Abstract
From the thirties to the sixties the three moralists honored in this volume dominated ethical theory in this country. There are few areas on which none of them has left a lasting imprint. Where they disagree — and that is not infrequently — the controversy continues to be lively and illuminating.
Completion of this paper, begun some time ago, was made possible by a Neh Independent Study Fellowship F77-4 held from Jan. 1 to June 30,1977.
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Notes
C. L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1944, pp. 30/31, 113, 114-115, 133-135, 152 n. 2. I have discussed some aspects of Stevenson’s treatment in ‘Fact, Value, and Norm in Stevenson’s Ethics’, Nous, 1, 2, May, 1967.
R.B. Brandt, Ethical Theory. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, 1959. Esp. chapter 10. See also his ‘Toward a Credible Form of Utilitarianism’ in Hector-Neri Castañeda and George Nakhnikian, Morality and the Language of Conduct. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1959, and his’ some Merits of One Form of Rule Utilitarianism’, in the University of Colorado Studies Series in Philosophy, No. 3; also, Richard Brandt, ‘Rationality, Egoism, and Morality’, The Journal of Philosophy, LXIX, 20, Nov. 9,1972.
William K. Frankena, ‘Obligation and Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy’ in A. I. Melden, Essays in Moral Philosophy. University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1958. See also his ‘Recent Conceptions of Morality’ in Hector-Neri Castañeda and George Nakhnikian, Morality and the Language of Conduct. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1963, and his ‘Mclntyre on defining Morality’ and ‘The Concept of Morality’ both reprinted in G. Wallace and A. D. M. Walker, ed., The Definition of Morality. Methuen & Co., Ltd., London, 1970.
For their views are too well known for me simply to summarize them and I am too much in sympathy with them to wish to attack them.
Mind, XXI, 81, Jan., 1912, reprinted in H. A. Prichard, Moral Obligation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1968, pp. 1–17.
Cf. Philippa Foot’s recent paper, ‘Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives’, Philosophical Review, July, 1972, in which such a conception of morality as an autotelic activity is defended. Cf. also Frankena’s paper critical of Foot, entitled ‘The Philosopher’s Attack on Morality’, Philosophy, 46, 190, 345-356 and Foot’s rejoinder, ‘A Reply to Professor Frankena’, Philosophy, 50, 194, 455-459.
Op. cit., p. 3.
My distinction between motivation and validation requests is similar to the distinction, which Frankena (in ‘Obligation and Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy’, pp. 40-81) takes over from Hutcheson, between ‘exciting reasons’ and ‘justifying reasons’. However, there are also minor differences. In the first place, while for Frankena ‘Why should I... ’ as a request for a justifying reason is a request ‘for an ethical justification of the action proposed’ (p. 44), for me a validation request is a request for a reason, whether moral or non-moral. In the second place, while for Frankena ‘Why should I...?’ as a request for an exciting reason is a request ‘for a motive for doing it’ (Ibid.), for me a motivation request is a request for anything that would motivate the questioner to do it. This need not be a motive; it may for instance be a consideration or a proof that two types of considerations necessarily coincide. In the third place, I reject the view entertained by Frankena that ‘a motive is one kind of reason for acting’ (Ibid.). But these differences are at least in part merely verbal, if not entirely so.
There are thus important similarities and differences between calling something a consideration and calling it a reason for someone to do something. In both cases something is asserted about a suitable relationship between four things, two of which are common to considerations and reasons, two different. The two common things are: (1): Something, F, is the case. (2): F is evidence that TV’s doing A will produce S. The two things in respect of which considerations and reasons differ are: (3C): N finds S desirable. (3R): S is desirable. (4C): If TV believes (1) and (2) and if (3C), then he is motivated to do A. (I shall star all belief propositions. Thus (4C) becomes: If (1*), (2*) and (3C), then TV is motivated to do A. ) (4R): If (1*), (2*), and (3*), [i. e., if N believes (1), (2), and (3R) ], then he is motivated to do A.
Now to assert (5): that F is a consideration for N to do A, is to assert (3C), (4C), and (2*), but not (1*). (1*) is, however, implied when we claim that F was a consideration for N in (actually) doing A, i. e., that when N did A, F actually weighed with him; or to put it differently, that (1*) [N’s believing F], was part of the explanation of his doing A. And, of course, (5) does not imply the truth of either (1), or (2), or (3R). [We should note that (3C): that TV finds S desirable, is not the same as (3R*): that N believes (3R).]. By contrast, to assert (6): that F is a reason for N to do A, is to assert merely (2) and (3R). It does not imply (7), (1*), (2*), (3R*), or (4R). It should be noted that (6) is logically independent of (6 ): that TV believes (6). I here leave open the question, long a hotly debated issue between so-called Internalists and Externalists, of whether (4R) is true. For the distinction between Internalism and Externalism, see William K. Frankena, ‘Obligation and Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy’, pp. 40ff.
Cf., e. g., David P. Gauthier, Morality and Advantage, in David P. Gauthier, ed., Morality and Rational Self-Interest. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1970, p. 175.
John Hospers, Human Conduct. Harcourt, Brace & World Inc., New York, 1961, pp. 193–195.
Prichard, op. cit., p. 1.
Cf., John Hospers, Human Conduct. Harcourt, Brace, World Inc., New York, 1961, pp. 194 f. J. C. Thornton, ‘Can the Moral Point of View be Justified?’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, XLII (1964): reprinted in
Kenneth Pahel and Marvin Schiller, eds., Readings in Contemporary Ethical Theory. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1970, esp. p. 445 f. and 451; see also D. H. Monro, Empiricism and Ethics. Cambridge University Press, 1967, pp. 101 ff.
