It is now standard in the literature on reasons and rationality to distinguish normative reasons from motivating reasons. Two issues have dominated philosophical theorising concerning the latter: (i) whether we should think of them as certain (nonfactive) psychological states of the agent—the dispute over Psychologism; and (ii) whether we should say that the agent can ϕ for the reason that p only if p—the dispute over Factivism. This paper first introduces a puzzle: these disputes look very much like merely verbal disputes about the meaning of phrases like ‘S’s reason’ in motivating reasons ascriptions, and yet charity requires us to think that something substantive is afoot. But what? The second aim of the paper is to extract substantive theses from certain natural argument for Psychologism and Anti-Factivism—theses which are versions of a Cartesian view of the nature and normative structure of rationality. The paper ends by arguing against these substantive theses on phenomenological and ethical grounds. The upshot is that proponents of Psychologism and Anti-Factivism are either engaged in the project of defending merely verbal theses or they’re engaged in the project of defending false substantive ones.

现在，在关于理由和理性的文献中，区分规范性理由和激励性理由已成为标准。有两个问题主导了关于后者的哲学理论：（i）我们是否应该将它们视为代理人的某些（非事实的）心理状态——关于心理主义的争论；(ii) 我们是否应该说代理可以ϕ 因为 p 只有当 p——关于事实主义的争论。本文首先引入了一个谜题：这些争论看起来很像关于“S's reason”这样的短语在动机归因中的含义的口头争论，但慈善要求我们认为一些实质性的事情正在发生。但是什么？该论文的第二个目的是从某些自然论据中提取实质性论点，这些论点是关于理性的本质和规范结构的笛卡尔观点的版本。本文最后以现象学和伦理学的理由反对这些实质性的论点。结果是，心理主义和反事实主义的支持者要么从事仅为口头论文辩护的项目，要么从事为虚假的实质性论文辩护的项目。