In my previous posting I objected to the account Parfit gives of the "veil of ignorance" and in the posting prior to this I advanced an account of deliberative rationality that challenged the view articulated by Parfit. Both of these postings were responses to part of the argument presented in the third of Parfit's 2002 Tanner Lectures. However the arguments discussed in the previous two postings were essentially negative in import for Parfit, ways of clearing the way for the view of contractualism that he wishes to present within this third lecture. The argument that is presented here is for something that has not previously been identified as a possible contender in the area of moral theory, a notion of contractualism that is consequentialist. In this posting I aim to do two things: both present the considerations that enable Parfit to arrive at the understanding that it is possible to reconcile consequentialism with contractualism and also to show why the combined view that thereby arises is unsustainable. So my purpose here is both reconstructive of Parfit's argument and critical of its import. This ensures that this posting will be more than usually involved.
After replying to Rawls in the first two parts of this third lecture Parfit returns to his original account of the basic notion of contractualism in his view, the notion of 'rational agreement', a notion that requires unanimity. In doing so he contrasts the idea of such agreement as understood on the minimal view of David Gauthier with what he terms "Kant's Contractualist Formula", the derivation of which I treated previously. Now, in contrasting these two views at this point, Parfit points a methodological contrast between them based on the fact that the Gauthier type formula requires adoption of principles that everyone would choose whilst, on Parfit's construal "Kant's Contractualist Formula" (or KCF) only requires adopting principles that each reasoner could see as required themselves. (Notice that the contrast between them is thus structurally similar to that between the two versions of the veil of ignorance treated in my previous posting.) So rather than conducting one thought-experiment in which we try to find principles for all of us there are many thought-experiments, basically one each in which we use reference to an understanding of moral belief in order to reach the principles that everyone would accept if rational.
Now in justifying KCF over the Gauthier type formula Parfit appeals to certain safeguards that contractualists are concerned should be in place. One of these is to eliminate inequalities of bargaining power (something Gautheir's formula does not do for reasons that Rawls provides). There is no requirement for each of us to choose principles just on the grounds that others will choose them as we first ask if they are reasonable to us. A second concern that is meant to be met is that we should avoid the outcome where some are viewed as capable of bearing burdens for the sake of others (as often arises from utilitarian conceptions). This second concern is what Parfit terms the contractualists' "protective aim". Again Parfit argues that a Gauthier type view cannot achieve this as the aim of reaching unanimous agreement gives those who possess unequal power an advantage (though, notably, only if we accept the "equal chances" view of the veil of ignorance). Parfit again misunderstands Rawls' view here since he takes Rawls to adopt a self-interest conception of rationality although he had previously indicated he knew this to be false.
KCF neither requires unanimous agreement nor has a veil of ignorance and these characteristics of it are meant to show that it achieves the "protective aim" of contractualism better than previous alternatives considered. Further, its failure to guarantee unanimity means that should it achieve it then this would be all the more impressive. However KCF does imply a particular view of reasons which Parfit elaborates as a "wide value-based" conception as opposed to desire-based theories. The value-based conception is, however, one in which "we have strong reasons to care about our own well-being, and in a temporally neutral way". However, least one voice the view that this implies an egoistic conception, Parfit is quick to point out that it is part of KCF to assume that we can rationally care as much about some other things as well as this, including here the well-being of others and "justice" (although he takes no time here to define this latter notion). So when we adopt KCF we take with it this view of reasons. I'll return subsequently to the point that if we see KCF as involving this view of reasons then we will have grasped KCF in such a way that it precisely is not, despite Parfit's arguments to the contrary, really a contractualist conception at all.
However before we move on to the reasons why I take this to the case it is important to next follow the claims that Parfit makes that enables him to arrive at the conclusion that KCF is both contractualist and consequentialist. The first point to be introduced is the criteria that Parfit gives for KCF succeeding in meeting the problem that contractualism aims to address. This is that it must meet a 'uniqueness condition', such that, there is some relevant principle, and only one principle, that everyone could rationally choose. In illustrating a way that a principle could meet such a condition Parfit gives an example in which there exists a quantity of unowned goods that no one has a special claim on and the distribution of which would have the same total sum of benefits however it was done. In such a case, says Parfit, we can all see that a basic principle of equal shares applies. It is notable that the example of application is a distributive one of some set of resources and not, for example, of a criteria that would define rights or liberties. Such an example already implies a definite conception of what type of thing we should be concerned with when aiming for a notion of unanimity.
A wrinkle that is worth observation in terms of how Parfit justifies the appeal to equal shares is that there is a difference, on his view, between consenting to acts and choosing principles. So we might consent to an unequal share, taking less for ourselves in order to aid others. However this is quite different to adopting a principle that some (whether ourselves or others) should as a matter of course have unequal shares since that principle is not one we could rationally accept. (On the basis of the wide value-based conception of reasons.) This argument is used also to show that the type of principle we should end up with is not act utilitarianism since act utilitarianism could state that it is permissible to give some no benefits at all since the net effects would not thereby be affected.
Having reached this point in his argument Parfit turns next to a further connection between moral beliefs and beliefs about reasons suggesting that our moral beliefs may partly depend on our beliefs about reasons. There are two ways that this connection is perceived by him to go. On the one hand we might hold a view, such as contractualism, which determines the understanding of the rightness of acts by reference to the relationship of such acts to principles that everyone could rationally accept. On the other hand, we might find that moral beliefs depend in some way on our non-moral beliefs about the kinds of things that are good or bad. Now the second sort of relationship between moral and non-moral beliefs turns out to be the one that Parfit exploits and he does so at the expense of the first sort of relation. An example of this second sort of relation concerns our general understanding of hedonic states. The point that Parfit makes about these states is that our reaction to them involves us in accepting that there are certain actions that are good or bad to perform and that this understanding reflects what he terms a "reason-involving" sense of goodness and badness.
In claiming that we have a "reason-involving" response to hedonic states Parfit takes himself to be in disagreement with Kant given that Kant does not take inclinations to be themselves reason-giving. Parfit views this as a claim to the effect that whilst hedonic states may not be the ground of a moral claim they still could be the ground of a reason-giving claim and that Kant ignores the latter. This, however, is an odd reading of Kant since Kant claims not that there may not be reasons to relate to hedonic states in certain ways but that these reasons are part of the formulation of maxims and it is the endorsement of the maxims that provides the reasons in question, not simple experience of the hedonic states alone. Putting this in Parfit's terms it is not that the hedonic states are themselves "reason-involving" in the sense that the mere experience of them produces a reason to respond in a given way. It is rather that we take the states, in conjunction with maxims in which they feature, to provide grounds for appropriate actions. And this is quite different from the way Parfit puts the case as the way he puts it suggests that it is the experience of the states simpliciter that is reason-involving and that is what Kant denies.
Parfit takes hedonic states to be "reason-involving" as he assumes that there are person-relative reasons always to avoid painful states. I have denied this claim even though it seems true intuitively. The reason I deny it is simply that the painful state is not itself motivationally sufficient for action as it has to be related to other considerations that are prevailing at the time it is experienced. Parfit's claim could be reformulated as saying that pain is something we avoid cateris paribus but the conditions involved remain important and indicate that the response to pain is not one we normally assume to be simply permissive of actions following a certain pattern (say, of avoidance). Further Parfit moves swiftly from the claim that the response to hedonic states has this person-relative sense to the more general claim that painful states are impersonally bad. It is important to note that there are counter-intuitive aspects to Parfit's claim here just as I have indicated there are to the way I denied his claim concerning person-relative reasons. The counter-intuitive sense of his claim becomes apparent in the following sentence: "If more people suffer, that would be worse, even though it may not be worse for any of these people".
In a claim like the one just cited it becomes apparent that Parfit conceives of hedonic states in an aggregative fashion so that the more they point one way or another en masse the worse or better the general situation is. This is to view hedonic states, however, in complete abstraction from the experience had of them as Parfit confesses when he agrees that the "worse" outcome on his view may not be worse for anyone. This indicates that the "non-moral" sense of badness that he has is radically impersonal since its assessment of badness is not one that refers to criteria of what is bad for persons. This "non-moral" claim is, however, one that it is not obvious should be accepted as a serious criteria of goodness and badness by persons. Parfit sloughs over this point passing from the acceptance that the "non-moral" sense of goodness and badness he is advocating is impersonal to the quite different claim that it is agent-neutral. It is not at all evident that a seriously agent-neutral claim is one that has to be impersonal. After all if we think of the "mere means" criteria of the Formula of Humanity we refer to an agent-neutral claim as it specifies a way of relating to persons generally regardless of who they are but it is not thereby "impersonal".
