Intentions, Judgments, and Weakness of the Will

I wrote this paper for a Metaethics class while completing my MA in Philosophy.  This was submitted on May 11, 2011 and remains as I submitted it (apart from formatting changes).
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          Traditionally, weakness of the will has been characterized as a person choosing to act against his or her best judgment about what he or she should do.  That is, one recognizes that it would be best to do one thing but chooses to do another instead.  This choice is free and hence is not compelled; the agent could have done otherwise (Watson 114).  Such a conception dates back to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.  Socrates famously denied that a person could knowingly fail to do what he or she believed was best “because he believed that human beings always most desire, and hence pursue, what is (thought to be) best” (Watson 114).  One could interpret Plato’s later writings as suggesting that weakness of will occurs when the nonrational part of the soul overpowers the rational part of the soul and so “the desires of the nonrational soul may motivate the agent contrary to his or her ‘desires’ for the good” (Watson 115).  Aristotle attempted to explain the phenomenon by suggesting that, while reflecting on knowledge, one could not act against it.  However, such knowledge could be stored in one’s mind but not consciously reflected on at the moment of action.  Hence, this knowledge would not be readily available to guide the agent and so the agent’s action would not consciously contradict this knowledge.  Alternatively, such knowledge could be faked and hence not really known, like an actor reciting lines on a stage.  Nevertheless, if one had full unqualified knowledge about how to act, one could not act against one’s best judgment.

          While many contemporary philosophers have continued to explain, criticize, and defend weakness of will as understood along similar lines as proposed by the ancients, Richard Holton has recently offered a different conception of weakness of will.  He believes that weakness of will is best characterized as being displayed in cases when a person fails to act on his or her intentions, though not in all such cases.  For example, a person may choose to not act on an intention because the circumstances surrounding that intention have changed.  Or perhaps that person has acquired new information that bears on the action or has reconsidered the information relevant to the situation and has rightly judged that one’s previous intentions were ill-considered (Holton, “Intention” 1).  What is distinctive, then, in cases of weakness of will is that “agents are too ready to reconsider their intentions” when faced with a choice about an action (Holton, “Intention” 1).  The agent’s intentions are not sufficiently resistant to being changed and hence these intentions of the agent’s will are weak.  This paper will explain and critique this conception of weakness of will, but will ultimately find a revised version of it satisfactory in explaining what we intuitively take be instances of weakness of will.  That is, weakness of will involves an agent freely choosing to act against her ongoing intentions that were formed on the basis of her best rational judgment so as to act in accordance with her more immediate desires.

            An agent will quite often form an intention to perform a certain act in the future.  This intention is a decision to act that is stored until the moment of action comes.  If one does not revise one’s intention, then one will act on the basis of that stored decision.  And since such intentions are generally not revised or reconsidered, they are thought to be fairly stable (Holton, “Intention” 3).  For our purposes, such intention-forming abilities are useful because they allow us to make decisions about our future actions in circumstances that are more conducive to making a good decision.  For example, suppose that I believe that I should act in a certain way in the future but I know that I will be tempted not to when the time arrives.  “Then it would be useful to form an intention now, an intention that will lead me directly to act when the time comes, and that will be somewhat immune to reconsideration in the light of the desires I shall have then” (Holton, “Intention” 4).  Thus, by forming a prior intention to act, one can overcome a present desire that may influence one’s decision to act in the moment.  One has already made the decision and so the desire cannot enter into one’s deliberation about the act. 

            This is especially important in instances where one act will not lead to harm, but repeating the action over and over will.  For example, one may eat a carton of ice cream one night.  In itself, this action will not be very harmful to one’s health, although making a habit of eating a carton of ice cream every night would lead to serious health problems.  However, every night a person could reason that it’s just one carton of ice cream and one carton of ice cream is not that unhealthy.  In fact, if we just focus on eating this one carton of ice cream, then perhaps all things considered, it will be best to have this carton of ice cream (e.g., one experiences satisfaction, pleasure).  But even if each individual instance by itself will produce the best outcome at the time, one will quickly experience very serious health problems if one only considers each instance in isolation.  In order to counteract this way of reasoning, one needs “a general intention concerning a certain type of action; … a policy intention” (Holton, “Intention” 4).  That is, one needs to form a general intention that rules out specific actions on the basis that repeating them will lead consequences that one wishes to avoid.

            According to Holton, weakness of will occurs when one does not follow one’s prior intentions regarding specific acts or types of acts.  Instead, one reconsiders or revises the previously made decision “in circumstances in which they should not have revised it” (Holton, “Intention” 5).  This revision “exhibits tendencies that it is not reasonable for the agent to have” (Holton, “Intention” 6).  That is, it conflicts with norms of reasoning.  For example, it is generally reasonable to change one’s intention if the circumstances change, but not if the circumstances remain the same since one has already formed a decision to act on the basis of the same available information.  In the case of weakness of will, one typically has formed an intention to act that one knows will be met with contrary desires at the moment of action.  The intention is supposed to overcome these contrary desires by precluding them from the decision process.  However, in the face of these contrary desires, one reconsiders and revises one’s decision, thereby accommodating the desires that were meant to be ignored and overcome.

            As such, there are two components to Holton’s conception of weakness of will.  First, the descriptive component requires that in order for an agent to display weakness of will, she must have first formed an intention to act that is then revised at the time of action.  Second, the normative component requires that the revision should not have been done as measured “by the standards of a good intender” (Holton, “Intention” 13).  Holton does not explicitly say what he means by “good intender”, but we may take him to mean that a person who follows through on her intentions in circumstances that society would approve of and who revises her intentions only when society would approve of such a revision would not make a revision in this case; this revision did not conform to norms of reasoning.  This is in contrast to the traditional account in which there is only a descriptive component: the agent acts weakly when acting against her best judgment about an action.

            This view, Holton believes, has several advantages over the traditional view in which weakness of will has to do with acting against one’s better judgment instead of too readily revising one’s intentions to act. I note two here.  First, Holton points out that there are instances of weakness of will in which we do not act against our better judgment.  There are situations in which we are faced with choosing from two actions that, though conflicting, are difficult or impossible to compare with each other and so neither is judged to be better than the other.  For example, I may desire to study philosophy (requiring me to live far from home), but this conflicts with a desire to live close to my family.  It is difficult to assess which of these actions is better as they take into account different values and considerations and so are not directly comparable.  Nevertheless, if I were to choose one course of action but then fail to follow through, I would have acted weakly.  So it is possible to display weakness of will even if one does not act against one’s best judgment.

            Second, Holton’s account makes better sense of the social stigma attached to weakness of will.  Holton notes that we do not regard people as weak willed in all cases when they act against their better judgment, but only when they have publicly declared their intention to do so and have failed.  For example, suppose that a person sincerely judges that eating meat is wrong and that under no ordinary circumstances would it be permissible for her to eat meat.  We wouldn’t yet say that this person was weak willed if she still chose to eat meat regularly.  This person’s actions are inconsistent with rationality, but we would not say that she was weak willed (and hence deserving of “scorn”) unless she had formed and declared a sincere intention to not eat meat but yet did so anyways (Holton, “Intention” 10).  In other words, an action is not weak in virtue of being contrary to a judgment, but in virtue of being contrary to an intention to act.         

          While displaying advantages over the traditional account, Holton’s view is open to criticism. In particular, there are three objections that require a revision of the view if it is to sufficiently avoid them.  First, Holton’s account does not satisfactorily demarcate between instances of compulsion and instances of weakness of will.  On the traditional account, “one displays weakness of will when one freely acts against one’s own best judgement; one is compelled when one’s action against one’s own best judgement is not free” (Holton, “Intention” 15).  Freedom on this account seems to involve one’s having control over one’s actions.  In contrast, Holton’s account makes no mention of control or freedom.  This is a problem since a compulsive person can be understood as forming an intention that is always revised (involuntarily) at the moment of action, and hence compulsive acts would be classified as weak-willed.

