Rawls on Hedonism and Social Choice

Sections 83-5 of A Theory of Justice present the culminating consideration of the problems Rawls takes to afflict teleological theories of practical reason, at least when these theories tend towards hedonistic formulation. The reasons for viewing teleological theories in terms of the convergence upon hedonism are made clear within this discussion, a discussion that draws upon Rawls' earlier account of practical reason and which culminates in a basic set of reasons for thinking of social choice in the manner favoured by his own contract doctrine. In this posting I will go through the argument of these sections in order to show how the point of them is to defend and further articulate the grounds for the methodological choice of giving the right priority over the good.


Section 83 opens by stating that the general theme Rawls wishes to approach is one that he is going to deal with in an apparently roundabout way. The general theme with which he is concerned has to do with the way that just institutions frame the choice of rational plans and enable the incorporation of recognition of different conceptions of the good. In order to show this the roundabout argument has to deal with the reasons why a different methodological approach within normative theory has been preferred, the one that bases itself upon hedonism. The point, though Rawls is not here explicit about this, is to demonstrate that the flaws in the hedonistic approach provide in their turn a form of indirect argument for his own view.


In approaching the topic of hedonism Rawls begins with a discussion of a general picture of what is meant by describing someone as "happy". Rawls' earlier account of practical reason involved the notion of a "rational plan" that, if drawn up and executed under favourable conditions, can be mainly successfully executed. Essentially if a rational plan is one that is capable of going well and we have good reason to think this will continue then we can be said to be "happy". This entails that the notion of happiness includes both the plan itself as something whose success is capable of being understood by others in addition to the one who has adopted it and the states of mind of the one who is attempting to carry the plan out. So there can be views of happiness that stress one of these two elements more than the other (a division, we could say, between "objective" and "subjective" views of happiness). In terms of Rawls' own view the original position was understood to be governed by the general condition that the parties within it were ones who had true views and so the subjective and objective components of happiness would be taken to broadly coincide.


Rawls next looks at other elements of the notion of happiness as indicated by philosophers who have addressed it. So Aristotle, for example, describes happiness as something chosen for its own sake. This is not meant to rule out the view that a rational plan has sub-parts that are chosen for more or less instrumental reasons in regard to the master goal. But the whole plan would, so to speak, have the property Aristotle describes as being central to happiness. So the activity of following the plan would appear to be self-contained. Happiness is also self-sufficient in the sense that no reasons additional are required for adoption of it as a goal. This also can be translated into the view that some people have special standing in how they have succeeded in living happy lives, a standing that is as important if not more important than the basic claim for happiness itself. 


Now one wrinkle that emerges at this point is that, even assuming that the general account of happiness in terms of rational plans is an adequate one, there is a mis-match between following the plan and "pursuing" happiness. Even if following the plan and having things go well is the basic way we are going to understand the meaning of what it is to be "happy" it does not follow that in following the plan we are thereby "pursuing" happiness. One reason for this point is that happiness is not itself an aim in following the plan as following the plan is undertaken with the aim of achieving its goals, not of becoming happy. Happiness is not something separable from following the plan, it is not a specific goal of it either. Further, if we assume that following the rational plan is something we do under the constraints of right that define the original position we can also see the structural parallel between the way Rawls has here discussed "happiness" and Kant's general claim that happiness is something we have to be "worthy" of. It is the constraints of right that define what we could choose as generic goals that would meet the standards of justice, as, for Kant, it was the setting of material aims within formal constraints that determined worthiness to be happy.


Given these constraints, as specified by the original position, there can be seen to be a place for happiness in Rawls' own theory but it is a clearly subordinate one in the same way as it is for Kant. Secondly, the pursuit of happiness is something that is understood through the prism of the rational plan as really involving the pursuit of some end that is itself taken to provide the basic orientational rationale of the plan and happiness in a way then drops out of consideration. At this point, however, we may now ask a question that will allow us to begin to move towards considering what pulls people towards hedonistic views of motivation. The first step arises when we ask the question of how to choose among plans in a rational way. Rawls' own view is that essentially this requires recourse to deliberative rationality in terms of principles of rational choice. However, we could take an alternative route and analyse our aims. There appears to be a problem when we do this since there is at least an element of what we might term "purely preferential choice" where it is not at all obvious why we should choose some things over others.


If there is no ready standard of comparison between aims and aims conflict, as they often do, we may feel the need for a more objective standard to appeal to, moving us from a subjective to an objective view of deliberation. The simplest way to specify this will take us directly towards the standpoint of hedonism as the simplest way is to take there to be what Rawls terms "a single dominant end". Assuming such an end exists then all subordinate ends will be able to be related to this in more or less direct ways by means of counting principles. And then deliberative rationality would turn out to be a sophisticated process of instrumental reasoning in which there is general convergence. 


Such a view of deliberative rationality in terms of dominant ends would aim to provide a method of choice that can always be followed in order to make rational decisions. So it would be a process of deliberation that would include a first-person procedure that was generally applicable and guaranteed to lead to the best (most optimal) result. Now the next question concerns what the dominant end would have to consist in. Given what we have uncovered about the structure of rational plans it would be odd to make happiness itself the dominant end since, as we have seen, happiness is attained by achieving aims set into an overall rational plan and is not itself an independent aim separable from the plan itself. This is why Rawls terms happiness not a dominant end but rather an "inclusive" one in the sense that the whole plan specifies what it would be to attain the desired state of happiness. 


If happiness does not itself appear the likely dominant end then even less fitting for such a role is a personal objective such as attaining power since any given purely personal objective such as this would surely have to modified by reference to generally accepted common sense standards of morality to have any appearance of sanity. As an example of failure to meet such a standard Rawls refers to the ways that Ignatius Loyola and Thomas Aquinas appear to present impersonal conceptions of goodness that fail to meet the standards of reference to common sense. If such views are, as Rawls, claims, "extreme" then the question arises as to how their extremity is arrived at. Rawls indicates that it occurs by means of the dominant end adopted in such cases being vague and ambiguous. Human goods are basically heterogeneous and there is something about adopting a homogeneous view of the good that is standardly distorting of the structure of aspiration. This strikes us as crazy and as disfiguring the self.