Parfit's conception of agent-neutrality is of a form of reason that is a "reason for everyone" and this applies to the application of the Formula of Humanity but it does not apply to his kind of "non-moral" form of goodness since the latter is in fact a reason for no one which is precisely implied by the notion of its impersonality. Each of us has, Parfit implies, reasons to prevent or relieve pain, whether of oneself or others. But this is untrue not merely because it is not always possible to do so but also because the pain experienced may not be, in the given case, a "worse" state for the person in question. This is directly admitted by Parfit and since it is so it follows that the response to pain does not have the over-riding "non-moral" value Parfit claims it has. Not only is this so but if we adopted a different standard, from the "mere means" criteria of the Formula of Humanity, for example, we would have an agent-neutral way of responding to others that was not impersonal and which would be a general guide to conduct.
Now if the first point of difficulty with Parfit's view concerns the way in which he slides from 'agent-neutral' reasons to "impersonal" ones the second problem arises from the conception of how to weight the reasons that his "impersonal" view has led us to consider. Parfit states that this should be in terms of outcomes so that the best "impartial" reason for preferring something is if the features it has give everyone "the strongest impartial outcome-given reasons to prefer this outcome". At this point it appears we have simply specified a consequentialist view and so one may wonder what happened to the apparent contractualist procedure. Parfit is sensitive to this point and agrees that the impartial outcome-given reasons should not be assumed to be the only impartial reasons. Further Parfit also accepts that some other types of impartial reasons might outweigh on given occasions impartial outcome-given reasons. However whilst Parfit refers here to rights as other sources of impartial reasons he gives no general account of rights and nor does he provide any lexical procedure for describing the relationship between rights and impartial outcome-given reasons.
The view thus far is described by Parfit as "semi-consequentialist" since it gives some weight to impartial outcome-given reasons but not necessarily over-riding weight as yet. Consequentialism generally does give over-riding weight to such reasons as Parfit agrees in specifying act-consequentialism as the view that acts are right just in case they make things go best in terms of impartial outcome-given reasons. Parfit is clearly no more willing to endorse this view than he was act utilitarianism but this leaves him open to the attractions of rule consequentialism in which acts will be right if they are permitted by one of the principles whose acceptance would make things go best in an impartial reason-giving sense. Since this conception is related to the "wide value-based" view of reasons it is a form of consequentialism that Parfit feels able to term a reason-consequentialism.
At this point the basic problem emerges with some clarity. Contractualism involves the conception that we aim to develop a view that understands that as right which we can all rationally accept. However Parfit understands this claim by means of the consequentialist idea that was already expressed in his value-based conception of reasons to the effect that we have strong reasons to care about considerations of well-being and subsequently moves from this to the understanding of impartial reasons in terms of impersonal outcomes that no one in particular ever has some reason to want. This ensures that his conception is one that presents as a reason we should all rationally accept a consideration that no one of us has any reason to endorse. And that hardly meets the contractualist criteria.
Parfit's claim that contractualists and consequentialists are "climbing the same mountain on different sides" is essentially built on the claim that the consequentialist appeal to impartial outcome-based reasons will coincide with contractualist appeals to what everyone has a rational basis for choosing but in doing so it overlooks that the former presents for the latter reasons that no one has any particular reason to endorse. Not only is this so but there is a further problem involved in the relationship between these theories. This problem was expressed by Rawls in section 5 of A Theory of Justice where Rawls contrasted two methods of moral reasoning. On one of them "the good is defined independently from the right, and then the right is defined as that which maximises the good". This is the means by which consequentialism works. It has an independent conception of the good, as Parfit claims here when he speaks of hedonic criteria as providing a "non-moral" standard of goodness. This methodology contrasts with the other one that Rawls speaks of and which he follows Kant in preferring. This is outlined by Kant as indicating that it is only by means of and through the moral law that we arrive at a view of the good. So the good is not then independently defined but viewed rather through the prism of the right.
This second type of relationship is implied in contractualism which views the good not as an independent variable but as something that is arrived at by means of right reasoning. On the contractualist conception the right is that which we would all rationally want and the good emerges as that which is constrained by appeal to this notion of the right and thus becomes manifest to us by means of it. This methodology is quite distinct from that of consequentialism and is directly opposed to it. Not only is this so but correctly seeing the right as prior to the good in the way that Rawls and Kant direct us to implies that there is always a basis of lexical priority between the "moral" and the "non-moral" goods since the nature of what can be permissibly classed under the latter is defined by the former.
Parfit cites Rawls' account of the way that consequentialist theories involve giving the good priority over the right and appears to agree with Rawls that this indicates a problem with such theories. However the reason Parfit gives for rejecting the claimed priority of the good is not Rawls' reason and it is also not a good reason. Parfit states that if consequentialism requires us to take the good as prior to the right then this implies that the right is trivially defined so that we end up with tautological claims. This is not the way Rawls understands the point. Instead Rawls' point is that taking the good to be prior to the right ensures that the independently defined good is one that is given over-riding priority in considerations that inevitably require abstraction from the nature of reference to persons. This is precisely what we have seen follows also from Parfit's view. Parfit attempts to avoid this by stating that whether the right or the good is made prior you end up with trivial claims but this is simply false. On the one hand you produce a claim that there is an impartial reason-involving good which is grasped in an outcome-based way (as in his view) whilst on the other hand you arrive at a conception of law and right that defines and describes what can be taken to be good (as on Rawls and Kant's view). And the difference between these two is anything but trivial.
The development of Parfit's own view is one that he sets up as involving a criteria that he thinks does mitigate its general consequentialist thrust when he introduces criteria of distribution of benefits and burdens that is meant to favour an egalitarian conception. So the goodness of outcomes is then taken not in a bluntly aggregative sense but in a way that relates this aggregation to the way the benefits and burdens are distributed. Rawls considered such a view in section 5 of Theory and determined that it would no longer be "teleological" in a classical sense as it would now take distribution to be an independent variable. Taking it to be so implies a notion of right (through distribution) that is meant to apply to the impartial outcome-based reasons and to provide a way of assessing different outcomes. Notably it does not affect the understanding of agent-neutral goods as impersonal goods however so it remains in its basic orientation a theory that is still based on the priority of the good over the right. Simply accepting that not all distribution is equal so that there is some form of distribution that is morally preferable to others and thus endorsing an egalitarian principle is not in itself sufficient to dilute the general consequentialist thrust of the theory. The nature of what is good and the form of right in relation to this good remain broadly consequentialist with only the balancing of distribution taken to be one that has a basis for preference that is not blunt. But the rationale for the preference for equality is not evident and the goods distributed are still essentially understood in a way that abstracts from consideration of the good of persons.
In the next posting I am going to conclude assessment of the third of Parfit's 2002 lectures by coming back to how the conclusion of his argument relies on his assessment of KCF and what this tells us about the kind of reading of Kant that Parfit has undertaken in his work.
Showing posts with label reasons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reasons. Show all posts
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
Sunday, 5 February 2012
Skorupski on Reasons (I)
In my last posting I concluded the reading of the first, introductory, chapter of John Skorupski's The Domain of Reasons. In this posting I am going to look at the first part of the second chapter of the book, which opens the first part of the whole work. The first part of the book is concerned with the structure of normative concepts and the second chapter looks, in particular, at reasons.
Skorupski opens Chapter 2 by distinguishing between three types of reason: epistemic reasons (reasons to believe something), practical reasons (reasons to do something) and evaluative reasons (reasons to feel something). In all these cases a reason is a kind of relation and reasons can vary in degrees of strength. Reasons are generally treated by Skorupski as forms of response and to be "intentional acts" in the sense that they have an intentional content that is linked essentially to their answerability. Reasons can consist in a multiplicity of facts.
In addition to the distinction between types of reason Skorupski also adds a categorisation of reasons of degree which move from specific reasons (particulars) to overall reasons to sufficient reasons. Skorupski also takes sometime arguing that whilst these differences of degree apply to all the types of reason he has distinguished that none of the types of degree is reducible to any of the others.