            In response, Holton first claims that it would not necessarily be bad to say compulsives were weak-willed, though it may be socially inappropriate to describe them as such (Holton, “Intention” 15).  Gary Watson agrees with this first suggestion in characterizing weakness of will as a form of compulsion.  He does not think that instances of weakness of will involve freedom because in these instances the agent lacks self-control, which is “the capacity to counteract recalcitrant motivation, that is, motivation which is contrary to one’s better judgment” (Watson 117).  This recalcitrant motivation, Watson believes, is “alien” and contrary to the will of the weak individual, just as in cases of compulsion (Watson 119).  So while weakness of will is an instance of compulsion, it is a special case of compulsion.  We judge people to have weakness of will when “they give in to desires which the possession of the normal degree of self-control would enable them to resist” (Watson 122). 

          Given this, we can see that Watson, like Holton, takes weakness of will to be a normative concept.  He goes so far as to say that whether a person displays weakness of will depends on what society she is in, making weakness of will relative to society.  He claims that through socialization, we acquire the capacity to resist desires and to maintain self-control.  In light of this, we hold each other responsible for maintaining a certain standard of conduct.  A person displays weakness of will by falling short of these standards of self-control.  On the other hand, a person displays compulsion when we recognize that they are being motivated by desires that would not be countered by having achieved a normal standard of self-control (Watson 123).  That is, the compulsive agent experiences desires that “the normal capacities of resistance are or would be insufficient to enable the agent to resist” (Watson 122). 

            However, though the weakly-willed agent does not have self-control and is being compelled to act, we believe that the desires that motivate them are resistible because “had they developed and maintained certain normal capacities of self-control, they would have resisted them” (Watson 124).  Weak-willed agents are thus like weight-lifters that have failed to train adequately in order to lift a normal amount of weight.  Even though they cannot in fact lift the weight placed before them, we can still blame them for not having trained properly in order to do what is expected of them.  Similarly, we can hold weak-willed agents responsible for their actions in virtue of the fact that they did not develop and maintain normal capacities of self-control; they are responsible in virtue of their negligence, even though at the time of action they cannot do otherwise. 

          But Watson’s account and Holton’s first response both seem wrong on several points.  First, weakness of will is not an external relation compared to other members of society, but an internal relation with respect to oneself.  On Watson’s account, a highly disciplined Buddhist monk will, having entered into our society, never display weakness of will.  Any potential instance of weakness of will as judged by the standards of conduct of our society will be seen to be an instance of compulsion instead, for the monk has a degree of self-control far beyond what most members of our society have.  However, the monk will know that he has displayed weakness of will in this case.  It seems that he will not compare himself to others in his society, or even to other similar monks; he will assess his actions by what he believes he could have done, that is, by what he believes was in his power to do but yet failed to do.  Consider also that it is possible for a person that was not raised in a society and who lived alone to display weakness of will.  This hermit will simply fail to act on her intentions in this case and will judge herself without making any reference to societal norms.  So it seems that we judge ourselves to have acted weakly when we have failed to act in accordance with a standard set by our own actions and judgments and not those of society.  An account of weakness of will need not reference society in any way and so it must be an internal matter with respect to oneself.

          Second, Watson’s account fails to recognize that, unlike instances of compulsion, the weakly willed person identifies with her action.  She takes the motivation to act to be part of her and so does not view it as an alien or external force.  For example, a drug addict suffering from a compulsion to take drugs will feel as though an external force is pressuring her to take drugs, whereas the recreational drug user that judges such drug use to be wrong will feel motivated internally to take drugs and will take this to be her own motivation.  Thus, the weak agent identifies in some sense not only with her best judgment but also with the contrary motivation or will; she takes herself to be intentionally acting against her own judgment instead of being compelled or overwhelmed by some external force to do so.  So it does not seem that weakness of will can be classified as an instance of compulsion.

          Third, and related to the second criticism, weakly-willed actions are believed to be free and within the agent’s control.  Agents take themselves to be acting freely when they display weakness of will, which explains why we reproach ourselves for failing to act according to our best judgment and original intention.  Watson’s account counters many contemporary accounts in claiming that weakness of will does not involve a free act.  For example, Davidson’s account of incontinent action requires that the agent believe that there is an alternative act open to the agent (Audi 175).  Audi similarly claims that weakness of will is “criticizable” behavior, and can only be criticizable if one is not compelled to act (Audi 179).  Thus, incontinent acts are not done under compulsion (Audi 180).  Freely choosing to act and being in control of that action both seem to be essential features of an agent’s experience in instances of weakness of will.  Given these considerations, it seems that we must disagree with Watson and take Holton’s second suggestion that the policy revision must be within the agent’s power in order for it to be evaluated with respect to reason.  Since the compulsive’s policy revision happens outside of the agent’s control, it does not meet the normative requirement and hence is not an instance of weakness of will.

          While having an adequate response to this first objection, Holton’s argument faces a more serious second objection that requires a revision of his account.  The objection is that while his account seems to make sense of intentions concerning one-time acts, it has a hard time accounting for policy intentions.  Holton considers the case in which we intend to get out of bed every morning at six, but remain in bed one day until nine.  It seems that in such a case, I have not revised my intentions yet I have displayed weakness of will.  Holton claims to the contrary that “I have revised the intention. I haven’t abandoned it altogether, but I have revised it. I have inserted a let-out clause: I intend to get up every day at six, except today” (Holton, “Intention” 14).

            However, this response does not seem adequate.  If we had revised our intention, then we should not feel as though we had failed in some way since we did not fail to act in accordance with our revised intention.  But we do feel as though we have failed, suggesting that we have not revised our original intention.  Instead, we have maintained that intention throughout; it is ongoing.  Dodd similarly claims that “whether [an agent] really did cancel the old policy will be shown by how he acts and feels later. Subsequent guilt feelings, promises never to do that again, and the like are all signs that the policy was still in effect and broken” (Dodd 54).  Holton’s suggestion makes it impossible to ever actually violate one’s intentions; what one does is what one completely intended to do thanks to a quick revision.  Thus, one’s feelings of guilt must come from judging that one had unreasonably revised one’s intentions as judged by society’s standards of reasoning.  However, this seems to amount to a denial of the commonsense understanding of weakness of will as involving a failure to act on one’s best judgment or to follow through on one’s intentions by acting in accordance with them.  It also denies the commonsense understanding that guilt arises through a failure of some kind and not through an instance of unreasonableness or irrationality.

            Dylan Dodd pursues this line of criticism.  While largely agreeing with Holton’s account, he argues against Holton’s suggestion that weakness of will depends on what intentions one should have had when performing an action.  He claims that “what policies one used to have isn’t what makes one’s current actions weak-willed. What matters is the policies one has now—the policies the agent has at the time (s)he performs the action” (Dodd 48).  Holton’s account likens weakness of will to a last minute change in a law whereas Dodd believes that weakness of will is more like disobeying a law that is still in effect.  He claims that “the policy the agent backs— legislates as a law for herself—will come into conflict with certain psychological states, moods, dispositions, and so forth, that the agent will continue to have at various times after she forms the policy” (Dodd 54).  These contrary states will at times incline the agent to act contrary to her policy intentions, resulting in an instance of weakness of will.

          This seems to make intuitive sense.  In an instance of weakness of will, we want to say that the person had the correct will in intending a certain action (that is, a will that was in accordance with one’s best judgment), but that the will was not strong enough to achieve that intention.  In contrast, Holton’s account suggests that instances involving a weak will are actually instances involving a wrong will: the agent revises an intention that she should not have.  Notice that, for Holton, the weakness of will occurs prior to the action.  It is the revision that is done weakly and deserving of scorn, not the actual action that follows from the revision.  In contrast, for Dodd, the weakness of will occurs at the time of action.  One maintains the same intention throughout, but fails to follow through on this intention when the moment to act comes.  Audi shares this intuition, claiming that a condition on an incontinent action is that the agent has “not abandoned” a judgment that there is another action not chosen that would be better to do to than the action that is chosen (Audi 180).  Dodd’s account, like the traditional account, rightly claims that an intention (or best judgment) is maintained throughout one’s engagement in the weak action, thus allowing for there to be a discrepancy between what one intends (or judges best) and what one does. 

