Abstract
I offer replies to critical comments on my book, Utopophobia: On the Limits (If Any) of Political Philosophy, in four pieces appearing in the same issue of this journal.
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Notes
Thanks also to Chad Marxen for help with proofreading and editing.
The authors misinterpret my view on this score at one point, though their other main points are not deformed by this error. See, p. 4: “But he thinks that, with that point acknowledged, there is still important room in our thinking about such questions for the principles that would be the right principles of justice if people were free from human failings (such as weakness of will, unjustified self-interest, and moral indifference).” (emphasis added).
P. 15.
See my reply, in Chapter 1, section 7, to Enoch’s paper, “Against Utopianism: Noncompliance and Multiple Agents,” for more on this point. Philosophers’ Imprint, 18:16 September 2018.
Some kinds of distance relations are different from these, such as A is much more unjust than B. Those do not depend on partition information, as do “nearly just,” or “extremely unjust,” which is the crucial issue in my argument below.
I argue in the book, however, that justice could still turn out, in principle, to be like that. See Chapter 13, section 3, and, for more detailed argument, “Just and Juster,” op. cit.
For example, p. 4: “One can see immediately why a thoroughly ‘non-concessive approach’ is going to be hopelessly uninformative for those – all of us -- faced with circumstances in which full justice cannot be achieved.”; p. 5: “Any theory that fails to have the resources to address such concerns is, we think, unacceptable.” Also, p. 5: note 4; p. 6: “A ‘non-concessional approach’ is equipped only with the ideal requirements in each case.”; p. 14: They criticize an approach, presumably attributed to me, where one “can specify an ideal of justice but cannot tell in any situation whether one or another actual situation is more or less just”; p. 12, “…but it requires not stopping there …”; p. 17: “an account that appeals only to the principles appropriate to the limiting case would not constitute an appropriately systematic theory of justice.”
In Chapter 13, section 3, “Critique of Pure Comparativism,” my argument is that comparisons of “juster” are not enough, and that we need to appeal to our partition-implying judgments in any effort to provide the rankings we need for social choice. However, in that section I also point out that on some egalitarian theories of justice it is not clear that there are any comparisons other than those settled by the bi-modal partition. But I am not endorsing a bi-modal approach, only pointing out that it isn’t antecedently more obvious that there must be comparisons whether or not there are partitions, than it is that there must be partitions whether or not there are (further) comparisons.
I find such potential sympathy elaborated in their section V.
Also, somewhat more fully, in “Just and Juster,” Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, Volume 2, David Sobel, Peter Vallentyne, and Steven Wall, eds., Oxford University Press (2016). I touch on it briefly in my reply to Enoch, sec. 8.
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, (Harvard Belknap, 1971) sec. 22.
P. 15, emphasis in original, but not pertinent here.
P. 9.
P. 3.
Thanks to Nic Southwood for encouraging me to address this point.
P. 3.
I discuss it in Utop. at pp. 5ff.
Ch. 13, sec. 3, pp. 261-69.
I argue against it throughout the three chapters that make up Part II of Utop.
Chapter 10, section 7, Pp. 200ff.
This is the subject of Chapter 16.
p. 2.
Stemplowska loosely borrows this idea from an unpublished paper by Nic Southwood, “Feasibility as Deliberative Jurisdiction.” I confine my treatment to Stemplowska’s statement and use of the idea.
I introduce the example in “Human Nature and the Limits (If Any) of Political Philosophy,” in Philosophy & Public Affairs, 39 (3), 2011, and in Utop at p. 28.
For more on this see my reply to Southwood.
I leave aside her example about blocked synapses. It is not explained how that is an obvious case of motivational inability, and I won’t speculate about what fuller story she has in mind.
Stemplowska at p. 3, Susan Wolf, (1990). Freedom Within Reason. Oxford University Press. at p. 99. Stemplowska does suggest that at least in some of the cases she describes, though it isn’t perfectly clear which ones, my conditional account differs from the incentives account, and the latter gives more plausible results. I believe my discussion will cover all the cases she might take to have that feature.
As I wrote, "My aim is not to decide precisely where the line falls, as important as that question is.” For more, see pp. 91-92 and 100, in Utop.
This is a composite from Chapter 5 of Utop. to have the best formulation for comparison with Stemplowska’s alternative.
Formulation (1) at p. 5.
Her use of the murderer example shows that she means the provisional simple account to say (despite her initial formulation (“if”)) that the possibility of an effective incentive is necessary for the person’s counting as able. And so her own formulation using “if,” suggests that she evidently means it to be both necessary and sufficient. I will build that in, but I don’t think anything here hangs on that interpretive question.
“(2): Action Φ is feasible if there is an incentive I – or had the agent X not seen Φ as wrong there would be I – such that, given I, X is likely to Φ.”
You might think this is implausible. I don’t see that that would matter here.
