PEA Soup

Justified Normative Judgments

2009-11-15T10:20:00-08:00

Sometimes we believe we ought to do things. Sometimes we then do them. I'd love to know how the normative status of normative judgments (which I'm taking to be beliefs about what ought to be done all things considered) are related to the normative status of the things we do. I think that this is right: if your belief that you ought to Φ is justified, Φ-ing is justified. (If you ought to believe that you ought to Φ, you really ought to Φ.) I've written up a short little piece attacking a view (a.k.a., 'The View') that uses some principles I like but uses them for nefarious purposes (attacks on epistemic purism, attacks on views of the ontology of practical reasons that identify them with states of the world or worldly facts). I've attacked The View before (in 'The Myth of the False, Justified Belief' (here)), but my argument rested on intuitions about the moral significance of facts that an agent is non-culpably ignorant of that some people think are dodgy. (Fwiw, I've found much better rhetoric to use to get people to have the right intuitions than I used in that paper.) It can't be that facts you're non-culpably ignorant of determine what your obligation is, if you fail to take account of them, that's just bad luck. Or something like that. I'll try something different here and try to hit The View where it hurts. (Because I know the targets and we seem to be on reasonably friendly terms, I'm a bit more glib than I would be otherwise. Since they seem to be rather glib in attacking the views I cherish, I hope they'll forgive me as it's clearly not intended to be disrespectful.)

JUSTIFIED NORMATIVE JUDGMENT

Should your conscience be your guide? I really can’t say because we might never have met. If you are conscientious, you will often make the move from a belief about what ought to be done to an action rationalized (in part) by the belief:
(The Move)         SBSOΦ
                        S Φ’s
I can’t say that you should have made The Move if I don’t know the specifics. It’s not obviously irrational to make The Move. Indeed, it seems often that it would be irrational not to. Still, I think this principle can’t be true:
   (Con)        SBSOΦ → SOΦ
The best people make The Move, but so do the worst. For counterexamples to Con, see any movie about Nazis (but don't see Valkyrie).

If you think there must be some sort of normative relation between practical judgments and the actions and intentions those judgments rationalize, perhaps it is captured by something like this:
(W-Con) SO(SBOΦ → SOΦ)
While all kinds of people make The Move, only those who act rightly conform to W-Con. Conscientious Hitlers are no threat to W-Con, only Con.

W-Con seems trivial. Gibbons (2009: 172) seems to agree. Note that W-Con permits what he calls ‘strengthened detachment’. With W-Con, we can infer (2) from (1):
   (1)        SOBSOΦ
   (2)        SOΦ
When should someone believe they ought to Φ? He suggests that someone who considers whether to Φ, gives the matter serious attention, has the intellectual skills to knowingly deduce that she ought to Φ, and has sufficient evidence ought to judge that she ought to Φ. It’s hard to say what sufficient evidence amounts to, but two claims are intuitively plausible:
(SE1)    S has sufficient evidence for her belief that p if S has precisely the same evidence as someone who knows p.
(SE2)    S ought to believe p if S has given the matter sufficient attention and has sufficient evidence to believe p.
Rather than bicker about whether evidence consists of knowledge or something else, I’ll just say now that nothing here turns on whether we opt for the right view of evidence or some alternative to E=K. Evidence can be pretty much whatever you want it to be, provided that you agree that even if p is part of S’s evidence, p isn’t the evidence that justifies S’s believing p when that belief is an inferential belief. Combine (SE1), (SE2), and W-Con, and the result is that you are permitted to do whatever it is that your epistemic counterparts are permitted to do.   Indeed, you and your epistemic counterpart often ought to do the same things, provided that you ought to believe that you ought to do the same things.

This seems to be the view defended by Fantl and McGrath (forthcoming: 85). They say that if you have knowledge-level justification for believing p, it is permissible to treat p as a reason for action as well as belief. Suppose you have knowledge-level justification for believing that you ought to Φ. It would then be proper for you to treat that you ought to Φ as a reason for action, say, when you judge that you should Ψ because you know that Ψ-ing is the only means by which you could Φ. Suppose you have knowledge-level justification for believing p where you kow or justifiably believe you ought to Φ if p. It would then be proper for you to treat p as a reason for action and, arguably, proper to Φ accordingly. Like Fantl, McGrath, and Gibbons, I have a hard time seeing how W-Con could be false. Whatever it is that neutralizes the threats to the normative standing of the normative judgment should take care of whatever normative obstacles stand in the way of plowing ahead and acting on the normative judgment. In spite of the view’s intuitive plausibility, there is something wrong with:
(The View) W-Con, (SE1), and (SE2)

Those who defend The View believe that someone can have sufficient evidence to believe p even if ~p. Here is what Fantl and McGrath say on the matter:
… it is highly plausible that if two subjects have all the same very strong evidence for my glass contains gin, believe that proposition on the basis of this evidence, and then act on the belief in reaching to take a drink, those two subjects are equally justified in their actions and equally justified in treating what they each did as a reason, even if one of them, the unlucky one, has cleverly disguised petrol in his glass rather than gin. Notice that if we asked the unlucky fellow why he did such a thing, he might reply with indignation: ‘well, it was the perfectly rational thing to do; I had every reason to think the glass contained gin; why in the world should I think that someone would be going around putting petrol in cocktail glasses!?’ Here the unlucky subject is not providing an excuse for his action or treating what he did as a reason; he is defending it as the action that made the most sense for him to do and the proposition that made most sense to treat as a reason (forthcoming: 141).

