KNOWLEDGE, EXPLANATION, AND MOTIVATING REASONS

According to a number of recent philosophers, knowledge has an intimate relationship with rationality. Some philosophers hold, in particular, that rational agents do things for good motivating reasons, and that p can be one's motivating reason for phi-ing only if one knows that p. This paper argues against the latter view and in favor of the view that p cannot be one's motivating reason for phi-ing in the relevant sense-unless there is an appropriate explanatory connection between the fact that p and one's phi-ing. I argue that this view offers a better account of the cases alleged to support the knowledge view.