Abstract
For Philippa Foot, the essence of morality consists in acting on the reasons on which, qua human being, one ought to act; and this ought is one of “natural normativity”—the same ought that also occurs in statements about what a plant or an animal, qua exhibiting a certain form of life, “ought” to be like in various respects, or how its organs “ought” to function. Of this conception Foot avails herself in order to refute the moral sceptic—an undertaking that raises various critical questions, in particular: 1) Is it the naturally normative ought that also occurs in a practical judgement of the form “I ought to F”? If so, how are we to account for what Foot calls the “practicality” of such a judgement? If not, what kind of intelligible step could an agent (or a philosopher) take, in order to get from a theoretical statement of natural normativity to a practical judgement that ceteris paribus issues in action? 2) Can we understand the validity of every moral requirement in terms of natural normativity, i.e. of a teleological necessity of individuals’ acting well? 3) If we can, will this understanding rely on premises sufficiently certain to justify morality in a sense suggested by Foot’s anti-sceptical considerations?—I argue that “Natural Goodness” does not satisfactorily answer these questions, and conclude by sketching an account of practical moral knowledge that does not seem to provoke them.
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Notes
- 1.
Three comments on this example: 1) According to Foot, the prohibition on lying —unlike, e.g., that on torture—allows for exceptions (NG 77f.). 2) Your not believing that p is nevertheless a compelling reason not to say that p in the sense that it does not merely invite you not to say that p—as the needs of the local library might be said to “invite” you to make a donation. In the latter case, the goodness of what you have reason to do does not mean that it would be wrong for you not to donate. The goodness of avoiding an (unjustified) lie, by contrast, does go with the wrongness of saying what you don’t believe to be the case. 3) Many patterns of acting well are, unlike both truthfulness and donating, a matter of disregarding rather than heeding a certain kind of reason. To act courageously, for instance, is: not to let oneself be prevented from pursuing an important aim by reasons of proportionately limited danger. These three differentiations need not further detain us here. For the purpose of our discussion we may assume contexts in which you ought to Φ in virtue of the kind of reason you have to Φ. Truthfulness and promise-keeping are going to be my standard stand-ins for a moral requirement.
- 2.
Cf. However NG 3 fn.1.
- 3.
Foot recognizes good reasons for doing things that are not “moral reasons” (cf. Sect. 1.5 (b)). My “motivational patterns” are not meant to include these because my topic is moral scepticism.
- 4.
The topic of a judgement that it is necessary, or right, or good to comply with a motivational or situational requirement is of course something that can be done. But unless it goes with a tendency to act accordingly, it is still a theoretical judgement—what Aquinas calls speculativa consideratio […] de re operabili (2008, I q 14 a 16c).
- 5.
Thus, when your failure to act is due to external obstruction, and causes you regret, or when it is due to temporary temptation and you show remorse (cf. fn. 24), your recognition is practical.
- 6.
It is easy to confuse motivational and situational requirements because there are moral judgements, such as “Thou shalt not murder” that appear not to admit of the distinction. But this is an illusion. Thus, to refrain from murder is, roughly and classically: to refrain from killing X because X is an innocent human being.
- 7.
Moreover, this understanding of the expression “that which the good person must do” is borne out by the rest of the passage (NG 64f.). It is also implied by the statement that “the [sceptical] problem is about the rationality of doing what virtue demands” (NG 53), and by the phrase “an individual who knows that he has reason to act morally” (NG 18). Such an individual is presumably one who rightly judges that he ought to keep promises, refrain from lies, etc.,—not one who merely, after having promised to Φ, judges that he ought to Φ. What, however, is the reason he has? The Aristotelian necessity of promise-keeping (cf. Sects. 3 and 4)?
- 8.