            A third and related concern has to do with Holton’s normative component.  We have already seen that it does not make sense to construe weakness of will as an external normative relation, but this is precisely what Holton’s account requires.  According to Holton, whether a revision counts as an instance of weakness of will has to do with whether the revision “exhibits tendencies that it is not reasonable for the agent to have” (Holton, “Intention” 6).  What is reasonable is judged “by the standards of a good intender” (Holton, “Intention” 13).  Thus, an instance of weakness of will is determined by an external relation comparing one’s action to the action of an idealized “good intender” who acts in accordance with accepted norms of reasoning. But whether an action counts as being an instance of weakness of will does not involve an external relation to society, a “good intender”, or norms of reasoning.  The agent knows when she has behaved weakly by looking to her own judgments and intentions, which have been violated by her action. 

          Dodd avoids this issue by developing an account in which weakness of will is purely descriptive.  He writes that one forms a policy that, acting like a law, indicates how one ought to act.  In an instance of weakness of will, “a disposition at a particular time leads one to violate a policy one continues to have at that time” (Dodd 58).  This is a descriptive claim.  One is not judged by standards of reasonableness in revising an intention nor regarded as not displaying norms of self-control.  Instead, weakness of will is judged with respect to the agent alone concerning his or her intentions to act or refrain from acting in a certain way.  Thus, it seems that weakness of will is a descriptive matter as the traditional account and Dodd’s account suggest it to be.

            Finally, Holton does not explain the relationship between one’s best judgment and one’s intentions.  This is not a direct objection to the account, but it is a desiderata of any account that proposes to offer a new account of weakness of will.  In order to offer a satisfactory alternative to the traditional account, one must explain the nature of this relationship and how the alternative account can accommodate the intuition that weakness of will involves acting against one’s best judgment.  I think the answer lies in the obvious fact that one’s intentions to act tend to be based on one’s best judgments.  We generally reflect on circumstances surrounding a decision and then come to some sort of judgment about what our best course of action would be.  We then (usually) form the intention to act in accordance with our best judgment and, barring instances of weakness of will, we act in accordance with our intention.  Thus, when one does violate one’s intention, one (typically) will violate one’s best judgment.  This idea is shared by Audi, who claims that two conditions of an incontinent action are that it is done “intentionally or knowingly” and with the understanding that “there is another action A', such that [the agent]… has judged, or makes or holds the judgment, that it would be better to do A'” (Audi 180).

            Having considered Holton’s account, objections to it, and possible revisions, we can now say what weakness of will is: an agent acts with weakness of will when the agent freely chooses to act against her ongoing intention (and usually, as a consequence, her best judgment).  But while this says what weakness of will is, this does not explain how it is possible.  That is, what has yet to be explained is how or why an agent acts against her intention and thereby against her better judgment.  For example, it certainly seems paradoxical to suggest that one can intend to act against one’s intentions, and so this must be more carefully explained. 

            This is the task that Sarah Buss takes up.  First, Buss defends the claim that “no one can do something intentionally, if she believes that, all things considered, it would be better to do something else” (Buss 16).  That is, an intentional action must follow from and be in conformity to what the agent believes to be, all things considered, the best action at the time of action.  Buss believes this claim is supported by observing that no one can be forced to do something intentionally that she would rather not do (Buss 16).  One may be compelled to act contrary to what one takes to be the best action, all things considered, but one would not be acting on one’s own intentions and thus acting intentionally, since one must identify with one’s intentions and compulsion is self-alienating. 

            Consequently, only an agent’s intentional actions can be considered to be her actions.  Buss claims that “all of the movements of my will—for instance, my choices and decisions—are movements that I make.  None is a mere impersonal occurrence, in which my will moves without my moving it” (Buss 17).  For an action to count as her action it must spring from her; she must identify with the action by approving it and maintaining a sense of ownership over it.  Thus, “a person relates to her own intentions as something she forms (and sustains) herself” (Buss 17).  This is an important point because, as mentioned earlier, we are not alienated from the motivations and intentions that occur in weakness of will.  If we were, then weakness of will would be a form of compulsion, which it is not.  As Buss claims, “though someone may be helpless to resist her inclination to do X, this inclination is powerless to force her to intend to satisfy it, as long as she would really prefer not to” (Buss 18).  However, contrary to an instance of compulsion, an instance of weakness of will does involve a preference to act against one’s best judgment, and hence, one intentionally acts against one’s intentions.  The agent “endorses the very action of which she disapproves” (Buss 29).

          How then does weakness of will occur, given that one can only intentionally act in accordance with one’s all-things-considered best judgment?  This can be explained in the following way.  Normally, we operate under the assumption that, all things considered, it is good to act rationally even in the face of contrary passions.  But occasionally our more immediate passions are strong enough to make it extremely desirable for us to act contrary to what we rationally take to be the best action, all things considered (and contrary to whatever intentions have been formed on the basis of that judgment).  However, in order for an action motivated by these passions to not count as an instance of compulsion, we have to adopt them as our own and so we must undermine the judgment that prevents us from doing so.  To do so, we challenge the belief that it is desirable to act rationally in all circumstances.  Having doubted the basis of rationality, we have given ourselves a reason to not trust the conclusions of reason.  We are therefore free to embrace other desires and to act in accordance with them on the basis of a new all-things-considered best judgment that includes this reason to not trust reason (Buss 33).  That is, we can choose to identify with our desires, and therefore act on them, while still recognizing that our best rational judgment recommends that we should do otherwise.  Thus, one can still make a judgment that an action is best (and hence form an intention to act in accordance with this judgment), but then act against this judgment (and intention) by undermining rationality itself. 

            Acting in this way is irrational, and fits with our later assessment that what we did was irrational.  But in another sense we do maintain our rationality because we are using our rationality to undermine itself.  Buss characterizes this as “a typical piece of tortured rationalizing” (Buss 35).  We attempt to maintain our conception of ourselves as behaving rationally while attempting to avoid the conclusions of our reason, and so we look for reasons to act in accordance with our desires as opposed to our best rational judgment.  Finding such reasons, we can justify our actions and therefore come to identify with them (Buss 36).  Thus, Buss understands weakness of will as involving “a conflict between [an agent’s] actual all-things considered evaluative judgment and the all-things-considered evaluative judgment she believes she would have reached if, when she acted, she had accepted the authority of her own reason” (Buss 36).  This is the result of flawed reasoning that rationalizes in order to justify an action in conformity to one’s desires.  In other words, an instance of weakness of will occurs when one intentionally acts in accordance with one’s new all-things-considered best judgment, which is formed on the basis of desires and a reason that undermines rationality, instead of acting on one’s ongoing intentions that were formed in accordance with one’s best rational judgment of how to act.

            Buss’s account strikes me as correct, but it does require clarifying the proposed account of weakness of will in which an agent acts with weakness of will when the agent freely chooses to act against her continued intentions (and usually as a consequence, her best judgment).  On Buss’s account, the agent has changed her final intentions by changing her all-things-considered best judgment, since at the moment of action she intends to act in accordance with this newly formed all-things-considered best judgment.  However, the best rational judgment remains the same throughout, as does the recognition that one should act in accordance with the intention that was formed in accordance with it. 

          So we should say that weakness of will occurs when the agent freely chooses to act against her intentions that were formed on the basis of her best rational judgment (or formed on the basis of a rational judgment if there is no best alternative).  In order to do so, the agent undermines the rationality of her judgment in order to come to a new all-things-considered “best” and “rational” judgment that accommodates the desires she wishes to identify with as her own.  And as we would expect, once the desires have subsided and the agent recognizes that she has failed to act in accordance with the truly best rational judgment and the intentions formed in accordance with them, the agent feels guilt for doing so.  That is, she recognizes that she has acted in accordance with her own weak will.

Works Cited and Consulted

Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. J.A.K. Thomson.  New York: Penguin, 1953. Print.

