a third-personal reason to me and the case where I do that for myself.
29
Anscombe (1957) p58.
30
Anscombe (1957) p58.
31
Anscombe (1957) p.58
18
would lead us to a belief or judgement about what we ought to do (just as Darwall has
characterized it). But here, with this judgement or belief, the deliberation terminates.
Whatever is going to follow now is no longer part of the deliberation. And since the
deliberation is, according to this view, exactly the exercise of reason that is meant to
determine the rational character of our actions, whatever is going to follow is no part of the
exercise of reason. It can at best be a non-rational consequence of our rational activity, bound
to it, maybe, by reliable mechanical dispositions – but it is no part of our rational doing.
This, again, means that it is external to our practical rational doings whether the bodily action,
being no part of the theoretical judgement of what I should do, actually takes place in the
demanded sense. Because “demanded” can only mean that the action is a bodily movement of
which I judge that it should happen (given what standards of goodness I have). This is in
principle no different from the sense in which I can judge of the actions of another person that
they should happen (or that political reforms should take place etc). My bodily action is not
demanded in the sense in which my judging of the conclusion of the deliberation is demanded
from me, given the judgements that I have undertaken in the premises. If I do not judge the
conclusion that is demanded by my other judgements, something goes wrong in a rational
sense. But if all my reasoning only leads to a judgement about what I should do, whatever
goes wrong after this judgement so that I do not act in accordance with it does not amount to a
misfiring of reason. Whatever happens, it is rather like the tearing of a tendon, a breakdown of
my physical mechanism. But then it plays no role for the correctness of my practical exercise
of reason how my praxis actually looks like – and that is absurd! This result only shows that
this way, by regarding practical reason as a variety of content of theoretical reason, we have
no grasp of the idea of a practical exercise of reason whatsoever. We simply do not
understand what an action is.
All this could be given as an interpretation of the sense in which considerations about
practical goods, if understood in a mere theoretical sense (whether given as advise or
entertained for oneself), could only have an “indirect” influence on the will. That is, an
influence that is not part of the consideration itself; an influence that does not belong to the
very exercise of reason which is spelled out in the so-called practical consideration. So
Darwall is right in being reluctant about this conception of practical reason (and here, indeed,
a need for a different kind of freedom might make itself known – though, probably, in a
different sense from that which Darwall envisages) – but this result leaves him in an
uncomfortable position. Because, unlike Anscombe who uses her example as part of an
argument for a conception of practical reasoning that is of a different form than is theoretical
19
reasoning, 32 Darwall does not reject this “theoretical” conception of rational action as
altogether implausible. As noted above, he shows strong tendencies to accept it as the right
description for third-personal practical rationality. He only wants to argue that third-personal
practical reasons can never define the core of our specific human capacity of action, namely
moral actions which have to be described second-personally. But if our interpretation of
Anscombe’s argument is correct, this effectively leaves him saying that, strictly speaking,
there are only second-personal practical reasons and, consequently, only second-personal
actions.
This is an odd position to take. It would require a longwinded argument to show how secondpersonal rationality could be transferred into apparent third-personal contexts. And it does not
seem to be the position that Darwall consciously wants to claim. But there is more: For
because Anscombe’s way out is not open for Darwall, that is to say: because he does not
conceive of a formal understanding of the peculiar goal-directedness that defines practical
reason but rather imagines it to be defined by a substantive content, his own solution to the
idea of a genuine practical kind of reason misfires, too. And, as a consequence, he cannot
really grasp the very phenomenon he set out to describe: The peculiarity of our rational
relationship to other persons.
9. With this remark we finally arrive at Darwall’s own field of interest: the character of
second-personal reasons. The state of the dialectic is the following: In analogy to his
conception of theoretical reason which is defined by its substantive aim of truth, Darwall
considers what he calls a third-personal conception of practical reason. According to this,
actions, too, are defined by a substantive aim: the good. Because this difference is a difference
in substance, Darwall conceives of the good at which we aim in action as a quality of states of
affairs and, consequently, he conceives of the rationality that in a third-personal way defines
our action as a special case of the rationality of thought: It is thought about a certain aspect of
the world, namely how our surroundings can be modified so as to achieve the most valuable
outcome.
