Abstract
One natural way to argue for the existence of some subjective constraint on agents’ obligations is to maintain that without that particular constraint, agents will sometimes be obligated to do that which they lack the ability to do. In this paper, I maintain that while such a strategy appears promising, it is fraught with pitfalls. Specifically, I argue that because the truth of an ability ascription depends on an (almost always implicit) characterization of the relevant possibility space, different metaethical accounts take obligation to be constrained by different senses of ability. As a result, what initially looks to be a point of consensus—that ability constrains obligation—turns out to be a point of contention, and arguments with this at the foundation are much more likely to obscure, rather than resolve, metaethical disputes. Despite this, appeals to ability in metaethics aren’t doomed to be fruitless. On the contrary, if we can independently establish a particular sense of ability as the normatively relevant one, then we have good grounds for ruling out metaethical accounts that are inconsistent with it. In the final section, I make just such an argument. What seems right about the thought that ability constrains obligation is that an agent cannot be obligated to do that which her circumstances prevent her from doing. I argue that only a sense of ability that is both epistemically and motivationally restricted adequately respects the limits of agential control.
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Notes
I suspect that our abilities constrain both our obligations and our practical reasons. But in what follows, I’ll primarily discuss the prospect of our obligations being so-constrained. I do this for two reasons: (i) the idea that ability constrains obligation is less contentious than the analogous claim about reasons, and (ii) the metaethical accounts I discuss are primarily concerned with obligations.
Two points of clarification: (i) by ‘subjective perspective’, I just mean how the world seems to be—normatively and non-normatively—from a particular agent’s point of view; (ii) I use ‘ought’ and ‘obligated’ interchangeably and construe them practically (I’ll say a bit more about this in the next section).
As we’ll see, it’s a bit misleading to speak of different senses of ability. Rather, the point is that an ability ascription relates a particular action to a restricted set of possible worlds, and it’s the character of the restriction rather than the sense of ability that’s context sensitive. That said, it’s far easier to talk in terms of senses of ability. So I’ll continue to speak this way throughout.
For what it’s worth, to the extent that other kinds of oughts (epistemic, moral, prudential, etc.) are constrained by abilities, I suspect that a similar project could be mounted in terms of each. But I’m much less sure that other kinds of oughts are so-constrained. And even if they are, the way in which they are might be importantly different from the all-things-considered, practical ought. So for this project, I set them aside.
As distinguished from evaluative. See Wedgwood (2009) for a particularly insightful discussion of the normative and evaluative domains, and their relation to one another.
Naturally enough, when there are multiple correct answers to the central deliberative question, those answers pick out the actions that would be permissible, but not obligatory, for the inquiring agent to perform.
What's the connection between this sense of obligation and practical reasons? I'm inclined to think that what an agent is obligated to do just is what she has most practical reason to do. But there are different views about how reasons relate to obligations. Lord (2015), for example, takes an agent’s obligations to be determined by a subset of her reasons. Streiffer (2003) takes a similar approach. Gert (1998: ch. 3) argues for a more complicated relationship between reasons and obligations. To avoid this controversy, I’ll largely avoid speaking in terms of reasons (though at times, my discussion of Lord will force my hand).
Of course none of this is to deny that it would be better for Beth to dive in and (successfully) save the boy. Clearly that would be ideal. But given her inability to do so, that option isn't in the cards. And so, at least in this case (and, I'm inclined to think, in virtually all cases), the answer to the "what would be best?" question comes apart from the answer to the central deliberative question (“what should she do?”).
This way of thinking about OIC is, admittedly, a bit idiosyncratic. Advocates of more specific ability-constraints on obligation might object to their principles being considered “versions of OIC”. I speak this way simply out of convenience—to readily pick out the class of principles that take ability to (somehow) constrain obligation. In so doing, I don’t mean to imply that all versions of OIC are equally plausible or similarly supported.
In his defense of OIC, Vranas (2007) surveys wide range of counterexamples and objections. Graham (2011) offers a more recent, forceful critique of the principle. But engaging with criticisms of OIC is beyond my purposes here. My intention is just to briefly motivate OIC, and then take it for granted in what follows.
I’ll have a bit more to say about these philosophers’ use of the attractive strategy in Sect. 3. I’m very thankful to Alex Hyun for pointing me towards many of these sources, and for his thoughtful discussion of them.
By ‘reasons’, Lord (2015, p. 28) means “facts that recommend certain reactions.” He doesn’t take there to be any subjective constraint on what counts as a reason. So, on his view, what an agent is obligated to do is determined by a subset of her reasons. Again, this is not how I’m inclined to understand the relationship between reasons and obligations. But that’s not my beef here. So I do my best to ignore it in what follows.
