- believe morality is concerned with hypothetical imperatives.
- accept a Humean theory of reasons, i.e. what a person has reason to do is dependent on that person's psychology.
- accept the theory of action that a rational person will always try to fulfill her highest-priority desires, according to the information she has.
- agree that science — broadly construed — is vital in finding out the rightness or wrongness of an action.
'Ought' and Internalism
When Carrier defends his view that moral imperatives are a class of hypothetical imperatives, he admits this is an unpopular view among philosophers. "But," he says, "none have ever presented any other identifiable logical relation that can ever be meant by 'ought' (or any other term or phrase semantically equivalent to it) that produces any actual claim to our obedience."1
This close association of morality, the meaning of 'ought,' and motivational internalism rests at the very beginning of Carrier's chain of deductive logic in the appendix following the chapter. Here are the first three lines, with variables expanded:
1.1 If there is <a moral system>, then <a moral system> is <a system of imperatives that supersede all other imperatives>.Throughout the chapter, Carrier uses the phrases "what we in actual fact ought to do" and "what we as a matter of actual fact ought most to do" as synonyms, and contrasts this with "other things that carry no sufficient motivating reason for us to do them instead".3 You may recognize this as a strong form of motivational internalism, i.e. recognized moral facts necessarily provide some motivation or — in strong form — overriding motivation.
1.2 If <a moral system> is <a system of imperatives that supersede all other imperatives>, then <a moral system> is <what we ought to obey over all other imperative systems (whether they are labeled moral or not)>.
1.3 <what we ought to obey over all other imperative systems (whether they are labeled moral or not)> is <that which we have a sufficiently motivating reason to obey over all other imperative systems>.2
I think Carrier has a good point that if we start by insisting on internalism, then it's hard to see how moral facts could originate from anywhere but a person's own desires; and if we insist on strong internalism, how they could originate from anywhere but what a person desires most. Or consider a reasons-based version of internalism: a person always has some reason or overriding reason to act morally. If having a reason requires having some appropriate desire — which I affirm — then we're back to the same spot.
'Ought' Externalism
Contrary to Carrier, I hold that sentences like "Michael ought to contribute to UNICEF" or "Josephine ought not fire her pistol into the air when she celebrates" can represent true propositions even if Michael and Josephine happen to lack appropriate desires.
This means I deny (1.3). I'll make this denial punchier: it can be true that we have no reason to do what we ought to do.
How can I get away with saying this? Because I believe the word 'ought' requires an end (or goal) to complete its meaning and make it eligible for being true or false. At the same time, it doesn't require that anyone's desires be a certain way. The logical relation signified by 'ought' works something like this:
Michael ought[some end] to contribute to UNICEF.or more specifically:
In order that [some end], it ought to be the case that Michael contributes to UNICEF.The claim being made is that — among the relevant actions open to Michael — the one most likely to precede [some end] is that he contributes to UNICEF. (The 'ought' in the more specific parsing is a non-normative probability 'ought,' like "It ought to rain before midnight." I'm following Stephen Finlay's reductive analysis of normative 'oughts' into non-normative 'oughts' plus ends, which is motivated by making sense of normative language in general.)4
Really, though, I just want to drive home the point that 'ought' claims have a gap if you listen for it.
We're normally very adept at filling the gap from context and so we don't notice there ever was a gap. For example, "You ought to eat two cups of green vegetables per week" in typical contexts would suggest a health-related end. In a conversation about minimizing risk for liver cancer, we would fill in the more specific end of minimizing risk of liver cancer. At that point, we have a quite specific claim which is open to empirical investigation.
You oughtthat you minimize your risk of liver cancer to eat two cups of green vegetables per day.or
In order that [you minimize your risk of liver cancer], it ought to be the case that you eat two cups of green vegetables per day.Notice something else: the truth or falsity of this 'ought' claim does not depend on having actual or ideal desires about minimizing the risk of liver cancer.