With this definition of practical reason Darwall is, rightly, not satisfied. He wants to introduce
our relationship to other persons as a domain of practical reason which cannot be reduced to
mere apprehension of states of affairs and which therefore is genuinely different from
theoretical reason. The problem is how to conceive of this fundamental difference from the
domain of thought. What should be clear at this point is that it cannot be defined by yet
Anscombe (1957) p60: “There is a difference of form between reasoning leading to action and reasoning for
the truth of a conclusion.”
32
20
another content of belief. What is rational for me to do in a second-personal sense cannot be
picked out by a belief of mine about a second-personal character of facts. That would lead to
just the same troubles which we ran into when we followed Darwall’s third-personal
conception of practical reason. Drawing back to a formally different conception of secondpersonal reasons does not work for Darwall, either. For him, the formal aim of action is
merely to do what one has reason to do and this leaves it entirely open what kind of reason
this is. As a consequence, Darwall does not even consider the option of a special form of
second-personal rationality.
What Darwall proposes is a distinction between two different kinds of reasons for action
according to their source. If the reasons for which actions are done (and which therefore
characterize actions as actions, making them different from mere behaviour) cannot be
differentiated by their content alone, we can still differentiate between them by showing
where they derive their normative force from. That is to say: we can tell different reasons
from each other by showing what gives them their status as a reason, i.e. as something with a
peculiar significance for our behaviour.
I have already introduced the basic idea of this move in §2 and although Darwall uses the
greater part of his book to argue for its plausibility we, unfortunately, cannot go into much
detail here. With the background of the argument from the preceding sections we can put
Darwall’s point like this: Third-personal reasons derive their normative force from the world
at large. They reflect the fact that there is a certain possible state of the world which is
intrinsically valuable. Because this is a fact (it really is the case that one can produce this state
of affairs) it is also a fact that I should act in a way to bring it about; and because we are
dealing purely with facts here, nothing but the elements of the world and my capacity to take
these in and understand them are in play when I grasp what is rationally demanded from me.
Therefore, third-personal practical reasons are really a kind of theoretical reasons because it is
just their third-personal character which makes them in an important sense world
regarding.33Second-personal reasons, on the other hand, do not stem from the world at large
but from second-personal address or demand. In second-personal reasons it is not just the
world that is talking to me but another person. And this is essential. These reasons would
Darwall does not want to deny what has often been called the difference of the “direction of fit” between
theoretical and practical reasons (due to the element of desire that is present in practical reasoning but not in
theoretical reasoning) – but he gives it a special reading. For him, that practical reasons have a different direction
does not mean that they subjectively create the values that we have to pursue but simply that we regard
something as objectively valuable and so as worth to be pursued. Desires do not create value (as something we
have to pursue) but through desires the realm of the valuable enters our reasoning (cf. Darwall p. 284). Of course,
interpreted this way, the difference in directions of fit does not (at least not obviously) correspond to a difference
between theoretical and practical deliberation in Anscombe’s sense.
33
21
simply not exist were it not for the appeal from another person which, of course, has to be
backed by a corresponding normative authority (the moral authority of a person in the most
general case, the authority of an army sergeant or of a university teacher in more particular
cases). They spring into life only through the doings and attitudes of another human being.
The notion of appeal or address is crucial for Darwall. Because with this notion he means to
avoid the obvious reply to his proposal which says that whether or not another person
demands something from me is just another fact about the world and therefore a matter of
theoretical reasoning, regardless of what you can say in detail about what is involved in this
demand (authority relations etc.). This reply would be obvious, at least for us, because it
would simply be an iteration of Anscombe’s point about the mince-pie syllogism and could be
put into similar words: If what is peculiar about second-personal reasons is that they involve
knowledge about the demands of a second person, one might wonder why so far no one has
proposed the dog rose-reason. Dog rose-reasons would be peculiar in involving knowledge
about the needs of dog rose-shrubs. If there were no dog roses no such reasons would exist,
nor would they be understandable could we not have access to the needs of dog roses. So dog
rose-reasons cannot be given to us by the world at large but rather have their source in those
specific plants which we encounter in particular situations in our life etc. etc. And, again
mimicking Anscombe: Certainly other persons are more important for our ethical life than
shrubberies are but this importance cannot justify a special kind of reasons… Now, according
to the way in which we have read Darwall, he is aware of this kind of reply (he must be,
because his own account has been introduced as an alternative to the view that the good is the
substantial aim of action). The way he answers it is that this second-personal kind of reason is
not given in the way other facts are given. Unlike other facts that are dictated to us by the
world (with unquestionable authority one might feel the wish to add), the appeals of another
person need some kind of recognition from our side. At least in the moral case we are of equal
standing with the other person (in a way that we are not of equal standing with the world) and
that means that there is room for us to accept the authority of the other person or not. Since if
we accept the other person’s authority, Darwall is careful to add, is not arbitrary but is guided
by reasons, elaborations will have to be produced about how authority works what puts one
person into a relation of authority to another person etc. - and quickly we are deeply involved
into the topic of Darwall’s book. But the fundamental point is this: If we accept the authority
of the other person in a given situation, her appeal will “directly” give us a reason for action
that will not take the detour via the notion of agent-neutrally valuable outcomes (so as if I
regarded my compliance with your demand as something that has the characteristic of being
22
intrinsically good). The appeal will give us a reason qua appeal. This reason is substantively
different from the pursuit of the good: It is not to seek what is good but what I accept as
rightly demanded from me by you. Therefore, by accepting that second-personal address
constitutes reasons for action we at the same time accept a different kind of substantive aims
of actions.
