Self-Effacing Reasons and Epistemic Constraints: Some Lessons from the Knowability Paradox

A minimal constraint on normative reasons seems to be that if some fact is a reason for an agent to ϕ (act, believe, or feel), the agent could come to know that fact. This constraint is threatened by a well- known type of counterexamples. Self-effacing reasons are facts that intuitively constitute reasons for an agent to ϕ, but that if they were to become known, they would cease to be reasons for that agent. The challenge posed by self-effacing reasons bears important structural similarities with a range of epistemic paradoxes, most notabl y the Kno wability Paradox. In this article, we investigate the similarities and differ ences between the two arguments. Moreover, we assess whether some of the approaches to the Knowability Paradox could help solve the challenge posed by self-effacing reasons. We argue that at least two popular approaches to the paradox can be turned into promising strategies for addressing the self-effacing r easons pr oblem.