Deliberative Restriction and Professional Roles

Abstract

When we are acting in a professional capacity, that can restrict the considerations that properly feature as reasons in our deliberation. Three different possibilities need to be distinguished. First, there are cases of concealed reasons, where fact F is a reason for action A, but F should not feature in your deliberation about A. Secondly, there are cases of context-undermining, where fact F fails to provide a reason for performing action A in one context, even though F is a reason for A in other contexts. And thirdly, there are cases of exclusionary reasons. When fact F is a reason for action A, another fact E functions as an exclusionary reason when it is a reason not to be guided by F in A-ing. The paper begins by explaining the difference between these three possibilities, and then considers their various applications to the normative ethics of professional roles. Each of these different possibilities turns out to have important professional applications, and the differences between them are instructive.