Having made these opening moves Skorupski next turns to an account that is specific to epistemic reasons and concerns what he terms "epistemic fields". The reason for this move is that Skorupski takes it to be the case that epistemic reasons have to refer to knowable facts. With epistemic reasons there has to be a restriction on the facts that can give me reason to believe that a fact obtains. As Skorupski puts this:
Facts in an epistemic field can constitute epistemic reasons for one whether or not one has become aware of them. Skorupski illustrates this point by mentioning how Sherlock Holmes uses clues unobserved by others to deduce matters as indicative of the point that these clues are epistemic reasons for the others to believe something even though they have not noticed them.
Epistemic reasons are, however, relative to the field in question although the field can itself be enlarged over time. Epistemic reasons are also described by Skorupski as "all-things-considered" reasons. We generally, however, speak of specific sub-sets of facts within epistemic fields as constituting epistemic reasons as when we distinguish, as we often do, between factors that support the belief that x as opposed to other factors that support the contrary belief y.
Finally, Skorupski also follows Husserl (though without referring to him) in distinguishing between epistemic reasons and indicators. As in Husserl's First Investigation an "indicator" is a kind of suggestion made by a symbol that something is the case.
Skorupski opens Chapter 2 by distinguishing between three types of reason: epistemic reasons (reasons to believe something), practical reasons (reasons to do something) and evaluative reasons (reasons to feel something). In all these cases a reason is a kind of relation and reasons can vary in degrees of strength. Reasons are generally treated by Skorupski as forms of response and to be "intentional acts" in the sense that they have an intentional content that is linked essentially to their answerability. Reasons can consist in a multiplicity of facts.
In addition to the distinction between types of reason Skorupski also adds a categorisation of reasons of degree which move from specific reasons (particulars) to overall reasons to sufficient reasons. Skorupski also takes sometime arguing that whilst these differences of degree apply to all the types of reason he has distinguished that none of the types of degree is reducible to any of the others.
Having made these opening moves Skorupski next turns to an account that is specific to epistemic reasons and concerns what he terms "epistemic fields". The reason for this move is that Skorupski takes it to be the case that epistemic reasons have to refer to knowable facts. With epistemic reasons there has to be a restriction on the facts that can give me reason to believe that a fact obtains. As Skorupski puts this:
The facts that are knowable by an actor x and can thus be epistemic reasons for x at a time t are limited by what x could at t know of by reflection or by further (physically possible, spatio-temporal) inquiry, or just by 'stumbling across' them. These are the facts that are epistemically accessible to x at t: x could come to know them by skill or by luck. Call them x's epistemic field at t. (42)
Facts in an epistemic field can constitute epistemic reasons for one whether or not one has become aware of them. Skorupski illustrates this point by mentioning how Sherlock Holmes uses clues unobserved by others to deduce matters as indicative of the point that these clues are epistemic reasons for the others to believe something even though they have not noticed them.
Epistemic reasons are, however, relative to the field in question although the field can itself be enlarged over time. Epistemic reasons are also described by Skorupski as "all-things-considered" reasons. We generally, however, speak of specific sub-sets of facts within epistemic fields as constituting epistemic reasons as when we distinguish, as we often do, between factors that support the belief that x as opposed to other factors that support the contrary belief y.
Finally, Skorupski also follows Husserl (though without referring to him) in distinguishing between epistemic reasons and indicators. As in Husserl's First Investigation an "indicator" is a kind of suggestion made by a symbol that something is the case.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
John Skorupski and the Domain of Reasons
Due to the postings on this blog concerning Derek Parfit's magnum opus On What Matters being distributed on Twitter I was contacted by Constantine Sandis who suggested an alternative work to Parfit's that deals, in some respects, with similar questions. This alternative is provided by John Skorupski in his book The Domain of Reasons. It has to be said that whilst Skorupski's book is not as lengthy as Parfit's it is almost certainly as dense. In this posting I will only lay out the basic points made in the Introduction to Skorupski's book about the content of the claims he will make and how they relate to the structure of the work.
Skorupski opens the introduction by describing the book's concern as being to do with normativity and reasons, two topics of wide contemporary currency but also states that by the work's conclusion we will come to see it as ultimately addressing themes concerning the relations between self, thought, and world. Since the latter appear, at least plausibly, as metaphysical topics whilst the former appear, rather, parts of a theory of practical reason, it would seem that the work intends a kind of integration of theoretical and practical concerns with reason. The fourth part of the book, which is headed "normativity", is apparently where all this is meant to come together.
The project of the book, like that of Parfit's, is very ambitious and perhaps hard to imagine being achieved. So Skorupski, more modestly, indicates that his work hopes only to give a comprehensive solution "to which at least some people can give serious and settled assent". Even this may be rather too ambitious.
The first section of the introduction sets out a general picture of the project of the whole work and in it Skorupski indicates that "normative" is intended primarily as a contrastive term to "descriptive" and that this is why investigation of it extends to epistemology as much as ethics and aesthetics. The basic concept of the work, as indicated in its title, is, however, the idea of a "reason" and thus in this respect its overall concern appears to mesh with the first part of On What Matters. Skorupski even suggests that thinking in general is no more than "sensitivity to reasons", a claim that ensures that the whole region of conceptuality is at issue for him in addressing reasons.
This basic claim stakes a view of the 'pervasiveness' of reasons but, least it be assumed that it commits Skorupski to an intellectualist conception, he is quick to include sentiments under the heading of reasons (thus implicitly demarcating his conception from a Humean one). If the pervasiveness claim is bought partly at the cost of apparently diluting what is specific to the notion of a "reason" it is also coupled with a claim concerning the 'primitiveness' of reasons to the effect that "a reason" is the basic normative concept. This primitiveness claim is what Skorupski terms the "Reasons thesis".
The "Reasons thesis" itself can be taken in stronger and weaker senses but the stronger sense - leading to the view that normative predicates can be reduced to reasons predicates - is not ultimately going to be supported by Skorupski. Rather, the weaker form of the thesis is what he will be supporting, the claim, basically, that the concept of a reason is the sole normative ingredient in any normative concept.
Added to the pervasiveness thesis and the primitiveness thesis there is also a constitutive claim to the effect that what enables us to say that thought is occurring is that response to reasons is taking place. This includes the view of thinking that suggests a kind of apperceptive feature in thought or, as Skorupski puts it, that there is a capacity for epistemic self-audit.
If these are the three major claims about reasons that Skorupski wishes to advance the question next concerns how the structure of the work supports them and the points involved in assuming that the argument concerning them leads us finally to views about the relations between self, thought, and world. The first part of the book concerns the "structure of normative concepts" and it is here that Skorupski promises the arguments concerning the "Reasons thesis" or the weak form of the primitiveness claim. The way I understand Skorupski's subsequent claims about the structure of the work is that the second and third parts of the book (concerning epistemic and evaluative and practical reasons) aim to show the case for the pervasiveness claim and that the fourth part (on the normative view) then concludes with an argument for the constitutive view.
Given that this is the overall structure of the book it follows that it is not Skorupski's primary purpose to advance theses in normative ethics (or normative epistemology either) so that any specific claims that the book contains about these areas will only be of second-order importance. However, despite this being apparently true, the third part of the book will present a number of substantive claims about the normative structure of practical reason. In this respect the third part of Skorupski's book is likely to contribute to controversies within the area of normative ethics in a way that the second part is unlikely to in the area of normative epistemology.
One of the reasons Skorupski gives for this difference between ethics and epistemology is that in the former area there is less agreement about the basic structure of reasons. Skorupski indicates early that he takes there to be an heterogeneity of sources of practical reasons.
The concluding fourth part is meant to take us into the terrain of the broadest account of the metaphysics of reasons. This circles on the question of epistemic norms and reasons for taking epistemology to be a normative subject.
Skorupski's general project is set up, in some respects like Parfit's, in opposition to non-cognitivism but, despite this, and unlike the case with Parfit, Skorupski does not wish to endorse realism. Cognitivism minus realism is a combination that already suggests a connection between Skorupski's project and the Kantian one and I'll explore more of the introductory ways in which Skorupski distinguishes his account from Kant's in future postings.
