Chapter 15 of Parfit's On What Matters concerns contractualism and the first part of his re-working of the third 2002 Tanner Lectures which I treated previously. Contractualism is summarised by Parfit as based principally upon a claim to rational agreement concerning principles all ought to follow. However, whilst this point is relatively uncontroversial, Parfit quickly introduces a methodological reflection on the understanding of such rational agreement that is far from obvious. This is to the effect that the rational agreement in question would be one that produced outcomes that were expectably-best. In focusing on outcomes, and in relating to them in terms of what would be optimal, Parfit assumes that the best test for a contractualist view would be a consequentialist one.
Parfit further makes a second assumption that comes out in his very brief account of, and reply to, the work of David Gauthier. Gauthier's Hobbesian form of contractualism is faulted by Parfit for its basic use of a state of nature device. The real problem with this device, on Parfit's view, is that it concedes ground in advance to the inequality of power that exists between people and hence allows a kind of threat advantage to dictate the terms of the resultant agreement. This ensures that many "plain duties" as Parfit calls them are effectively flouted. So this second assumption is to the effect that where there appears to be an intuitive understanding of such "plain duties" that this needs to be accounted for on any plausible contractualist view.
Having these assumptions in hand Parfit turns to examining Rawls' form of contractualism though, notably, the way he approaches Rawls is very narrow. Parfit concentrates not on "justice as fairness" but rather only on "rightness as fairness", the general moral view that Rawls refers to a few times but never systematically developed. Part of Parfit's analysis of Rawls also works on the assumption that Rawls is committed to a desire-based view of reason, an assumption that seems to me faulty. It is not that Rawls assumes "desires" to be the basis of reason but that he does take it that there is a "thin theory" of what all people can be said to want which should guide elementary moral psychology.
Parfit looks at different models of the veil of ignorance that Rawls provides and finds fault with the thicker veil that Rawls appeals to. One of the reasons Parfit does this is distinctly odd, however, since he alleges that if there is a good basis for denying knowledge in the original position then such denial should apply as well even to the view that there are inequalities between people (of strength, intelligence, etc) at all. But the extension of the veil in this way has no practical purpose and even foils part of the point in invoking it. This would be the point of ensuring that the result of the procedure of construction of the original position would ensure that the design of the basic structure was most respectful of the worst off. This could not be achieved if we did not assume that there exists such a thing as a group that is worst off. The reason Parfit gets in to this discussion is that he has a prior agenda of bringing Rawls' view as close as possible to utilitarianism and in doing so he continues his methodological move of favouring axiological criteria of morality but this also cuts against the key constraints of the notion of right that Rawls builds into the original position.
These skirmishes with Rawls are still preliminary to Parfit's key discussion in this chapter which concerns what he terms the "Kantian Contractualist Formula", a formula specified as stating that everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will. This formula is evidently intended as a version of Kant's formula of the kingdom of ends. However Parfit cuts this formula off from the general discussions of contractualism in asserting that it is not based on achieving general agreement. It is instead motivated as a formula that is applied by individuals rather than a group so that the results of many over-lapping thought-experiments are meant to point to a generally agreed result. In arguing for this peculiar move Parfit draws on the Rawlsian argument against utilitarianism which alleges that the problem with the latter view is that it enables some to be sacrificed for the sake of the many. Parfit returns to the basic inequality between persons to reject the search for a rational agreement formula using the example of Gauthier to do so though this is again a pretty odd move given that the process of Rawls' original position does not at all model Gautheir's and shows that search for a rational agreement formula need not favour the strongest over the weakest.
More interestingly Parfit argues for a contractualist formula that does not suppose rational agreement is possible on the grounds that if unanimity is able to be achieved through a formula that is not based on presupposing it then it will be all the stronger an agreement. However what is assumed instead of such agreement is shared search by everyone for well-being that replaces the Rawlsian focus on primary goods.
Parfit proceeds to make two additional moves in the chapter. Firstly he introduces Thomas Scanlon's notion of contractualism according to which everyone should follow the principles that no one can reasonably reject. In introducing this formula however Parfit appears to move away from his earlier recognition of 'plain duties', a recognition that was used against Gauthier. This is done by denying that we should appeal to judgments about what is wrong in applying the contractualist formula and thus removes the ability to appeal to the 'plain duties' that were invoked against Gauthier. Further Scanlon himself states, and Parfit quotes him stating, that the problem with utilitarianism is that it produces results that are starkly at variance with our "widely held convictions", a move that supports the view that there is some ground for thinking that such convictions do affect the evaluation of contractualist formulas and are thus not irrelevant to their application.
In noting this point of Scanlon's Parfit again returns to the principal anti-utilitarian point made by Rawls to the effect that burdens imposed on some just for the benefit of others are prima facie to be rejected. Given judicious use of thought-experiements Parfit moves away from the strict version of this point and tries instead to restrict its application to special cases (such as describe how doctors should treat patients). In so doing the basic force of the principle is weakened.
Parfit's final move in the chapter concerns his implicit appeal to common sense restrictions on moral principles and these are now justified in terms of the view that contractualist principles are not themselves sufficient to describe wrong-making properties of actions but that they rather state higher-level properties of wrong-making that are intended to include the lower-level properties. This is meant to give us a reason not to include such lower-level properties in the application of the contractualist principle but rather in evaluation of its application. In making this large concession to intuitive views of what is wrong, however, Parfit also ensures that the examples to which he appeals are ones whose evidential force can be established, something of a tall order.
Showing posts with label Derek Parfit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Derek Parfit. Show all posts
Thursday, 16 August 2012
Sunday, 15 July 2012
Parfit, Kant and Consequentialism
In my last posting on Parfit I discussed the general problems I think there are with his notion of "contractualist consequentialism" as presented in the third of his 2002 Tanner Lectures. In this posting I want to look at the concluding section of this third lecture in order to see how Parfit brings the argument there to a conclusion and to use the discussion of this conclusion to demonstrate again some reasons for thinking that Parfit stacks the deck rather when he reaches the conclusion that Kant gives the basis for a contractualist view that is substantively consequentialist.
Parfit opens the final section of this lecture with a statement that whilst Kant was not a consequentialist the argument's point is not to examine the reasons why Kant was not a consequentialist but instead to point to some reasons for taking it to be the case that we can develop a consequentialist view by appealing to some elements of Kant's positions. In making this case Parfit appeals to an important distinction. The distinction is between what he terms Kant's "moral beliefs" on the one hand and the "implications of his principles" on the other. The former are what are involved in Kant's not being a consequentialist on Parfit's view, whilst the latter, by contrast, point to consequentialist conclusions. This distinction is an important one, as we shall see in looking at the concluding phase of Parfit's argument.
Parfit's case is built by reference to the principle he extracted from Kant's Formula of Humanity as the first part of it. This principle is what Parfit terms "Kant's Consent Principle" (KCP). The "consent" involved is framed by Parfit as "rational consent" and it is connected to the act consequentialist view that rational consent can be seen as agreement that everyone be treated in ways that would make things go best. If we look at rational consent in this manner, then treating people in a way that implies adoption of an axiological standard of value is equivalent to treating them in ways to which they could rationally consent. One of the points Parfit rushes to make here is, however, meant to assuage a problem Rawls raised against utilitarianism. Rawls indicated that a problem with accepting "classical utilitarianism" was that it required some to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others and that such a sacrifice was one that the ones being sacrificed could accept only if they were prepared to sacrifice the very point of being in an ethical space at all (so it is connected to his problem with the "separateness of persons"). However Parfit thinks he has a reply here as if the act in question would impose great burdens on some for the sake of greater benefits for others then this act would not make things go best but instead go worse. This is despite the fact that the person in question might "rationally consent" to the act. On this basis Parfit argues that consequentialists don't have to be seen as utilitarians.
The separation of consequentialism from utilitarianism that this argument involves does, however, require, as a consequence that an optimific act is not one that can be assessed only through the prism of rational consent. Rational consent is thus not a means to determine the rightness of the act if such rightness is standardly viewed in terms of optimific understanding. In which case, whilst Parfit thinks that KCP could be accepted by act consequentialists, it is not sufficient as a standard of rightness for them.
Parfit, however, takes the argument a different way as he now moves away from the consent principle and back to the principle he earlier termed "Kant's Contractualist Formula" (for which see this earlier posting). The contractualist formula requires that we appeal to principles that everyone could rationally choose and we could not rationally will that everyone accepts act consequentialist principles and so the act consequentialist principle is not one we should act upon. Notably, however, and remarkably, Parfit has here done something that cuts heavily against the grain. He has presented act consequentialism as sufficiently robust that it can provide a defence for the separateness of persons, such a defence that it can be distinguished from utilitarianism, and then, having done this, has used an appeal to contractualist views about universal rational acceptance, to undercut act consequentialism after all. It would, according to standard ways of presenting the moral situation, be rather more apt to say that act consequentialism, like act utilitarianism, is insufficiently robust to prevent appeal to demanding notions of self-denial and then use that to support a view of consent principles that did not view the latter in optimific terms. So Parfit's initial argumentative strategy is, to say the least, very odd.
Parfit refers now to the argument Sidgwick famously used that it would be best, from a utilitarian point of view, if not everyone was a utilitarian. This argument, which shows that utilitarianism lacks transparency, is one that Parfit endorses here against act consequentialism. In doing so he appears to appeal to the view that moral beliefs matter in the sense that if we knew it to be true that it would not make things go best if everyone acted in ways dictated by principles of maximising what would go best, we should prefer it that not everyone had the belief that they should make things go best. Indeed, not only does Parfit appear to make this move, but he also uses it to prefer rule consequentialism to act consequentialism since rule consequentialism requires us to act on principles whose acceptance would make things go best even should this be the view that not everyone believe that they should act in ways that make things go best.
Parfit now constructs an argument that is meant to move from Kant's "contractualist formula" that we ought to act on principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally choose to the conclusion that rule consequentialism is correct on Kantian contractualist grounds. Now there are several stages in this argument which bear close analysis if a response is to be made. The first point to look at is how Parfit views reasons. Parfit introduces and critically interrogates the premise everyone could rationally choose whatever they would have sufficient reason to choose. This premise is interrogated as what we have sufficient reason to choose is argued by Parfit to depend on facts whilst what we rationally choose is, by contrast, based on beliefs. The difference matters since false beliefs give us reasons to choose something that it is not ultimately rational to choose. So the application of Kant's "contractualist formula" requires congruence between beliefs and facts.
The next premise is to the effect that everyone would have sufficient reason to choose that everyone accept the principles whose acceptance would make things go best assuming the congruence we have established as a requirement for this. Now, in critically evaluating this premise, Parfit points to the "impartial reason-involving" sense of normative reason as the basis for viewing how to evaluate whether or not things have gone best. However, in assessing this claim, Parfit also refers back to his earlier distinction between "moral beliefs" and "principles" since he rejects the objection that such a principle might produce immoral action on the grounds that such an objection illegitimately introduces moral beliefs. There is a problem with this reply since it assumes that the contractualist procedure is thus far not loaded or is effectively neutral between different views. But it is not. In taking our standard in terms of an axiological conception of evaluation we have already adopted a consequentialist standard into our reasoning so it is evident such a standard will be our conclusion. If, however, our argument precisely concerns a question about how "rational consent" is to be understood, for example, then we cannot simply stipulate that it be seen in not merely an impartial sense but in terms of a view of impartial reason that is pre-set in terms of outcomes. Viewing impartial reason in terms of outcomes incorporates a "moral belief" into the "neutral" evaluation. And it does so in a way that is then used to appeal to "principles" as if they are not described in ways that are set against other "principles" where the other principles are then merely demoted to the status of "beliefs".
The reason why Parfit thinks that such a division between "principles" and "beliefs" is stable is because he sees the former as tracking "facts" and making them congruent with "true beliefs" whilst an insistence on "moral belief" simpliciter is simply an argument from what we "already accept". However the reference to "facts" here is one that involves a view of the factual that is itself normatively loaded since it takes factual support to consist in a view about what is axiologically supported and so it is not neutral between views.
