Justification to other people › Reasons come before a procedure

Scanlon takes the idea of a reason as basic. In the relevant normative sense, a reason is a consideration that counts in favor of something. We can ask for reasons for an action, but also for a belief or an attitude. The book begins with reasons before developing its treatment of values, well-being and interpersonal morality.

A person's actual motive and a good reason can come apart. Someone might keep a promise mainly to protect a reputation. The other's reliance may nevertheless supply a reason to keep it. Conversely, the strength of a desire to break the promise does not establish that the desire supplies an adequate justification for doing so.

The distinction prevents a confusion about moral motivation. Scanlon is concerned with why justifiability gives us reasons, not simply with predicting what will move every person. Someone can fail to care about a reason they have. An account of moral authority need not claim that presenting its argument will reliably persuade an indifferent person to change their behavior.

This also explains why contractualism is not a way of constructing moral reasons out of preferences alone. Reasonableness is a normative standard: it concerns which objections deserve weight. Describing an objection accurately is part of deliberation, but its mere existence cannot determine the answer. Otherwise, an unreasonable demand would become decisive merely because someone insisted on it.