Well, not quite. The survey showed that about one-third of the respondents shared my intuition that I (qua subject of the example) have no reason to purchase ITEM and that about two-thirds of respondents have the contrary intuition that I do have a reason to purchase ITEM. This doesn’t show that I’m wrong, but it does show that my intuition is not widely shared.
Now, here’s why this is important. In his excellent paper “Parfit’s Case against Subjectivism,” David Sobel argues that subjectivists – those who think that an agent’s reasons for action are all ultimately determined by the contingent pro and con attitudes that she would have under some procedurally specified conditions – can accept Parfit’s claim that we have current reasons to do what will prevent us from suffering future agony regardless of whether or not we have any current pro attitudes towards our avoiding future agony. Sobel argues that subjectivists will claim that anyone who will be in future agony will, in the future, necessarily have a future desire (when in agony) to get out of agony and so will, when in agony, have a reason to get out of agony. And he argues that, by appealing to this fact and what he calls the Reasons Transfer Principle, the subjectivist can hold not only that anyone who will be in future agony will have a future reason to get out of agony, but also that those who can avoid future agony have a present reason to avoid future agony. According to Sobel, the Reasons Transfer Principle (RTP) says: “If one will later have a reason to get O, then one now has a reason to facilitate the later getting of O.”
(1) Suppose that I have no current desire to avoid future agony but that my X-ing will cause me to avoid future agony. That is, suppose that if I X, I will not suffer future agony, and if I do not X, I will suffer future agony. It’s unclear to me how an appeal to RTP will allow the subjectivist to accept the plausible claim that I have a present reason to do X. It seems that RTP allows the subjectivist to say only that if there is some act, Y, that will allow me to stop (as opposed to avoid) suffering some future agony, then I have a present reason to facilitate my later doing Y. But let us imagine that, despite my lack of any desire to avoid future agony, I’m going to X (moreover, let's assume that, as a matter of fact, I am moved to X even though I would not be motivated in the least to X or favor my X-ing were I under the subjectivist’s procedurally specified conditions), and let us imagine that my X-ing will prevent me from suffering any future agony. In that case, it seems that RTP doesn’t apply. Since I won’t be suffering any future agony (given that I will be performing X), it is not the case that I will have any reason in the future to get out of future agony (I can't have reason to get out of the future agony that I won't be experiencing). And since I would have no current pro attitude towards my avoiding future agony if I were in the subjectivist’s procedurally specified conditions, then I have no present reason at all to X. And I take it that this is absurd. Surely, I do have a reason to X givent that it will preven my future agony.
(2) One of the main motivations for adopting subjectivism, I take it, is that it is compatible with metaphysical naturalism – the view that the only facts and properties are naturalistic facts and properties. Thus, the subjectivist wants to identify the seemingly spooky normative property of one’s having a reason to do X with the perfectly naturalistic (and, thus, non-spooky) property of one’s being such that one would be motivated to do X if one were under some procedurally specified conditions. But, of course, anyone who appeals to RTP must deny that the property of one’s having a reason to do X is simply to be identified with the naturalistic property of one’s being such that one would be motivated to do X if one were under some procedurally specified conditions. So I wonder what naturalistic property the proponent of RTP is going to identify with the having-a-reason property referred to in the consequent of the principle.
(3) I wonder whether RTP is plausible. It’s seems to me that although what I will later have reason to do depends on what intentions I’m forming at present, what I have reason to do now does not depend on what intentions I’m forming at present. So if I’m now forming the intention to discard the anesthetizing pill and will follow through with this intention, then I will later have a reason to take the amputating pill. But I don’t think that I now have a reason to take the amputating pill or to facilitate my taking the amputating pill. For, at present, taking the anesthetizing pill is an option given that I need only respond appropriately to my reasons and thereby form the intention to take the anesthetizing pill. In any case, that was my thought. So the example was supposed to be a counterexample to RTP. But I take it that it wasn’t a very good one.
Jussi, I agree, obviously, that plan 1 is the one Jussi+ wants you to follow. Even so, he wants you to replace the plug. He wants you to follow this plan: replace the plug if it is out. And he knows you are going to pull it out. So, I think, he wants you to (follow the plan in which you) replace the plug.
Try this example. Suppose Doug is going to pull out the cork, and this is well-known. There is some day-glo paint he can right now daub on the cork, so he'll be able to find it in the dim Arizona light after he pulls it out. If he doesn't brush a little paint on the cork now, there's a good chance he will not be able to find it when the time comes.
I hope the good version of the subjectivist view says that Doug has a reason to put some paint on the cork, even though that is no part of Doug+'s favorite plan.
Posted by: Jamie Dreier | January 18, 2012 at 04:14 AM
Hi Jamie,
wMatt and Doug gave the challenge of formulating a non ad-hoc theory according to which the subject has *no reason whatsoever* to facilitate putting the cork back on before or at the time of whether or not the cork is popped. The theory that I gave that reduced reasons to which plan the ideal version of me wants to most follow does this - as you seem to accept.
You seem to give a conflicting desideratum which is that the correct subjectivist theory has to generate a reason to facilitate putting the cork back in (this is what Matt and Doug denied). Fortunately, you show yourself how we can generate a subjectivist theory that provides this reason. We just add to the information on the basis of which the ideal version of the agent wants the real agent to act. Or, maybe, that it is settled that I am going to pull the plug removes 1 from the plan-options which the advisor compares.
The question then is whether Matt and Doug or you are right about the reasons in the situation. But, however that debate goes, there seems to be a plausible subjectivist theory to understand the reasons in the situation (maybe this is a version of the consequentialising debate).
For what's worth, maybe both Matt and Doug and you are right about what reasons the agent has. Maybe - as Sobel wrote earlier - we use the 'term' reasons in a context-sensitive way so that the context of utterance determines a set of information relative to which the reasons-claims are true. Maybe Matt and Doug were in a context where the information about the actual future actions is not relevant, whereas you are in a context in which it is. On the subjectivist view, this would be reflected by the idea that the context determines on the basis of what information the ideal advisor wants me to act or what plan-options he compares.
So, I'm not yet seeing a case for which there would not be a non ad-hoc subjectivist account.
Posted by: Jussi Suikkanen | January 18, 2012 at 04:55 AM
No, I don't disagree with what Matt has said. I have (very strong) intuitions that there is no reason to pull the plug out in Matt's example, but there is a reason to put paint on the plug in my example. So I think we want the theory to deliver different verdicts in the two cases, despite their similarity (each includes the information that the agent is going to do something he ought not to do, each is about another act that facilitates replacing the plug later).
I do not agree that the view you gave says there is no reason to facilitate replacing the plug, because I think the contingency plan, replace the plug if it has been removed, is part of the plan that Jussi+ most wants you to follow. I gave the paint example to point out that it isn't going to be easy to fix this problem, since we want to get the result that you do not have a reason to pull out the plug, but Doug does have a reason to paint it.
Posted by: Jamie Dreier | January 18, 2012 at 05:05 AM
Ummmmm....
Oh, got it.
I don't think the current problem is specific to subjectivist views. As far as I can tell, Parfit has the same problem. This is a different issue.
Posted by: Jamie Dreier | January 18, 2012 at 05:07 AM
Hi Jamie,
ahh, I'm very sorry. I see that I got confused with the details of the examples. You are right that in Matt's case the act of facilitating is the pulling the plug itself whereas in your case this is not true - the relevant act is a separate act of painting the plug. Can we just combine the cases in to one? If so, we want:
1. No reason to pull the plug out in order to facilitate putting it back later.
2. A reason to paint the plug so that we can locate it later and a reason to replace the plug later.
And so, we need the advisor not to want me to pull the plug (so as to get 1) and yet want me to paint the plug bright and put it back (so as to get 2).
It seems to me that contextualism can do the work here. Claim 1 is made with the presupposition that both pulling the plug and not doing so are options. So, its truth depends on what the advisor wants me to do in the contingency in which it is not settled what I will do, and here he wants me not to pull the plug. Claim 2 is made with the presupposition (or even knowledge) that I will pull the plug in any case. So, its truth depends on what the advisor wants me to do in the contingency in which it is settled that I will pull the plug (and here he wants me to paint the plug and put it back on).
Posted by: Jussi Suikkanen | January 18, 2012 at 05:24 AM
Everyone,
I thought that it might be useful to make clear that there seems to be three separate issues currently under discussion.
Issue 1: Is RTP false? Matt's example concerning the cork (and my much more convoluted example from the original survey) suggest that it may in fact be false.
Issue 2: Can RTP be employed by the subjectivist to account for all cases in which an agent has a reason to act so as to avoid future agony. My example entitled "The Pill" suggests that it can't. Sobel has suggested that this is merely a technical problem for which there is likely to be some technical fix. And I've been questioning whether there is likely to be some technical fix given that the thought that Sobel needs for the fix has counter-intuitive implications.