Parfit argues that in pursuing this strategy he is following a standard contractualist procedure and he even appeals here to the example of Rawls to support him. Rawls, however, when constructing the original position, does so by building the position out of what he termed "formal constraints of the concept of right" and such constraints are not discussed by Parfit. Particularly important from such constraints was a solution formally argued to the "priority problem" with regard to principles. Parfit stipulates a solution by taking axiological criteria to be supreme, something that cuts precisely against his earlier recognition of the point that there is a case to be made against abstracting from the separateness of persons.
Parfit next goes on to consider this claim by balancing what he regards as the considerations of personal points of view with those of impartial reason. In doing so Parfit stresses the idea that there are non-self-interested personal reasons which, indeed, there are in terms of different conceptions of the good. However, Parfit does not consider this question in terms of different conceptions of the good but only in terms of personal reasons being seen, if they conflict with impartial ones, as self-interested. Parfit does not consider that personal reasons that oppose what he views as "impartial" reason may also be principled in their opposition. Because of this Parfit simply arrives at the conclusion that it is always optimific to follow impartial reason and that we should accept impartial reasons as personal reasons given that this is so. But this is not evident at all if there are impartial reasons that are non-optimific in form as is the case with non-consequentialist views.
Because Parfit has construed the choice situation in the way he has he cannot avoid the problem of unreasonable burdens that, at the beginning of the discussion, he wished to argue was not a necessary element of consequentialist views. Assuming that one holds a non-optimific view of goodness by means of a conception of the priority of the right over the good one will always be told that ones view of the good is only personal and should be sacrificed optimifically which is to abstract from the separateness of persons in precisely the way Rawls complains of. This is still the consequence of Parfit's preferred rule consequentialism which is why it still incorporates the classic consequentialist move of requiring us to see impartial reasons as always optimific in form. Parfit thinks he can appeal against this since he argues that ultimately he is appealing to Kant's "contractualist formula" and basing rule consequentialism on this. However this is dishonest as the contractualist formula, in application, is always used to bolster the conception that impartial reason is framed in terms of optimific outcomes so it is only a supplementary principle meant as a support for consequentialism and is not, as Parfit pretends, foundational for ethical principles.
So whilst Parfit concludes by saying he has not argued that we should become rule consequentialists but only that Kantian and contractualist premises support rule consequentialist conclusions this is not what his argument shows. What his argument shows is, instead, that if contractualist and consent principles are interpreted axiologically then they support consequentialism. But that is only because they have been pre-defined in such a way that consequentialism is their inevitable focus. Parfit assumes that the only response to this argument is to favour "moral beliefs" over "principles" but, as I have argued, this division is founded on an incorporation of a "belief" into his account of "principles" in the first place.
Parfit opens the final section of this lecture with a statement that whilst Kant was not a consequentialist the argument's point is not to examine the reasons why Kant was not a consequentialist but instead to point to some reasons for taking it to be the case that we can develop a consequentialist view by appealing to some elements of Kant's positions. In making this case Parfit appeals to an important distinction. The distinction is between what he terms Kant's "moral beliefs" on the one hand and the "implications of his principles" on the other. The former are what are involved in Kant's not being a consequentialist on Parfit's view, whilst the latter, by contrast, point to consequentialist conclusions. This distinction is an important one, as we shall see in looking at the concluding phase of Parfit's argument.
Parfit's case is built by reference to the principle he extracted from Kant's Formula of Humanity as the first part of it. This principle is what Parfit terms "Kant's Consent Principle" (KCP). The "consent" involved is framed by Parfit as "rational consent" and it is connected to the act consequentialist view that rational consent can be seen as agreement that everyone be treated in ways that would make things go best. If we look at rational consent in this manner, then treating people in a way that implies adoption of an axiological standard of value is equivalent to treating them in ways to which they could rationally consent. One of the points Parfit rushes to make here is, however, meant to assuage a problem Rawls raised against utilitarianism. Rawls indicated that a problem with accepting "classical utilitarianism" was that it required some to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others and that such a sacrifice was one that the ones being sacrificed could accept only if they were prepared to sacrifice the very point of being in an ethical space at all (so it is connected to his problem with the "separateness of persons"). However Parfit thinks he has a reply here as if the act in question would impose great burdens on some for the sake of greater benefits for others then this act would not make things go best but instead go worse. This is despite the fact that the person in question might "rationally consent" to the act. On this basis Parfit argues that consequentialists don't have to be seen as utilitarians.
The separation of consequentialism from utilitarianism that this argument involves does, however, require, as a consequence that an optimific act is not one that can be assessed only through the prism of rational consent. Rational consent is thus not a means to determine the rightness of the act if such rightness is standardly viewed in terms of optimific understanding. In which case, whilst Parfit thinks that KCP could be accepted by act consequentialists, it is not sufficient as a standard of rightness for them.
Parfit, however, takes the argument a different way as he now moves away from the consent principle and back to the principle he earlier termed "Kant's Contractualist Formula" (for which see this earlier posting). The contractualist formula requires that we appeal to principles that everyone could rationally choose and we could not rationally will that everyone accepts act consequentialist principles and so the act consequentialist principle is not one we should act upon. Notably, however, and remarkably, Parfit has here done something that cuts heavily against the grain. He has presented act consequentialism as sufficiently robust that it can provide a defence for the separateness of persons, such a defence that it can be distinguished from utilitarianism, and then, having done this, has used an appeal to contractualist views about universal rational acceptance, to undercut act consequentialism after all. It would, according to standard ways of presenting the moral situation, be rather more apt to say that act consequentialism, like act utilitarianism, is insufficiently robust to prevent appeal to demanding notions of self-denial and then use that to support a view of consent principles that did not view the latter in optimific terms. So Parfit's initial argumentative strategy is, to say the least, very odd.
Parfit refers now to the argument Sidgwick famously used that it would be best, from a utilitarian point of view, if not everyone was a utilitarian. This argument, which shows that utilitarianism lacks transparency, is one that Parfit endorses here against act consequentialism. In doing so he appears to appeal to the view that moral beliefs matter in the sense that if we knew it to be true that it would not make things go best if everyone acted in ways dictated by principles of maximising what would go best, we should prefer it that not everyone had the belief that they should make things go best. Indeed, not only does Parfit appear to make this move, but he also uses it to prefer rule consequentialism to act consequentialism since rule consequentialism requires us to act on principles whose acceptance would make things go best even should this be the view that not everyone believe that they should act in ways that make things go best.
Parfit now constructs an argument that is meant to move from Kant's "contractualist formula" that we ought to act on principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally choose to the conclusion that rule consequentialism is correct on Kantian contractualist grounds. Now there are several stages in this argument which bear close analysis if a response is to be made. The first point to look at is how Parfit views reasons. Parfit introduces and critically interrogates the premise everyone could rationally choose whatever they would have sufficient reason to choose. This premise is interrogated as what we have sufficient reason to choose is argued by Parfit to depend on facts whilst what we rationally choose is, by contrast, based on beliefs. The difference matters since false beliefs give us reasons to choose something that it is not ultimately rational to choose. So the application of Kant's "contractualist formula" requires congruence between beliefs and facts.
The next premise is to the effect that everyone would have sufficient reason to choose that everyone accept the principles whose acceptance would make things go best assuming the congruence we have established as a requirement for this. Now, in critically evaluating this premise, Parfit points to the "impartial reason-involving" sense of normative reason as the basis for viewing how to evaluate whether or not things have gone best. However, in assessing this claim, Parfit also refers back to his earlier distinction between "moral beliefs" and "principles" since he rejects the objection that such a principle might produce immoral action on the grounds that such an objection illegitimately introduces moral beliefs. There is a problem with this reply since it assumes that the contractualist procedure is thus far not loaded or is effectively neutral between different views. But it is not. In taking our standard in terms of an axiological conception of evaluation we have already adopted a consequentialist standard into our reasoning so it is evident such a standard will be our conclusion. If, however, our argument precisely concerns a question about how "rational consent" is to be understood, for example, then we cannot simply stipulate that it be seen in not merely an impartial sense but in terms of a view of impartial reason that is pre-set in terms of outcomes. Viewing impartial reason in terms of outcomes incorporates a "moral belief" into the "neutral" evaluation. And it does so in a way that is then used to appeal to "principles" as if they are not described in ways that are set against other "principles" where the other principles are then merely demoted to the status of "beliefs".
The reason why Parfit thinks that such a division between "principles" and "beliefs" is stable is because he sees the former as tracking "facts" and making them congruent with "true beliefs" whilst an insistence on "moral belief" simpliciter is simply an argument from what we "already accept". However the reference to "facts" here is one that involves a view of the factual that is itself normatively loaded since it takes factual support to consist in a view about what is axiologically supported and so it is not neutral between views.
Parfit argues that in pursuing this strategy he is following a standard contractualist procedure and he even appeals here to the example of Rawls to support him. Rawls, however, when constructing the original position, does so by building the position out of what he termed "formal constraints of the concept of right" and such constraints are not discussed by Parfit. Particularly important from such constraints was a solution formally argued to the "priority problem" with regard to principles. Parfit stipulates a solution by taking axiological criteria to be supreme, something that cuts precisely against his earlier recognition of the point that there is a case to be made against abstracting from the separateness of persons.
Parfit next goes on to consider this claim by balancing what he regards as the considerations of personal points of view with those of impartial reason. In doing so Parfit stresses the idea that there are non-self-interested personal reasons which, indeed, there are in terms of different conceptions of the good. However, Parfit does not consider this question in terms of different conceptions of the good but only in terms of personal reasons being seen, if they conflict with impartial ones, as self-interested. Parfit does not consider that personal reasons that oppose what he views as "impartial" reason may also be principled in their opposition. Because of this Parfit simply arrives at the conclusion that it is always optimific to follow impartial reason and that we should accept impartial reasons as personal reasons given that this is so. But this is not evident at all if there are impartial reasons that are non-optimific in form as is the case with non-consequentialist views.
Because Parfit has construed the choice situation in the way he has he cannot avoid the problem of unreasonable burdens that, at the beginning of the discussion, he wished to argue was not a necessary element of consequentialist views. Assuming that one holds a non-optimific view of goodness by means of a conception of the priority of the right over the good one will always be told that ones view of the good is only personal and should be sacrificed optimifically which is to abstract from the separateness of persons in precisely the way Rawls complains of. This is still the consequence of Parfit's preferred rule consequentialism which is why it still incorporates the classic consequentialist move of requiring us to see impartial reasons as always optimific in form. Parfit thinks he can appeal against this since he argues that ultimately he is appealing to Kant's "contractualist formula" and basing rule consequentialism on this. However this is dishonest as the contractualist formula, in application, is always used to bolster the conception that impartial reason is framed in terms of optimific outcomes so it is only a supplementary principle meant as a support for consequentialism and is not, as Parfit pretends, foundational for ethical principles.
So whilst Parfit concludes by saying he has not argued that we should become rule consequentialists but only that Kantian and contractualist premises support rule consequentialist conclusions this is not what his argument shows. What his argument shows is, instead, that if contractualist and consent principles are interpreted axiologically then they support consequentialism. But that is only because they have been pre-defined in such a way that consequentialism is their inevitable focus. Parfit assumes that the only response to this argument is to favour "moral beliefs" over "principles" but, as I have argued, this division is founded on an incorporation of a "belief" into his account of "principles" in the first place.
Saturday, 9 June 2012
Rawls' Grounds for the Priority of Liberty
The argument concerning the priority of liberty in A Theory of Justice is presented in a few places. In section 39 it was "defined" and in section 46 it was related to other cases of priority. In presenting the reasons for the principles of justice in section 26 the account of liberty that was presented was also one in which the swopping of lesser for greater liberty was shown not to be a reasonable outcome for the acceptance of contracting parties within the original position. In section 82 as Rawls moves towards the conclusion of the whole book he brings together and summarises the arguments for the priority of liberty in a well-ordered society as seen from the point of view of the original position. In this posting I am going to concentrate on how the arguments given in the latter do more than just demonstrate the grounds for the priority of liberty. The arguments also show that the suggestion made by Parfit that Rawls' account of the deliberative rationality that Rawls is articulating is desire-based and shows, to the contrary, that the recognition of interests by Rawls is one that is intrinsically normatively grounded.
