2. Defining Personal Projects

In contrast to intimate relationships, which are often understood in terms of distinct types, personal projects tend not to be very well defined.Footnote ⁵ They are presented as ‘extended patterns of purposeful activities’ (Scheffler, Reference Scheffler2025, Ch. 7) with which we can become engaged. Prime examples include careers, hobbies, causes, and vocations. To account for the fact that such engagements seem to matter to us in unique ways, we need to explain in more detail what they are and how different kinds of engagement can be categorized as distinct types of personal project. After all, what does a career in hairdressing, for example, have in common with a hobby, such as playing chess? Both of these engagements can qualify as personal projects.

What seems difficult about providing a unified account of these different engagements is the fact that there is a wide range of values connected to them and a multitude of ways in which we can pursue them. For example, the hairdresser can attach aesthetic value to their creations, find it glamorous to participate in international coiffure shows, and, more generally, regard it as rewarding to make people feel beautiful. The chess player, by contrast, may plausibly find intellectual value in thinking about different moves and imagining their opponents’ possible strategies, taking joy and satisfaction in such a complex game. Alongside this variety in the kinds of values held, there are many differences in how people engage in such projects. Some might pursue very few projects; others might devote themselves to a vast array of different ones. Some personal projects may require intricate skills while others require very little. We may choose our projects consciously, but we may also find ourselves valuing a project we never intended to pursue. As a result, what unifies different endeavors as personal projects is neither a single or common value nor a single way of engaging in them.

These differences notwithstanding, and despite the messiness that appears to cloud our analysis, it is their distinct normative significance that qualifies different engagements as types of a single kind, namely as types of personal projects. Elsewhere, I have shown that these are the kinds of engagements that qualify as unique and irreducible sources of two distinct kinds of project-dependent reasons (Betzler, Reference Betzler, Kühler and Jelinek2013, pp. 107–111).

First, if a person pursues a particular personal project, she acknowledges reasons for specific sets of different action types in which she engages repeatedly and over time. These reasons are grounded in values and norms that more or less determinately prescribe what a particular project is about (and this need not involve bringing about a certain outcome). In acknowledging these project-dependent reasons for different patterns of action types, the person in question pursues tokens of these types as contributory parts of her project. For instance, if Anna engages in saving the rainforest as her project, she does not take herself to have reasons to only once distribute flyers to alert her community to the importance of saving it. She also does not just see reasons for repeatedly distributing flyers. Rather, she acknowledges reasons to repeatedly engage in different types of actions, such as participating in negotiations with the Brazilian government, rallying support for her cause, and selling herbs from the rainforest to raise public awareness about the issue. These different types of action are indirectly related via the values and norms that more or less determinately prescribe what the preservation of the rainforest is about.

Second, in pursuing a particular project a person acknowledges reasons for various kinds of forward- and backward-looking emotions, some of which are project-directed and some of which are self- and other-directed. For example, a person will see that she has reasons for emotions in response to distinct features of a particular project, how it unfolds over time, how it fares in possibly changing circumstances and contexts, and how she relates to it. For example, Anna will acknowledge reasons to experience anger if big companies threaten to undermine her project, disappointment if her project fares poorly, and solidarity or connection if others take a similar interest in the rainforest. She will also acknowledge reasons to feel joy, elation, and devotion when she engages in her project. She will have reason to have hopes for it and reasons to feel regret if those hopes are not fulfilled. If her project fails, she will have reasons to feel frustrated, sad, or miserable about not being able to realize important parts of it. In addition, she has reasons to experience reflexive emotions about herself given that she pursues a particular kind of project. She may see reasons for pride or contentment if her project helps her meet her aspirations. By contrast, she may see reasons to feel ashamed or worthless if she does not manage to pursue her project well.