The basic ground for Skorupski not being a realist is his simple commitment to the view that normative propositions do not represent states of affairs or, otherwise put, that they are starkly different from anything descriptive. So if this is so then propositions which concern reasons do not concern the world (which appears to reinstate a kind of Humean view despite the earlier claim that sentiments belong under the heading of reasons being non-Humean).
Skorupski's ultimate position of cognitive irrealism is what he terms a "meta-normative" view and the support for it is provided in the fourth part of the volume. It is not directly entailed by the normative views provided earlier so it is in principle possible to accept the claims of pervasiveness and primitiveness without agreeing with the constitutive claim. The second part of the introduction begins to lay out the meta-normative claim's relation to the Kantian view and I will turn to this in the next posting on Skorupski.
Skorupski opens the introduction by describing the book's concern as being to do with normativity and reasons, two topics of wide contemporary currency but also states that by the work's conclusion we will come to see it as ultimately addressing themes concerning the relations between self, thought, and world. Since the latter appear, at least plausibly, as metaphysical topics whilst the former appear, rather, parts of a theory of practical reason, it would seem that the work intends a kind of integration of theoretical and practical concerns with reason. The fourth part of the book, which is headed "normativity", is apparently where all this is meant to come together.
The project of the book, like that of Parfit's, is very ambitious and perhaps hard to imagine being achieved. So Skorupski, more modestly, indicates that his work hopes only to give a comprehensive solution "to which at least some people can give serious and settled assent". Even this may be rather too ambitious.
The first section of the introduction sets out a general picture of the project of the whole work and in it Skorupski indicates that "normative" is intended primarily as a contrastive term to "descriptive" and that this is why investigation of it extends to epistemology as much as ethics and aesthetics. The basic concept of the work, as indicated in its title, is, however, the idea of a "reason" and thus in this respect its overall concern appears to mesh with the first part of On What Matters. Skorupski even suggests that thinking in general is no more than "sensitivity to reasons", a claim that ensures that the whole region of conceptuality is at issue for him in addressing reasons.
This basic claim stakes a view of the 'pervasiveness' of reasons but, least it be assumed that it commits Skorupski to an intellectualist conception, he is quick to include sentiments under the heading of reasons (thus implicitly demarcating his conception from a Humean one). If the pervasiveness claim is bought partly at the cost of apparently diluting what is specific to the notion of a "reason" it is also coupled with a claim concerning the 'primitiveness' of reasons to the effect that "a reason" is the basic normative concept. This primitiveness claim is what Skorupski terms the "Reasons thesis".
The "Reasons thesis" itself can be taken in stronger and weaker senses but the stronger sense - leading to the view that normative predicates can be reduced to reasons predicates - is not ultimately going to be supported by Skorupski. Rather, the weaker form of the thesis is what he will be supporting, the claim, basically, that the concept of a reason is the sole normative ingredient in any normative concept.
Added to the pervasiveness thesis and the primitiveness thesis there is also a constitutive claim to the effect that what enables us to say that thought is occurring is that response to reasons is taking place. This includes the view of thinking that suggests a kind of apperceptive feature in thought or, as Skorupski puts it, that there is a capacity for epistemic self-audit.
If these are the three major claims about reasons that Skorupski wishes to advance the question next concerns how the structure of the work supports them and the points involved in assuming that the argument concerning them leads us finally to views about the relations between self, thought, and world. The first part of the book concerns the "structure of normative concepts" and it is here that Skorupski promises the arguments concerning the "Reasons thesis" or the weak form of the primitiveness claim. The way I understand Skorupski's subsequent claims about the structure of the work is that the second and third parts of the book (concerning epistemic and evaluative and practical reasons) aim to show the case for the pervasiveness claim and that the fourth part (on the normative view) then concludes with an argument for the constitutive view.
Given that this is the overall structure of the book it follows that it is not Skorupski's primary purpose to advance theses in normative ethics (or normative epistemology either) so that any specific claims that the book contains about these areas will only be of second-order importance. However, despite this being apparently true, the third part of the book will present a number of substantive claims about the normative structure of practical reason. In this respect the third part of Skorupski's book is likely to contribute to controversies within the area of normative ethics in a way that the second part is unlikely to in the area of normative epistemology.
One of the reasons Skorupski gives for this difference between ethics and epistemology is that in the former area there is less agreement about the basic structure of reasons. Skorupski indicates early that he takes there to be an heterogeneity of sources of practical reasons.
The concluding fourth part is meant to take us into the terrain of the broadest account of the metaphysics of reasons. This circles on the question of epistemic norms and reasons for taking epistemology to be a normative subject.
Skorupski's general project is set up, in some respects like Parfit's, in opposition to non-cognitivism but, despite this, and unlike the case with Parfit, Skorupski does not wish to endorse realism. Cognitivism minus realism is a combination that already suggests a connection between Skorupski's project and the Kantian one and I'll explore more of the introductory ways in which Skorupski distinguishes his account from Kant's in future postings.
The basic ground for Skorupski not being a realist is his simple commitment to the view that normative propositions do not represent states of affairs or, otherwise put, that they are starkly different from anything descriptive. So if this is so then propositions which concern reasons do not concern the world (which appears to reinstate a kind of Humean view despite the earlier claim that sentiments belong under the heading of reasons being non-Humean).
Skorupski's ultimate position of cognitive irrealism is what he terms a "meta-normative" view and the support for it is provided in the fourth part of the volume. It is not directly entailed by the normative views provided earlier so it is in principle possible to accept the claims of pervasiveness and primitiveness without agreeing with the constitutive claim. The second part of the introduction begins to lay out the meta-normative claim's relation to the Kantian view and I will turn to this in the next posting on Skorupski.
Friday, 17 June 2011
Parfit, Smith and "Subjective" Theories of Reasons
After discussing "objective" theories of reasons in the second chapter of volume 1 of On What Matters Parfit turns next to "subjective" theories of reasons, subjecting these latter to a two-chapter treatment. The account of "subjective" theories is controversial since, in the special issue of Ratio (firewall) devoted to On What Matters Michael Smith has set out a detailed riposte to Parfit's view. In this posting I will focus on part of the dispute between them, looking only at the way that Parfit seeks to articulate and justify his distinction between two types of theory of reasons for action.
The discussion of Parfit's distinction between "subjective" and "objective" theories of reason by Smith in Ratio is of the version entitled Climbing the Mountain which is available for consultation here. As Smith mentions, however, in the course of the article replying to Parfit, the manuscript subsequently underwent some further significant changes producing the form reached at the end of 2008 which is available here. Climbing the Mountain does not formulate a distinction between "objective" and "subjective" theories of reasons but between desire-based and value-based theories of reason though Smith treats this as a distinction without a difference, assuming that desire-based theories are effectively the same as what Parfit later terms "subjective" theories and mutatis mutandis with "objective" theories and value-based ones.
In Climbing the Mountain Parfit introduces the distinction in broader terms than appear in the final published form of On What Matters. In the earlier form Parfit's distinction is first made in the second section of Chapter 1. The desire-based theory is initially presented as concerned with stating that our reasons for acting are grounded on actual present aims and desires though Parfit quickly complicates this by building in references to potential desires in hypothetical situations. The desire-based theory is understood to be a form of "internalism" about reasons, something that Parfit is less explicit about in the final published manuscript though the "subjective" theory discussed there clearly is also internalist.
The "value-based" theory, by contrast to the "desire-based" one, understands reasons for action as provided by the facts that make certain outcomes worth producing or preventing and is hence externalist. Not only do these theories describe reasons for action in different ways but they are often each thought to rule out the types of reason the other theory takes itself to have described. So, if, as Parfit is, one is an externalist about reasons for action, then, frequently (and certainly in Parfit's own case) one will deny that the other types of reason even exist.
The "internalist" theory as Parfit presents it is one that is broadly articulated in contemporary philosophy as dependent upon a "Humean" notion of motivation and I described it this way in a posting back in December. Notably, Smith defended an articulated version of the "Humean" theory sometime ago (in an article in Mind in 1987) so Smith and Parfit are at odds on some fundamental questions. However, the key point here is less with the "Humean" theory of motivation itself than with whether Parfit's distinctions have the force he thinks they do.