Issue 3: Regardless of whether Sobel's RTP response works, can the subjectivist successfully respond to various challenges (like Parfit's Agony Argument). Jussi has been arguing that the subjectivist can -- in part by appealing to the work of others such as Michael Smith.
Posted by: Doug Portmore | January 18, 2012 at 05:34 AM
Contextualism sounds a little fishy to me, Jussi. Do you mean that one person could say, "Jussi has no reason to pull the plug in his actual circumstance," and another person could say, "Jussi has a reason to pull the plug in his actual circumstance," and both speak truly?
I think the examples do threaten RTP, Doug. My point was really that at least some features of RTP are not specific to subjectivism -- a point that Dave agrees with, of course.
Posted by: Jamie Dreier | January 18, 2012 at 06:39 AM
Hi,
contextualism is always a bit fishy but given that we can put all of this in terms of oughts too I was thinking along the lines of Wedgwood's contextualism which seems fairly plausible to me.
I would assume that 'Jussi has no reason to pull the plug in his actual circumstances' comes out false in both contexts given that it's never the case that the advisor wants me to do pull the plug. I was more thinking that 'Jussi has reasons to paint the plug bright' and 'Jussi has a reason to put the plug back in later' come out true in some contexts (that presuppose that Jussi is pulling the plug out) and false in others (in which this isn't presupposed).
I agree that RTP is threated but I wonder whether Sobel was suggesting as an exceptionless principle in the first place (and I think he said no). Also, I agree that the cases are a problem for anyone who accepts RTP whatever metaethical view of reasons they held.
Posted by: Jussi Suikkanen | January 18, 2012 at 07:06 AM
I should say that as a result of this discussion and previous chats with Doug, I now see that the Reasons Transfer Principle as I envisioned it in the paper is quite suspect and likely false. Matt’s examples seem to me telling. I think I intended the RTP in the paper to be a completely general thesis. I would no longer make such a claim. I continue to suspect that something like it will adequately serve to show that Parfit’s Agony Argument does not show that subjectivism is false. But Doug has shown me that I do not know yet how to formulate a version of the view that would accomplish this. I see that as work that remains to be done. I don’t feel Doug’s worries in my bones, but perhaps that is just because I have not yet wrestled with the issues enough. I am up to my neck in new issues so I will have to come back later to these issues.
I have started to vaguely worry about what a subjectivist should say about whether there is a tighter connection between the (procedurally correct) concerns I have at t and my reasons at t than there is between my concerns at t+1 and t. I suspect the subjectivist can vindicate some extra tightness of connection here, perhaps by claiming that it is the satisfaction of now-for-now desires that give ultimate reasons, and perhaps stressing the uncertainty about what one will still want when t+1 arrives. But I suspect that in cases of radical ideology changes, our intuitions are that I have little or no current reason to further my future self’s goals which I currently find quite alien. In a creature that switched back and forth between ideologies, such a thought would, I think, be sure to be directly collectively self-defeating between the different ideological perspectives I will have and from the point of view of the goals of the different time slices. This has the feel to me of a situation where something big must give. If folks know of good stuff to read on such issues, I am all ears.
Posted by: David Sobel | January 19, 2012 at 10:56 AM
I think the real worry for RTF is that reasons may be time centered. The worry is more serious if the RTF is supposed to transfer the full strength of reasons (or perhaps transfer strengths proportionally). If it only says that the reason is transferred, allowing that it may lose all but some tiny amount of its strength in the transfer, then the principle may be harmless.
I personally think it is very plausible that there are time-centered reasons. For instance, it is pretty plausible that reasons are future biased, in that at any given time t we have reason to prefer that a certain bout of pain be over at t. In Parfit's Operation example, we might on Wednesday have reason to prefer that our own operation is the Tuesday one, but no reason on Monday to prefer that our own operation is the Tuesday one. (Tom Dougherty's Operation 2, discussed here eight months ago, with the full example spelled out in Tom's Ethics paper, might make real trouble for this view, so maybe I should not assert so confidently that it is plausible.) I think there are other, even more compelling examples, but they are a bit complicated to present and this is already a long comment.
Posted by: Jamie Dreier | January 19, 2012 at 12:03 PM
If only the satisfaction of now for now desires have authority we may be able to generate something that looks like future bias on the cheap.
Posted by: David Sobel | January 19, 2012 at 06:23 PM