Morality as linked to norms for responses to behavior

Expressivists about morality do not take there to be any objective content to morality that could underwrite what we above called “the substantive definition”. Rather, they explicitly recognize the existence of significant variation in what rules and ideals different people put forward as morality in the normative sense. And they doubt that this variation is compatible with moral realism. Consequently, they need to offer some unifying features of these different sets of rules and ideals, despite variation in their content. As a result of this pressure, some expressivists end up offering explicit accounts of a distinctively moral attitude one might hold towards an act token or type. These accounts can of course be taken to underwrite various forms of morality in the descriptive sense. But they can also be taken to provide the basis of one form of moral realism.
To see how an expressivist view can be co-opted by a moral realist of a certain sort, consider Allan Gibbard’s (1990) moral expressivism. Gibbard holds that moral judgments are expressions of the acceptance of norms for feeling the emotions of guilt and anger. One can accept Gibbard’s view of what it is to endorse a moral claim without accepting the view that, in conflicts, all disagreements are faultless. That is, even a moral realist can use Gibbard’s view of the nature of moral judgment, and extract from it a definition of morality. Used by such a theorist, Gibbard’s view entails that morality, in the normative sense, is the code that is picked out by the correct set of norms for feeling guilt and anger: that is, the norms a rational person would endorse. This is equivalent to accepting the plausible general schema for a definition of “morality” given above, and understanding endorsement in a special sense. To endorse a code in the relevant way, on this definition, is to think that violations of its norms make guilt and anger appropriate.
Closely related to Gibbard’s account is one according to which the norms of relevance are not norms for the emotions, but are norms for other reactions to behavior. For example, a person’s morality might be the set of rules and ideals they regard as picked out by appropriate norms for praise and blame, and other social sanctions (Sprigge 1964: 317). In fact, reference to praise and blame may be more adequate than reference to guilt and anger, since the latter seem only to pick out moral prohibitions, and not to make room for the idea that morality also recommends or encourages certain behaviors even if it does not require them. For example, it is plausible that there is such a thing as supererogatory action, and that the specification of what counts as supererogatory is part of morality—whether in the descriptive or normative sense. But it does not seem likely that we can account for this part of morality by appeal to norms for guilt and anger, and it is not at all clear that there are emotions that are as closely linked to supererogation as guilt and anger are to moral transgression. On the other hand, it seems plausible that norms for praising action might help to pick out what counts as supererogatory.
Another version of the present strategy would replace talk of praise and blame with talk of reward and punishment. This view would take morality to be a system that explained what kinds of actions are appropriately rewarded and—more centrally—punished. This sort of view, which remains closely related to Gibbard’s suggestion, can also be regarded as fitting the general schema given above. On this view, the notion of endorsing a code is unpacked in terms of the acceptance of norms for reward and punishment. Skorupksi (1993), following Mill (1861), advocates a definition of morality along these lines, though he then understands punishment primarily in terms of blame, and understands blame as very closely linked to emotion—indeed, merely having the emotion can count as blaming—so that the resulting view is similar to Gibbard’s in one important way, at least when one focuses on moral wrongness.
It is certainly plausible that it is appropriate to feel guilt when one acts immorally, and to feel anger at those who act immorally towards those one cares about. It is even plausible that it is onlyappropriate, in some particular sense of “appropriate”, to feel guilt and anger in connection with moral transgressions. So norms for guilt and anger may well uniquely pick out certain moral norms. And similar claims might be made about norms for praise and blame. However, it is not equally clear that morality is properly defined in terms of emotions or other reactions to behavior. For it may be, as Skorupski emphasizes, that we need to understand guilt and anger, and praise and blame, in terms of moral concepts. This worry about direction of explanation seems less pressing for the notions of reward and punishment. These responses to behavior, at least in themselves, might simply be understood in terms of the meting out of benefits and harms. Of course they will only count as reward and punishment when they are linked to someone’s having followed or violated a rule that all rational people would want to see enforced by such responses.