It seems Fantl and McGrath are moved by a kind of anti-luck intuition. If someone shouldn’t Φ, there have to be reasons in light of which the subject shouldn’t Φ and should do something else instead, but they cannot be reasons that are inaccessible to the subject. Why? Perhaps it’s because the best that you can ever do is to do what the rational or reasonable person would do in your shoes. While there’s something to be said for the view that says (i) you should do the best you can and (ii) it cannot be that you should have done more or done otherwise than the best you could given your circumstances, I don’t think that this can be what motivates The View.

In The Myth of the FJB, I argued that there can be facts we are non-culpably ignorant of that determines what our overall moral obligation is. In other words, factual ignorance and mistaken belief excuses wrongdoing, they does not obviate the need to try to justify engaging a course of action that is wrongful. These cases show that there’s a reading of ‘sufficient evidence’ on which (SE1) is trivial and a reading on which (SE2) is perfectly harmless, but these are different readings. If ‘sufficient evidence’ just means evidence that ensures that it is permissible to believe, (SE2) is trivial but (SE1) is (arguably) mistaken. If ‘sufficient evidence’ just means evidence that ensures that we satisfy whatever evidential requirements there are on permissible belief, (SE1) is trivial but (SE2) is (arguably) mistaken. This reading leaves open the possibility that the right to believe turns on more than just the evidence. The view I would defend is that only beliefs that can properly figure in deliberation are permissibly held and since any false belief will pass off a non-reason as if it were a reason, no false beliefs can justifiably be held. If someone has a false belief that leads them to engage in wrongdoing but has the same evidence as someone who acts rightly, the evidence not ensure that the agent conforms to the norms governing action or belief but it might provide an excuse for acting on beliefs that oughtn’t be included in deliberation. The problem with this line of attack was that it appealed to intuitions about the duties you have in light of facts inaccessible to the agent. Intuitions about such cases seem to be the sort of thing that move unaffiliated graduate students, not your opponents who think we should drink petrol with ice and wedges of lime.

Let’s try a different line of attack. Coop thinks it’s his lucky day. He’s found a quarter on the ground and heads off to buy a gumball. He passes a vending machine and sees that trapped inside are an infant, a puppy, and a kitten. On the machine, a sign says that anything in the machine could be had for a quarter. He knows that it would be best if the infant were freed, second best if the puppy were set free, third best if the kitten were set free, and that the worst state of affairs involves his buying that gumball he wants. Coop judges:
(3) Cooper ought to bring it about that the infant is freed.
It seems that someone could have just Coop’s evidence and know that (3) is true. So, it follows from The View that (3) is true. It is, however, perfectly consistent with everything I’ve just said that the mechanism that would allow Coop to free the infant is broken. Perhaps the only buttons that work are the buttons that free the puppy or free the kitten. Now, consider:
(OIC): If S ought to Φ, S can Φ.
According to (OIC), what Coop ought to do is something other than what (3) says.

Here’s an argument against The View. It implies that your obligation can be what you cannot do. Obligations aren’t like that. Thus, either epistemic obligations are not fixed entirely by facts about an individual’s evidence or facts about what ought to be done are not fixed by facts about epistemic obligation. Having considered the arguments for W-Con, I find them convincing. When there’s a decisive case to be made against Φ-ing, there’s not a decisive case to be made for settling the issue by judging that you should Φ. As Fantl and McGrath observe, “When trying to determine what is true – that is, in forming beliefs – we draw conclusions from the reasons we have. The same goes for trying to decide what to do. Here, too, we draw conclusions about what to do – we form intentions – from the reasons we have. We bring reasons into our reasoning knowing that we might draw all sorts of conclusions from them along the way, some practical and some theoretical” (forthcoming: 78). We draw conclusions about what to do and believe on the basis of the very same reasons. One intuitive motivation for The View is the thought that the reasonable and conscientious agent cannot fail to discover and then do what should be done. If we were to say otherwise, then it often is a matter of dumb luck that we managed to meet our epistemic and moral obligations. It turns out that that cannot be the rationale for The View, not if it is incompatible with (OIC). [Zimmerman notes that (OIC) causes trouble for Con, but doesn't discuss W-Con. His view differs from W-Con (in part) because he imports an objective element into his view that The View doesn't and cannot given the arguments that motivate it.]

Someone plausibly suggested that the subject ought to try to release the infant rather than, say, bring it about that some critter is freed from the vending machine. It’s true that this costs a quarter and does no good at all, but it’s the right thing to do. Someone could say that, but look what that does to The View. In some nearby possible world our vending machine is working properly and some counterpart of Coop’s has saved the infant. It surely seems possible that he knows that when he pushes the relevant button the baby will be released. So, he has sufficient evidence to believe this. By (SE1), Coop has sufficient evidence to believe that by pushing the button the baby will be released. By (SE2), that is what he ought to believe. By W-Con, that is what he ought to do—release the baby by trying to do so. But, it’s not the case that that’s what he ought to do. He can’t do it.

