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Moral principles as moral dispositions

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Abstract

What are moral principles? In particular, what are moral principles of the sort that (if they exist) ground moral obligations or—at the very least—particular moral truths? I argue that we can fruitfully conceive of such principles as real, irreducibly dispositional properties of individual persons (agents and patients) that are responsible for and thereby explain the moral properties of (e.g.) agents and actions. Such moral dispositions (or moral powers) are apt to be the metaphysical grounds of moral obligations and of particular truths about what is morally permissible, impermissible, etc. Moreover, they can do other things that moral principles are supposed to do: explain the phenomena “falling within their scope,” support counterfactuals, and ground moral necessities, “necessary connections” between obligating reasons and obligations. And they are apt to be the truthmakers for moral laws, or “lawlike” moral generalizations.

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Notes

  1. The term “duty-imposing rules” is Hart’s (1994). I use it to refer to rules of the sort that ground (and are therefore metaphysically prior to) duties or obligations—as opposed not only to “guidelines,” “rules of thumb,” etc., but also to so-called descriptive rules that merely codify independently existing norms or standards.

  2. I use the term “disposition” as a generic term for dispositional properties: powers, capacities, tendencies, liabilities, etc. Some use “power” instead (e.g., Molnar 2003, p. 57).

  3. Ross’s argument is (roughly) that obligatory acts don’t exist at the time that agents are obligated to perform them and that only existents can bear properties. By attributing not only moral properties but also the dispositional properties that ground them to persons rather than acts, one avoids attributing properties to non-existents.

  4. On this view, Newton’s law of gravity (F = Gm 1 m 2 /r 2), for example, describes the powers or capacities of massive bodies qua massive, rather than any regularity (Cartwright 1999, pp. 65, 82).

  5. This section reprises material from Robinson (2008, pp. 2–4).

  6. I borrow this phrase from Dretske (1977, p. 262).

  7. See, e.g., Brink (1994, pp. 188–190, 197), Crisp (2000, pp. 34–35), Dancy (1983, p. 533), Lance and Little (2007, 2008), Pietroski (1993, pp. 499–500, 514–515), Väyrynen (2006, pp. 716–717, 726–727, 2009). But see Jackson et al. (2000, pp. 81–84) and McKeever and Ridge (2006, pp. 6, 7–8, 12–14).

  8. See, e.g., Lance and Little (2006a, pp. 315–316, 317–318, 2007, pp. 155–156), Pietroski (1993, pp. 492, 499–500, 514–515) and Väyrynen (2009, Sect. 5).

  9. Might something other than moral principles ground moral necessities? What could do this that would not count as a moral principle (in the genetic sense)?

  10. This is not to deny that some “accidental” generalizations provide inferential support for some counterfactuals, since not all such generalizations are mere generalizations (Armstrong 1983, p. 47; cf. Lange 2000, pp. 16–17).

  11. I argue elsewhere (Robinson 2008) that none of the following supply an adequate answer to this question: a best-systems theory of moral principles modeled on the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis, or best-systems, theory of the laws of nature; Sean McKeever and Michael Ridge’s theory of moral principles as “action-guiding standards” (2006); Pekka Väyrynen’s theory of moral principles as “hedged” generalizations (2006, 2008, 2009); Mark Lance and Margaret Little’s “pragmatist” theory of moral principles as “defeasible” generalizations (2006a, b, 2007, 2008). Moreover, one might argue that at least some of these are best understood as accounts of moral principles in the propositional sense or of moral laws, rather than as accounts of moral principles in the genetic sense.

  12. According to the regularity theory, the laws of nature are a special class of “lawlike” generalizations, such as explanatory or counterfactual-supporting generalizations. This necessarily glosses over some niceties. For instance, some versions of the regularity theory identify laws with a special class of “nomic” regularities, rather than with “lawlike” generalizations. And different versions of the theory offer different accounts of what makes a generalization or regularity a law.

  13. The term “pro tanto reason” was introduced by Kagan (1989, p. 17) as a substitute for Ross’s term “prima facie duty.” However, Ross used his term to refer to token acts—specifically, token acts that tend to be “duties sans phrase” (1930, pp. 28–29). And he likened these moral tendencies to those of bodies subject to gravitational and other physical forces. Both the concept of a pro tanto reason and that of a prima facie duty are often glossed in terms of factors that always have weight, but that characterization is controversial.

  14. See Luke Robinson, “Right-Making and Wrong-Making Reasons,” MS.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v., “principle.”

  17. My promising is not a triggering of my power to obligate myself by promising but rather an exercise of that power. So if it requires a trigger, it requires a causal trigger. But my power to obligate agents not to kill me does not seem to require even that (see the discussion of constantly manifesting powers below).

  18. The phrase is Harré and Madden’s (1975, p. 5).

  19. Cf. “The question of whether moral generalizations are causal [ones] depends largely on what the right theory of causation is” (Pietroski 1993, p. 511).

  20. Again, I mean to allow not only that patients (infants, dogs, etc.) can be persons, but also that they can have those moral dispositions of persons that need not be exercised (or manifested) voluntarily, such as the power of persons to obligate agents not to kill them.

  21. One reason not to take this view is that it requires attributing properties to non-existents. (See n. 3 and accompanying text.)

  22. “The exercise of the power creates the second feature and in that sense necessitates it” (Cartwright et al. 2005, p. 811). “It is not laws that [explain and necessitate]; it is causes. The cause necessitates its effect—it makes it happen, or brings it about; and the occurrence of the effect is explained by the occurrence of the cause” (Cartwright 1993, p. 428). “[Causal] laws describe natural kinds of processes that are the displays of causal powers….[E]vents activating these powers necessitate other events that are their displays” (Ellis 2001, p. 287).

  23. Constantly manifesting powers should be distinguished from continuously manifesting powers, “powers that are exercised for as long as they exist” (Molnar 2003, p. 86). Continuously manifesting powers are a subset of constantly manifesting powers, which are themselves a subset of unconditionally manifesting powers (see Sect. 4). The difference between constantly and continuously manifesting powers is an extrinsic one: continuously manifesting powers (of which rest mass is one) are simply constantly manifesting powers for which no masks exist (see n. 25). They remain liable, at least in principle, to being both finked (see n. 25) and prevented from exercising successfully (see below).

  24. “It follows from the concept ‘power’ that the power to X cannot be exercised in the right circumstances without X obtaining” (Cartwright et al. 2005, p. 812).

  25. A mask is anything with the power to prevent the manifestation of a disposition without making its bearer lose that disposition. Packing materials used in the shipping of fragile objects mask their fragility (Johnston 1992, p. 233). A fink is anything with the power to make an object lose or acquire a disposition upon the occurrence of that disposition’s trigger or stimulus (Martin 1994, pp. 2–3; Lewis 1997, p. 144). A circuit breaker is a fink: it causes a circuit to lose its capacity to carry a current above a given magnitude upon the occurrence of the very event that would otherwise trigger the manifestation of that capacity.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Eric Barnes and Steve Sverdlik for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Southern Methodist University, Hyer Hall, P.O. Box 750142, Dallas, TX, 75275-0142, USA

    Luke Robinson

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Robinson, L. Moral principles as moral dispositions. Philos Stud 156, 289–309 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9585-1

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