10. The problem with this answer is that it is not clear how exactly it is meant to work. For
what it must say is that the special character of the appeal must not only provide a
substantively different aim of action but must also say that this difference in substance must
amount to a difference in rationality. Given how Darwall understands a substantive aim, these
two tasks are in tension with each other. Remember that in order for the pursuit of the good to
be a substantive aim, according to Darwall it had to consist in the pursuit of states of affairs
with a specific character: its intrinsic goodness. That seemed to be the point of its being a
substantive rather than a formal aim of action: Goodness has to be perceived as something we
aim for not as an elucidation of a way of aiming. By analogy, the substantive aim of action
that consists in doing what you demand of me must likewise be understood as something we
aim for – and not as a way of aiming for something (whatever that would mean – we will
presently introduce a sketch of a way of giving sense to this seemingly obscure way of
talking). So if acting as you demand is indeed a substantive aim, it must be a characteristic of
what I aim to achieve and so, again by analogy to the substantive aim of the good, it must be
understood as the content of an aim of action. Because Darwall sees no reason to deny that to
grasp the content of the good in third-personal reasons for actions effectively amounts to an
act of theoretical reasoning he should be willing to accept that to grasp the content of a
second-personal reason is an act of theoretical reasoning, too. The most he can say is that in
second-personal reasoning we are not interested in a specific characteristic of possible actions
– namely that they bring about good states of affairs – and in that sense they are not thirdpersonal. Nevertheless, second-personal reasons, just because they are substantive reasons,
should end up being reasons for theoretical exercise.
Of course Darwall does not want to agree. For him it is a disadvantage of third-personal
reasons that they are merely theoretical reasons. But since the difference between secondpersonal and third-personal reasons cannot be worked out on the level of their respective
status as substantive aims (they both are substantive aims and in that the same), the only way
to mark the difference between them that is left to Darwall is the difference in the way the
reasons are derived. Here, the story about recognition etc. enters the discussion. However,
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because all the elements which belong to this story (many of which are very elucidative of the
phenomenon of second personal rationality) do not enter into the characterization of the aim
qua aim, i.e. insofar as it is that which is being followed in an action, it is hard to see how any
of these can affect the status of the aim as a practical reason. Neither can the characterizations
that Darwall gives explain how the aim can be practical nor why it constitutes a special sort of
reason. For in order to do that, the talk of recognition, practical authority etc. would have to
make clear how a bodily movement can be understood as an exercise of reason in such a way
that the character of the exercise (not just of an item that is labelled a reason) is of such a kind
that it contains a relation (or whatever may be the best word here) to another person. But to
give such an explanation of what it means to “second-personally” aim at something would be
something different from adding another member to the class of substantive goals which
already includes the aim of pursuing the good (which, as we have argued, should itself not be
understood as a substantive aim). Rather, it would mean to give a formal characterization of a
mode of aiming.34
In many of his elaborations of second personal address Darwall seems to be drawn to such a
formal characterization. But the theoretical framework of formal versus substantial aims that
he inherits from Velleman hinders him in getting a clear view from what such a project would
demand. This leads to the tension that we noticed earlier between two tendencies in Darwall
when it comes to drawing the distinctions between theoretical and practical reason and
between third- and second-personal reasons. The first tendency is to claim that these two
distinctions fall into one: third-personal reasons are world regarding and as such theoretical,
second-personal reasons are “you-regarding” and as such practical. This tendency reflects the
insight that the mere perception of possible good states of affairs must be a theoretical
exercise and cannot “directly” explain rational action. The second tendency is to regard the
realm of the practical as special because here, unlike in the theoretical realm, there are
different substantial aims: the aim of the good and the demands of another person. Taken
together these two tendencies lead to claims that those actions which are done for secondpersonal reasons are somehow actions in a fuller sense than actions done for the good, or that
they build the core or most important part of human behaviour. But since both tendencies
mutually exclude each other these claims must constitute confusion.
