On "Naturalism, Theism, Obligation and Supervenience"

When I finally reached the core argument in Alvin Plantinga's recently published paper "Naturalism, Theism, Obligation and Supervenience," I was surprised and a little puzzled. Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't that!

"Naturalism, Theism, Obligation and Supervenience" — Alvin Plantinga

The Goal

"I propose to support the claim that naturalism cannot accommodate morality—not by showing directly that it can’t, but by displaying the failure of the most natural way of arguing that it can."¹

...where the "most natural way" (punny!) falls into this pattern: There is a "naturalistically acceptable" property N which is equivalent to a given moral property M in the sense that if something has property N, it necessarily has property M (and vice versa). Therefore God isn't needed to account for moral properties.

An Example

Classic Utilitarianism provides a convenient example of a naturalistic property: "maximizes the world's hedonic index." If five actions are open to me, one of them might have the property of doing the most to increase pleasure among all sentient beings in the world. According to classic Utilitarianism, any action with this property also has the property of being obligatory (and vice-versa).

Why couldn't a Utilitarian say these two properties are equivalent, note that God wasn't invoked, and shrug off claims that God is required for moral obligation? This is where Plantinga's dilemma about equivalent properties comes in.

"Identical" Option — Equivalent Properties Are Identical

As Plantinga puts it, "if a property A is equivalent to a property B, then A is identical with B." That probably sounds redundant, but remember he is defining equivalent properties as those which necessarily appear as a pair. If they always and only appear together, it's easy to see the attractiveness of declaring them one property rather than two. Occam's Razor, right?

"Non-identical" Option — Equivalent Properties Aren't Necessarily Identical

Plantinga questions whether the property of being the [principal] square root of 9 is the "very same property" as being the fifth root of 243, among other counter-intuitive examples. It's not important to resolve the debate about which view of properties is correct because both options, Plantinga argues, are bad news for naturalistically acceptable morality.

The Possibility of Divine Command Ethics

Readers are asked to consider the possibility that "[w]hat makes an action A obligatory is that it is an essential property of God to command all persons to perform A." In this scenario, it may still be the case that a naturalistic property lines up with obligatory acts. God might, for example, command all persons to perform actions with the property of doing the most to increase pleasure among all sentient beings in the world. Classical Utilitarians would have correctly identified a property which:

1. always and only belongs to obligatory acts
2. does not mention God
3. (yet) is not the property that makes those acts obligatory

The non-identical option is what allows us to say that a naturalistic property (like the Utilitarian property) and the obligation property can be numerically distinct even if they always and only appear together. And since they are distinct properties, it doesn't follow that obligation must also be a naturalistic property.

"Given [the non-identical option], therefore, one can’t show that rightness or moral obligation is naturalistic by showing that it is equivalent to a naturalistic property."²

Meanwhile, it might seem at first like the identical option can show that moral obligation itself is naturalistic once someone can show that it always and only appears in conjunction with a naturalistic property (since this would show they are the same property). But if obligation also always and only appears in conjunction with a God-based property, then the naturalistic property, the property of obligation, and the God-based property would all be one and the same property according to the identical option! Therefore, the apparently naturalistic property was a God-based property all along.

"[I]f [the identical option] is true, then not even showing that obligation is identical with some naturalistic property will suffice to show that obligation is naturalistically acceptable; for obligation might well be identical with a naturalistic property, but also identical with a property obviously entailing that there is such a person as God."

The Big Conclusion

Under either complementary view of equivalent properties, demonstrating the equivalence of obligation with a naturalistic property fails to prove that obligation itself is a naturalistic property.

Wait A Minute

Why should any of this bother a naturalist? Heck, Plantinga outright affirms "there are naturalistic properties that are logically equivalent to obligation." A few provocative declarations aside, Plantinga appears to spend the whole paper arguing that this equivalence relationship is compatible with a certain kind of Theism, not that it is incompatible with naturalism.

All I've learned is that naturalism can't accommodate morality in hypothetical cases when naturalism is false anyway. This paper is probably of more interest to a Theist who is troubled by the strong ties moral properties have to naturalistic properties; it's a way of holding onto the possibility that moral properties are God-based even if they always and only appear in conjunction with (apparently) naturalistic properties.


1. Faith and Philosophy. Volume 27, Number 3 - 2010.
2. I'm substituting "non-identical option" for Plantinga's term 'abundantism' and "identical option" for his term 'sparsism.' I found his terms to be a confusing adaptation of David Lewis' usage and not needed for my own explanation.