The argument of section 82 opens by referring to the way the conception of the well-ordered society is a notion that requires regulation by a public conception of justice. If there is a well-ordered society then the members of it all view each other as free and equal moral persons. Now, in describing what is meant in determining each other as free and equal moral persons, Rawls refers to "the fundamental aims and interests" in the name of which each of them thinks it possible to make legitimate claims on each other. The way to understand these "aims and interests" is central to replying to the suggestion of Parfit that Rawls' moral psychology is essentially desire-based and to show in detail why this is not the case. One of the ways it becomes obvious that the account of "aims and interests" Rawls is drawing on here is not a desire-based moral psychology is that he explicitly and openly says that a right to equal respect and consideration is central to determining the principles by which the basic structure of their society is to be governed. Alongside this point about a right to equal respect is the sense of justice that would normally govern the conduct of all the members of the well-ordered society.
The original position itself is specified as governed by the constraints of right as these constraints determine the form an acceptable set of principles can take. Amongst the constraints of right that would thereby define the form of a well-ordered society is that the conception of justice that governed it should be a publicly justifiable one. It is within the constraint of such publicity that we comprehend the notion of the members of it as free and equal moral persons as this way of viewing the person (what we can generally term a "Kantian" conception of persons) are ones to whom principles of justice are publicly accessible and justifiable. The original position embodied principles of reciprocity and equality as further elements of the constraints of right and it is in the context of recognition of these principles that Rawls indicates that a basic rationale for the priority of liberty is that fundamental aims and interests of all persons are protected by it. So a first sense given to the understanding of these "aims and interests" is in terms of equal reciprocal relations between persons.
Now the way that these "aims and interests" are recognised tells one a great deal about how they are understood. The first "interest" Rawls here mentions is that which people have in religion. Religious interests are recognised in terms of equal liberty of conscience for all contracting parties. The general nature of the religious interest is recognised only since no one would be aware, under the veil of ignorance, of possessing any particular religious belief. An "aim" of persons is clearly to defend any given religious belief that they may possess since they, as particular persons, will hold to some definite religion. The "strains of commitment" of the original position will be such that contracting parties will see the point of giving precedence to liberty.
Having given first a "religious" interest and specifying the concomitant "aim" that goes with it Rawls secondly looks at how "higher-order interests" in general shape and regulate the social institutions that will themselves shape other "interests". The recognition of the contracting parties as "free" persons is reflected in the understanding that they each have of an "interest" in having the ability to adopt, revise and alter, their conceptions of the good. This is another basis for recognition of the priority of liberty. The basic structure thus should be governed by the account of autonomy and objectivity that Rawls earlier provided.
The arrival at the principles of justice as a result of deliberation within the original position occurs by means not just of the constraints of right that govern the position but also by means of the way that persons within this position are moved by a "certain hierarchy of interests". The highest-order interests and fundamental aims of the parties are reflected in the priority given to liberty and the means that enable them to "advance their other desires and ends" is explicitly stated to have a subordinate place. Not only is this so, but, as we shall see, in the sense meant by desire-based theories of reasons, Rawls does not recognise "desires" here as having any real role at all. There are, for example, "interests" in liberty which have a real objective in terms of establishing basic liberties but this is not the kind of "interest" that is invoked by desire-based theories of deliberative rationality. The kind of "interest" involved in liberty is, as Rawls puts it, a "higher-order" one as it regulates all the ways that "interests" can be expressed within a well-ordered society.
This point is supplemented by the argument concerning the kinds of attitudes and feelings that would be generated within a well-ordered society, the argument that included the previous account of envy. The point of the account of envy was to respond to the kind of objection to the well-ordered society that suggests that within it there could be a form of competitive/comparative relation between persons that would be socially destructive. In other words, a more equal society might make people more obsessed with their relative share of social wealth. Against this view Rawls wishes to show that the well-ordered society would lead, rather, to people taking less interest in relative positions. The presence of envy would have less sway, at least in a destructive sense. This is not due to a lack of concern with status since recognition of self-respect as a basic primary good ensures instead that relating to others as worthy of respect is something central within the society. But the basis for self-respect is grounded not on relative share of income but instead on the public recognition of the equality of rights. Since there is such equality of rights there is no incentive to politically seek other ways of having status understood as central to worth that is non-public in form.
One of the reasons why this argument is thought to hold by Rawls is due to the symmetrical reason why no one would wish to be publicly inferior as that would be damaging to self-esteem. Similarly attempting to reach a non-public form of self-esteem has the difficulty that it indicates a view of others as inferior to oneself, a conception that has no public endorsement and would rather lead to a general aversion to the one wishing to find expression for their view. Public attitudes of mutual respect have an essential place in maintaining a political balance between persons and in assuring everyone of their own worth and the acceptance of equal liberties is a central way in which this is expressed.
The distribution of material means in the well-ordered society is taken care of by principles of pure procedural justice and the good of social union is maintained by supporting the primary good of self-respect. The application of the difference principle allows for what was previously determined as excusable envy and this helps to show the grounds for the priority of liberty. The public knowledge of the facts about each other reflected in the general recognition of the Kantian conception of the person is both based in the culture of the well-ordered society and furthered by its institutional arrangements. The reasoning that led to the principles of justice and that can support it is of a form that is publicly available.
Notable in the whole argument of section 82 is that the interests that are recognised as decisive in it are not ones that are reflective of "desires" in the sense indicated in "desire-based" views of reasons. So, for example, they are not desires simply taken as given or as reflective of mere natural facts. They are rather civilly understood desires and desires that fundamentally reflect interests in recognition of aspects of personhood that are enshrined in the Kantian conception of the person. So not only does section 82 summarise and complete the arguments for the priority of liberty but it confirms that Rawls' general moral psychology is not a desire-based one.
The argument of section 82 opens by referring to the way the conception of the well-ordered society is a notion that requires regulation by a public conception of justice. If there is a well-ordered society then the members of it all view each other as free and equal moral persons. Now, in describing what is meant in determining each other as free and equal moral persons, Rawls refers to "the fundamental aims and interests" in the name of which each of them thinks it possible to make legitimate claims on each other. The way to understand these "aims and interests" is central to replying to the suggestion of Parfit that Rawls' moral psychology is essentially desire-based and to show in detail why this is not the case. One of the ways it becomes obvious that the account of "aims and interests" Rawls is drawing on here is not a desire-based moral psychology is that he explicitly and openly says that a right to equal respect and consideration is central to determining the principles by which the basic structure of their society is to be governed. Alongside this point about a right to equal respect is the sense of justice that would normally govern the conduct of all the members of the well-ordered society.
The original position itself is specified as governed by the constraints of right as these constraints determine the form an acceptable set of principles can take. Amongst the constraints of right that would thereby define the form of a well-ordered society is that the conception of justice that governed it should be a publicly justifiable one. It is within the constraint of such publicity that we comprehend the notion of the members of it as free and equal moral persons as this way of viewing the person (what we can generally term a "Kantian" conception of persons) are ones to whom principles of justice are publicly accessible and justifiable. The original position embodied principles of reciprocity and equality as further elements of the constraints of right and it is in the context of recognition of these principles that Rawls indicates that a basic rationale for the priority of liberty is that fundamental aims and interests of all persons are protected by it. So a first sense given to the understanding of these "aims and interests" is in terms of equal reciprocal relations between persons.
Now the way that these "aims and interests" are recognised tells one a great deal about how they are understood. The first "interest" Rawls here mentions is that which people have in religion. Religious interests are recognised in terms of equal liberty of conscience for all contracting parties. The general nature of the religious interest is recognised only since no one would be aware, under the veil of ignorance, of possessing any particular religious belief. An "aim" of persons is clearly to defend any given religious belief that they may possess since they, as particular persons, will hold to some definite religion. The "strains of commitment" of the original position will be such that contracting parties will see the point of giving precedence to liberty.
Having given first a "religious" interest and specifying the concomitant "aim" that goes with it Rawls secondly looks at how "higher-order interests" in general shape and regulate the social institutions that will themselves shape other "interests". The recognition of the contracting parties as "free" persons is reflected in the understanding that they each have of an "interest" in having the ability to adopt, revise and alter, their conceptions of the good. This is another basis for recognition of the priority of liberty. The basic structure thus should be governed by the account of autonomy and objectivity that Rawls earlier provided.
The arrival at the principles of justice as a result of deliberation within the original position occurs by means not just of the constraints of right that govern the position but also by means of the way that persons within this position are moved by a "certain hierarchy of interests". The highest-order interests and fundamental aims of the parties are reflected in the priority given to liberty and the means that enable them to "advance their other desires and ends" is explicitly stated to have a subordinate place. Not only is this so, but, as we shall see, in the sense meant by desire-based theories of reasons, Rawls does not recognise "desires" here as having any real role at all. There are, for example, "interests" in liberty which have a real objective in terms of establishing basic liberties but this is not the kind of "interest" that is invoked by desire-based theories of deliberative rationality. The kind of "interest" involved in liberty is, as Rawls puts it, a "higher-order" one as it regulates all the ways that "interests" can be expressed within a well-ordered society.
This point is supplemented by the argument concerning the kinds of attitudes and feelings that would be generated within a well-ordered society, the argument that included the previous account of envy. The point of the account of envy was to respond to the kind of objection to the well-ordered society that suggests that within it there could be a form of competitive/comparative relation between persons that would be socially destructive. In other words, a more equal society might make people more obsessed with their relative share of social wealth. Against this view Rawls wishes to show that the well-ordered society would lead, rather, to people taking less interest in relative positions. The presence of envy would have less sway, at least in a destructive sense. This is not due to a lack of concern with status since recognition of self-respect as a basic primary good ensures instead that relating to others as worthy of respect is something central within the society. But the basis for self-respect is grounded not on relative share of income but instead on the public recognition of the equality of rights. Since there is such equality of rights there is no incentive to politically seek other ways of having status understood as central to worth that is non-public in form.
One of the reasons why this argument is thought to hold by Rawls is due to the symmetrical reason why no one would wish to be publicly inferior as that would be damaging to self-esteem. Similarly attempting to reach a non-public form of self-esteem has the difficulty that it indicates a view of others as inferior to oneself, a conception that has no public endorsement and would rather lead to a general aversion to the one wishing to find expression for their view. Public attitudes of mutual respect have an essential place in maintaining a political balance between persons and in assuring everyone of their own worth and the acceptance of equal liberties is a central way in which this is expressed.
The distribution of material means in the well-ordered society is taken care of by principles of pure procedural justice and the good of social union is maintained by supporting the primary good of self-respect. The application of the difference principle allows for what was previously determined as excusable envy and this helps to show the grounds for the priority of liberty. The public knowledge of the facts about each other reflected in the general recognition of the Kantian conception of the person is both based in the culture of the well-ordered society and furthered by its institutional arrangements. The reasoning that led to the principles of justice and that can support it is of a form that is publicly available.
Notable in the whole argument of section 82 is that the interests that are recognised as decisive in it are not ones that are reflective of "desires" in the sense indicated in "desire-based" views of reasons. So, for example, they are not desires simply taken as given or as reflective of mere natural facts. They are rather civilly understood desires and desires that fundamentally reflect interests in recognition of aspects of personhood that are enshrined in the Kantian conception of the person. So not only does section 82 summarise and complete the arguments for the priority of liberty but it confirms that Rawls' general moral psychology is not a desire-based one.
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
Parfit on Contractualist Consequentialism
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.
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.
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Parfit and "Rawls's Formula"
In my previous posting on the third of Parfit's 2002 Tanner Lectures I looked at the account Parfit gave of the Rawlsian view of deliberative rationality. In this posting I'm going to look further at the third 2002 lecture in order to concentrate now on the treatment Parfit gives there of what he terms "Rawls's Formula", which is Parfit's way of describing the methodological appeal Rawls makes to the "veil of ignorance".
