Ill begin my opening statement by expounding on the different categories of norms, partly following Richard Joyces analysis in The Myth of Morality. Joyce distinguishes between categorical, hypothetical, and institutional reasons. Closely related to institutional reasons, I will add, are full-blooded norms. Firstly, there are the hypothetical norms which are relativized to aims and desires. Secondly, there are the institutional norms which are norms relativized to a given existing institution and reason-giving only to agents which have a commitment to act in accord with the given institutional norms. Closely related to the institutional norms, there are the full-blooded norms. These are norms which you can make a mistake with respect to, but arent reason-giving, nor is there an institution which instantiates them. Lastly, there are the categorical moral norms, which are supposed to be reason-giving to all agents completely irrespective of their internal normative reasons(such as their wants, beliefs, and desires). To unpack the hypothetical norm we might imagine the following conditional, if I want to quench my thirst, then I should drink some water where drinking some water is a means to quenching my thirst. The want here function as a commitment to a particular end. I would thus have a reason, based on my commitment, to drink some water. Institutional norms are norms which arent reason-giving per se, but are mistake sensitive. For a commonly used example, lets look at the game of chess which has certain rules one can fail to conform to. Now, we can imagine some possible world p where people are playing a game contrasted from chess, call it schmess, where queens are able to move in an L-shape similar to knights. We would say that the agents in p are making a mistake with respect to the chess norm, but it wouldnt make any sense to say that they have a reason independently of their desires to alter schmess such that it conforms to our rules of chess, nor would it make sense for them to tell us that we have a reason independently of our desires to alter the chess rules such that they conform to the schmess rules. Now the full-blooded norms are very closely related to the institutional norms; with only one minor distinction, these norms arent necessarily institutionalized and just describe any imaginable rule. We can think of a paint-your-house-orange norm, a drive to work at exactly 25 mph norm, and a do 3 cartwheels every time you leave your house norm. These, similar to the institutional norms, arent reason-giving so its nonsensical to tell someone they have reasons to conform to them independently of their aims and desires, but you can still make a mistake with respect to them by painting your house white, driving faster or slower than 25 mph, or not doing any cartwheel when you leave your house. Both institutional and full-blooded norms are only reason-giving to the extent that we take ourselves to be beholden to them - there is an institutional sense in which you might say that you have a chess-reason to move your bishop diagonally, even if your all-things-considered reason weighs against it. The categorical norm is supposed to be a norm which is completely independent of the aims and desires of agents, similar to the institutional norm, but is somehow also reason-giving. This notion of a categorical norm is more properly considered a non-institutional categorical norm - it is a norm that is truly desire-transcendent, standing above ones particular set of desires, aims, or institutional commitments. For simplicitys sake however, I will refer to such norms throughout the debate as simply categorical norms, categorical moral norms or external normative reasons. The first argument Im going to present should not be misconstrued as an epistemological argument, since its in fact a metaphysical argument regarding the very nature of these supposed categorical moral norms. What the moral realist might say there is some special property in common among certain states of affairs. However, merely having some property in common doesnt suffice to generate categorical normativity. Consider states of affairs like helping old ladies across the street, giving candy to babies, saving your neighbors life, and being faithful to your wife which all may be said to share a common property. For instance, the property which these states of affairs share might turn out to be a color property which cant be perceived by human beings, but nonetheless happens to be a feature of all of these states of affairs. We can dub that property the blue-prime property. Nonetheless, nothing categorically reason-giving would follow from the mere fact that there exists this blue-prime property which the states of affairs all share. Suppose were to say that the property, as opposed to being a color property, is some sort of abstract object which we might intuit a priori - perhaps these states of affairs share a structural isomorphism with a given mathematical model. But this wouldnt solve the issue either, since the fact that the property is an abstractum, as opposed to a color property, doesnt make it categorically reason-giving to conform to. So what exactly is the nature of this reason-giving property which the states of affairs all share such that it is in fact categorically reason-giving? When the moral realist is saying that these states of affairs are reason-giving, they also want to say that it isnt reason-giving in the same way which hypothetical norms are reason-giving those are always relativized to an agents aims. Given that they arent reason-giving in that sense, well in what sense are they reason-giving? So were to believe that theres something reason-giving about hypothetical norms and something reason-giving about these states of affairs but what can be understood to be in common between the two of them that provides reason-givingness? Well, the hypothetical norm is defined in terms of an agents desires and commitments. So the desires and commitments of an agent are what constitute the reason-giving attribute of the hypothetical norm. But categorical moral norms are taken to not be relativized to an agents wants, beliefs, and desires. Consequently, the question seems to be either left unanswered, or answered question-begging, i.e., the moral realist might say, what makes these states of affairs reason-giving is in virtue of you having a reason to act in accord with them. But the coherent and non-vacuous notion of reason which were acquainted with is relativized to our aims and desires, and presumably, these properties are not. Now if one drops the question-begging language, it turns out that all the moral realist is saying is that there exists such a property, but now it seems that were just talking in terms of a blue-prime type property. Perhaps some agents might lack the cognitive structure needed to recognize the blue-prime property that others could recognize. That however, would be irrelevant - we could grant that there exists a blue-prime property, but what difference does this make? It isnt normative in any way. The moral realist might say that this property in common is normative in virtue of the fact that we can mistake with respect to it, but this turns out to be an empty claim. There are an infinity of properties you can make a mistake with respect - these are merely a species of institutional or full-blooded norms. These provide no robust categorical foundation for robust moral realism at all. Take, for example, the property(norm) M of painting your house green. If you paint your house purple, youre making a mistake with respect to M. This property(norm), however, lacks the genuine reason-giving force which moral realists are after, making the appeal empty. Here is a proposal of what might be meant by a reason. Following Street (2009), we can understand robust normative realism to involve the claim that there are at least some normative facts or truths that hold independently of all our evaluative attitudes, such that there can be normative reason for an agent to X even though the conclusion that he has this reason in no way follows, as a logical or instrumental matter, from that agents own set of values in combination with the non-normative facts (Street 214). As such, we can take it that there can be agents that will fail to be appropriately motivated to act in accord with the property. Consequently, we might consider some property X such that if you have (i) the right kind of cognitive structure that one is able to intuit X and (ii) has the right kind of motivational structure, they would be so prompted to act in accord with X. But, what can the right cognitive / motivational structure consist in? For instance, consider a property Y that is diametrically opposed to X such that Y is characterized by (i) and (ii) mutatis mutandis - (i) the right kind of cognitive structure that one is able to intuit Y and (ii) has the right kind of motivational structure, they would be so prompted to act in order with Y. But then, how can we distinguish the X-norm from the Y-norm? The X-agents are right to the extent that they follow the X-norm and the Y-agents are right to the extent that the follow the Y-norm. It is useless to attempt to distinguish the X-norm from the Y-norm in virtue of the fact that X is not Y - that is precisely the difference to explained. Repeating the fact to be explained is not an explanation - its a mere appeal to a dormitive principle. Suppose however we can distinguish X and Y in virtue of some other(putatively normative) property Z. Then, for Z, there will exist a Z* diametrically opposed to Z for which the same objection can be raised. Consequently, the very notion of a categorical norm seems completely incoherent or vacuous.
Posted on: Fri, 16 May 2014 02:18:17 +0000