It seems that those who love The View have to say that our initial supposition was mistaken. Coop’s counterpart did not know that pushing the button causes the baby to be released. Why didn’t he know? Because an epistemic counterpart could have just his evidence for believing this proposition and be mistaken where this mistaken belief would rationalize an action that the agent cannot perform. So, S knows p only if S has no epistemic counterparts in any possible world who falsely believe p and whose belief that p would rationalize forming the intention to perform an action the agent cannot perform under those circumstances. If that’s right, is there anything we can know about the external world? Given The View, all it took to show that Coop’s counterpart did not have knowledge was to find some counterpart of Coop’s counterpart (i.e., Coop) who had the same evidence but had a mistaken belief. Now it is starting to look like The View is committed to the view that we have sufficient to believe p only when our evidence for believing p entails p. That’s worse than my view! My view rules out false, justified beliefs that figure in deliberation. The View rules out the possibility of justified belief based on fallible grounds. So, The View rules out false, justified beliefs and justified, true beliefs based on even the best inductive grounds. It’s a bad view, much worse than mine.

I haven’t found the passage where those who defend The View say that they accept (OIC). So, I haven’t found the passage that shows that The View is incompatible with some view they cherish, only that The View is incompatible with something that strikes many of us as being obviously true. They are well within their rights to say that ignorance subverts obligation, but impotence does not. If they were to go this route, they have to say that someone who doesn’t know p can Φ even if it is physically impossible for someone who does not realize that p is true to Φ. Suppose people can get things out of our very sturdy vending machine either by putting a quarter in its slot or using the right combination to open a combination lock. Coop has no idea what the combination is. Someone could say that Coop isn’t obliged to open the lock to release the infant because he does not know that the combination for that lock is 12-34-56. They can say that he’s obliged to release the infant, the puppy, and the kitten by pulling the vending machine apart with his bare hands even though this is something he cannot do. People can say all sorts of things they shouldn’t.

REFERENCES
Fantl, J. and M. McGrath. forthcoming. Knowledge in an Uncertain World. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gibbons, J. 2009. You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do. Nous 43: 157-77.
____. Forthcoming. Things That Make Things Reasonable. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
Zimmerman, M. 2008. Living with Uncertainty. New York: Cambridge University Press.

[Marginally important footnote: Suppose we weaken The View. There aren’t obligations to believe, there are only permissions to believe and prohibitions against believing. A justified belief is a permissible belief. On this weakened version of The View, we say that you are permitted to believe what your epistemic counterparts permissibly believe and permitted to do what your epistemic counterparts are permitted to do. Consider the principle: [(SBSOΦ & ~SO~BSOΦ) → ~SO~Φ]. In other words, if S believes S’s obligation is to Φ and that belief is permissible, it can’t be that S is obliged to do other than Φ. Let ‘Φ’ stand for saving the infant. Let ‘Ψ’ stand for saving the puppy. Given (OIC), it cannot be that Coop is obliged Φ. He’s obliged to do the next best thing, Ψ. Given that he’s obliged to Ψ rather than Φ, he’s obliged to refrain from judging that he should Φ. Weaken The View, and it still faces essentially the same problems with (OIC) that the view faces.]

[Another footnote: Fantl and McGrath (2002: 77) say that S justifiably believes p only if S is rational to act as if p. It might seem that they reject (SE1) and (SE2). They do. But, they do so on the grounds that it is possible for subjects with the same evidence for believing p to face practical situations where the stakes of acting on p differ. These differences are differences that their subjects are aware of. In my cases, the differences between the situations Coop and his epistemic counterparts face are not differences that they are aware of. Fantl and McGrath’s remarks concerning cases of facts that the subject is not cognizant of that have some practical significance make it pretty clear that they think that such facts do not affect the normative standing of the agent’s actions, attitudes, or the reasoning that connects them.]

The Next Chapter: Ethics Discussions at PEA Soup

2009-11-13T16:15:30-08:00

We are very pleased to announce a new partnership between PEA Soup and the distinguished journal, Ethics. In addition to our regular postings, PEA Soup's editors will select one article from each issue of Ethics to be the focus of a featured discussion on our blog. Ethics, in turn, will make an on-line copy of the featured article available to our readers for free (for three months). At the time of the article's publication, we will post a link to the open-access copy, and then a week later an open discussion of it will be introduced with a critical précis by an invited discussant.

We expect that this partnership will give rise to a series of lively and productive conversations. Stay tuned for details on the first featured article, which will be selected from the next issue of Ethics (Volume 120, Number 1).

Special thanks to everyone at Ethics, especially its Editor, Henry S. Richardson, and Managing Editor, Catherine Galko Campbell, for their help and participation.

Student Involvement in Social Ethics Courses

2009-11-09T11:30:04-08:00

After teaching mostly theoretical ethics and narrowly focused applied ethics courses for a number of years, I'm now considering developing a syllabus for a course in "Social Ethics." The standard practice in such courses, and the approach I'm considering adopting, is to pick a number of different issues of social controversy such as abortion, sweatshop labor, etc., and have the students read articles 'pro' and 'con.'

