Explanationism holds that facts involving normative reasons reduce to facts involving the explanation of deontic properties. This paper argues that explanationism fails to account for the link between normative reasons for action and rational motivation, i.e., why agents act for those reasons. Two versions of the challenge are developed, drawing on two internalist principles--a metaphysical and an agent-centered one.

The metaphysical principle suggests that normative phenomena directly guide rational agents. However, if explanationism takes the reasons relation to be merely descriptive, then only deontic status properties qualify as genuinely normative. These properties might direct agents to do the right action, but they do not explain why agents act for certain reasons.

The agent-centered principle holds that rational agents respond to their recognition of a fact as a normative reason. Yet it remains unclear why agents should be motivated simply by the grounds of deontic properties. An appeal to the idea that agents base their actions on evidence for an action’s rightness still does not explain how such evidence itself becomes a motivating reason. Consequently, a competing view like reasons-primitivism--which treats normative reasons as irreducible--may better capture the connection between reasons and rational motivation.