Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Means-end coherence, stringency, and subjective reasons

  • Published:
Philosophical Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Intentions matter. They have some kind of normative impact on our agency. Something goes wrong when an agent intends some end and fails to carry out the means she believes to be necessary for it, and something goes right when, intending the end, she adopts the means she thinks are required. This has even been claimed to be one of the only uncontroversial truths in ethical theory. But not only is there widespread disagreement about why this is so, there is widespread disagreement about in what sense it is so. In this paper I explore an underdeveloped answer to the question of in what sense it is so, and argue that resolving an apparent difficulty with this view leads to an attractive picture about why it is so.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Possibly adding ‘-or-not-believe-that-paying-the-assassin-is-necessary-to-hire-him’, as well. See Schroeder (2004) for discussion.

  2. See, for example, Hill (1973), Gensler (1985), Wallace (2001), and Broome (1999, 2001).

  3. See, for example, Bratman (1987, forthcoming) and Raz (2005a).

  4. Setiya (2007b). I should note that several of the authors cited in fact hold some combination of these views.

  5. Compare Schroeder (2007b).

  6. Ewing (1953) and Piller (unpublished).

  7. For example, Gensler (1985) and Broome (1999). I discussed both kinds of case in Schroeder (2004), although I now think that I was wrong to say that my remarks about ‘desire’ there apply equally well to the case of intentions.

  8. See Schroeder (2004) for the statement of this objection. Kolodny (2005, 2007) also presses a version of this kind of objection against a kind of Wide-Scope view.

  9. Setiya (2007b) also advances a version of this argument, although mine requires weaker assumptions, because it takes into account time. Full credit for the argument goes to Greenspan (1975).

  10. Greenspan (1975).

  11. I do think that the problems I’ve pursued are more pressing in the case of Ewing’s Problem, which is part of why I think it generates leverage to tackle the problem indirectly, by way of our Working Hypothesis.

  12. Williams (1981). See Schroeder (forthcoming) for extensive discussion.

  13. In Sect. 5 I’ll consider and endorse an argument that this principle can’t be exactly right, and show how to introduce refinements which get around this problem, but for now it is close enough. Certainly it has been widely accepted—for example, by Parfit (forthcoming), who calls the distinction between objective and subjective oughts the difference between reasons and rationality.

  14. Sometimes tests like this one are formulated in counterfactual terms. It is easy to see, though, that the counterfactual test can’t really be quite right. For example, it could be that the closest world in which Bernie’s glass really contains gin and tonic is one in which he has promised to give up on drink, or satisfies some other condition which would make a difference to what he objectively ought to do.

  15. The qualifications in the very weak ought test address a class of proposed counterexamples to the subjective ought test that I will discuss in part 5.

  16. Setiya (2007b).

  17. See Setiya (2007a).

  18. Schroeder (2004, 2005, 2007a, b).

  19. Schroeder (2004, pp. 344–345).

  20. Schroeder (2005, 2007a), and especially (2007b, Chap. 5).

  21. Schroeder (2007a) and especially (2007b, Chap. 7).

  22. Schroeder (2005, pp. 6–11, 2007a, b, Chap. 5).

  23. See Schroeder (forthcoming).

  24. Compare Darwall (1983, p. 16), Raz (2005a, pp. 3–9).

  25. Alternatively, since the only need we had for the left-to-right direction of the subjective ought test was in order to derive the subjective reflection of the transmission principle from ought transmission, we could make do only with its right-to-left direction, transmission reflection, and premise 2.

  26. For example, see Broome (2001).

  27. I take this moral to be familiar from the work of Michael Bratman, who has pressed it particularly acutely.

  28. Compare Raz (2005b, p. 5).

  29. Compare, for example, Davidson (1978) and Tenenbaum (2007).

  30. Ross (2006). Broome (unpublished) and Parfit (forthcoming) also discuss such a case. The original version of such a case is attributed to a footnote in Regan (1980).

  31. The converse view is articulated by, for example, Toulmin (1950) and Broome (2004).

  32. Officially, my views about the weights of reasons are more complicated than this. See Schroeder (2007b, Chap. 7). But I don’t think that I am committed to anything which would make this principle fail in the simple cases that we are considering. A helpful referee also encourages me to note that determining the weights of subjective reasons, as I do in an informal and intuitive way throughout this section and the next, is going to be a complicated matter—particularly because they can derive from sets of beliefs which are not themselves consistent. There is unfortunately insufficient space to take this issue up here in sufficient depth, here, so I’ll reserve it for a future occasion. My goal in this paper has been to stress the attractions of this basic idea, and there remains considerable work to be done both in defending the required thesis about the nature of intention, and in articulating and precisifying the intuitive claims I’m making about the weight of reasons, both objective and subjective.

