Right-making features: Do they speak?

I have been reading and submitting ideas, gaining feedback in the last few weeks. This has led me to decide that I am going to focus upon a metaphysical idea of what a principle is, and how it makes actions right or wrong. This idea is a big part of Dancy, but it is something which has also been discussed by a little by Shafer-Landau in his paper moral-rules. I am going to explore an aspect of this idea which I find both interesting and slippery.

If actions are made right by their non-moral features, or the non-moral features of the situation they occur within, then these features are right-making. It seems easy to point to cases where a non-moral feature of an action makes that action right: the generosity of the action of buying a hot drink for a homeless person in the wintertime makes the action good. It is harder to point to a non-moral feature of situations which are right-making more generally. Generously giving out the stolen goods you have acquired rather than returning them to their owners is not a better act because it is generous.

Dancy makes much of this kind of distinction. In Ethics Without Principles He discusses the difference between two interpretations of holism: the thesis in the theory of reasons that a feature that is a reason in one case may be no reason at all, or an opposite reason, in another. The first interpretation might be of the kind he calls a 'Brandom-style approach. Robert Brandom gives a holistic outline of reasons which Dancy calls 'non-monotonic. Brandom gives these conditions:

1. If I strike this dry, well-made match, then it will light. (p -> q)
2. If p and the match is in a very strong electromagnetic field, then it will not light. ((p&r)->¬q)
3. If p and r and the match is in a Faraday cage, then it will light. ((p&q&r)->q)
4. If p and r and s and the room is evacuated of oxygen, then it will not light. ((p&q&r&s&t)->¬q)

This set of conditionals offers a different approach to how reasons might operate together than Dancy sees himself as advocating. Dancy believes this to be a different kind of holism than his, because each combination of features (p, p&r, p&r&s, p&r&s&t) speaks in favour of the match lighting or not lighting. Dancy wants to say that a single feature may in one situation be a reason in favour of one outcome in one situation, and in another situation be a reason against the same thing occurring. In one case it is right to do X because of feature Y, and another case it is wrong to do X because of Y. When the features add up they retain their identity, but they might change their weight and force.

Interesting distinction. My first impression is that it might not quite add up, but I am taking Dancy with a pinch of salt at the moment.

Guides and Standards

Continuing the search for principles of moral philosophy and what these things might be I have (as mentioned in the last post) recently been reading the excellent Principled Ethics. I have previously looked at McKeever and Ridge's first description of what principles might be; standards (I wrote about them here). They have more distinctions to add, and I will now move on to their second and third suggestion of what a principle might be: guides, and action guiding standards.

Where standards are the exceptionless rules we might follow if we had a godlike perspective, rules like the principle of utility or the categorical imperative which apply always, perhaps even necessarily, guides are more like rules of thumb. If we were explaining to someone how to win at the stock market we might either pass on the obvious but vacuous standard "buy low and sell high", or give the practical advice of spreading their investments and knowing what the average price is for each share bought. Ethics in practice are performed in a limited time frame, by imperfect agents acting in non-ideal situations. Because the bigger picture is hard to even know, and harder to predict, it is useful perhaps to see principles as less like standards and more like guides. Like rules of thumb.

The authors begin to talk about how one might construe Ross and his system of prima facie duties as a system of guides. I suppose their intent was to highlight the way in which his system allows rules to override each-other, leading one to occasionally break one principle because of consideration of another. They put a disclaimer in, to highlight that Ross may not have intended his ideas in this way, and I feel this was wise. Ross did not have this kind of idea in mind at all. There is a huge gulf between 'useful rules of thumb' and the fundamental set of principles he described. His method was to 'boil down' certain principles we think of as part of morality until only those which could not be split further remained. He certainly did not think of these as the kinds of rules which allowed exception, in the way a rule of thumb might when the standard was consulted.