Now the doctrine of hedonism strictly speaking is defined by Rawls in a non-standard way as an attempt to provide a sustainable treatment of a dominant-end conception of deliberation. As we have seen so far the convergence upon the notion of a dominant-end is meant to provide a way of resolving the indeterminacy of choice by providing an objective standard for it. The dominant end provides the overall means of assessing standards. Now if we additionally assume that pleasure is just agreeable feeling and sensation the dominant end of pleasure then pursuit of such sensation can become the dominant conception of the good. One of the ways we arrive at this view is by rejecting the outcome that was arrived at by thinkers such as Loyola and Aquinas and attempting to maintain a hold upon the requirement of justification towards common sense. In this form of hedonism we find the convergence upon sensation to be something we can see has general approval and, furthermore, has, in the first-personal case, an appearance of infallibility. 


Having got this far it next becomes the general method that we select things in our rational plan according to the balance of pleasure over pain. Counting principles now appear relatively easy. The procedure becomes one of maximisation and with Sidgwick we take pleasure to be our single rational end. This does mean that pleasure is understood to have the capacity to be measured in terms of intensity and duration but the advantage of focusing upon it is we meet our standard of finding a first-person procedure as we indicated was required for a dominant end view. However this view, whilst appearing to adopt an objective process of choice is not based on viewing any particular goals as being objective. The point of this is to attempt by adopting this kind of neutrality between aims to avoid the charge of distortion of aims that we saw applied to the views of Loyola and Aquinas. 


However it is also clear when we have laid the view of hedonism out like this that it does not offer what Rawls terms a "reasonable" dominant end. In making this claim Rawls points to the failure of hedonism so defined to provide us with a sufficiently definite aim. Taking the preference for sensation as having over-riding importance is something that turns out to be as unreasonable as adopting the love of God to be such. Not only does it still appear that we have here a view that is unbalanced but there are problems of priority within the prosecution of the aims set by hedonism. After all, given the disparity between intensity and duration of pleasures, which should have priority? The plurality of pleasures also simply repeats the problem that led us to seek an objective standard to begin with.


So there would appear to be no way, within hedonistic theories, to assume a result that can seriously accord with common sense after all. Realising a rational plan of life is a merely inclusive end and the adoption of a dominant-end view is the taking of a wrong turning. It is a turning that occurs within teleological theories of value and it arises due to the problem of ambiguity with regard to the good being transferred over to the right. The right is not something that should be understood merely as an object of preference and the teleological theorist, recognising this, tries to determine the good as something objective in order to frame the right by means of it but instead transfers to the right the indeterminacy that attaches to the notions of the good. The object of this type of theory is to arrive at, as Rawls puts it, "an interpersonal currency". Whilst teleological theories do not have to be hedonistic the tendency in this direction is a result of the drive towards objectivity considered in the light of the priority being given to the good rather than the right.


Rawls' point in considering hedonism has been to show a basic problem with the teleological approach towards the theory of value. We should not, as Rawls puts it, "attempt to give form to our life by first looking to the good independently defined". It is not aims as selected by reference to an independent conception of the good that should be prior in the assessment of our own nature. It is instead the principles that would govern the background conditions under which aims can be formed and pursued. As Rawls puts this, "the self is prior to the ends which are affirmed by it" and there is no way to escape the requirements of deliberative rationality.


The conclusion of the discussion of hedonism is that there is not one dominant aim by reference to which all our choices can be reasonably assessed. Pursuit of such an aim is self-defeating and leaves us prey, after all, to the vagaries of intuitionism. The attempt to avoid this by appeal to hedonism is to no avail. So if there is no dominant end how is a rational plan after all to be identified? Rawls' answer is by means of deliberative rationality as defined by the full theory of the good. In section 85 he outlines this full theory in more detail than has occurred up to this point in Theory. This is by means of an account of "moral personality". On Rawls' view moral personality consists in two capacities: a conception of the good and a sense of justice. The realisation of the conception of the good is in terms of a rational plan of life whilst the realisation of the sense of justice is in terms of a regulative desire to act in accordance with the right. Following a Kantian procedure of assessment of moral psychology the latter has priority over the former.


Moral persons have ends that they have chosen and their fundamental preference is for conditions that enable them to arrive at a plan of life that express their nature as free and equal rational persons. The coherence of the plan that they adopt determines the unity of the person and their unity is founded on higher-order "desires" to follow the principles of rational choice as constrained by the sense of justice. It is in the picture of the moral agent that the real difference between Rawls' account and that of teleological theorists becomes apparent. A dominant-end view takes the person to be essentially indifferent to all aspects of themselves except in terms of how they are outlets for pleasant experiences. The view becomes even more "objective" when it frees the reference to such experiences even from the confines of a particular self and makes benevolence a general aim. Then maximisation frees itself from the confines of the self and the self essentially disintegrates as a unit as the social whole's aggregate "good" becomes rationally preferred to all else. This occurs with classical utilitarianism.


By contrast the priority of the right in the Kantian interpretation of justice as fairness is quite different in its approach to the self. Moral personality is taken to be a fundamental aspect of the self and dominant-end conceptions are rejected. On this view maximisation has no hold as a procedure. Final ends are, instead, viewed as irreducibly plural and the problem is only how to ensure rational cooperation so that the best conditions for all being to each pursue their own view(s) of the good can be met. The priority of the right, however, constrains the acceptable boundaries and shape of the conceptions of the good. The essential unity of the self thus has its basis in the reference to the priority of the right. Given the priority of the right the indeterminacy of the good is not the problem it is for teleological theories. One reason is that the preferential elements in the conceptions of the good are precisely constrained by the form of the right. There need be no standard above the priority of the right except by reference to the processes of deliberative rationality. The principles of justice have a definite content and the argument by which we arrived at them was justified only by the thin theory of the good and the idea of primary goods. Once we have the principles of justice the priority of the right guarantees the precedence of these principles.


