Useful Distinctions

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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,