  33. Compare Raz (2005a). I take these this principle to be intuitive, even though I have no way of making the ‘proportionality’ claim precise.

  34. The central ideas of this paper were formulated during Michael Bratman’s presentation to the 2006 conference on Practical Reason at Bowling Green State University. My apologies to him for being distracted during the talk. I also owe thanks to Bratman, Doug Lavin, and Niko Kolodny for listening to my incoherent formulations that weekend, to Joseph Raz, to Kieran Setiya’s enlightening paper, to conversations with Jacob Ross, to very helpful comments from Jamie Dreier, Steve Finlay, and Jacob Ross, to an excellent and insightful referee, and to an audience at Georgetown University.

References

  • Bratman, M. (1981). Intention and means-end reasoning. Philosophical Review, 90(2), 252–265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bratman, M. (1987). Intentions, plans, and practical reason. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bratman, M. Intention, belief, theoretical, practical. In J. Timmerman, J. Skorupski, & S. Robertson (Eds.), Spheres of reason (forthcoming).

  • Broome, J. (1999). Normative requirements. Ratio, 12(4), 398–419.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Broome, J. (2001). Normative practical reasoning. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 75, 175–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Broome, J. (2004). Reasons. In Wallace, R. J., et al. (Eds.), Reason and value: Themes from the moral philosophy of Joseph Raz (pp. 28–55). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Darwall, S. (1983). Impartial reason. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, D. (1978). Intending. Reprinted in his Essays on actions and events (pp. 83–102). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Ewing, A. C. (1953). Ethics. London: English Universities Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gensler, H. (1985). Ethical consistency principles. Philosophical Quarterly, 35(3), 156–170.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenspan, P. (1975). Conditional oughts and hypothetical imperatives. The Journal of Philosophy, 72(10), 259–276.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harman, G. (1976). Practical reasoning. Reprinted in his Reasoning, meaning, and mind (pp. 46–74). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

  • Hill, T. (1973). The hypothetical imperative? The Philosophical Review, 82(4), 429–450.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kolodny, N. (2005). Why be rational? Mind, 114(3), 509–563.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kolodny, N. (2007). State or process requirements? Mind, 116(2), 371–385.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parfit, D. Climbing the mountain. Oxford University Press (forthcoming).

  • Raz, J. (2005a). The myth of instrumental rationality. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 1(1), 2–28, http://www.jesp.org

    Google Scholar 

  • Raz, J. (2005b). Instrumental rationality: A reprise. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 1, 2–20, symposium, http://www.jesp.org

  • Regan, D. (1980). Utilitarianism and cooperation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ross, J. (2006). Acceptance and practical reason. PhD dissertation, Rutgers University.

  • Schroeder, M. (2004). The scope of instrumental reason. Philosophical Perspectives, 18(Ethics), 337–364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schroeder, M. (2005). Instrumental mythology. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 1, 2–12, symposiumhttp://www.jesp.org

  • Schroeder, M. (2007a). Weighting for a plausible humean theory of reasons. Noûs, 41(1), 138–160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schroeder, M. (2007b). Slaves of the passions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Schroeder, M. Having reasons. Philosophical Studies (forthcoming).

  • Setiya, K. (2007a). Reasons without rationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Setiya, K. (2007b). Cognitivism about instrumental reason. Ethics, 117(4), 649–673.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tenenbaum, S. (2007). Appearances of the good: An essay on the nature of practical reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Toulmin, S. (1950). Reason in ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallace, J. (2001). Normativity, commitment, and instrumental reason. Philosophers’ Imprint, 1(3), http://www.philosophersimprint.org/001003

  • Williams, B. (1981). Internal and external reasons. Reprinted in his Moral Luck (pp. 100–110). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy, USC School of Philosophy, University of Southern California, Mudd Hall of Philosophy, 3709 Trousdale Pkwy, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    Mark Schroeder

Authors
  1. Mark Schroeder
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark Schroeder.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Schroeder, M. Means-end coherence, stringency, and subjective reasons. Philos Stud 143, 223–248 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9200-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9200-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation