A Standard of Judgement

A Standard of Judgement Michael Smith Princeton University Lecture 1: From the human condition to a standard of judgement Lecture 2: From a standard of judgement to moral rationalism Lecture 3: The best form of moral rationalism Lecture 4: Moral reasons vs non-moral reasons Lecture 5: A normative theory of blame Lecture 6: Loose ends Bonus discussion section: Defeat by nature in “Force Majeure” “Here is the beginning of philosophy: a recognition of the conflicts between men, a search for their cause, a condemnation of mere opinion...and the discovery of a standard of judgement” Epictetus, Discourses III:11

One of the very boldest claims being defended in these lectures is the claim that facts about the desires of ideal agents can be used to define commonsense facts about what’s desirable and undesirable; that these facts can be used to define facts about reasons for action; and that facts about reasons for action can be used to define facts about what’s morally forbidden, permissible, obligatory, and supererogatory. Importantly, these are all reductive definitions. That is to say, the bold claim is that these commonsense normative facts can all be understood in terms of the kind agent, where the kind agent is a goodness-fixing kind, and where this goodness-fixing kind can be understood independently of the normative facts that are defined in terms of it.

Evaluative and deontic facts in possible worlds inhabited by our crappy selves obtain in virtue of facts about the desires the ideal counterparts of our crappy selves have about those possible worlds

Facts about what is intrinsically desirable as fixed by the intrinsic desires of ideal agents Evaluative and deontic facts in possible worlds inhabited by our crappy selves obtain in virtue of facts about the desires the ideal counterparts of our crappy selves have about those possible worlds Facts about what there is reason to do

The proposed definitions commit us to a version of moral rationalism, that is, to the doctrine that moral facts entail facts about moral reasons for action. But what is the difference between moral and non-moral reasons? We saw last time that moral reasons for action are reason-giving features of actions that are impartial and unconditional, and that non-moral reasons for action are reason-giving features that fail to satisfy these conditions: that is, they are partial and conditional, or impartial and conditional, or partial and unconditional. The proposed definitions therefore commit us to the conclusion that, if there are any moral facts, then there are also facts about reasons for action that are impartial and unconditional. We spent the last lecture considering an objection to the proposed definitions. According to the objection, they entail that there are no unconditional reasons for action, and so commit us to an Error Theory about morality. We then considered the definitions associated with the Reasons-First View and Desirability-First View, views which effectively rule out an Error Theory. However, as we saw, these definitions are themselves fatally flawed.

The proposed definitions commit us to a version of moral rationalism, that is, to the doctrine that moral facts entail facts about moral reasons for action. But what is the difference between moral and non-moral reasons? We saw last time that moral reasons for action are reason-giving features of actions that are impartial and unconditional, and that non-moral reasons for action are reason-giving features that fail to satisfy these conditions: that is, they are partial and conditional, or impartial and conditional, or partial and unconditional. The proposed definitions therefore commit us to the conclusion that, if there are any moral facts, then there are also facts about reasons for action that are impartial and unconditional. We spent the last lecture considering an objection to the proposed definitions. According to the objection, the definitions entail that there are no unconditional reasons for action, and so commit us to an Error Theory about morality. We then considered the definitions associated with the Reasons-First and Desirability-First Views, views which effectively rule out an Error Theory. However, as we saw, these definitions are themselves fatally flawed.

The upshot is that what’s needed is some account of the nature of desirability, on the one hand, and the functional role of desire, on the other, that together make it clear why desirability facts and facts about reasons for action are impartial and unconditonal. This is what’s offered by the Function-First View. The obvious way to develop the Function-First View is by first of all giving definitions of desirability facts and about facts about reasons for action in terms of the desires of ideal agents, and then showing that it is only if all ideal agents have certain impartial desires that their psychology does indeed function ideally. Given our account of what it is for an agent to be ideal, this means showing that only agents with certain impartial desires can have and exercise maximal capacities for knowledge-acquisition and desire-realization. The task today is to demonstrate that this is so.

The upshot is that what’s needed is some account of the nature of desirability, on the one hand, and the functional role of desire, on the other, that together make it clear why desirability facts and facts about reasons for action are impartial and unconditonal. This is what’s offered by the Function-First View. The obvious way to develop the Function-First View is by first of all giving definitions of desirability facts and about facts about reasons for action in terms of the desires of ideal agents, and then showing that it is only if all ideal agents have certain impartial desires that their psychology does indeed function ideally. Given our account of what it is for an agent to be ideal, this means showing that only agents with certain impartial desires can have and exercise maximal capacities for knowledge-acquisition and desire-realization. The task today is to demonstrate that this is so. The demonstration has seven steps.

1. A minimal agent is a being who puts his intrinsic desires together with his means-end beliefs with a view to realizing the objects of his intrinsic desires in the way characterized by the standard story of action. 2. An ideal agent is a being who possesses and robustly exercises maximal versions of the two capacities that make minimal agency possible: that is, the ideal agent has maximal capacities to know the world in which he lives and realize his intrinsic desires in it. 3. The maximal versions of these capacities should be thought of in modal terms: that is, the ideal agent has and exercises the capacity to know what the world is like, no matter what it is like, and realize his intrinsic desires in it, no matter what he intrinsically desires. 4. The two capacities possessed by an ideal agent, at least as so far characterized, seem not to fully cohere with each other because their joint exercise is not robustly compossible.