Such a course seems to present a lot of opportunities for student involvement. The issues are interesting to them, and the readings tend to be more accessible than, say, Kant's Groundwork. But what's the best way to incorporate such involvement into the syllabus? One possibility is to structure the week so that we read a 'pro' article on Monday, a 'con' article on Wednesday, and then have some kind of student discussion or debate on Friday. Perhaps certain students can even be in charge of presenting the 'pro' and 'con' arguments on Monday and Wednesday.

I'm curious to hear what other people have tried in a course like this. What's worked well, and what hasn't? I'm especially interested in the question of how to get students involved in classroom activity in a pedagogically useful way, but as a secondary matter I'd also be interested in particular topics/articles that have worked well or poorly for you in such a course.

Hyperplans and vagueness

2009-11-08T09:54:02-08:00

We’ve been having a reading group on Gibbard’s Thinking How to Live. It’s been really interesting to go back to it after there having been so much discussion about it recently. At the heart of Gibbard’s expressivist semantics lie ‘the hyperplans’. This is a technical notion that is supposed to be helpful in elucidating the content of our normative judgments. I’ve started to become worried about whether there are or could be any hyperplans as Gibbard understands them. I’m uncertain about how big of a worry this would be for him. So, after quickly explaining my worry, I’ll leave you with some options about how he might proceed.

According to Gibbard, hyperplans have two central features. They can be understood as the following two claims:

Hyperplans are maximal contingency plans (54).
Plans must be couched in recognitional concepts (104).

First, a couple of words about what these claims mean and what motivates them. 1. says that hyperplans are fully decided and complete states. A planner (a hyperplanner) who accepts just one hyperplan has decided which one action to do in every conceivable situation he could be in. He has thus ruled out all other options in every possible situation of acting.

Gibbard is trying to give an account of the content of normative utterances in terms of the mental states they would conventionally express. These expressed attitudes would thus have to have the kind of logical qualities (of conflicting with and entailing one another) that would explain the ordinary logical features of indicative sentences. So, he tries to give an account of the content of normative utterances in terms of the attitudes of allowing some hyperplans and ruling out (or disagreeing with) other hyperplans. For instance, roughly, to say that Ben ought to phi is to rule out all the hyperplans in which one does not phi in Ben’s situation.

The hope is that, in virtue of this, he can provide a semantics of normative claims such that it resembles possible world semantics so closely that the logical features of the claims are preserved. Of course, James Dreier and Mark Schroeder have written much on this suggesting that Gibbard’s account does not work in the end. It seems like for being able to account for negation, Gibbard must allow that hyperplanners could have distinct attitudes of indifference towards plans. And, it’s not clear whether even that solves the problem. This is not my worry though. I'm worried whether he can even have the tools required for this theory.

What about 2.? Gibbard makes this claim as a part of the argument that planners are committed to thinking that natural properties constitute being okay to do even if there is a difference between normative and naturalistic concepts. I think the motivation for saying this is the following. Plans are mental states which we form for a purpose, and not wordly entities like possible worlds. This means firstly that they must be couched in terms of concepts (and not in terms of properties).

Plans are also something the planner forms for herself to follow. A plan that was couched in terms of non-recognitional concepts is not anything that one could follow. Following requires being able to recognize what the given plan says about the situation in which one believes to be in and the alternatives one has in it. So, to follow a plan, one must be able to match one’s conception of the circumstances to the descriptions of the circumstances in the plan. This is why the concepts of the plan cannot outstrip one’s recognitional capacities. As Gibbard puts this, we form thought of what to do with concepts we can use in recognising our circumstances and alternatives.

Gibbard is explicit that this goes for the hyperplans too: ‘only recognitional concepts figure in plans fully specified’.

So, here’s the obvious worry. All recognitional concepts there are and there could be are and must be vague concepts. For any concept such that it allows us to recognise in some cases that it applies and in others that it doesn’t, there are going to be cases in which we fail to recognise either that it applies or that it doesn’t apply. I take it that this is a basic fact of our concepts and recognitional abilities. And, it goes all the way to scientific concepts too. True, they are also recognitional concepts as Gibbard says, but they too are also vague concepts.

This means that, if a hyperplan is couched in recognitional concepts (as 2. requires), then it will have situations in which some options are neither an action which is planned to do nor an option planned not to done. As a result, the hyperplan won’t be fully decided (contra 1.) – and thus not a hyperplan after all. In contrast, if hyperplan is a fully decided, complete state (as 1. requires), then it cannot be couched in recognitional terms (contra 2.) which create undecidedness via the unavoidable vagueness. So, there won’t be any plans that satisfy both 1. and 2.

To illustrate this, imagine that I am decided on going to the beach if it is warm and to the cinema if it is not warm. Well, there’s still going to be cases in which, as far as what I am able to recognise, the circumstances are inbetween – when it’s neither warm nor not warm. For these cases, my plan won’t tell me what to do. And, no matter how I try to sharpen my plan, it’s not clear whether I could ever get rid of this sort of cases and still be using concepts that I could use to recognise other cases. Assuming that there’s higher-order vagueness, even making a contingency plan for the cases when it’s neither warm nor not warm will not help.

