JOHN BROOME: RECENT WRITINGS ON NORMATIVITY AND RATIONALITY, TO 5 NOVEMBER 2024


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Is there reason? Are there reason-forces?
In Normative Realism edited by Paul Boghossian and Christopher Peacocke, Oxford University Press, 2025, pp. 250–68.
Much of our normative language implies there is stuff called ‘reason’. When we say ‘There is reason for Boris to go’, literally we assert the existence of this stuff. Should we take this implication seriously? I argue we should not. This sentence says that Boris’s going has a particular normative property. English has no name for this property; we can describe it only as the property of being something there is reason for. The mass noun ‘reason’ is part of an expression that refers to this property, but it does not itself refer to anything. I respond to arguments that defend the existence of reason-stuff, on the grounds that it contributes to explaining what one ought. Other, quite separate arguments claim that reasons give rise to normative forces that might be called ‘reason-forces’, which explain what one ought by combining and competing in ways that are analogous to the action of physical forces. I respond to these arguments too, and argue that there are no such reason-forces.
Proof

Normativity, Rationality and Reasoning: Selected Essays
Oxford University Press, 2021
This book is a selection of my recent papers on normativity, rationality and reasoning. It covers a variety of topics that fall under these three subjects: the meanings of ‘ought’, ‘reason’ and ‘reasons’; the fundamental structure of normativity and the metaphysical priority of ought over reasons; the ownership – or agent-relativity – of oughts and reasons; the distinction between rationality and normativity; the notion of rational motivation; what characterizes the human activity of reasoning, and what is the role of normativity within it; the nature of preferences and of reasoning with preferences; and others. In recent decades, many philosophers have given a high priority to reasons in their accounts of normativity, rationality and reasoning. One purpose of this book is to counter this ‘reasons first’ movement in philosophy. Access to text

Giving reasons and given reasons
In Principles and Persons: The Legacy of Derek Parfit, edited by Jeff McMahan, Tim Campbell, James Goodrich, and Ketan Ramakrishnan, Oxford University Press, 2021, pp. 293–302.
Reprinted in my Normativity, Rationality and Reasoning: Selected Essays, Oxford University Press, 2021.
Derek Parfit, as a leader of the 'reasons first' movement, says that the concept of a reason is fundamental and indefinable. But his concept of a reason differs from most philosophers'. Most philosophers take a reason to be a fact, whereas Parfit says that reasons are given by facts, not that they are facts. This paper distinguishes Parfit's concept of a reason, which I call a 'given reason', from the more common one, which I call a 'giving reason'. It argues that, whereas the concept of a giving reason is easily defined, the concept of a given reason is not. Parfit is therefore better placed than most philosophers to defend the claim that the concept of a reason is fundamental and indefinable.
Published Version

Rationality versus normativity
Responses to commentaries
Australasian Philosophical Review 5 (2021), pp. 293–311, with commentaries from ten other authors and responses from me, pp. 393–401.
New version in my Normativity, Rationality and Reasoning: Selected Essays, Oxford University Press, 2021.
Philosophers often do not make as sharp a distinction as they should between rationality and normativity. Partly this is because the word ‘reason’ can be used to refer to either, and this leads to a confusion over meanings. This paper starts by clarifying the meanings of ‘normativity’ and ‘rationality’. It argues that it is a conceptual truth that rationality supervenes on the mind. Then it considers substantive arguments that purport to show there is no real distinction between rationality and normativity. Many philosophers give a reductive account of rationality in terms of reasons. In particular, many claim that rationality consists in responding correctly to reasons. Since responding correctly to reasons is the concern of normativity, this in effect identifies rationality with normativity. This paper denies that rationality is identical to normativity, by means of what I call a ‘quick objection’. The quick objection is that rationality supervenes on the mind whereas complying with normativity does not. I consider and reject some ways of responding to the quick objection, including an argument by Kiesewetter to the effect that normativity supervenes on the mind and one by Lord to the effect that rationality does not. I also consider a different, Kantian argument to the effect that rationality does not supervene on the mind.
The new version has been improved in the light of some of the comments.
Preprint   Published responses   New version in book

