Originally posted by Palynka
I haven't forgotten this, I just haven't had the right combination of time and dedication to answer it properly yet...
Here's a bit more...
The Guise of the Good; a deeper worry…
In our earlier exchange, I mentioned that, as agents, we must think and act for reasons. Or, at least, we must think and act on the basis of considerations we take to be reasons. Of course, we often form beliefs and act pretty much automatically, and nothing like explicit deliberation occurs. But, still, in such cases there are tacit considerations we take to be our reasons for believing and acting. After all, a large part of the inculcation of character traits is the formation of a constellation of disposition to take certain considerations as normative; as reasons to be believe, feel, be motivated and act. That we operate on the basis of reasons can be made clear by asking an agent why he came to believe this or that, or why he acted in this or that way. In the absence of accessible reasons, the formation of our beliefs and our actions will seem unintelligible from our own point of view. They will not be
agential, nor seem to be
ours in any real sense, but rather more like foreign psychological intrusions or physical ticks.
Ethicists commonly distinguish between motivating reasons and justificatory reasons. As the terminology suggests, the motivating reasons of an action are those considerations that motivate an agent to act; the considerations for which an agent acts, and that indicate to an agent that the action was warranted, appropriate in the circumstances, etc. Justificatory reasons are those considerations that justify an action, count in favor of an action, or determine that an action was good, excellent, right or whatever. It is part of moral theorizing to provide an account of justificatory reasons in the moral domain. When an ethicist gives an account of what he takes to be of fundamental moral importance, he (typically) thereby gives an account of the sort of reasons that justify actions in the moral domain. Similarly, if the chess expert gives an account of success in the game and what constitutes excellent play, he (typically) thereby gives an account of the sort of reasons that justify particular strategies, tactics and individual moves. If people were perfectly practically rational, the set of motivating and justificatory reasons would perfectly overlap. People would be motivated to act for the very same reasons that justify their actions. Indeed, this is very close to a definition of wisdom, or expertise in a practical domain; there being harmony between the reasons for which one acts and the reasons for which one’s actions count as good, right or excellent. Alas, often people are motivated by reasons that do not justify.
But, and here’s the thing, people consistently
construe or interpret their motivating reasons as justificatory reasons. This is not just some weird fact about human beings; it’s something like a law of agency. Philosophers call this seeing things under the “guise of the good”. Now, this is not to say that people always believe that they act morally. Nor even that people always believe their actions are, all things considered, justified. The point is simply that people consistently take their actions to be motivated by reasons that in some sense support, or cast in a favorable light, or bear positively on their actions. So the thesis here is not very stringent, but it does have some bite, I think, with regard to non-cognitivism. Here’s an example I hope will bring out my worry clearly:
Jones has a strange preference. Whenever he passes a radio that is turned off, he very strongly prefers that it be turned on. This preference is strong enough that when he passes an off radio he is sufficiently motivated to turn it on, or at least to make a real effort. Now, Jones does not believe that there is anything good in radios being turned on, or that it is more valuable that they be turned on. In fact, Jones has no normative,
cognitive or
propositional attitudes concerning the turning on of radios. When asked what reasons motivate him, Jones sincerely replies that he has no reasons per se, but just this extremely strong preference.
What must Jones’ instances of radio-turning-on seem like, from his point of view? Would it even be correct to construe his behavior as action? From Jones’ own point of view, he must just find himself compelled to turn on radios. It is likely Jones’ would wonder why he was turning on radios, and his behavior must seem the result of something like a foreign psychological intrusion into the set of his motivations. In short, Jones’ behavior must seem to him unintelligible.
But what could we add to this story that would render Jones’ behavior (though still, admittedly, bizarre) intelligible from his point of view? Suppose Jones sincerely believed that a tyrannical government is unable to track him when he’s near turned on radios. Or that every time he turns a radio on, he saves a baby’s life. Or simply that he has a moral obligation to turn on radios. Whatever the content, it seems what is needed for Jones (or us, for that matter) to make sense of his behavior is some story about his reasons. We need to know the reasons that motivate him. We need to know why he takes those reasons to justify, support, or show as somehow valuable or good the turning on of radios. To put the point somewhat differently, the mere preference for radios being turned on does not, on its own, suffice to make it seem reasonable to turn on radios, as judged from either our perspective or Jones’.
And this point generalizes to all purely conative, non-cognitive motivational states, if we construe these states as something like desires; as inner pushes and pulls towards action. Acting on our conative states is not practically rational in the absence of some belief or judgment regarding the normative/evaluative credentials of that state. The thing is, though, that when we act on the basis of what we take to be a moral judgment, or employ a moral claim in our deliberations, it does make sense both from the first-person and third-person point of view. When I judge that I should try to comfort my grieving friend, and act on the basis of that judgment, it is
nothing at all like simply acting on a desire unhinged from reasons. I can tell you
why I believe the desire to comfort my friend is a good one, and why I believe that comforting one's grieving friends is something one should do. It because I have these cognitivist states that my desire to comfort seems reasonable from my point of view, and why it is motivationally efficacious. But why, then should my desire to comfort be taken as the content of the moral claim "I should comfort", as the non-cognitivist would have it? Why not analyze that moral claim as, for instance, short-hand for cognitivist beliefs I have regarding the goodness of comforting? After all, it is those beliefs that allow me to see the act of comforting under the guise of the good and, hence, render intelligible my providing comfort.