Abstract
The ‘Wrong Kind of Reason’ problem for buck-passing theories (theories which hold that the normative is explanatorily or conceptually prior to the evaluative) is to explain why the existence of pragmatic or strategic reasons for some response to an object does not suffice to ground evaluative claims about that object. The only workable reply seems to be to deny that there are reasons of the ‘wrong kind’ for responses, and to argue that these are really reasons for wanting, trying, or intending to have that response. In support of this, it is pointed out that awareness of pragmatic or strategic considerations, unlike awareness of reasons of the ‘right kind’, are never sufficient by themselves to produce the responses for which they are reasons. I argue that this phenomenon cannot be used as a criterion for distinguishing reasons-for-a-response from reasons-for-wanting-to-have-a-response. I subsequently investigate the possibility of basing this distinction on a claim that the responses in question (e.g. admiration or desire) are themselves inherently normative; I conclude that this approach is also unsuccessful. Hence, the ‘direct response’ phenomenon cannot be used to rule out the possibility of pragmatic or strategic reasons for responses; and the rejection of such reasons therefore cannot be used to circumvent the Wrong Kind of Reason Problem.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This is not true of all ‘fitting attitude’ analyses: non-cognitivist approaches such as Gibbard’s make use of the notion of ‘correct’ attitudes. They therefore agree that value claims are to be analysed in terms of fitting or correct responses, but say that such claims express acceptance of norms according to which the response is correct. D’Arms and Jacobson note that it is difficult to tell exactly what remains at issue between such accounts and the kind of fitting attitude account described above; however, the non-cognitivist theories have an additional difficulty in explaining why our attitudes and our evaluative judgements can come apart. See D’Arms and Jacobson (2004), pp197–200.
See, for example, Gaus (1990); Anderson (1993); Gibbard (1990). A.C. Ewing, in his later work, explains correctness in terms of the ‘ought of reasonableness’ and in some cases also the ‘moral ought’. See Ewing (1959), pp98–99. And Kevin Mulligan explains ‘appropriateness’ for emotions in terms of a primitive notion of prima facie non-inductive justification in Mulligan (1998).
Of course, this looks like it is primarily a reason to laugh at the dean’s joke, rather than to be amused as such; however, it can still be a reason to be amused, if any fake or insincere laughter will be easily detected as such.
In fact Olson talks about “justifying explanations” for ‘ought’ statements. However, I will ignore this complication here since I don’t think it matters to my argument.
Stratton-Lake includes in his formulation avoiding a bad effect or outcome as well as producing a good one; I omit this detail for brevity.
Jonas Olson has suggested that perhaps the part of Stratton-Lake’s formulation which I omitted above—that favouring the object will have a good effect or avoid a bad effect—might allow him to answer this objection, by saying that moral reasons against amusement are reasons to prevent bad effects such as the perpetuation of offensive stereotypes. I am sure that there are such reasons; however, I do not think that this explanation adequately captures the kind of moral reasons I have in mind. Similarly, if it is wrong to envy your friends, this is (at least partly) because they are your friends, which is not the same reason as the corrosive effects which envy might have on the friendship.
Danielsson and Olson say (on p516) that for Brentano, “truth is a predicate which is primarily applicable to judgements (‘Urteile’) conceived as psychological entities.” In this case, the truth of belief might be seen as properly analogous to correct attitudes: if truth as predicated of belief were primitive and did not depend upon the truth of the proposition that is believed (and if the truth of p followed from the truth of the belief that p) then the structure of the account of belief would be the same as that of the account of correct pro-attitudes. I do not know if this is Brentano’s view (Danielsson and Olson also say that “Brentano’s views on the relations between truth and correctness are not very easy to spell out in their exact details”) but it strikes me as manifestly implausible, and I do not know if any current advocate of normative priority would defend it.
For example, on p515: “a content-reason for some attitude,” and “a content-reason to believe that p.”
Jonas Olson has pointed out that a reason’s being explanatory does not preclude its also being normative: for example, John Broome’s account of normative reasons holds that they are explanations of normative facts. Firstly, while this may be true, I think it is fairly clear that the reasons in this case are only explanatory. Secondly, however, on Broome’s account, the ‘normative facts’ explained are facts of the form ‘I ought to Φ’, and not that some attitude is correct. Whether correctness is normative is precisely what is at issue here. And Broome holds that the reasons why I ought to Φ are non-normative reasons. Indeed, he appears to be making essentially the same distinction I am trying to point to here. Broome (2004), p34.
Danielsson and Olson acknowledge this criticism of their proposal, but they apparently understand it as objecting to the idea that there are two notions of a reason (holding-reasons and content-reasons). They therefore think it is answered by their attempt to explain the former in terms of the latter. See Danielsson and Olson 2007, p518.
They reference Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen’s criticism quoted above, and believe that their proposal (considered in the next few paragraphs) answers it.
A small point, which I will not pursue here, concerns the way in which this notion of ‘favouring’ is to be cashed out in terms of more specific attitudes. If the first-order reason is a reason to admire the demon, is the second-order reason a reason to admire admiration of the demon, to approve of admiration of the demon, to intend to admire the demon, or something else? Is the claim that there is one specific pro-attitude (intending or approving of) which is always correct where there are strategic considerations in favour of having an attitude?
Obviously, this same point will apply to the claim that a holding-reason is a reason to favour x.
