Thanks! You might like my post, āAxiology, Deontics, and the Telic Questionā which suggests a reframing of ethical theory that avoids the common error. (In short: distinguish ideal preferability vs instrumental reasoning /ā decision theory rather than axiology vs deontics.)
I wonder if it might also help address Mogensenās challenge. Full aggregation seems plausibly true of preferability not just axiology. But then given principles of instrumental rationality linking reasons for preference/ādesire to reasons for action, itās hard to see how full aggregation couldnāt also be true with regard to choiceworthiness. (But maybe heād deny my initial claim about preferability?)
Thanksāalso for the link! I like your notion of preferability and the analysis of competing moral theories in terms of this notion. What makes me somewhat hesitant is that the objects of preferability, in your sense, seem to be outcomes or possible worlds rather that the to-be-evaluated actions themselves? If so, I wonder if one could push back against your account by insisting that the choiceworthiness of available acts is not necessarily a function of the preferability of their outcomes sinceā¦ not all morally relevant features of an action are necessarily fully reflected in the preferability of its outcome?
But assuming that they are, I guess that non-consequentialists who reject full aggregation would say that the in-aggregate larger good is not necessarily preferable. But Iām not sure. I agree that this seems not very intutive.
Right, so one crucial clarification is that weāre talking about act-inclusive states of affairs, not mere āoutcomesā considered in abstraction from how they were brought about. Deontologists certainly donāt think that we can get far merely thinking about the latter, but if they assess an action positively then it seems natural enough to take them to be committed to the actionās actually being performed (all things considered, including what follows from it). Iāve written about this more in Deontology and Preferability. A key passage:
If you think that other things besides impartial value (e.g. deontic constraints) truly matter, then you presumably think that moral agents ought to care about more than just impartial value, and thus sometimes should prefer a less-valuable outcome over a more-valuable one, on the basis of these further considerations. Deontologists are free to have, and to recommend, deontologically-flavored preferences. The basic concept of preferability is theory-neutral on its face, begging no questions.
Yeah that makes sense to me. I still think that one doesnāt need to be conceptually confused (even though this is probably a common source of disagreement) to believe both that (i) one actionās outcome is preferable to the other actionās outcome even though (ii) one ought to perform the latter action. For example, one might think the former outcome is overall preferable because it has much better consequences. But conceptual possibility aside, I agree that this is a weird view to have. At the very least, it seems that all else equal one should prefer the outcome of the action that one takes to be the most choiceworthy. Not sure if it has some plausibility to say that this doesnāt necessarily hold if other things are not equalāsuch as in the case where the other action has the better consequences.
My main puzzlement there is how you could think that you ought to perform an act that you simultaneously ought to hope that you fail to perform, subsequently (and predictably) regret performing, etc. (I assume here that all-things-considered preferences are not cognitively isolated, but have implications for other attitudes like hope and regret.) It seems like thereās a kind of incoherence in that combination of attitudes, that undermines the normative authority of the original āoughtā claim. We should expect genuinely authoritative oughts to be more wholeheartedly endorsable.
Thanks! You might like my post, āAxiology, Deontics, and the Telic Questionā which suggests a reframing of ethical theory that avoids the common error. (In short: distinguish ideal preferability vs instrumental reasoning /ā decision theory rather than axiology vs deontics.)
I wonder if it might also help address Mogensenās challenge. Full aggregation seems plausibly true of preferability not just axiology. But then given principles of instrumental rationality linking reasons for preference/ādesire to reasons for action, itās hard to see how full aggregation couldnāt also be true with regard to choiceworthiness. (But maybe heād deny my initial claim about preferability?)
Thanksāalso for the link! I like your notion of preferability and the analysis of competing moral theories in terms of this notion. What makes me somewhat hesitant is that the objects of preferability, in your sense, seem to be outcomes or possible worlds rather that the to-be-evaluated actions themselves? If so, I wonder if one could push back against your account by insisting that the choiceworthiness of available acts is not necessarily a function of the preferability of their outcomes sinceā¦ not all morally relevant features of an action are necessarily fully reflected in the preferability of its outcome?
But assuming that they are, I guess that non-consequentialists who reject full aggregation would say that the in-aggregate larger good is not necessarily preferable. But Iām not sure. I agree that this seems not very intutive.
Right, so one crucial clarification is that weāre talking about act-inclusive states of affairs, not mere āoutcomesā considered in abstraction from how they were brought about. Deontologists certainly donāt think that we can get far merely thinking about the latter, but if they assess an action positively then it seems natural enough to take them to be committed to the actionās actually being performed (all things considered, including what follows from it). Iāve written about this more in Deontology and Preferability. A key passage:
Yeah that makes sense to me. I still think that one doesnāt need to be conceptually confused (even though this is probably a common source of disagreement) to believe both that (i) one actionās outcome is preferable to the other actionās outcome even though (ii) one ought to perform the latter action. For example, one might think the former outcome is overall preferable because it has much better consequences. But conceptual possibility aside, I agree that this is a weird view to have. At the very least, it seems that all else equal one should prefer the outcome of the action that one takes to be the most choiceworthy. Not sure if it has some plausibility to say that this doesnāt necessarily hold if other things are not equalāsuch as in the case where the other action has the better consequences.
My main puzzlement there is how you could think that you ought to perform an act that you simultaneously ought to hope that you fail to perform, subsequently (and predictably) regret performing, etc. (I assume here that all-things-considered preferences are not cognitively isolated, but have implications for other attitudes like hope and regret.) It seems like thereās a kind of incoherence in that combination of attitudes, that undermines the normative authority of the original āoughtā claim. We should expect genuinely authoritative oughts to be more wholeheartedly endorsable.
That seems like a strange combination indeed! I will need to think more about this...