The principles of justice have absolute precedence in the governing of social institutions and set fundamental structural features that constrain every citizens' notions of the good. Relations of justice that conform to principles that would have been assented to by all are best fitted to express the nature of each. This does not mean that the principles of justice express a dominant-end conception themselves. This is because there is no independent conception of the good that is socially recognised. The notion guiding the conception of justice as fairness is thus "the original position and its Kantian interpretation", not a dominant-end conception of the good. This contrast is central to the notion that Rawls has provided an alternative to the utilitarian view of rational choice.

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 and Kant on Respect and Value

In a recent posting on Parfit I looked at his treatment of respect in his 2002 lectures. In Chapter 6 of Climbing the Mountain Parfit returns to this topic and, in the process, extends his discussion. As in the 2002 lecture the chapter opens by pointing out that the Formula of Humanity has been read by some primarily in terms of treating persons with respect but Parfit indicates that such a requirement is not action-guiding. Further, Parfit dissents from Allen Wood's focus on "expression" of respect since no given "expression" of respect is required in terms of treating persons with respect. Parfit does concede that Kant specifically describes some vices as indicative of disrespect but, as he points out, the Formula of Humanity is not meant to cover only some wrong acts and not all wrong acts involve disrespect in the manner that the vices Kant discusses do.


When moving on to the specific notion of respect "for humanity", Wood is on stronger ground against Parfit since the requirement for such respect is somehow related by Kant to the notion of what "humanity" itself consists in. Parfit's objections to this turn principally on indicating that Kant often makes remarks (about lying for example) that we may well find it difficult to accept but this is hardly conclusive evidence against the need to count the respect requirement as part of the meaning of the Formula of Humanity.


In assessing the claim Kant makes concerning the "dignity" of humanity in the Formula of Humanity Parfit arrives at the question of the relationship between the right and the good and mentions Rawls' famous claim that the former has priority over the latter. In responding to this point Parfit mentions the idea of things being good in what he terms a reason-involving sense. Something is "good" in this way if it has a property or feature that would, in some situations, give reasons to respond to these things in certain ways. In tying the notion of the "goodness" of this sort to properties or features of situations Parfit ensures that the goodness in question is not what Christine Korsgaard would term a "final" good since its relationship to situations makes it dependent upon them. Further Parfit adds the claim that many such forms of good have a "value" and adds, somewhat confusingly, that the things, and not the "value" they possess, can be promoted.


This claim about "value" turns into a discussion about events since it is the events that can, apparently, be promoted. Parfit also indicates that he is committed to an "actualist" view of such events which means that possible acts/events are good as ends when they possess intrinsic features that give us reasons to want them to be actual. Such a view does not claim to account for goodness of types that do not belong to events. Since Parfit appears to follow Scanlon in taking a teleological theory of ethics to be one according to which only acts and events have intrinsic value he does not assume that an actualist view is equivalent to a teleological one. 


After making these claims Parfit now arrives at a different account of respect to that involved in the requirements of the Formula of Humanity. This is in terms of respect that applies to things we value in a way that merits the appellation of "respect" but in which it is, again, the things themselves and not the respect attached to them that is the basis of the value the things possess. As examples here Parfit indicates the attitudes that are displayed towards the nation's flag or the oldest tree in a region since these things cannot be used in ways that would tarnish the value attached to them. Respect, in this sense, is a manifestation of a right kind of attitude to a thing but is not intended by Parfit as a form of goodness though the acts that are mandated here can be seen as having an instrumental kind of value.


Parfit next turns to the "value" of human life, a value that Scanlon sees in terms of a kind of respect but which Parfit refuses to view as involving a respect that is distinct from a kind of "promotion". The reason why this move is made is not entirely clear though it has something to do with Parfit's rejection of an absolutist attitude towards suicide since Scanlon views the question about suicide as having to do with a respect for the autonomous decision of the person contemplating such an act. The reason why Parfit tends towards a similar conclusion here as Scanlon is due to the claim on Parfit's part that the kind of value that human life has is to do with a relationship to the requirement of rational consent, which Parfit earlier derived from the first part of the Formula of Humanity.


After mentioning these matters Parfit returns to considering Kantian claims about dignity and mentions how Kant has consideration for three different kinds of ends. Ends that are to be effected are instrumental ends and relate to the hypothetical imperative and these types of end are distinct from "existent" ends which latter are represented by persons. However the notion of such an "existent" end is something distinct from an end-in-itself for Parfit.


The analysis of Kant that Parfit offers involves the claim that a good will is an end we ought to achieve so he tends to assimilate it to the general claim about ends to be effected without, in so doing, making clear how the good will is distinct from a merely instrumental end. Similarly Parfit talks of the realm of ends as a good to be effected, again without making clear how it is nonetheless distinct from an instrumental end. Finally, Parfit describes Kant's notion of the summum bonum as a good we should promote (without distinguishing such a claim from one concerning maximisation).


Turning from these claims back to the status of persons as possessed of dignity Parfit claims that such a status applies to all persons but, since it does, it does not demarcate a kind of goodness. So the treatment of them in certain ways is something that has to be recognised but not on account of any evident value they possess.


The next stage in Parfit's discussion is to look at the relationship between rationality and value for Kant and Parfit views rationality as partly an end-to-be-effected since we can develop our rationality. However Parfit shows little understanding of what Kant might mean by rationality since Parfit equates rationality quite simply with problem-solving capacities. Since, on such a construal, Parfit can find little merit in claims about rationality per se, he instead focuses on a conception of moral rationality.


