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Moral error theory and hypothetical reasons

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Abstract

Most error theorists want to accept hypothetical reasons but not moral reasons. They do so by arguing that there is no queerness in hypothetical reasons. They can be reduced to purely descriptive claims, about either standards or ordinary standard-independent facts: when I say “I have a reason to take this flight, ” all I say is that “according to certain standards of reasoning, I have a reason to take this flight” or that “I have a desire such that taking this flight is the only way of doing so.” Error theorists who want to accept hypothetical reasons but not moral reasons think that one of these approaches works for hypothetical reasons but neither work for moral reasons. I shall argue that whatever arguments are given for rejecting these approaches in the case of moral reasons are also arguments for rejecting them in the case of hypothetical reasons.

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Notes

  1. Olson offers this as the best gloss on what prior error theorists, such as Mackie, Garner, and Joyce, worry about. Streumer (2017) has the same target. Cowie notes that this “is arguably the dominant variety of moral error theory in the current literature” (2019, p. 16).

  2. Olson 2014, p. 153. For versions of the same point, see (for example Hampton (1992a, b, (1996, (1998; Shafer-Landau, (2003), pp. 210 − 11); Phillips (2007, p. 466); Bedke (2010, pp. 48–49, 55); Scanlon (2014, pp. 5, 16n1); Streumer (2017, pp. 111 − 14). For simplicity, I consider cases in which there is only one means.

  3. Olson does note that some hypothetical reason claims may be queer (2014, pp. 153 − 54).

  4. Error theorists make the same suggestions for other sorts of reason. For example, for epistemic reasons, Cowie (2019) makes the first suggestion, and Heathwood (2018) and Olson (2018) make the second.

  5. Phillips (2007) may offer this as an interpretation of Mackie (though see note 10). See Mackie (1977, pp. 25–27, 55 − 9). On one reading, Finlay (2008) endorses the standards view for all normative claims. He prefers, however, to think of all normative claims as relativized to desires (of the speaker). One could think that normative claims are relativized to standards without thinking they are relativized to desires.

  6. In Olson’s words, “the claim that there is a hypothetical reason for some agent to Φ…reduces to the claim that Φing will or is likely to bring about the satisfaction of some of the agent’s desires” (2014, p. 153). Olson attributes the same view to Joyce (2014, p. 183). This may also be Mackie’s view: “‘Ought’…says that the agent has a reason for doing something, but his desires along with…causal relations constitute the reason” (1977, p. 66).

  7. For the similar point that we should think that claims about epistemic reasons are categorical, for the same reasons as Joyce and Olson offer for thinking that claims about moral reasons are categorical, see Rowland (2012, pp. 3–5) and especially Das (2017, pp. 65–68). Cuneo and Case (2020) note that arguments moral error theorists give to defend epistemic reasons by making them hypothetical could be used to defend moral reasons by making them hypothetical. Streumer argues that given Olson’s occasional sympathy for a standards view about epistemic reasons, he should have the same sympathy for a standards view of moral reasons (2016, pp. 423 − 24).

  8. For related problems for the standards view, see Olson (2014, p. 132; 2016, pp. 466 − 67).

  9. I assume that I can have such desires. Identifying my welfare with the satisfaction of all of my desires has familiar problems—e.g., it makes non-weak-willed self-sacrifice impossible; where I have a desire satisfied but never find this out, it counts this as an improvement in my welfare.

  10. Phillips (2007) may ascribe this view to Mackie. He takes Mackie to treat moral reasons and hypothetical reasons as on a par in that both rest on “presuppositions;” no presupposition-independent normative claim is true (2007, p. 459). He thinks, however, that the presupposition in the case of hypothetical reasons is a desire, whereas the presupposition in the case of moral reasons is our institution of morality (460, 466). My suggestion, on behalf of the error theorist, is instead that both reasons presuppose the acceptance of an institution or standard. Desires are part of the “fabric of the world;” Mackie’s point, on Phillips’s reading, should be that both hypothetical reasons and moral reasons depend not on this fabric but on “our choosing or deciding to think in a certain way” (Mackie, 1977, pp. 24, 30).

  11. Of course I can escape a reason to take the flight by not desiring to get to New York. But as Olson notes, that my reasons change with the natural facts does not distinguish hypothetical reasons and moral reasons (2014, p, 153). In the case of moral reasons, I lose a reason to save the baby if it turns out that the baby is not in danger. In both cases, there is a queer relation between two natural facts. In both cases, the relation changes when the facts change. That one fact—my desire—is (perhaps) under my control whereas the baby’s situation is not is irrelevant.