3.2 Morality as linked to advocacy of a code

One way of understanding the notion of endorsement is as advocacy. Advocating a code is a second- or third-personal matter, since one advocates a code to others. Moreover, it is consistent with advocating a code, that one does not plan on following that code oneself. Just as asserting something one believes to be false still counts as asserting it, hypocritical advocacy of a code still counts as advocacy of that code. When endorsement is understood as advocacy, it can be used in definitions of morality, in the descriptive sense, as long as it is the morality of a group or society. And advocacy can also be used as an interpretation of endorsement when providing a definition of morality in the normative sense. Of course those who accept a definition of morality in any of these senses—as the code that a group or society endorses, or as the code that would be universally advocated by all rational agents under certain conditions—do not hold that the advocacy would necessarily, or even probably, be hypocritical. But they do hold that the important thing about a moral code—what picks it out as a moral code—is that it would be put forward by all the relevant agents, not that it would be followed by all of them. The notion of advocacy has less of a place in a descriptive account of a single person’s morality, since when someone is hypocritical we often deny that they really hold the moral view that they advocate. Of course it is possible to fail to live up to one’s own morality, but in that case one would be expected to feel guilt, or to be torn in some way. And if we use such feelings to pick out a person’s morality, we are relying on the sort of definition described above, in section 3.1.
Mill (1861), in addition to offering a moral theory, takes pains to explain how morality differs from other normative systems. For him, norms that simply promote utility are norms of expediency. In order to qualify as morally wrong, an act must be one that ought to be punished. Thinking that an act of a certain kind ought to be punished is a third-personal matter, so it seems plausible to put Mill’s view of what is definitional of morality into the category being discussed in this section. It is worth noting that hypocrisy is, for Mill, not only a possibility, but—given the present sorry state of moral education—virtually unavoidable. That is because being motivated to advocate punishment for a certain kind of act is quite different from being motivated to refrain from that same kind of act. Advocating punishment for a certain kind of act might be one’s utility-maximizing choice, while actually performing that kind of act (trying, of course, to avoid detection) might also be utility-maximizing. And for Mill what determines what a person will advocate, and how a person will act, is the foreseeable consequences for that person.
Bernard Gert’s (2005) moral view also operates with a definition of morality that understands endorsement as advocacy, in the sense of putting forward as a guide for all rational agents. Gert’s way of filling in the schema for a definition of “morality” makes use of a normative sense of “rationality”: one according to which no moral agent would ever advise anyone for whom he was concerned, including himself, to act irrationally. The hybrid concept of rationality described insection 2 satisfies this condition because no moral agent would ever advise anyone for whom she cared, including herself, to act in any way that harms herself with no compensating benefit to anyone.
Gert offers the following two conditions as the conditions under which all rational persons would put forward a universal guide for governing the behavior of all moral agents. The first condition is that they are seeking agreement with all other rational persons or moral agents. The second condition is that they use only those beliefs that are shared by all rational persons: for example, that they themselves are fallible and vulnerable and that all those to whom morality applies are also fallible and vulnerable. The second condition rules out both religious beliefs and scientific beliefs since there are no religious beliefs or scientific beliefs that all rational persons share. This condition is plausible because no universal guide to behavior that applies to all rational persons can be based on beliefs that some of these rational persons do not share.
Gert offers the following explicit definition of morality: Morality is an informal public system applying to all rational persons, governing behavior that affects others, and has the lessening of evil or harm as its goal. It might seem that this definition is quite different from the general schema offered above. But Gert argues that this definition—as he interprets it—results in morality being a universal guide to behavior that all rational persons would put forward for governing the behavior of all moral agents.

3.3 Morality as linked to acceptance of a code

Another way of understanding the notion of endorsement is as acceptance. Unlike advocating a code, accepting a code is a first-personal matter. It might include intending to conform one’s own behavior to that code, feeling guilty when one does not, and so on. One cannot hypocritically accept a code. Indeed, hypocrisy is simply a matter of advocating a code one does not accept. So this notion of endorsement is available to someone who is trying to provide a definition of morality in the descriptive sense, even when considering a single person’s morality.
Paradigmatic views in the natural law tradition starting with Aquinas hold both that the laws of morality have their source in God, and that these laws constitute the principles of human practical rationality (Finnis 1980; MacIntyre 1999). Views in this tradition may be seen as using the basic schema for definitions of morality in the normative sense, understanding endorsement as acceptance. Members of this tradition typically hold that all rational persons know what kinds of actions morality prohibits, requires, discourages, encourages, and allows. It is central to Aquinas’s view that morality is known to all those whose behavior is subject to moral judgment, even if they do not know of the revelations of Christianity. This is why Aquinas holds that knowing what morality prohibits and requires does not involve knowing why morality prohibits and requires what it does.
Those who belong to the natural law tradition also hold that reason endorses acting morally. This sort of endorsement of course has a cognitive component. But it is also motivational. Aquinas does not hold that knowledge of morality is always effective: it can be blotted out by evil persuasions or corrupt habits. But if reason is not opposed by such forces, any rational person would not only know what was prohibited and required by morality, but would follow those prohibitions and requirements. So, for natural law theorists, endorsement amounts to acceptance.

