Abstract
According to fitting-attitude (FA) accounts of value, X is of final value if and only if there are reasons for us to have a certain pro-attitude towards it. FA accounts supposedly face the wrong kind of reason (WKR) problem. The WKR problem is the problem of revising FA accounts to exclude so called wrong kind of reasons. And wrong kind of reasons are reasons for us to have certain pro-attitudes towards things that are not of value. I argue that the WKR problem can be dissolved. I argue that (A) the view that there are wrong kind of reasons for the pro-attitudes that figure in FA accounts conflicts with the conjunction of (B) an extremely plausible and extremely weak connection between normative and motivating reasons and (C) an extremely plausible generality constraint on the reasons for pro-attitudes that figure in FA accounts. I argue that when confronted with this trilemma we should give up (A) rather than (B) or (C) because there is a good explanation of why (A) seems so plausible but is in fact false, but there is no good explanation of why (B) and (C) seem so plausible but are in fact false.
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Notes
Hereafter I will use ‘good’ and ‘of value’ to refer to non-instrumental goodness simpliciter and final value. Something is non-instrumentally good simpliciter or of final value if it is of non-instrumental non-attributive value; see Korsgaard (1983).
See Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2004, pp. 405–407).
Skorupski (2007, pp. 9–12) and Parfit (2001, pp. 24–27, 2011, chap. 2 and Appendix 1) also hold that there are no such wrong kind of reasons; see also Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2004, pp. 411–414). Jonathan Way (2012) has recently given a sustained argument for this conclusion. I take the argument in this paper to be a new argument for the view that Skorupski, Parfit, and Way hold.
Of course, it might be that the people whom we are talking about pursue friendship or power for several reasons in which case we are contrasting one type of reason for which they are pursuing friendship or power with another type of reason for which they are also pursuing friendship or power.
On why strong connections call for explanation, see, for instance, Enoch (2011, p. 158).
Cf. Dancy (2000, pp. 6–7).
See, for instance, Streumer (2013, pp. 196–199).
Presuming that the relevant parts of Cantor’s diagonalization argument are sound.
See Markovitz (2011, p. 149).
See Shah (2006, p. 486).
See Markovitz (2011, p. 148).
According to Markovitz (2011, p. 153) (the contents of) our current unjustified false beliefs are reasons for us to believe that we are fallible. But we could not believe that we are fallible on the grounds of the (contents of) these beliefs because to do so would be to no longer have those beliefs. However, others can believe that we are fallible on the grounds of our beliefs, for they are not the one’s who have our beliefs. So, even if Markovitz’s example is a counter-example to Normative/Motivating Strong it is not a counter-example to Normative/Motivating Weak.
See Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2004, pp. 419–420).
Alternatively, it might be that to do something because something has threatened to punish you if you do not just is to do that thing for the additional consequences of doing that thing.
We might say that the demon’s threat is ‘backgrounded’ on this view; see Schroeder (2007, chap. 2).
I add the caveat, at least if A knows that Y has R, because it might be that there are no reasons for us to admire people that have the same characteristics as people that we have reason to admire but whom, unlike the people whom we have reasons to admire, we are completely unaware of. Imagine that Bryony bravely jumps onto the subway tracks and saves you from the oncoming train. It may be that you have reason to admire Bryony but you do not have reason to admire Becky who bravely jumped onto the subway tracks and saved someone else’s life because you are not aware that Becky did this. See, for instance, Dancy (2000, pp. 56–58). Generality is neutral on this issue.
If you don’t accept this because the cat is a cat, we can modify the example so that the world is a counterpart world in which everything is identical to this world, so that there is no evil cat, but just another evil demon. If you don’t accept this because the demon is in another world, then modify the example to one in which the demon is in half of our divided world threatening us in that half of our world and another evil cat/demon is in the other half of our divided world threatening the other half of the world.
It might be claimed that appealing to Generality is begging the question against the idea that the demon’s threat confers reason-providing status on features of the saucer of mud given the obviously counter-intuitive consequences of the combination of Generality and the reason conferring view of the demon’s threat. However, I have argued that Generality seems plausible in all other cases, so it is ad-hoc to claim that it does not hold in the case of the demon’s threat, at least not without providing an explanation of why it does not hold in the case of the demon’s threat.