So, what could Gibbard do?

a) He could give up the idea that hyperplans are fully decided. So they could as decided states as possible for us but still they would not say what to do in each case. Maybe even such almost fully decided states could help him to give an account of the content of our normative judgments. Our judgments would be either allowing or ruling out these almost-hyperplans. Maybe this would fit the vagueness of our judgments too.

b) He could give up the requirement that hyperplans are couched in recognitional terms and thus the idea that they are plans proper. They could still play the right theoretical role in his theory (perhaps – not sure what would happen to the natural constitution argument in this case).

c) Finally, I’m not always sure how much he needs the hyperplans in the first place. A lot of the stuff he can do with the smaller contingency plans. So, maybe it wouldn’t matter for him that there are no hyperplans.

d) Hyperplanners have special concepts and recognitional skills such that they get rid of all the vagueness. But, would this be conceivable? How could we then disagree with them with our concepts?

Commonsense Consequentialism: A Bleg for Comments

2009-11-04T04:42:40-08:00

Currently, I’m working on a book entitled Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality. (Click on the link to be taken to a web site where you can download individual chapters.) The book is on morality, rationality, and the interconnections between the two. In it, I defend a version of consequentialism that both comports with our commonsense moral intuitions and shares with other consequentialist theories the same compelling teleological conception of practical reasons. I have a complete draft of the book finished, but I’m still in the process of revising it. I have promised to submit it by the end of this coming January. I would be very grateful, then, to those who have the time to read it (or any portion of it) and give me comments before then, as this would be of tremendous help to me in revising it. Comments, questions, and/or criticisms can be posted here or sent to me at douglas.portmore@asu.edu. Below the fold, I include the table of comments followed by a brief synopsis of each chapter.

Contents

0.      Front Matter
0.1.   Title Page
0.2.   Dedication
0.3.   Table of contents
0.4.   Acknowledgements

1.      Introduction
1.1.   Utilitarianism: The good and the bad
1.2.   The plan for the rest of the book
1.3.   My aims
1.4.   Objective oughts and objective reasons
1.5.   Conventions that I’ll follow throughout the book

2.      Consequentialism and Moral Rationalism
2.1.   The too-demanding objection: How moral rationalism leads us to reject utilitarianism
2.2.   The argument against utilitarianism from moral rationalism
2.3.   How moral rationalism compels us to accept consequentialism
2.4.   What is consequentialism?
2.5.   The presumptive case for moral rationalism
2.6.   Some concluding remarks

3.      The Teleological Conception of Practical Reasons
3.1.   Getting clear on what the view is
3.2.   Clearing up some misconceptions about the view
3.3.   Scanlon’s putative counterexamples to the view
3.4.   Arguments for the view

4.      Consequentializing Commonsense Morality
4.1.   How to consequentialize
4.2.   The deontic equivalence thesis
4.3.   Beyond the deontic equivalence thesis: How consequentialist theories can do a better job of accounting for our considered moral convictions than even some nonconsequentialist theories can
4.4.   The implications of the deontic equivalence thesis
4.5.   An objection

5.      Dual-Ranking Act-Consequentialism: Reasons, Morality, and Overridingness
5.1.   Some quick clarifications
5.2.   Moral reasons, overridingness, and agent-centered options
5.3.   Moral reasons, overridingness, and supererogation
5.4.   A meta-criterion of rightness and how it leads us to adopt dual-ranking act-consequentialism
5.5.   Norcross’s objection
5.6.   Splawn’s objection
5.7.   Violations of the transitivity and independence axioms

6.      Imperfect Reasons and Rational Options
6.1.   Kagan’s objection: Are we sacrificing rational options to get moral options?
6.2.   Imperfect reasons and rational options
6.3.   The future-course-of-action theory of objective rationality
6.4.   Accounting for the basic belief
6.5.   Accounting for the rational status of an act-sequence
6.6.   Objections to the theory

7.      Commonsense Consequentialism
7.1.   The argument thus far
7.2.   Why dual-ranking act-consequentialism needs modification
7.3.   Actualism versus possibilism
7.4.   Future-course-of-action consequentialism and the argument for it
7.5.   Commonsense consequentialism and how it compares with traditional act-consequentialism
7.6.   What has been shown and what remains to be shown

8.      Back Matter
8.1.   Glossary
8.2.   List of propositions
8.3.   Bibliography
8.4.   Index of names
8.5. Index of subjects

*The last chapter, Chapter 7, is password protected. The others are freely available. If you don’t have the password, please email me at douglas.portmore@asu.edu and I’ll send it to you. I’m happy to give the password to anyone who asks for it; I just want to keep track of who is reading the manuscript.

A Brief Synopsis of Each Chapter

Chapter 1: Explains the basic motivation for the book: to find a theory that accommodates what’s compelling about act-utilitarianism while avoiding all, or at least most, of its counterintuitive implications. Explains the plan for the book as well as my aims in writing it. Explains that the book’s focus is on what we objectively ought to do and how this objective sense of ‘ought’ relates to our first-person practical deliberations and to our everyday practices of blaming and advising. Explains why objective oughts and objective reasons are of fundamental importance. Explains my conventions regarding citations, symbolic notation, the numbering of propositions, etc.

Chapter 2: Argues that we should reject all traditional forms of act-consequentialism if moral rationalism is true. (Moral rationalism, as I define it, says that if S is morally required to perform x, then S has decisive reason to perform x.) Argues that moral rationalism in conjunction with a certain conception of practical reasons (viz., the teleological conception of practical reasons) compels us to accept act-consequentialism. Argues that act-consequentialism is best construed as a theory that ranks outcomes, not according to their value, but according to how much reason each agent has to desire that they obtain. Gives a presumptive argument in favor of moral rationalism.

