11' Morality and Reason

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11. Morality and Reason

• Antti Kauppinen
• PY 3702 Value and Normativity

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I Morality and Reason
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Do We Have a Reason to Be Moral?

• There are two different sorts of question about
  moral justification
• Epistemological How do I know what I morally
  ought to do? What does morality demand of me?
• Practical Supposing that morality requires me to
  x, what reason do I have to x? Why should I be a
  moral person?
• To answer the practical question, we need to take
  a stand on what practical reasons are in the
  first place
• The question about the rationality of being moral
  may not be quite the same, as well see

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Reasons

• There are two senses of reason that should be
  kept well apart
• Motivating reasons, or reasons why
• Why did Doug open the fridge?
• The reason why Doug opened the fridge was that he
  wanted some beer
• Motivating reasons are psychological states that
  feature in rationalizing explanations of an
  agents action explanations that reveal the
  favourable light in which the agent saw the
  action
• Normative reasons, or reasons to
• Why should I go to Paris?
• The fact that I could learn something about art
  history at the Louvre is a reason to go to Paris
• Normative reasons are considerations that count
  in favour of a course of action or attitude
• The practical question about the justification of
  morality asks for normative reasons

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Moral Rationalism

• Moral rationalism is the view that we have good
  reasons to be moral, or that moral obligations
  are grounded in rationality
• The second formulation is different and stronger,
  if reasons and what it is rational to do can come
  apart
• The main motivation for moral rationalism is the
  belief that moral demands have genuine authority
  over us
• Moreover, this authority isnt merely arbitrary
  or conventional, but inescapable

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II Internal and External Reasons A Challenge to
Moral Rationalism
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Normative Reasons

• We give and ask for reasons in a variety of
  contexts
• Justifying our behaviour I had a good reason to
  leave early I needed to catch a plane
• Criticizing others You had no reason to treat
  her like that!
• Advising others Theres a good reason for you
  to join the army theyll give you a great
  pension!
• There can be reasons simultaneously for and
  against a course of action
• Reasons can be stronger or weaker
• Reasons can be overridden or silenced
• Plausibly, what one has most reason to do is what
  one ought to do

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The Grounds of Reasons

• What is it that makes something good advice for
  you? Alternative answers include
• Its a way to get you what you want (desires and
  goals are grounds of instrumental reasons)
• Its what is good for you (self-interest grounds
  prudential reasons)
• Its the most fitting response to your situation
• Its what any rational agent would do

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Hume on Reasons

• On Humes picture, famously, reason is and ought
  to be the slave of the passions
• Reason can only tell us what the best means for
  satisfying our passions is, but it cant tell us
  which passions to have
• Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the
  destruction of the whole world to the scratching
  of my finger. Tis as little contrary to reason
  to prefer even my own acknowledged lesser good to
  my greater
• This is because reason only judges matters of
  fact and relations of ideas, and passions, being
  original existences, are not in the business of
  representing how things are

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Williamss Challenge to Moral Rationalism

• According to Bernard Williams, there is a
  connection between motivating and normative
  reasons for action
• Very simply, normative reasons must be capable of
  motivating, or theyre not genuine reasons for
  the person in question. Such normative reasons
  are internal reasons, and the thesis that they
  are the only kind of reasons is reasons
  internalism
• This must not be confused with judgment
  internalism, which we discussed earlier
• It follows that what normative reasons people
  have is relative to what is capable of motivating
  them
• So, people who would not be motivated by moral
  considerations have no reason to be moral

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Internal Reasons

• Williams begins with a simple sub-Humean model
• A has a reason to f iff f-ing would further some
  of As present ends, where ones ends are
  determined by ones subjective motivational set S
  consisting of desires, projects, plans, and so on
• So, Jim has a reason to be polite if he wants
  people to like him
• This is too simple, because ones actual ends may
  be based on false beliefs
• Jim wants to mix the stuff in the bottle that
  says Gin on it with tonic, because he wants a
  gin and tonic and believes that there is gin in
  the bottle. But in fact, the stuff in the bottle
  is petrol, so he has no reason to mix it with the
  tonic.
• So, A has a reason to f iff f-ing would further
  some of As present ends, and neither As ends
  nor her belief that f-ing would further them is
  based on a false belief

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Internal Reasons and Deliberation

• Importantly, what someone has reason to do
  depends not only on their present ends, but what
  they would want as a result of deliberation
• Williams has a broad understanding of
  deliberation
• Finding out what would be the most convenient,
  economical, or pleasant way to satisfy some
  existing motive
• Someone who want to shop might decide that Paris
  is the most pleasant place to shop, and
  consequently acquire a new desire to go to Paris
• Figuring out how to combine various ends or
  organize them over time to make sure as many as
  possible get achieved, or finding constitutive
  solutions (what makes for a romantic evening)
• Deliberation also includes imagining the outcomes
  of various choices
• A consideration is in the relevant sense capable
  of motivating A to f iff there exists a sound
  deliberative route from her current S to one that
  includes f-ing
• F-ing is deliberatively accessible for A

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Internal Reasons and Criticizability

• Internal reasons are meant to be normative
  reasons, and one essential mark of the normative
  is that the notion of a mistake makes sense
• Williamss internal reasons allow for mistakes
  that is, it can be true of someone that she has a
  reason to f even though she at present does not
  want to f or believe she has a reason to f
• Were the person to form correct beliefs, she
  would want to f
• Were the person to engage in correct
  deliberation, she would want to f
• So, you may have a reason to take a break from
  studying for Christmas, even if you want to keep
  doing it