In the 2008 version of On What Matters Parfit has reached the formulation of the distinction that remains into the published work, the one between "subjective" and "objective" theories of reasons. The point of the distinction's difference from that used in Climbing the Mountain is to bring out the intentional quality of the claims involved in what the earlier manuscript had simply termed "value-based" views. As is clear from having looked at the chapter on "objective" theories of reasons, Parfit's understanding of these arises from the sense that "reasons are given by facts about the objects" of aims and desires. This reference to the "object" was missing in the formulation of "value-based" theories that Parfit used in Climbing the Mountain. Further, having identified this reference to "objects" in reasons Parfit can add that if we take the view that all reasons for action involve such "objects" then we are "objectivists" about reasons (or take reasons for action all to be intentional in nature). Smith is right in taking this to be equivalent to a "value-based" view as Parfit explicitly says it is but this does not mean that the account has not been filled out by making its intentional nature more apparent.
Now, the subjectivist theories of reasons will not simply deny that there are such "objects" present in reasons for actions. They will present reasons for actions as having a different structure than the objectivist has stated. Rather than taking the "facts" that provide reasons to have this object-oriented or intentional character the subjectivist rather views them as having reference to desires or aims and a subjectivist about reasons takes all reasons for action to be of this sort. Smith, however, cites also a passage from a version of Parfit's work dating from April 2008 (which is not available in the public domain) in which Parfit suggested that there could exist a theory that, whilst closer to objectivism than subjectivism was nonetheless distinct from both. According to the citation Smith provides from this version Parfit referred to "some Kantians" who held that "if we set ourselves any end or aim, we are not fully procedurally rational unless we also value the capacity of all other rational beings to set their ends and we commit ourselves to treating others only in ways to which they could rationally consent". In the passage cited by Smith, Parfit claims that such a Kantian view is "subjectivist" in appealing to what we would want or choose if fully informed. However, his general view is that it would be more appropriate to term holders of this view "systematic Coherentists" who take reasons to require commitment to such systematic coherence in order to be binding. The point Smith makes against Parfit in citing this passage is that such a Kantian view does provide us with "objective" reasons but not through its appeal to the place of "objects" in reasons but rather from the derivative character of such placing on the procedure of universalisation. That Parfit, at least at one point, entertained such a notion and then did not pay sustained attention to it, weakens his subsequent formulations that include Christine Korsgaard and Rawls amongst subjectivists about reasons.
Parfit's general account of "subjectivism", in any case, builds in a sense of reflection required for consideration of relevant facts at every point of declension after the simplest desire-based theory has been described. Since there is this reference to reflection it follows that "subjectivists" about reasons for action do not rest their case only upon reference to states (and thus they do not adopt a state-given reason or at least if one is involved it is combined with a reflective appeal as well). This is clear in the "subjectivist" theories Parfit lists such as the "error-free desire theory", "the telic desire theory", "the informed desire theory" and "the deliberative theory". When formulating the last of these Parfit reaches for another way of distinguishing between "objective" and "subjective" theories of reasons.
The "deliberative theory" is stated by Parfit to involve the claim that we have most reason to do whatever, after fully informed and rational deliberation, we would choose to do. And, put like this, the theory can appear to be an "objectivist" one when it is not. The difference between the "deliberative theory" and an "objectivist" theory is said by Parfit to consist in the kinds of rationality invoked in the two theories. The upholders of the "deliberative theory" appeal only to "procedural rationality" whilst the objectivist, by contrast, makes reference to "substantial" rationality. The difference is instructively stated. The "subjectivist" deliberative view is said to require involving reference to procedural rules and imagining "the important effects of our different possible acts" whilst the objectivist, by contrast, claims that there are telic desires and aims that "we all have strong and often decisive object-given reasons to have".
The difference between the two theories, for Parfit, concerns the way in which the reasons we give for holding something to constitute a reason for action are differently justified for the two sorts of theorists. Essentially, the "deliberative" theory holds that, given procedural constraints, if we would choose something after the process of reasoning, then we have decisive reasons given to act in the way indicated. By contrast, for the objectivist, it is rather the case that there exist decisive reasons to act in a certain way and given these reasons, substantive reasoning would confirm the rightness of acting in the way indicated.
However, after having set the distinction out in this way, Parfit concludes the distinction between the two views in a way that appears very unsatisfactory. Parfit writes:
This claim, from p. 63 of the published version of the work, appears wrong. It amounts to a claim that only the objectivist has made a normative claim and the "deliberative" theorist has, rather, much like the "Humean", only referred to some "facts" and taken these "facts" to be irreducible. And that doesn't describe any kind of deliberative view of procedural rationality. It is not the claim made by those who adopt a procedural view of deliberation that it is only a "matter of fact" that some things emerge as rightly chosen after reflection and nor is it their claim that what so emerges does so as a result of a psychologistic kind concerning the structure of reasons. Both kinds of commitment, whilst possibly held by a "Humean", are certainly not held by someone who takes deliberative rationality to involve central procedural constraints.
This is seen most clearly in the "Kantian" view that Parfit referred to in the early 2008 version of his work that Smith saw but which appears not to now be in the public domain. On that view the appeal made to systematic coherence rested upon a prior view about universalisation and universalisation is not itself a peculiarly psychological process and nor do its results only emerge factually without normative status. The point about such a process of universalisation is precisely that it provides, starting from a "thin" commitment, some substantive results. (Smith rightly emphasizes this in his reply to Parfit despite having sceptical doubts himself concerning the Kantian claim.)
To conflate this claim with the "Humean" commitment to psychologism and hence to make the view of Korsgaard and Rawls "subjective" in the sense of involving an implied form of internalism is a serious error in terms of rendition of Kantian accounts of reasons for action. Smith's criticism of Parfit in terms of the latter's failure to see that you could, if committed to a Kantian view, take it to be the case that substantive principles follow from procedural ones, seems to me correct. The point Smith does not make, and that I would, is that it is not at all obvious either that commitment to a Kantian view involves internalism (though some of Korsgaard's statements suggest that she, at least, can be careless in this regard).
Like Smith I also take it to be the case that the distinction between substantive and procedural views is less informative than Parfit thinks though, unlike Smith, I don't think it has no value. It has the value, as Parfit correctly brings out, of indicating the pattern of justifications and this pattern is at least part of what is at issue. But Parfit fails to see that substantive principles can be justified by procedural ones and also does not comprehend that procedural rationality need not involve psychologistic internalism.
The discussion of Parfit's distinction between "subjective" and "objective" theories of reason by Smith in Ratio is of the version entitled Climbing the Mountain which is available for consultation here. As Smith mentions, however, in the course of the article replying to Parfit, the manuscript subsequently underwent some further significant changes producing the form reached at the end of 2008 which is available here. Climbing the Mountain does not formulate a distinction between "objective" and "subjective" theories of reasons but between desire-based and value-based theories of reason though Smith treats this as a distinction without a difference, assuming that desire-based theories are effectively the same as what Parfit later terms "subjective" theories and mutatis mutandis with "objective" theories and value-based ones.
In Climbing the Mountain Parfit introduces the distinction in broader terms than appear in the final published form of On What Matters. In the earlier form Parfit's distinction is first made in the second section of Chapter 1. The desire-based theory is initially presented as concerned with stating that our reasons for acting are grounded on actual present aims and desires though Parfit quickly complicates this by building in references to potential desires in hypothetical situations. The desire-based theory is understood to be a form of "internalism" about reasons, something that Parfit is less explicit about in the final published manuscript though the "subjective" theory discussed there clearly is also internalist.
The "value-based" theory, by contrast to the "desire-based" one, understands reasons for action as provided by the facts that make certain outcomes worth producing or preventing and is hence externalist. Not only do these theories describe reasons for action in different ways but they are often each thought to rule out the types of reason the other theory takes itself to have described. So, if, as Parfit is, one is an externalist about reasons for action, then, frequently (and certainly in Parfit's own case) one will deny that the other types of reason even exist.
The "internalist" theory as Parfit presents it is one that is broadly articulated in contemporary philosophy as dependent upon a "Humean" notion of motivation and I described it this way in a posting back in December. Notably, Smith defended an articulated version of the "Humean" theory sometime ago (in an article in Mind in 1987) so Smith and Parfit are at odds on some fundamental questions. However, the key point here is less with the "Humean" theory of motivation itself than with whether Parfit's distinctions have the force he thinks they do.