Chapter 3: Argues for the teleological conception of practical reasons, which holds that S has more reason to perform x than to perform y just when, and because, S has more reason to desire that x’s outcome obtains than to desire that y’s outcome obtains. Tries to counter many misconceptions about the view.

Chapter 4: Argues that, for any plausible nonconsequentialist moral theory, there is a consequentialist counterpart that is extensionally equivalent to it. Argues that from this it does not follow, as some have claimed, that we are all consequentialists. Argues that consequentialism can better account for certain commonsense moral intuitions than victim-focused deontology can.

Chapter 5: Argues that in order to accommodate many typical agent-centered options and resolve the paradox of supererogation, we must accept that non-moral reasons can, and sometimes do, prevent moral reasons, even those with considerable moral requiring strength, from generating moral requirements. Argues that, given that moral permissibility is a function of both moral and non-moral reasons, we should accept that S’s performing x is morally permissible if and only if there is no available alternative that S has both more (moral) requiring reason and more reason, all things considered, to perform. Argues that, given this, we need to accept a dual-ranking version of consequentialism—one that ranks outcomes both in terms of how much moral reason the agent has to want them to obtain and in terms of how much reason, all things considered, the agent has to want them to obtain. Addresses a number of objections to this dual-ranking version of consequentialism.

Chapter 6: Addresses Kagan’s worry that if we defend agent-centered options, as I have, by arguing that non-moral reasons can successfully counter moral reasons and thereby prevent them from generating moral requirements, we end up sacrificing rational options to get moral options. Defends a theory of objective rationality according to which the objective rationality of an individual act is determined by whether or not it is contained within some rationally permissible sequence of actions that extends from the present to one’s death. Argues that this theory can best account for what Raz calls the basic belief: the belief that, in most typical choice situations, the relevant reasons do not require performing one particular act alternative, but instead permit performing any of numerous act alternatives.

Chapter 7: Argues that an adequate moral theory must be able to assess the deontic statuses of sequences of actions and not just the deontic statuses of individual actions (tokens and types). Argues for a version of indirect consequentialism according to which the moral permissibility of an individual act is determined by whether or not it is contained within some morally permissible sequence of actions that extends from the present to one’s death. Gives an argument for this version of consequentialism. Argues that this version of consequentialism can accommodate all the basic features of commonsense morality: agent-centered restrictions, special obligations, agent-favoring options, agent-sacrificing options, supererogation, the self-other asymmetry, and even the idea that some acts are supererogatory in the sense of going above and beyond what imperfect duty requires. Argues that we should accept possibilism (the view according to which whether or not S ought to do x depends on what S could simultaneously and subsequently do were S to do x) as opposed to actualism (the view according to which whether or not S ought to do x depends on what S would simultaneously and subsequently do were S to do x).

Moral discourse, speech acts, and the "by" relation

2009-10-26T20:02:18-07:00

Jamie and Mark have already had some very helpful things to say about this in email correspondence. I wanted to open up the discussion and see what others think.

The proposal is to understand moral utterances along the following lines, what we might call the "layered speech-act model" of moral discourse. There are at least two versions of it:

(V1) When you say 'X is good', you assert that X is good by approving (or: expressing approval) of X.
(V2) When you say 'X is good', you express approval of X by asserting that X is good.

You perform one speech act by performing another.

Details remain to be worked out, but the initial hope is two-fold. First, that by layering assertion and approval this way, it integrates the intuitive truth-aptness and motivational dimension of moral discourse. Second, that it avoids embedding problems, because it can rely on the logical properties of the propositions asserted.

Any such proposal faces at least three serious questions initially.

(Q1) Is it ad hoc?
(Q2) Does it reinvent the wheel?
(Q3) Can it deliver on the anticipated benefits?

I think the answer to Q1 is clearly 'no'. Elsewhere the "by" relation does indeed layer speech acts as posited here. Answering Q3 will require actually filling in the details, making it clear how either V1 or V2 (or some other layered pair) delivers the goods. I've only indicated in the sketchiest terms how that might go. As for Q2, as best I can tell, no one has explicitly framed matters the way I have here. But perhaps it's appropriate to interpret others as saying basically the same thing in other words.

Anyway, I'd be very pleased to hear what you think about any of the proposals or questions.

Stanford Post-Docs

2009-10-20T07:16:06-07:00

The McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society and the Program on Global Justice seek up to three post-doctoral fellows for 2010-11.

We welcome candidates with substantial normative research interests from diverse backgrounds including philosophy, the social sciences, and professional schools. We are especially interested in candidates with research interests in international topics including human rights, immigration, and environmental justice. But we are interested in all candidates with strong normative interests that have some practical implications. Fellows will teach one class, participate in the Political Theory and/or Global Justice Workshops, interact with undergraduates in the Ethics in Society program and help in developing an inter-disciplinary ethics community across the campus. Salary is competitive. Appointment is for one year, but may be renewed for an additional year. Applicants must have their doctoral degree in hand no later than 30 days prior to the appointment start date and be no more than 3 years after the awarding of the degree. The application deadline is January 8, 2010.