Responding to these two kinds of reasons amounts to what Scheffler qualifies as ‘valuing’. In his view, valuing involves a complex syndrome of attitudes and dispositions, such as the belief that the object of what one values is indeed valuable, a susceptibility to experiencing a variety of context-dependent emotions concerning that object, and a disposition to treat considerations pertaining to that object as providing one with reasons for action in relevant deliberative contexts (Scheffler, Reference Scheffler2010, pp. 15–40). Hence, valuing is constituted by a disposition to see oneself as having reasons for a set of different action types (as I would put it) and a distinct emotional vulnerability with regard to the object that one values. Valuing thereby requires a certain amount of competence in responding to those two kinds of project-dependent reasons. In my view, personal projects and intimate relationships are particularly suitable objects to be valued in these ways. It is persons and complex structures of other non-personal values that seem to provide the relevant kinds of reasons for valuing them.Footnote ⁶

This analysis helps to explain why personal projects cannot be reduced to other sources of reasons, such as wants, desires, plans, or goals more generally. This becomes evident if we look more precisely at further characteristics of the project-dependent reasons I just highlighted. These reasons are: (i) agent-relative; (ii) diachronic; (iii) modally stringent; and (iv) non-instrumental. As for (i), project-dependent reasons are particular reasons for the individual agent engaging in a specific kind of project (and not reasons for everyone). The scope of project-dependent reasons is thus limited to the agent who has a particular project. Regarding (ii), they are reasons both to engage in value- and norm-governed patterns of actions over time and to be disposed to forward- and backward-looking emotions targeted to the project – how it fares in changing circumstances and how it affects the agent in light of those circumstances. In addition, they are reasons to sustain the project and to want it to go forward. These reasons are also (iii) modally stringent in that they continue to be reasons in a not-too-distant possible world in which the project might be less successful or the agent’s engagement with it less committed. That is, engaging in a personal project implies that the agent will not easily reconsider or revise their project. The two kinds of project-dependent reasons I have highlighted are also exclusionary in that they are reasons to disregard competing reasons that risk undermining the pursuit of a particular project (quite in contrast to wants and desires). As for (iv), these reasons are non-instrumental in that they are reasons to value the project for its own sake (and hence not merely as a means to obtain some project-independent outcome – quite in contrast to plans and goals) (Betzler, Reference Betzler, Altshuler and Sigrist2016, pp. 128ff.). In other words, they are reasons to value the pursuit of the project as opposed to merely valuing its completion. These characteristics together account for the distinct normative significance of personal projects, and they explain why not any ‘extended purposeful activity’ or goals more generally qualify as personal projects.

With this analysis in place, we can now examine further what accounts for the particular force of these reasons – they are modally stringent, after all – to the extent that ignoring them grounds reasons for justified criticism. If we can explain what can be wrong about simply giving up on one’s project (even in light of countervailing reasons), we can show what accounts for this particular normative force.

3. Why Project-Dependent Reasons Have Special Normative Force

The explanation Scheffler offers for the distinction in normative significance between our intimate relationships and our personal projects is that it is our intimates who have justified expectations with regard to our partial behavior toward them, whereas personal projects do not harbor such expectations. It therefore seems that it is wrong to ignore relationship-dependent reasons, while it is not wrong to ignore our project-dependent reasons. This is because ignoring relationship-dependent reasons amounts to a relational wrong, whereas ignoring project-dependent reasons does not wrong anybody. After all, intimates are particularly vulnerable to each other, whereas projects are not vulnerable to the person pursuing them. We are therefore accountable to our intimates but not to our personal projects. Scheffler thus concludes that we are not in any way required to act on our personal projects (Scheffler, Reference Scheffler, Wallace, Pettit, Scheffler and Smith2004, p. 258). In a later paper, he further substantiates this view when he claims that we do not demonstrate an insensitivity to the value of a project if, in the case of its failure or completion, we swiftly move on to develop new projects. In contrast, if a friend dies and we immediately move on to develop new friendships, we can have legitimate doubts about whether we sufficiently valued our deceased friend in the first place (Scheffler, Reference Scheffler2016, p. 512).

