Abstract
ABSTRACT Which principles govern the transmission of reasons from ends to means? Some philosophers have suggested a liberal transmission principle, according to which agents have an instrumental reason for an action whenever this action is a means for them to do what they have non-instrumental reason to do. In this paper, we (i) discuss the merits and demerits of the liberal transmission principle, (ii) argue that there are good reasons to reject it, and (iii) present an alternative, less liberal transmission principle, which allows us to accommodate those phenomena that seem to support the liberal transmission principle while avoiding its problems.
Highlights
Some of our reasons for action are explained by the fact that the action in question is a means to something else that we have reason to do
Since both of our examples appealed to undefeated source reasons and sufficient means, the same applies to liberal transmission principles that are restricted in these ways
It is enough to appeal to the following transmission principle for reasons, which we suggest as an alternative to Liberal Transmission: Generic Instrumental Reason
Summary
Some of our reasons for action are explained by the fact that the action in question is a means to something else that we have reason to do. If A has a reason to φ, and ψ-ing is a necessary means for A to φ, A has a reason to ψ.1 This principle can account for many of those normative phenomena that transmission principles should make sense of, but it is questionable whether it can account for all of them. In the course of the discussion, we present alternative, less liberal, transmission principles We argue that these allow us to accommodate the phenomena that have been argued to support Liberal Transmission, without being vulnerable to the ‘too many reasons’ problem. We close by considering the question of whether the phenomenon of instrumental transmission can be captured by one single principle (section 7)
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