Knowing our Reasons: Distinctive Self-Knowledge of Why We Hold Our Attitudes and Perform Actions

This paper argues that subjects at least sometimes learn why they hold an attitude or perform an action in a distinctive first-personal way, i.e., they learn of those facts in a manner that mere observers cannot. Subjects have this first-personal self-knowledge in virtue of first-personal self-knowledge of the reasons for which they hold an attitude or perform an action—their motivating reasons. This paper focusses on one’s reasons for holding an attitude. So, it is not just that subjects have distinctive access to the fact that they, say, believe that q; they also have distinctive access to the fact that they believe that p for the reason that p. I argue for this position contra the prevailing orthodoxy. Philosophers and psychologists often deny that subjects have distinctive access to why they hold their attitudes. Indeed, even many of those who claim that subjects can use a special method to learn that they have a given attitude deny that this method provides knowledge of why one holds that attitude.