The appeal to the "veil of ignorance" is as part of Rawls' discussion of the original position and is a way in which he moves from the initial situation to the original position. Parfit views it as a "revision" of the basic contractualist conception of rational agreement and he analyses the various defences Rawls gives for the appeal to it and offers what he takes to be a problem with the different versions of the "veil" that Rawls is said to present. Parfit mentions amongst the justifications Rawls gives for appealing to the veil of ignorance that it enables us to move away from contingent facts that apply to us at present and which may influence the way we currently view the situation but which should not, impartially, affect our understanding of just distributions. The way Parfit understands this is that there is no "threat advantage" in the situation, a point that we noted in the previous posting was utilised by Rawls to argue against contemporary Hobbesian views. Our ignorance of who we are in the situation removes any such advantage though Parfit, somewhat oddly, also assumes that this means that "everyone's well-being" is taken into account when, instead, it means that the outcome that is arrived at is one that is not based on considerations of well-being but instead is formally construed.
The difference between these understandings of the veil of ignorance becomes clearer when Parfit begins to assess the general claim that Rawls makes to the effect that the contract doctrine offers a general alternative to utilitarianism. Parfit is surprised that Rawls feels able to make such a claim given, as Parfit puts it, that an appeal to "a combination of self-interested rationality and impartiality" tends to produce utilitarianism. Rawls, however, has already rejected appeals to self-interest on the grounds of the formal constraints of right and his view of impartiality is not one that is shaped by appeal to well-being as Parfit assumes hence the notion of impartiality favoured by Rawls does not tend to lead to utilitarian conclusions.
The reason why Parfit thinks differently about the appeal to the veil of ignorance than I am suggesting is correct is due to how he views Rawls' consideration of the notion of "average" utility which Rawls discusses in section 27 of A Theory of Justice. Rawls here provides a description of why the notion of "average" utility is preferable to the "classical" notion of utilitarianism and imagines arriving at the former through recourse to a device of contractualist reasoning. The way this goes is that Rawls views the notion of "average" utility as conjoined to a conception of having an "equal chance" of being any individual within the society though he also adds to this the assumption that all individuals have "similar preferences" whether or not they belong to the same society. Given these assumptions there is a general rationale existent for the "average" principle of utility. Parfit points out, in a footnote, that there is, even given these assumptions, something to be said to favour taking the "interests" of the worst off most in the situation. In fact, Rawls goes further, pointing out, in the process, that the situation of choice involved in the original position is quite different to any other choice given that the uncertainties it involves are so great and adding that it would be rational, given such uncertainties, to go so far in weighting the position of the worst off that the principle of average utility ends up (even given the "equal chances" idea) of being practically identical with the difference principle.
Parfit pays insufficient attention to this point remaining fixed on the claim that there is something of a case for the principle of "average" utility assuming the preference for criteria of well-being are tantamount for us. In making this point Parfit draws on the way that the argument of section 27 of Theory develops by progressing from the "equal chances" conception of the veil of ignorance to a "full" veil of ignorance in which there is no knowledge provided of the place one has in society. In fact, Parfit fails to note here that it is not only the place one has in society that is affected by moving to the "full" veil of ignorance. It is also the case that we no longer assume that individuals have "similar preferences" whether or not they belong to the society. We do not claim any knowledge of such preferences when we move to the full veil which is another way of saying that questions of well-being (understood through the prism of preferences) are not assumed in advance to guide our decision of the right principles to be chosen.
Parfit points to the account Rawls gives in section 28 of Theory where Rawls gives a further argument for moving away from an "equal chances" conception of the veil of ignorance and where Rawls advances the argument that "there seem to be no objective grounds in the initial situation for assuming that one has an equal chance of turning out to be anybody". In stating this point Rawls refers to the way that the principle of average utility appears to presuppose a principle of insufficient reason as the ground for how probabilities are to be assessed and such an appeal is merely one to "as-if probabilities" that effectively are only ways of stipulating the principle of average utility and are not means of arguing for it as a principle to be adopted. Further the conception that is at work in the "equal chances" view of the veil of ignorance that is preferred by the advocate of average utility itself requires a very stark conception of the person which Rawls terms that of "bare" personhood so that the persons in question lack determinate characters (which is one of the ways the "equal chance" notion works out). By contrast Rawls posits a conception of determinate personhood as the basis of choice so that there really are "interests and ends" of the persons in question even if the nature of them is unknown to the parties involved. So the form of the veil of ignorance that supports the "equal chances" conception, whilst not as full as that which Rawls advocates, is more drastic in its treatment of the persons engaged in forming the contractual agreement.
Parfit, however, objects to the claim that there are no "objective" grounds for favouring the "equal chances" version of the veil of ignorance on the grounds that it appears to treat the original position as an actual state rather than an hypothetical one. This is incorrect as we have seen. It is not a question of treating the original position as an "actual" state, it is rather one of specifying what assumptions are involved in the relative ways the thickness of the "veil" is presented as. The "equal chances" formula requires adoption of a particular conception of probability that is itself not neutral between principles to be considered and which is, further, thicker than Rawls' version of the "veil" in another way, in the way, that is, that it treats the persons in the contractual situation since it renders them mere vessels for utility maximisation. Thus there are two ways in which the "equal chances" view of the veil of ignorance is philosophically problematic: firstly, it assumes a form of probability assessment that is a covert introduction of the principle to be argued for and secondly it pictures the contracting parties in a way that is part of the general utilitarian conception of ignoring the separateness of persons.
Indeed returning to the way the path to the principle of average utility was earlier rendered by Rawls in section 27 of Theory shows that it was precisely by assuming these points that the principle was taken to be available for consideration in the first place. Rawls wrote there: "if we waive the problem of interpersonal conceptions of utility, and if the parties are viewed as rational individuals who have no aversion to risk and who follow the principle of insufficient reason in computing likelihoods....then the idea of the initial situation leads naturally to the average principle" (my emphasis). It is only by not following through that it is these controversial assumptions that support the advocacy of the principle of average utility under the "equal chances" view of the veil that Parfit can assume that the argument for the "equal chances" view of the veil is as good as that for the "no knowledge" view of the veil (which latter is, as we have seen, mis-named).
Parfit assumes that the two versions of the veil of ignorance are equal in their impartiality. In fact, however, they express two quite different conceptions of impartiality since the "equal chances" version of the veil of ignorance takes impartiality to imply that persons are treated rightly when they are viewed only in terms of interests and desires whilst the other version of the veil of ignorance takes it that there is more to people than this. So different conceptions of the person are related to different views of impartiality and the one that supports the "equal chances" formula is one that is framed to lead us to the principle of average utility and to its formula of "impartiality".
As a separate argument Parfit considers the claim that utilitarianism conflicts with our strongest moral beliefs and that this is a distinct argument for rejection of it and to favour Rawls' principles of justice. However, against this argument Parfit states that if we use the appeal to our beliefs to favour one of the versions of the veil of ignorance we cannot also use the veil to produce a rationale for these beliefs. This fails to grasp the point of the reference to the veil of ignorance and suggests some misunderstandings on Parfit's point of Rawls' procedure. The point of appeal to the veil of ignorance is to move away, as Parfit earlier recognised, from contingent features of existing situations in order that consideration of correct principles can be undertaken. Does this entail that there are no constraints involved in the choice of the principles in question? No: Rawls is explicit in appealing to the constraints of right in the situation. He incorporates such features as, for example, the publicity condition. The point is not that such conditions are equivalent to or presented as arguments for the principles of justice. It is rather that they provide us with a way in which the criteria for what would count as a preferable conception of justice can be specified. And if some account of a principle emerges which violates some of these conditions (which include what Rawls terms the "circumstances" of justice) then this is an argument against them.
The final argument that Parfit presents against the formula of the veil of ignorance Rawls has favoured returns to the reasons Rawls gives for taking the position of the worst off into particular account. Parfit formulates this as an argument that requires us to "maximise the minimum level" and thus terms it the "Maximin Argument". There is lack of specificity in terms of how Rawls understands the worst-off since there is no one specific way that definitely defines them and Parfit suggests that this group should be understood in egoistic terms despite the point that this offends against specific constraints of right on the grounds that Rawls mentions at one time a view of a "representative" person of this group which Parfit argues offends equally against specific constraints of right. However the key problem here is not so much how the group is to be defined as to understand how addressing their situation should be understood. Parfit typically takes it that we address their situation by means of application of a consequentialist process of welfare distribution whereas this is contrary to the point and process of the difference principle. The latter points not to welfare increments but instead to the conditions under which self-respect and the general primary goods (which include conditions of character formation) are to be enhanced. So the considerations Parfit applies to the "Maximin Argument" are of the wrong sort.
Finally Parfit looks at the Maximin Argument in terms of the selection of moral principles rather than in relation to principles of justice which means that the assessment of the argument is simply understood in a way that is not apt for it. One of the reasons why this odd element of Parfit's account of the Maximin Argument is followed appears to be due to an overall claim on Parfit's part that the difference between Rawslian reasoning and that of utilitarians is much less than first appears. A reason for this appears to be Rawls' remark in section 87 of Theory that, in the "initial situation", parties are not taken to have any particular ethical motivation but instead to decide solely on the basis of what seems best calculated "to further their interests" and this passage is meant to bolster the peculiar way Parfit understands the original position. The point here is one that Rawls is making about recognising the intuitive idea of rational prudential choice but Rawls immediately adds that the formal conditions on principles and the veil of ignorance mean that it necessarily also includes moral features and we have seen that his criticism of the average principle of utility further pointed to a conception of the persons involved in the contractual situation as having ends in addition to interests even though we did not know what they were. This passage therefore does not support Parfit's conception of the original position.
The appeal to the "veil of ignorance" is as part of Rawls' discussion of the original position and is a way in which he moves from the initial situation to the original position. Parfit views it as a "revision" of the basic contractualist conception of rational agreement and he analyses the various defences Rawls gives for the appeal to it and offers what he takes to be a problem with the different versions of the "veil" that Rawls is said to present. Parfit mentions amongst the justifications Rawls gives for appealing to the veil of ignorance that it enables us to move away from contingent facts that apply to us at present and which may influence the way we currently view the situation but which should not, impartially, affect our understanding of just distributions. The way Parfit understands this is that there is no "threat advantage" in the situation, a point that we noted in the previous posting was utilised by Rawls to argue against contemporary Hobbesian views. Our ignorance of who we are in the situation removes any such advantage though Parfit, somewhat oddly, also assumes that this means that "everyone's well-being" is taken into account when, instead, it means that the outcome that is arrived at is one that is not based on considerations of well-being but instead is formally construed.
The difference between these understandings of the veil of ignorance becomes clearer when Parfit begins to assess the general claim that Rawls makes to the effect that the contract doctrine offers a general alternative to utilitarianism. Parfit is surprised that Rawls feels able to make such a claim given, as Parfit puts it, that an appeal to "a combination of self-interested rationality and impartiality" tends to produce utilitarianism. Rawls, however, has already rejected appeals to self-interest on the grounds of the formal constraints of right and his view of impartiality is not one that is shaped by appeal to well-being as Parfit assumes hence the notion of impartiality favoured by Rawls does not tend to lead to utilitarian conclusions.
The reason why Parfit thinks differently about the appeal to the veil of ignorance than I am suggesting is correct is due to how he views Rawls' consideration of the notion of "average" utility which Rawls discusses in section 27 of A Theory of Justice. Rawls here provides a description of why the notion of "average" utility is preferable to the "classical" notion of utilitarianism and imagines arriving at the former through recourse to a device of contractualist reasoning. The way this goes is that Rawls views the notion of "average" utility as conjoined to a conception of having an "equal chance" of being any individual within the society though he also adds to this the assumption that all individuals have "similar preferences" whether or not they belong to the same society. Given these assumptions there is a general rationale existent for the "average" principle of utility. Parfit points out, in a footnote, that there is, even given these assumptions, something to be said to favour taking the "interests" of the worst off most in the situation. In fact, Rawls goes further, pointing out, in the process, that the situation of choice involved in the original position is quite different to any other choice given that the uncertainties it involves are so great and adding that it would be rational, given such uncertainties, to go so far in weighting the position of the worst off that the principle of average utility ends up (even given the "equal chances" idea) of being practically identical with the difference principle.