For inquiries, please contact Joan Berry at joanberry@stanford.edu

Applicants should submit an application cover sheet (found here) and then send a cover letter, CV, three letters of recommendation and a short writing sample (about 25 pages) to:

Post-doctoral Fellowship Committee
Bowen H. McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society
482 Galvez Street
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6079

Stanford is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer.

Subjective Utilitarianism: What is it good for? – Absolutely Nothing

2009-10-15T18:07:16-07:00

Suppose that a subject, S, is in some less-than-ideal epistemic position with respect to both the relevant normative facts and the relevant non-normative facts – that is, assume that S faces both normative uncertainty (i.e., uncertainty about the relevant normative facts) and non-normative uncertainty (i.e., uncertainty about the relevant non-normative facts). Yet S must still choose which of the mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive act alternatives available to her to perform. Call this S’s choice situation.

Theories about what S ought to do in her choice situation fall into one of the following three categories:

(1) Purely Objective Theories (PO theories): These hold that the permissibility of S's doing x is affected neither by S's uncertainty about the non-normative facts nor by S's uncertainty about the normative facts.

A PO theory tells us what no conscientious person would do if she faced S’s choice of alternatives but had certain knowledge about all the relevant normative and non-normative facts, for no conscientious person would do what it is PO-theory-impermissible for S to do if she faced S’s choice of alternatives and had certain knowledge about all the relevant normative and non-normative facts.
Example of a PO theory: Objective utilitarianism – S’s doing x is permissible if and only if S’s doing x will maximize utility.

(2) Hybrid Theories (H theories): These hold that the permissibility of S's doing x is affected either by S's uncertainty about the non-normative facts or by S's uncertainty about the normative facts, but not by both. There are two types of H theories: H1 theories and H2 theories. On H1 theories, the permissibility of S's doing x is affected by S's uncertainty about the non-normative facts, but not by S's uncertainty about the normative facts. On H2 theories, the permissibility of S's doing x is affected by S's uncertainty about the normative facts, but not by S's uncertainty about the non-normative facts. I’ll focus on H1 theories, since I know of no one who endorses any H2 theory.

An H1 theory tells us what no conscientious person would do if she faced S’s choice of alternatives, shared S’s uncertainty about the relevant non-normative facts, but had certain knowledge about all of the relevant normative facts, for no conscientious person would do what it is H1-theory-impermissible for S to do if she faced S’s choice of alternatives, shared S’s uncertainty about the relevant non-normative facts, but had certain knowledge about all of the relevant normative facts.
Example of an H1 theory: Subjective utilitarianism – S’s doing x is permissible if and only if S’s doing x would maximize expected utility.

(3) Purely Subjective Theories (PS theories): These hold that the permissibility of S's doing x is affected both by S's uncertainty about the non-normative facts and by S's uncertainty about the normative facts.

A PS theory tells us what no conscientious person would do if she were in the exact same situation that S is in, for no conscientious person would do what it is PS-theory-impermissible for S to do if she were in S’s situation.
Examples of PS theories: Theories such as those developed by Ted Lockhart in his Moral Uncertainty and It’s Consequences, by Andrew Sepielli in his “What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do,” and by Michael J. Zimmerman his Living with Uncertainty.

I can see that it’s useful to develop a PS theory for at least two reasons. First, a PS theory would be useful to agents in deliberating about what to do. By contrast, neither a PO theory nor an H theory would be useful to agents in this way, because agents have to deliberate given their actual epistemic positions, which often involve both normative and non-normative uncertainty. Second, a PS theory would be useful in determining when normative criticism is appropriate. Those who do what is PS-theory-impermissible are necessarily open to normative criticism. If no conscientious person would do what is PS-theory-impermissible in S’s situation, then anyone who does what is PS-theory-impermissible in S’s situation is open to normative criticism. By contrast, neither those who do what is PO-theory-impermissible nor those who do what is H-theory-impermissible are necessarily open to normative criticism. It seems to me, then, that a PS theory gives us a theory about what S subjectively ought to do.

I can also see why it’s important to theorize about what the correct PO theory is. Only by doing so can we hope to resolve some of our normative uncertainty, and that seems like something we should do qua philosophers. I believe that a PO theory gives us a theory about what S objectively ought to do.

But what’s useful or interesting about H theories? I can’t see that there’s anything. Yet such theories are quite popular – or, at least, those of the H1 variety are. Many philosophers (consequentialist and non-consequentialist alike) accept theories according to which the permissibility of an act is affected by the agent’s non-normative uncertainty, but not by the agent’s normative uncertainty. For instance, many philosophers accept theories (such as subjective utilitarianism) according to which it is impermissible to perform an act that involves a subjective risk of harming others even if it involves no objective risk of harming anyone. And yet these same theories do not allow that the normative uncertainty of the agent can affect the permissibility of her actions, for these theories take definite stances on all sorts of normative questions about which agents might be uncertain: questions such as whether or not it’s permissible to cause (or to take an objective risk of causing) harm so as to prevent more numerous others from causing (or to taking an objective risk of causing) similar harms.

