The Normative Power of Resolutions

Abstract This article argues that resolutions are reason-giving: when an agent resolves to φ, she incurs an additional normative reason to φ. I argue that the reasons we incur from making resolutions are importantly similar to the reasons we incur from making promises. My account explains why it can be rational for an agent to act on a past resolution even if temptation causes preference and even judgment shifts at the time of action, and offers a response to a common objection to the normativity of resolutions known as the bootstrapping problem, on which if resolutions were reason-giving they would problematically allow us to bootstrap any action into rationality simply by resolving to perform it.