Parfit pays insufficient attention to this point remaining fixed on the claim that there is something of a case for the principle of "average" utility assuming the preference for criteria of well-being are tantamount for us. In making this point Parfit draws on the way that the argument of section 27 of Theory develops by progressing from the "equal chances" conception of the veil of ignorance to a "full" veil of ignorance in which there is no knowledge provided of the place one has in society. In fact, Parfit fails to note here that it is not only the place one has in society that is affected by moving to the "full" veil of ignorance. It is also the case that we no longer assume that individuals have "similar preferences" whether or not they belong to the society. We do not claim any knowledge of such preferences when we move to the full veil which is another way of saying that questions of well-being (understood through the prism of preferences) are not assumed in advance to guide our decision of the right principles to be chosen.
Parfit points to the account Rawls gives in section 28 of Theory where Rawls gives a further argument for moving away from an "equal chances" conception of the veil of ignorance and where Rawls advances the argument that "there seem to be no objective grounds in the initial situation for assuming that one has an equal chance of turning out to be anybody". In stating this point Rawls refers to the way that the principle of average utility appears to presuppose a principle of insufficient reason as the ground for how probabilities are to be assessed and such an appeal is merely one to "as-if probabilities" that effectively are only ways of stipulating the principle of average utility and are not means of arguing for it as a principle to be adopted. Further the conception that is at work in the "equal chances" view of the veil of ignorance that is preferred by the advocate of average utility itself requires a very stark conception of the person which Rawls terms that of "bare" personhood so that the persons in question lack determinate characters (which is one of the ways the "equal chance" notion works out). By contrast Rawls posits a conception of determinate personhood as the basis of choice so that there really are "interests and ends" of the persons in question even if the nature of them is unknown to the parties involved. So the form of the veil of ignorance that supports the "equal chances" conception, whilst not as full as that which Rawls advocates, is more drastic in its treatment of the persons engaged in forming the contractual agreement.
Parfit, however, objects to the claim that there are no "objective" grounds for favouring the "equal chances" version of the veil of ignorance on the grounds that it appears to treat the original position as an actual state rather than an hypothetical one. This is incorrect as we have seen. It is not a question of treating the original position as an "actual" state, it is rather one of specifying what assumptions are involved in the relative ways the thickness of the "veil" is presented as. The "equal chances" formula requires adoption of a particular conception of probability that is itself not neutral between principles to be considered and which is, further, thicker than Rawls' version of the "veil" in another way, in the way, that is, that it treats the persons in the contractual situation since it renders them mere vessels for utility maximisation. Thus there are two ways in which the "equal chances" view of the veil of ignorance is philosophically problematic: firstly, it assumes a form of probability assessment that is a covert introduction of the principle to be argued for and secondly it pictures the contracting parties in a way that is part of the general utilitarian conception of ignoring the separateness of persons.
Indeed returning to the way the path to the principle of average utility was earlier rendered by Rawls in section 27 of Theory shows that it was precisely by assuming these points that the principle was taken to be available for consideration in the first place. Rawls wrote there: "if we waive the problem of interpersonal conceptions of utility, and if the parties are viewed as rational individuals who have no aversion to risk and who follow the principle of insufficient reason in computing likelihoods....then the idea of the initial situation leads naturally to the average principle" (my emphasis). It is only by not following through that it is these controversial assumptions that support the advocacy of the principle of average utility under the "equal chances" view of the veil that Parfit can assume that the argument for the "equal chances" view of the veil is as good as that for the "no knowledge" view of the veil (which latter is, as we have seen, mis-named).
Parfit assumes that the two versions of the veil of ignorance are equal in their impartiality. In fact, however, they express two quite different conceptions of impartiality since the "equal chances" version of the veil of ignorance takes impartiality to imply that persons are treated rightly when they are viewed only in terms of interests and desires whilst the other version of the veil of ignorance takes it that there is more to people than this. So different conceptions of the person are related to different views of impartiality and the one that supports the "equal chances" formula is one that is framed to lead us to the principle of average utility and to its formula of "impartiality".
As a separate argument Parfit considers the claim that utilitarianism conflicts with our strongest moral beliefs and that this is a distinct argument for rejection of it and to favour Rawls' principles of justice. However, against this argument Parfit states that if we use the appeal to our beliefs to favour one of the versions of the veil of ignorance we cannot also use the veil to produce a rationale for these beliefs. This fails to grasp the point of the reference to the veil of ignorance and suggests some misunderstandings on Parfit's point of Rawls' procedure. The point of appeal to the veil of ignorance is to move away, as Parfit earlier recognised, from contingent features of existing situations in order that consideration of correct principles can be undertaken. Does this entail that there are no constraints involved in the choice of the principles in question? No: Rawls is explicit in appealing to the constraints of right in the situation. He incorporates such features as, for example, the publicity condition. The point is not that such conditions are equivalent to or presented as arguments for the principles of justice. It is rather that they provide us with a way in which the criteria for what would count as a preferable conception of justice can be specified. And if some account of a principle emerges which violates some of these conditions (which include what Rawls terms the "circumstances" of justice) then this is an argument against them.
The final argument that Parfit presents against the formula of the veil of ignorance Rawls has favoured returns to the reasons Rawls gives for taking the position of the worst off into particular account. Parfit formulates this as an argument that requires us to "maximise the minimum level" and thus terms it the "Maximin Argument". There is lack of specificity in terms of how Rawls understands the worst-off since there is no one specific way that definitely defines them and Parfit suggests that this group should be understood in egoistic terms despite the point that this offends against specific constraints of right on the grounds that Rawls mentions at one time a view of a "representative" person of this group which Parfit argues offends equally against specific constraints of right. However the key problem here is not so much how the group is to be defined as to understand how addressing their situation should be understood. Parfit typically takes it that we address their situation by means of application of a consequentialist process of welfare distribution whereas this is contrary to the point and process of the difference principle. The latter points not to welfare increments but instead to the conditions under which self-respect and the general primary goods (which include conditions of character formation) are to be enhanced. So the considerations Parfit applies to the "Maximin Argument" are of the wrong sort.
Finally Parfit looks at the Maximin Argument in terms of the selection of moral principles rather than in relation to principles of justice which means that the assessment of the argument is simply understood in a way that is not apt for it. One of the reasons why this odd element of Parfit's account of the Maximin Argument is followed appears to be due to an overall claim on Parfit's part that the difference between Rawslian reasoning and that of utilitarians is much less than first appears. A reason for this appears to be Rawls' remark in section 87 of Theory that, in the "initial situation", parties are not taken to have any particular ethical motivation but instead to decide solely on the basis of what seems best calculated "to further their interests" and this passage is meant to bolster the peculiar way Parfit understands the original position. The point here is one that Rawls is making about recognising the intuitive idea of rational prudential choice but Rawls immediately adds that the formal conditions on principles and the veil of ignorance mean that it necessarily also includes moral features and we have seen that his criticism of the average principle of utility further pointed to a conception of the persons involved in the contractual situation as having ends in addition to interests even though we did not know what they were. This passage therefore does not support Parfit's conception of the original position.
Sunday, 3 June 2012
Parfit, Rawls and Deliberative Rationality
The third of Parfit's 2002 Tanner Lectures concentrates specifically on contractualism and eventually becomes Chapters 15 and 16 of On What Matters. The discussion of contractualism in the 2002 lecture is effectively divided, however, into 2 distinct parts, the first of which first derives a reason for discussing Rawls' conception of contractualism and then presents a criticism of the view that it can provide us with a basis for determining the wrongness of acts. The second part of the lecture, by contrast, presents a case instead for what Parfit terms "Kant's contractualist formula", a notion the derivation of which at the close of the second lecture I traced in a previous posting. However the account of Rawls turns out itself to be divided into 2 parts with the first part considering Rawls' conception of rationality and the second his account of the veil of ignorance. In this posting I am going to concentrate only on the account of rationality and in subsequent postings I'll look at the discussion of the veil of ignorance and the account of "Kant's contractualist formula".
Parfit opens the third lecture by defining the basic notion of contractualism as offering an agreement on which moral principles we can accept. As Parfit puts it, this appears to imply what he terms the "Rational Agreement Formula" defined as stating that we ought to act on the principles to whose acceptance it would be rational for everyone to agree. However, notably Parfit immediately assumes a view of rational agreement as involving choices that would be "likely to be best" for those making the choice and whilst in a way that seems alright it does also seem to imply that the process of attaining agreement is defined by axiological criteria, something decidedly not neutral between different conceptions of rationality. Not only does this appear to be the case but Parfit further assumes that the parties coming to the contract are ones that have available to them extensive knowledge concerning their present position as it refers, for example, to different possible scales of understanding of what is best for one should one be rich as opposed to being poor.
The basic point of the agreement is defined as indicative of a general understanding that the world without an agreement is, in some important way, radically deficient so that there is a basic incentive to reach agreement. Parfit indicates that some theorists see this point about the preferability of the world with the agreement above the world without it as the "essence" of the contractualist position. This assumes that the outcome is to reach a mutually advantageous bargain and thus to view just or right principles as simply those that emerge from such a bargain rightly constructed. Parfit adds to this picture a complication when he points out that, given the assumption of general information being available as to one's present condition, it follows that some have more incentive than others to reach an agreement. Roughly, those who are worst off now are likely to be more desperate for an agreement than those who are currently doing reasonably well for themselves. So the latter might hold out for principles that would secure their special status rather than place it in the melting pot. This picture of the contractualist view is defended by contemporary Hobbesian theorists such as David Gauthier and explicitly repudiated by Rawls. Rawls puts the problem with this view clearly enough when he describes it as dependent on a conception of "each according to his threat advantage".
It is after setting the discussion up in this way that Parfit turns now to assessment of Rawls' version of contractualism. Parfit opens with an account of what he takes Rawls' assumptions concerning rationality to involve. Parfit indicates that Rawls accepts the Deliberative Theory of rationality according to which we ought rationally to do whatever would best achieve what we most want after informed deliberation. However Rawls is clear that he disentangles this conception from any reference to a Self-Interest Theory of rationality. In describing Rawls' view in this way Parfit is drawing on section 86 of A Theory of Justice (part of the final Chapter IX) where Rawls describes "rational choice" as involving the notion of deliberative rationality and as including the sense that it is better to act from the standpoint of justice above all else and even that it is rational to do so. When Rawls brings this point in to his discussion it is part of his description of acquiring a sense of justice that is "truly final and effective" so that justice has precedence over all else and is publicly so understood. However Parfit assumes that the theory of rationality in question with which Rawls is working is one that is, as Parfit puts it, "desire based" as followed also from his earlier account of deliberative rationality as concerned with we "most want" after informed deliberation. This view of Rawls' conception of rationality as based on desires is, I think, quite mistaken.
Rawls refers not to "desires" but to a conception of "primary goods" and he understands the latter to include, for example, such goods as respect and self-esteem, not terms that fit with standard empiricist models of "desire" to which a "desire based" theory belongs. It is not simply a case for Rawls of determining what we "most want" but rather an account of how "primary goods" that everyone is assumed to require can be savoured by all in a setting that guarantees security and justice for each. Rawls draws on a conception of persons as "free and equal rational beings" and devises a contractualist view that is meant to capture and further this sense of what persons are like. The reason why Parfit makes the mistake that he does here appears when he responds to the discussion of the agreement in section 86 of Theory. Parfit quotes this section to support the view that Rawls' theory of rationality is "desire based" as in this section Parfit takes Rawls to make an important admission. The admission, according to Parfit, is that there may be some people who would benefit from injustice and not care about morality and to such people we cannot honestly recommend justice as a virtue.
