In the most general terms, a reason is a consideration which justifies or explains an action, a belief, an attitude, or a fact.
''
Normative
Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...
reasons'' are what people appeal to when making
argument
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
s about what people should do or believe. For example, that a doctor's patient is grimacing is a reason to believe the patient is in pain. That the patient is in pain is a reason for the doctor to do things to alleviate the pain.
Explanatory reasons are explanations of why things happened. For example, the reason the patient is in pain is that her nerves are sending signals from her tissues to her brain.
A reason, in many cases, is brought up by the question "why?", and answered following the word ''because''. Additionally, words and phrases such as ''since'', ''due to'', ''as'', ''considering'' (''that''), ''a result'' (''of''), and ''in order to'', for example, all serve as explanatory locutions that precede the reason to which they refer.
Types of reason
In philosophy, it is common to distinguish between three kinds of reason.
''Normative or justifying reasons'' are often said to be "considerations which count in favor" of some state of affairs (this is, at any rate, a common view, notably held by
T. M. Scanlon
Thomas Michael "Tim" Scanlon (; born 1940), usually cited as T. M. Scanlon, is an American philosopher. At the time of his retirement in 2016, he was the Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity"The Alford Professo ...
and
Derek Parfit
Derek Antony Parfit (; 11 December 1942 – 1 or 2 January 2017) was a British philosopher who specialised in personal identity, rationality, and ethics. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of ...
).
''Explanatory reasons'' are considerations which serve to explain why things have happened or why states of affairs are the way they are. In other words, "reason" can also be a synonym for "
cause". For example, a reason a car starts is that its ignition is turned. In the context of explaining the actions of beings who act for reasons (i.e.,
rational agent
A rational agent or rational being is a person or entity that always aims to perform optimal actions based on given premises and information. A rational agent can be anything that makes decisions, typically a person, firm, machine, or software.
Th ...
s), these are called ''motivating reasons''—e.g., the reason Bill went to college was to learn; i.e., that he would learn was his motivating reason. At least where a rational agent is acting rationally, her motivating reasons are those considerations which she believes count in favor of her so acting.
Normative reasons
Some philosophers (one being
John Broome) view normative reasons as the same as "explanations of ought facts". Just as explanatory reasons explain why some descriptive fact obtains (or came to obtain), normative reasons on this view explain why some normative facts obtain, i.e., they explain why some state of affairs ought to come to obtain (e.g., why someone should act or why some event ought to take place).
Epistemic vs. practical reasons
Philosophers, when discussing reasoning that is influenced by
norms, commonly make a distinction between ''theoretical reason'' and ''practical reason''.
These are capacities that draw on ''epistemic reasons'' (matters of fact and of explanation) or ''practical reasons'' (reasons for action) respectively. Epistemic reasons (also called ''theoretical'' or evidential reasons) are considerations which count in favor of believing some proposition to be true. Practical reasons are considerations which count in favor of some action or the having of some attitude (or at least, count in favor of wanting or trying to bring those actions or attitudes about).
Epistemic reasons in argumentation
In
informal logic
Informal logic encompasses the principles of logic and logical thought outside of a formal setting (characterized by the usage of particular statements). However, the precise definition of "informal logic" is a matter of some dispute. Ralph H. ...
, a reason consists of either a single
premise
A premise or premiss is a true or false statement that helps form the body of an argument, which logically leads to a true or false conclusion. A premise makes a declarative statement about its subject matter which enables a reader to either agre ...
or
co-premises in support of an
argument
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
. In
formal symbolic logic, only single premises occur. In informal reasoning, two types of reasons exist. An ''evidential reason'' is a foundation upon which to believe ''that'' or ''why'' a claim is true. An ''explanatory reason'' attempts to convince someone ''how'' something is or could be true, but does not directly convince one ''that it is'' true.
See also
*
Is-ought problem
*
Normative
Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...
*
Positive statement In the social science, social sciences and philosophy, a positive or descriptive statement concerns what "is", "was", or "will be", excluding statements of what is (in the absolute or true sense), was or will be moral. Positive statements are thus t ...
References
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Arguments
Reasoning