Having made all these distinctions Parfit then returns to the question about the relationship between the right and the good and denies that Kant affirms the Rawlsian view since it turns out that Kant thinks that some "goods" should be promoted. Since, however, Rawls also takes it to be the case that there are "primary goods" and yet affirms the idea of the priority of the right over the good, I think it can be clearly seen that Parfit's discussion is not a reply to Rawls. Further, since Parfit systematically conflates different kinds of ways ends might be thought of as to be effected and says remarkably little about the notion of the hypothetical imperative, his discussion in this chapter is seriously incomplete.

Allison and Kant on Rational Agency

In my last posting on Allison's commentary on the Groundwork I looked at Chapter 5 which was a loose collection of material roughly relating to the concluding sections of Groundwork I. In this posting I am going to look at Chapter 6 which, conversely, is more tightly focused but is somewhat preparatory to a serious focus on the argument of Groundwork II.


In this chapter Allison is looking at Kant's account of rational agency and how it relates to his description of imperatives. One of the problems that Allison has posed insistently since the opening of his commentary concerns why Kant's argument did not move simply from the discussion of common moral cognition in Groundwork I to the "deduction" of the categorical imperative in Groundwork III? The basic reason that this chapter opens with is that Kant needs to establish the absolute necessity of the supreme principle of morality and that this is the central task of Groundwork II. However there is also a second question about Groundwork II that concerns its internal structure and the apparent multiplicity of formulas of law that it gives. Like Paul Guyer, with whom he otherwise differs, Allison takes the view that the formulas are parts of a progressive description that Kant is giving in Groundwork II, the description, according to Allison, of the concept of finite rational agency.


The account of rational agency opens, according to Allison, at Ak. 4: 412 where Kant speaks of how only rational beings have the capacity to act according to the representation of laws as opposed to simply acting on these laws themselves. What kind of law is this? Allison considers the argument that it is a moral law and adduces two factors in support of such a view: firstly, Kant describes only the categorical imperative (among practical principles) as a law and, secondly, since maxims are freely adopted by agents this has the virtue of placing freedom at the heart of Kant's account. However Allison decides against this reading and prefers the view that what is meant by "law" here is, rather, objective practical principles (both moral and instrumental). 


The key point about the reference to laws in rational agency is, however, that it introduces the notion of the "will". Objective principles as necessitating for wills are commands of reason and the formula of their commands is an imperative (Ak. 4: 413). Once we have this notion of an imperative we can divide the genus of this idea into its sub-species of hypothetical and categorical. To command categorically is to command independently of any given end. 


Allison reviews the contrast Kant draws between two forms of hypothetical imperative in the Groundwork, distinguishing, as he does there, between imperatives of skill and pragmatic imperatives. Further Allison states that hypothetical imperatives are all grounded in an analytic principle with regard to willing, a principle stated by Kant at Ak. 4: 417: "Whoever wills the end, also wills (insofar as reason has decisive influence on his action) the means that are indispensably necessary to it that are in his power". This statement is described by Allison as the "grounding principle" (GP) of hypothetical imperatives but it is notable that it does not contain any sense of inclusion of an "ought". 


Two conditions are introduced on the apparently analytic statement GP by Kant which are that the agent must have knowledge that the end in question could not be attained apart from a given course of action and that the agent must fully or completely will the end in question. As Allison points out, the second of these conditions is important given that it is all too common for agents not to fully will to attain a given end. On the basis of these further conditions Allison fills out the "grounding principle" of hypothetical imperatives further than Kant explicitly did and arrives at what he terms GP1. This has the form: "If A fully wills E and knows that M is indispensably necessary for E and M is in its power, then A will M". 


However there is still a problem with how we move from GP1 to the statement of the hypothetical imperative given that the latter contains an ought-operator and the former does not. Normativity will require some form of prescription which has yet to be stated. As Allison indicates, however, this element of prescription is often not explicitly stated in a law as when a simple traffic law states what one must do, it does not also say that you ought to do what you must do. Ought-propositions are addressed to finite rational agents and such agents also require an understanding of how ends relate to means. If an agent simply thinks an end in relation to means they have a hypothetical connection between the two that stands under the assumption of desiring the end in question. It is the importation of this that brings in the ought-operator.


What Kant takes to be analytic is thus not hypothetical imperatives themselves according to Allison but rather the practical propositions that correspond to them. Since the volition of an agent is presupposed in the statement of a hypothetical imperative and GP1 describes the means of attaining them then this is sufficient to account for the possibility of such imperatives. However, in addition to the generic description of such imperatives Thomas Hill has further argued that there is a general form for all hypothetical imperatives that can be expressed as the Hypothetical Imperative, of which specific imperatives are given examples. It could be taken to abstract from given specific ends in favour of the general way in which instrumental end-setting can be given. Allison rejects this idea though he does so very swiftly without examining the details of Hill's argument and the swiftness of this makes his rejection unconvincing.


Key to the notion of an imperative is constraint so that accounting for an imperative is to describe the grounds of constraint it imposes. With hypothetical imperatives the constraint is comprehended in relation to the end set but categorical imperatives are ones that command, in their unconditionality, move beyond this type of constraint. The necessitation of such categorical imperatives is not grounded in any given volition. However the generic possibility of categorical imperatives is not the province of the argument of Groundwork II but, instead, of Groundwork III.


Given this point Allison moves instead to looking at the derivation of the categorical imperative that is carried out in Groundwork II which culminates in the statement of its formula at Ak. 4: 420-21 and which is glossed in terms of an ought-operator that refers to consistency of maxims in relation to universal law. In the Groundwork I argument the universal law formula was grounded on the relation of imperatives to the good will and the conformity of imperatives to the good will was a sufficient reason for rejecting anything that failed to conform to universal law. The content of the law was filled by reference to the pre-given maxim's of the agent.