Laying Claim to Our Obedience
What I'm saying is that true 'ought' statements don't necessarily lay claim to a person's obedience. Some do, because they connect with a person's desires, and this makes them the only imperatives important to that person, in a relevant sense.
I understand the phrases "there is a reason" and "Josephine has a reason" to reflect this distinction. There may be a reason for Josephine to not fire her pistol in the air when she celebrates (it might cause far more suffering than the joy she gains), but if she lacks certain desires she might not have a reason to refrain from pulling the trigger.
Carrier could grant all of the above, adjust his argument a bit, and still identify moral imperatives as imperatives which are both (1) true and (2) matter to a person by virtue of that person's desires. What I'm challenging in this post is the assertion that what a person "in actual fact ought to do" necessarily corresponds with what that person has motivating reason to do.
In other words, Carrier can't simply rule out other (i.e. externalist) uses of 'ought' as invalid. He needs to show that his moral theory is a better solution to metaethics in some way other than winning by default.
...
I may eventually follow up this post with my take on other parts of his overall moral theory, but this will do for now.
ADDED: A followup on the same topic is here.
1. Carrier, R. (2011). Moral facts naturally exist (and science could find them). In Loftus, J.W. (Ed.), The end of christianity (pp. 333-358). Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. p. 342
2. Ibid. p. 359
3. Ibid. p. 348
4. Finlay, S. (2009). Oughts and ends. In Philosophical studies, 143(3). pp 315-340. See my post on it.
Well. You start off rightly refusing to quibble over terms like "realism" and "objective". I agree. I think Carrier phrases things very poorly and don't like the way he expresses himself. But I still very much agree with him, and this is where I lose you.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that your post is a quibble over what "actually ought" means. Carrier seems to use the term with "actually desires the assumed end" in mind. So externalist meanings to "ought" are just irrelevant; they are not what we "actually ought" to do in Carrier's lingo. And Carrier is arguing that we "actually ought" to pursue a moral code only when it furthers our desired-end, which is something I think we all agree on. So it appears to me this is, much like the "objective vs. subjective" argument you rightly rejected, just a semantic argument. We're all saying the same thing, but in different ways. (I also think Carrier's way sucks hairy bison balls, but that's another matter.)
To try my own phrasing: I believe all three of us (Carrier, you, and me) agree that
A) An agent "rationally ought" to pursue his own desires.
B) Let us call a set of "moral teachings" that provides prescriptions (optimally) furthering the set of (basic) desires of agent A a "Subjective Moral Theory A". Then Subjective Moral Theory A is something agent A rationally ought to study and follow (waving issues such as time-constraints aside for this simplistic analysis).
C) Let us call a set of "moral teachings" that (optimally) further the (basic) desires of any human agent an "Objective Moral Theory". Then Objective Moral Theory is something every human rationally ought to study and follow (caveat as above).
D) No other account of "ought" is compelling, i.e. no other moral theory can rationally claim obedience from the agent, except to the extent that it coincides with the above moral theories (for this agent).
I hope my phrasing is more acceptable. I think we can all agree to something very much like it, at least.
The thing is, that's just the start of the interesting questions in my opinion. We still have questions like,
* What are the distinctly moral questions? Carrier seems to have some "imperative that override all others" in mind. I doubt this is a useful approach.
* Is there an objective (Humanistic) moral theory? Carrier seems to think that there is. I suspect that there isn't.
* Are there basic desires at all? If yes, are they sufficiently rich to enable a meaningful prescriptive theory? [I have great doubts.]
* Are there basic desires that are culturally-bred into adult humans? If yes [and I suspect so], is moral disagreement and lack of objectivity unavoidable?
And so on.
Yair
I think Carrier is right to insist that there is a set of propositions distinguished by their describing what you actually ought to do, over "other things that carry no sufficient motivating reason for us to do them instead."
ReplyDeleteIMO it is incorrect to think that all ought propositions semantically contain references to ends. There ARE such propositions, but they do not exhaust the possibilities of ought-propositions. So I agree with you that propositions like the following...
"In order that you get to the other side of town, you ought to take a bus."