Andrew Reisner (forthcoming) argues against the idea of such a requirement as being part of the structure of reasons. Some of his other arguments against what I am calling the ‘direct response requirement’ are similar to those I develop here. In particular, he has a related discussion of the interpretation of ‘possible’ in the requirement.
One question which arises here, although I will not explore it further, is whether the claim should really be that the exclusion of pragmatic considerations is a necessary condition for grasping the concept of a reason for belief, rather than belief itself. Shah says (p455) that if an agent were to claim that pragmatic considerations gave them reasons to believe—rather than reasons to want to believe—“I think we would doubt his mastery of the concept of a reason for belief.” But in terms of the present discussion, this would be question-begging, since the issue is precisely whether pragmatic reasons count as reasons for belief. Moreover, it seems a little implausible to claim that all those philosophers who think that there are pragmatic reasons for belief have simply failed to properly grasp the concept.
Or at least, we cannot specify them in the way required to rule out WKRs. Kevin Mulligan has pointed out to me that desire has at least the correctness condition that it must be future-directed. This, however, is not the kind of correctness condition which can rule out pragmatic or strategic reasons for desires.
There is a variant of the buck-passing view which holds only that the abstract property of goodness (or value) is to be analysed in terms of reasons; these reasons are then themselves analysed in terms of thick or substantive evaluative properties. Such an account could use the correctness conditions for emtions (although there would be no need to do so, since they could more easily avoid the WKR problem by appealing directly to the object’s possession or lack of thick evaluative properties). I have not discussed this version of the buck-passing thesis since it does not assert the priority of the normative over the evaluative generally, only the priority of the normative over the abstract property of goodness. On this version of buck-passing, see Wallace (2002), pp448–449; and Heuer (2006), p4.
References
Anderson E (1993) Value in ethics and economics. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Broome J (2004) Reasons. In: Wallace RJ et al. (ed) Reason and value: themes from the moral philosophy of Joseph Raz. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 28–55
Chisholm RM (1981) Defining intrinsic value. Analysis 41(2):99–100. doi:10.2307/3327241
D’Arms J, Jacobson D (2000a) The moralistic fallacy: on the ‘appropriateness’ of emotions. Philos Phenomenol Res 61:65–90. doi:10.2307/2653403
D’Arms J, Jacobson D (2000b) Sentiment and value. Ethics 110:722–748. doi:10.1086/233371
D’Arms J, Jacobson D (2004) “Sensibility theory and projectivism. In: David Copp (ed) The Oxford handbook of ethical theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 186–218
Danielsson S, Olson J (2007) Brentano and the buck-passers. Mind 463:511–522. doi:10.1093/mind/fzm511
Ewing AC (1959) Second thoughts in moral philosophy. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London
Gaus G (1990) Value and justification: the foundations of liberal theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Gibbard A (1990) Wise choices, apt feelings: a theory of normative judgment. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass
Heuer U (2006) Explaining reasons: where does the buck stop? J Ethics Soc Philos 1(3):1–25
Lemos NM (1994) Intrinsic value: concept and warrant. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Mulligan K (1998) From appropriate emotions to values. Monist 81(1):161–188
Olson J (2004) Buck-passing and the wrong kind of reason. Philos Q 54(215):295–300. doi:10.1111/j.0031-8094.2004.00353.x
Parfit D (2001) Rationality and reasons. In: Egonsson D, Josefsson J, Petterson B, Rønnow-Rasmussen T (eds) Exploring practical philosophy : from action to values. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp 17–39
Parfit D (2006) Climbing the mountain (unpublished MS)
Persson I (2007) Primary and secondary reasons. In Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen et al. (ed) Hommage å Wlodek: philosophical papers dedicated to wlodek rabinowicz <http://www.fil.lu.se/hommageawlodek>
Rabinowicz W, Rønnow-Rasmussen T (2004) The strike of the demon: on fitting pro-attitudes and value. Ethics 114:391–423. doi:10.1086/381694
Rabinowicz W, Rønnow-Rasmussen T (2006) Buck-passing and the right kind of reasons. Philosophical Quarterly 56(222):114–120. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9213.2005.00432.x
Reisner A (forthcoming) The possibility of pragmatic reasons for belief and the wrong kind of reason problem. Philos Stud
Scanlon TM (1998) What we owe to each other. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass
Shah N (2003) How truth governs belief. Philos Rev 112(4):447–482. doi:10.1215/00318108-112-4-447
Skorupski J (2007) “Buck-passing about Goodness.” In T. Rønnow-Rasmussen, B. Petersson, J. Josefsson & D. Egonsson (eds) Hommage à Wlodek: Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz. <www.fil.lu.se/hommageawlodek>
Stratton-Lake P (2005) How to deal with evil demons: comment on Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen. Ethics 115:788–798. doi:10.1086/430491
Wallace RJ (2002) “Scanlon’s contractualism. Ethics 112(3):429–470. doi:10.1086/338481
Acknowledgements
The writing of this paper was supported by a grant from the Swiss NCCR in Affective Sciences. Thanks to the Thumos Group at the University of Geneva, where an earlier version of this paper was presented, and especially to Kevin Mulligan for his extremely generous and helpful feedback. I am also grateful to Jonas Olson, who gave some very useful comments and identified several mistakes in the paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Louise, J. Correct Responses and the Priority of the Normative. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 12, 345–364 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-009-9177-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-009-9177-3