McKeever and Ridge continue with an interesting combination of their first two ideas, and this gives us action guiding standards (p9).  They consider two ways this might take shape, one 'uninteresting' version in which the only standards accepted are practical, and one which makes use of an ideal virtuous agent. The virtuous agent would be able to ascent to the higher level of critical awareness of a standard to assess the rightness of the guide they use. The authors this ability is necessary for situation in which the agent is able to forsake their virtue in-order to (for example) achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

I wonder if the uninteresting version is as uninteresting, and I wonder if the virtuous agent view is actually much to do with virtue. The 'uninteresting' view is interesting because I like the idea that some guides for action may also be exceptionless standards. I suppose the authors see that this kind of crossover would be rare due to the complexity of putting standards into practice, and in this I certainly see their point. It struck me that a principle like 'do not lie' if it were understood as complicated and involving clauses which specified action may be exceptionless. If it were sufficiently complicated, it would be both a standard and a guide... but of course as finite beings, perhaps we would not be able to grasp such complexity.

In my mind I am currently thinking of this as the complexity problem. A related problem for principles seems to be the non-translatability problem. Perhaps the two are linked: principles do not seem to be the kinds of things we can express with a simple rule (though we try to anyway). When we do express them so, they have hidden, unmentioned clauses which we take to be 'obvious' if one understands the principle properly. It strikes me that this 'understanding properly' is highly complex, and so I don't think it is inconceivable that principles are complex. I need to respond to Dancy on this point however, and am not ready yet.

As for the virtuous agent view, I find it misunderstands virtue. I realise the authors are talking about a virtuous agent in the sense that a utilitarian might call her virtuous who acts in ways which generally promote the greatest happiness. Given this meaning of 'virtuous agent' it does make sense to say that one might forsake their 'virtue' in order to promote the greatest good. However this is to take the idea of virtue as merely the internalisation of acts which generally promote the greatest happiness. Virtue on this view of it is the rule of thumb, and not something which is good in itself.

What I have against this view is perhaps just pre-critical thought. I like to think that virtue is intrinsically good, and that an agent who exemplifies the virtues (perhaps not Aristotle, but similar) would thereby be good in some sense which transcends utility. I need to consider this a bit further to develop it into a criticism.

A Better Grip of the Principle

I have finally managed to get my hands on McKeever and Ridge's book Principled Ethics, and am both quite excited and a bit worried by their approach. The reason I am quite excited is that it mirrors what I am already trying to do. The reason I am a bit worried is because I fear they may have already done what I was trying to do, and made my line of thought redundant. I suppose I will simply have to study in depth and see if I can pick up on anything they have missed!

The sensibly begin their work by separating out terms in the way I had previously intended to, and in particular getting straight (to them!) what is meant by a moral principle. They initially have 6 divisions into the term which they use for analysis (p8-14). Additionally they want to talk about the scope of operation for moral principles. They discuss hedged and un-hedged principles (p21) and he way in which a principle can be moral, non-moral or intra moral. I wanted to here discuss the distinctions they makes regarding principles, though I will later return to the interesting topic of scope. I seems both must be important if we want to talk about principles.

They begin by saying that one might simply see principles as standards. The authors characterise this sense of 'principle' as being something which provides sufficient condition for the application of a moral concept (p7). These are supposed to be necessary truths which might found any contingent principles, and are exemplified by notions such as the categorical imperative or the principle of utility.

Part of their discussion of this particular characterisation is to do with an argument about supervenience. Even particularists might generally agree that moral facts about a case supervene upon the non-moral facts. If there is a physical difference in the facts of the case then this difference may make a moral difference to the case as well. According to McKeever and Ridge this alone means that we might generally describe moral concepts in physical terms, and so that a comprehensive physical description of the possible world in which that case occurs (including all the facts) would give a sufficient condition for the application of a moral concept. Of course if this were true, principles as standards would be physically true.

They mention this only to flesh out what they mean by 'generalisation'. They do not mean a comprehensive physical description of the physical world, as this would be a very very long description indeed. Also many things in such a 'supervenience function' are irrelevant to moral thought, just as many physical facts seem irrelevant in any case.

So a standard is less that a supervenience function (it is shorter) and must be useful if it is to qualify as a principle. This interesting distinction is useful, and one I intend to make use of.

