A Millian Objection to Reasons as Evidence

Abstract

Stephen Kearns and Daniel Star have recently proposed the following theory of reasons: Reasons as Evidence : Necessarily, a fact F is a reason for an agent A to Φ iff F is evidence that A ought to Φ (where Φ is either a belief or an action). In this article I present an objection, inspired by Mill's proof of the principle of utility, to the right-to-left reading of the biconditional. My claim is that the fact that you can perform some action can be evidence that you ought to do it without, itself, being a reason to do it. If this is true then Reasons as Evidence is false.