"In order that you preserve life, you ought to not murder."
...are coherent and have truth values independent of an agent's physchology.
But I also think that there are propositions like the following:
"S ought [simply] to X."
That is, "raw oughts-propositions" that do not semantically contain a reference to an end. Now this doesn't mean that the truth value of those proposition doesn't depend on facts relating to some end. It just means that an ought-proposition doesn't have to semantically refer to that end to be coherent. To claim otherwise would be to claim that "S ought [simply] to X" is incoherent. But I think that's plainly false. Upon considering that proposition, I might be left with the question, "why is it true that S ought to X?" but the proposition makes sense. I'm not asking, in a strictly semantic sense, "what does that proposition mean?"
Yair,
ReplyDeleteI may be quibbling over what "actually ought" means, but only as far as it takes to say I don't think it means anything in particular, i.e. people use 'ought' without an explicit qualifier to express quite different things.
What I see Carrier doing is denying the legitimacy of any not-explicitly-qualified 'oughts' which aren't related to an agent's own desires. And since people often use such 'oughts' to express moral judgments, they're either talking nonsense or fiction or going along with his metaethics.
Of course, he can stipulate that what he means by 'ought' is this-and-that and what he means by 'moral' is this-and-that, but that's not the sort of claim that fills the rhetorical role his chapter is supposed to play in the book it's in. He needs to connect his definition of morality with the moral practices of Christians who think moral right and wrong need to be grounded in God (which he does somewhat when he claims this all results in a recognizable form of virtue ethics).
...'A) An agent "rationally ought" to pursue his own desires.'
Yes, I understand "rationally ought" as implying the goal of best fulfilling an agent's own desires, given some set of information. Carrier seems to also include the information variable, since he's careful to say: rational and sufficiently informed.
...'B) Let us call a set of "moral teachings" that provides prescriptions (optimally) furthering the set of (basic) desires of agent A a "Subjective Moral Theory A". Then Subjective Moral Theory A is something agent A rationally ought to study and follow (waving issues such as time-constraints aside for this simplistic analysis).'
Sure, it's useful to label that set of directives something.
...'C) Let us call a set of "moral teachings" that (optimally) further the (basic) desires of any human agent an "Objective Moral Theory". Then Objective Moral Theory is something every human rationally ought to study and follow (caveat as above).'
Ditto, even if it's a null set.
...'D) No other account of "ought" is compelling, i.e. no other moral theory can rationally claim obedience from the agent, except to the extent that it coincides with the above moral theories (for this agent).'
Are any imperatives that fail to correspond with an agent's desires going to motivate? No.
Could such imperatives still correspond with the principles implied by moral language? I think so. And if so, then they would make a compelling account of what moral language is about, even if they don't necessarily compel agents.
Martin,
...'To claim otherwise would be to claim that "S ought [simply] to X" is incoherent. But I think that's plainly false. Upon considering that proposition, I might be left with the question, "why is it true that S ought to X?" but the proposition makes sense. I'm not asking, in a strictly semantic sense, "what does that proposition mean?"'
I don't have the "plainly false" intuition and I definitely am asking the second question.
What could an truly unqualified normative 'ought' mean, except as a form of noncognitive expression?
Garren,
ReplyDelete"I may be quibbling over what "actually ought" means, but only as far as it takes to say I don't think it means anything in particular, i.e. people use 'ought' without an explicit qualifier to express quite different things."
We need to separate two fundamental questions here.
1) How do people use moral language? E.g. "what does the proposition mean" when it is said by a agent X at time Y? I tend to agree with you that people mean quite different things by the same words.
2) What should we do? We don't need to understand 'should' fully to answer this question. It is enough to restrict ourselves to 'rationally-should', and to reject irrational thinking.
I am not really interested in the first question. I see it as a question in linguistics, social psychology, or so on. Not in philosophy. And I think Carrier agrees. You say he does not deny that there are other meanings to 'ought' - only that none of these have an actual claim to our obedience.