Audi, Robert.  “Weakness of Will and Practical Judgment.” Nous 13.2 (1979): 173-196.  JSTOR.
          Web. 30 March 2011.

Buss, Sarah. “Weakness of Will.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 78.1 (1997): 13-44.  Wiley
          Online Library. Web. 30 March 2011.

Dodd, Dylan. “Weakness of Will as Intention-Violation.” European Journal of Philosophy 17.1
          (2007): 45-59. Wiley Online Library. Web. 30 March 2011.

Holton, Richard.  “Inverse Akrasia and Weakness of Will.” Bibliography: Richard Holton.  MIT,
          7 Jan. 2010. Web. 30 March 2011.

Holton, Richard. “Intention and Weakness of Will.” Home Page: Richard Holton. University of
          Edinburgh, 1 Oct. 2003. Web. 30 March 2011.

Mele, Alfred. “Weakness of Will and Akrasia.” Philosophical Studies 150.3 (2009): 391-404.
          Springer Link. Web. 20 March 2011.

Watson, Gary. “Skepticism About Weakness of Will.” Moral Philosophy. Ed. George Sher.
          Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987. 113-128. Print.

In Defense of Naturalism: A Response to Rosati

I wrote this paper for n Ethics class while completing my MA in Philosophy.  This was submitted on October 10, 2011 and remains as I submitted it (apart from formatting changes).
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                In “Naturalism, Normativity, and the Open Question Argument” Connie Rosati challenges new naturalism’s claim to have closed off any open questions regarding its definition of ‘good.’  Focusing on Peter Railton’s naturalist account, Rosati argues that one can still wonder whether what is ‘good for a person’ on the naturalist view is in fact good for a person (Rosati 65).  If this is the case, then Railton’s definition will not have effectively captured ‘good for a person’ in purely natural terms.  After developing Rosati’s argument, I will argue that it can be resisted in several ways and that the new naturalism is safe from her objections.

                The new naturalist’s goal is to capture the normativity of goodness in purely descriptive and natural terms.   He or she will wish to “construct a descriptive meaning for ‘good’ that secures its recommending and expressive functions simply in virtue of the proposed descriptive content” (Rosati 46-7).  In keeping with this goal, Railton’s ‘synthetic naturalism’ defines ethical terms such as ‘good’ in terms of natural properties and relations to which they are identical a posteriori (Rosati 48, 65).  The view is developed by first noticing that, as expressivism has shown us, ethical judgments are inherently motivating or recommending.  As such, it is “a necessary condition on something’s being good that it be capable of motivating” (Rosati 49).  This is the thesis of existence internalism.  Second, if something is capable of motivating an action, then it must be something that we care about (Rosati 50).  However, individuals obviously care about many different things, so what may be ‘good’ for one person may not be ‘good’ for another in the sense that one person may care about X while another person will not care about X.  Thus, if something is to be considered good for a person, it must be “made for” or “suited to” that person (Rosati 50). 

                When something is good for a person, that person will be motivated by it under certain relevant conditions (Rosati 50).  These relevant conditions, as Railton has developed his view, concern our cognitive status.  We recognize that our desires can be misguided due to faulty or incomplete information or processes and so they, and we, may not fare well in the world (Rosati 51).  Consequently, “the normativity of goodness [for a person] involves not only an internal connection to the individual whose good it is, but justification in the sense of epistemic warrant” (Rosati 51-2).  One must be justified in believing that a course of action will indeed be good for oneself.  Thus, the new naturalist arrives at a definition of goodness for a person: “X is good for a person A iff A would want her actual self to want it were she fully informed and rational and contemplating the position of actual A as someone about to assume her position” (Rosati 52).  As Rosati explains, “a person’s good is indicated by what she would want her actual self to want were she fully informed about her nature and circumstances and completely rational, suffering no cognitive defects and committing no errors in instrumental reasoning” (Rosati 53).

                Rosati believes that Railton’s definition fails because it makes a person’s motivational system determine what counts as ‘good’ for that person, and it may be this very thing that is being questioned by that person.   Consider Rosati’s supposed counterexample in which Sally is concerned that she is living her life in an overly cautious, orderly, and restrictive manner.  She dislikes the fact that she likes order so much, and admires her friend Madelyn’s spontaneity.  Worried that she might be missing out on important things in life, she wonders whether she should become more spontaneous, and seek therapy in order to accomplish this (Rosati 53).  Given this concern, she will wonder if “what someone like herself would want for her if fully informed and rational is indeed good for her” (Rosati 54).  If Sandy can wonder this, then there is still an open question related to Railton’s account of ‘good for a person.’

                What exactly is the worry here?  It seems to be that our personalities may be biased in such a way that a fully informed and rational individual with our personality may not make the best recommendation about what we should do.  Rosati does not explicitly define what she means by “full rationality,” but she does say that a completely rational person would (1) suffer no cognitive defects and (2) would make no errors in instrumental reasoning (Rosati 53).  The biases cannot be from difficulties in reasoning properly and so must come from one’s desires.  Sandy wonders if she ought to desire different things (e.g., spontaneity).  If she was a different sort of person and had different character traits, she would desire different things, and so she wonders if she should be a different sort of person.  Hence, the type of person she currently is cannot play a role in helping her decide what type of person she ought to be, for this is the very thing she is questioning.

                Before moving on, it is important to note that Rosati seems to be assuming a Humean view of practical rationality in which our actions issue from a belief-desire pair that determines our actions.  If two individuals had the same information, the same beliefs, and the same desires, they would make the same decisions.  Consequently, any two fully rational and informed individuals will differ in their recommendations of action only if they have different desires that are relevant to the recommendation. 

                 I believe the new naturalist can resist Rosati’s argument in several different ways.  First, one can take issue with her understanding of ‘full information.’  What ‘full information’ amounts to is never defined by Rosati (probably because she believes that the notion is “not clear or coherent”) (Rosati 67).  Still, she uses it in such a way that it is limited to information concerning facts about one’s actual surroundings (i.e., circumstances) and facts about one’s actual physical and psychological status (i.e., nature).    Notice that important modal information is missing regarding what would happen if Sandy were to follow different recommendations and what another person with different character traits and desires would recommend. 

                Rosati seems to have assumed that if one does not have the proper desires regarding what to do, then one cannot know what to do.  But this is false.  If an idealized individual can have modal knowledge, we can then say that an idealized individual will know which desires and actions are best to have in order to satisfy Sandy’s most fundamental desires and can advise Sandy about how to shape these desires through action, even if the idealized individual does not have these certain character traits.  Sandy’s idealized self will know how a less rigid person will assess Sandy’s situation and will know if being less rigid will lead to satisfying her fundamental desires.  Thus, Sandy’s idealized self can make the best recommendation for Sandy and consequently there will be no open question about whose advice to follow. 

                Second, notice that I am assuming that Sandy has fundamental desires that she identifies with.  These desires are unchangeable.  Take Sandy for example.  In order to make sense of her wondering whether to be another sort of person, we have to attribute to her some feature that will survive any change.  Not all of her desires can change, particularly those that are fundamental to who she is.  Instead, she seems to be concerned with modifying some of her desires and motivations, and only those that she does not identify with.  Rosati seems to be presupposing that one can critically assess each of one’s desires, as though we can put them all aside and look at them.  She claims that Sandy can consider “which desires to embrace or reject, which motivations and traits to retain or transform.  Through her reflection, she comes to dissociate herself from some of her desires, motivations, and traits, while identifying with others” (Rosati 61).  This is true with regards to first order desires, but is more difficult and perhaps impossible with higher order and more fundamental desires.  Indeed, how should we critically assess our desires if there were no guiding or overriding desires to assess them by?  Thus, I believe that Rosati’s notion that we “self-invent” is too strong, for we can only “self-invent” within limits. 

