The “Ought” Involving Requirements of Rationality and the “Ought” Involving Reasons

Abstract

What we ought to do seems to be influenced by two different elements. One is our beliefs and intentions; the other is the requirement of rationality. There are, correspondingly, two approaches of explaining ‘ought’ statement, one goes the way that ‘ought’ associates an agent with something he has reasons to do, the other goes that ‘ought’ represents the rational requirement that demands agent’ actions to be consistent with her attitude towards propositions. In this paper, I try to analyze the grammatical basis and normative characteristics of the above approaches. I argue that the two approaches can be combined because our attitude to propositions requires us to produce reasons for action, and rationality ensures that we rationally get decisive reasons for our actions through a set of rational principles.