In this paper, I provide an answer to the question “what is it for a reason to be the reason for which a belief is held?” After arguing against the causal account of the reason-for-which connection, I present what I call the rationalization account, according to which a reason R a subject S has for a belief P is the reason for which S holds P just in case R is the premise in S’s rationalization for P, where the argument from R to P becomes S’s rationalization in virtue of her endorsing it. In order to bring explicitly into view the version of the rationalization account I aim to argue for, I draw two distinctions, one between occurrent and dispositional endorsement and the other between personal and public endorsement. I show that the version of the rationalization account thus clarified receives intuitive support from various cases and survives some formidable objections that might be tempting to level against it.

在本文中，我对以下问题提供了答案：“出于某种原因成为持有信念的原因是什么？” 在针对原因联系的因果关系论证之后，我提出了我所谓的合理化论证，据此，被摄对象S因信念P而具有的原因R是S持有P的原因，以防万一R是S对P进行合理化的前提，其中从R到P的论据成为S对S的合理化认可它。为了清楚地说明我要主张的合理化说明的版本，我画出了两个区别，一个是发生性认可和性格认可之间的区别，另一个是个人和公共认可之间的区别。我表明，如此澄清的合理化账目版本在各种情况下都得到了直观的支持，并且幸免了一些可能试图与之抗衡的强大反对意见。