                Rosati may respond that perhaps some of our desires are fixed, but this gives rise to the very problem she has pointed out, for idealized advisors will have different fundamental desires and therefore will recommend different things.  However, it seems to me that any two sorts of people will have some fundamental desires in common, and if so, then all idealized advisors will have some common fundamental desires that can ground and unify their recommendations.  Hume believed that there are universal sentiments in humans that come from our nature.  Consequently, humans will have some fundamental desires in common.  So it is not true that “an account of a person’s good will fail to be suited to persons as self-inventors insofar as it treats a person as identical with certain motivations or traits, for this is to accord her current features a normative authority that they lack” (Rosati 62).  There are current motivations or traits that are given to us by nature and hence do have normative authority.  For our purposes, we only need to identify an individual as identical to her most fundamental desires that make her who she is and which are common to all others (Rosati 62).

                For example, it seems to me that at the very least, no matter what sort of person Sandy could become, she will always care about her own happiness (however one wishes to spell this out naturalistically).   Sandy is wondering whether she would be happier if she were more spontaneous and less rigid like Madelyn.  Happiness appears to be intrinsically good and so one cannot claim that persons like us (capable of emotion) could possibly not desire happiness in some form.    Furthermore, any idealized individual with full information and full rationality will know how to maximize this happiness in any given situation, and so it seems to me that any two idealized individuals will agree in their recommendations if desire-satisfaction is part of what makes a choice better than another choice (Rosati 57).

                Rosati could object that “our concern is not simply with happiness, for instance, but with what sort of happy person to be” (Rosati 60).  The idea behind this objection seems to be that there are many ways to be happy, and Sandy is wondering which way she should take.  The new naturalist can respond in two ways.  First, perhaps there are many ways to be happy, but only one way to be maximally happy.  If this is true, then any two idealized individuals will recommend the same route to becoming maximally happy.  Second, perhaps there are many ways to becoming maximally happy, and if so, then any of these choices is equally correct.  Rosati herself allows for such a possibility: “a person’s good may be indeterminate in some cases, either because there is no determinate answer as to what her good consists in, or because several options are equally acceptable” (Rosati 67).  This is a form of openness that is not problematic for the naturalist.

                Third, even if humans do have common and fundamental desires, Rosati worries that in order to become fully informed and rational we must lose our capacity to judge what is good by becoming cold and calculating.  If so, “the reactions of persons with these characteristics would hardly be recommending to most of us, regardless of how fully informed and rational they might be” (Rosati 57).  The new naturalist can make two responses here.  First, there is no reason to assume that full rationality and the possession of full information are incompatible with feelings and good character.  For example, the notion that God is omnibenevolent and omniscient does not seem to be inherently contradictory.  Second, suppose that the process does make an individual cold and calculating.  Does that individual need to feel in order to make good recommendations?  It does not seem so.  We can imagine a computer that has full information and rationality and possesses all facts about feelings and character traits although it possesses none of them.  Why should we reject its recommendations, especially if following them has always proven to turn out for the best?  We can still accept its judgments without wanting to be like it in all respects, because we value it as an advisor regarding our actions and not as a model of what sort of person we should be.  Thus, either way, it would be wise to follow the advice of a fully informed and fully rational advisor’s recommendation concerning our good.

                Fourth and finally, Rosati is assuming a Humean view of practical rationality when one might instead adopt a Kantian view.  Hume believed that our desires were not subject to rational criticism while Kant believed that at least some of them were.   Railton agrees with the Kantian view and believes that we can criticize our desires on rational grounds (Railton 271). Indeed, how can we understand Sandy as wondering whether she should desire something else unless she takes some of her current desires to be open to criticism in some way?  If this is true, then at least some of our desires will be excluded because they are irrational, and it seems likely that some desires will be demanded by rationality.  Consequently, a fully rational and informed individual like us will have some of the same desires as another fully rational and informed individual like us in virtue of the fact the she is fully rational.    As long as these common desires control the deliberative process, then two fully rational and informed individuals will make the same recommendation and the open question is avoided. 

                Given these four available responses, I believe that the new naturalist can resist Rosati’s argument.  Armed with full rationality, full information, and fundamental yet universally held desires that may themselves be demanded by rationality, a person’s idealized advisor will undoubtedly  make the correct recommendation concerning whether something is ‘good for a person.’  Thus, any open questions have been effectively closed. 

Works Cited and Consulted

Darwall, Stephen.  “Morality and Practical Reason: A Kantian Approach.”  The Oxford Handbook of
                Ethical Theory. Ed. David Copp. New York: Oxford, 2006. 282-320. Print.

Railton, Peter. “Humean Theory of Practical Rationality.” The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory.
                Ed. David Copp. New York: Oxford, 2006. 265-281. Print.

Rosati, Connie. “Naturalism, Normativity, and the Open Question Argument.” Nous 29.1 (1995): 46-
                70. JSTOR. Web. 25 Aug. 2011.

Sturgeon, Nicholas.  “Ethical Naturalism.”  The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory. Ed. David
                Copp. New York: Oxford, 2006. 91-121. Print.

Korsgaard’s “Skepticism about Practical Reason”

I wrote this paper for a Metaethics class while completing my MA in Philosophy.  This was submitted on  March 9, 2011 and remains as I submitted it (apart from formatting changes).
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To exercise practical reason is to engage in reasoning relating to our practical (e.g., moral) actions.  In “Skepticism about Practical Reason,” Korsgaard explores the nature of practical reason and analyzes skeptical claims regarding reason’s ability to guide action.  Her article defends two interwoven theses.  First, that motivational skepticism depends on content skepticism, and second, that a properly construed internalist view is defensible.  For the sake of clarity, I will discuss these two theses separately and then offer a critique of the second thesis.  More specifically, I believe an internalist view is defensible, but I think Korsgaard’s development of the view is mistaken in characterizing the motivation coming from reason as being “blocked” instead of overpowered.  I also do not think that her position avoids making moral action conditional on a person’s prior passions and so it threatens to undermine moral responsibility.  Thus, while offering a promising alternative to Hume’s theory of motivation, it is in need of revision and should be rejected as it stands.  However, her first thesis does appear to be correct and so her main point in the paper should be accepted.

The first and main thesis that Korsgaard defends is that “motivational skepticism must always be based on content skepticism” (6).  By motivational skepticism Korsgaard means skepticism or doubt about the extent to which reason can provide a motive for action, particularly moral action (5).  In contrast, content skepticism is doubt about the nature of reasoning and what it can say about the relationship between choice and action (7). Thus, Korsgaard claims that any view regarding whether reason can provide a motive for action will necessarily presuppose a broader view regarding the nature of reasoning.  It is this broader view that determines whether reason can provide a motive for action, and so motivational skepticism necessarily depends on content skepticism. 

In order to demonstrate this claim, Korsgaard explains Hume’s view concerning the nature of reason.  For Hume, reason analyzes the relations of ideas (e.g., logic and math) and the relations of objects (e.g., cause and effect).  With respect to moral action, reason merely discerns the means to a desired end, which ultimately is rooted in a passion and is sought to satisfy that passion.  These passions are the root of morality: good actions bring about positive sentiments while bad actions lead to negative sentiments.  However, reason cannot judge the sentiments in themselves, for they are what they are and are not subject to rational evaluation.  Reason merely tells us how to satisfy our desires and so it is used by our passions to find the means to do so.

By defining the role of reason in this way, it is clear that reason cannot provide a motive for action nor oppose any passion.  It merely analyzes relationships and as such has no motivational force of its own.  But this, Korsgaard notices, is simply a consequence of Hume’s view of reason itself: “his motivational skepticism… is entirely dependent upon his content skepticism” (7).  Hume clarifies his view with respect to moral motivation by asserting (1) that if reason does have any motive force, then it must be tied to or based in a passion.  However, this is based on his prior view that reason is only concerned with the relations of objects and ideas and therefore only passions can have motivational influence.  Similarly, Hume believes (2) that a reason joined by a passion “must proceed to the means to satisfy that passion, that being the only operation of reason that transmits motivational force” (8).  However, this claim depends entirely on the view that reasoning is completely characterized by discerning the means to achieving an end.  Once again, this assertion follows from Hume’s broader view about the nature of reason and as such it is not an independent view about motivation. 

