Conclusion

Abstract

I have defined two notions of practical reason in this book: one Humean and one moral notion of practical reason. I have attempted to show that upon closer examination, putative prudential reasons, reasons from rationality or justice or aesthetics, as well as putative reasons to believe or to feel or desire certain things, turn out to be, either moral or Humean reasons proper. Moral reasons are a source of normativity, Humean ones are not. So the main claim has been that there is but one source of normativity. I have done my best to show that this source of normativity is real. I have defended moral realism. In particular, I have used my notion of a moral reason to answer Mackie’s complaint that we cannot understand how moral properties are consequential upon non-moral ones, and I have turned the content of our moral beliefs, and the evidence we have for them, against various different debunking strategies, intended to rob our moral convictions of any justification.