Sometimes moral philosophers engage in genuine debate. Sometimes, however, it turns out the apparent
debate is merely verbal; the philosophers do not disagree about the fundamental
normative facts. When this happens, let
us say that the apparently conflicting normative theories are normatively equivalent. It seems to me that it’s important to be able
to determine whether an apparent debate between ethicists is real or merely
apparent. In this post, I propose a test for determining when normative theories
are normatively equivalent, sketch an argument that this is a good test for
normative equivalency, and briefly discuss why it can still be difficult to use
this test.
Consider two cases, each involving allegedly competing
theories:
Case 1:
Philosopher A: I
think that a morally right action is one that maximizes utility; you ought to
do what is best. But I also believe in
an “all things considered ought”, and sometimes what one all things ought to do
is not what one morally ought to do. Sometimes one “all things considered”
ought to look out for number one, and take that fishing trip.
Philosopher B: Utilitarianism is a false theory; sometimes
it is morally permissible to not maximize utility. Maximizing utility is prima facie obligatory;
but so is looking out for number one. So
sometimes one ought not maximize utility, but instead take that fishing
trip. I also believe in an “all things
considered ought”, but I hold that one should always do what one morally ought
to do.
Case 2:
Philosopher A: The
only thing that directly contributes to welfare is pleasure. You want to live a good life? Then ensure that you are really happy. However, although I hold that the only thing
that improves your welfare is pleasure, I also hold that you can have rational
prudential interests in other things besides pleasure, such as accomplishing
important goals. And sometimes it is
prudent or rational even from a purely self-interested standpoint to sacrifice
your own welfare in order to accomplish those goals.
Philosopher B: I am a pluralist about welfare: I believe
that pleasure and accomplishment both contribute to your welfare. However, I deny that you can have rational
prudential interests in things besides those that directly contribute to your
welfare. From a purely self-interested
standpoint, your own welfare is the only thing that matters.
Both cases might seem to involve only verbal disagreement. But how could we check?
I will make use of the notion of a reason when formulating a test. A reason is a consideration in favor of doing
something or taking a stance towards some proposition. Reasons are things that
persons can have; the come in various strengths (my reasons for helping the
poor might be weaker than my reasons for helping my wife); they can be reasons
to perform actions; or they can be reasons to have a certain attitude (such as
fear, desire, or attitudinal pleasure) towards a certain proposition; finally,
one’s reasons can (presumably) differ from time to time.
Let us call any proposition of the form, “person p has a reason of strength n at time t for doing action A or standing in propositional attitude r to proposition o”, a reason-stating
proposition. An example of a
reason-stating proposition: Kris McDaniel has a reason of strength 10 right now
to feel somewhat guilty about not contributing to the Pea Soup Ethics Blog.” We will also allow propositions derivable by
replacing the free variables with variables bound by a quantifier to count as a
reason-stating proposition. Example: All persons have a reason of some strength
at some time for taking pleasure in the fact that Henry Heathwood is taking
innocent delight in discovering new things about the world. Finally, let’s count propositions consisting
of reason-stating propositions and Boolean operations on these propositions as
reason-stating propositions. [But we
will exclude tautological or contradictory propositions from counting as
reason-stating propositions.] Example:
Kris McDaniel has a reason of strength 10 right now to feel somewhat guilty
about not contributing to the Pea Soup Ethics Blog and Ben Bradley has a reason
of strength 4 right now to chastise Kris.
The test is this: Theory
A is normatively equivalent to theory B if and only if, for any reason-stating
proposition p, A entails p if and only if B entails p.
In short, if two normative theories have exactly the same
implications about what reasons we have, then the two normative theories are
describing the same normative facts. (Note that the two theories may not be equivalent across the board,
since one theory may “take a stand” on something non-normative as well.)
Here is a quick, far too sketchy defense of the test:
(1) Any proposition attributing a normative feature (such
as being good, being unjust, or being vicious) to a thing or things is
necessarily equivalent to some reason-stating proposition.
[A defense of (1): if (1) isn’t
true, then the alleged normative feature isn’t really normative, since it is
the giving of reasons (of some sort or other) that makes a feature normative.]
(2) If (1), then the test is an adequate test of normative
equivalence.
[A defense of (2): Suppose (1) is true. Then any normative theory is equivalent to
some theory whose normative content can be expressed entirely in terms of
reasons. Then the normative contents of
any two theories are identical provided they say the same things about what
reasons we have. But this seems to mean that the proposed test for normative
equivalency is adequate.]
In order to apply the test to the two cases above, we need
to reformulate both sets of theories in terms of reasons. Only then are we in a position to determine
whether the alleged disagreement is real or merely apparent.
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