But to capture the asymmetry between relationship-dependent and project-dependent reasons in these ways can be misleading. After all, the focus on the special moral duties that our intimate relationships generate and the claim that the pursuit of a particular personal project is merely morally permissible does not help to uncover that the pursuit of a particular project and our responses to project-dependent reasons can exert a particular non-moral normative force.

Scheffler’s focus on the asymmetry between relationship-dependent and project-dependent reasons obscures the fact that there are other non-moral considerations at play that help explain why our pursuit of a particular project and our subsequent response to project-dependent reasons have a distinct normative force.

What seems to support this view is that we have reasons to criticize Anna, for example, if she claims to value her project yet disregards or simply moves on to another one. We might also criticize her (for different reasons, perhaps) if she dismisses the project because she claims to discontinue valuing it. After all, many might point out that this has been her project for a long time and it has mattered greatly in her life. She will be hard pressed to find something else that holds such significance, and she would be better off trying to positively value it again.

But even if there is something to this view, what exactly is it that puts us under normative pressure to carry on with a particular project once we have started to pursue it? And what is (non-morally) wrong about simply disregarding or giving up on one’s project?

To answer these questions, it is helpful to consider cases where various reasons seem to speak against continuing with one’s project. Such cases help to highlight why project-dependent reasons are modally stringent and continue to have normative force even when countervailing reasons might seem to speak against pursuing (or continuing to pursue) that particular project.

Let’s imagine Beth, who has been pursuing the project of writing a novel. In a first scenario, one reason that might speak against continuing with her project is that she has completed said novel. It is just about to be published. It might therefore seem that she no longer has project-dependent reasons to value writing her novel. At least, this is what Scheffler seems to suggest when he states that we do not demonstrate an insensitivity to the value of a project if, in the case of its completion, we swiftly move on to develop new projects (Scheffler, Reference Scheffler2016, p. 512). But this is less obvious than meets the eye.

If project-dependent reasons are reasons for meaningfully related sets of action types as well as forward- and backward-looking emotions, it is difficult to see how a project can be completed fully in the sense of it no longer being a source of project-dependent reasons.Footnote ⁷ After all, this would amount to not having valued the project in the first place (but rather having regarded it merely as a means to some independent end). But recall that project-dependent reasons are not only reasons for forward- and backward-looking emotions, but also reasons that are non-instrumental.

Even if Beth has completed the particular novel which has been her project over the last five years, she will continue to have reasons to be proud of it, worry about whether she will find a publisher and, if so, whether it will find many readers. And she might have new reasons to see that her novel is well received, or reasons to make an effort in marketing it. Also, the reasons why she wrote the novel in the first place are, in part at least, value-based reasons that will likely lead her to write a further novel or, at least, be interested in literature more generally. It also seems to me that one might rightfully wonder whether Beth really has valued writing the novel as her project if she simply ceases to respond to these further project-dependent reasons that survive the completion of her novel.

One might point out that writing the novel might have been so overwhelming and stressful for Beth that she is glad to move on with her life after the completion of her novel. If this is the case, why then should she be at fault in ignoring any further project-dependent reasons? But note that even when certain reasons compel her to move on with her life, the reasons to be glad about her particular project having been completed continue to be project-dependent reasons!

We need to disambiguate two senses of the term ‘completion’ here. There is a sense in which Beth’s project has been completed in that the novel is no longer in the making, but rather it is written and published. Beth no longer engages in writing her novel. Yet there is another sense in which a project has been completed in that it is no longer a source of project-dependent reasons. Having published her novel (in the first sense of completion) does not rule out that it continues to be a source of reasons (and hence has not been completed in the second sense). And even if Beth moves on to writing a new novel, she may continue to have project-dependent reasons that are generated by her first novel: she may, for instance, have reasons to set up the structure of her new novel differently given the experiences she had in writing her first novel. In addition, she may have reasons grounded in her more generalized project to write novels (not just reasons grounded in her particular project of writing the first or second novel). As a result, even if Beth has completed her novel, at least some of the reasons grounded in her project can survive its completion, and thus continue to have normative force. This is what valuing a particular project involves.

