Abstract

This paper critically evaluates the Hypothetical Motivation Theory of Reasons, the widely shared view that an agent has a reason to act if and only if they would be motivated to do so under specific idealized conditions (e.g., full information, vivid awareness, or coherent preferences). While this theory successfully addresses the obvious failings of a crude "actual motivation" account, I argue that it is fundamentally flawed as a philosophical analysis of reasons. The central critique focuses on two core problems inherent to the hypothetical approach: "counterfeit reasons" (motivation inappropriately introduced by the idealizing conditions through brute physiological or non-normative psychological processes) and "truant reasons" (reasons that fail to be generated due to psychological idiosyncrasies). I contend that attempts to eliminate these flaws by refining the idealization—for instance, by excluding brute physiological effects or requiring means/ends rationality—are either ad hoc, ineffective, or reduce the theory to a mere terminological variant of a better alternative. I propose, instead, an Actual Intrinsic Motivation Theory, which grounds reasons for acting on the agent's enduring, non-occurrent intrinsic motivation (or valuing). This approach avoids the unacceptable implications of the crude view without relying on problem-generating subjunctive conditionals. The paper concludes that while hypothetical motivation may serve as a useful heuristic for discovering reasons, it does not constitute a valid analysis, which must instead be anchored in the agent's actual, functional motivational structure.