Frankfurt, razones prácticas y supremacía normativa

Yohan Manuel  Molina González

doi:10.3989/isegoria.2026.74.1742

Authors

Yohan Manuel Molina González Universidad de Alicante https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2339-9483

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3989/isegoria.2026.74.1742

Keywords:

Frankfurt, reasons, justification, love, morality, practical conflict

Abstract

Harry Frankfurt has proposed one of the most distinctive contemporary contributions to the nature of practical reasons. According to this position, love is the ultimate source of our normative reasons. This work has three main objectives. Firstly, I will expose certain discordances in the development of Frankfurt’s practical philosophy regarding practical conflicts and relations of justificatory supremacy between love and morality. Secondly, I will point out that his last position about those conflicts not only does not align with the phenomenology of our ordinary reflective practices and involves an error theory about them, but also fails due to its inability to suitably fit the conceptual structure of morality. To this end, I will rely on Rawls’ distinction between “concepts” and “conceptions”, focusing on the general moral phenomenon. This last consideration will allow me, finally, to draw a defense of the justificatory supremacy of morality with respect to the personal commitments of love.

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