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Notes
See this issue of The Journal of Ethics.
I assume that Darwall just overlooked this argument. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain why he would repeatedly mention that my (first) argument against egoism would not be successful against an egoist who was not interested in providing a non-question-begging defense of her view. Darwall’s stressing this point would not make any sense unless he had, in fact, overlooked my second argument which shows the egoist to be question-begging even if she is not interested in providing non-question-begging defense of her view. This second argument against egoism closes the door that Darwall appears to think I have left open.
Darwall cites Terrence Irwin’s work for support for the idea that eudaimonism might be construed as a form of egoism. But in Irwin (2007), egoism is cited in the index only three times, and, in fact, the term does not even appear on the three pages to which the reader is referred. So it would seemingly be hard to construe Irwin to be of a defender of the view that eudaimonism is a form of egoism of any sort.
As it turns out, this part of my book tends to be given short shift by commentators who seemingly cannot stop themselves from focusing almost all of their efforts on critiquing the first half of the book. See, for example, Sterba et al. (2014).
Libertarians have never rejected the need for enforcement when important liberties are at stake.
Miller’s worry that on my view we should not be able to swat pesky flies is nicely handled by my Principle of Human Defense, as I explain in Sterba (2013: 149).
The egoist’s application of her form of universalization to her pursuit of her own interests, objectively considered, is perfectly analogous to the Kantian’s application of the Categorical Imperative to an agent’s own maxims, objectively considered. In each case, we get unconditionally binding norms on all agents.
Cummiskey seems to think that one can only beg the question if committed to pursuing a strategy of non-question-beggingness, much the same way that one can only lose at playing checkers if committed to playing the game. But the logic of non-question-beggingness is not like that. It is more like the logic of turning on to a one-way street, something one can do whether or not one intends to do it. Consider a following example that I use in From Rationality to Equality. Imagine that three thieves are arguing over the division of some very valuable pearls. Suppose one of the thieves gives two to the thief on his right, then two to the thief on his left. “I”, he says, “will keep three.” “How come you get to keep three?” one of the other two thieves asks. “Because I am the leader,” he replies. “Oh. But how come you are the leader?’ the other thief asks. “Because I have more pearls,” he replies. Now clearly the one thief is begging the question against the other two, even though he presumably is not committed to arguing non-question-beggingly with his fellow thieves. (Sterba 2013: 75)
Still, Cummiskey insists that the principle of non-question-beggingness is a moral principle on all fours with Kant’s Categorical Imperative. But I doubt if he would have ever entertained such a view if he had not been faced with the success of my argument.
Unfortunately, Rawls never laid out a fully adequate case against libertarianism in print.
Of course, we could advance an argument thinking that it is non-question-begging only later to discover our conclusion hidden away in the premises, as in the case of attempted proofs of the principle of induction. While this argumentative activity cannot support its conclusion non-question-beggingly, given that it is initially reasonably thought to be able to do should qualify it as a context where the standard of non-question-begging applies.
I explicitly define the egoist and the altruist as being capable of acting on either self-interested or altruistic reasons. Otherwise, the question of which reasons they rationally or morally ought to act upon, or which reasons we who have both capabilities, rationally or morally ought to act upon would not arise. (See Sterba 2013: 32–33)
This represents a slight shift from my earlier view. Earlier (Sterba 2013:72), I thought we could describe our disagreements with someone who willingly puts her hand into a fire as a context where it was impossible for us not to beg the question. I now think it is better to regard such contexts as ones where the issue of question-begging does not even arise because where it does arise, or even can arise, it must always be possible to beg the question or not to beg the question. Obviously, this presupposition is clearly not met in the case of the person putting her hand into the fire.
Gert notes that in Sterba (2013) I admit “always” from my formulation of this question. Actually “always” was understood there, and the word explicitly appears in a version of my argument that Gert commented on at the Pacific APA Meeting in San Francisco, March, 2012 before the book was published. As for the idea that it is not always a good thing to seek out good arguments before we act, this is true, but it is not really relevant to the question being asked. Thus, suppose you have a non-question-begging argument for doing A rather than B. Would it make sense to do B on the grounds that it is not always a good thing to seek out arguments before acting? I do not see how. You already have a non-question-begging argument. You are not debating whether to search for one. The question is whether you should act upon the argument you have or not. Nor do I think it would make any sense to ask for another non-question-begging argument in order to settle that question, as Gert seems to suggest.
That is not quite correct. Sometimes Gert writes as though his view does provide a solution to conflicts of interest. His solution is that everything is permitted, except for the our doing the few things that are crazy. Of course, most people would not regard this as a solution to the conflicts that permeate our lives.
There is a further problem here that needs to be addressed. In applying my non-question-begging approach, Gert allows that self-interested and altruistic reasons have prima facie status, but then he envisioned the egoist and the altruist continuing to voice their views in the deliberative process that determines how those reasons are to weighed against each other. That certainly does muddle the deliberative process. As I apply my non-question-begging approach, after self-interested and altruistic reasons are given prima facie status, I am imagining deliberation proceeding internal to the perspective provided by those reasons. Thus, I am imagining the egoist and the altruist, or the egoist and the altruist in each one of us, standing back from the deliberative process, awaiting its results, as it proceeds from the perspective provided by giving self-interested and altruistic reasons prima facie status.
However, as we shall see, the content of this distinction is understood quite differently in our views.
However, as we shall see, there is a big difference because my permissive reasons presuppose a requiring reason on the part of others at least not interfere with my doing what is permitted. By contrast, Gert’s permissive reasons have no such presupposition.
Again, Gert seems to think that claiming that virtually everything is permitted is providing a solution of sorts to cases of conflict, but surely most people would not accept that this is really a solution to the conflicts.
References
Gert, Joshua. 2004. Brute rationality. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Irwin, Terrence. 2007. The development of ethics: From Socrates to the reformation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rawls, John. 1971. A theory of justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Sterba, J.P. 1979. Ethical egoism and beyond. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 9(1): 91–108.
Sterba, J.P. 2001. Three challenges to ethics: Environmentalism, feminism, and multiculturalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sterba, J.P. 2012. Introducing ethics for here and now. New Jersey: Pearson.
Sterba, J.P. 2013. From rationality to equality. Oxford UK: Oxford University Press.
Sterba, J.P., et al. 2014. Symposium on from rationality to equality. International Journal of Applied Philosophy 28: 1.
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Sterba, J.P. Replies to Stephen Darwall, Richard Miller, David Cummiskey and Joshua Gert. J Ethics 18, 299–323 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-014-9178-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-014-9178-x