I recognize that it is possible to hold that expressions such as these and several others I mention determine the meaning of “able” and “can.” My objection to that view rests on the unstated (until now) premise that the following is not self-contradictory: “I can (am able to) do x, but I am strongly, even decisively, disposed—for moral or other reasons or causes—not to do x.”.
Utop at p. 33, or op. cit. I paraphrase here.
I paraphrase, for brevity (Page number not available). Incidentally I think there is a strong chance each would push button number 1, its being by far the most salient possible coordination point. But put that aside.
My response is the same to her example of simultaneous clappers.
See Stemplowska, “While each doctor knows how to perform her action, recall…” (Page number not available). See Zofia Stemplowska, “The incentives account of feasibility,” Philosophical Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01530-y.
For some discussion of this debate by Michael Bratman, David Velleman, and others, see, Roth, Abraham Sesshu, "Shared Agency", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
For this unlikely scenario in a real game, see:
As we saw in the precís, I develop a conception of “plural requirement,” which is not a classic deontic requirement, applying as it does to sets of agents rather than to agents themselves.
I mainly discuss the distinction at pp. 115-16.
I am simplifying here. In Chapter 8, on “Concessive Requirement,” I consider the controversy about this question, and argue that my own arguments can, with care, be formulated either way. I then proceed to adopt the “actualist” formulation on which O(A&B) does not imply O(A).
Actually, I also understand Principles as having a further feature that isn’t germane here, namely being relatively general, leaving quite open what institutional form might satisfy it. We could just as well let that define a special subset of Principles, General Principles, or some such thing.
See, How To Do Things With Words, Harvard University Press; 2 edition (September 1, 1975).
Grice, H.P. (1975). "Logic and Conversation," Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3 edited by P. Cole and J. Morgan, Academic Press.
This is a factual kind of detachment, but “factual detachment” is a name usually given to a disputed principle in deontic logic concerning certain conditionals. This is not a case of that.
P. 6, quoting Utop., p. 126.
Southwood writes that according to me, “Whereas institutional principles involve claims to the effect that a society ought to implement and comply with a particular institutional arrangement …, institutional proposals involve claims to the effect that the state ought to implement a particular institutional arrangement.” (NS p. 9) Neither the definition of “institutional proposals” at p. 116, nor any other text that I can find suggests that institutional proposals are addressed to the state.
I do say, “an account including principles of full social justice, so long as it does not presume to fix too much institutional detail, and so long as it is not presented to activists, vanguards, or governments as a practical proposal, is free of the mentioned vices.” (p. 9). This does not imply that proposals are always presented to subsets, only that they can be. For more on the idea that requirements of justice might be addressed to the state, see Enoch, “Against Utopianism: Noncompliance and Multiple Agents,” Philosophers’ Imprint 18, no. 16 (September 2018): 1–20, Chapter 1, section 7 of Utop., and my reply in Utop, and secs. 8 and 9 of my replies to Enoch in this volume.
This is closely related to the issue at the core of David Enoch’s paper, “Against Utopianism,” Philosopher’s Imprint, volume 18, no. 16, September 2018. In the book I reply at Chapter 1, section 7, and it surfaces again briefly in his comment and in sections 8 and 9 of my reply in this volume.
Southwood indicates this would be the cost for me if I didn’t impose the constraints he calls “minimal realism,” and “attainability,” the latter constraint essentially amounting to OIC.
See Cohen, G. A. (2008). Rescuing Justice and Equality. Harvard University Press, pp. 250ff. What I attribute to him here is accurate, though there is nuance about whether he rejects “ought implies can.” He allows that this might be correct about “ought,” but he denies that this would bear on what is “normatively fundamental.” Justice might require something impossible, if it is the case that we ought to do it if we can.
Some, like David Wiens, have explicitly embraced a version of this position. See, “Motivational Limitations on the Demands of Justice,” European Journal of Political Theory 15 (2016) (3):333-352. See also my “Reply to Wiens,” in the same issue.
Southwood argues, especially toward the end, that it is also my business, but I am not persuaded. I argue that justice can be at least as idealistic as to even require what we can’t bring ourselves to do. I take no stand, for purposes of the book’s argument, on whether it might even require what we are unable to do.
See later, referring back to this discussion, “as we have seen, there are legitimate questions to be asked about ‘ought’ implies ‘can,’” (Page number not available). See Nicholas Southwood, “The possibility of wildly unrealistic justice and the principle/proposal distinction,” Philosophical Studies (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01532-w.
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, (1984). ‘Ought’ conversationally implies ‘can.’ Philosophical Review 93 (2):249-261.
Unlike Sinnott-Armstrong, I formulate this issue with “requirement” instead of “ought,” here and in the book. Southwood clearly intends the drunk driver example in Sinnott-Armstrong to be an argument against my own view, so formulated.