In Groundwork II, by contrast, the derivation of the categorical imperative is argued by Allison to follow from analysis of the concept of an imperative with the law being the source of the constraint on volition that must be operative in an imperative. The necessity that is built into the imperative is also assumed to be grounded on the reference to law in general and determinate content to be removed from the law. This leaves us with the simple conception of conformity to law as such. However, the general worry with this argument can be said to have the form that, whilst apparently stating something purely formal, it arrives at a principle with content and that the means by which this is done is unclear. Allison's response refers to the unconditionality of the statement of the law as that which provides us with a general possibility of content. Or, it does so "just in case" the agent takes their maxims to be willed also as universal laws. Key to the whole chapter has been the simple statement that rational agents act according to their representation of laws and the demand that an unconditional imperative provide prescriptive force independently of reference to ends. 

Normativity

The notion of "normativity" refers us to the nature of norms in reasoning. Norms are standards that are aimed at in an activity. For instance, in the general theory of rationality, we describe the standards of consistency and non-contradiction as essential prerequisites in how we think and thinking that does not obey such standards is, by virtue of this, taken to be irrational.


Similarly, in prudential judgement there is a basic norm that refers to one's interests and which further highlights which interests are to be taken as paramount. This reference, again, makes apparent the basic line that cannot be crossed if one's actions are to meet the criteria of prudence and if it is crossed then one faces the judgment of being imprudent.


From the recent postings one thing that becomes apparent is that there are normative considerations at work in any type of hypothetical imperative. Following the discussion of Korsgaard, however, it also appears reasonable to state that there is something normative at work in instinctive action where that action is action that is guided by a norm of appropriateness.


The key area of normativity is in the region of morals and part of the basic dispute when it comes to the region of practical reason concerns the reason for taking some norm as basic to morals. The attempt to defuse the appeal to contrary "values" is at is issue in the Kantian formalist approach to ethics as this approach moves away from the contested areas towards a "procedure" or "method" that is meant rather to test for what can be taken to be valuable (notably, in relation to questions of consistency as we indicated above occurs in the general theory of rationality).


Instrumental and rational requirements have to be related if there is to something like a general theory of practical reason, a theory that can determine the specific province of morality in relation to other normative requirements. The nature and scope of disputes in the area of practical reason turns precisely on how the relationship between instrumental and rational requirements should be understood, something that thus requires a general theory of normative justification. The provision of the preconditions of such a theory  can thus be broadly seen but how to fill out the detail is the basis of the discussion that is currently central to the disputes between Kantians and others.

Teleology and Practical Reason

The recent postings I have done have been focused on bringing into view a sense of practical reason. One of the consequences of the relatively basic conception advanced to date is that the notion of practical reason, if viewed in terms of the general structure of hypothetical imperatives, is one in which the notion of "ends" plays the key guiding role.


I want to first indicate some provisional points about the structure of the connection between hypothetical imperatives and teleology prior to raising a larger framework for further investigation of the reasons for thinking about practical reason in a teleological way. 


Hypothetical imperatives generally fit an instrumental model of rationality in which means and ends are adjusted to each other in order to attain a desired objective. Kant describes hypothetical imperatives in two ways though the nature of them is worthy of much more extended consideration on a future occasion. The two general ways are in terms of "skill" and "prudence".


The conception of hypothetical imperatives in terms of "skill" connects them to the provision of more or less sophisticated technical ways of achieving an end. Any kind of action or activity that requires the varied use of materials in order to produce a result will involve degrees of skill in both the relationship between the materials and the judgments concerning the ways of achieving the outcomes. This broad conception of "skill" indicates that everything here that requires instrumental relations tends to incorporate a form of "skill". This will apply to everything from development of trades or talents to the running of governments or the waging of wars. Hence it takes up a large portion of activity.


Contrast this now with "prudence". In developing talents we need to have an eye for what will be in demand so that we don't waste our time. This is prudential as also is avoiding certain kinds of people or activities, either of which might impair our chances of carrying out other activities already decided upon. So prudential reasoning is the province of a kind of judgment, one that tends to get sharpened by experience. Like the reasoning at work in "skill" it is a form of instrumental relation. I'll return generally on another occasion to questions about these relations but for now it will suffice to indicate an at least provisional relationship between hypothetical imperatives and instrumental relations.


It is clear in addition that the development of activities in accordance with hypothetical imperatives requires a sense of purposiveness. Hence hypothetical imperatives are generically capable of being seen as part of a teleological pattern of life.


Having made this relation between hypothetical imperatives and teleology relatively perspicuous the next step is to relate teleology in a more general sense to practical reason whilst bracketing for now further consideration of hypothetical imperatives. There are two kinds of way in which a general relationship between teleology and practical reason tends to get understood, ways which are on distinct levels from each other. One is through a theory of moral psychology that views practical reasoning as primarily teleological. The other is a meta-ethical stance concerning the types of considerations that are relevant to assessing right acts. The first is what is generically termed the "Humean" notion of moral motivation, the second is the consequentialist view of moral appraisal.


Taking these in turn, the Humean notion of moral motivation is an analysis of the psychological preconditions of being moved to act in certain ways. The basic claim of the Humean theory is generally understood to consist in a non-cognitivist view that an ethical belief is in itself insufficient to motivate action and that an affective state has to also be activated for someone to act in accord with a belief. Due to this general claim the teleological notion at work in motivation for the Humean is one that is taken to cut against a pure notion of practical reason.


By contrast to the Humean picture that thinks of teleological connections as the means of explanation of how we are motivated to act, the consequentialist view concerns the means by which action is justified (not necessarily how it is motivated though it may also claim this). Consequences are the means of assessment of actions and the conception of teleology is thus an instrumental one of how ends are best reached and how the "right" ends can be maximised.


The connection between means and ends in both of these pictures seems to have the pattern of an instrumental relation and in this respect to be of a piece with what we have uncovered concerning hypothetical imperatives. Due to this there is a general view that both the Humean conception of motivation and the consequential notion of ethical justification are inherently non or even anti-Kantian views. Certainly the consequence of the Humean view of motivation is that there can be no pure practical reason and in this important respect it is at variance with the Kantian view. It remains true, however, that there does need to be a Kantian picture of how we can be led to act in accordance with the moral law. Such a picture thus has to provide some kind of response to the Humean notion of motivation.