The second question is the interesting, philosophical, question - what kind of prescriptions should we rationally follow and seek out? Once you've answered that, you know how to start looking for a moral theory that matters, that is relevant to rational decision making.
Whatever else is being done in moral discourse, whether by error and confusion (irrationality) or intentionally - is irrelevant for human decision-making.
And I think you too agree with the answer and implications to the second question. The only difference I see between Me/Carrier and you is that you seem to be more interested in answering the first one. I don't know why.
"that's not the sort of claim that fills the rhetorical role his chapter is supposed to play in the book it's in. He needs to connect his definition of morality with the moral practices of Christians who think moral right and wrong need to be grounded in God "
Well, Carrier will manage to "connect" to those people who think moral action should also be rational action. To such readers, his arguments should show that moral facts are natural facts. This should not suffice to convince them that the project of moral science can succeed, or even significantly progress, so that we can discover morality without God; nor should it convince them that morality is not indeed grounded in God (although it should dismantle Divine Command Theory specifically, other options remain).
Carrier will not be able to connect to people that see a contrast between "rationality" and "good", as if the two are in tension. People who praise irrationally adhering to particular moral virtues, denying one's "sinful" nature, and so on. This, I suspect, is a large part of Christian moral speech.
I'd like to think being able to say "Yeah, prescription X is not Good by your definition, but people don't have any rational reason to follow your definition!" will, in the long run, be effective. That people will want to act rationally, and move from the second camp to the first. But perhaps I'm kidding myself.
Yair
Yair,
ReplyDeleteIf people usually mean things by 'morality' that don't line up with what each individual should do in order to best fulfill their own desires — and we call the latter 'acting rationally' — then it seems like a pure PR move to rename 'acting rationally' to 'acting morally.' Carrier's chapter is supposed to show that God/Christianity is unnecessary or detrimental to morality, but he really means these things are true of something else.
What I think is going on here is that I'm focusing on what people are actually doing and claiming when they make moral claims, and Carrier is focusing on the platitude that people always have best reason to do the morally right thing. The next step is to identify what people always have best reason to do (whatever best promotes their own desires) and conclude: this must be what morality is!
.."And I think you too agree with the answer and implications to the second question. The only difference I see between Me/Carrier and you is that you seem to be more interested in answering the first one. I don't know why."
I take metaethics to be a question of description, and I think every philosopher who has offered up a single principle answer is misdescribing things.
Seems like we're having a similar disagreement to the one we had about the term 'naturalistic fallacy.' If a term isn't very helpful or interesting, should we keep the label and use it for something else we do find more relevant? I think that's a bad communication policy, but you're more open to it.
..'Carrier will not be able to connect to people that see a contrast between "rationality" and "good", as if the two are in tension. People who praise irrationally adhering to particular moral virtues, denying one's "sinful" nature, and so on. This, I suspect, is a large part of Christian moral speech.'
Hrm. This has got me thinking. I may post a suggested response to the chapter for Christians to make.
Your denial of 1.3 doesn't work. "Michael ought[some end] to contribute to UNICEF" can only be true if it converts to the conditional, "If Michael wants [some end], then P" where P is your proposition. Because otherwise it can be true that "Michael doesn't want [some end]" which would entail the true proposition "If Michael wants ~[some end], then ~P," where ~P is "Michael ought not to contribute to UNICEF" [as I demonstrate in Argument 2] and this proposition (call it M) cannot be simultaneously true with P. In other words, both M and P cannot be true, so when M is true, P is false. That's by modus tollens. And M is true whenever "Michael wants ~[some end]" is true. That means P can only be true when P is M. Thus 1.3 is necessarily true.
ReplyDeleteEven when avoiding this by term switching, to say Michael ought[1] to P even though he ought[2] not to P can have no claim to being morality, because ought[2] always outmotivates ought[1] so there is no sense in which Michael himself actually ought to P. You are just using "ought[1]" then to describe what you (not Michael) want Michael to do. But that has no connection with what Michael actually ought to do (unless you can prove that Michael ought[2] to do what you want; and proving Michael ought[1] to do what you want won't achieve that). That's the gap you can't cross.
