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CONSTRUCTING NORMATIVE OBJECTIVITY IN ETHICS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2007

David B. Wong
David B. Wong
Affiliation:
Philosophy, Duke University
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Abstract

This essay explains the inescapability of moral demands. I deny that the individual has genuine reason to comply with these demands only if she has desires that would be served by doing so. Rather, the learning of moral reasons helps to shape and channel self- and other-interested motivations so as to facilitate and promote social cooperation. This shaping happens through the “embedding” of reasons in the intentional objects of motivational propensities. The dominance of the instrumental conception of reason, according to which reasons must be based in desires of the individual, has made it harder to recognize that reasons shape desires. I attempt to undermine this dominance by arguing that the concept of a self that extends over time is constructed to meet the demands of social cooperation. Prudential reasons to act on behalf of the persisting self's desires are often taken to constitute the paradigm of reasons based on desires of the individual. But such reasons, along with the very concept of the persisting self, are constructed to promote human cooperation and to shape the individual's desires.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 237 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 2008

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References

1 Foot, Philippa, “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives,” Philosophical Review 81 (1972): 305–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In her later work, however, Foot takes a very different position on the force of moral demands. See her “Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake?” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 15 (1995): 1–14; and her Natural Goodness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), chap. 4.

2 Joyce, Richard, The Evolution of Morality (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), 202–3Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., 194.

4 Ibid., 223.

5 Mackie, J. L., in Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977)Google Scholar, holds that it is a presupposition of moral discourse that objective values exist. However, such values cannot exist, he argues, because they are supposed to have a “categorically imperative element” that is “objectively valid” (ibid., 29). He means that objective values are supposed to give anyone reasons to behave in certain ways—reasons that are not contingent on having inclinations that would be served by so behaving. Therefore, Mackie's position is that moral demands purport to give us noncontingent reasons to behave in certain ways, but such reasons cannot exist. Joyce's position is more that no one has given a plausible way of explaining how such reasons could exist. He stops short of declaring that there is no such way.

6 Joyce, The Evolution of Morality, 121. See also Frank, Robert, Passions within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions (New York: Norton, 1988)Google Scholar.

7 Naturalists generally tend to accept David Hume's thesis on the motivational inertness of reason: a belief alone cannot move an agent; it can do so only in conjunction with some motivation that has the structure of desire. On Elizabeth Anscombe's way of distinguishing desire from belief, according to which desire aims to make the world fit with it rather than aiming to fit the world, see Anscombe, , Intention (Oxford: Blackwell, 1957)Google Scholar. I think the motivational inertness thesis should not be an a priori feature of naturalism, but rather should be accepted on the grounds that it is part of more fruitful explanations of human action. Antonio Damasio's work on what goes wrong with the practical reason of certain brain-damaged patients is a start at vindicating the empirical fruitfulness of Hume's thesis. Damasio's patients are distinguished by the normality of their theoretical reasoning, even about practical matters, and by the abnormal inability to act on reasoning, even in matters of prudential reasoning about which they are able to arrive at sound judgments in the abstract. The damage is to the parts of their brains that process emotions, and Damasio's thesis is that practical reasoning, in order to be effective, needs to have various action scenarios marked by bodily processes that correspond to emotion. See Damasio, Antonio, Descartes' Error (New York: Avon Books, 1994), 50Google Scholar.

8 Bernard Williams says this about the idea of applying a reason requiring an individual to act even though that reason is “external” to the individual's subjective motivational set. See Williams, Bernard, “Internal and External Reasons,” in Williams, , Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 101–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Most but not all of the rest of this section draws from ideas expressed in chapter 2 of my Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

10 The reason for this qualification will surface later in this essay.

11 On the selection mechanism for altruism toward kin, see Hamilton, W. D., “The Genetical Evolution of Social Behavior,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 7 (1964): 1–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the mechanism for selecting a willingness to cooperate with others if they show willingness to cooperate, see Trivers, Robert, “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism,” Quarterly Review of Biology 46 (1971): 35–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a theory of “group selection” as the mechanism behind concern for non-kin, see Sober, Elliott and Wilson, David Sloan, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; and for another theory emphasizing the role of sexual selection in altruism, see Miller, Geoffrey, The Mating Mind (New York: Anchor Books, 2000)Google Scholar. For evidence supporting the existence of non-self-interested willingness to punish, and to reward others who cooperate, see Gintis, Herbert, Game Theory Evolving (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

12 Boyd, Robert and Richerson, Peter J., Culture and the Evolutionary Process (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Boyd, and Richerson, , Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005)Google Scholar. In the latter book, they define “culture” as “information capable of affecting individuals' behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation, and other forms of social transmission.” By “information,” they mean “any kind of mental state, conscious or not, that is acquired or modified by social learning, and affects behavior” (Not by Genes Alone, 5). I agree with Dan Sperber and Nicholas Claudière (“Defining and Explaining Culture,” Biology and Philosophy 22 [2007]) in their observation that Boyd and Richerson's use of “information” is too broad in one sense—culture is better taken to include only widely distributed information—and too narrow in another sense—the relevant kind of information can be implemented not only in the form of mental representations but also in the form of behaviors, artifacts, and institutions.