Thoughts on Science

When I was in elementary school, I was very interested in science. I loved flipping through books about different kinds of animals and plants. Pictures of thirty kinds of snakes? Sold! I was fascinated by atlases, especially when they peeled away the oceans to show underwater landscapes. Other planets and comets were cool too! I played around with simple optics, making rainbows from prisms and burning words into pieces of wood with my magnifying glass. I had two sets of children's encyclopedias — Childcraft and Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia of Science — which I studied for countless hours.

Yet for all that, I had a limited view of science. I thought of science as a collection of interesting observations, a list of things in the world today. What I didn't understand is that science is primarily a method of learning about the world. All the things I thought constituted 'science' were really just some of the fruits of scientific method.

Forbidden Fruits

I have a fuzzy memory of my parents removing one volume from an encyclopedia set, or maybe one of the Time-Life nature books we had. It had something to do with "millions of years" or biological evolution (probably both). I wasn't supposed to put these in the same "things in the world" category as planets and trees.

A few years later, I was taught something like the following at my private Christian high school:

Science can only give us the data; it can't tell us how to interpret the data. So while scientists may find fossils in the ground, they can't tell us scientifically that those fossils are millions of years old. In fact, scientists who talk about "millions of years" or 'evolution' are making up those ideas out of disobedience to God.

It should come as no surprise that I wasn't given a clear understanding of how evolution is supposed to work or why people think the Earth is not just millions but billions of years old. Learning "both sides" would have been a step up.

For as long as I was a fundamentalist Christian, I accepted the claim that these parts of science were made up by non-Christians for religious reasons. The Bible explained how creation happened and so I didn't need to know any more specifics to know 'evolutionists' were misinterpreting the data. I was so swept up in my religion that I had become incurious about this world.

Renaissance

During my four years at Iowa State I came to see Christianity as just another human religion. ...but that's a story for another time. The point is that I no longer had this enormous pressure to believe life on Earth was created about six thousand years ago. Yet instead of saying, "Well, I don't believe the Bible is reliable so I'll just accept mainstream science now," I decided to find out why mainstream science claims the Earth is billions of years old and that living species are related. I was still prepared to hold contrarian views on those points if I didn't find the evidence compelling. Losing trust in religion-based knowledge didn't automatically boost my confidence in science-based knowledge.

(Note — I'm not claiming a loss of religion is necessary to fairly investigate scientific claims. This is simply my own personal history. I didn't investigate scientific claims until I left my childhood religion.)

So I started doing what I advocate in an earlier post:¹ I started reading both sides of the argument. The decisive stroke came when I read G. Brent Dalrymple's book The Age of the Earth. He did something amazing no author had bothered to do in my previous reading. Dalrymple gave a serious, patient, and readable explanation for why scientists believe the Earth is billions instead of mere thousands of years old. He didn't hide or downplay other answers scientists had given in the past. Instead, he showed why they had arrived at their conclusions and how those conclusions were replaced by better explanations.

After reading The Age of the Earth, I could see that many of the arguments for a young Earth were simply ignorant. No one who knew what I knew would even try to make those arguments in the way they were made. The next time you hear someone claim young Earth views are just as scientifically valid, ask them if they can give a very rough sketch of the significance of isochron dating. When you get a blank stare, be nice and recommend Dalrymple's book or chapter 3 of Kenneth Miller's best seller Finding Darwin's God.

Enlightenment 

My time at the university library taught me more than facts about the age of the Earth. The truly important lesson was that science is a method, not just a set of facts. Scientists aren't authorities on the truth; they're experts at discovering the truth...in a slow, never fully certain, but remarkably effective way.

Can experts be wrong? Of course! But it's foolish to assume that whenever the results of scientific inquiry are at odds with your own beliefs, the experts must be doing something wrong. Remember, these are people who are very familiar with the evidence and arguments. They probably have good reasons for holding the beliefs they do (which is a nice way of saying you're probably wrong). And the best part is that science is more or less a public exercise, so any sufficiently motivated person can find out why the experts believe what they do.

Today, I hold the fruits of mainstream science in high esteem, not because some authority told me I must, but because I have an appreciation for the method that produced them.


1. http://wordsideasandthings.blogspot.com/2011/01/being-sure-easy-way-and-hard-way.html

Disagreement As Evidence

When two people disagree, the usual approach is to start going over evidence and arguments. But what happens when Person A is fully satisfied that Person B understands the same evidence and arguments, yet still disagrees? Does this disagreement itself constitute additional evidence that Person A should take into account, perhaps by adjusting her position? Or would Person A be right to maintain her confidence?