The consequentialist picture of justification, by contrast, whilst widely taken to be at variance with the Kantian picture of justification, is not universally so regarded. Rawls and his followers take it to be paradigmatically the view of morality that Kantians must reject and to which Kantian theory is a response. However, there has been developed a notion of "Kantian consequentialism" that aims to show there is not only no necessary conflict between Kant's moral theory and consequentialism but that they can even be combined.


The setting out of responses to both the Humean and the consequentialist views is essential to clarifying what the Kantian argument concerning the relationship between teleology and practical reason should be and will be part of what is at issue in many future postings.

Intelligence and Hypothetical Imperatives

Following on from the last posting I was wondering next how to relate Korsgaard's view of intelligence to the conception of hypothetical imperatives as a step to answering the question I raised in conclusion concerning maxims. Recall, on Korsgaard's conception, that a "maxim" (or maxim-like structure) can apply in cases of intelligent but non-rational behaviour in response to the environment.


This case happens when there is learning concerning action that requires normative appraisal of the right thing to do. So, in the case Korsgaard gives, the act of moving in the direction of food (as opposed to the automatic responses of the body such as salivation) constitutes an acceptance by the organism in question of a principled response to the stimuli in question. One of the reasons for taking this to be the case is that the smell of food can, given the right pattern of stimulus and response, be one of avoidance. So, if the smell of honey is followed by the stinging of bees, the organism could well learn the inappropriateness of attempting to consume the honey. These cases of intelligent behaviour don't require self-conscious reflection on the principles as principles but they do require acceptance of the appropriateness of the action (which is taken as a principle by Korsgaard).


The point I concluded with in the last posting was that if this is type of action is effectively of a maxim-like structure and if such behaviour can also characterise beings who do possess reason then what is the means by which rational beings can be moved from acting in accordance with intelligent "maxims" to rational ones?


The rational action requires not merely acceptance of the appropriateness of the action but self-conscious affirmation of the principle that underlies it which is now explicitly related to as a principle. A key consequence of the shift is that we move from "instincts" to "reasons" where the latter are here taken to constitute grounds for action in the sense of providing action with an end. There are, as will be discussed on future occasions, numerous questions that can be raised about end-oriented behaviour. 


For now, I'll simply adopt Korsgaard's very compressed conception of ends in which we do act-A for the sake of end-E. The most basic conception of this is that the notion of the end is something that we desire to attain and we adopt means that will enable this to be the case. Adopting such a view will be sufficient to give us the notion of hypothetical imperatives.


A hypothetical imperative is described in the second part of Kant's Groundwork as the capacity to act in accordance with the representation of a law or, in other words, acting on the basis of willing. Hypothetical imperatives are so called because in such a case we act on the view that a certain means will be the basis for attaining a certain end and this connection requires viewing something in a hypothetical connection.


Now the difference between what is at issue in a hypothetical imperative and what is occurring when we observe merely intelligent behaviour is that the relationship between means and ends in the former case is one we have explicitly postulated and taken as desirable. The "incorporation" of which Allison speaks and on which Korsgaard's model trades has been understood here to be one we are open and articulate about.


If this relationship between intelligence and hypothetical imperatives is correct then it follows that there is a continuity between them. Hypothetical imperatives are something like the rational expression of basic intelligent behaviour. Whilst this means there is a difference in kind between hypothetical imperatives and intelligent behaviour in the sense that in the former cases there is self-conscious affirmation of principles as principles, the types of principle involved in hypothetical imperatives are still of a piece with the types of principles given to intelligent beings.


So to view intelligent behaviour as having a maxim-like structure is to see it as having a form of much the same kind as that of hypothetical imperatives. In a sense, then, the question I raised at the end of the last posting can now be re-phrased. The move from intelligent maxim-like structures to explicit maxims is one in which the nature of what is affirmed in the maxim does not have to be explicitly changed, only the relation to the principle (in terms of articulacy) does. Hence if there is here a continuity between intelligent and rational behaviour inasmuch as they are seen as goal-driven then the real question rather concerns the basis for the view that there is such a thing as pure practical reason. Only on the conception that there is a pure practical reason does it emerge that there is something about rational beings that is intrinsically and deeply specific that sharply distinguishes them from intelligent beings. This helps to explain the Humean view of "human nature".

Incentives, Intelligence and Reason

Christine Korsgaard, in her paper on Kantian ethics and duties to animals (freely available on her web-site) makes the case for complicating a picture first suggested by Henry Allison of the Kantian view of action. Oddly, however, she does not refer to Allison in the process. Allison, in his book Kant's Theory of Freedom argues for an interpretation of the account Kant gives of maxims in terms of what Allison calls the "incorporation thesis". Essentially what this boils down to is that we don't simply react to what Kant refers to as "incentives", by which Kant means the input of the senses including appetites. Rather, we have to decide to adopt a principle of incorporating the incentives into our maxims. This principle is explicated by Korsgaard as indicating the appropriateness of certain kinds of responses to these incentives so that we normatively view the incentives as worthy of being acted on.


However, Korsgaard's real innovation is to suggest that incentives are incorporated into principles not merely by humans (and other similarly rational beings) but also by non-human animals. Korsgaard's rationale for this view is that we need to distinguish between two different kinds of behaviour. One would be were the presence of food caused us to salivate, the other would be were the smell of it led us to move in its direction. In the second case it is not merely that the action in question is an appropriate response, it is also grasped as being appropriate. So whilst the first response of salivation might simply be taken to be automatic, the second cannot be treated in this way but is instead a result of the incorporation of the incentive to act in a relevant way into a maxim (or something akin to one).