In a footnote, Lord (2015, p. 29, footnote 5) mentions that his considered view is that the right epistemic relation is being in a position to know. But none of his arguments commit him to anything so specific.
To be fair to Lord, while he only mentions the Objectivist as an opponent, he never claims that there are no others.
Constructivism isn't the only non-Objectivist competitor. There are other accounts of obligation that conflict with Lord’s view. I focus on Constructivism only because I take the disagreement between the Constructivist and Perspectivalist to be particularly easy to pinpoint. In addition, various accounts of practical reasons might intersect with or mirror these accounts of obligation in interesting ways. But exploring this would force us to wade into the muddy waters of the relationship between reasons and oughts, and is beyond the scope of this project.
“Right Reasons Ability Condition” is Lord’s label. “Possession” is my label. Again, ‘possesses’ is just shorthand for ‘bears the right epistemic relation to.’
Though Raz (2011) is at least one notable exception. He argues that agents can have “non-standard” reasons for action that cannot be (directly) acted upon.
Lord (2015, p. 38) agrees: "[objectivists] feel no need to deny the Right Reasons Ability Condition … as long as they hold a liberal view of what it takes to have the ability to act for the right reasons.” As we'll see, though, this is the very thing that causes problems for his strategy and others like it.
The falsity of RRAC has this implication given the following principle:
“Sensitive No Accident: A φs for the right reasons just in case A φs non-accidentally because A is sensitive to the right reasons” (Lord 2015, p. 36).
The relevance of Sensitive No Accident to Lord’s argument will be discussed more thoroughly at the end of the next section.
This is half of Lord’s Credit:
“Credit: A’s φ-ing is creditworthy just in case A φs for reasons that make φ-ing permissible” (Lord 2015, p. 37).
Credit will also be discussed more thoroughly at the end of the next section.
(i) follows from Sensitive No Accident (see footnote 21). (ii) follows from Credit (see footnote 22). (iii) follows from the Explanatory Condition:
“Explanatory Condition: If A φs for a normative reason r, r provides a justificatory explanation of why A φs” (Lord 2015, p. 34).
While the Explanatory Condition may be controversial, it is beyond the scope of this paper to critically examine it.
Epistemically lucky, of course. The fact that his wife is cheating on him is decidedly unlucky.
Anomaly (2008) explicitly argues that Williams should be read this way. It’s also worth mentioning that Williams’ argument is in terms of reasons rather than obligations. But similar considerations apply.
Heathwood (2011) urges this reading of Darwall.
Notably, Huemer goes on to argue against the existence of a (substantive) subjective constraint on obligation on the grounds that agents can be motivated by beliefs about impartial reasons.
To his credit, Lord mentions (in a footnote) that he takes abilities to be a kind of disposition. He also mentions (in a separate footnote) that he doesn't take dispositions to be analyzable counterfactually (Lord 2015, p. 34, footnote 11; p. 40, footnote 20). But I take the worries expressed here to apply despite these clarifications.
When I speak of an agent’s physical traits, I mean merely physical—i.e. physical, but not mental, epistemic, or normative (this might require a rather course-grained understanding of physical traits). Nothing I say here turns on whether or not epistemic or normative properties supervene on physical properties.
Kratzer’s discussion is in terms of ‘must’ and ‘can,’ rather than ‘able,’ but all the same arguments apply. I should also mention that it’s controversial whether abilities are appropriately analyzed in terms of possible worlds. Perhaps they’re not. Regardless, I strongly suspect that something like this context sensitivity will arise on any plausible analysis of ability. Arguing this point, though, is beyond my purposes here.
Kratzer prefers ‘in view of’ rather than ‘given.’ But this is just a stylistic preference.
Or perhaps in one of the “closest” of these worlds. But these details needn’t concern us here. See Peacocke (1999, ch. 7.3) for a discussion of the relevance of closeness in ability ascriptions.
In case you forgot:
Right Reasons Ability Condition (RRAC): “If A ought to φ, then A has the ability to φ for the right reasons.”
Possession: “If A has the ability to φ for the right reasons, then A possesses the right reasons.”
I mean for external and epistemic similarity to come apart. So if you’re an externalist about epistemic justification, you should read “externally similar” as sufficiently course-grained to allow for epistemic variation.
The standard view seems to be that obligation entails the ability to do things intentionally (whatever sense of ability we have in mind). I agree with this, so I included it. But defending this claim is beyond the scope of this paper. If you object to the inclusion of ‘intentionally,’ feel free to ignore it here (though be aware that it will do some work in Sect. 5).
I’m indebted here and in the remainder of this section to an anonymous referee who pressed me to clarify this point.
Again, any of these moves might be questioned (though I admit to finding them all quite plausible). But since the current task is to show that Lord’s opponents needn’t question them to deny his conclusion, I set any other criticisms aside.
