  There are, generally, two ways in which a naturalist might respond to this objection. First, a naturalist could say that moral facts aren’t essentially normative; it may be the case that we typically have reasons to act morally, but reason-giving force is not part of the essence of moral facts. That suggestion might have the feeling of an absurdity—of course moral facts are the kinds of things that provide reasons; if an action is morally required, that’s a good reason to do it! But according to some “reforming definitions” of morality (Brandt 1979; Railton 1986), while we may intuitively think that moral facts give reasons, that is a kind of defect in our conception of morality. It would be more accurate and fruitful to define moral facts in terms that are not necessarily reason-providing. Thinking about moral facts in this way is different than how we typically think about moral facts—that is why this kind of account constitutes a reforming definition of morality—but we are talking about morality all the same (Railton 1986).