Xiv*-reason and Desire

My topic is the debate in moral psychology between the rationalist and the anti-rationalist over the proper relation between reason and desire. My aim is not to adjudicate this debate, but rather to clarify what is at stake, for, it seems to me, both parties are prone to misconceive the issues that divide them. Rationalists and anti-rationalists alike believe that there are norms of rationality that govern the way we come to desire what we desire and do what we do, much as there are norms of rationality that govern the way we come to believe what we believe. This is as it should be. For claims that give characteristic expression to such norms play an integral role in our everyday lives, claims like 'A ought to believe that p', 'A has a reason to believe that p', 'A ought to want to (D', 'A has a reason to want to ED', 'A ought to <P' and 'A has a reason to F'.1 Disagreement begins not with the claim that there are such norms, but with the rationalist's and anti-rationalist's different theories about the content of such norms and the relations between them. For rationalists claim, first, that rationality places certain practical requirements on action, requirements that are not reducible to requirements of theoretical reason, and second, that the requirements of morality reduce to these practical requirements of reason. Anti-rationalists, for their part, simply deny this conjunction. We seem to have here a fairly straightforward debate. But can