5. Ideal agents have certain constitutive intrinsic desires. The role of such intrinsic desires is to bring their capacities for knowledge-acquisition and desire-realization into coherence with each other. Specifically, they have a dominant intrinsic desire to not now interfere with their own current exercise of their capacity to know the world in which they live... ....and a dominant intrinsic desire to not now interfere with their own future exercise of their capacity to know the world in which they live... ...and a dominant intrinsic desire to not now interfere with their own current or future exercise of their capacity to realize their desires (on condition that the realization of these desires wouldn’t require them to interfere with their capacities for knowledge-acquisition or desire-realization—this condition will be taken as read from here-on)... ... and a dominant intrinsic desire to now do what they can to ensure that they have such capacities to exercise in both the present and the future

6. An ideal agent has variations of each pf these dominant intrinsic desires concerning anyone whose exercise of their knowledge-acquisition or desire-realization capacities is dependent on what he now does.

6. An ideal agent has variations of each pf these dominant intrinsic desires concerning anyone whose exercise of their knowledge-acquisition or desire-realization capacities is dependent on what he now does. Three related arguments can be given for this claim: • Derek Parfit’s Appeal to Full Relativity. • Mark Johnston’s and Derek Parfit’s examples which suggest that the idea of a persisting self does not carve nature at its metaphysical joints. • John Locke’s suggestion that ‘person’ is a forensic term

6. An ideal agent has variations of each of these dominant intrinsic desires concerning anyone whose exercise of their knowledge-acquisition or desire-realization capacities is dependent on what he now does. Three related arguments can be given for this claim: • Derek Parfit’s Appeal to Full Relativity suggests that metaphysical principles concerning persons must be either principles that concern all persons at all times or else principles that are restricted to a person at a time. None of these principles can be restricted to a person, but then concern that person at all times.

6. An ideal agent has variations of each of these dominant intrinsic desires concerning anyone whose exercise of their knowledge-acquisition or desire-realization capacities is dependent on what he now does. Three related arguments can be given for this claim: • Derek Parfit’s Appeal to Full Relativity. • Mark Johnston’s and Derek Parfit’s examples which suggest that the idea of a persisting self does not carve nature at its metaphysical joints. • John Locke’s suggestion that ‘person’ is a forensic term

6. An ideal agent has variations of each of these dominant intrinsic desires concerning anyone whose exercise of their knowledge-acquisition or desire-realization capacities is dependent on what he now does. Three related arguments can be given for this claim: • Derek Parfit’s Appeal to Full Relativity. • Mark Johnston’s and Derek Parfit’s examples which suggest that the idea of a persisting self does not carve nature at its metaphysical joints. This idea is also supported by our Descartes-inspired thought experiment in which we came to the conclusion that we are temporally extended, as nothing in that thought-experiment told us what our temporal extension is. This in turn suggests that we carve nature at its metaphysical joints when we identify the different instances of someone-somewhere-sometime, one of which is me-here-now, and that we must therefore restrict ourselves to such terms when we characterize the nature of ideal agents.

6. An ideal agent has variations of each of these dominant intrinsic desires concerning anyone whose exercise of their knowledge-acquisition or desire-realization capacities is dependent on what he now does. Three related arguments can be given for this claim: • Derek Parfit’s Appeal to Full Relativity. • Mark Johnston’s and Derek Parfit’s examples which suggest that the idea of a persisting self does not carve nature at its metaphysical joints. • John Locke’s suggestion that ‘person’ is a forensic term

“Person” is a forensic term. Person, as I take it, is the name for this self. Wherever a man finds what he calls himself, there, I think, another may say is the same person. It is a forensic term, appropriating actions and their merit; and so belongs only to intelligent agents, capable of law, and happiness, and misery. This personality extends itself beyond present existence to what is past, only by consciousness, —whereby it becomes concerned and accountable; owns and imputes to itself past actions, just upon the same ground and for the same reason as it does the present. In Chapter XXVII of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke tells us that: That is to say, a person is that phase of an agent that has at least some measure of the capacity to be trustworthy, where this is a capacity they and others can keep track of in both themselves and others so that they can tell when self-control, and other-control, is called for. The self-other control distinction is in turn a matter of a difference in techniques of control: ie self = attention, resolve, surrender vs other = negotiation, avoidance, coercion.