Now the passage to which Parfit points is one in which Rawls does not state simply the view that Parfit attributes to him. Rather, what Rawls does is mention the conception attributed to him by Parfit as arising from Philippa Foot, not as a conception that he endorses. The people in question that would deny caring about morality would be operating only according to a "thin" theory of the good and Rawls responds to Foot's point by asking whether it is correct to say that in the original position it is only apt to recommend people to act in terms that can be justified by the thin theory of the good alone. Rawls denies that the parties to the agreement are confined by such a condition and thus denies that the parties to the agreement are ones that find those who who don't think morality is a benefit are people who they should accommodate but this does not mean that reasons do not publicly exist as to why such people should nonetheless comply with the agreement that surpasses the thin theory of the good. The people who are denying that they take morality seriously are operating only with a general conception of egoism which Parfit has already acknowledged is not part of deliberative rationality for Rawls. The principles of right and justice are collectively rational and because they are it is in the general interest of all that all should comply with just arrangements. So if there are some who state that they don't find that it is in their nature to act morally then to them Rawls states one can answer both that this does not mean all the same that requirements of deliberative rationality don't apply to them (which provides a rational answer to them) and that "their nature is their misfortune" and not a ground for something being different.
So Rawls simply does not accept that there are some who have reasonable outstanding grounds for refusing to accept the constraints of right and justice and hence he does not rest his view of deliberative rationality on requirements motivated by an empiricist conception of desires. It also follows that there are ends that rationally people should accept for their own sake on Rawls' view, the ends that are expressed in primary goods and which are secured and furthered by recognition of their rational nature. Parfit makes similar mistakes when he assumes that Rawls' recognition of the "impartial spectator" model of rationality is part of a "desire based" view of reasons when, to the contrary, it is part of a problem Rawls has with the way such a model does not include a sufficiently robust view of motivation which is why Rawls writes in section 30 of Theory that: "The impartial spectator definition makes no assumptions from which the principles of right and justice may be derived" and, in this respect, it is quite unlike the contract doctrine that Rawls is defending. Parfit's criticisms of Rawls' general model of rationality are thus quite wrong-headed and seem to turn on the requirement that a conception of rationality that is not "desire based" has to be one that is consequentialist. Rawls' conception, however, is neither desire based nor consequentialist and Parfit has mis-represented it.
Parfit appears to partially recognise that he has not got Rawls' model right when he later argues that Rawls appears at times to make assumptions about well-being, something that Rawls does not do and which appears to be a confused recognition of the theory of primary goods. Parfit next discusses what he terms "Rawls' Formula" which is the formula of the veil of ignorance and the rest of Parfit's discussion of Rawls turns into an account of the veil of ignorance. I'll turn to this discussion in a subsequent posting.
Parfit opens the third lecture by defining the basic notion of contractualism as offering an agreement on which moral principles we can accept. As Parfit puts it, this appears to imply what he terms the "Rational Agreement Formula" defined as stating that we ought to act on the principles to whose acceptance it would be rational for everyone to agree. However, notably Parfit immediately assumes a view of rational agreement as involving choices that would be "likely to be best" for those making the choice and whilst in a way that seems alright it does also seem to imply that the process of attaining agreement is defined by axiological criteria, something decidedly not neutral between different conceptions of rationality. Not only does this appear to be the case but Parfit further assumes that the parties coming to the contract are ones that have available to them extensive knowledge concerning their present position as it refers, for example, to different possible scales of understanding of what is best for one should one be rich as opposed to being poor.
The basic point of the agreement is defined as indicative of a general understanding that the world without an agreement is, in some important way, radically deficient so that there is a basic incentive to reach agreement. Parfit indicates that some theorists see this point about the preferability of the world with the agreement above the world without it as the "essence" of the contractualist position. This assumes that the outcome is to reach a mutually advantageous bargain and thus to view just or right principles as simply those that emerge from such a bargain rightly constructed. Parfit adds to this picture a complication when he points out that, given the assumption of general information being available as to one's present condition, it follows that some have more incentive than others to reach an agreement. Roughly, those who are worst off now are likely to be more desperate for an agreement than those who are currently doing reasonably well for themselves. So the latter might hold out for principles that would secure their special status rather than place it in the melting pot. This picture of the contractualist view is defended by contemporary Hobbesian theorists such as David Gauthier and explicitly repudiated by Rawls. Rawls puts the problem with this view clearly enough when he describes it as dependent on a conception of "each according to his threat advantage".
It is after setting the discussion up in this way that Parfit turns now to assessment of Rawls' version of contractualism. Parfit opens with an account of what he takes Rawls' assumptions concerning rationality to involve. Parfit indicates that Rawls accepts the Deliberative Theory of rationality according to which we ought rationally to do whatever would best achieve what we most want after informed deliberation. However Rawls is clear that he disentangles this conception from any reference to a Self-Interest Theory of rationality. In describing Rawls' view in this way Parfit is drawing on section 86 of A Theory of Justice (part of the final Chapter IX) where Rawls describes "rational choice" as involving the notion of deliberative rationality and as including the sense that it is better to act from the standpoint of justice above all else and even that it is rational to do so. When Rawls brings this point in to his discussion it is part of his description of acquiring a sense of justice that is "truly final and effective" so that justice has precedence over all else and is publicly so understood. However Parfit assumes that the theory of rationality in question with which Rawls is working is one that is, as Parfit puts it, "desire based" as followed also from his earlier account of deliberative rationality as concerned with we "most want" after informed deliberation. This view of Rawls' conception of rationality as based on desires is, I think, quite mistaken.
Rawls refers not to "desires" but to a conception of "primary goods" and he understands the latter to include, for example, such goods as respect and self-esteem, not terms that fit with standard empiricist models of "desire" to which a "desire based" theory belongs. It is not simply a case for Rawls of determining what we "most want" but rather an account of how "primary goods" that everyone is assumed to require can be savoured by all in a setting that guarantees security and justice for each. Rawls draws on a conception of persons as "free and equal rational beings" and devises a contractualist view that is meant to capture and further this sense of what persons are like. The reason why Parfit makes the mistake that he does here appears when he responds to the discussion of the agreement in section 86 of Theory. Parfit quotes this section to support the view that Rawls' theory of rationality is "desire based" as in this section Parfit takes Rawls to make an important admission. The admission, according to Parfit, is that there may be some people who would benefit from injustice and not care about morality and to such people we cannot honestly recommend justice as a virtue.
Now the passage to which Parfit points is one in which Rawls does not state simply the view that Parfit attributes to him. Rather, what Rawls does is mention the conception attributed to him by Parfit as arising from Philippa Foot, not as a conception that he endorses. The people in question that would deny caring about morality would be operating only according to a "thin" theory of the good and Rawls responds to Foot's point by asking whether it is correct to say that in the original position it is only apt to recommend people to act in terms that can be justified by the thin theory of the good alone. Rawls denies that the parties to the agreement are confined by such a condition and thus denies that the parties to the agreement are ones that find those who who don't think morality is a benefit are people who they should accommodate but this does not mean that reasons do not publicly exist as to why such people should nonetheless comply with the agreement that surpasses the thin theory of the good. The people who are denying that they take morality seriously are operating only with a general conception of egoism which Parfit has already acknowledged is not part of deliberative rationality for Rawls. The principles of right and justice are collectively rational and because they are it is in the general interest of all that all should comply with just arrangements. So if there are some who state that they don't find that it is in their nature to act morally then to them Rawls states one can answer both that this does not mean all the same that requirements of deliberative rationality don't apply to them (which provides a rational answer to them) and that "their nature is their misfortune" and not a ground for something being different.
So Rawls simply does not accept that there are some who have reasonable outstanding grounds for refusing to accept the constraints of right and justice and hence he does not rest his view of deliberative rationality on requirements motivated by an empiricist conception of desires. It also follows that there are ends that rationally people should accept for their own sake on Rawls' view, the ends that are expressed in primary goods and which are secured and furthered by recognition of their rational nature. Parfit makes similar mistakes when he assumes that Rawls' recognition of the "impartial spectator" model of rationality is part of a "desire based" view of reasons when, to the contrary, it is part of a problem Rawls has with the way such a model does not include a sufficiently robust view of motivation which is why Rawls writes in section 30 of Theory that: "The impartial spectator definition makes no assumptions from which the principles of right and justice may be derived" and, in this respect, it is quite unlike the contract doctrine that Rawls is defending. Parfit's criticisms of Rawls' general model of rationality are thus quite wrong-headed and seem to turn on the requirement that a conception of rationality that is not "desire based" has to be one that is consequentialist. Rawls' conception, however, is neither desire based nor consequentialist and Parfit has mis-represented it.
Parfit appears to partially recognise that he has not got Rawls' model right when he later argues that Rawls appears at times to make assumptions about well-being, something that Rawls does not do and which appears to be a confused recognition of the theory of primary goods. Parfit next discusses what he terms "Rawls' Formula" which is the formula of the veil of ignorance and the rest of Parfit's discussion of Rawls turns into an account of the veil of ignorance. I'll turn to this discussion in a subsequent posting.
Friday, 1 June 2012
Parfit and Kant's "Contractualist Formula"
The third of Parfit's 2002 lectures concerns contractualism and involves an extended discussion of what he calls Kant's "contractualist formula". Since the formula in question is not one that Kant himself specifically states and since Parfit's derivation of this formula occurs in the concluding part of the second of the 2002 lectures it is necessary to return to this derivation before the argument of the third lecture can be considered. This is what I will do in this posting, which is devoted only to uncovering the argument by which Parfit arrives at and justifies this formula.
In the final section of the second 2002 lecture Parfit turns to the question of whether, in the course of this lecture, he can be said to have misinterpreted Kant's understanding of universal law. Whilst considering this possible objection Parfit points to the way in which Kant discusses, in the case of beneficence, the application of the law of nature formula by means of appeal not to what "everyone" could will but rather to the nature of the specific person's willing. Parfit also rejects the view that Kant's universal law test should be seen in terms of Rawlsian notions of the veil of ignorance. Parfit presents both Scanlon and Rawls as offering not interpretations of Kantian notions of universal law but as instead providing ways of revising it. This leads to Parfit presenting a complicated diagram of possible ways the universal law formula could be understood. Prominent amongst the possible understandings for Parfit is the treatment given by Scanlon which leads Scanlon to state that an act is wrong "unless everyone could rationally will that everyone acts in this way".
However whilst Parfit is favourably impressed by Scanlon's formula he does not leave the matter there. Scanlon's formula is one that Parfit thinks is impartial but that it goes further than we have to since some acts are right without being ones that everyone could perform. This leads Parfit to revising Scanlon's formula so that it becomes, as Parfit terms it, the "formula of universally willed acts" which states: "an act is wrong unless it could be rationally willed by everyone". This formula is now understood to be equivalent to the first half of the Formula of Humanity on Parfit's construal of the latter, which he has earlier termed "the Consent Principle". On the basis of this we treat people only in ways that they could rationally consent to. The wider formula of this that has become the formula of universally willed acts now adds that an act is wrong unless everyone, if they had the choice, could rationally choose the act in question as one that would be done.
However despite the argument having thus given us a formula that is at least loosely related to something Kant said Parfit is not finished yet. Parfit had earlier invoked the quite different standard that he termed Kant's "moral belief" formula which involved stating that an act is wrong unless we could rationally will it to be true that everyone believed it was permissible. This formula introduces a lot of complicated epistemic issues that Parfit does not really discuss but at this point all he does is argue that the so-called "moral belief" formula is one that can be converted into Scanlonian terms so that it becomes a claim to the effect that an act is wrong unless everyone could rationally will it to be true that everyone believed such acts permissible. This version of the "moral belief" formula interprets the claim about belief in a better way in a sense since it is no longer merely a claim about a given person's belief states and this is surely preferable as otherwise we seem mired in subjectivism. This version of the moral belief claim is meant to be understood as a way of addressing the problem of what general principles of action we could all will.
Not only is the Scanlonian notion of moral belief a reply to a genuine Kantian question it also has the advantage, according to Parfit, of being suggested by Kant's formulas of autonomy and the realm of ends. The point about the formula of autonomy is that it involves a claim about rational beings giving themselves universal law through the maxims of their will. The understanding of this that Parfit wishes to champion is in terms of the Scanlonian version of "moral belief". The Scanlonian version is also termed by Parfit a "formula of universally willed moral beliefs" but it is shortened and given the name "Kant's Contractualist Formula" so that it becomes: "we ought to act on the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will". Parfit concludes the second lecture by contrasting this formula with a Rawlsian formula that involves, instead, reference to choice under conditions where we know nothing about the circumstances of others. The contrast between these formulas will motivate the structure of the third 2002 lecture. I am making no comment here on the argument Parfit has given as I wanted merely to draw it out as the basis on which the formula that Parfit consistently in the third lecture refers to as "Kant's" formula, despite not being stated anywhere by Kant, is arrived at.