Now, many of the philosophers who endorse H1 theories reject PO theories, because PO theories fail to be action-guiding. But these theorists seem to take only a half-step. They rightly point out that, if a normative theory is going to be action-guiding, it will need to take account of the non-normative uncertainty that deliberators often face. Yet they take only a half-step, because they neglect the fact that, if a normative theory is going to be action-guiding, it will also need to take account of the normative uncertainty that deliberators often face. So if they’re concerned about action-guidingness, they should favor PS theories, not H theories, over PO theories. Thus, I don’t understand the motivation for H theories. If you think that a moral theory must take account of an agent’s uncertainty in order to be action-guiding, then why take a half-step and think that only non-normative uncertainty (or that only normative uncertainty) is relevant? I don’t get it. Why do some philosophers find H theories attractive? Does anyone find H2 theories attractive? I don’t know of anyone who endorses an H2 theory. Yet what possible reason could there by for preferring H1 theories to H2 theories?

Postdoc opportunity

2009-10-13T11:28:21-07:00

Liz Harman asked me to post the following announcement:

To those on the job market, and those with students on the job market:

Anyone who does ethics should seriously consider applying for the Harold T. Schapiro Postdoctoral Fellowship in Bioethics at Princeton. The ad says (and we really mean it) "an applicant may have a background in any area of ethical studies, not necessarily in bioethics." The application requires a 1,500-word research proposal, so you do have to have in mind a serious research project in bioethics. But you do not have to already be doing bioethics! Princeton is a wonderful place to spend one to three years! Please feel free to email me if you have specific questions about the postdoc.
Best,
Liz

Elizabeth Harman

eharman@princeton.edu

The Harold T. Shapiro Postdoctoral Fellowship in Bioethics
The University Center for Human Values invites applications for the Harold T. Shapiro Postdoctoral Fellowship in Bioethics. The Shapiro Fellowship supports outstanding scholars studying ethical issues arising from developments in medicine or the biological sciences. The search committee particularly encourages proposals focusing on problems of practical importance that have broader theoretical interest.
The Harold T. Shapiro Postdoctoral Fellowship in Bioethics was created in 2002 to provide an opportunity for an outstanding scholar to spend from one to three years at Princeton to further their scholarship and participate in the University’s teaching program.
The postdoc will spend the term of the appointment in residence at Princeton conducting research and teaching the equivalent of one course each year. The postdoc will participate in the Ira W. DeCamp Seminar in Bioethics and will be invited to participate in the other activities of the University Center for Human Values.
Qualifications
Applicants must have completed all the requirements for the Ph.D., M.D., or other equivalent doctoral degree by September 1, 2010. Applications will be evaluated on the basis of the applicant’s previous accomplishments and the promise of their proposed research project in bioethics. Please note that an applicant may have a background in any area of ethical studies, not necessarily in bioethics. However, the proposed research plan should be related to the field of bioethics. The capacity to contribute to the University’s teaching program will also be taken into account.
Term of Appointment
The term of the fellowship is one year, beginning September 1, 2010, with the possibility of extension for up to two further years. Princeton University offers competitive salary and employee benefits.
How to Apply
Applicants should submit all of the following materials by December 1, 2009, via our online application system at www.uchv.princeton.edu.:
A curriculum vitae;
A research proposal (not to exceed 1,500 words);
A scholarly paper (not to exceed 50 pages) representing the applicant’s scholarly achievement or potential;
Two confidential letters of recommendation, commenting specifically about the applicant’s qualifications for the proposed research project;
Transcripts covering all graduate-level work (this may be sent via hard copy under separate cover).
The Selection Committee begins reviewing applications immediately and incomplete applications may be at a disadvantage.
Princeton University is an equal opportunity employer and complies with applicable EEO and affirmative action regulations. For information about applying to Princeton and voluntarily self-identifying, please link to http://www.princeton.edu/dof/about_us/dof_job_openings/.
For questions or more information, please contact the University Center for Human Values at 609-258-4798 or values@princeton.edu.

Smilansky's non-punishment paradox

2009-10-12T14:11:07-07:00

Saul Smilansky's 10 Moral Paradoxes is a delightful book. The paradoxes are easy to appreciate and though it's written in a light and accessible style, it still has plenty of philosophical heft.

I'm intrigued by the paradox Smilansky labels the non-punishment paradox. Here's the gist:

Suppose that a state subjects criminal offense O to punishment P. P is so effective at deterring O that perfect deterrence is achieved: No one in the state commits O. (We'd need to stipulate a number of assumptions here about the consistency with which P is applied to O, the effectiveness of enforcement, the degree to which O's being subject to P is publicized, etc.) But suppose further that P is a "radically severe and disproportional punishment" — life imprisonment for jaywalking, say.

Herein the paradox: Despite P's being disproportionate to O, it's hard to object to the state's subjecting those who O to P. After all, given perfect deterrence, no one will be actually suffer P. Hence, no one is in fact punished beyond what they deserve because though the state is willing to inflict P on those who O, its willingness to do so is exactly what dissuades anyone from O-ing. (Not to mention that we duck various procedural worries about punishment: Perfect deterrence means no worries about punishing the innocent!) At the same time, we would (Smilansky says) view with horror a system of punishment that licensed P for offenses O.

On certain simple consequentialist views, there need be no paradox here: We should embrace perfect deterrence as having clearly the best overall consequences. I have a few nebulous ideas about how the paradox might be resolved, but does anyone have a proposed solution? Or is there no solution?