In a second scenario, Beth has ceased to value writing novels. Perhaps she has just failed to carry her enthusiasm through and has proved unable to respond to the project-dependent reasons for novel-writing. One might think that this could be a case where her project-dependent reasons simply lose their normative force. But again, the situation is more complex than it may seem. We need to further distinguish three ways in which Beth is unable to value her project. Either she turns out to be less talented than she thought she was and is therefore unsuccessful in writing her novel. Or perhaps circumstances have forced her to give up on the project, because, for example, she needed to work to generate some money and therefore had no time to write a novel. Or perhaps she has simply ceased to value her project positively.

But if she lacks talent, Beth never valued the project properly as she has turned out not to be (sufficiently) able to respond to the project-dependent reasons that novel-writing provided for her (if it was a project). Hence, it has turned out not to be her project in the sense that I have defined this term as it has never been a source of project-dependent reasons for her.Footnote ⁸ And if circumstances have made it impossible for her to respond to the project-dependent reasons that the novel-writing project generates, she would not simply cease to have those reasons. Instead, she would have reasons to be sad about, if not resent, the fact that she is no longer able to value it, even if this is a result of her own choice. Similarly, she would have reasons to hope that she might be able to take up this project again in the future and reasons to take an interest in novel-writing, for example by taking notes for a novel she envisions writing in the future. These reasons continue to be project-dependent reasons that still carry normative force. Since project-dependent reasons are modally stringent reasons for forward- and backward-looking emotions, failing in one’s project or being hindered in its pursuit due to competing reasons does not mean that one simply ceases to have project-dependent reasons.

Rather, those project-dependent reasons continue to have normative force even in a not-too-distant world where it is not possible to respond to them. Indeed, it would therefore, and pace Scheffler, amount to an insensitivity to the value that the project in novel-writing had for Beth if she did not respond to any of the project-dependent reasons just mentioned. And we would be hard pressed to think of her as ever having had a project in novel-writing if she did not acknowledge those reasons. Furthermore, and in the case where Beth ceased to value her project positively, she may still face project-dependent reasons to see to it that she values it positively again. After all, she has been invested in the project for quite some time, and even though she currently feels neither joy, contentment, nor satisfaction in pursuing it, but rather experiences worry, frustration, and anxiety, it is part of valuing a project that makes one prone to such negative emotions. Hence, not valuing a project positively does nothing to show that Beth does not have project-dependent reasons that continue to exert a normative force on her. Surely, these are not necessarily reasons to continue with her project and carry on with novel-writing. But to the extent that this has been her project, she has reasons to respond to the fact that it is coming to an end or that she no longer values it positively. It is precisely because it is her project that she has those reasons, even if they warrant negative emotions.Footnote ⁹ Similarly, if Beth no longer thinks that her project is valuable, she still faces project-dependent reasons to cope with the fact that she was wrong in how she used to think about its value. At least, she faces project-dependent reasons to regret having good reasons to give up on her project.

These scenarios highlight that project-dependent reasons continue to carry normative force even where there are competing reasons for not continuing with a particular project. It is surely misleading to say that Beth did something ‘wrong’ in discontinuing her project, at least not in the sense that she morally wrongs her project. But the distinction that Scheffler makes between ‘morally required’ and ‘morally permissible’ does not leave any room to account for the particular modal stringency and thus for the distinct normative force of project-dependent reasons.

So far, I have explained that project-dependent reasons have a distinct normative force that cannot simply be ignored in light of certain countervailing reasons. In the case of Beth, her project-dependent reasons are not simply silenced by the fact that she might have completed her novel, or that she does not value it positively, or that circumstances have made it impossible for her to continue to respond to these project-dependent reasons. Instead, they continue to have a normative force, the disregarding of which would put into doubt whether Beth had ever actually pursued novel-writing as her project. Hence, Beth cannot simply drop her project and ignore any project-dependent reasons without being subject to justified criticism.