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External Reasons

• External reasons, if such exist, are
  considerations that favour courses of action even
  if they are deliberatively inaccessible to the
  agent
• The story of Owen Wingrave
• There is a family tradition of serving in the
  military. In the name of family pride, the father
  urges Owen to join, but he feels no inclination
  to do so. In fact, he hates everything about the
  military, and no amount of true beliefs and
  deliberation would change his mind. His father
  says Owen has good reason to join up, but does
  he?
• First problem
• To insist that Owen has a reason seems like
  browbeating

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The Impotence of External Reasons

• Explanatory constraint coming to believe that
  one has a reason to f must give rise to some
  motivation to f
• This makes rationalizing explanations possible
• If Owen comes to believe that he has a reason to
  join the army, he will have some motivation to do
  so, which may explain his action
• Coming to believe that one would have motivation
  to f were one to deliberate correctly does
  intelligibly give rise to some motivation in
  itself
• But, according to Williams, belief in an external
  reason couldnt do that
• For the external reasons theorist, if the agent
  rationally deliberated, then, whatever
  motivations he originally had, he would come to
  be motivated to f ... but ... ex hypothesi,
  theres no motivation for the agent to deliberate
  from
• For Williams, deliberation as it were channels
  motivation from existing ends to new ends

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Internal Reasons and Blame

• Williams argues that if there were external
  reasons, a plausible connection between reasons
  and blaming would be broken
• Blaming someone implies they had a reason to do
  something else
• This may be a controversial premise
• The point of blaming someone is to get them to
  change what they do
• If reasons didnt motivate, blaming them wouldnt
  change what they do
• Since on an externalist picture reasons need not
  have a connection to motivation, blaming would
  thus be pointless, since their becoming aware of
  reasons to do otherwise wouldnt motivate them to
  change

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Rationality, Reasons, and Morality

• The internal reasons story keeps an agents
  reasons and rationality close together
• Insofar as rationality is a matter of internal
  coherence, adjusting ones ends in the light of
  ones beliefs and other ends, one has an internal
  reason to do what it is rational for one to do
• For Williams, a person may be cruel or selfish or
  just not nice without being irrational
• It is bluff to call such an agent irrational
• So, moral evaluations and what it is rational to
  do come apart

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Reasons and Oughts

• As discussed earlier in lecture 6, Joyce picks up
  an error-theoretical thread from Williamss
  argument
• If what we ought to do is what we have most
  reason to do, and if our reasons are relative to
  our contingent motives, then what we ought to do
  is relative to our contingent motives
• But according to our commonsense conception of
  morality, what we ought to do is not relative to
  our contingent motives
• Hence, Joyce argues that accepting internalism
  leads to an error theory about our commonsense
  conception of morality

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II Defending Moral Reasons
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Korsgaards Response

• Korsgaard points out that even internal reasons
  motivate agents only to the extent that theyre
  rational
• If youre irrational, you wont take the means to
  your end either
• So, the thesis should really be that A has a
  reason to x iff A would be motivated to x insofar
  as she is rational
• This leaves open the possibility that there are
  certain reasons that all rational agents have,
  because they must have certain motives in order
  to be rational agents in the first place

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Shafer-Landau on Melancholia

• Some people are melancholy and miserable. They
  just want to be left alone by the world, and mope
  in their room.
• Yet they would be much happier were they to get
  out and do things with other people. But because
  of their melancholy, they cant see this, and
  would not reach the conclusion by any sound
  deliberative route.
• Intuitively, such a person has a reason to leave
  the room
• If so, reasons internalism is false, since it
  implies that she has no such reason

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McDowells Response

• McDowells response to Williams questions the
  need for external reasons to become
  motivationally effective through deliberation
• Instead, one could be brought up in the right
  way, or convert to seeing things aright
• Transition to being so motivated is a transition
  to deliberating correctly, not one effected by
  deliberating correctly effecting the transition
  may need some non-rational alteration such as
  conversion.
• So, the melancholy person may have a reason to go
  out, even though there is no way to argue her
  from her existing motivations to doing so

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Shafer-Landau on Blaming Himmler

• According to internalism, people have no reason
  to do whats deliberatively inaccessible for them
• People dont deserve blame for what they have no
  reason to do
• So, if internalism is true, people cant be
  justly blamed for failing to do whats
  deliberatively inaccessible for them
• But there are people, like Himmler, who deserve
  blame whether or not the desire to stop what they
  did was deliberatively accessible for them
• Hence, internalism is false, and moral reasons
  are not constrained by peoples desires and goals

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Dancy on Desires and Reasons

• Jonathan Dancy argues that merely having a desire
  or goal to x doesnt mean one has any reason to x
• If x-ing is silly or not very sensible, wanting
  to x doesnt make it any less silly or sensible
• Nor does wanting give any reason to do something
  that would be a means to x
• Rather than desires giving us reasons, we
  generally desire something because we take there
  to be a reason to do so
• If the desire is based on a reason, it does not
  add to the reasons one has
• If the desire is not based on a reason, there is
  no reason not to give it up
• So, rather than there being only internal reasons
  in Williamss sense, on Dancys view, there are
  no internal reasons