A relevant Aristotelian necessity can at best constitute a (justificatory) reason theoretically to judge that a promise to Φ gives you sufficient reason a) practically to judge that you ought to Φ, and b) to Φ. In the present context, the suggestion of defense against criticism is no part of the meaning of “justification ”. A justifying reason is simply a consideration in favour of doing something of judging something to be the case. Does Foot confuse explanatory and justificatory reasons? Well, I find only negative evidence that she keeps them apart, as when she speaks of “the explanatory force of the proposition about the requirement of rationality”, not of its reason-giving force (NG 23; cf. NG 18).
- 9.
Note that the effectual functionality of virtue seems to demand, as an Aristotelian necessity , that it be practised, in some sense, for its own sake. This is reflected in a standard of evaluation that gives preeminence to the implementation of motivational patterns over the actions thereby performed. From a moral point of view, we treat the value of complying with a situational requirement as dependent on the value of the motivational requirement that is thereby realized, rather than vice versa. In this, the motivational requirements inherent in human nature differ from what might be called the (merely) rational “requirements” created by conventional institutions which, unlike promising , are not themselves components of morality . Legal systems, etiquette , and the code of duelling supply examples (cf. NG 18). Thus, if you refrain from appropriating X’s bicycle, you are to this extent keeping the law, even if you merely refrain for fear of being caught. But if this is your only motive, you are not complying with the motivational requirement not to steal, i.e., to refrain from appropriating X’s bicycle because it is X’s.
- 10.
You think you do have reasons for being truthful, honest, etc.? Well, name one! (as Lucy famously challenged Charlie Brown when he said “I have friends”). True, things don’t go well for communities whose members lack honesty. This is at least part of the (explanatory) reason why honesty is a virtue, teleologically and motivationally required. But is it also your (motivating) reason for practising it? And is the rationality it is supposed to confer on your honesty preferable to the rationality conferred by, say, concern for your reputation?
- 11.
At least—if we follow Aristotle (and experience)—to become an honest man, a crook has to practise as well as to choose, since choice itself is largely determined by habits of character.
- 12.
“You can argue […] that general respect for the prohibition on murder makes life more commodious. [… But] the wrong done in murder is done first and foremost to the victim, whose life is not inconvenienced […]: the objection to murder is supra-utilitarian” (Anscombe 2008, 187; cf. Anscombe 2005, 260, 266). Again, functional considerations cannot explain that “a man’s dead body […] isn’t something to be put out for the collectors of refuse to pick up” (2008, 187). And, reducing chastity to a form of temperance, they cannot account for a deep-rooted appreciation of virginity or celibacy and the wrongness of casual sex (2008, 187f.). An Aristotelian philosopher could also mention the worship of God. Further, lying is generally considered to be bad because it is liable to have bad consequences for those who are deceived. But deception is not of its essence. The really brazen liar lies through his teeth, not minding whether anyone will believe even that he believes himself what he says. This seems to prove that the ethical requirement of respect for truth is not exhausted by Aristotelian necessity , and the value of truthfulness is mystical. Also, what are we to say about American prisoners of war who were tortured by North Vietnamese interrogators until they signed a document in which they expressed their gratitude for the kind way they were being treated? Why did they resist as long as they did? Wasn’t the motive something like attachment to the truth and/or fear to suffer loss of dignity? And if we admire their conduct, can we account for this by appealing only to an Aristotelian necessity of honouring truth and dignity?
- 13.
The resulting diversity should not be viewed as undermining the commonality of the human life form. Rather, “the diversities of human life ”, i.e., individual and cultural variety in ideals and practices, and the infinite creativity of reason are themselves constitutive characteristics of that form (NG 43). Nonetheless, human good now appears to be a collective term for an indefinite variety of good-life conceptions, each of them importing its own standard of suitable conduct.
- 14.