To be clear, since (i) and (ii) are ability claims, denying them requires some understanding of the operative sense of ability operating. The point here just is that denying (i) and (ii) doesn’t favor any of the candidate senses of ability under consideration (O-, C-, and P-) over any other.
Notably, this would commit the Objectivist and Constructivist to thinking that being obligated to φ entails the O- and C-ability (respectively) to be sensitive to the right reasons and to φ in a way that is creditworthy, given the following very plausible principle:
Ability Substitution: For any sense of ability, if φ-ing is necessary and sufficient for ψ-ing, then an agent is able to φ if and only if she is able to ψ.
But these implications are unobjectionable, and there’s no reason for either the Objectivist or Constructivist to be unhappy with them.
Lord also appeals to the Explanatory Condition in support of the claim that D-Andy doesn’t act for the right reason (see footnote 23, above) (Lord 2015, p. 34). But since the explanatory condition doesn’t play a direct role in Lord’s defense of RRAC, it’s not relevant to the response currently under consideration.
Note that since there is not yet a reference to ability, this is not yet Possession.
Perhaps this thought needs some more fleshing out. So here it is in a bit more detail. Our Objectivist and Constructivist each accept RRAC and insist that the operative sense of ability in it is O- and C-ability, respectively. Since each also accepts SNA and Credit, and since SNA and Credit express necessary and sufficient conditions for acting for the right reason, they are also committed to thinking that the ability to act for the right reason entails the abilities to be sensitive to the right reasons and to act in a way that is creditworthy (given Ability Substitution, see footnote 39). D-Andy might initially appear to be a counterexample to these commitments. But he’s not. Because just as it’s uncontroversially true that D-Andy is unable to be sensitive to the right reasons and to act in a creditworthy way on some senses of ability, it’s uncontroversially false on other senses of ability. The Objectivist and Constructivist just insist that the normatively relevant sense of ability is one of those other senses. So, the Objectivist and Constructivist follow Lord in maintaining that D-Andy is unable to act in a reasons-sensitive and creditworthy way, but only by inserting a sense of ability that each takes to be irrelevant to RRAC. And they can do this without incurring any obvious cost.
There is one additional move Lord might make. At the end of his discussion of the Andys, in support of his claim that D-Andy isn’t able to act for the right reasons, Lord mentions that D-Andy “seems to be exercising all the abilities he has” and “isn’t … holding anything back” (Lord 2015, p. 39). There are two things to be said about this thought. First, and familiarly, the Objectivist and Constructivist might continue to shrug—insisting that this intuitive sense in which D-Andy isn’t holding anything back in this case just isn’t tracking the normatively relevant sense of ability. But, more speculatively, we might also read Lord here as gesturing toward some criteria for determining the normatively relevant sense of ability—that it should track our intuitive grasp of when an agent is or isn’t “holding back.” This passage is suggestive. To the extent that this would provide us with some reason for thinking that a particular sense of ability is the normatively relevant one, we might view Lord as taking a preliminary step toward making the kind of argument endorsed here in this paper. But, of course, much more would have to be said. (Thanks to the anonymous referee for pointing out this strategy.)
I call this “G-ability” as a nod to Mele’s (2003) characterization of “general ability.” His (insightful) project is primarily concerned with analyzing ability, not with exploring its normative implications.
Note that here the intentionality of the action is doing some important work. To intentionally sandbag the shaft the miners are in Billy would (at least) need a belief about which shaft they were in. So although the features of Billy’s circumstances (beyond her control) don’t prevent her from blocking the shaft the miners are in by accident, they do prevent her from doing so intentionally. But none of this strikes me as problematic. As mentioned in footnote 35, I’m inclined to think that obligations are obligations to act intentionally. But (again) defending this is beyond the scope of this paper.
This isn’t surprising. Miners is one of the cases Lord uses to motivate Perspectivalism.
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Acknowledgements
I’m deeply indebted to Jeff Behrends, Matthew Braich, Clinton Castro, Adam Marushak, David O’Brien, Sarah Paul, Douglas Portmore, Russ Shafer-Landau, and Scott Simmons for reading and providing feedback on previous drafts of this paper. I’m also grateful to Frank Cabrera, Hadley Cooney, Alex Hyun, Zi Lin, Josh Mund, Emi Okayasu, Alan Sidelle, Reuben Stern, Olav Vassend, and the MIT Ethics Reading Group, as well as audiences at the 2016 meeting of the Ohio Philosophical Association and the 2016 Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress for extremely helpful discussions. Finally, I owe many thanks to an anonymous referee for excellent comments and criticisms.
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Schwan, B. What ability can do. Philos Stud 175, 703–723 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0888-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0888-3