In the final section of the second 2002 lecture Parfit turns to the question of whether, in the course of this lecture, he can be said to have misinterpreted Kant's understanding of universal law. Whilst considering this possible objection Parfit points to the way in which Kant discusses, in the case of beneficence, the application of the law of nature formula by means of appeal not to what "everyone" could will but rather to the nature of the specific person's willing. Parfit also rejects the view that Kant's universal law test should be seen in terms of Rawlsian notions of the veil of ignorance. Parfit presents both Scanlon and Rawls as offering not interpretations of Kantian notions of universal law but as instead providing ways of revising it. This leads to Parfit presenting a complicated diagram of possible ways the universal law formula could be understood. Prominent amongst the possible understandings for Parfit is the treatment given by Scanlon which leads Scanlon to state that an act is wrong "unless everyone could rationally will that everyone acts in this way".
However whilst Parfit is favourably impressed by Scanlon's formula he does not leave the matter there. Scanlon's formula is one that Parfit thinks is impartial but that it goes further than we have to since some acts are right without being ones that everyone could perform. This leads Parfit to revising Scanlon's formula so that it becomes, as Parfit terms it, the "formula of universally willed acts" which states: "an act is wrong unless it could be rationally willed by everyone". This formula is now understood to be equivalent to the first half of the Formula of Humanity on Parfit's construal of the latter, which he has earlier termed "the Consent Principle". On the basis of this we treat people only in ways that they could rationally consent to. The wider formula of this that has become the formula of universally willed acts now adds that an act is wrong unless everyone, if they had the choice, could rationally choose the act in question as one that would be done.
However despite the argument having thus given us a formula that is at least loosely related to something Kant said Parfit is not finished yet. Parfit had earlier invoked the quite different standard that he termed Kant's "moral belief" formula which involved stating that an act is wrong unless we could rationally will it to be true that everyone believed it was permissible. This formula introduces a lot of complicated epistemic issues that Parfit does not really discuss but at this point all he does is argue that the so-called "moral belief" formula is one that can be converted into Scanlonian terms so that it becomes a claim to the effect that an act is wrong unless everyone could rationally will it to be true that everyone believed such acts permissible. This version of the "moral belief" formula interprets the claim about belief in a better way in a sense since it is no longer merely a claim about a given person's belief states and this is surely preferable as otherwise we seem mired in subjectivism. This version of the moral belief claim is meant to be understood as a way of addressing the problem of what general principles of action we could all will.
Not only is the Scanlonian notion of moral belief a reply to a genuine Kantian question it also has the advantage, according to Parfit, of being suggested by Kant's formulas of autonomy and the realm of ends. The point about the formula of autonomy is that it involves a claim about rational beings giving themselves universal law through the maxims of their will. The understanding of this that Parfit wishes to champion is in terms of the Scanlonian version of "moral belief". The Scanlonian version is also termed by Parfit a "formula of universally willed moral beliefs" but it is shortened and given the name "Kant's Contractualist Formula" so that it becomes: "we ought to act on the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will". Parfit concludes the second lecture by contrasting this formula with a Rawlsian formula that involves, instead, reference to choice under conditions where we know nothing about the circumstances of others. The contrast between these formulas will motivate the structure of the third 2002 lecture. I am making no comment here on the argument Parfit has given as I wanted merely to draw it out as the basis on which the formula that Parfit consistently in the third lecture refers to as "Kant's" formula, despite not being stated anywhere by Kant, is arrived at.
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
O'Neill and Kant on Rational Willing
In a piece originally published in 1985 and reprinted in Paul Guyer's edited collection on the Groundwork Onora O'Neill discusses the understanding of consistent willing that Kant offers with his idea of willing universal laws. It's worth going through the general argument of this piece again, not least since it stands as a corrective against views that, due to the influence of Derek Parfit, are once again current concerning the categorical imperative.
O'Neill opens the piece by pointing out that there is a tendency to discuss universality tests in terms of what everybody or somebody wants done either by or to everyone. Due to understanding what wants done in terms of what happens to be contingently wanted this way of presenting universality tests ensures that they are seen in heteronomous fashion. Kant's own view of universality testing makes no reference either to want everyone wants done or to what somebody wants done either by or to everybody. This is why the Formula of Universal Law (FUL) reads simply: "Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law" (Ak. 4: 421). So, as O'Neill puts this, we are invited here to consider that we can will only that which it is possible or consistent to will as a universal law and no reference is made to what we would will or would find acceptable or would want. So Kant's formulation does not match those that are often given. This is why Kant is taken by O'Neill to have what she terms "an uncompromisingly rationalist foundation for ethics". I'd have to parse this notion of "rationalism" a little myself but it is, I think, clear that what O'Neill means here is that the formulation is one that moves away from desire/inclination models entirely and that this is what is distinctive about it.
Now, one of the reasons why universal law tests tend to import heteronomous elements in their discussion is to avoid charges of triviality or emptiness (as the shadow of Hegel falls over most discussion of universal law tests). Substantive conclusions are generally thought not to be available from formal tests alone. O'Neill's piece sets out to show why this view is problematic and thus to offer a basis for viewing formal universality testing of a Kantian sort as capable of responding to the challenge of providing substantive conclusions.
The first step in O'Neill's reconstruction is to bring out that there are two aspects to how the Kantian universality test is to go and in describing these she brings out how FUL proposes to us two points. Firstly, FUL indicates reference to action on a maxim. Secondly, it restricts the types of maxim we can appeal to by reference to the capability of a maxim being one that can become a universal law. So the two elements of working out how to understand what "action on a maxim" means and how the restriction of maxims to conditions of universality is to work have to distinguished in order for the test to be understood in its complexity.
So O'Neill's analysis opens with an account of what "acting on a maxim" involves and follows Kant's basic statements of "maxims" as being "subjective principles" of action (Ak. 4: 421n). Such a point is not meant by Kant to suggest that they are "subjective" in the sense of being purely arbitrary or having any content whatsoever. Maxims are not only constrained in their form in ways we'll look at in a moment but they are also available generally in the sense that any number of agents could adopt them, they could be adopted at different times and places and refer to apparently very different actions. However, it is also the case that whilst Kant discusses action through his conception of "maxims" that it is no part of the Kantian conception to think of "maxims" as being consciously referred to always. But in a given situation there are involved in the description of the "maxim" of action references to the agent, the act and the situation itself.
Maxims are not (pace Parfit) the same thing as "intentions", not least because "intentions" include many details that are not relevant to the consideration of maxims. Maxims are, rather, the underlying principles that guide specific "intentions" as O'Neill puts this. I'll formulate this point slightly differently to how O'Neill does but, I think, in conformity with the general thrust of her view. On my account, a maxim can be understood in general terms as formulating a kind of aim we have, one that exists whether it is consciously at work for us at various times or not and which forms the context in which we develop specific policies that are expressed in given specific actions. This understanding of maxims as stating aims is important although it does mean that it is not always transparent, simply from observing someone's actions, what maxim they are following. Nor might an agent always be able to answer if we pressed them as to their maxim since it is possible the general aim of their action was not at that given point before them even though the understanding of it as a background condition is what really made sense of their action. So we infer them as a result of understanding not specific actions in isolation but by connecting specific actions together in view of the policies involved in them in order to arrive at a sense of the basic aim in view.
Now part of O'Neill's point in this article is to use this argument to distance Kant from a general understanding of universality tests that frames the way they are put by reference to heteronomous considerations. The point here is that universality tests tend to be seen through the prism, as O'Neill puts it, of "categories of right". Rightness and wrongness are then seen primarily in terms of appraisal of outward actions. On O'Neill's account, however, this is not the prime point of using the categorical imperative in a universality test with regard to maxims. Rather than this being the point the basic question the categorical imperative is being used to put is whether the aim with which we propose to act is consistently universalizable. If this is the point of the test then it follows that what we want to know when we apply it is whether acting on this maxim will produce an act that is morally worthy and this is the way we can tell whether or not the act is one that conforms to duty. So duty is comprehended through the question of moral worth and not the other way around on O'Neill's view.
This key point distances the understanding of the point of the categorical imperative's universality test away from understanding of outward actions towards moral worth with moral worth now emerging not as something that is merely bound by duty but rather as the central case of duty. Understanding of outward appraisal of actions would, by contrast, be derivative of this. Putting matters this way shows that the understanding of what "action on a maxim" involves is not a trivial part of the process of constructing the universality test.
A result of seeing the Kantian universality test in this way is that the general objections to universality testing that are posed by many can be seen to be faulty. So, for example, the basic problem of "maxim-fiddling" that is formulated to show that any act can pass the universality test arises because it is taken to be the point of the test to appraise outward actions and to see whether if the actions in question were performed by others a contradiction would arise. By contrast, on O'Neill's construction, the outward actions are not the primary point of the test. Another way that counter-examples tend to get presented is through focus on specific policies as the target of maxim testing rather than underlying aims, a basic failure to get the point of the reference to maxims.
The first point of the process is thus to identify maxims as aims of actions and to evaluate policies by reference to aims. It is only a secondary part of the process to appraise outward actions. A major plus of this reading is that it brings the first two parts of the Groundwork closer together than they are often seen as. The account of moral worth in the first part of the Groundwork is frequently seen as if it had little to do with the account of the categorical imperative in the second part whereas O'Neill's view leads us to seeing the categorical imperative instead through the prism of moral worth. It is thus the consequence of her argument that we should basically apply the universality test to our own aims of action as it is we who are adopting maxims.
The second part of the process opens now we have an account of what "acting on a maxim" involves. This second part requires testing the maxim in terms of its consistency with universality. O'Neill famously formulates two types of inconsistency: one within an agent's maxim (contradiction in conception) and one between either the different policies that follow from the aim or between the policies and the aim (contradiction in the will). The first type is here termed by O'Neill conceptual inconsistency and the second type volitional inconsistency. There are different ways that maxims can express either of these types of inconsistency.
The most basic way a maxim can be inconsistent is by expressing an aspiration which is, for some reason, impossible. This is so if, for instance, it involves mutually incompatible aspirations. This would prevent action on the underlying maxim from being possible and would point to the emergence of action that is seriously disjointed as a consequence. However, the point of my distinction between policies and aims comes out clearly when we consider how O'Neill formulates this point: "A non-universalisable maxim embodies a conceptual contradiction only if it aims at achieving mutually incompatible objectives and so cannot under any circumstances be acted on with success". It is clear that the underlying aim is the problem here and this is what a maxim is basically concerned with. The policies come into conflict with themselves as they are part of an aim that is intrinsically impossible to realise.
Maxims are principles of action in that they give us principles that we aim to realise and this aim is what is meant by saying that we have willed the maxim. The conceptual contradiction emerges when the willing in question incorporates something in its aim that is not possible. The more interesting case, in many respects, however, concerns volitional inconsistency. It is with regard to it that O'Neill is led to an account of rational action that is particularly rich. Kant describes hypothetical imperatives as involving a kind of analytic connection between means and end assuming that reason has decisive influence on action. O'Neill terms this the Principle of Hypothetical Imperatives (PHI) and says that it means that agents "intend any indispensable requirements" for the achievement of their aims. However, whilst Kant's text in the second part of the Groundwork appears to rest with this point, O'Neill articulates a broader view of rational aiming (called by her rational intending but I think this is misleading). The broader account leads to her setting alongside the PHI a list that is unlikely to be complete but which extends the general discussion of rational volition further.
Included amongst O'Neill's family of principles of rational aiming are the following: a) a requirement of rationality to direct policies that are not merely concerned with indispensable or necessary means (as with the PHI) but also with sufficient means for achieving the aim; b) adding to sufficient means the seeking of such means when they are not available; c) including in one's policies all necessary and sufficient components of what is aimed at; d) ensuring that specific policies are mutually consistent; e) ensuring that the foreseeable results of specific policies do not conflict with the underlying aim.
