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Abstract

In The Order of Public Reason (2011a), Gerald Gaus rejects the instrumental approach to morality as a viable account of social morality. Gaus’ rejection of the instrumental approach to morality, and his own moral theory, raise important foundational questions concerning the adequate scope of instrumental morality. In this article, I address some of these questions and I argue that Gaus’ rejection of the instrumental approach to morality stems primarily from a common but inadequate application of this approach. The scope of instrumental morality, and especially the scope of pure moral instrumentalism, is limited. The purely instrumental approach to morality can be applied fruitfully to moral philosophy only in situations of extreme pluralism in which moral reasoning is reduced to instrumental reasoning, because the members of a society do not share, as assumed by traditional moral theories, a consensus on moral ideals as a basis for the derivation of social moral rules, but only an end that they aim to reach. Based on this understanding, I develop a comprehensive two-level contractarian theory that integrates traditional morality with instrumental morality. I argue that this theory, if implemented, is most promising for securing mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in deeply pluralistic societies, as compared to cooperation in a non-moralized state of nature.

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Notes

  1. See, in particular, Hobbes (1651).

  2. See Hobbes (1651, Part I, Chaps. XIII–XVI, and Part II, Chap. XVII).

  3. For a detailed, although non-orthodox, interpretation of Hobbes’ moral and political theory that assumes a less extreme form of moral pluralism in Hobbes’ state of nature and attributes to Hobbes a more substantial moral theory than pure moral instrumentalism, see Lloyd (1992, pp. 254–270, and 2009). For further discussion of the differences between orthodox and non-orthodox interpretations of Hobbes’ moral and political theory, see Gaus (2013).

  4. For a more detailed analysis of the normative demands of instrumental rationality, see Schroeder (2004).

  5. Gaus (2011a, p. 62) regards agents to be instrumentally rational if their beliefs, considered from their own epistemic perspectives, and the deliberations that lead to their actions are not ‘grossly defective’.

  6. See Robbins (1935, p. 157).

  7. See Kant (1785, AK 4:389).

  8. Nozick (1993, p. 133). Cf. Gaus (2011a, p. 58).

  9. See Moehler (2009, pp. 200–201).

  10. See Gaus (2011a, Chap. II).

  11. Ibid., p. 54.

  12. Ibid., pp. 70–100.

  13. For a recent discussion of Hobbes’ Foole, see Vanderschraaf (2010, pp. 37–58).

  14. See Gauthier (1986, Chap. VI). For another alternative theory of rational choice, see McClennen (1988, pp. 95–118).

  15. See Gaus (2011a, p. 103).

  16. Ibid., p. 19.

  17. Ibid., p. 112.

  18. See Skyrms (1996, p. 44).

  19. See Gaus (2011a, pp. 176–177).

  20. Ibid., p. 14.

  21. Ibid., Chap. VI.

  22. Ibid., p. 48.

  23. Ibid., p. 26.

  24. Ibid., pp. 277–280.

  25. The reversibility condition demands that agents’ endorsements of specific social moral rules do not depend on agents’ knowledge that they occupy specific social positions.

  26. See Gaus (2011a, p. 323).

  27. Ibid., Chap. VI.

  28. Ibid., p. 395.

  29. Ibid., xv. My italics.

  30. Ibid., p. 323.

  31. Gaus (2011a, p. 281) explicitly excludes non-moral agents from his moral theory.

  32. See Moehler (2009, p. 203). I use the term ‘two-level theory’ differently from Feldman (2012).

  33. Gaus (2011a, p. 392) rejects this commonly accepted condition of moral justification that he calls, in a more precise formulation, the procedural justification requirement, in particular because he argues that it cannot be fulfilled under the assumption of significant evaluative diversity. I am not as pessimistic as Gaus and, in the following, argue implicitly that, even under the assumption of extreme pluralism, a uniquely publicly justifiable procedure that takes pluralism seriously can be determined for the derivation of a social moral rule, if the domain of this procedure and the moral rule derived by it are adequately restricted.

  34. For a potential genealogy of (parts of) our social morality and the notion of moral progress, see Kitcher (2011, Chaps. 1–4 and 6).

  35. See also Gaus (2011b, pp. 83–86), where he argues that, although not all members of society must be rule-following punishers, at least some members of society must be rule-following punishers in order for large-scale social cooperation to be maintained in the presence of free-riders.

  36. For the following, see also Moehler (2012, pp. 87–88).

  37. See, for example, Smith (1776) and Ricardo (1817).

  38. For such criticism, see Gaus (2011a, pp. 185–187), for example.

  39. See Hobbes (1651, Part I, Chap. XV).

  40. See Moehler (2012, pp. 88–101). In the following, I borrow from my previous discussion.

  41. The precise demands are specified in Moehler (2012, p. 90).

  42. Gaus’ (2011a, p. 425) evolutionary account of public justification, for example, holds that “[i]f an existing rule is within the optimal eligible set, it is publicly justified for that reason—just because it is the existing rule.” My italics.

  43. For the notion of the veil of uncertainty, see Buchanan and Tullock (1962, p. 78).

  44. Moehler (2012, p. 100).

  45. The two-level contractarian theory is not committed to one particular model of agency for the domain of traditional social morality. However, the model of agency that Gaus suggests, or a close cousin of it, seems to be a plausible candidate for this domain.

  46. See Moehler (2009, pp. 209–210) for a similar argument in the context of the topic of global justice.

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Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Jerry Gaus not only for helping me to understand his complex moral theory, but also for pressing me to formulate my own theory more carefully.

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Moehler, M. The scope of instrumental morality. Philos Stud 167, 431–451 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0106-x

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