But we still need to explain why project-dependent reasons have that force, even in cases where the project has been completed, where circumstances make its pursuit impossible, or where one has ceased to value it positively. So far, I have pointed to considerations internal to the valuation of a particular project. It is part of what it means to engage in a particular project, one might say, that one acknowledges these reasons even in cases where competing reasons may speak against that project.

But apart from the fact that having come to value a particular project entails that project-dependent reasons continue to exert a particular normative force in a close enough world, there are two further considerations external to the conditions of what the pursuit of a particular project involves. They provide value-based reasons that strengthen the project-dependent reasons we have, and thus additionally explain why they have the force they do.

First, coming to value a particular project of value is a kind of evaluative achievement. It is independently valuable, one might say, to have managed to value things of value (Betzler, Reference Betzler, Altshuler and Sigrist2016, p. 136). And it is by way of such an evaluative achievement that we acquire meaning in our lives, at least in terms of a plausible conception of meaning.Footnote ¹⁰ If valuing a valuable project is a constitutive condition for attaining meaning in our lives, and provided we have a fundamental interest in leading meaningful lives, we have additional meaning-based reasons to continue to respond to project-dependent reasons and thus continue to value a project that we once managed to value. These are reasons to sustain the project with which we have made our life meaningful, and hence reasons to preserve meaning in our life through the particular project we have been pursuing.Footnote ¹¹

As Scheffler points out in his later work, there is a conservative dimension to valuing things of value (Scheffler, Reference Scheffler2018, p. 89). I think that the fact that the independent value of an evaluative achievement is tied to meaning explains this conservative dimension. As a result, it is the fact that Beth has come to value her project successfully – at least to a sufficient degree – and has thereby made her life meaningful that explains why she has meaning-based reasons that further strengthen her project-dependent reasons. These are reasons to sustain her project.

One might object at this point that another project can provide meaning too. But note that we cannot be so sure about being able to value new valuable projects, hence the conservative dimension of valuing. Once we have managed to attain meaning through our project, we face additional meaning-based reasons to hold on to this evaluative achievement. This does not entail that these reasons are absolute, but provided that we have already attained meaning through the pursuit of a particular project, our project-dependent reasons are strengthened.

There is yet a second consideration that also accounts for the normative force of project-dependent reasons. Even if our projects do not feel betrayed if we discontinue them, there is a sense, somewhat metaphorical perhaps, in which we betray ourselves if we simply stop responding to the project-dependent reasons we once acknowledged. To illustrate this, let’s consider Beth again.

The more Beth has come to engage in novel-writing as her project, and the more she has become vulnerable to various emotions in connection with that project, the more she has come to see herself as a novelist. Consequently, successfully valuing a valuable project is not only valuable because it creates meaning in our lives. Pursuing a personal project also accounts for our normative identity or self-conception (at least in part). To the extent that a normative identity or self-conception provides us with a description under which we value ourselves, it is a condition for us to value things of value at all (Korsgaard, Reference Korsgaard1996, p. 101).Footnote ¹² After all, if we do not know what matters to us deeply, such that this is how we see ourselves, we are at a loss concerning what reasons we have.

Hence, if Beth simply gives up on her particular project because it has been completed, because circumstances have forced her to do so, or because she has ceased to value it positively, she loses a basis on which to make sense of her life. To the extent that it matters deeply to us to make sense of ourselves, losing the constitutive condition for doing so explains why in ceasing to respond to project-dependent reasons we have once acknowledged – even if we do so for particular reasons – we betray, to some extent at least, ourselves.Footnote ¹³ It is the value connected to having a normative identity that further underscores the conservative dimension of valuing.

This does not mean that we are bound to be trapped in our normative identity. Again, project-dependent reasons are not absolute and there can be good reasons for ceasing to respond to them. We are thus not bound to our normative identities, but if we give up on a particular project, and provided that this project is part of our normative identity, ceasing to respond to the relevant project-dependent reasons risks undermining the condition for having reasons to value things of value at all. This explains, again in part, why there are identity-based considerations that may additionally strengthen our project-dependent reasons.