Suppose it were held that the driver could indeed have avoided crashing. The way to do it would have been not to drive drunk. Fine, but this is no use to Sinnott-Armstrong or Southwood, since they want an example of inability. Suppose it might be natural for the driver to begin his response with, “Yes, but…” Is that conceding the requirement? I don’t believe so, since it is just as reasonable to read it as “Yes, if I could have, but…”.
He is, indeed, to blame for the crash. But that only shows, as Zimmerman argues, that he is “culpable for more things,” not that he is “more culpable.” See Zimmerman, “Moral Luck: A Partial Map,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 36, Number 4, December 2006, pp. 585-608, at p. 598.
Williams, B. A. O. & Nagel, T. (1976). Moral Luck. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 50:115–151. Williams and Nagel are the main original sources on moral luck. My position is similar to that of Judith Jarvis Thomson, and her discussion of two drivers, in, “Morality and Bad Luck”, in Moral Luck, D. Statman (ed.), Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.
P. 3.
P. 4.
Utop., p. 194.
I won’t go into detail about what the primacy relation amounts to here, except to quote without comment several places where I say how I understand it, noting that the de dicto/de re ambiguity does not seem to me to be present, and I do not believe these suggest anything question-begging:
"That is all I mean by a “concessive” principle or requirement: it is a requirement that is in place owing to our conceding certain violations of other requirements. Some requirements are in no way conditioned by violations in that way.” (Utop. 6)
“I use the term “concessive theory” for questions regarding what institutions society ought to build or maintain, given that it will not comply with what justice requires.” (Utop. 22)
"there is a certain primacy of the nonconcessive requirement: [Professor Procrastinate’s] requirement not to accept arises only if the nonconcessive requirement—to both accept and write—is violated by his not writing. It evaporates if that requirement is met. The reverse is not the case: the nonconcessive requirement to accept and write does not appear or disappear depending on whether he accepts or writes. Call this the primacy of the nonconcessive: concessive requirements are subordinate, arising only because of violations of nonconcessive requirements.” (Utop p. 30)
"To concessive requirements arise only from failure to meet the nonconcessive. The nonconcessive requirement is not contingent in this way: even if society is not just, or people are not morally good, that is all (together) still morally required.” (p. 31).
P. 6.
P. 7.
The comment by Brennan and Sayre-McCord also remarks on the alleged indeterminacy. See, “Estlund identifies two interesting grounds for thinking that ideal theory is the place to start. …The other is that on the fully concessive view ‘there is no single salient standard of social justice at all…’” (Page number not available). See David Estlund, “Replies to critics,” Philosophical Studies (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01534-8.
Footnote 12.
Sen, Amartya. “What Do We Want from a Theory of Justice?” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 103, no. 5, 2006, pp. 215–238. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20619936. Accessed 5 May 2020.
See Utop pp. Chapter 13, section 3, pp. 261-70.
P. 8.
Note 13. The “eyeball” reference to Utop is from p. 266.
I don’t say it is “necessary,” so I won’t endorse that stronger claim here.
P. 9.
P. 9.
Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” in Robert Paul Wolff, Barrington Moore, Jr., and Herbert Marcuse, A Critique of Pure Tolerance (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), pp. 95-137.
Pp. 10-11.
P. 11.
Utop. p. 126.
P. 12.
There is some corroboration at p. 28, when I describe a “human nature constraint” that I will reject, as saying, “A normative political theory is defective and so false if…” and at p. 84, “So far, I contend, the theory has no defect. It might be a false theory if it claimed that the standards would someday be met, but it does not say that.” And at p. 118, “they nevertheless reveal no defect in the hopeless theory, which might be perfectly correct.”
Utop. p. 199.
P. 13.
P. 14.
“about these judgments Estlund agrees that they are essentially a part of concessive theory.” (14).
Chapter 1, section 7.
The italics are his in the earlier article, (notably?) dropped in his comments here.
Enoch, “Against Utopianism” Philosopher’s Imprint, volume 18, no. 16, September 2018 p. 4.
Chapter 1, sec. 7.
P. 16.
P. 15.
One is the pastoral metaphor at p. 10, the other my remarks around “unbelievable moral progress,” at p. 259ff.
As I was writing the book, occasionally explaining the ideas to non-philosophers, I sometimes joked that I might choose as a subtitle: “We Might Suck.” Enoch might think that there’s no question about it. Here, yet again, our positions would not be incompatible.
Gerald Gaus, The Tyranny of the Ideal: Justice in a Diverse Society. Princeton University Press, (pp. 88-89), but also many others. More mildly, Brennan and Sayre-McCord speak in their comment for this volume of, “the moral recklessness ideal theory might …encourage.” (Page numbers unavailable). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01531-x.
P. 16.
I distinguish my view from views that imagine and promote vivid utopian worlds at pp. 8-10.
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Estlund, D. Replies to critics. Philos Stud 178, 2439–2472 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01534-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01534-8