In the 2008 version of On What Matters Parfit has reached the formulation of the distinction that remains into the published work, the one between "subjective" and "objective" theories of reasons. The point of the distinction's difference from that used in Climbing the Mountain is to bring out the intentional quality of the claims involved in what the earlier manuscript had simply termed "value-based" views. As is clear from having looked at the chapter on "objective" theories of reasons, Parfit's understanding of these arises from the sense that "reasons are given by facts about the objects" of aims and desires. This reference to the "object" was missing in the formulation of "value-based" theories that Parfit used in Climbing the Mountain. Further, having identified this reference to "objects" in reasons Parfit can add that if we take the view that all reasons for action involve such "objects" then we are "objectivists" about reasons (or take reasons for action all to be intentional in nature). Smith is right in taking this to be equivalent to a "value-based" view as Parfit explicitly says it is but this does not mean that the account has not been filled out by making its intentional nature more apparent.
Now, the subjectivist theories of reasons will not simply deny that there are such "objects" present in reasons for actions. They will present reasons for actions as having a different structure than the objectivist has stated. Rather than taking the "facts" that provide reasons to have this object-oriented or intentional character the subjectivist rather views them as having reference to desires or aims and a subjectivist about reasons takes all reasons for action to be of this sort. Smith, however, cites also a passage from a version of Parfit's work dating from April 2008 (which is not available in the public domain) in which Parfit suggested that there could exist a theory that, whilst closer to objectivism than subjectivism was nonetheless distinct from both. According to the citation Smith provides from this version Parfit referred to "some Kantians" who held that "if we set ourselves any end or aim, we are not fully procedurally rational unless we also value the capacity of all other rational beings to set their ends and we commit ourselves to treating others only in ways to which they could rationally consent". In the passage cited by Smith, Parfit claims that such a Kantian view is "subjectivist" in appealing to what we would want or choose if fully informed. However, his general view is that it would be more appropriate to term holders of this view "systematic Coherentists" who take reasons to require commitment to such systematic coherence in order to be binding. The point Smith makes against Parfit in citing this passage is that such a Kantian view does provide us with "objective" reasons but not through its appeal to the place of "objects" in reasons but rather from the derivative character of such placing on the procedure of universalisation. That Parfit, at least at one point, entertained such a notion and then did not pay sustained attention to it, weakens his subsequent formulations that include Christine Korsgaard and Rawls amongst subjectivists about reasons.
Parfit's general account of "subjectivism", in any case, builds in a sense of reflection required for consideration of relevant facts at every point of declension after the simplest desire-based theory has been described. Since there is this reference to reflection it follows that "subjectivists" about reasons for action do not rest their case only upon reference to states (and thus they do not adopt a state-given reason or at least if one is involved it is combined with a reflective appeal as well). This is clear in the "subjectivist" theories Parfit lists such as the "error-free desire theory", "the telic desire theory", "the informed desire theory" and "the deliberative theory". When formulating the last of these Parfit reaches for another way of distinguishing between "objective" and "subjective" theories of reasons.
The "deliberative theory" is stated by Parfit to involve the claim that we have most reason to do whatever, after fully informed and rational deliberation, we would choose to do. And, put like this, the theory can appear to be an "objectivist" one when it is not. The difference between the "deliberative theory" and an "objectivist" theory is said by Parfit to consist in the kinds of rationality invoked in the two theories. The upholders of the "deliberative theory" appeal only to "procedural rationality" whilst the objectivist, by contrast, makes reference to "substantial" rationality. The difference is instructively stated. The "subjectivist" deliberative view is said to require involving reference to procedural rules and imagining "the important effects of our different possible acts" whilst the objectivist, by contrast, claims that there are telic desires and aims that "we all have strong and often decisive object-given reasons to have".
The difference between the two theories, for Parfit, concerns the way in which the reasons we give for holding something to constitute a reason for action are differently justified for the two sorts of theorists. Essentially, the "deliberative" theory holds that, given procedural constraints, if we would choose something after the process of reasoning, then we have decisive reasons given to act in the way indicated. By contrast, for the objectivist, it is rather the case that there exist decisive reasons to act in a certain way and given these reasons, substantive reasoning would confirm the rightness of acting in the way indicated.
However, after having set the distinction out in this way, Parfit concludes the distinction between the two views in a way that appears very unsatisfactory. Parfit writes:
These Objectivists appeal to normative claims about what, after ideal deliberation, we have reasons to choose, and ought rationally to choose. These Subjectivists appeal to psychological claims about what, after such deliberation, we would in fact choose.
This claim, from p. 63 of the published version of the work, appears wrong. It amounts to a claim that only the objectivist has made a normative claim and the "deliberative" theorist has, rather, much like the "Humean", only referred to some "facts" and taken these "facts" to be irreducible. And that doesn't describe any kind of deliberative view of procedural rationality. It is not the claim made by those who adopt a procedural view of deliberation that it is only a "matter of fact" that some things emerge as rightly chosen after reflection and nor is it their claim that what so emerges does so as a result of a psychologistic kind concerning the structure of reasons. Both kinds of commitment, whilst possibly held by a "Humean", are certainly not held by someone who takes deliberative rationality to involve central procedural constraints.
This is seen most clearly in the "Kantian" view that Parfit referred to in the early 2008 version of his work that Smith saw but which appears not to now be in the public domain. On that view the appeal made to systematic coherence rested upon a prior view about universalisation and universalisation is not itself a peculiarly psychological process and nor do its results only emerge factually without normative status. The point about such a process of universalisation is precisely that it provides, starting from a "thin" commitment, some substantive results. (Smith rightly emphasizes this in his reply to Parfit despite having sceptical doubts himself concerning the Kantian claim.)
To conflate this claim with the "Humean" commitment to psychologism and hence to make the view of Korsgaard and Rawls "subjective" in the sense of involving an implied form of internalism is a serious error in terms of rendition of Kantian accounts of reasons for action. Smith's criticism of Parfit in terms of the latter's failure to see that you could, if committed to a Kantian view, take it to be the case that substantive principles follow from procedural ones, seems to me correct. The point Smith does not make, and that I would, is that it is not at all obvious either that commitment to a Kantian view involves internalism (though some of Korsgaard's statements suggest that she, at least, can be careless in this regard).
Like Smith I also take it to be the case that the distinction between substantive and procedural views is less informative than Parfit thinks though, unlike Smith, I don't think it has no value. It has the value, as Parfit correctly brings out, of indicating the pattern of justifications and this pattern is at least part of what is at issue. But Parfit fails to see that substantive principles can be justified by procedural ones and also does not comprehend that procedural rationality need not involve psychologistic internalism.
Monday, 13 June 2011
Parfit on Objective Theories of Reasons
In Chapter 2 of the first volume of On What Matters Parfit turns to looking at objective theories of reasons. This discussion opens with a description of the intentional nature of desires and provides a distinction between "wide" and "narrow" senses of desire in order to forestall a quick argument for psychological egoism. Desires are understood by Parfit to involve events, whether for their own sake or for the sake of something else. The latter, instrumental, types of desires are parasitic upon the former, telic, type of desires. However, despite being committed to this general thesis of the primacy of telic desires, Parfit rejects the view that such desires have to have some particular psychological content, and particularly rejects the assimilation of these desires to hedonic states.
The general consideration of objective theories of reasons is based on the relation to the sense that facts about the objects of desires gives us object-given reasons. However, the commitment to the view that all practical reasons are like this is a theoretical one, which is what is termed "objectivism" about reasons. This theory can be contrasted with the "subjectivist" one that regards appeal to desires or aims as involving facts about ourselves as being the entire truth of reasons. The difference is particularly one concerning what the "force" of reasons derives from. In articulating this distinction, Parfit takes Christine Korsgaard to be committed to a "subjectivist" view of reasons due to her general assumption that value is not contained in objects but in our relation to objects.
If part of the difference between subjectivist and objectivist views of reasons consists in the different conception of where the force of reasons resides, another part of the difference concerns which desires we have the stronger reason to fulfil. If one is committed to an objectivist view of reasons then the strength of commitment to an end depends on how worthwhile the end's achievement would be in relation to what is worth adopting as an end. By contrast, the subjectivist about ends may emphasise the strength of our preferences as what is decisive (I should stress here "may" since it is not clear that if Korsgaard is to be regarded as a "subjectivist" that this is what she would say).