On both points, Korsgaard believes that one can challenge Hume. Kantians challenge both points, since reason provides a motivation of its own and is not solely characterized by discerning means-end relations.  Nor are these points inseparable as a person can affirm one but deny the other.  For example, Bernard Williams agrees with the first point but denies the second.  On William’s view, if a person has a motive to do an action, this will be an internal reason for doing that action.  Any reason that does not have a motive force is an external reason.  Williams believes that external reasons are not really reasons at all since they have no motive force for an individual and cannot therefore explain an action.  Up to this point, Williams is in agreement with Hume.  However, Williams suggests that one can act for reasons of principle as opposed to acting in order to achieve an end by some means.  One can apply a principle that is in one’s subjective motivational set to the situation at hand and act accordingly.  This process, Korsgaard claims, is not purely means/end reasoning (21).  Thus, it is clear that one’s view with respect to reason’s ability to motivate action is dependent on one’s view of reason itself, and so Korsgaard’s first thesis is correct.

To set up her second thesis, Korsgaard criticizes Hume’s view of reasoning and motivation on two grounds.  The first concerns the inability of a person to act irrationally.  Hume believes that passions can only be considered “unreasonable” if they are tied to a false belief.  For example, the passion may be based on an object that does not exist or it may be motivating a mistaken means-end relation.  However, in neither case can the passion be called “unreasonable” or the resulting action called “irrational” because with respect to the false belief, the passion and the action are both “reasonable.”  Thus, Hume’s view precludes the possibility of true irrationality with regard to action.  That is, one cannot fail “to respond appropriately to an available reason” by, for example, choosing insufficient means to achieve an end while knowing the complete truth about a means-end relation (12).  If one did so, this would suggest that one did not really have this end (16).  However, Korsgaard believes that a theory of reason and motivation should allow for this possibility.  She asserts that “it is perfectly possible to imagine a sort of being who could engage in causal reasoning and who could, therefore, engage in reasoning that would point out the means to her ends, but who was not motivated by it” (13).  If this is a genuine possibility, then Hume’s account is wrong.

Korsgaard’s second objection is that Hume’s account suggests that practical reasons may be conditional.  For example, on Hume’s account, motivation to act springs from passions that an agent already has.  Consequently, a practical reason for one individual may not be a practical reason for another individual due to their differing passions.  According to Korsgaard, Williams’s view also lends itself to this interpretation.  For Williams, internal reasons relate to one’s “subjective motivational set” (19).  This set contains beliefs, desires, passions, and principles, and it is by deliberating about the contents of this set that one generates internal reasons for action.  Reasons that are external to the subjective motivational set (including judgments of practical reason) cannot produce a motive for action and hence are not, according to Williams, properly called reasons at all.

Rejecting Hume’s view of reasoning and motivation (and Williams’s as well), Korsgaard offers an alternative that is framed within the internalist/externalist debate.  By internalism, Korsgaard means the theory that “the knowledge (or the truth or the acceptance) of a moral judgment implies the existence of a motive (not necessarily overriding) for acting on that judgment” (8).  There is a necessary connection between the judgment and the motivation such that simply by coming to a moral judgment about an action one has a motivation to act in accordance with that moral judgment.  In contrast, an externalist theory of moral motivation asserts that “a conjunction of moral comprehension and total unmotivatedness is perfectly possible” (9).  That is, one can make a moral judgment and lack any motivation for acting in accordance with that judgment; the judgment provides no motivation for action.  

Seeking to defend the internalist view, Korsgaard lays out a requirement that must be satisfied if an internalist picture of moral motivation is to be possibly true.  This internalism requirement states that “practical-reason claims, if they are really to present us with reasons for action, must be capable of motivating rational persons” (11).  The key word is rational.  Consider again the case of irrationality in which a person discerns the means to some end yet remains unmotivated to engage in those means.  Korsgaard believes that in this case, the person is somehow incapable of “transmitting motive force” from reasons to action because something has blocked that transmission (13).  Korsgaard cites rage, passion, depression, and illness (physical or mental) as things that could interfere with reason’s ability to motivate an action (13).  Indifference, rationalization, and self-deception could also interfere with this process.

But this does not imply that reason itself is incapable of providing a motivation.  As Korsgaard states, “the necessity, or the compellingness, of rational considerations lies in those considerations themselves, not in us” (13-4).  Reason necessarily provides a motive for action, but it does not follow that we will necessarily act on that motive since this motive may be blocked.  In this case, we will act on other motives related to our passions.  However, we will act on that motive when there is no obstacle blocking it, that is, when we are rationally disposed.  The internalist requirement only needs reason to “be capable of convincing us [or motivating us] – insofar as we are rational” (14-5).  Reasons must convince and motivate a rational person to the extent that he or she recognizes a reason as such and the motivation coming from that reason is not blocked.

Consequently, it may not be possible to persuade someone to act rationally.  Korsgaard believes that there is “a gap between understanding a reason and being motivated by it” (17).  A reason may be intrinsically motivating but may fail to motivate us to act due to some interference in transferring the motivation from the reason to our action.   The fault lies not in the reason itself, but in us.  Not everyone is capable of being motivated to act by merely perceiving a connection between a reason and a moral action (18).  Only those who are properly disposed to reason and responsive to reason will in fact be motivated by reason to act. 

Against the concern that practical reasons would be conditional on her account, Korsgaard affirms that “reason could yield conclusions that every rational being must acknowledge and be capable of being motivated by” (22).  In fact, on Williams’s view, suppose that a principle in the subjective motivational set is discovered and accepted through reasoning.  Then prima facie it is plausible to suggest that every rational person could have or in fact does have this principle.  If this is true, then Korsgaard believes that the internalism requirement is satisfied, “for all rational persons could be brought to see that they have reason to act in the way required by the principle, and this is all that the internalism requirement requires” (22).

In sum, Korsgaard believes that motivational skepticism cannot provide evidence for skepticism about practical reasons since one’s conception of the role of reason will determine exactly the role that practical reasons can play in motivating an individual.  Furthermore, Korsgaard believes that the failure of a reason to cause an action demonstrates nothing about that that reason’s ability to motivate in itself.  This only provides evidence for the lack of rationality in the individual who has failed to be sufficiently motivated to act.  Thus, the internalism requirement is satisfied and internalism itself is not refuted.

I agree with Korsgaard’s first thesis that motivational skepticism depends on content skepticism.  However, I do not quite agree with the view that she has given as an alternative to Hume’s theory of motivation.  First, her assertion that a motive can be blocked is a bit confusing.  Although it is difficult to tell, she seems to be using the word ‘motive’ in two ways.  The first refers to the phenomenal force that a reason exerts on us while the second refers to the reason which explains our action.  The first kind of motive cannot be blocked if Korsgaard is to be an internalist since there must be a necessary connection between recognizing a reason to act and feeling somewhat compelled to do so.  So it must be the second kind of motive that is blocked, that is, one may feel like one should act in a certain way as the result of recognizing a reason to do so, but one will not in fact act in that way because the transmission of the motive force is blocked from moving one to action. 

However, ‘blocked’ does not seem like the correct word to use here.  In the instance in which I do not act in accordance with a moral judgment and the motive it gives, I feel torn as to what I should do.   My motive to act in accordance with reason is not so much blocked as it is overpowered by other concerns and desires.  This overpowering can become so great that it feels as though I have absolutely no motive force at all to act in accordance with a reason, even though I must on the internalist picture.  Also, it does seem that the motive force is transmitted to my will which determines my action. Even when I do act contrary to reason, that motive influences my action to a certain degree (e.g., I do my action with a sense of guilt, I make a compromise).  It seems that it must necessarily do so, for I cannot understand how I could feel a motive to act and yet not have my act be affected in some way by it.  However, my action can still be called properly called “irrational” because my action does not exclusively or primarily come from the motive given by reason; I do not act in accordance with reason’s motive and hence not in accordance with reason. 