13 This does not mean that directly facilitating social cooperation is the only function of morality. Some moral norms take the form of character ideals and conceptions of the good life specifying what is worthwhile for the individual to become and to pursue. This intrapersonal function of morality comprehends what has been called the “ethical,” as opposed to what might be called the “narrowly moral.” Morality in the broader sense used here comprehends the ethical. This part of morality helps human beings to structure their lives together in a larger sense, i.e., not just for the sake of coordination with each other but also for the sake of coordination within themselves.

14 See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, part 2, chaps. 13–17; Warnock, G. J., The Object of Morality (London: Methuen, 1971)Google Scholar; and Mackie, J. L., Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (London: Penguin, 1977)Google Scholar, chap. 5.

15 See Gintis, Game Theory Evolving.

16 Mansbridge has suggested that while other-regarding motivations such as those stemming from empathy do exist in most individuals, they do not have infinite value. Herbert Gintis's portrait of Homo reciprocans suggests the same qualification. If the costs of benefiting others are very high, many will simply decline to pay. See Mansbridge, Jane, “On the Relation of Altruism and Self-Interest,” in Mansbridge, , Beyond Self-Interest (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1990), 133–43Google Scholar.

17 Explanations of altruism toward non-kin that rely solely on the idea of natural selection over genetic variations rely on rather special conditions being set in place. For example, Charles Darwin (in The Descent of Man) thought that natural selection sometimes operates on groups and not just on individuals, so that in the case of human beings, a tribe with members willing to sacrifice for other members will prevail in competition with other tribes with no such members, or will do well in adverse natural circumstances, and will therefore gradually predominate among the human species. This explanation, however, depends on groups' preserving the genetic differences between them as the ones with greater proportions of altruists win out over the ones with lesser proportions. Members of a winning group who intermarried with members of a losing group would undermine this special condition, but this seems to have been a common occurrence. In contrast, the tendency toward conformity with cultural norms might preserve intergroup variation and allow groups with prosocial cultural norms to win out over others and continue adherence to those norms even in the face of intermarriage with members of other groups. See Richerson, Peter J., Boyd, Robert T., and Henrich, Joseph, “Cultural Evolution of Human Cooperation,” in Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation, ed. Hammerstein, Peter (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 368–69Google Scholar.

18 Alexander, Richard, The Biology of Moral Systems (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1987)Google Scholar.

19 See Gintis, Game Theory Evolving. Robert Trivers, in “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism,” identified a crucial role for “moralistic aggression” (negative reactions to perceived violations of reciprocity) in helping to reduce the incidence of free-riding. However, it is Gintis who correctly points out that in many instances there is an altruistic element to the willingness to retaliate against free-riders.

20 This section summarizes ideas expressed in chapter 2 of my Natural Moralities.

21 Much recent discussion of truth and reference has employed the language of concepts where the language of meanings has previously held sway. I prefer the language of concepts because it has become the language for expressing and defending alternatives to the “classical” model which holds that a term (or the concept expressed by it) refers by virtue of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions embodied in the concept. Furthermore, much of the empirical evidence undermining the classical model has come from studies in cognitive and developmental psychology of ways that people categorize things, and these studies are couched in the language of concepts. See Rosch, Eleanor and Mervis, Carolyn B., “Family Resemblances: Studies in the Internal Structure of Categories,” Cognitive Psychology 7 (1975): 573–605CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 See Prinz, Jesse, Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and Their Perceptual Basis (Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books, 2003), 51–72Google Scholar.

23 See Clark, Andy, “Connectionism, Moral Cognition, and Collaborative Problem Solving,” in Mind and Morals: Essays on Ethics and Cognitive Science, ed. May, Larry, Friedman, Marilyn, and Clark, Andy (Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books, 1998), 109–13Google Scholar. Jesse Prinz's “proxytype” model of concepts is supremely eclectic in incorporating prototype, exemplar, and other models of concepts. See Prinz, Furnishing the Mind, chap. 6.

24 Singer, Peter, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972): 229–43Google Scholar.

25 The theme of reasons getting embedded in motivational propensities is expressed in chapter 7 of my Natural Moralities, and in my essay “Moral Reasons: Internal and External,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2006). The characterization of embedding in the present essay, however, is revised from that previously published material, and is connected to empirical examples that I have not previously discussed. The application of this theme to the debate between the Footian and Joycean views of moral inescapability is not discussed in that previous work.

26 This case is described by Clore, Gerald L. and Ortony, Andrew in “Cognition in Emotion: Always, Sometimes, or Never?” in Cognitive Neuroscience of Emotion, ed. Lane, Richard D. and Nadel, Lynn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 27Google Scholar.

