To do Thursday

• point to review guidelines

the problem of normativity

• why do we have ethical obligations?
• why is moral goodness obligatory for a human being?

• why is being good not like being a good dancer?

• there are all kinds of thing that it is good or bad to do

• these are not the objects of obligations
• if morality is morality, what is moral is obligatory
• you can’t opt out of it, and still be okay

• what is it that makes it wrong to ignore moral obligations?
• it is not a question of determining the content of morality (what is good and bad)

• not a question of determining what is right and what is wrong
• it is a question of determining why whatever it is that is right is obligatory to do
• and why whatever is wrong must not be done

• example:

• we think that murder is wrong

• ethics must determine whether we are right in thinking that murder is wrong (content)
• normativity must determine why the wrongness of murder means that murder cannot be committed

• the way the normative question is answered can affect the content of ethics

• if the normative demand comes from an obligation to increase happiness and diminish unhappiness

• then murder may not always be wrong

• because doing good is a matter of optimising outcomes and consequences
• there may be some contrived examples wherein murder is justified or even necessary
• trolley problem

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfIdNV22LQM
• pause after Eleanor’s reaction, get census

• however, if the normative demand comes from absolute prohibitions

• then murder can in no case be legitimised

• answer to the trolley problem will be not to switch tracks

• more trolley problem memes!

• it is a question of whether the demand is a calculation of consequences, or the absolute avoidance of prohibited acts

the subjective turn

• moral realism had proposed that there are actions which in themselves are wrong or right

• so murder just would be wrong in its own right

• the problem with this is that it hangs on us being able to make metaphysical claims

• there are acts which have as their nature rightness or wrongness

• it therefore invites moral scepticism
• since it is very difficult to prove in a way that is impervious to doubt that there is something of a particular nature

•  instead, we can go the subjective route

• show that there are certain actions which an agent cannot perform consistently
• there are actions that are bad because an agent cannot coherently commit them
• anything that is not incoherent is permitted (even though it may not be particularly laudable)

• this approach has its roots in Kant
• Like Kant’s subjective turn in epistemology, the subjective turn in ethics looks for universal, necessary truth not in the objective, but in the subject

• but here it is not about the subject of knowledge, it is about the subject of action

• it is not a question of what actions are right or wrong, but of what actions cannot be performed rightly

what actions contradict themselves

the authority of reflection

• we are self-conscious, reflective

• start with the anthropological premise we have encountered already in Frankfurt
• we not only have perceptions and desires, we can think about  them

• this means that what I am is not dominated by what I perceive and what I feel

• I can also think about my feeling/perception

• our reflective way of being compels us to seek and provide reasons for our acts

• perception and desire are not enough for acts
• our activity cannot be explained in terms of our desires and perceptions alone

• to act, a reason is necessary

• or the desire or perception must be put into the form of a reason

• all that needs to change here is to put ‘because…’ in front of the perception/desire to turn it into a reason

• but that is already reflection on the desire/perception

Reflectivity and freedom

·       Because we are basically reflective we are constitutionally incapable of not being free

o   “H e says, “ W e cannot conceive of a reason which consciously responds to a bidding from

o   the outside with respect to its judgments.”1 If the bidding from outside is desire, then his point is that the reflective mind must endorse the desire before it can act on it — it must say to itself that the desire is a reason.” 80

§  expressing the repationship between the act and a desire in the form of a reason, of a ‘because…’ is endorsement of it

o   Because we only act through reflection, we always choose what we do

o   So if you have a desire, you must choose it before it becomes something you do

§  We may disagree with this

·       Is this anthropology correct? Do we have executive, rational control?

o   If someone orders you to do something, you must choose to obey that order before it is done

o   Thus, we are free and act of our own free will, because we reflect on ourselves

·       Reflection is ultimately reflection upon reasons

o   To reflect on oneself is to understand why one wants what one wants

o   Because reflection must be free, it cannot take its reasons from outside, at least not ultimately

§  Not from desires, not from bosses

o   Its final assent must be that of reflection itself

·       Because reflection seeks reasons, it will keep seeking reasons until it finds a basic principle or law

o   Like a toddler, the reflective self keeps asking ‘but why’?

o   This again is why we have the problem of bringing reasoning to an end

o   “But until the will has a law or principle, there is nothing from which it can derive a reason. So how can it have any reason for adopting one law rather than another?” 81

o   If it does not find a ground, or it continues ad infinitum

§  it makes the reasons in the chain arbitrary

·       Arbitrary reasons, Reasons with no grounding are not really reasons

The law you give yourself

·       “Since reasons are derived from principles, the free will must have a principle.” 80

o   a principle or law must be that which grounds all reasons, if anything does

·       What the law or principle of all reasons is is entirely up to each of us, with one condition:

o   It has to be something that could take the form of a law

o   Because nothing else determines the law but the reflective or rational will, there is nothing that determines what it can be

·       The will must have a law, because it looks for reasons and cannot just go from reason to reason ad infinitum

·       SO it can be literally anything that can take the form of a law

·       The categorical imperative of Kant is literally the expression of the universal nature of a law:

o   "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

·       You can’t make an exception of yourself, ever

• all the law is is the recognition of the universality of reasons

• that if something is a reason for you it is a reason for anyone at all

• and so universality derives from that

The need for law

• our involvement in reflection sends us looking for reasons

• and while looking for reasons, only reasons which are not irrational will do
• the reasons we look for cannot be contradictory

• and they cannot eb baseless

• or else they are not reasons

• only a foundation can allow you to decide between competing reasons

• there are reasons supporting anything

• or pseudo-reasons for anything

• only a foundation allows you to decide between them in a manner in accord with reason

The Harmony of law and freedom

• “ The Will must have a law but because the Wil is free it must be its own law”

• A will only needs law because it’s free

• if it wasn’t free it would not need to order itself according to the law

• The Will is only free because it acts according to A law.

• if it did not act according to a law it would not have the rationality that makes it free from bidding from the outside
• it is the law-following that gives it its ‘because…’

• It is law-following which makes it free. Law-following, or reason-seeking, is what constitutes reflection and thus liberates the self from ungoverned impulses