The reality of moral expectations: A note of caution

The actions that agents perform in social situations are often influenced by the moral justifications they are able to provide of their behaviour. Boltanski and Thévenot point out that this fact appears to be in tension with the standard models of social explanation which seek to explain behaviour in social situations in terms of self‐interested motivations. In this note I consider this tension, and caution against reading too much into it.