Permissibility concerns the question, ‘May one do X?’, and answers to the reasons that there are, i.e. the features of the situation that call for action (or that count against it). It is a separate question what reasons the agent acted on, and thus what his action reveals about his character and relationship to others. Scanlon speaks of this broader significance as the ‘meaning’ of an action. It need not be conveyed intentionally, for sometimes it is precisely an actor’s lack of consideration that speaks volumes. Yet it also should not be confused with the subjective ‘meaning’ that others - ignorant of the agent’s true motives - might (even reasonably) read into the action. Rather, it is the meaning that the action really has for one, i.e. “the significance that person has reason to assign it, given the reasons for which it was performed and the person’s relation to the agent.”
Scanlon notes that permissibility and meaning are related in at least one straightforward respect: if someone behaves in an impermissible fashion, this indicates a lack of due concern on their part for the legitimate claims of others (in particular, the claims that render this action impermissible). But even here the distinction is worth noting, as uniformly impermissible actions may differ in meaning, depending on whether the agent intentionally violated another’s rights or was simply negligent. Neither option is permissible, but they signify very different things about the agent’s relation to the person who was wronged.
The
distinction between meaning and permissibility becomes especially
clear when we consider acts of confused and incompetent malice, where
the agent’s ill intent is completely divorced from the harmless
reality of their actions. Scanlon offers the example of voodoo:
sticking pins in a doll in the belief that this will harm a real
person.
Given that there is no risk of real harm resulting from such an act,
it is most plausibly deemed permissible. Any intuition to the
contrary is better understood as reflecting our judgment that, given
their false beliefs, the agent should have seen the act as
impermissible. Such vicious intent reflects poorly on their
character. Further, the action has moral significance for the
would-be ‘victim’, who would have grounds to blame the
agent were he to learn of it. In sum: The meaning of the action
depends on the reasons that the agent took himself to be
acting from (vicious ones, in this case). But its permissibility
depends on the actual reasons that exist, and in this case there are
arguably none worth worrying about.
We can tell from this that permissibility will depend upon meaning only if what reasons there are in reality depends upon what the agent takes his reasons to be. This is so in the sorts of personal interactions where others have a legitimate interest in the actor’s motivations as such. Scanlon discusses ‘expression’ cases, e.g. calling a sick relative, which “involve presenting oneself as being moved by certain reasons.” If the agent does not genuinely take himself to have such other-regarding reasons, then this fact creates a reason not to perform the expressive action -- it would be hypocritical. Similarly, in what Scanlon calls ‘expectation’ cases, “someone enters into a certain relation with an agent” under the assumption that he “is moved by certain reasons and not others.” For example, if someone thinks to confide in you, they are trusting that you have the right sort of concern for them. If you lack such concern but listen attentively because you find their problems amusing, the charge might be leveled against you that you have impermissibly taken advantage of their mistaken beliefs about your relationship. So we see that there are some moral requirements -- e.g. against hypocrisy and exploitation -- that depend in their application upon the meaning of the action in question.
Permissibility may also be affected by the meaning of other, related, actions. We see this in Scanlon’s discussion of threats and offers. The meaning of the options available to me - the significance of those actions for myself and others - may be altered by another’s attempts to manipulate my choice. It’s one thing for me to choose some option of my own accord, and quite another to do so in submission to - or defiance of - your threats. Scanlon writes, “Recipients may have good reason to object to changes of these kinds in the meaning of the actions available to them, and therefore good reason to object to others intervening in their lives in these ways.” Scanlon also notes that whether an action counts as a threat in the first place, rather than just a warning or prediction, depends in part on the intervener’s intentions. But I do not think that the meaning of their action is essential to its impermissibility on the grounds mentioned above. So long as the recipient believes that they’ve been threatened, this seems sufficient to change the meaning of the actions available to them in a potentially objectionable way. Whether you actually threaten me or just negligently behave in a way that could reasonably be interpreted as a threat, the effect on me is the same; so any claim I have against such intervention will apply equally to either action, no matter its actual meaning.
Some of the examples discussed above, e.g. the voodoo case, suggest that permissibility need not always depend upon meaning. What reasons there are in reality need not always depend upon what the agent takes his reasons to be. Could one reasonably defend the opposing view? One might hold that our obligations extend beyond merely doing the right action; we must also do it for the right reasons. But if it were impermissible to do ‘the right thing for the wrong reasons’, i.e. if acting for the wrong reasons meant that the act no longer qualified as ‘right’ after all, then this would risk collapsing the distinction between following a reason and merely conforming to it. For the moral reasons in question are allegedly recommending not just certain actions but certain motivations -- presumably, appreciation of this very right-making consideration -- from which the action must be performed. That is, the reason explicitly demands that it be followed, so that if you act as it recommends but only for other (non-moral) reasons, then you are not in full conformity with its demands. This implication may not amount to a knock-down argument against the view, but it does seem like an undesirable theoretical result.
Scanlon argues for a stronger conclusion: we cannot be required to act for the right reasons, he thinks, because permissibility applies only to choices, and we cannot choose what we see as reasons. He grants that we “decide whether something is a reason or not”, but insists that this judgment lacks the “element of free play” that would qualify it as a fully-fledged choice. The idea seems to be that we have a distinctive psychological faculty - call it the ‘will’ - which comes into play when choosing between adequately reason-supported options. But though the will may choose between competing reasons, it cannot choose what to see as a reason in the first place.
On this understanding, Scanlon’s thesis that permissibility applies only to choices may lead to some troubling conclusions. For one, there is some risk that the lack of choice in reasons will carry over to a lack of choice in action. At least, this would seem to follow if we assume that an agent can only choose those options that she takes to be adequately supported by reasons. For then, if the agent cannot see any of the reasons that (decisively) support phi-ing, it seems that phi-ing will not be something that she can choose to do. So questions of permissibility will not arise in relation to it. But that doesn’t seem right: moral blindness does not excuse one from a moral obligation, so long as one should have known better.
These doubts are further bolstered when we consider the analogy with epistemic obligation. It’s usually thought that we ought to see or access all the epistemic reasons. Even though it is not strictly a matter of “choice”, nonetheless, in failing to recognize the evidence available to us, we fail to believe as we should. So it seems that what matters for responsibility here is instead our rational capacity, i.e. the fact that we could have accessed the relevant reasons (even if not simply by exercising our will). It’s hard to see why the same shouldn’t be true of practical reasons and obligations. So I am unconvinced by Scanlon’s argument here. It seems independently plausible that permissibility need not always depend upon meaning or the actor’s intentions. But the argument from choice does not settle it.