These are the kinds of questions addressed in Feldman and Warfield's short anthology Disagreement.¹ In this post, I will primarily be sticking to one chapter which hits the central points.

Epistemic Peers

"Epistemic peer" is a term that pops up in most of the chapters. It's a shorthand way of talking about two or more people who have access to the relevant evidence and are mutually familiar with the different arguments they all hold. Thomas Kelly offers these three examples:²

• Two members of a jury, when it's time to decide 'guilty' or 'not-guilty.'
• Two weather forecasters on the chance of rain tomorrow.
• Two professional philosophers on whether free will is compatible with determinism.

(A large portion of these peer disagreement scenarios were about philosophers, for the obvious reason that these chapters were written by philosophers.)

Disagreement isn't such a problem when it happens between non peers on a particular topic. If I find out one of my beliefs about the moons of Jupiter is in conflict with what an astrophysicist believes, I should take this to indicate it's very likely that I'm ignorant of some relevant evidence and I should lower my confidence until I can investigate further. Meanwhile, the astrophysicist need not consider lowering her confidence just because I disagree unless I can demonstrate status as an epistemic peer.

Two Extremes

I found Thomas Kelly's chapter "Peer Disagreement and Higher-Order Evidence" to have the most helpful terminology, at least as a starting point. Search link:

Peer Disagreement and Higher-Order Evidence — Thomas Kelly

Here, Kelly examines two very different responses to peer disagreement, then ends up combining them. The first extreme response:

"The Equal Weight View: In cases of peer disagreement, one should give equal weight to the opinion of a peer and to one's own opinion."

A pro-argument. You and I are carrying thermometers which have agreed in the past. I check mine and conclude it's 60 degrees Fahrenheit, but then I find out you just checked yours and have concluded it is 65 degrees Fahrenheit. I know you're as fanatical about accurate measurement as I am, so it seems I must lower my confidence in "60 degrees" and raise my confidence in "65 degrees" until my confidence is evenly split between the two.³

A con-argument. Given the evidence available, the rationally correct level of confidence that hypothesis H is true is 10% (quite unlikely!). You and I come to two different, higher levels of confidence than that. Suppose I'm 20% confident that H is true and you are 80% confident. According to the Equal Weight View, we should both split the difference and be 50% confident that H is true. But it seems wrong that I should have to adjust my close-to-appropriate confidence so much in response to your way-off-base confidence.⁴

Perhaps there are better con-arguments against the Equal Weight View, but I found this one unpersuasive. In the scenario, you and I have already tried our best individually to form a correct level of confidence in hypothesis H. Expecting us both to recognize that my answer is more justified by the evidence and your answer is less justified seems to be going against the conditions of the hypothetical situation.

The second extreme response:

"The No Independent Weight View: In at least some cases of peer disagreement, it can be perfectly reasonable to give no weight at all to the opinion of the other party."

and its sibling:

"The Symmetrical No Independent Weight View: In at least some cases of peer disagreement, both parties to the dispute might be perfectly reasonable even if neither gives any weight at all to the opinion of the other party."

(Though, really, the other extreme would replace "at least some cases" with "all cases." In other words, a person could always respond to peer disagreement by not making any adjustment to their own confidence level. I could take the stance that my peer must show me evidence or arguments besides mere disagreement before I should be expected to budge.)

A pro-argument. Suppose I examine the evidence and become 80% confident hypothesis H is true, but I also take the position that confidence levels 70% through 90% are within reasonable range. You examine the evidence and become 75% confident H is true, and also hold that 65% through 85% are within reasonable range. We meet and find out we disagree, but we're both close enough that we consider the other's answer reasonable. It doesn't seem like we should be rationally required to split the difference.⁵

Another quick example: an Atheist peer and a Deist peer may disagree quite substantially but still consider the other view within the range of reasonableness, given the nature of the evidence. That last bit — still considering the quality of the original evidence when dealing with disagreement — is what Kelly thinks is missing from a strict adherence to the Equal Weight View.

I don't have a specific con-argument. However, those who find the Equal Weight View strongly persuasive would want to know when it makes sense to set the Equal Weight View aside. More on that shortly.

Combining Forces

If one view sounds pretty good and so does the other, why not try combining them? That's what Kelly does with his Total Evidence View. He argues that we should take all of the following into account during peer disagreement:

• The original evidence (the first-order evidence).
• My own confidence level.
• Your confidence level (which, together with my own confidence level forms the higher-order evidence).