Parfit is himself committed to an objectivist theory of reasons. However, he does nonetheless formulate a distinction between two types of response to reasons. On the one hand, there are reasons to want something to happen, and on the other there are reasons to try to make something happen. The two are distinct in the sense that reasons to try to make something happen appeal to voluntary considerations whilst reasons to want something to happen do not, in themselves, necessarily lead us to actually want it to happen (as we cannot easily make ourselves have desires).
Similarly, epistemic reasons to have particular beliefs can be provided by facts that are related to the truth of some belief but we cannot voluntarily respond to these reasons by, for example, just forcing ourselves to believe something to be true or entirely rejecting the grounds for something being true if we really see that they are grounds. Some of the basis of this point is not difficult to see since if part of what makes beliefs reliable is that they reflect circumstances in the world then the point is we cannot make the world be a certain way and if we could make our beliefs be any which way there would be no way of determining how any beliefs could be reliable.
But these points are not merely epistemic since desires are similarly not easily adaptable. We don't, as a matter of course, choose to prefer things (cheese rather than chocolate). This point leads Parfit into a long discussion of what he terms "state-given reasons" but that will have to be left to another posting given the complexity of his discussion of these types of "reason".
Separately from the discussion of "state-given reasons", however, is the account of hedonic reasons which are taken by Parfit not to be really reasons at all. Included here are "instinctive" responses such as are provided in certain kinds of organic conditions in which we do not respond to reasons (as when we prefer red to blue for example). Parfit also assumes that aesthetic states do not have reasons though this claim seems to partly depend on viewing such states purely sensationally. However, more importantly than this point is his distinction between hedonic and meta-hedonic desires where the latter concern our attitudes towards sensations. A hedonic state is one in which something is undergone whereas the meta-hedonic state is the reaction expressed to this state undergone.
When responding to Korsgaard's description of the "incorporation thesis" Parfit views Korsgaard as committed to the conception that we "create" value but Parfit views this as only true of meta-hedonic states and not of hedonic states. The reason to emphasise this is that present suffering is itself a bad for us given our experience of it not due to our present wish to be rid of it. "Since our meta-hedonic desires do not make their objects good or bad, the examples of pleasure and pain do not decisively, or even, I believe, strongly support the view that our other desires have such value-creating power. Though it is good to have sensations that we like, nothing is good merely because we want this thing." (55)
These points certainly seem right and suggest that Korsgaard's statement of the "incorporation thesis" has, in these cases, been sloppy but they do not cut against any possible statement of it. What they do show is that the desire itself is not made good if it relates only to a sensation merely by wanting to have it. But Korsgaard should never have exposed herself to that argument, which doesn't touch on what she is really meaning to get at in relation to the general claim about how it can be that there is "construction" of "value".
The real point of the distinction about hedonic and meta-hedonic states, however, consists in the fact that if the former are not responses to reasons, the latter are. We have reasons to adopt these meta-hedonic attitudes but not to respond to sensations in the way we do.
Related articles
The general consideration of objective theories of reasons is based on the relation to the sense that facts about the objects of desires gives us object-given reasons. However, the commitment to the view that all practical reasons are like this is a theoretical one, which is what is termed "objectivism" about reasons. This theory can be contrasted with the "subjectivist" one that regards appeal to desires or aims as involving facts about ourselves as being the entire truth of reasons. The difference is particularly one concerning what the "force" of reasons derives from. In articulating this distinction, Parfit takes Christine Korsgaard to be committed to a "subjectivist" view of reasons due to her general assumption that value is not contained in objects but in our relation to objects.
If part of the difference between subjectivist and objectivist views of reasons consists in the different conception of where the force of reasons resides, another part of the difference concerns which desires we have the stronger reason to fulfil. If one is committed to an objectivist view of reasons then the strength of commitment to an end depends on how worthwhile the end's achievement would be in relation to what is worth adopting as an end. By contrast, the subjectivist about ends may emphasise the strength of our preferences as what is decisive (I should stress here "may" since it is not clear that if Korsgaard is to be regarded as a "subjectivist" that this is what she would say).
Parfit is himself committed to an objectivist theory of reasons. However, he does nonetheless formulate a distinction between two types of response to reasons. On the one hand, there are reasons to want something to happen, and on the other there are reasons to try to make something happen. The two are distinct in the sense that reasons to try to make something happen appeal to voluntary considerations whilst reasons to want something to happen do not, in themselves, necessarily lead us to actually want it to happen (as we cannot easily make ourselves have desires).
Similarly, epistemic reasons to have particular beliefs can be provided by facts that are related to the truth of some belief but we cannot voluntarily respond to these reasons by, for example, just forcing ourselves to believe something to be true or entirely rejecting the grounds for something being true if we really see that they are grounds. Some of the basis of this point is not difficult to see since if part of what makes beliefs reliable is that they reflect circumstances in the world then the point is we cannot make the world be a certain way and if we could make our beliefs be any which way there would be no way of determining how any beliefs could be reliable.
But these points are not merely epistemic since desires are similarly not easily adaptable. We don't, as a matter of course, choose to prefer things (cheese rather than chocolate). This point leads Parfit into a long discussion of what he terms "state-given reasons" but that will have to be left to another posting given the complexity of his discussion of these types of "reason".
Separately from the discussion of "state-given reasons", however, is the account of hedonic reasons which are taken by Parfit not to be really reasons at all. Included here are "instinctive" responses such as are provided in certain kinds of organic conditions in which we do not respond to reasons (as when we prefer red to blue for example). Parfit also assumes that aesthetic states do not have reasons though this claim seems to partly depend on viewing such states purely sensationally. However, more importantly than this point is his distinction between hedonic and meta-hedonic desires where the latter concern our attitudes towards sensations. A hedonic state is one in which something is undergone whereas the meta-hedonic state is the reaction expressed to this state undergone.
When responding to Korsgaard's description of the "incorporation thesis" Parfit views Korsgaard as committed to the conception that we "create" value but Parfit views this as only true of meta-hedonic states and not of hedonic states. The reason to emphasise this is that present suffering is itself a bad for us given our experience of it not due to our present wish to be rid of it. "Since our meta-hedonic desires do not make their objects good or bad, the examples of pleasure and pain do not decisively, or even, I believe, strongly support the view that our other desires have such value-creating power. Though it is good to have sensations that we like, nothing is good merely because we want this thing." (55)
These points certainly seem right and suggest that Korsgaard's statement of the "incorporation thesis" has, in these cases, been sloppy but they do not cut against any possible statement of it. What they do show is that the desire itself is not made good if it relates only to a sensation merely by wanting to have it. But Korsgaard should never have exposed herself to that argument, which doesn't touch on what she is really meaning to get at in relation to the general claim about how it can be that there is "construction" of "value".
The real point of the distinction about hedonic and meta-hedonic states, however, consists in the fact that if the former are not responses to reasons, the latter are. We have reasons to adopt these meta-hedonic attitudes but not to respond to sensations in the way we do.
Related articles
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Parfit on Normative Concepts
The first part of the first volume of On What Matters is concerned with the understanding of reasons and Parfit's first chapter concentrates, in particular, on normative concepts. Since the point of the first part appears to be to provide a theory of reasons, it is not that surprising that the "normative concept" that the first chapter is particularly concerned with is reason itself.
Reason is looked at in terms of what it means to say we have a reason to believe something to be the case. So, reason is not looked at as a general capacity (by contrast, say, with understanding) but rather in relation to what is meant when we make claims about having "reasons". The theory concerning "reason" is hence meant to arise from the practice of indicating some things as acting for us as "reasons". So a reason, in this general sense, is a pro-attitude of a special sort.
However, whilst this appears to capture Parfit's general account of "reasons" there is an immediate complication since we can have "reasons", on his view, that we are not aware of having. What this means is that "facts" of certain sorts act as reasons for acting in certain ways to us even though we are not aware that they do so. In this respect, the "reason" in question indicates what we should do if we were aware of its force.
Reasons are capable of weighing in a cumulative way since there can be a number of reasons to act in a certain way and the more that point towards this kind of action the more reason there is to act in that way. This eventually reaches the point that some reasons are then declared decisive and if they are much the strongest reasons of all we can state they are strongly decisive.