3.4 Morality as linked to justification to others

The lack of an explicit and widely accepted definition of morality may partially explain the resilience of act-consequentialist accounts of morality. Without an explicit definition, it may be easier to ignore the fact that act-consequentialist theories are not particularly concerned with interpersonal interactions, but typically apply just as well to desert island scenarios as to individuals who live in societies. In any case, it has been recognized that in order to combat consequentialism, it would be helpful to have something more like a plausible definition of morality that made it clear that the subject matter of morality is something different from simply the goodness and badness of consequences. T.M. Scanlon (1982, 1998), applying this strategy, suggests that the subject matter of morality—what we are talking about, when we talk about morality—is a system of rules for the regulation of behavior that is not reasonably rejectable based on a desire for informed unforced general agreement.
Scanlon’s suggestion regarding the subject matter of morality can easily be seen as an instance of the general schema given above. His “system of rules” is a specific kind of informal public system; he understands endorsement by all rational people as non-rejection by all reasonable people; and he offers a specific account of the conditions under which moral agents would reach the relevant agreement. But Scanlon also places very heavy emphasis on the fact that if he is right about the subject matter of morality, then what compliance with moral norms allows us to do is to justify our behavior to others in ways that they cannot reasonably reject. Indeed, the ability to justify ourselves to reasonable people is a primary source of moral motivation for Scanlon (see also Sprigge 1964: 319). This might seem to suggest a somewhat different definitional claim about morality: that morality consists in the most basic norms in terms of which we justify ourselves to others. But it is plausible that this purportedly definitional claim is better thought of as a corollary of Scanlon’s particular version of the general schema, with endorsement understood as non-rejection. For, if morality is the system of norms that would be endorsed in this way, we can justify our actions to others by pointing out that even they, were they reasonable, would have endorsed rules that allowed our behavior.
Stephen Darwall’s (2006) moral view can also be seen as flowing from a version of general schema, and yielding claims about justifiability to others. Darwall claims that morality is a matter of an equal accountability among free and rational beings. On his view, I behave morally towards you to the degree that I respect the claims you have authority to make on me. Darwall also holds that I will respect those claims if I acknowledge certain assumptions to which I am committed simply in virtue of being a rational, deliberating agent. As a result, his view is that morality—or at least the morality of obligation—is a “scheme of accountability” (a certain sort of informal public system) that all rational people will endorse. Unlike Scanlon’s view, however, Darwall’s view makes use of a stronger sense of endorsement than non-rejection. Specifically, it includes the recognition of the reasons provided by the authoritative demands of other people. And that recognition is positively motivational.
Both Scanlon’s and Darwall’s views emphasize the social nature of morality, taken in the normative sense: Scanlon, by reference to justification to others; Darwall, by appeal to the relevance of second-personal reasons. But Darwall builds a responsiveness to second-personal reasons into the relevant notion of rationality, while Scanlon simply makes the empirical claim that many people are motivated by a desire to justify themselves to others, and notes that his definition of morality will yield rules that will allow one to do this, if one follows them. The sort of definition described in section 3.1 also makes the social nature of morality essential to it, since it centrally features the notion of a response to the behavior of others. The definitions described in sections 3.2 and 3.3 do not entail the social nature of morality—though of course they are compatible with it—since it is possible to accept, and even to advocate, a code that concerns only self-regarding behavior. But on any plausible account of rationality a code that would be advocated by all moral agents will govern interpersonal interactions, and will include rules that prohibit causing harm without sufficient reason. Only the definition offered in section 3.3 therefore can be taken as realistically compatible with an egoistic morality.

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Morality as linked to norms for responses to behavior

3.2 Morality as linked to advocacy of a code

3.3 Morality as linked to acceptance of a code

3.4 Morality as linked to justification to others

Morality as linked to norms for responses to behavior :: تعاليق

Morality as linked to norms for responses to behavior

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