By contrast, the Equal Weight View would leave out the original evidence at this stage, with the assumption that it is already "baked into" our respective confidence levels.

The obvious question now is: "How, exactly, do does the nature (or quality) of the original evidence weigh in?" Can we construct a neat formula which reduces to the Equal Weight View as a special case and the No Independent Weight View as another special case? Kelly doesn't try to do this. Instead, he gives the following rough outline:

"In some cases, the first-order evidence might be extremely substantial compared to the higher-order evidence; in such cases, the former tends to swamp the latter. In other cases, the first-order evidence might be quite insubstantial compared to the higher-order evidence; in such cases, the latter tends to swamp the former. [...] In still other cases, the two kinds of evidence might play a more or less equal role in fixing facts about what is reasonable to believe."⁶

An example of the first-order 'swamping' the second-order. Suppose we go out to dinner, decide to split the bill, and we both calculate what half of the bill should be. I come up with an answer of $20 each. You come up with an answer of $130 each. It's very obvious that $130 is more than the entire bill. Even if I have known you to be equally reliable at math before today, I can completely disregard your answer because it's so absurd.⁷

Frankly, I'm not sold on the Total Evidence View. In this dinner math example, it's doubtful we would still disagree after talking it over briefly. Maybe that's unfair since it's such a trivial example, but I thought the main point of this "philosophy of disagreement" stuff was how to handle disagreements with seemingly reasonable people with whom we've hashed out an argument as far as it seems we can on the first-order evidence. I do tend to think the quality of the original evidence should be "baked into" our confidence levels before considering whether disagreement itself constitutes additional evidence.

I still don't have any very strong views about whether peer disagreement counts as evidence. It's a good question which I hope to keep exploring.

Disagreement Disagreements

When I started reading this book, I wondered if one of the writers would turn the lens of disagreement theory back toward disagreements about disagreement theory. Yep! Adam Elga delivered with his chapter "How to Disagree about How to Disagree."

What I found most interesting was the suggestion that positions about how to handle disagreements might be self-undermining. If I hold a "split the difference" style position and you disagree, how can I consistently hold fast to my position about how to handle disagreements? Elga argues that, yes, this would be hypocritical...unless we can somehow make a principled exception for the principle itself.

A principle that makes an exception for itself? How scandalous! But consider the hypothetical case that Consumer Reports magazine not only rates consumer products but also rates magazines of its own kind. Wouldn't it have to give itself top marks all the time for its product ratings to make any sense? How could Consumer Reports give Super Waffle Toaster a 3/5 rating (or however it's done) without implying that it stands behind its 3/5 rating as the most accurate rating any such magazine could give of the product?

"In order to be consistent, a fundamental policy, rule or method must be dogmatic with respect to its own correctness. This general constraint provides independent motivation for a view on disagreement to treat disagreement about disagreement in a special way."⁸

Interesting. Now I'm on the lookout for when this principle of principled exceptions might apply in other contexts.


1. Feldman, R., & Warfield, T. A. (Eds.). 2010. Disagreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. p 111.
3. Adapted from p 114.
4. Adapted from p 122.
5. Adapted from p 118.
6. p 142.
7. Adapted from p 149. 
8. p 185.

Being Sure — The Easy Way and the Hard Way

"[T]hose who believe that genetically modified foods are dangerous will be relatively unlikely to study the arguments of those who think they are safe. So it is for many topics. The vast abundance of information on the Internet and in the print and broadcast media is only likely to worsen this problem. We cannot attend to everything; we must select; we select according to our interests; we are interested in confirming what we already believe."¹

Confirmation bias is the natural, unconscious tendency to pay attention to evidence in favor of what we believe while overlooking evidence which might challenge our beliefs. Even worse, we can keep our views from being challenged altogether by exclusively choosing radio stations, TV programs, and books from "our side."

It's easy to notice this happening on the "other side" of a given issue and condemn them for not taking the time to properly understand our own arguments. If they did, they might agree! Or at least they would understand our true concerns instead of caricatures of our concerns. Well, why not apply an intellectual Golden Rule? If we want others to make an effort to understand our side, we should be willing to do the same.

Taking an open look at another point of view is risky. Parts of it might make sense. You might suddenly realize one of your own arguments isn't very good. It may become necessary to adjust your view a little...or a lot. But remember, this is not an external risk. Refusing to examine alternate views is refusing to trust yourself to deal with new information.