34
[To the SIAS-workshop-participants: This content of this paragraph, although it is central, is still in some
darkness to me. The aim in the abstract is clear: to show that Darwall’s lack of a formal characterization of
rational aims blocks him from giving a characterization of what is really second-personal about second-personal
intentional action. But any help how to formulate this more clearly will be very much welcomed!]
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This peculiar tension disappears when you make room both for a formal distinction between
theoretical and practical reason and a formal distinction between third-personal and secondpersonal exercises of reason. For then you can say that thought is formally oriented to truth
just as action is formally oriented to the good and both is entirely compatible with claiming
that there are two ways of being oriented to the good: the way of aiming at the good on your
own and the way were aiming at the good must be understood in a way that it involves
another person. But this way of drawing the picture is also compatible with the parallel claim
that there is room for a further distinction between two ways of being formally oriented to
truth: Just as you can be judging something to be true four yourselves there might be an
activity that is formally guided by truth which can only be understood when one sees that it
involves a second person. At least prima facie this is a possible option. It might be the case
that for reasons yet unknown second-personal orientation in the realm of the theoretical is not
possible but arguments for this claim would still have to be produced. They are not among
those which Darwall presents in his book.35
11. All these arguments require that a formal understanding of the rationality of secondpersonal actions is indeed possible. There is, of course, no way to decide this matter in this
article. Recent work of Michael Thompson’s, however, indicates that it is. In the first half of
“What is it to wrong someone?”36 Thompson describes what he calls a “bipolar” interpersonal
nexus in which two beings can be joined (thereby becoming persons to each other). This
nexus, Thompson claims, cannot be reduced to a couple of mere monadic descriptions of
which each would focus on one of the two persons and include the other person only in the
content of what is said about the first person. 37 If Thompson is right, then a lot of what
Darwall describes in his book can be explained as logical (or: formal) features of the special
kind of relation that holds between two persons when they engage in what could be called
thoughts or intentions “for two”. And all this could be done without making use of the notion
of a substantive goal of the kind Darwall has in mind.
In a comment on Darwall’s work Jay Wallace has referred to Thompson’s article in an
attempt to propose an order of explanation of second-personal phenomena that is different
35
As I have mentioned earlier, testimony is typically given as a possible example of this kind of joined thought
(cf. Moran, McMyler…) but there might be further candidates (one might simply be: knowing another person, cf.
David Lauer or believing another person in contrast to believing what another person says (Anscombe, Cavell).
36
Cf. Thompson (2004), pp x-y.
37
Cf. Thompson, p z. So the sense of “A promises something to B” cannot be captured by a combination of
sentences about A (that he says something to B) and about B (that he listens to something from A) and what
follows from these two sentences about A and B (that A is bound by the very fact described by the other
sentences).
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from the order of explanation that Darwall favours in his book.38 Wallace claims that second
personal reasons should not be explained by the phenomena of certain (Strawsonian) reactive
attitudes or relations of authority. Rather, the character of these attitudes, the character of
second-personal authority relations and the character of second-personal reasons can only be
made clear if we understand that all of those phenomena only occur in the kind of bipolar
relationships which Thompson has described. Darwall has recently responded to Wallace by
claiming that the order of explanation that Wallace proposes gets things the wrong way round:
The one bipolar relationship that is really of interest to Darwall (and that should be of interest
to Wallace), namely the moral relationship in which all human beings stand to each other, can
only be explained if we understand how we can not only be held responsible by the individual
that we wrong but that we are open to the resentment and the demands of any other person of
the moral community. It is this other, non bipolar, kind of second personal address which
allows that there can be bipolarity in the moral sense. The upshot of my article was to show
that, as long as he remains within the framework of his thoughts of “The second person
Stantpoint” Darwall is not entitled to this claim. The second-personal rationality of any kind
of address, be it moral or not, remains outside the horizon of philosophical analysis unless we
regard it as the character of a form of exercises of human reason.
38
Wallace (2007).
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