Kai Nielsen, ‘Is ‘Why should I be moral?’ an Absurdity?’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, XXXVI (1958), 25–32.
Here I am indebted to G. H. von Wright, The Varieties of Goodness, Humanities Press, New York, 1962, pp. 24–27, though he may disagree with the use I make of his distinctions.
For an interpretation of Bentham which bases the principle of utility on a system of individual self-anchored reasons, see David Lyons, In the Interest of the Governed. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973.
I have discussed this point more fully in my paper ‘Moral Obligation’, APQ, 3, July, 1966.
For such a view, see for instance, Bernard Gert, The Moral Rules. Harper & Row, New York, 1966, 1967, 1970, p. 205. “The confusion involves the relationship between what reason publicly requires and what reason requires. ‘Reason publicly requires acting morally’ simply means that all rational men publicly advocate acting morally. ‘Reason requires acting morally’ means that it is irrational to act immorally.... If one does not clearly distinguish between what reason requires and what reason publicly requires, then he may conclude that it is irrational to act immorally. It seems likely that Kant was involved in this confusion.”
Or John Plamenatz, Democracy and Illusion. Longman, London, 1973, p. 26. “The dishonest man, no less than the honest one, needs to make use of social rules, especially those general rules whose breach evokes the strongest feelings of resentment and disapproval, the moral rules.... He would fail of his purpose if he invoked the rule in such a way as to suggest that he himself was not bound by it. He would act irrationally were he to claim for himself an exemption which he would not, if challenged, show to be in the general interest, or justify by appealing to some principle accepted by the person he was trying to influence. But he would not act irrationally were he to break the rule whenever, to the best of his information and taking the future into account as far as he reasonably could, he stood to gain by doing so.”
See above, p. 240.
Op. cit., p. 26; see also Gert, op. cit., chapter 10.
Thus Kai Nielsen asks “Why is he (or is he) irrational or mistaken if he follows his egoistic policy?” (‘Why Should I be Moral?’, K. Pahel and M. Schiller, eds., Readings in Contemporary Ethical Theory, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, 1970, p. 458; cf., also p. 466.) and it is plain that by ‘irrationality’ he means any sin against reason. I believe this is true also of Gert and Plamenatz, but I have not found any passage which would by itself, demonstrate this. It is, however, fairly clear in G. J. Warnock’s The Object of Morality. Methuen & Co., Ltd., London, 1971. He there appears to think that contrariety to reason and irrationality are much the same. Thus, thinking the worse what is in fact the better alternative and so presumably the one supported by weightier reasons, he regards as not contrary to reason but at most as “contrary to good sense” (p. 162). He does so because of his account of rationality and irrationality: “To be irrational, I take it, is to fail, or refuse, or be unable to recognize a reason.” (p. 162, see also p. 163). However, we should distinguish at least three or possibly four senses of ‘rational’, only one of which, namely, (ii) has the opposite ‘irrational’, (i) Something close to Warnock’s ‘ability sense’: possessing the minimal ability to recognize and use reasons. Every normal adult is a rational being in this sense. Idiots are not rational beings, but neither are they irrational, for to be an irrational man, one must be a rational being. Now babies and puppies lack rationality in the ability sense. However, while babies are rational in the capacity (the possible fourth) sense, i. e., prerational in the ability sense, puppies are not — they are, however, non-rational beings and not irrational ones, as they would be by Warnock’s definition, (ii) The ‘low evaluative sense’: Actually exercising the ability to recognize and use reasons to a minimal standard of acceptability. Those falling below that standard are irrational. I have tried to define that standard, (iii) Perfect rationality: Exercising this ability flawlessly. Falling short of that standard is not necessarily flawed enough to amount to irrationality, but it is necessarily contrary to reason.
David Gauthier, ‘Morality and Advantage’, in David Gauthier, ed., Morality and Rational Self-Interest. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, 1970, p. 175.
Hector Monro, ‘Critical Notice’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, XXXVII, May, 1959, 77 ff. Kai Nielsen, ‘Why should I be moral?’ Pahel and Schiller, op. cit., p. 460-469. J. C. Thornton, ‘Can the Moral Point of View be Justified?’, reprinted in Pahel & Schiller, op. cit., pp. 446 f.
To be accurate, we would have to distinguish between the ‘general’ and the ‘particular’ senses of ‘what others are doing’. If the generality condition is satisfied, then the question of what others are doing (being moral or not being moral) is by implication settled, though only in the ‘general sense’. That is to say, since the adjudicating social requirements are generally recognized as overriding reasons, many people will treat them as overriding reasons, and those who do not will be criticized and subjected to suitable sanctions. But it is still possible that in a particular case, what the relevant others (say, one’s contractual partners or the particular judge dealing with the contract) will do remains an open question. I call this the ‘particular sense’ of ‘what others are doing’. In light of this distinction, what I have argued is that the reason why one should be moral applies even if it is an open question what others will do, in the particular sense, as long as the generality condition is satisfied and the question of what others are doing in the general sense is therefore settled (i. e., others are moral). But, I argued, that reason does not apply when the generality condition is not satisfied and when it is therefore an open question what others are doing, in the general sense.
Howard Warrender, The Moral and Political Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1957, pp. 53–56.
This objection was raised by Annette Baier.
See e. g., Lawrence Sklar, ‘Methodological Conservatism’, The Philosophical Review, LXXXIV, 3, July, 1975, pp. 374–400.
See above, footnote 23.
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Baier, K. (1978). Moral Reasons and Reasons to be Moral. In: Goldman, A.I., Kim, J. (eds) Values and Morals. Philosophical Studies Series in Philosophy, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7634-5_13
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