L’oggetto del desiderio conteso fra Darwall e Rawls

Abstract

The practice of reason-giving normally belongs to our everyday life. People involved in this practice acknowledge each other as persons, and in turn reasonably ask each other for justification regarding our respective actions. However, if we ask why these persons provide reasons for their respective actions, or in what grounds they should do certain things, the answer is neither easy nor obvious. In this paper I want to consider the meaning of “desire”, “will”, and “autonomy” within Darwall’s and Rawls’s respective works. I claim that both Darwall and Rawls hold that moral psychology plays a fundamental role in grounding justified reasons for acting (and for coming into the reason-giving practice). Furthermore, I suggest that Darwall differently grasps Rawls’s moral psychology, placing more value on the will, rather than desire, as well as envisioning a more or less robust notion of “autonomy”. My aim is to show that, pace Darwall, Rawls has a different position about desire, its object, and the value of the will, one which enables us to ground the reason-giving practice on “weaker” assumptions.