Naturally the situation of responding to reasons is often not like this since there are many cases where reasons to act in different ways seem to weigh in reasonably similar fashions. (Though Parfit views this situation as an "imprecise" one.) Facts can, further, give us reasons to ignore some reasons. A decisive reason to act in a certain way provides us with the conclusion that we should or ought to do something and this gives us a decisive reason-implication. The general sense of "ought" (whether used morally or not) indicates that someone (whether ourselves or another) takes there to be here a case where we have such a decisive reason-implication.
Having looked initially at "reasons" Parfit subsequently turns to "rationality". It is interesting that the account goes this way rather than starting with rationality and providing an account of "reasons" on its basis. The latter approach would take "reasons" to be a general product of "rationality" whereas Parfit, by contrast, assumes "rationality" indicates a particular sort of response to "reasons".
Again, however, the view of "rationality", whilst it implies something more general than the notion of "reasons", is still not used in reference, in the first instance, to a general theoretical account. Rather, again, Parfit opens by looking at a practice of use of reference to "rationality", aligning the term with what is involved in our declaring something to be "reasonable" or "sensible" and its converse, "irrational", with what is involved in declaring something "stupid" or "crazy".
In choosing between different acts there can be a number of facts that give, in a general way, reasons to act in specified ways and these are termed by Parfit, relevant, reason-giving facts. What we ought rationally to do depends on the beliefs we have concerning these facts. "If we have certain beliefs about the relevant facts, and what we believe would, if it were true, give us a reason to act in some way, I shall call those beliefs whose truth would give us this reason." (34)
A "rational" belief can be comprehended on the basis of this discussion of how relevant, reason-giving facts, correctly construed, operate. So an act of ours is rational if the belief we have concerning the facts relevant to this action would give us sufficient reason to act in this way. We ought rationally to act, in certain ways, by contrast, if the reasons for acting in these ways are decisive.
Given that the facts in question are ones we may or may not be aware of it turns out that what we ought to do turns a lot on what we would do if our epistemic condition was rightly attuned. Parfit states that false beliefs, whilst able to give people reasons to act in certain ways, lack normative force as they do not count in favour of the actions in question (though this is not clearly his decisive view since he goes on to say that there is a "normative force" in these situations when people believe they have a reason to act in a certain way even though this is not a "real" reason so to act).
When we are trying to decide what to do, the key question for us is the reason-giving facts but when we ask if someone has acted rationally we are rather asking whether they deserve commendation or blame for acting as they did. However, this is only partially true since possession of false beliefs might indicate that others have acted in ways, that, given their beliefs, were not irrational.
When we have a reason to act in a certain way and we act in accordance with the reason we have adopted something as a motivating reason. Our moral reasons for action are not equivalent to decisive-reason-implications as we can have decisive reasons that are not moral and we may find that, despite thinking some action is the moral one to perform, we still have not been given decisive-reasons that imply we should act in this way. (This point suggests an admission of the case of the moral sceptic.)
Parfit turns finally to the question of what is involved in declaring something to be "good" and, again, this is viewed in relation to the practice of the use of the term in reference to reason-implications. So a "good" something is one that possesses properties of a sort that give us a pro-attitude towards it and hence declarations of something as "good" give us a "reason" to adopt this attitude. This is particularly relevant in relation to descriptions of things as "good for us". In thinking of the "good" in this way Parfit has moved to a default position of relating to this notion in terms that reflect a sense of "well being" so it is unsurprising that hedonic considerations are referred to at this point. However, the chapter concludes with a contrast between the self-interested view that is at work in considering our own well-being to the "impartial" point of view at work in thinking of general well-being. That the chapter concludes with these descriptions of the "good" does, however, already appear to weight discussion towards an approach of a particular sort when we reach the more substantive ethical accounts we expect later in the work.
Reason is looked at in terms of what it means to say we have a reason to believe something to be the case. So, reason is not looked at as a general capacity (by contrast, say, with understanding) but rather in relation to what is meant when we make claims about having "reasons". The theory concerning "reason" is hence meant to arise from the practice of indicating some things as acting for us as "reasons". So a reason, in this general sense, is a pro-attitude of a special sort.
However, whilst this appears to capture Parfit's general account of "reasons" there is an immediate complication since we can have "reasons", on his view, that we are not aware of having. What this means is that "facts" of certain sorts act as reasons for acting in certain ways to us even though we are not aware that they do so. In this respect, the "reason" in question indicates what we should do if we were aware of its force.
Reasons are capable of weighing in a cumulative way since there can be a number of reasons to act in a certain way and the more that point towards this kind of action the more reason there is to act in that way. This eventually reaches the point that some reasons are then declared decisive and if they are much the strongest reasons of all we can state they are strongly decisive.
Naturally the situation of responding to reasons is often not like this since there are many cases where reasons to act in different ways seem to weigh in reasonably similar fashions. (Though Parfit views this situation as an "imprecise" one.) Facts can, further, give us reasons to ignore some reasons. A decisive reason to act in a certain way provides us with the conclusion that we should or ought to do something and this gives us a decisive reason-implication. The general sense of "ought" (whether used morally or not) indicates that someone (whether ourselves or another) takes there to be here a case where we have such a decisive reason-implication.
Having looked initially at "reasons" Parfit subsequently turns to "rationality". It is interesting that the account goes this way rather than starting with rationality and providing an account of "reasons" on its basis. The latter approach would take "reasons" to be a general product of "rationality" whereas Parfit, by contrast, assumes "rationality" indicates a particular sort of response to "reasons".
Again, however, the view of "rationality", whilst it implies something more general than the notion of "reasons", is still not used in reference, in the first instance, to a general theoretical account. Rather, again, Parfit opens by looking at a practice of use of reference to "rationality", aligning the term with what is involved in our declaring something to be "reasonable" or "sensible" and its converse, "irrational", with what is involved in declaring something "stupid" or "crazy".
In choosing between different acts there can be a number of facts that give, in a general way, reasons to act in specified ways and these are termed by Parfit, relevant, reason-giving facts. What we ought rationally to do depends on the beliefs we have concerning these facts. "If we have certain beliefs about the relevant facts, and what we believe would, if it were true, give us a reason to act in some way, I shall call those beliefs whose truth would give us this reason." (34)
A "rational" belief can be comprehended on the basis of this discussion of how relevant, reason-giving facts, correctly construed, operate. So an act of ours is rational if the belief we have concerning the facts relevant to this action would give us sufficient reason to act in this way. We ought rationally to act, in certain ways, by contrast, if the reasons for acting in these ways are decisive.
Given that the facts in question are ones we may or may not be aware of it turns out that what we ought to do turns a lot on what we would do if our epistemic condition was rightly attuned. Parfit states that false beliefs, whilst able to give people reasons to act in certain ways, lack normative force as they do not count in favour of the actions in question (though this is not clearly his decisive view since he goes on to say that there is a "normative force" in these situations when people believe they have a reason to act in a certain way even though this is not a "real" reason so to act).
When we are trying to decide what to do, the key question for us is the reason-giving facts but when we ask if someone has acted rationally we are rather asking whether they deserve commendation or blame for acting as they did. However, this is only partially true since possession of false beliefs might indicate that others have acted in ways, that, given their beliefs, were not irrational.
When we have a reason to act in a certain way and we act in accordance with the reason we have adopted something as a motivating reason. Our moral reasons for action are not equivalent to decisive-reason-implications as we can have decisive reasons that are not moral and we may find that, despite thinking some action is the moral one to perform, we still have not been given decisive-reasons that imply we should act in this way. (This point suggests an admission of the case of the moral sceptic.)
Parfit turns finally to the question of what is involved in declaring something to be "good" and, again, this is viewed in relation to the practice of the use of the term in reference to reason-implications. So a "good" something is one that possesses properties of a sort that give us a pro-attitude towards it and hence declarations of something as "good" give us a "reason" to adopt this attitude. This is particularly relevant in relation to descriptions of things as "good for us". In thinking of the "good" in this way Parfit has moved to a default position of relating to this notion in terms that reflect a sense of "well being" so it is unsurprising that hedonic considerations are referred to at this point. However, the chapter concludes with a contrast between the self-interested view that is at work in considering our own well-being to the "impartial" point of view at work in thinking of general well-being. That the chapter concludes with these descriptions of the "good" does, however, already appear to weight discussion towards an approach of a particular sort when we reach the more substantive ethical accounts we expect later in the work.
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