Foot may be thinking of ends in areas such as friendship and conversation, play , creativity and artistic achievement, enjoyment of beauty, style and elegance, novelty and fun, discovery and learning, influence, fame and power, victory in competition and success as such. And of more idiosyncratic and extravagant ones: living the ascetic life of a yogi, turning one’s life into a work of art, or (a project pursued by her friend Peter Geach ) collecting bad logic books. But she is also aware of having to take care of other ends, such as the city hunter’s cruel entertainment, the pleasures of the paedophile, the kinds of honour sought in duelling, vendetta, or potlatch, and some Nietzschean ideals, that are intrinsically opposed to demands of morality or prudence or both.
- 15.
“The different considerations are on a par, moreover, in that a judgement about what is required by practical rationality must take account of their interaction: of the weight of the ones we call non-moral as well as those we call moral” (NG 11).
- 16.
Cf. NG 65: “To ask for a reason for acting rationally is to ask for a reason where reasons must a priori have come to an end. And if he goes on saying ‘But why should I?,’ we may query the meaning of this ‘should’”.
- 17.
Virtuous rationality is anyway “partial” in both senses of the word, on account of demands of prudence. Note that the egoist’s scepticism is actually impartial in this sense: he can concede that it is equally rational for others to compete by pursuing the same kind of ruthless policy as he does—and hope they won’t, or won’t succeed.
- 18.
His conception could actually appeal to various models of “natural normativity ” supplied by non-human forms of life . There are, e.g., species of frogs in which the less talented males spend their energy croaking in order to attract females, which are then available as mates to their less vociferous, hence less exhausted, competitors. Remember also that, ironically, no thought of Aristotelian necessity prevented Aristotle from holding that the human species featured natural slaves and an imperfectly rational sex besides fully rational males.
- 19.
At NE VII.3.147a5–6, somebody is represented as reasoning: “Every man is benefited by dry food. I am a man. So I ought to eat dry food”. We find a similar pattern in two examples at De Motu Animalium 7.701a13–15—though in both cases the first premise, “Every man / no man should walk”, proposes a telos supplied by the occasion, rather than by human nature on its own.
- 20.
This distinction is of course merely technical and admittedly artificial. It is not meant to reflect a distinction in the common use of those words. It is to mark the important difference between a genuinely practical judgement and a theoretical judgement asserting a practical requirement (cf. fn. 4). An ordinary ought/should-judgements may sit on the fence between theoretical and practical recognition of a moral requirement. What counts, however, is this: you are confronted with a genuine alternative by the question: “When you say ‘I agree I should /ought to Φ’, are you just voicing an insight, or rather expressing readiness, in principle, to comply?”
- 21.
This is practical knowledge in one sense of the term: knowledge of what one should do. It manifests itself primarily in the knower’s acting well . It is not to be confused with Anscombe’s “practical knowledge ”, which is non-observational knowledge of what one is doing and the cause of one’s doing it (1979, §28–32). Note also that knowledge how to act, and how to live, is not an instance of what, following Ryle, philosophers commonly call knowledge -how. You may know how to trim this rosebush but not do it; whereas arguably you can’t be said to know how to live and act unless you are at least bent on living and acting that way. Foot might find my use of “commitment” as unpalatable as Allan Gibbard’s “endorsing a norm”, of which she professes “not [to] know what is meant by this somewhat contrived expression” (NG 19). Well, “I should Φ” expresses commitment in the sense that speakers’ Φ-ing is the primary criterion of their meaning it.
- 22.
Does the second person admit of an analogy to the first-person should? Well, “You should / ought to Φ” may be encouragement as well as statement of fact. (That it could be the latter only is shown by the consistency of saying: “I admit you ought to Φ, but I wouldn’t myself care a damn about Φ-ing in your place”.) On the other hand, my “You should Φ” does not of course express your commitment, your readiness to Φ, as your “I should Φ” would. The right thing to say, I think, is that by saying: “You (but equally: he / she) should Φ” I typically mean to ascribe a requirement of the sort whose authority I myself recognize practically. Note, by the way, that by using the theoretical “what one ought to do” one does not distance oneself from commitment in the way one does by the phrase “what one ‘ought’ to do”, meaning: “what people say one ought to do”.