Any major issue will have a variety of proponents on both sides. When it comes to deciding which folks on the other side to give a fair hearing, I have a bit of advice: find someone likable. This might mean talking to someone you already know and like personally. It might mean sampling speakers and writers on the other side and filtering out the jerks (unless you dig that sort of thing). It might just mean finding someone you respect for doing good work in an unrelated area. Whichever way you go, it's important to counter your confirmation bias with a positive bias. We can't get rid of our less rational instincts, but playing them against each other goes a long way toward outsmarting them.

When you do find an argument from the other side that makes sense, don't stop there. Go looking for the best response your own side has to offer. Then see what the other side's best response is to that. It's a back-and-forth process that does the most justice to both sides.

It's easy to be sure by only looking for confirmation. It's harder to be sure when taking challenges seriously, but the latter approach is a much more reliable way to not only feel correct, but to be correct.


1. Trudy Govier. A Practical Study of Argument (7th ed.). 2010. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. p 374.

Lingo: Foundationalism, Coherentism, and Infinitism

When I express a belief, it's reasonable — especially if you disagree — to ask why. I may try to justify the first belief by drawing on the support of some other beliefs. Of course, if you still disagree with those beliefs, you will probably ask the question again about the supporting beliefs. And so on.

How long can this process continue? It's a bit like asking how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop.¹ No one is patient enough to find out! But let's talk theory. There are three basic views about what makes a belief justified.

Foundationalism

According to the foundationalist view, we will eventually get to one or more basic beliefs which are special because it's inappropriate (in some sense) to ask me why I hold it. Basic beliefs are justified without appeal to supporting beliefs. For example, the belief that I am currently experiencing a warm sensation might be a basic belief. These basic beliefs serve as a foundation to any set of justified beliefs. So:

1. Basic beliefs are justified without appeal to supporting beliefs.
2. Non-basic beliefs which only need support from basic beliefs and previously justified non-basic beliefs are justified.

Coherentism

A coherentist view of justification doesn't rely on a foundation of basic beliefs with a careful buildup of justified beliefs on top of that. Instead, a belief is justified if — or maybe to the degree that — it fits (i.e. coheres) with all the other beliefs a person holds.

One way to sketch the difference between foundationalism and coherentism is to pay attention to how we go about accusing someone of holding an unjustified belief. Suppose I believe that Tuesdays bring me abysmally bad luck. If you point out that I don't have any reliable basis to draw that conclusion, you are thinking like a foundationalist. If, instead, you point out that some of the best days in my life have been Tuesdays, you are thinking like a coherentist.  

Infinitism

This term doesn't show up nearly as often as the other two, but it's worth mentioning to round out the major possibilities. Roughly speaking, infinitism is like foundationalism without basic beliefs. There are no eventual stopping points. Justification is gained along the way down, instead of put on complete hold until it turns out a belief ultimately relies only on basic beliefs.

Justification and Truth

Holding a true belief is not the same thing as being justified in holding a belief. Justification is more about having a good reason to believe something. It's possible to believe something for a bad reason, but happen to be correct (unjustified true belief). If you agree it's also possible to believe something for a good reason, but happen to be incorrect, then justified false belief is an option.

Still, there wouldn't be much point in worrying about justification if justified beliefs weren't at least more likely to be true than unjustified beliefs.

Why do I bring this up? Because I don't want people to discount coherentism and infinitism out of hand just because it's more obvious that beliefs considered 'justified' under those views could possibly still be false. That's not a fatal criticism. Personally, I think foundationalism turns out to be problematic despite its initial appeal, but this is just a quick introduction to the terms. They'll come up again in future posts.


1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2xMGI-QpZw

Why Philippa Foot Changed Her Mind (And I Haven't)

This is a followup to my post on Philippa Foot's paper "Morality As a System of Hypothetical Imperatives."¹ I already knew Foot later came to repudiate the view expressed in that paper — a view that resonates with me — but I didn't know why she changed her mind or what became her new position. So I set out on a little investigation, half-expecting she would lead me to new insight.

If anyone wants to follow Foot's trail without being biased by my take on things, you'll find a thorough explanation in her book Natural Goodness, especially Chapter 4. It will also be very helpful to read Warren Quinn's paper "Rationality and the Human Good," included in the collection Morality and Action which Foot put together after his death. Natural Goodness is also dedicated to Quinn's memory.

[Added] Neil S. points out that Foot wrote a one page "Recantation" in Moral Discourse and Practice, edited by Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton.