A second difficulty is that Korsgaard’s view seems to make action conditional on a person’s prior disposition to respond to reasons, and this seems to undermine moral responsibility.  She asserts that reason will motivate someone who is capable of being motivated and this capability depends on that person’s level of rationality.  Presumably, a more rational person will have fewer passions that can block the transmission of the motive force to the action.  But suppose that a person is so disposed that no motivational force from a judgment of reason can be transmitted since it is always blocked.  Then on Korsgaard’s view, reason has no influence whatsoever on the action that ensues.  Indeed, the motivational force that comes from reason seems to be held hostage to the passions.  If Korsgaard’s view is correct, couldn’t one simply claim that one’s passions got in the way and they (and not the agent) are to blame for blocking an action in accordance with reason?  Again, it seems better to say that the motivation that comes from reason may be overridden by contrary desires and concerns, though it cannot be completely overridden.  Thus, it still does have the ability to influence action and so we can be held morally responsible with respect to it. 

In conclusion, if I have understood Korsgaard correctly, then I believe that her view concerning the transmission of moral motivation to action is false.  The motive force that reason gives is not blocked but overpowered.  In any case, Korsgaard’s main thesis appears to be correct, and thus one should conclude that motivational skepticism does depend on content skepticism as she claims.

Works Cited

Korsgaard, Christine.  “Skepticism about Practical Reasons.” The Journal of Philosophy 83.1 (1986):
            5-25. JSTOR. Web.  26 February 2011.

Aristotelian Naturalism and Post-Darwinian Biology (1)

I wrote this paper for a class on Ethical Theory while completing my MA in Philosophy.  This was submitted on December 7, 2011 and remains as I submitted it (apart from formatting changes).
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Introduction

Aristotelian Naturalism is a form of ethical naturalism, which is broadly “the enterprise of basing ethics in some way on considerations of human nature” (Hursthouse 192).  Or as Kitcher puts it, it is an “endeavor to explain the meaning of central moral terms by drawing on biological insights” (Kitcher, “Biology” 164). As such, Aristotelian Naturalism is an attempt to ground ethical norms in that way that human beings naturally are, and thus, to give an account of morality that is completely natural and objective.[1]  However, such a view faces difficulties if it is at odds with contemporary biology, and as Kitcher claims, “there is an established orthodoxy among leading biologists and philosophers of biology that would dismiss any grounding of value in ‘human nature’ as unpromising” (Kitcher, “Essence” 61).  Is Aristotelian Naturalism at odds with post-Darwinian biology?  I will argue that it is not.  In this paper I will explain what Aristotelian Naturalism is and what it is committed to.  I will address objections to the view that are based on biological considerations largely derived from evolutionary views of nature.  I find that each of these objections fails, either because it either mischaracterizes the view or because a simple modification can be made to avoid the objection.  Thus, I conclude that Aristotelian Naturalism is an extremely powerful, plausible, and persuasive metaethical view.

Summary of View

What is Aristotelian Naturalism in its contemporary form?[2]  The basic idea is that we can assign value to an individual of a certain species by looking at what is “normal” or “characteristic” with regards to the species as a whole.  As Foot claims, whether an individual has natural goodness “depends directly on the relation of an individual to the ‘life form’ of its species” (Foot 26-7).  Thus, we must assess individuals according to the “nature of the species to which the individual belongs,” and it is this nature that determines how individuals should be (Foot 27, 32).  Consequently, an evaluation of “goodness” or “badness” is akin to other types of natural evaluation and not anything especially different.[3] 

For example, Hursthouse claims that we can and do evaluate plants as being good or bad specimens with respect to their species according to their (i) parts and (ii) their operations and whether these are good or bad themselves (Hursthouse 198).  What makes a plant’s parts and operations either good or bad depends on “whether they are contributing, in the way characteristic of such a member of such a species, to (1) individual survival through the characteristic life span of such a member of such a species and (2) continuance of the species” (Hursthouse 198).[4]  Thus, there are two aspects of plants that are naturally oriented towards two ends.  If an individual plant has parts and operations that are not characteristically contributing to individual and species survival, then it is a defective or bad plant.

It is important to note that such evaluations are made in the context of an environment.  The appropriate context of assessment for what counts as an “excellence” or “defect” in an individual member of a species is the “natural habitat of the species” (Foot 34).  Given that plants, animals, and humans have evolved within specific environments of the natural world, it only makes sense to assess them with these specific environments in mind.  It would be wrong to claim that monkeys are defective since they cannot breathe underwater, for monkeys do not actually live under water.  Living things must be critically assessed according to the environments in which they actually live and have adapted for.  Based on these natural facts about individuals and their species as well as facts about the environments that these species live in, we can evaluate individuals according to whether they are living well as members of a species as situated in that species’ natural environment.[5]

When we turn to animals, they are evaluated according to a third aspect: (iii) whether they act well (in the way characteristic of their species) (Hursthouse 199).  This is done with respect to (1) and (2) as well as to a third end (3): “characteristic freedom from pain and characteristic pleasure or enjoyment” (Hursthouse 199).[6]  This is especially true for animals with more advanced cognitive capacities, which leads to a fourth aspect: (iv) emotions and desires.  Higher level animals not only experience pain and pleasure but have emotions and desires, and these are oriented towards a fourth end: (4) “the good functioning of the social group” (Hursthouse 201).   A social group is functioning well when it effectively enables its members to live well in the characteristic way of the species, that is, by supporting individual survival, individual freedom from pain enjoyment of pleasure, and individual development of capacities (Hursthouse 201-2).

When we come to humans, there is no sudden change in how to evaluate them.  It is very natural to assume that “the criteria of goodness in human beings must be related to what human beings are and/or do, as such,”[7] and so they are evaluated in the same way that plants and animals are evaluated (Hursthouse 206).  Humans are taken to be part of the natural order of the world, and hence, can be evaluated according to their natural properties.  As Hursthouse points out, “what human beings are is a species of rational, social animals and thereby a species of living things – which… have a particular biological make-up and a natural life cycle” (Hursthouse 206).[8]  However, humans are distinct from other higher-level animals in that, given our higher-level cognitive capacities, we are primarily[9] moved to act from reason instead of being determined by unreflective inclination or nature; our rationality has a “genuinely transforming effect” on our basic biological structure that creates a “huge gap” between us and other animals (Hursthouse 218-20).[10]  Since our rationality leads humans to live in a variety of seemingly different ways,[11] and since we can even reflect on and question our nature,[12] the only characteristic and unquestionable[13] way of living that humans have in common is a ‘rational way,’ where a ‘rational way,’ is defined as “any way that we can rightly see as good, as something we have reason to do” (Hursthouse 222).   

What do we have reason to do?  Hursthouse hints that reason is primarily oriented towards helping us attain our “characteristic enjoyments,” which are “any enjoyments we can rightly see as good, as something we in fact enjoy and that reason can rightly endorse” (Hursthouse 222).  Foot similarly claims that humans aim at ‘happiness,’ where ‘happiness’ is to be taken as “the enjoyment of good things, meaning enjoyment in attaining, and in pursuing, right ends” (Foot 97).  The right ends are exactly those ends which characteristically belong to the human species, and so to act in accordance with reason is to attain and find enjoyment in those ends (e.g., basic needs, social relationships).  Thus, to act morally or well is to act in accordance with what reason endorses and to act immorally or badly is to act contrary to practical reason; “moral action is rational action” (Foot 24).  Foot even goes so far as to say that “moral action is a requirement of practical rationality” (Foot 21).  Similarly, we evaluate a person as morally good or bad with respect to whether her rational will is oriented towards what is naturally good for her (Foot 66).  In other words, it is our acting from reason “that makes us good or bad human beings in the ethical sense” (Hursthouse 207).          