O'Neill understands the point of the family of principles as one of bringing together what she calls "surface and underlying intentions" but which I would term bringing together policies and aims. Policies must express commitment to acts that provide either the means to or components of aims and must not undercut the aims. The fact that the policy not undercut the aim is central here and points to a basic standard of action.
Having clarified this point O'Neill returns now to the universality test and states that her view is that the basic intuition expressed in it is a non-egoistic one of not singling ourselves out for special consideration or treatment. This is clear when Kant talks about how we often "make exceptions" of ourselves when we attempt to formulate maxims and O'Neill understands this point to mean that FUL includes in its basic reference a notion of a plurality of interacting agents. The consideration of maxims is one in which we are understanding ourselves to adopt a maxim that meets the condition of being able to be adopted by others and maxims, as we will see in a moment, often are concerned with relations to others.
Now when the universalisation of maxims is presented in the Groundwork Kant moves from FUL to the Law of Nature formula and after referring to the latter he states the two types of inconsistency (Ak. 4: 424). Contradictions in conception often would not involve a contradiction if we did not attempt to universalise them so it is the process of putting them to the test of universality that reveals the problem with them. A clear case of this occurring is with maxims of deception which involve no incoherence so long as they are not universalised but which do when they are. With regard to the examples of contradiction in conception the distinction between aims and policies is particularly important.
Maxims that lead to volitional inconsistency state no manifest incoherence even when universalised. So what they conflict with is one of the family of principles of rational volition that O'Neill spoke of earlier. The most obvious case is where they conflict with PHI which Kant takes to apply to the case of non-beneficence. The maxim of neglect of talents, by contrast, is one that O'Neill thinks contravenes not merely PHI but also the second requirement of adoption of sufficient means for realisation of aims. And she has similar arguments that invoke her criteria of rational action with regard to other types of maxims. The point of the cases of contradiction of the will is that they show that a number of maxims require, for their realisation, stable relations with others as a necessary condition. The general argument thus shows that a Kantian argument for a universality test that is grounded on considerations of formal consistency and rationality can ground substantive requirements without needing to refer to notions of desire and preference.
O'Neill opens the piece by pointing out that there is a tendency to discuss universality tests in terms of what everybody or somebody wants done either by or to everyone. Due to understanding what wants done in terms of what happens to be contingently wanted this way of presenting universality tests ensures that they are seen in heteronomous fashion. Kant's own view of universality testing makes no reference either to want everyone wants done or to what somebody wants done either by or to everybody. This is why the Formula of Universal Law (FUL) reads simply: "Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law" (Ak. 4: 421). So, as O'Neill puts this, we are invited here to consider that we can will only that which it is possible or consistent to will as a universal law and no reference is made to what we would will or would find acceptable or would want. So Kant's formulation does not match those that are often given. This is why Kant is taken by O'Neill to have what she terms "an uncompromisingly rationalist foundation for ethics". I'd have to parse this notion of "rationalism" a little myself but it is, I think, clear that what O'Neill means here is that the formulation is one that moves away from desire/inclination models entirely and that this is what is distinctive about it.
Now, one of the reasons why universal law tests tend to import heteronomous elements in their discussion is to avoid charges of triviality or emptiness (as the shadow of Hegel falls over most discussion of universal law tests). Substantive conclusions are generally thought not to be available from formal tests alone. O'Neill's piece sets out to show why this view is problematic and thus to offer a basis for viewing formal universality testing of a Kantian sort as capable of responding to the challenge of providing substantive conclusions.
The first step in O'Neill's reconstruction is to bring out that there are two aspects to how the Kantian universality test is to go and in describing these she brings out how FUL proposes to us two points. Firstly, FUL indicates reference to action on a maxim. Secondly, it restricts the types of maxim we can appeal to by reference to the capability of a maxim being one that can become a universal law. So the two elements of working out how to understand what "action on a maxim" means and how the restriction of maxims to conditions of universality is to work have to distinguished in order for the test to be understood in its complexity.
So O'Neill's analysis opens with an account of what "acting on a maxim" involves and follows Kant's basic statements of "maxims" as being "subjective principles" of action (Ak. 4: 421n). Such a point is not meant by Kant to suggest that they are "subjective" in the sense of being purely arbitrary or having any content whatsoever. Maxims are not only constrained in their form in ways we'll look at in a moment but they are also available generally in the sense that any number of agents could adopt them, they could be adopted at different times and places and refer to apparently very different actions. However, it is also the case that whilst Kant discusses action through his conception of "maxims" that it is no part of the Kantian conception to think of "maxims" as being consciously referred to always. But in a given situation there are involved in the description of the "maxim" of action references to the agent, the act and the situation itself.
Maxims are not (pace Parfit) the same thing as "intentions", not least because "intentions" include many details that are not relevant to the consideration of maxims. Maxims are, rather, the underlying principles that guide specific "intentions" as O'Neill puts this. I'll formulate this point slightly differently to how O'Neill does but, I think, in conformity with the general thrust of her view. On my account, a maxim can be understood in general terms as formulating a kind of aim we have, one that exists whether it is consciously at work for us at various times or not and which forms the context in which we develop specific policies that are expressed in given specific actions. This understanding of maxims as stating aims is important although it does mean that it is not always transparent, simply from observing someone's actions, what maxim they are following. Nor might an agent always be able to answer if we pressed them as to their maxim since it is possible the general aim of their action was not at that given point before them even though the understanding of it as a background condition is what really made sense of their action. So we infer them as a result of understanding not specific actions in isolation but by connecting specific actions together in view of the policies involved in them in order to arrive at a sense of the basic aim in view.
Now part of O'Neill's point in this article is to use this argument to distance Kant from a general understanding of universality tests that frames the way they are put by reference to heteronomous considerations. The point here is that universality tests tend to be seen through the prism, as O'Neill puts it, of "categories of right". Rightness and wrongness are then seen primarily in terms of appraisal of outward actions. On O'Neill's account, however, this is not the prime point of using the categorical imperative in a universality test with regard to maxims. Rather than this being the point the basic question the categorical imperative is being used to put is whether the aim with which we propose to act is consistently universalizable. If this is the point of the test then it follows that what we want to know when we apply it is whether acting on this maxim will produce an act that is morally worthy and this is the way we can tell whether or not the act is one that conforms to duty. So duty is comprehended through the question of moral worth and not the other way around on O'Neill's view.
This key point distances the understanding of the point of the categorical imperative's universality test away from understanding of outward actions towards moral worth with moral worth now emerging not as something that is merely bound by duty but rather as the central case of duty. Understanding of outward appraisal of actions would, by contrast, be derivative of this. Putting matters this way shows that the understanding of what "action on a maxim" involves is not a trivial part of the process of constructing the universality test.
A result of seeing the Kantian universality test in this way is that the general objections to universality testing that are posed by many can be seen to be faulty. So, for example, the basic problem of "maxim-fiddling" that is formulated to show that any act can pass the universality test arises because it is taken to be the point of the test to appraise outward actions and to see whether if the actions in question were performed by others a contradiction would arise. By contrast, on O'Neill's construction, the outward actions are not the primary point of the test. Another way that counter-examples tend to get presented is through focus on specific policies as the target of maxim testing rather than underlying aims, a basic failure to get the point of the reference to maxims.
The first point of the process is thus to identify maxims as aims of actions and to evaluate policies by reference to aims. It is only a secondary part of the process to appraise outward actions. A major plus of this reading is that it brings the first two parts of the Groundwork closer together than they are often seen as. The account of moral worth in the first part of the Groundwork is frequently seen as if it had little to do with the account of the categorical imperative in the second part whereas O'Neill's view leads us to seeing the categorical imperative instead through the prism of moral worth. It is thus the consequence of her argument that we should basically apply the universality test to our own aims of action as it is we who are adopting maxims.
The second part of the process opens now we have an account of what "acting on a maxim" involves. This second part requires testing the maxim in terms of its consistency with universality. O'Neill famously formulates two types of inconsistency: one within an agent's maxim (contradiction in conception) and one between either the different policies that follow from the aim or between the policies and the aim (contradiction in the will). The first type is here termed by O'Neill conceptual inconsistency and the second type volitional inconsistency. There are different ways that maxims can express either of these types of inconsistency.
The most basic way a maxim can be inconsistent is by expressing an aspiration which is, for some reason, impossible. This is so if, for instance, it involves mutually incompatible aspirations. This would prevent action on the underlying maxim from being possible and would point to the emergence of action that is seriously disjointed as a consequence. However, the point of my distinction between policies and aims comes out clearly when we consider how O'Neill formulates this point: "A non-universalisable maxim embodies a conceptual contradiction only if it aims at achieving mutually incompatible objectives and so cannot under any circumstances be acted on with success". It is clear that the underlying aim is the problem here and this is what a maxim is basically concerned with. The policies come into conflict with themselves as they are part of an aim that is intrinsically impossible to realise.
Maxims are principles of action in that they give us principles that we aim to realise and this aim is what is meant by saying that we have willed the maxim. The conceptual contradiction emerges when the willing in question incorporates something in its aim that is not possible. The more interesting case, in many respects, however, concerns volitional inconsistency. It is with regard to it that O'Neill is led to an account of rational action that is particularly rich. Kant describes hypothetical imperatives as involving a kind of analytic connection between means and end assuming that reason has decisive influence on action. O'Neill terms this the Principle of Hypothetical Imperatives (PHI) and says that it means that agents "intend any indispensable requirements" for the achievement of their aims. However, whilst Kant's text in the second part of the Groundwork appears to rest with this point, O'Neill articulates a broader view of rational aiming (called by her rational intending but I think this is misleading). The broader account leads to her setting alongside the PHI a list that is unlikely to be complete but which extends the general discussion of rational volition further.
Included amongst O'Neill's family of principles of rational aiming are the following: a) a requirement of rationality to direct policies that are not merely concerned with indispensable or necessary means (as with the PHI) but also with sufficient means for achieving the aim; b) adding to sufficient means the seeking of such means when they are not available; c) including in one's policies all necessary and sufficient components of what is aimed at; d) ensuring that specific policies are mutually consistent; e) ensuring that the foreseeable results of specific policies do not conflict with the underlying aim.
O'Neill understands the point of the family of principles as one of bringing together what she calls "surface and underlying intentions" but which I would term bringing together policies and aims. Policies must express commitment to acts that provide either the means to or components of aims and must not undercut the aims. The fact that the policy not undercut the aim is central here and points to a basic standard of action.
Having clarified this point O'Neill returns now to the universality test and states that her view is that the basic intuition expressed in it is a non-egoistic one of not singling ourselves out for special consideration or treatment. This is clear when Kant talks about how we often "make exceptions" of ourselves when we attempt to formulate maxims and O'Neill understands this point to mean that FUL includes in its basic reference a notion of a plurality of interacting agents. The consideration of maxims is one in which we are understanding ourselves to adopt a maxim that meets the condition of being able to be adopted by others and maxims, as we will see in a moment, often are concerned with relations to others.
Now when the universalisation of maxims is presented in the Groundwork Kant moves from FUL to the Law of Nature formula and after referring to the latter he states the two types of inconsistency (Ak. 4: 424). Contradictions in conception often would not involve a contradiction if we did not attempt to universalise them so it is the process of putting them to the test of universality that reveals the problem with them. A clear case of this occurring is with maxims of deception which involve no incoherence so long as they are not universalised but which do when they are. With regard to the examples of contradiction in conception the distinction between aims and policies is particularly important.
Maxims that lead to volitional inconsistency state no manifest incoherence even when universalised. So what they conflict with is one of the family of principles of rational volition that O'Neill spoke of earlier. The most obvious case is where they conflict with PHI which Kant takes to apply to the case of non-beneficence. The maxim of neglect of talents, by contrast, is one that O'Neill thinks contravenes not merely PHI but also the second requirement of adoption of sufficient means for realisation of aims. And she has similar arguments that invoke her criteria of rational action with regard to other types of maxims. The point of the cases of contradiction of the will is that they show that a number of maxims require, for their realisation, stable relations with others as a necessary condition. The general argument thus shows that a Kantian argument for a universality test that is grounded on considerations of formal consistency and rationality can ground substantive requirements without needing to refer to notions of desire and preference.
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