How Not to Solve the Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem

Abstract

Recent debates in metanormativity have paid considerable attention to the ‘wrong kind of reasons’ (henceforth, WKR) problem that afflicts so-called buckpassing accounts of value. Let me very briefly introduce buckpassing accounts of value and what the WKR problem is about. Roughly, buckpassing accounts of value contend that for something to be valuable is to have other properties that give reasons for proattitudes. For example, a work of art might be valuable because it has certain properties (e.g. colourful, soft texture etc.) that give reasons to think it admirable. Buckpassing accounts, however, seem to run straight into the WKR problem. Roughly, the problem consists in the fact that agents may very easily have pragmatic reasons for proattitudes that may have to do with the instrumental value of having the attitude itself and nothing to do with epistemic reasons about the value of the object, act, event etc. itself. Thus, buckpassing accounts seem to allow for