Prescriptive Metaethics

By and large, metaethicists have focused on descriptive questions about the nature of our moral discourse. For instance, is it in the business of stating facts, or of expressing affective states? If the former, are there such facts? If the latter, how is this reconciled with the role that moral language plays in reasoning?…

There is one clear exception. Some who are interested in error theory have shifted their attention from the descriptive question to a prescriptive/ practical one–namely, “Are we to retain moral language? And if so, how are we to treat it?” (I give the practical variant since it might be thought problematic for an error theorist to ask a question framed in terms of “should.”) The reason for this shift is that the prescriptive/practical question seems quite pressing in the case of error theory. Error theory seems to force the question. The two most prominent answers discussed by error theorists, to my (limited) knowledge, are eliminativism and moral fictionalism (of the prescriptive variety).

The Morality of Psychopaths?

In recent work Joshua Greene argues that when we realize that many of our characteristically deontological moral judgments arise from emotional reactions rather than deontological reasoning, we will lose our confidence in these deontological judgments.  In contrast, when we learn that many utilitarian judgments arise from cognitive processes that engage in cost/benefit analysis, then this vindicates these judgments.  And (to simplify Greene’s reasoning) the conclusion of all this  is that we should become utilitarians.

For example, when people consider the trolley case they usually make utilitarian judgments, since this case is not so emotionally loaded.  But, when we consider the footbridge case, in which we have to physically push somebody in front of the runaway train, then we make a deontological judgment to the effect that the end does not justify the means.  This judgment, Greene argues, is caused by an emotional reaction rather than deontological cognitive processes.  

If we look at the empirical literature on moral judgment, we also learn that psychopaths and people with lesions in the emotional centers of their brains are more likely to make utilitarian moral judgments.  These people tend to directly conclude that we should push the fat man in front of the train.  And, if asked to evaluate a scenario in which we could say our own lives only by smothering some baby, then these people quickly judge that we should do it, whereas others with normal emotional capacities have to think carefully about this before reaching a conclusion.

I was just curious about what people think about the following observation. Utilitarianism, as this last observation helps us to see, is in one way the morality of psychopaths.  This observation may lead us to doubt whether empirical research on moral judgment really does debunk these deontological judgments in the way that Greene and others think it does.  I agree that the evidence he appeals to undermines the idea that what he calls characteristically deontological judgments usually derive from moral reasoning.  But, does it really give us reason to think that, because of this, we should not trust/rely on these intuitions in our moral thinking?

It might seem a little silly to say that utilitarianism is the morality of people with brain damage or of psychopaths, and since we don’t want to be like such people, we shouldn’t be utilitarians.  But, it is interesting, I think, to think about that piece of data when considering the kinds of arguments that people like Greene give.  Thoughts?

A Troublesome Quartet

Based on the following line of thought, it seems to me that if one is a buck-passing existence-internalist who accepts a certain thesis about motivational diversity, then she or he should give up on one of those commitments or give up thinking that anything has intrinsic value. (There are other ways to frame the matter, of course.) But I’m not yet sure that the following line of thought is unproblematic. Feedback is welcome!

P1: (Intrinsic Value) Something has intrinsic value. [In other words: Something is worthy of being valued (by anyone) for its own sake.]

P2: (Fitting Attitudes Reduction) Something’s being worthy of being valued (by anyone) for its own sake just is for it to be such that there is reason for anyone to value it for its own sake.

C1: So, there is something such that there is reason for anyone to value it for its own sake. (from P1 and P2)

P3: (Existence-Internalist Thesis) For any thing X and any agent A, there is reason for A to value X for its own sake only if a (specified) X-related motivational fact about A obtains.

P4: (Motivational Diversity) For any thing X, there is some possible agent A such that the (specified) X-related motivational fact about A does not obtain.

C2: So, for any thing X, there is some possible agent A for whom there is not reason for A to value X for its own sake. (from P3 and P4)

C3: So, it is not the case that there is something such that there is reason for anyone to value it for its own sake. (from C2)

C4: So, C1 & C3 (Contradiction)

Why I might have reason not to eat honey

I’m a vegan, and someone recently asked me whether I ate honey, and if not, why not.  I wasn’t sure what to say, because I don’t eat honey, but I’m not sure I have good reason not to.

I take myself to have good reason not to eat fish, mammals, and birds or related animal products on the following grounds:

(1) These animals are sentient, i.e., they can have positive or negative affective responses to stimuli.

(2) Ceteris paribus, I prefer states of affairs in which sentient creatures don’t suffer (that’s them negative affective responses I was talkin’ about).

(3) Animal agriculture, including the production of eggs and dairy products, causes a great deal of suffering.

(4) I don’t think that the fact that I used to enjoy eating animal products gets me past the ceteris paribus in (2).