The idea of discounting supervenience function's as candidates for moral principles seems a bit strange to me. An example of a principle, like the principle of maximum utility, seems like a physical law. It is a generalised proposition which can be applied in a uniform way (if we could know the consequences, of course!) and would arguable give us an idea of what course of action would be correct. The idea that a comprehensive description of the physical world might qualify as the same kind of thing seems bizarre, and obviously quite different from this. For a start it is much longer, and far more complicated, and may come as a string of data capturing the position and momentum of fundamental particles.

If we are to consider both the short, and the nearly infinite as candidates for principles, then why simply rule out a complete description of the given possible world? Why not just use a complete physical description of a given case?

I notice that the authors make use of the notion of a 'moral concept' which is separate from a moral principle. This term is used throughout the chapter, and I am not certain what it means. As I understand particularism, it is largely a negative thesis, and I am not sure that the sort of morality it might promote requires anything so clear as a concept. At present I struggle to see what could be a moral concept, other than something like a principle like "do not lie" or "do not kill". Perhaps further reflection will shed some light upon this, but it is a possible problem with the discussion.

I will add to this tomorrow with some thoughts about their next distinction,; principles as guides.

The Mumford Method

This post is slightly out of the ordinary, as in this post I will not be talking purely about a recent reading, instead I want to talk about the wonderful method I am now using to collate my thoughts. The Mumford Method.

I have had the fortune to be enrolled on the excellent MA program at The University Of Nottingham, the same university where a certain Stephen Mumford is currently serving. His work in metaphysics has been highly influential, as well as his more recent work in philosophy of sport, and he is an early adopter of twitter (see @SDmumford) . In fact this is how I came to know about him before I had began my studies, and it was a brief meeting with him that convinced me Nottingham was the place (that and the wonderful campus, it really is so nice!)

The method I am using now is his method. It is known as the Mumford Method, (or #mumfordmethod on twitter) and has a few features which I am particularly impressed with. I had already read about it and was excited to hear that Stephen Mumford himself was to do a presentation. I booked a place and went to watch. (for the official version of the method, see Stephen Mumfords website)

Firstly it is a linear notation format, and as such it is a step on from the built points which we have all (well, I have!) writen out in an attempt to plan essays before I start to write. Unlike those one word bullet points the mumford method has overhung sentances, and rather than a linear list, the page is devided in to columns. This means that you can write much more, and a clear careful statement of each point can be easily captured. For a 2-4000 word essay a single page of A4 is probably enough. For more complex or longer works it might be necessary to use the reverse side, or even extra sheets to capture all the points.

I began by typing each point that had been haunting me down onto this document (Stephen Mumford calls it a handout for reasons I will go into). This process allowed me to have the key points right in front of me all at once, and it was a simple process to see what was there and group them under headings. For my Dissertation I currently have three headings, but I think it may grow as I continue to read and refine.

So once you have your thoughts down, and have arranged them under headings you have already got the skeleton of an essay. Next comes the clever bit; you can take this handout and show people. If you have the opportunity present it and give everyone who comes a copy. Don't worry if they offer criticism as that is the entire point. For each criticism, note something down on your handout, and then go and think about a good response, and add that to the growing document. You can tweet paragraphs to get feedback too! and having the entire thing briefly presented means it is easy to get someone to look at your entire argument, as it is all right there.

I look forward to presenting my shiny new notes, and for me the process has so far helped a lot. I think it is a valuable tool in the study-skills kit, and any writer in the arts would be advised to check it out. The people I have shared this with have all been positive, and at least one educational professional is very excited about the rumours of a book being published.

Have a look here for the offical Mumford method handout. By definition, a very very clear statement of the method: https://sites.google.com/site/stephendmumford/the-mumford-method

Spot the differences

Holism is the thesis that any given reason for action may be a reason for a different action in different circumstances. This can include being a reason for an action which is completely the reverse. Jonathan Dancy has argued that holism may be sufficient for Particularism, the thesis that moral principles do not exist, or can change or reverse depending upon circumstances. According to Brad Hookers arguments, Moral Particularism might actually be a long way from holism.