The first normative 'reason'
In my Normativity, Rationality and Reasoning: Selected Essays, Oxford University Press, 2021, pp. 51–3.
The first use in English of the word 'reason' to refer to a normative reason occurs in a manuscript of the Ancrene Riwle from about 1225. It was used to refer to an explanation of why one ought to do something.
Published Version

Reasons and rationality
In The Handbook of Rationality, edited by Markus Knauff and Wolfgang Spohn, MIT Press, 2021, pp. 129–36.
I explore the relationship between rationality and reasons, and particularly the reductive idea that rationality can be defined in terms of reasons. I start with an analysis of the meaning of ‘rationality’ in order to clarify the issue. Then I assess the view that rationality consists in responding correctly to reasons. To this I oppose a ‘quick objection’, describe the defences the view has against this objection, and argue that these defences are unappealing. Next I assess various related views, including the view that rationality consists in responding correctly to beliefs about reasons, and argue against each of them. Eventually I identify the kernel of truth that lies within them, which is that rationality requires you to intend to F if you believe you ought to F. I call this principle ‘enkrasia’. It is only one requirement of rationality among many, so it licenses no reduction of rationality.
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Practical reason: rationality or normativity but not both
Forthcoming in The Routledge Handbook of Practical Reason, edited by Ruth Change and Kurt Sylvan, Routledge, 2020.
The word ‘reason’ is very ambiguous, with the result that the term ‘practical reason’ may refer to two quite different topics. It may refer either to practical normativity or to practical rationality. The first is a matter of what one ought to do or has reason to do; the second is a matter of good practical reasoning and mental coherence in practical matters. Many philosophers fail to separate normativity from rationality as sharply as they should. Partly this is because they are confused by the ambiguity of ‘reason’ and partly because there are some substantive arguments that purport to show that there is no real distinction. This chapter enforces the distinction. It starts by separating the different meanings of ‘reason’, and then responds to the substantive arguments. The response turns on the conceptual feature of rationality that it is a property of the mind and supervenes on other properties of the mind. On the other hand, normativity does not supervene on the mind. The chapter concludes by discussing a Kantian approach to identifying normativity with rationality.
Published Version

Reason fundamentalism and what is wrong with it
In The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity, edited by Daniel Star, Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 297–318
Reprinted in my Normativity, Rationality and Reasoning: Selected Essays, Oxford University Press, 2021
Is there a fundamental feature of normativity, to which other features can be reduced? One defensible view is that the fundamental feature is the relation that holds between a person and F-ing when the person has reason to F. (“F” stands for any verb phrase, such as “run for the bus” or “hope for relief” or “believe Kampala is in Ghana.”) Another defensible view is that the fundamental feature is the relation that holds between a person and F-ing when the person ought to F. The popular view that the fundamental feature of normativity is the property of being a reason is not defensible, since that property can be reduced to either of the two relations I described. I argue that the second of these views—“ought fundamentalism”—is more credible that the first—“reason fundamentalism”—because it is more faithful to our ordinary normative concepts.
Published version

Responses
Problema, 12 (2018), pp. 111–36.
Responses to papers by Fernando Rudy, Daniel Fogel, Alex Worsnip and Carlos Nunez, constituting a symposium on my book Rationality Through Reasoning.
Published version

A linguistic turn in the philosophy of normativity?
Analytic Philosophy, 57 (2016), pp. 1-14
Reprinted in my Normativity, Rationality and Reasoning: Selected Essays, Oxford University Press, 2021
The theory of deontic modality within linguistics offers an account of the meaning of normative terms including 'ought'. How should the philosophy of normativity be affected by this theory? I argue that it should not be affected much. Indeed the theory of deontic modality needs some correction from the philosophy of normativity.
Published version     Journal  page

