Abstract
This paper develops Bernard Williams’s claim that moral incapacity – i.e., one’s inability to consider an action as one that could be performed intentionally – ‘is proof against reward’. It argues that we should re-construe the notion of moral incapacity in terms of self-identification with a project, commitment, value, etc. in a way that renders this project constitutive of one’s self-identity. This consists in one’s being insensitive to incentives to reconsider or get oneself to change one’s identification with this project. More precisely, self-identification with a project implies that no state-given reason can justify for oneself reconsidering, or getting oneself to revise, or abandon one’s identification with that project. This view ties together integrity and self-identification, and avoids problems common to competing views: it avoids regress problems faced by hierarchical theories of identification; it demonstrates that integrationist views of identification overlook the fact that a deep, well-integrated attitude may fail to be incentive-insensitive; and it helps explain what’s wrong with ‘perverse’ cases, where one values acting in a way that one does not all things consider value. It also improves on Williams’s own view, by construing moral incapacity not merely in terms of one’s incapacity to perform an action (that undermines one’s project and thus violates one’s integrity), but also in terms of one’s incapacity to reconsider one’s commitment (to said project).
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Notes
Parfit (2001) introduces this distinction. Piller offers a different version of the distinction, focusing on content-related and attitude-related reasons (2006). Hieronymi also draws the distinction differently, based on her understanding of a reason as a consideration that bears on a question (2005, 2011). Thus, commitment-constitutive (i.e., object-given) reasons bear on whether to have an attitude, and extrinsic (i.e., state-given) reasons bear on whether to take the necessary steps for having an attitude (2005, 2006).
Alternatively, having a sugary snack while on a diet is not as detrimental to one’s self identity and integrity as having that same snack while observing a religious fast.
Below, I explore several views regarding these questions. I group these into hierarchical views (Bratman 1996, 2000, 2007; Frankfurt 1982, 1987, 1988; Korsgaard 1996, 2009), valuational views (Taylor 1976, 1985; Watson 1975, 1987), and integrationist views (Arpaly 2002; Arpaly and Schroeder 1999; Schroeder & Arpaly 1999). I demonstrate how the view does better than these views.
Of course, if one maintains that all moral judgments are grounded in emotional responses, then one may argue that there is no difference between judging that (nuclear) war is a moral atrocity and being extremely disgusted, or saddened, or frightened (or any combination thereof) by (nuclear) war. For the purposes of this article, we can put this option aside. At the very least, we can consider the difference between psychological incapacity (because of extreme disgust) and moral incapacity (because of moral character and self-identification with certain projects) as expanding on the phenomenological difference between being disgusted and being morally outraged.
At least, this is true for “judgment-sensitive” attitudes (Scanlon 1998).
This is all from the point of view of the agent herself. The focus here is on what reasons the agent has (as she takes them to be).
One may wonder if threats can justify anything like this for Luther, or for anyone who is genuinely committed to- and self-identifies with- a project. I discuss this below.
Sometimes, object-given reasons (reasons that bear on whether one’s judgment is correct or warranted) can also be state-given reasons. They can justify not just revising one’s self-identification attitudes, but also manipulating these attitudes, i.e. getting oneself to revise them. Suppose one learns a terrible truth about a close friend. Such a revelation is an object-given reason to revise one’s self-identification attitude towards this friend, but it is also a reason to go and find further evidence regarding the friend’s true character. This would be a reasonable response: if we learn some shocking or surprising news about something, it is reasonable to find out more information. In this way, one exerts what Pamela Hieronymi calls ‘managerial control’ (2006, 2008, 2009) over one’s self-identification attitude. Indeed, sometimes such news can be so shocking that one might not be able to shake off one’s self-identification attitude by simply relying on evidence.
One important note of clarification: The discussion here is restricted to revising and reconsidering existing instances of self-identification. It does not discuss reasons to self-identify with new projects. I take it that getting oneself to take up such new self-identification can be justified by sufficient state-given reasons. I discuss this in more detail in the concluding section of the article.
These comments are very brief, and open up further questions. For instance: perhaps there is room for distinguishing between object-directed state-given reasons (state-given reasons for revising an attitude to benefit the object of the attitude) and state-directed state-given reasons (any other state-given reasons). Based on this distinction, God’s promise for the well-being of one’s children would be an object-directed state-given reason. I hope to address this and related questions in further work.
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Acknowledgements
This work germinated from my dissertation. For countless written comments and discussions on predecessors of this manuscript, I am wholeheartedly grateful to Philip Clark, Arthur Ripstein, and Sergio Tenenbaum. I am also indebted to two anonymous reviewers for this issue of Topoi for their comments and suggestions, as well as to anonymous reviewers from other journals.
Funding
This research was supported by the ISRAEL SCIENCE FOUNDATION within the MAPATZ program (grand No. 399/23).
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Steinberg, E. Integrity as Incentive-Insensitivity: Moral Incapacity Means One can’t be Bought. Topoi (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-023-09993-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-023-09993-4