I want to know, what is the difference between reasons and moral principles?

One difference is that a moral principal is a reason to act, but a reason is not a moral principle. The category of principals contains the category of moral principles, an example of which might be "do not lie". The border category might include non-moral principles, like "if in doubt, turn left" as a principal for finding ones way in a maze. The "if in doubt turn left" principal only has a narrow area of usefulness.

Moral principles, like other sorts of principal, have a limited area of use. For a start moral principles are of use only when our actions effect another. At least I think that must be the case. What counter examples could there be to this? It seems that there may be some moral obligations one has to ones self, so it is perhaps best to include the principles which govern all agent regarding actions. Through notions like property, this can be extended further to the inanimate or to the non-agents. There is probably a lot more to say here about our moral responsibilities towards eco-systems and natural systems, I will note this, and leave it to one side just now.

What are reasons? I have a reason to do an action if I have a belief. There is a reason for a bridge collapsing which is not the same thing. In one case a reason is agent centred, something I may possess. In the other case the reason is prior to the event and causes it directly.

If reason is possessed by an agent as a belief, then it is not dissimilar from a principle. My principles are certainly something I might believe in, and act upon. So how does it all stack up?

If Principles are a subset of a subset of things that might be reasons, then it does seem that Hooker was correct about holism needing an argument to connect to Dancy's particularism.

Back to the books!

Useful Distinctions

http://www.relfe.com

Following my first look at Scanlon's insights about moral principles I have moved on to read Brad Hookers article Moral Particularism and the Real World (2007). This article is also insightful, and as it is quite detailed I will most likely write a few posts about it over the next few days. Firstly I wanted to jot something down about the useful distinctions which Hooker makes before he gets to his arguments, as I think they are the bet bit.


Firstly hooker notes that reasons can be ultimate or derived. It might seem obvious once conceived, but the end goal of any activity doesn't have an equal status to each step taken to get there. Hooker uses the example of meeting a friend by catching the late bus. Though we may want to catch the bus because it means we can be with our friend, and because being with our friend is a good for one or both of us, it follows that we want to catch it, but this want is contingent. If our friend were nearby, or we owned a car in those cases we would not need the bus.

I find the idea of derived reasons really interesting, because it might help shed light on moral principle. Derived reasons can always switch polarity if a situation changes because the reason they are derived from (or that justifies them) remains fixed. Hooker notes that no one would really dispute this, and therefore it cannot be derived reasons that Dancy is talking about (p15).

The second distinction, one I like but have heard before, is between thick and thin moral properties (p16). These are not introduced as an either/or distinction. Instead there is a continuum between the thinnest properties of goodness, and the thickest properties somewhere down the line. Towards the thick end are the usual moral principles, like "do not lie" and "do not kill", and obviously it is these I want to look at in more detail.

I wonder, however, that there may be a problem with presenting these two distinctions together. Because one might think that an ultimate reason might be the same thing as a thin moral property. "Act for the good" seems to be both of these things. Hooker persuasively argues that Dancy must be talking about ultimate moral reasons, and also that he cannot be talking about thin moral principles. If moral principals and ultimate reasons are the same, then Hooker has eliminated all of Dancy's talk as meaningless through these distinctions.

The answer, of course, is that moral properties and reasons are different things. The word 'moral' must be getting in the way, along with the differences between a reason and the property of an act. My guess is that the discussion about ultimate or derived reasons is meant to translate across to the one about moral properties, but that that requires further argument. This problem perhaps offers a key to dissolving another apparent difficulty with the text.