- 23.
Is a practical judgement really a judgement? Its formulation cannot, e.g., enter an if-clause!—I agree that truth-functions cannot be applied to it in the usual way—and add that little hangs on whether it is called a judgement (cf. statements hedged by “perhaps”!).—But can it then be true, and manifest knowledge?—Well, “I should F” is true if “I ought to F”, which does enter truth-functions, is; and in this case it may display knowledge. The grammar of such a “should” needs exploration (cf. also fn. 22), esp. with regard to two questions: a) How does “should F” relate to “intend to F”? b) How does the categorical necessity it expresses relate to the hypothetical necessity that relates means to intended ends (cf. Müller 1989)?
- 24.
I find this formulation revealing—revealing of an inkling that there are really two ways of understanding a sentence such as “For [NN] certain considerations count as reasons for action ” (NG 12): does it ascribe to NN theoretical or rather practical recognition of such reasons? If “morality […] serves to produce and prevent action , because the understanding of reasons can do that” (NG 18): what account is to be given of cases when it can but doesn’t? Separate accounts are evidently needed for shamelessness and weakness of will. But only one seems to be available to Foot, because she repudiates the idea of practical recognition as something which the shameless lacks, whereas the akratic manifests it obliquely.—Cf. also a curious formulation according to which the sense of acting well “is given primarily at least by [an agent’s] recognition of the force of particular considerations as reasons for acting: that and [!] the influence that this has on what he does” (NG 12). Doesn’t the agent’s—as opposed to the Martian’s—recognition of such a consideration ipso facto manifest itself primarily in “what he does”, if moral judgement is as such practical?
- 25.
Only, the former reasons, consisting as they do of objects of desire , don’t refer to facts in the way the latter do (NG 23f.).
- 26.
What must of course be conceded is this: If particular moral requirements can be explained and justified in terms of Aristotelian necessity , it does not follow that these requirements can be derived from an independent prior conception of the human form of life (cf. Sect. 3.1).
- 27.
Again, consider the passage that speaks of “reasons for believing propositions about natural goodness and badness in various plants, animals, and human beings; for instance, for believing that an individual oak tree with superficial, spindly roots was to be evaluated as defective, and […] for the assertion that Maklay would have acted badly had he photographed his sleeping servant. In the latter case the immediate [!] reason was that he had promised not to do so”. The suggestion implied is clearly that an indirect and possibly ultimate reason consists in the fact that “to break a promise was as such to act badly” (NG 64). But in the Maklay example, his having promised to Φ is his reason for judging that he should Φ (and for Φ-ing), whereas (I would argue) it is wrong to say that the natural badness of promise-breaking ought to, or even could, be his (indirect) reason for accepting the situational requirement to Φ. (If anything, the natural goodness of promise-keeping might be his reason for accepting the motivational requirement of Φ-ing because of a promise to Φ. But, as I have argued, this implies an implausible distribution of certainties.) Cf. also the phrase “an individual who knows that he has reason to act morally” (NG 18), and the sentence “A human being as a rational animal will ask ‘Why should I do that?’, particularly if told that he should do something distasteful that seems to be for the advantage of others rather than himself” (NG 56f).
- 28.
Principia operabilium nobis naturaliter indita […] pertinent […] ad specialem habitum naturalem, quem dicimus synderesim (Aquinas 2008, I q 79 a 12c; cf. I–II q 94 a 1 ad 2). Examples of these principia naturaliter cognita quasi indemonstrabilia include not only bonum faciendum, malum vitandum, but substantial ones such as nulli esse iniuste nocendum, non furandum, and arguably also quod pacta sint servanda, et quod legati apud hostes sint tuti [!] et alia huiusmodi (1934, 1018–9).
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Müller, A.W. (2018). “Why Should I?” Can Foot Convince the Sceptic?. In: Hacker-Wright, J. (eds) Philippa Foot on Goodness and Virtue. Philosophers in Depth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91256-1_6
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