And A’s relationship with the demon could not figure in the content of the reason for her to admire the demon consistent with the reason-conferring view of what the reason for A to admire the demon is. If her relationship to the demon figured in the content of the reason for her to admire the demon, the reason for her to admire the demon for its own sake would be that he will punish her if she does not, and as I argued in Sect. 3, the idea that this is the reason for A to admire the demon for its own sake conflicts with (B) Normative/Motivating Weak.
This is modelled on the heroism of Wesley Autrey. See Buckley (2007).
In response it might be argued that we can provide a new evil demon case that does not conflict with (C). We can imagine a case in which an evil demon will punish A unless she admires it and every demon, cat, or whatever, that is just as evil and powerful as the demon. And it is not counter-intuitive to claim that there is a reason for A to admire the evil cat for its own sake in this new case. However, my argument was never intended to show that we cannot imagine a case that seems like a wrong kind of reason case. Rather my argument provides us with grounds to doubt our intuitions in the original case. That we can imagine a case in which a demon, understanding the generality constraint on reasons to admire and desire things for its own sake, makes a threat that is specified in such a way to satisfy this constraint, does not undermine my argument. This is because, if we have grounds to doubt our intuitions about the original case in which it seemed that there was a reason to admire the demon for his own sake when he would punish us if we did not, then we should also doubt our intuitions in similar cases including a case in which the demon will punish us unless we admire him and do other things too. If, contra our intuitions, in all the cases in which it seemed that there was a reason to admire a demon due to the demon's threat there was no such reason, then the view that there is a reason to admire the demon in such a new case because the demon's threat is backgrounded would need to be motivated.
It might be objected that we should not think of the reason to desire the saucer of mud for its own sake as a reason to desire only a particular saucer of mud for its own sake. But it didn’t seem to matter whether the example was about a particular saucer of mud or a saucer of mud in general. So it’s odd that it now does matter. See also supra note 28.
Thus, although Daniellson and Olson (2007, pp. 513–514) might be right that it is sometimes odd to claim that there is a reason to try to ϕ when one cannot ϕ sometimes there certainly are reasons to try to ϕ when one cannot; such as to try to be pretty even though there is no reason to just spontaneously be pretty. And there are certainly reasons to wish that we could ϕ even if we cannot ϕ such as for us to wish that we could fly even though we cannot.
See Dancy (2000, pp. 6–7).
An anonymous referee claims that opponents of FA accounts may accept the argument of this paper but still claim that a slightly different wrong kind of reason problem arises for FA accounts. Suppose that an evil demon will severely punish us if we do not intrinsically desire a saucer of mud. In this case we have reason to intrinsically desire a saucer of mud. So, according to FA accounts, the saucer of mud is of intrinsic value. But the saucer of mud is not intrinsically valuable. So, FA accounts are implausible because they overgenerate intrinsic value.
However, it seems to me that FA accounts should not differentiate between X being of intrinsic or extrinsic value in terms of the pro-attitudes that there are reasons to have towards X but rather in terms of the properties that provide reasons for having these pro-attitudes in response to X. That is, proponents of FA accounts should hold that whether something is of intrinsic or extrinsic value depends on whether the reasons to have pro-attitudes towards it are provided by intrinsic or extrinsic properties of X. So, even if a demon’s threat could give us reasons to intrinsically desire a saucer of mud, this would not show that FA accounts overgenerate intrinsic value, since FA accounts can and should give an account of the intrinsic/extrinsic value distinction other than in terms of intrinsic/non-intrinsic pro-attitudes.
Furthermore, it seems to me that there could be no reason to intrinsically desire a saucer of mud for the reason that a demon will punish you if you do not. This is because all the arguments that I gave in Sect. 2 regarding how we should understand claims about doing something ‘for its own sake’ have natural analogues regarding how we should understand claims about doing something ‘intrinsically’. And so, it will be impossible to desire X intrinsically for reasons provided by non-intrinsic features of X for the same reasons that it is impossible to desire X for its own sake for the good consequences of desiring X for its own sake.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Brad Hooker, Anthony Price, Philip Stratton-Lake, Bart Streumer, Jonathan Way, and several anonymous reviewers for extremely helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank audiences at University of Reading, the University of Sheffield’s Understanding Value conference, and the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and Mind Association’s Postgraduate Session.
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Rowland, R. Dissolving the wrong kind of reason problem. Philos Stud 172, 1455–1474 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0359-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0359-z