Why? Because self-control is, inter alia, a matter of my crappy self’s forming beliefs about what my ideal self wants my crappy self to do, noting that I don’t want to do it, and then getting myself to do it by using techniques of self-control. If this is on the right track, then there are two further corollaries. First, the desires that fix the reasons for action that my crappy self has must be desires that my ideal self has about what my crappy self is to do. Second, the constitutive intrinsic desires my ideal self has aren’t just desires that I do not now interfere with my own present or future exercise of my capacities for knowledge-acquisition or desire-realization, but rather desires that I do not now interfere with the present or future exercise of these capacities in anyone whose exercise of these capacities can be affected by what I now do. • Why? Because my trustworthiness is a matter of not just how I treat myself now and in the future, but also a matter of how I treat others, and the trustworthiness of others is the same. Personhood in this way presupposes the existence of impartial and unconditional reasons.

6. An ideal agent intrinsically desires that he does not now interfere with anyone’s present or future exercise of their capacities for knowledge-acquisition or desire-realization, not his own exercise of these capacities, and not anyone else’s exercise of these capacities either, and to now do what he can to ensure that everyone has such capacities to exercise. For short, let’s call these the desires to help and not interfere. All ideal agents intrinsically desire to help and not interfere because these desires are required for their capacities for knowledge-acquisition and desire-realization to be brought into coherence with each other. 7. In addition to having dominant intrinsic desires to help and not interfere, an ideal agent has the same intrinsic desires as his crappy counterpart. Note that it follows from (6) and (7) that all ideal agents have certain intrinsic desires in common, namely, the intrinsic desires to help and not interfere. These intrinsic desires are constitutive of their being ideal agents. But they also have other idiosyncratic or non-constitutive intrinsic desires, namely, the very same idiosyncratic intrinsic desires possessed the crappy agents whose ideal counterparts they are.

6. An ideal agent intrinsically desires that he does not now interfere with anyone’s present or future exercise of their capacities for knowledge-acquisition or desire-realization, not his own exercise of these capacities, and not anyone else’s exercise of these capacities either. For short, let’s call these the desires to help and not interfere. All ideal agents intrinsically desire to help and not interfere because these desires are required for their capacities for knowledge-acquisition and desire-realization to be brought into coherence with each other. 7. In addition to having dominant intrinsic desires to help and not interfere, an ideal agent has the same intrinsic desires as his crappy counterpart. Note that it follows from (6) and (7) that all ideal agents have certain intrinsic desires in common, namely, the intrinsic desires to help and not interfere. These intrinsic desires are constitutive of their being ideal agents. But they also have other idiosyncratic or non-constitutive intrinsic desires, namely, the very same idiosyncratic intrinsic desires possessed the crappy agents whose ideal counterparts they are.

Let’s now return to the very boldest of claims being defended in these lectures, that is, to the claim that facts about the desires of ideal agents can be used to define commonsense facts about what’s desirable and undesirable; that these facts can in turn be used to define facts about reasons for action; and that facts about reasons for action can be used to define facts about what’s morally forbidden, permissible, obligatory, and supererogatory. Given (6) and (7) , what are the facts about what’s desirable and undesirable? Given (6) and (7) and the facts about what’s desirable and undesirable, what do we have reason to do? Given (6) and (7) and the facts about what we have reason to do, are any of the reason-giving features of our acts impartial and unconditional? (These, you will recall, are the characteristics of moral reasons for action.) Are any of the reason-giving features partial and conditional, or impartial and conditional, or partial and unconditional? (These, you will recall, are the characteristics of non-moral reasons for action.)

Facts about what is intrinsically desirable as fixed by the intrinsic desires of ideal agents Evaluative and deontic facts in possible worlds inhabited by our crappy selves obtain in virtue of facts about the desires the ideal counterparts of our crappy selves have about those possible worlds Facts about what there is reason to do

The aim today was to provide an account of the nature of desirability, on the one hand, and the functional role of desire, on the other, that together make it clear why desirability facts and facts about reasons for action are impartial and unconditional. We have done this by giving definitions of desirability facts and facts about reasons for action in terms of the desires of ideal agents, and by demonstrating that it is only if all ideal agents have certain impartial desires in common that their psychologies function ideally. More specifically, we have demonstrated that only agents who have dominant intrinsic desires to help and not interfere can have and exercise maximal capacities for knowledge-acquisition and desire-realization. The upshot is that our definitions of desirability facts and facts about reasons for action are consistent with there being moral reasons for action. The task for next time is to say more precisely how we can define facts about which acts are morally forbidden, permissible, obligatory, and supererogatory in terms of moral reasons; what our non-moral reasons for action are; and the ways in which our moral and non-moral reasons for action sometimes come into conflict with, and sometimes mutually support, each other.

A Standard of Judgement Michael Smith Princeton University Lecture 1: From the human condition to a standard of judgement Lecture 2: From a standard of judgement to moral rationalism Lecture 3: The best form of moral rationalism Lecture 4: Moral reasons vs non-moral reasons Lecture 5: A normative theory of blame Lecture 6: Loose ends Bonus discussion section: Defeat by nature in “Force Majeure” “Here is the beginning of philosophy: a recognition of the conflicts between men, a search for their cause, a condemnation of mere opinion...and the discovery of a standard of judgement” Epictetus, Discourses III:11

A Standard of Judgement

A Standard of Judgement

Presentation Transcript

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A Standard of Judgement