Humean Agent-Neutral Reasons?

appeared in: Philosophical Explorations (2009), Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 55-67

In his recent book Slaves of the Passions, Mark Schroeder argues that a version of Humeanism about practical reasons (which he calls hypotheticalism) is compatible with the existence of ‘genuinely agent-neutral reasons’. These are reasons that any agent whatsoever has. According to Schroeder, they may well include moral reasons. Furthermore, he proposes a novel account of a reason’s weight, which is supposed to vindicate the claim that agent-neutral reasons (if they exist), would be weighty irrespective of anyone’s desires. If the argument is successful, it could help avoid an error-theory of moral language. I argue that it isn’t, and that we should reject a Humean approach to reasons.