Self-governance, reasons and self-determination

Parfit and Dancy argue that desires couldn’t be reason giving because if they were they would have to give us reasons for their own retention. The argument is not successful, but it reveals an interesting connection between the humean view of practical reason and our concepts of self governance and self determination. It shows that on the humean view of practical reason the same relations or processes that ground autonomous action and determine what we have reason to do also (partly) determine who we have reason to be. Rationally endorsed desires determine on the humean view which action of ours is autonomous and what we have reason to do. The lesson from Parfit’s and Dancy’s argument is that rationally endorsed desires are also normatively self determining; they provide the normative foundation for their own retention. Commentators have often wondered how, according to humeans, could our practical identity, whose causal history is normatively arbitrary, ground our reasons for action. The humean answer is that parts of our practical identity – namely, our rationally endorsed desires – justify their own retention and are thus normatively non-arbitrary. In this paper I analyze Dancy’s and Parfit’s argument, provide a humean reply, describe the implications of that reply for the humean view and give some examples of normatively self determining desires.