That's why there can never be a single true proposition of the form "Michael ought[1] to X" for any X, because we can invent countless "some ends" and thus countless "Michael oughts[1]" that are all (by your scheme) equally true, which is impossible (because they all contradict each other). Thus we are actually not dealing with "true" propositions anymore (hence I call this exercise an exercise in fiction: TEC, pp. 342-43). That's why your ought[1] cannot produce true propositions. For any ought proposition to be true, all other ought propositions that contradict it have to be false (as this is what morality is by definition: TEC, pp. 348-49). If [some end] is arbitrary, then contradicting propositions based on other ends cannot be "false" in any meaningful sense. The only way to derive an ought proposition that in actual practice really does override all other oughts (of any definition of ought, i.e. oughts[1] as well as oughts[2]) is to work with ought[2] (and this is essentially what my paper proves, but in this specific case Argument 2 in particular). Thus if you want an objectively true ought, i.e. one that really does (in a substantive, real-world, in-actual-practice sense) override all other oughts, ought[1] can't cut it. Ought[2] can. And does.
BTW, in regard to my use of the terms "objective" and "realism" (which are in accord with standard references in the field), see my discussion of the ontology of my moral theory on my blog: Moral Ontology.
ReplyDeleteRichard Carrier -
ReplyDeleteSince I'm currently reading Hume (always a recommended activity IMO), I have moral sense theories on my mind. So I can't really make sense of your comment. When you say,
"...to say Michael ought[1] to P even though he ought[2] not to P can have no claim to being morality, because ought[2] always outmotivates ought[1] so there is no sense in which Michael himself actually ought to P. You are just using "ought[1]" then to describe what you (not Michael) want Michael to do. But that has no connection with what Michael actually ought to do"
... you are identifying "morally ought" with "actually ought". But why is this justified? Humans are complex things. Assuming they do have a moral sense, one could definitely say that "Michael ought[to relieve his guilt] donate to UNICEF" while at the same time maintain that "Michael ought[all his desires considered] not donate to UNICEF". In such , it makes perfect sense to talk about moral oughts as distinct from actual oughts.
Now I'm all for investigating what we rationally-ought to do, which you seem to call "actually ought". But this should not be carelessly identified with what we "morally ought" to do, which is a far more delicate question as it depends much more on language. That seems to be Garren's point, and in that he has convinced me.
Thanks for answering, if you will :)
Yair
Garren,
ReplyDelete"I don't have the "plainly false" intuition and I definitely am asking the second question.
What could an truly unqualified normative 'ought' mean, except as a form of noncognitive expression?"
An unqualified ought such as "you ought to wash the dishes" just means something like "you are supposed to wash the dishes." I can't really break it down any further. I kinda feel this is similar to the person who asks what it means for something to exist. I can say something like "that there is such a thing" but I can't semantically break it down much further.
Again though, I'm not denying that it might be true that you ought to wash the dishes only because washing the dishes achieves some end.
>>
ReplyDeleteNow I'm all for investigating what we rationally-ought to do, which you seem to call "actually ought". But this should not be carelessly identified with what we "morally ought" to do
Exactly. At no point is Carrier actually talking about morality and what we Ought to do. He simply equates what we want with what we Ought to want. It's ridiculous.
The rest is (bad) economics and science, not morality. What if we want to kill 6 million Jews? Carrier's system asks how to achieve that "moral" goal.
So then he declares happiness to be the highest good (which is a disaster once you begin to cover whatever you want or wiggle out of certain wants), then sneaks in a mystical claim of equal individual worth – which has its genealogical roots in Kant, who openly said it required God, and back to Christian mythology of divine souls – in order to overcome the obvious problem for his system of things like killing your enemies.As an atheist, his moral preaching is an embarrassment; as a philosopher, his bombastic righteousness is unacceptable - and his writing is the most verbose and awful possible. Few can say so little in so many words and yet claim so much.