   Morality has provided an especially fertile source of examples and problems for the theory of practical reason. A defining question of moral philosophy is the question of the rational authority of moral norms: to what extent, and under what conditions, do people have compelling reasons to comply with the demands of conventional morality? (Alternatively: to what extent, and under what conditions, are people rationally required to comply with those demands?) Reflection on this question has produced some of the most significant and illuminating philosophical work in the theory of practical reason. Two divergent tendencies within this body of work can be singled out. Some accounts of moral reasoning proceed by relating it to patterns of reflection appropriate to other, non-moral domains, particularly the maximizing patterns canvassed in the section 5. Thus it has been argued that, though morality imposes constraints on the direct pursuit of individual utility, these constraints can be justified in the terms of ordinary economic rationality; the strategy of morally-constrained maximization is recommended on grounds of enlightened self-interest, and this in turn accounts for the authority of moral considerations to govern the practical reflection of individuals (Gauthier 1986). Other philosophers have tried to make sense of morality as a set of rational norms by assimilating it more directly to the maximizing conception. Consider utilitarianism and other consequentialist approaches to the normative structure of morality, which interpret moral rightness in terms of the value of the consequences (of actions, policies, institutions, or other objects of moral assessment). These theories derive at least some of their appeal from the fact that they apply to the moral domain the maximizing model of rationality that seems both familiar and appealing outside of moral contexts. Thus one way to argue for ethical consequentialism is to observe that it is the theory that results when we combine the requirement of maximization with a distinctively moral constraint of impartiality, applying the requirement to a set of preferences that includes those of all the persons (or other sentient creatures) potentially affected by our actions (Harsanyi 1982).