Since acting from reason is to act in accordance with our characteristic enjoyments, which depend on our nature, “it is still the case that human beings are ethically good in so far as their ethically relevant aspects foster the four ends appropriate to a social animal, in the way characteristic of the species” (Hursthouse 224).  For virtue ethicists, these ethically relevant aspects are the virtues, and so we can say that “the virtues make their possessor a good human being” since “human beings need the virtues in order to live well, to flourish as human beings, to live a characteristically good, eudaimon, human life” (Hursthouse 167).  In sum, as Hursthouse writes:

The truth of ‘this action is right’ is dependent on the truth of ‘This is what a virtuous         agent would characteristically do in the circumstances’; the truth of that is dependent    upon (i) what an agent with a certain character trait would do in the circumstances and (ii) whether that character trait is a virtue.  The truth of (ii), whether the character trait in question is a virtue, depends on whether the character trait conduces to the four    naturalistic ends (in a rational way) and the truth of that depends in part on human interests and desires. (Hursthouse 239)

Right action is action that conduces to our human nature, which leads to our flourishing as human beings.

Consequently, the answer to the question “why be moral?” is that acting morally benefits the actor based on her nature as a human being, and so acting morally is the only rational thing to do (Hursthouse 251).  However, it is important to point out, as Hursthouse does, that having the virtues does not guarantee that one will always flourish or that they are necessary for flourishing (Hursthouse 172-3).  Many virtuous people have met with tragedy in spite of and even because of their virtue.  But exceptions to a “rule” do not disprove it so long as there is a general pattern upon which the rule is based.[14]  Most people will agree that “if we act well, things go well for us.  When it does not, when eudaimonia is impossible to achieve or maintain, that’s not ‘what we should have expected’ but tragically bad luck” (Hursthouse 185).  Thus, the claim that “the virtues benefit their possessor” should be taken as meaning that living a virtuous life is the “only reliable bet” for living a flourishing life and that “that no ‘regimen’ [for how one should live one’s life] will serve one better” (Hursthouse 172-3).  That is, if we want to live well, our best bet is to live according to the virtues.  And this is a good bet since such a life is rooted in our nature as human beings and so we are simply living in accordance with the type of beings that we are.

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Aristotelian Naturalism and Post-Darwinian Biology (2)

Continued from (1)

Objections 

Now that the Aristotelian Naturalist view has been sufficiently explained, we can consider some objections that stem from the perception that it is incompatible with post-Darwinian biology.  The first objection denies that human beings have any stable nature.  Hursthouse quotes Bernard Williams as claiming that “human beings are to some degree a mess, and […] the rapid and immense development of symbolic and cultural capacities has left humans as beings for whom no form of life is likely to prove entirely satisfactory, either individually or socially” (Hursthouse 261).  Hursthouse’s interpretation of what this implies is that “we are beings for whom no form of life is likely to prove satisfactory at all.  Any individuals who flourish individually and socially are an extraordinary accident” (Hursthouse 261).  Given that we have no stable nature, there is no form of how best to live a human life and hence nothing natural about human beings that can ground any ethical claims.  As such, we are left with moral nihilism and despair regarding how to live our lives since flourishing is simply a matter of luck.

Another way of putting this objection is to deny that there is any essence that humans, as a species, have.  Kitcher believes that contemporary biology undermines any attempt to give necessary and sufficient conditions for species membership and so we cannot clearly define what it means to be a member of the human species, let alone determine which individuals are members (Kitcher, “Biology” 165).  Consequently, biological norms are impossible to specify.  For example, many ‘normal’ genotypes found in human beings may be excluded if we define the properties constitutive of the human essence too narrowly, while if it is set too low many genotypes that are associated with disease will be included (Kitcher, “Essence” 66).  Similarly, making rationality an essential feature of human nature excludes many beings that we generally take to be human (e.g., infants, the mentally disabled) and includes many animals that are not human beings (e.g., primates).  Without an essence or a form to guide our assessments of individuals with respect to the species, we cannot say what individuals should be like, only what they are like.

The second objection is that the Aristotelian view of nature is teleological while post-Darwinian biology has discarded any teleological notions, and so any teleological claims rest on a human imposition of value upon nature.  Hursthouse quotes Bernard Williams as claiming that, “the first and hardest lesson of Darwinism [is] that there is no such teleology at all” (Hursthouse 257).  Since humans have evolved and since evolution is a random and aimless process, humans are also aimless in their desires, interests, and goals.  As such, Kitcher accuses Aristotelian Naturalists like Foot of adopting a “pre-Darwinian conception of function that either offers no way of connecting her moral conclusions to biological facts or else does so only because the conception already tacitly presupposes certain moral ends and values” (Kitcher, “Biology” 165).  The link between biology and morality rests on an imposition of value that links biological features with our values because we have placed special importance on these features (e.g., rationality).  Thus, Kitcher concludes that “the effort to use our species essence to identify the human good… fails, because ideas about the good have to be imported” into our biological claims (Kitcher, “Essence 68).

Similarly, Kitcher believes we cannot objectively determine a ‘normal’ environment.  Kitcher rightly points out that “virtually all human characteristics – including all those that are of interest in identifying the human good – result from an interaction between genotype and environment” (Kitcher, “Essence 67).  Thus, there are no purely intrinsic features that can make up the essence of human nature since any such properties “can be expressed in very different ways given the right – or the wrong – environments” (Kitcher, “Essence 67).  So far, the Aristotelian Naturalist is in agreement.  However, Kitcher goes on to claim that “we select environments as normal in virtue of the fact that they permit genotypes to issue in the traits we value” (Kitcher, “Essence 67).  For example, we value our cognitive capacities and so the ‘normal’ environment for humans is one that fosters these capacities.  But this is an illegitimate imposition of our value onto nature and so any ethical claims based on this imposition are not purely objective or natural.  As Kitcher concludes, “the selection of the explananda already involves just those judgments of value which were supposed to be recovered from the identification of the human essence, and we have no independent route to the essence that will avoid prior judgment about what is valuable” (Kitcher, “Essence 75).

Third, Kitcher argues that evolutionary theory is more compatible with an expressivist meaning of ethical terms.  He proposes the following evolutionary story of how biological altruism[15] and psychological altruism[16] arose.  Organisms are primarily driven to pass along their DNA to future generations.  Supposing that an organism cannot or is unlikely to pass along its own DNA, it makes sense for that organism to act altruistically towards a close relative.  That close relative will share much of the same DNA, and so if one’s relative is reproductively successful, one is also in a sense successful in passing one’s DNA along (Kitcher, “Biology” 167).  Similarly, organisms can act with reciprocity such that “if one acts today to incur a small reproductive loss that provides a large reproductive gain for the beneficiary, and if the favor is returned tomorrow, then both gain” (Kitcher, “Biology” 167).  Thus, reciprocity can, over the long term, help all parties to pass along their DNA to future generations.

Since evolution selects traits that enable individuals to survive in the current environment, and since biological altruism is advantageous to everyone overall, it will be selected.  Overtime, biological altruism will lead to psychological altruism to further promote survival by fostering social cohesion.  Along with psychological altruism comes an evolved capacity for normative guidance: a “capacity for articulating rules and using those rules to shape our wishes, plans, and intentions, so that the frequency with which the altruistic tendencies that underlie cooperation are overridden is diminished” (Kitcher, “Biology” 172).  Such a capacity is adaptively advantageous since hominids that have this capacity will “earn a reputation as good coalition-mates, and this secures them access to advantageous coalitions (and to the sub-coalitions that influence the distribution of resources” (Kitcher, “Biology” 172).  In addition, this capacity will further promote social cohesion, leading to an increase in the numbers of individuals within a society.  These small societies will be governed by shared rules that shape member attitudes (Kitcher, “Biology” 172-3).  As these societies grow larger, new sources of conflict will arise and so by relying on our capacity for norm governance, these societies will modify their “traditional norms” to resolve these conflicts (Kitcher, “Biology” 173). 

If such a story is correct, then it seems that such moral norms are merely pragmatic rules that function to coordinate human social behavior (Kitcher, “Biology” 175).  By learning them, one does not learn something objective about the world, but only that a certain rule is used by a certain society to maintain social order.  Thus, Kitcher claims that moral norms are rooted in our attitudes towards the world as shaped by our evolved cultural upbringing, and not in anything natural or objective about human nature.

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