Following this line of reasoning we view the second type of action, whoever it is performed by, as a normative response. Additionally Korsgaard regards this second kind of action in two distinct ways which she takes to be compatible with each other. The first way is to term this action as "instinctive" whilst the second is to describe it as "intelligent". The connection between the two is made by defusing a certain kind of view of "instinct". The general view that Korsgaard means to dislodge is that instinct is merely a kind of behaviour that is innate and does not require learning. The response she is viewing as "instinctive" is one that is clearly learned and so to argue that these responses are instinctive is to challenge the conception of "instinct" that confines instinctive behaviour to innate responses.


Once this expanded conception of instinct is accepted it becomes easier to see instinctive behaviour as intelligent since what is involved in so viewing it is seeing it as the ability to respond creatively to evolving situations. On these grounds there is little problem with viewing much non-human animal behaviour as intelligent.


The final element of Korsgaard's account is distinguishing intelligence in this sense from  "reason". I would interpret "intelligence", in Korsgaard's sense, as involving a kind of "self-consciousness" since its operation is a form of learned response to the environment. However, Korsgaard wishes to distinguish this form of "self-consciousness" (as I view it) from the kind involved in the exercise of reason. In the latter case, on her view, we are not only "conscious" of objects of attraction and aversion and of principles of behaviour in relation to them but also conscious of the ground of our responses as being grounds or principles. 


The self-conscious grasp not merely of a relation to an environment in terms of appropriateness but also of the active sense of this relation through the self-conscious articulation of principles as principles leads to the question of whether an action is the right one to perform. So rational action is not merely normative but self-conscious of its normativity.


I'll look in future postings at some of the results of Korsgaard's view of reasoning and what it implies for the conception of practical reasoning. But in this posting the key point I want to make is that the undeniably useful element of her analysis is that it makes perspicuous that in indicating that there are beings that are intelligent without being rational it serves to analytically separate the two notions from each other and this is important since the denial of the power of reasoning to non-human animals is often taken to be equivalent to a denial of their intelligence. If the denial of reasoning power really was equivalent to the denial of intelligence this would be a reductio of the notion of reason itself. 


A final point worth making which Korsgaard does not draw out, however, is that it appears from her analysis that there are two kinds of view of "maxims" since the intelligent but non-rational being has the capacity to arrive at maxims and these maxims are distinct from those of the rational being. Is it the case however that rational beings often act on maxims of a intelligent but non-rational type and, if so, what are the means by which incentives can be incorporated into the more elevated rational form of maxim?

Humanity, Rationality and Value

In my last posting I discussed the Kantian conception of respect for persons. Some time ago I also replied to some understandings of the formula of humanity that lead to that formula being viewed in such a way that one either produces consequentialism or a view that, whilst acknowledging the "absolute" status of humanity still effectively treats humanity as similar in kind to all other ends. In this posting I want to bring together the account of respect with the sense of the formula of humanity that treats the latter not as stating a "value" but as being part of the Kantian conception of rationality.


In order to get at the argument I want to arrive at I am going to contrast it with a pattern exemplified in a statement from Christine Korsgaard. Korsgaard writes in The Sources of Normativity: "Since you cannot act without reasons and your humanity is the source of your reasons, you must value your humanity if you are to act at all". Here Korsgaard brings together the sense of action with humanity by the connecting notion of reasons and then stresses the view that if there is a source of reason then it is right to "value" that source in order to act. The argument is presented by Korsgaard as a "transcendental" one.


The notion that humanity is a "value" requires commitment to a certain conception of humanity in which it represents some kind of self-standing source of normativity even though Korsgaard wishes to stress that what makes it so is its reflective capacity. So, in a sense, this conception of value is one in which the ability to be able to look at our capacity to reflect (hence a self-reflexivity) is the source of value as such. Implicit in this conception is, I think, a view somewhat like that stressed on occasion by Onora O'Neill who sees reason as the ultimate "value" of Kantian philosophy.


Now, if reason and humanity are connected in the sense that the basis of humanity is the ability to be self-reflective and this ability is treated as a "value" then an important question emerges about how this "value" is related to the process of formal universalisation at work in Kantian ethics? If you take the view of Wood then the lack of apparent connection between the process of formal universalisation and the "value" of humanity points to the need for adoption of the "value" at the expense of the process of formal universality. One of the problems with resolving the unearthed conflict in this way is that if we drop the process of formal universality we are moved to a conception of moral philosophy that seems far from Kantian. Further, if the adoption of a value is the key to moral thinking, then, it would seem, this value is simply set in competition with others that other thinkers happen to hold and there is no evident way of deciding the argument between them.


Rather than follow the thought-pattern underlying the citation from Korsgaard I want to propose a different way of relating humanity to rationality, a way that does not presuppose some conception of "value" that is left unarticulated (and, in any case, is not clearly connected to the process of formal universality). Kant's general argument for respect for persons, expressed in my previous posting, distinguishes humanity from "price" indicating that humanity has "dignity" but no "price". This distinction between "dignity" and "price" is based on a sense that humanity is not commensurable with other things. This lack of commensurability is what leads Korsgaard and others to treat it is a "value" though thinking in terms of "value" in fact presents a sense of commensurability (since values can be "maximised" for example). 


The sense of humanity as that which has no "price" is related to the notion looked at in the last posting that there are ends that are not "goals" to be realized. Looking back to the justifications Kant gives of the categorical imperative on the one hand, and the formula of humanity on the other, in the Groundwork helps here. The categorical imperative itself (given in the formula of universal law) is arrived at by contrast with hypothetical imperatives as the latter presuppose certain ends that are already assumed to have value. In contrast, the categorical imperative assumes no pre-given value or any specific end other than what can be prescribed by the law itself.