Acting Morally and Acting Rationally

In "Morality As a System of Hypothetical Imperatives," Foot wrote:

"Irrational actions are those in which a man in some way defeats his own purposes, doing what is calculated to be disadvantageous or to frustrate his ends. Immorality does not necessarily involve any such thing."

It's this definition of what it means for an action to be rational that Foot later questioned and rejected. In other words, she rejected the idea that a person could conceivably act rationally yet immorally by pursuing his own desires and interests. In Natural Goodness, Foot looks back to her earlier paper:

"I now wonder why, given the obvious indigestibility of the idea that morality is indeed a system of hypothetical imperatives, I should have accepted it even for a short while. What seemed to force it on me was the sheer difficulty of showing a practical rationality that was independent of desire or interest."²

So she implies she has found a better definition of what it means for an action to be rational, one which goes beyond acting toward one's own desires and interests. In fact, one which includes moral considerations.

"Can it be the case that someone who does what is wrong thereby acts in a way that is contrary to reason? May we add considerations that are about right and wrong to the list of rationalizing considerations given above?"³

Foot's inspiration for answering these questions with a 'yes' comes from Warren Quinn's article "Rationality and the Human Good."

The Virtue of Rationality

Quinn tries to show that if we accept a definition of rationality which is indifferent to moral concerns — what he calls "Neo-Humean rationality" — we cannot at the same time regard rationality as "our chief excellence as agents."⁴ He argues that if rationality allows (or even recommends) a contemptible action, then such rationality itself must share in that contemptible quality. He goes on to say, "[S]urely it is doubtful whether either the excellent or the worthwhile can be contemptible. The ideas do not seem to cohabit comfortably in the same logical space."⁵

Back to Foot:

"And Quinn asked, in the crucial sentence of the article, what then would be so important about practical rationality? In effect he is pointing to our taken-for-granted, barely noticed assumption that practical rationality has the status of a kind of master virtue, in order to show that we cannot in consistency with ourselves think the that Humean account of it is true. Seeing this as a move of great originality and extreme importance, I asked myself why [...] it should be supposed that there is [a morally independent concept of rationality] with which the requirements of moral goodness must somehow be shown to be consonant."⁶

Both Foot and Quinn are viewing morally indifferent theories of rational action — like the one Foot used to hold — as setting up rationality as an authority over morality. Not only that, but a supposedly virtuous authority which turns out to not be so virtuous. The fix, then, is to stop putting the cart before the horse (Foot's actual analogy!) and make goodness the "master virtue" which restricts what it means for an action to be rational.

"This now seems to me to be the correct way of meeting the challenge that I myself issued in 'Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives' and that at the time despaired of meeting: namely, to show the rationality of acting, even against desire and self-interest, on a demand of morality. The argument depends on the change of direction that Quinn suggested: seeing goodness as setting a necessary condition of practical rationality and therefore as at least a part-determinant of the thing itself."⁷

That's...quite a change. From what I can gather, a breakdown of Foot's new definition of rational action would be:

1. An action is rational if demanded by morality, or if it is morally permissible and promotes one's own desires/interests.
2. An action is irrational if forbidden by morality, or if it is morally permissible but works against one's own desires/interests.

An Example

To lend intuitive support to rejecting a "present desire" account of rational action, Foot points out that we have no qualms about saying a person is acting irrationally if he indulges in a trivial pleasure which risks his future health.

But do we necessarily consider such behavior irrational? Driving to the movie theater is a risk to my future health. Is skydiving irrational? What about people who willfully sacrifice their lives for a cause they presently support? If one's present desire for something risky outweighs present desire for future security, I don't think we can so quickly dismiss the risky option as 'irrational.'

Even if we do find "present desire" theories of rationality insufficient, it would be a small adjustment to consider theories which take into account both present and future desire. We would still be squarely in a desire/interest based understanding of rational action. Foot only threw in the 'present' qualifier for her supposed counter-example.

But, again, even if we do find desire/interest theories insufficient overall, this doesn't automatically make the case that practical rationality is mostly about taking moral actions and avoiding immoral actions. Why doesn't Foot give readers an example of acting against personal desire/interest to perform a morally required action which even 'Neo-Humeans' would have a hard time calling irrational? That would be an intuition lending positive support to her new position.

The Root of the Problem

My investigation has been informative, but not enlightening. I still maintain that the rational action and the moral action may be at odds, if a person truly has no desires or interests which bring the two together. Suppose I have the option of gaining a million dollars, but I know it would require the death of ten healthy people I've never met. If I take the million dollars, I haven't necessarily demonstrated faulty reasoning; what I have shown is the moral failing of preferring a million dollars over the continuance of ten lives.