Précis
Responses
Philosophical Studies, 173 (2016), pp. 3369-3371 and 3431-3448
Contributions to a symposium on my book Rationality Through Reasoning, responding to Paul Boghossian, Garrett Cullity, Philip Pettit and Nicholas Southwood.
Journal page for Précis    Published Précis    Published  Responses    Preprint of Responses

Précis of Rationality Through Reasoning
Replies
Contributions to a symposium on my book Rationality Through Reasoning, responding to comments by Olav Gjelsvik, María José Frápolli and Neftalí Villanueva, Conor McHugh and Jonathan Way, Miranda del Corral, Fernando Broncano and Jesús Vega, and Nicholas Shackel.  
Teorema, 34 (2015), pp. 99-103 and 191-209
Full text of Précis     Full text of Replies

Précis of Rationality Through Reasoning
Responses to Setiya, Hussain and Horty 
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 91 (2015), pp. 200-3 and 230-42
Contributions to a symposium on my book Rationality Through Reasoning
Journal page for Précis     Published Précis    Journal page for Response     Published Response

Reason versus ought
Philosophical Issues, 25 (2015), pp. 80-97
Which is the more fundamental feature of normativity; reason or ought? This paper sets up two parallel ontologies for normativity: in one reason is fundamental and in the other ought. It argues that the ought ontology is more faithful to our ordinary normative concepts.
Journal page     Published  version

Rationality Through Reasoning
Wiley-Blackwell, 2013
Rationality Through Reasoning answers the question of how people are motivated to do what they believe they ought to do, built on a comprehensive account of normativity, rationality and reasoning that differs significantly from much existing philosophical thinking. Develops an original account of normativity, rationality and reasoning significantly different from the majority of existing philosophical thought. Includes an account of theoretical and practical reasoning that explains how reasoning is something we ourselves do, rather than something that happens in us. Gives an account of what reasons are and argues that the connection between rationality and reasons is much less close than many philosophers have thought. Contains rigorous new accounts of oughts including owned oughts, agent-relative reasons, the logic of requirements, instrumental rationality, the role of normativity in reasoning, following a rule, the correctness of reasoning, the connections between intentions and beliefs, and much else. Offers a new answer to the ‘motivation question’ of how a normative belief motivates an action.
Information from publisher

Enkrasia
Organon F, 20 (2013), pp. 425-36
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Williams on ought
In Luck, Value and Commitment: Themes from the Ethics of Bernard Williams, edited by Ulrike Heuer and Gerald Lang, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 247-65
Reprinted in my Normativity, Rationality and Reasoning: Selected Essays, Oxford University Press, 2021.
In 2002, Bernard Williams delivered a lecture that revisited the arguments of his article 'Ought and moral obligation', published in his Moral Luck. The lecture attributed to the earlier article the thesis that there are no ‘personal’ or (as I put it) ‘owned’ oughts. It also rejected this thesis. This paper explains the idea of an owned ought, and supports Williams’s lecture in asserting that there are owned oughts. It also examines the question of how accurately Williams’s later lecture interprets his earlier article. 
Published version

Rationality
In A Companion to the Philosophy of Action, edited by Timothy O'Connor and Constantine Sandis, Blackwell, 2010, pp. 285-92
Proof

Is rationality normative?
Disputatio, 11 (2008), pp. 153-71
Published version

Does rationality consist in responding correctly to reasons?
Journal of Moral Philosophy, 4 (2007), pp. 349-74
Reprinted in Studies in Moral Philosophy, 1 (2011), pp. 25-55
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Requirements
In Homage à Wlodek: Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz, edited by Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, Björn Petersson, Jonas Josefsson and Dan Egonsson, 2007, www.fil.lu.se/hommageawlodek.
Expressions such as ‘morality requires’, ‘prudence requires’ and ‘rationality requires’ are ambiguous. ‘Morality’, ‘prudence’ and ‘rationality’ may refer either to properties of a person, or to sources of requirements. Consequently, ‘requires’ has a ‘property sense’ and a ‘source sense’. I offer a semantic system for its source sense. Then I consider the logical form of conditional requirements, in the source sense.
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