27 Ibid., 41.

28 Ibid.

29 For a translation of this passage, see Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, ed. Ivanhoe, Philip J. and Van Norden, Bryan (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2001), 116Google Scholar. The version of the text available today is dated from the second century c.e.

30 Damasio, Descartes' Error, 173–89. Damasio is a behavioral neurologist and neuroscientist at the University of Southern California.

31 McDowell, John, Mind and World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 84Google Scholar.

32 This theme leads to the way in which my theory is relativistic: moralities that are incompatible in the sense of requiring different patterns of action, at least in some types of situations, may correspond to different sets of truth conditions established for moral judgment. These different sets of truth conditions may refer to common types of moral reasons, but embody different value priorities in providing instructions as to how to balance and prioritize conflicts between different moral reasons when they apply to the same situation. See chapter 2 of my Natural Moralities.

33 The anthropologist Bradd Shore gives, in a study of Samoa, a striking example of a culture's internal diversity and of the resulting ambivalence. Following the violent murder of his father, a young man received public counsel from a village pastor in formal Samoan that he must resist the temptation to avenge his father's death, and must keep in mind the values of peace and harmony and forgiveness. Yet, later, this same pastor, this time in colloquial Samoan, warned the young man that if he failed to kill the murderer of his father, he would not be his father's son. See Shore, , “Human Ambivalence and the Structuring of Moral Values,” Ethos 18 (1990): 165–79Google Scholar. For an influential critique of the older view of culture as a static, uniform whole, see Rosaldo, Renato, Culture and Truth (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

34 See McDowell, John, “Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?” in McDowell, , Mind, Value, and Reality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 77–78Google Scholar; and Scanlon, Thomas, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1998), 25–26Google Scholar.

35 Gibbard, Allan, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

36 Nagel, Thomas, The Possibility of Altruism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970)Google Scholar, chap. 8.

37 Parfit, Derek, Reasons and Persons (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 206–16Google Scholar.

38 Korsgaard, Christine M., “Personal Identity and the Unity of Agency: A Kantian Response to Parfit,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 18 (1989): 109–15Google Scholar.

39 In the first chapter of the Zhuangzi, for example, Zhuangzi's logician friend Huizi is given seeds that give birth to enormous gourds. When Huizi tries to find a use for the shells of these gourds, he can only think of using them as water dippers or water containers, but they are too big and heavy for such uses. Failing to find a use for them, he smashes them to pieces. Zhuangzi scolds his friend for having underbrush in his head, pointing out that he could have lashed the shells together to make a kind of raft to ride upon the lakes and rivers. See Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters, trans. Graham, A. C. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2001)Google Scholar, chap. 1.

40 Strawson, Galen, “The ‘Self’,” in Models of the Self, ed. Gallagher, Shaun and Shear, Jonathan (Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic, 1999), 3–24Google Scholar.

41 Locke, John, “Of Identity and Diversity,” in Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), ed. Nidditch, P. H. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

42 Philip Pettit has raised the question of whether my proposal has a Euthyphro problem: Do we hold a person responsible because he's the same person, or do we judge him to be the same person because he is the one in the position to be held responsible? My answer is that the concept of a person persisting over time evolved because the conditions of human cooperative life require relatively long-term persisting agents to hold responsible (the second possibility). But once that concept of a persisting person is in place, with accompanying bodily and psychological criteria for persistence also in place, we hold particular individuals responsible because they are the same persons who did the things for which we need to hold someone responsible.

43 Or consider the perplexities that Bernard Williams raises in “The Self and the Future,” Philosophical Review 79 (1970): 161–80. On the one hand, if I imagine that A's memories are transferred into B's body, and that A's body is tortured, and if I further imagine that it was my memories that got transferred to B's body, I would feel fortunate. This seems to favor the psychological criterion for personal identity. On the other hand, if I am told that I am going to be tortured tomorrow, but that I will not remember anything leading up to the torture, and that, moreover, my impressions of the past will be quite different from the ones I have now, I will still be quite frightened and will not take any comfort in the psychological discontinuity. This seems to favor the bodily criterion of personal identity. Perhaps these conflicting intuitions are explicable if both the bodily criterion and the psychological criterion are present in the prototype without the kind of weighting of these different features that would decide which one is more fundamental to identity.

44 I agree with David Shoemaker's view, raised in discussion of this paper, that there can be different concepts of personal identity; e.g., biological criteria of identity might be relevant in determining whether I am owed compensation for something that happened to me as a fetus, even if the bodily-psychological concept of the person I have been discussing might not make me the same person as that fetus. Different concepts of the person might arise in different social contexts and on the basis of different practical considerations. And it is possible that different concepts of the person could overlap in their application to the same context and come into conflict. In that case, conceptual revision might be necessary.

45 Other normative perspectives might include the perspective of self-interest, or of other nonmoral ideals to which the agent has subscribed.

46 A question from Michael Huemer prompted me to realize the last possibility: that moral reasons might become motivationally embedded but still be overridden by other embedded reasons.