Therefore, I eat other things now (plants and salt, mostly).

In the case of honey, I’m not sure I have the same kind of reason, because I don’t know whether bees and other insects are sentient.  They don’t have brains, but they have rudimentary nervous systems and seem to respond aversively to certain harmful stimuli, etc., but it’s tough to say.  I currently give them the benefit of the doubt, but if I liked honey more, I might not.

So there you have it; “Peter Singer for one,” you might say.  Unlike Singer, I don’t think that everyone has a duty or reason to maximize utility, so I don’t assume that everyone has the same reasons I have for eschewing animal products.

That said, I’m curious to know why others don’t take themselves to have similar reasons to mine.  It seems to me that most people would agree, on reflection, that they don’t like the idea of animal suffering and would prefer that it weren’t so prevalent.  I doubt most people think that their current gustatory practices provide them with irreplaceable benefits.   So what gives?

Bystanders to Oppressions

I attended several interesting talks at the Central APA. This time, I tried to select more politically-oriented sessions, despite my lack of knowledge in that area. Subsequently, I was exposed to a lot of interesting issues I probably would never have thought about otherwise. One symposium that particularly got me thinking was “Responsibility for Resisting Oppression”, with Bernard Boxill, Thomas Hill, Jean Harvey, and Sarah Buss. One topic that came up was the responsibilities of “bystanders” to resisting oppressions, compared to that of the oppressed themselves.

That got me thinking: Who is a bystander? For example, are we bystanders to the Chinese government’s oppression of Tibetans? Suppose that information about this oppression were nearly impossible to get, then are we nevertheless bystanders? This hypothetical has implications for assessing our responsibilities as bystanders in everyday situations. There are many instances of systematic injustice in workplace or private homes. We might then ask: Are we bystanders to those, and if so, what are our responsibilities? Reflecting on these scenarios rather naively suggests an epistemic condition on answering the question ‘who is a bystander’: we are bystanders when we can easily obtain knowledge of the oppression.

Infallible Predictor Newcomb: An Argument

I’m working up a paper on Newcomb and am seeking feedback on an argument for one-boxing in the infallible predictor version.

The case:

You are brought into a room with two boxes sitting on a table. One box is opaque; you are informed that it contains either $1,000,000 or nothing. The other box is transparent and contains $1,000. You are invited to either take only the opaque box (i.e. “one-box”) or take both boxes (“two-box”). Any money that you collect is yours to keep.

However, prior to making your choice, you receive the following information: Before you entered the room, an infallible predictor made a complete assessment of your psychology. If she predicted that you’d one-box, she put a million dollars in the opaque box. If she predicted that you’d two-box, she put nothing in it.

If you’re greedy and you believe everything you’ve been told (e.g. that the predictor is infallible), what is the rational choice?

The argument:

1. The predictor made a true prediction.
2. If the predictor made a true prediction, then [(you will two-box iff you'll receive exactly $1,000) and (you will one-box iff you'll receive exactly $1,000,000)].
3. You will two-box iff you’ll receive exactly $1,000.
4. You will one-box iff you’ll receive exactly $1,000,000.
5. Either you’ll two-box or you’ll one-box.
6. Either you’ll receive exactly $1,000 or you’ll receive exactly $1,000,000.
7. $1,000,000 is more money than $1,000.
8. If [(you'll receive either exactly $1,000 or exactly $1,000,000) and ($1,000,000 is more money than $1,000)], then you prefer to receive exactly $1,000,000.
9. You prefer to receive exactly $1,000,000.
10. If [(you prefer to receive exactly $1,000,000) and (you will one-box iff you'll receive exactly $1,000,000)], then you ought to one-box.
11. You ought to one-box.

Thoughts? Rejectable premises?
(I don’t deny that there is also a very compelling argument for two-boxing in this case.)

Later addition (1/6/08):

Equivocation in Feinberg’s “Infinite Regress” Argument Against Psychological Egoism

What may not be evident from the title of this post is that I’m fairly sure that there is an equivocation in Feinberg’s “infinite regress” argument against psychological egoism. This appears in Section C of his article “Psychological Egoism” in the popular anthology Reason and Responsibility (12th ed., ed. Feinberg & Shafer-Landau).

Set-up
Feinberg makes a point to distinguish the following:

(Mere) Desire Fulfillment (DF): DF is simply the “coming into existence of that which is desired” (479). For instance, a desire for the obtainment of some object x is fulfilled when and only when x is obtained. (With DF, there need not be the requirement that the bearer of a given desire experience its fulfillment. Death-bed wishes can be fulfilled.)

Pleasure₂ (P2), or Satisfaction: This is the type of positive feeling/s that one tends to experience upon getting what s/he desired (and, of course, being aware that the desire was fulfilled). That is, P2 is the pleasure that often results from and in virtue of DF.