An important part of Hookers paper, is its criticism of the idea that holism is the theory of reasons that supports particularism. Holism is the thesis that a feature that is a reason in one case may be no reason at all in another. To move from holism to particularism, Dancy must, according to Hooker, make another step. This step is to show that holism entails or supports particularism if it is construed as a doctrine about moral properties (p16). This is opposed to the particularism construed as a doctrine about moral thought. According to hooker, the two are importantly different, and the second requires a metaphysical view which hooker describes as;

[...] whether a property (other than a thin moral property) counts morally for or against an act that has that property depends on the circumstances, to the extent that the very same (non-thin) property that in some circumstances counts morally in favour can in other circumstances be morally neutral or even morally negative.(p16)

Picking this sentence apart is the difficult bit. First by 'property' we mean only non-thin moral properties. I think it can be better phrased:

Meta 1

A property P counts morally for or against an act that has P. Depending upon the circumstances of the act, P can make that act positive, neutral or negative.

This way of construing particularism relies upon moral properties, not upon reasons. The question remains, how do we get from the variable acceptance of a reason to the abandonment of moral principles?


Bibliograpby


Hooker, B. ‘Moral Particularism and the Real World’, in Mark Lance, Matjaz Potrc, Vojko Strahovnik (eds.), Challenging Moral Particularism, Routledge, Oct. 2007, pp. 12–30.
Dancy, J. (2004) Ethics Without Principles, Oxford University Press, 

The 'Tip' of the 'Rule Iceberg'

Today I have, on the advice of a friendly professor, been returning to the works of T. M. Scanlon. His book "What we owe to Each Other" has been helpful before, but I did not remember his work on moral principles until this re-reading. 

It strikes me that this account might be thought of as quite weak. The debate is highly interesting, partly for that reason. The way the debate is stated, for reasons I will go into, make the account sound circular. Obviously Scanlon is a clever chap, so I do not want to say he has got things obviously wrong. So when he defines principals it seems strange to say this:

Principles.. are general conclusions about the status of various kinds of reasons for action. So understood principals may rule out some action by ruling out the reasons on which they would be based, but they also leave wide room for interpretation and judgement (p190)

Scanlon wants to support the idea of moral principles and says as much, but he also supports the idea that they are not simple rules, and require judgement to hold in a particular case. The principles are not rules - as I would have initially thought - but rather the conclusions we as agents reach about reasons for action. These 'reasons' seem like atomic bits of principals, but I think that Scanlon would resist this idea. 

Firstly, he does not think the reasons or principals are the sorts of things that make sense without an agent’s judgement (p190). Secondly he admits that there are possibly an indefinite number of principals (p201). This thought first makes me think that the principals themselves are so numerous that more basic entities are not needed.. but then I think that chemical substances are numerous indeed, and yet the a finite range of elements make them up. Perhaps that is the kind of analogy Scanlon has in mind, of reasons 'supporting', 'building', or 'acting as foundations for' principles, except we cannot 'transmit' these judgements exactly. The judgements are something we get once we 'get' the principle itself.

It is at this point it starts to sound wrong. If principles are founded on reasons, but we only 'get' the reasons once we understand the principles then haven't we come full circle? If we are looking for a clear definition then perhaps we have, but I think that this is the point. There is no clear definition to be had of moral principles, because they always rely upon learned judgements which the agent cannot easily convey. Scanlon seems to think there is a necessary barrier to conveying these reasons, because they rely upon the complications relevant to each principle. The complications in even simple principals like "do not lie" rely upon a great deal of agent specific knowledge about when such rules can be broken, if at all.

I think this is a good introduction to the topic, and having taken a lot of notes I am going to mull it over. 

What this is all about

Hello

From  http://www.keele.ac.uk    

This blog is purely here for me to put some thoughts down for my dissertation. I am an MA student at the University of Nottingham, and have chosen to write about moral particularism, especially Jonathan Dancy for my dissertation. I want to look at the notion of an ethical principal and see what it really is. My 'naive' view (if you can still get such things at this stage) is that ethical principles might be many things: the 'simple' rule that one ought not to kill has many aspects to it, and may be composed of more basic units. I have no idea currently how this can form the basis of a criticism of Dancy, and to be honest I like his writing style and bravery for backing a difficult position as particularism. It remains to be seen what I shall think. My working title is;

A Critical examination of the conception of moral principles in Dancy's particularism

Enjoy!