Why would Quinn and Foot feel so uncomfortable judging rationality and morality in separate terms? I suspect it boils down to a presupposition Quinn implies in his paper:

"I spoke earlier of rationality as authoritative. By the authority of one excellence over another I mean the ability of the former to prevail over the latter in determining what the agent should, in some unqualified and unrelativized sense, do."⁸

I deny that any "unqualified and unrelativized" sense of 'should' is valid. Or, positively, I affirm that normative 'should,' 'ought,' 'must not,' etc. uniformly imply a related end. See my post on Stephen Finlay's paper "Oughts and Ends."⁹ I'm comfortable with the possibility that what a person should_rationally do is different from what a person should_morally do, but Quinn would insist on a further answer about what a person simply should do. As far as I can tell, this is like insisting on being told which number is produced when dividing an integer by zero; if terms like 'should' are relative to an end, demanding a non-relative 'should' is futile.

Stepping Back

How does all this apply to the question of whether moral imperatives are hypothetical or categorical? If you recall, the essential difference between the two is that hypothetical imperatives are necessary to fulfill a desire/end (actual or potential) while categorical imperatives don't refer to anything beyond themselves.

Foot spent time in her earlier paper showing how moral virtues can be properly thought of as having ends, which people may or may not desire. If this counted in favor of characterizing morality as a system of hypothetical imperatives back then, I don't see how Foot's new position about rationality would change that. It would merely be irrational to flout hypothetical imperatives, even when one's own interests or desires alone encourage doing so.

Overall, I get the feeling much of the conversation is a fight over terminology. Does the word 'rational' include moral considerations? We could define it either way. Foot was lambasted for suggesting morality is "a system of hypothetical imperatives," even though I doubt most of her critics would have as much of a problem with the idea that moral virtues have ends; they were probably upset because they understood "hypothetical imperative" to mean something else. Foot's repudiation of her earlier paper did, in fact, focus on something else. I'm much more interested in sorting out ideas than getting lost in the words.

At least I did find the answers I set out to find; not a bad result!


1. http://wordsideasandthings.blogspot.com/2011/01/on-morality-as-system-of-hypothetical_11.html
2. Foot, Philippa (2001). Natural goodness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p 61.
3. ibid. p 62.
4. Quinn, Warren (1993) Rationality and the Human Good. In P. Foot (Ed.), Morality and action. New York: Cambridge University Press. p 221.
5. ibid. p 226.
6. Foot (2001). p 62. 
7. ibid. p 63.
8. Quinn (1993). p 212.
9. http://wordsideasandthings.blogspot.com/2010/12/on-oughts-and-ends.html

On "Morality As a System of Hypothetical Imperatives"

This famous paper by Philippa Foot struck me as a good deal more reasonable than most of the ethical theory I had been reading previously. From what I gather, it was a challenge to mainstream thinking at the time and continues to be controversial today.

Morality As a System of Hypothetical Imperatives — Philippa Foot (Link)

Two Kinds of Imperatives

An imperative is just a command. According to Kant (as quoted in Foot's paper), "All imperatives command either hypothetically or categorically." Kant goes on to define hypothetical imperatives as involving actions which are necessary in order to achieve something a person desires (or actions which would be necessary if that thing were desired). So if I say, "You must take a left at the end of the street" under the assumption that you want to reach the bank, I've expressed what is clearly a hypothetical imperative.

Kant then defines categorical imperatives as involving actions which are necessary in themselves "without regard to any other end." If that doesn't make much sense to you, join the club!

Morality — according to Kant and others — is concerned with categorical imperatives and not 'mere' hypothetical imperatives. But as you might guess from the title of Foot's paper, this assertion is under question.

Inescapable Commands

Foot does recognize a difference between imperatives which rely on the agent's desires (and are withdrawn if it turns out the proper desire isn't there) and imperatives which stand regardless of the agent's desires. It's easy to contrast "If you want to reach the bank, you must take a left at the end of the street" with "You must not rob the bank." The latter type is 'inescapable' in the sense that the command applies no matter what the agent wants.

Does this escapable/inescapable dichotomy amount to the same thing as the hypothetical/categorical dichotomy? According to Foot, "[m]odern philosophers" have claimed inescapability as a key feature of moral judgments which distinguish them from hypothetical imperatives.

