Neo-Humean rationality and the unity of practical normativity

Abstract A unified view of practical rationality needs to meet two requirements: explain facts about practical rationality in terms of one single type of facts and account for the connections between practical rationality and other normatively significant notions. In this paper, I propose a Neo-Humean structure-based view on rationality and suggest that it, in contrast to a reason-based view, is able to meet these requirements. As regards the first requirement, I argue that facts about practical rationality can be ultimately explained by facts about coherence between attitudes towards ends and means, particularly between final desires and intentions. As regards the second requirement, I argue that facts about normative reasons can be ultimately explained by facts about practical rationality thus understood, resulting in a Neo-Humean view on reasons. Thereby, rationality is explained by coherence, reasons by rationality, and, consequently, reasons by coherence.