Three kinds of moral rationalism

Moral rationalism can be formulated in three very different ways depending on which of three features the moral rationalist thinks is more fundamental when it comes to explaining what we are obliged to do, permitted to do, and forbidden from doing. The first of these is the relation that holds between certain considerations and intentions or desires when those considerations provide reasons for having those intentions or desires. The second is the choiceworthiness or desirability of the objects of an agent’s intentions or desires. The third is the set of structural relations that an agents’ intentions or desires stand in to each other, and to other psychological states, insofar as that agent is rational. The main aim of the paper is to demonstrate that the last of these is explanatorily fundamental. A subsidiary aim is to spell out the epistemological consequences of this fact.