  12. For classic statements of the desire critics’ view, see, for example, Quinn (1993); Kraut (1994); Scanlon (1998, pp. 37–55); Parfit (2011 v. 1, pp. 73–91).

  13. Similarly, Rowland and Cowie argue that objections to the synthetic identity view of moral reasons are also objections to the synthetic identity view of epistemic reasons (Rowland, 2012, pp. 11–12; Cowie 2019, pp. 42–44). Kalf argues that objections to the synthetic identity view of prudential reasons are also objections to the synthetic identity view of epistemic reasons (2020, pp. 95–97).

  14. For this and other worries, see, for example, Horgan & Timmons (1991); Gampel (1996); Stratton-Lake (2002, pp. 9–11); Parfit (2011 v. 2, pp. 300–302, 329 − 56).

  15. For the same distinction between Olson and earlier views, see Cowie’s distinction between “internalism-based” and “irreducibility-based” error theories (2019, ch. 1); also Kalf (2018, pp. 16–17). Cowie notes that internalism-based error theorists can object to moral reasons without the objection carrying over to hypothetical reasons (2019, pp. 27–28).

  16. For the general point against Williams, see Cohon (1986, p. 555) and Korsgaard (1986, pp. 21–23).

  17. Joyce actually proceeds by a burden of proof argument: hypothetical reasons is “platitudinous;” the one who “wants to go beyond this picture…has the explaining to do” (2001, p. 124). One might think that moral reasons is also platitudinous.

  18. For a recent statement of the worry, directed at Smith, see Enoch (2019). The worry goes back at least to discussions of Aristotle’s function argument. Even if my function, in the sense of what is distinctive or essential to me, is to exercise my rationality, the normative claim that it is good for me to exercise my rationality does not follow. For a sample discussion, see Whiting (1988).

  19. I assume that unreasonable action is possible. This point is often directed at earlier constitutivist views (e.g., by Lavin (2004)).

  20. In addition to works cited above, see, for example, Cuneo (2007) and Cowie & Rowland (2020). Hypothetical reasons are ignored in Cowie’s (2018) survey of companions in guilt arguments.

  21. See Hampton (1992a, b, (1996, (1998), as well as Korsgaard (1997). Hampton is responding to the earlier “internalism-based” error theory. One exception to the recent neglect is Lillehammer’s careful chapter on Hampton and Korsgaard (Lillehammer, 2007, ch. 3). Hampton argues that (I) “You have a reason to either do what satisfies your desire or drop the desire” is both a normative claim and categorical. Lillehammer agrees, but suggests that an error theorist can reply that (I), unlike moral reasons, does not tell you to pursue some particular end. I do not think this helps. The error theorist is no longer objecting to normative or categorical reasons—just to reasons that tell one to pursue some particular end. Some argument is needed to show that there are no such reasons. The argument cannot be based on suspicions about normative or categorical reasons. Lillehammer suggests that compliance with (I) might be “a necessary condition for the pursuit of any substantial end whatsoever” (54–55) or “for any form of minimally coherent practical deliberation” (54). If the point is that I would not count as pursuing an end or deliberating unless I complied with (I), that seems false—I can pursue or deliberate badly. Perhaps I would not count as pursuing or deliberating rationally unless I comply with (I)—I would be overlooking reasons. But equally, perhaps I am not deliberating rationally if I see no reason to save the baby. ((I) is also not as widely accepted as Lillehammer implies, since not everyone agrees that I have a reason to do what satisfies my desire just because I cannot drop the desire.) In any case, Lillehammer’s suggestion gives no argument for error theory, unless one adds a principle such as “claims about reasons that are not necessary conditions for pursuing ends or deliberation are false.”

  22. (a) The error theorist might say that there are other differences between moral reasons and hypothetical reasons. Perhaps an evolutionary debunking argument or argument from disagreement works against the former but not the latter (e.g., Cowie (2019, pp. 210 − 11) or Joyce (2020), considering epistemic reasons). If so, the argument from queerness is best retired. (b) Thanks to Joyce Jenkins for comments on an earlier draft.

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  1. Dept of Philosophy, University of Manitoba, R3T 2M8, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

    Robert Shaver

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Shaver, R. Moral error theory and hypothetical reasons. Synthese 200, 285 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03759-y

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