Can Reasons Be Propositions? Agaisnt Dancy's Attack to Propositionalism

The topic of this article is the ontology of practical reasons. We draw a critical compari-son between two views. According to thefirst, practical reasons are states of affairs; according tothe second, they are propositions. Wefirst isolate and spell out in detail certain objections to thesecond view that can be found only in embryonic form in the literature–in particular, in the workof Jonathan Dancy. Next, we sketch possible ways in which one might respond to each one ofthese objections. A careful evaluation of these complaints and responses, we argue, shows that thefirst view is not as obviously compelling as it is thought by Dancy. Indeed, it turns out that theview that practical reasons are propositions is by no means unworkable and in fact, at least undercertain assumptions, explicit considerations can be made in favour of a propositional construal ofreasons.