By contrast to the justification of the categorical imperative the argument in favour of the formula of humanity is grounded on a specific notion of universalisation where what is taken is what is "necessarily an end for everyone" (Ak. 4: 428). This end is the sense of rational nature but it was through the process of rationality that we arrived at the categorical imperative in the first place. Hence there can be no "value" in the formula of humanity that was not present in the categorical imperative. Respect, the notion that was highlighted in the last posting, attaches to humanity since it is in the persons of humanity that we see the law exemplified. Persons are what give examples of morality and in giving respect to persons we acknowledge the law they exemplify so such "respect" is part of the process of formal universality and should not be set against it or assumed to involve a "value" that is distinct from it.

Universality, Humanity and Rationality

One of the most basic disputes concerning the interpretation of Kant's ethics concerns the relationship between the different formulations of the categorical imperative presented in the Groundwork. One of the problems, mentioned sometime ago by Paton, concerns the question of how many such formulations there are with Paton favouring five but most commentators now content to think there are three. A rather more substantive concern has been with the practical implications of the distinct formulas with a wide variety of thinkers wishing to suggest that there are different implications relative to which version of the categorical imperative one adopts.


In particular there is a general felt need to choose between the formula of universal law and the formula of humanity. The partisans of the formula of universal law are, for various reasons, on the defensive though the major gain of this formula, relative to others, concerns its implicit appeal to a neutral standard separate from the "matter" of moral commitments. This is bought, allege the critics of this formula, at a cost, namely, the vacuous nature of what the formula is taken to state. This argument can trace its ancestry to Hegel and consists in a claimed "empty formalism" of the formula of universal law. Confronted with this type of attack on Kant's ethics it has been a generally adopted defence to argue that the formula of universal law is not the central Kantian principle.


So, on these grounds, the appeal has often been made to the formula of humanity by preference to the formula of universal law. There are advantages to stressing this formula, not least the intuitive appeal of the contrast it involves between ends-in-themselves and ends that are only relative. This contrast is connected to a conception of humanity that effectively equates humanity with rationality. Since this line of thought hence moves from humanity to rationality to a stress on "objective" or non-relative ends it has the makings of an incipient theory of practical reason. However, there are compensating problems with this stress, though these have not been at the forefront of much discussion. To begin with, the equations involved in the formula are ones that are far from obvious and call out for detailed defence. Secondly, the formula of humanity is itself described in such a way that it is evidently meant to be understood as universal in scope. So if there are thought to be problems with universality itself then these problems would apply also to the humanity formula. Thirdly, the resort to it as a defence against the "empty formalism" objection is one that threatens to turn Kant's ethics into one that asserts a need for an end or even a substantive conception of the good. In other words, the conflict, should there really be one, between these two formulas of the categorical imperative, is one that can re-stage within the terrain of Kantian ethics, the division between "teleological" and "deontological" views of the general area of ethics. In subsequent postings I intend to trace this division and debate it further in order to see whether it is possible to get a view of both Kant's ethics and the area of ethics generally that can move past this divide.

Morality and Rationality

I was reading today about attempts in various US jurisdictions to bring in laws that will force schools and educational institutions generally to have "open debate" on such matters as climate change and the theory of evolution and, after calming down, considered the nature of what irritates me so much about such an approach, not least to law. There seems to have grown, particularly on the right in the US, a generic kind of irrationalism that is based on the view that all kinds and types of belief are effectively equivalent to each other and hence that there can be some kind of "neutral forum" in which they can all present their case before the public.


This belief is in fact a masquerade since the kinds of people who think that there are grounds for serious debate concerning the "theory" of evolution have very little conception of what a theory consists in and what kinds of considerations are relevant for evaluation of it. So it appears "reasonable" to some to appeal either to Scripture or to a set of apparent "evidences" of design in nature as if either of these appeals was somehow evidentially on a par with the accumulative work of natural science. In responding to such people one tends to lose one's patience simply because they have such a peculiar view of what counts as an argument. So the kinds of evidence of "design", to take the most respectable version of this kind of view, that are supposed to count are either versions of an anthropomorphic fallacy or they are clearly accounted for within the scope of evolutionary theory in any case which is based on a comprehension of adaptation to environment that would predict such effects of design as emergent. Further, any serious rational person is aware that the use of Occam's razor commits us to accepting that the simplest explanation that accounts for the phenomena in question is, by virtue of its simplicity, the best one.


Since the kinds of people one is arguing with, however, systematically flout all considerations of evidence and rational grounds of belief these types of appeal are unlikely to persuade them. At which point one finds that effectively there is no kind of rational ground that would persuade them of anything. So, to move over to climate change, apparently some "religiously" motivated critics of it argue that we can't be affecting the climate in this way as the climate was designed by God. Again, since it is apparent that any and all aspects of the climate are susceptible to harm by us, there is no ground at all for thinking it per se impossible that we could be responsible for damaging the climate. But anyone who thinks that you can invoke God in this kind of way in an argument has so little conception of argument that one is at a loss how to begin with them.


At this point I tend towards the view that the real problem in these cases is a moral one. Irrational people of the sort who deny the intrinsic possibility of climate change or think that the theory of evolution is "just" a theory are people in a grip of a conviction and this conviction is one that has corrupted their reasoning powers. This doesn't entail that they are generically incapable of reasoning but that, with a range of subjects, there is a moral fault when it comes to being able to practice the skills of reasoning that they undoubtedly are capable of using. In this sense people of this sort are morally corrupt persons, persons that is, who prefer a belief to be adopted because it suits them and feel no responsibility to see how such a belief may relate to the myriad kinds of considerations that are appropriate for its evaluation. In this sense the fault they have is not, in the first instance, one of reason but of morality and the kind of fault it is involves submitting to inclination in the sense that certain kinds of beliefs strike them as "looking" better than others. Hence, though it seems ugly to say it, these people are guided by a kind of corrupt aesthetic that has taken charge of their morals and atrophied their reasoning capacities.


There is a moral basis to reasoning correctly which involves acceptance of rules and canons of argument, understanding of what kind of thing counts as evidence and agreement to engage with others in a common discussion. In the absence of this there is moral irresponsibility based on abdication before presumed "facts" that have an absolute status and yet get defended by means of a perverse relativism.