Reason-Giving Commands

Foot writes, "[I]t is supposed that moral considerations necessarily give reasons for acting to any man." This leads to another dichotomy: commands which necessarily give everyone reason to follow them and commands which only contingently give people reason to follow them.

The Challenged View

Now we have the components to sketch the overall view that Foot appears to be challenging in her paper. I'm presenting it all at once instead of in parts (as she does), but I think it's a fair representation.

Supposedly, all commands fall into one of two distinct categories. They are either:

Hypothetical Imperatives
and Escapable
and Contingently Reason-Giving
and Non-moral
       or
Categorical Imperatives
and Inescapable
and Necessarily Reason Giving
and Moral

An obvious way to criticize this model is to find odd cases which blur the line between categories, which is what Foot does.

Challenge #1: Commands can be inescapable, yet non-moral.

Club rules — like "not bring[ing] ladies into the smoking room" — or rules of etiquette are inescapable, i.e. we don't take back club rules or table manners just because someone doesn't care to follow them. In fact, we tend to express the rules all the more forcefully when we encounter such indifference.

Challenge #2: Commands can be moral, yet contingently reason giving.

Per Foot, "Irrational actions are those in which a man in some way defeats his own purposes, doing what is calculated to be disadvantageous or to frustrate his ends. Immorality does not necessarily involve any such thing."

I don't see how to dispute that without claiming the most moral action is necessarily the action which most promotes an agent's own goals. Even if it's the case that human psychology or a divine overseer's intervention makes every moral choice the best option to realize personal goals — which is doubtful from the look of this world — that would just mean that all moral commands are contingently reason giving.

Farewell, Proxies!

If you glance down to the third challenge, you'll notice Foot directly challenges the notion that morals must be categorical imperatives. What, then, was the point of the first two challenges?

Philosophers had been using 'inescapability' and 'necessarily reason giving' as proxy measurements (indirect indicators) of categorical imperatives. Foot needed to break down the assumption that any 'inescapable' command must be categorical and the assumption that 'necessarily reason giving' is a quality possessed by any command at all.

Think of it as clearing the table before focusing on the true object of inquiry.

Challenge #3: Commands can be moral, yet necessary to achieve a desire (i.e. hypothetical)

Supposedly, "Actions that are truly moral must be done 'for their own sake,' 'because they are right,' and not for some ulterior purpose." Ah, we're finally back to the question of the end/purpose/goal of a command! Remember that Kant defined hypothetical imperatives as actions necessary to achieve some actual or potential desire and categorical imperatives as actions which are necessary without such further purpose.

Since I still have no idea what it would mean for an action to be "of itself objectively necessary," I'm happy to let that phrase remain apparent nonsense if moral imperatives can be understood without it.

First, Foot gives a probable explanation for why Kant was so opposed to letting desires play a role in morality. In short: he mistakenly believed that humans only desire selfish things unless they decide to act morally for morality's sake. Why is this mistaken? Because we can and do desire good things for other people beyond personal benefit.

(On a hunch, I looked up whether Kant ever had children. Nope! I don't have children either, but from what I've observed, it would be very hard to be a loving parent and still think all human desires are self-serving.)

Second, Foot gives an example of moral virtue coming from a desire:

It will surely be allowed that quite apart from thoughts of duty a man may care about the suffering of others, having a sense of identification with them, and wanting to help if he can. Of course he must want not the reputation of charity, nor even a gratifying role helping others, but, quite simply, their good. If this is what he does care about, then he will be attached to the end proper to the virtue of charity and a comparison with someone acting from an ulterior motive (even a respectable ulterior motive) is out of place.

She further points out that a person may act justly out of a desire that "every man to be treated with a certain minimum respect," or act honestly out of a desire "to live openly and in good faith with his neighbors."

If we can have desires which correspond to moral imperatives, then we can view hypothetical imperatives with greater esteem. Not all hypothetical imperatives support moral virtues, but some do!

The Danger of Hypotheticals

Foot anticipates complaints that teaching morality as a system of hypothetical imperatives would be ineffective in controlling people who lack any and all moral desires. I would very loosely paraphrase her answer as: "Yes. Let's be honest and face up to that, rather than peddle delusions."

She closes by implying that we might actually be creating moral skepticism with "the official line about morality," i.e. that right acts must be done for some utterly mysterious reason with no concrete justification. I, for one, am in favor of removing the mystery from moral discussions and making do with what's left.


Followup Post
http://wordsideasandthings.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-philippa-foot-changed-her-mind-and.html