Law and Reasons: Comments on Rodriguez-Blanco

In Ve ron ica Ro dri guez-Blanco’s thought ful and im por tant ar ti cle, “Rea sons in Ac tion v Trig ger ing Rea sons: A Re ply to Enoch on Rea son-Giv ing and Le gal Normativity,” she ex plores with great care the na ture of rea son-giv ing, in con nec tion with chal leng ing Da vid Enoch’s in flu en tial re cent work on rea son-giv ing and the law. While Ro dri guez-Blanco’s ar ti cle makes an im por tant con tri bu tion to the lit er a ture on the best un der stand ing of rea son-giv ing and prac ti cal rea son ing, it is not clear that an ap proach to rea sons for ac tion re formed along the lines Ro dri guez-Blanco sug gests would change or clar ify the ul ti mate ques tion on which she fo cuses: the way in which le gal sys tems in gen eral or in di vid ual le gal norms do (or do not) give cit i zens rea sons for ac tion. The ques tion of whether we have a gen eral (pre sump tive) moral ob li ga tion to act (or re frain from act ing) as le gal norms di rect us de pends to a sig nif i cant de gree on whether there are good ar gu ments against an in di vid u al is tic, case by case, ap proach to re spond ing to such norms.