Abstract
Some moral theories, such as objective forms of consequentialism, seem to fail to be practically useful: they are of little to no help in trying to decide what to do. Even if we do not think this constitutes a fatal flaw in such theories, we may nonetheless agree that being practically useful does make a moral theory a better theory, or so some have suggested. In this paper, I assess whether the uncontroversial respect in which a moral theory can be claimed to be better if it is practically useful can provide a ground worth taking into account for believing one theory rather than another. I argue that this is not the case. The upshot is that if there is a sound objection to theories such as objective consequentialism that is based on considerations of practical usefulness, the objection requires that it is established that the truth about what we morally ought to do cannot be epistemically inaccessible to us. The value of practical usefulness has no bearing on the issue.
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Notes
Virtue ethical approaches have for example been criticized for their alleged failure to be action-guiding; see Hursthouse (1999, chap. 1) for discussion.
Frances Howard-Snyder’s (1997) attempted rejection of objective consequentialism provides a good example.
A different way to characterize the purpose of this paper, in terms some might find more congenial given the existing literature on the subject, is that it seeks to assess what weight we should assign, respectively, to the theoretical and the practical aims of moral theorizing, provided we understand the practical aim in the way sketched in the text. In effect, the claim that I argue for is that the practical aim of moral theorizing should be taken as subsidiary to its theoretical aim, not by definitional fiat, but in virtue of certain facts about the nature and content of the reasons there are to care about whether a moral theory is practically useful, facts which have important implications for the weight of those reasons.
See Reisner (2009, pp. 258–259) for discussion and further references. Reisner defends the view that pragmatic reasons for belief can carry significant weight; see, in addition to the paper just mentioned, also his (2008). I discuss what weight pragmatic reasons that are provided by considerations of practical usefulness might have in a little more detail below.
Some of those to whom I presented this case in conversation reported that they think it is worse to commit horrible moral wrongs on the basis of a coin toss than on the basis of deeply misguided moral beliefs, hence the elaboration of the example offered in the text.
Consequentialism incorporates the ‘ought’ implies ‘can’-maxim into its fundamental deontic principle: you ought to do the best you can, not the best that you cannot do. So by definition, you always can do whatever the theory implies that you ought to do. This claim has been contested by Frances Howard-Snyder (1997), but I believe her argument does not succeed, for roughly the reasons Erik Carlson (1999) gives.
It could be the case that, for some reason or other, believing the true moral theory has such an effect; it is this sort of concern which leads Henry Sidgwick to propose that utilitarianism should be an ‘esoteric morality’. See Sidgwick (1980 [1907], book IV, chap. V).
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Govert den Hartogh, Emily Given, and several anonymous referees for their comments on versions of this paper.
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van Someren Greve, R. The value of practical usefulness. Philos Stud 168, 167–177 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0124-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0124-8