04.12.06 normativity hinton

7/28/2019 04.12.06 Normativity Hinton

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Determinism and The Normative Question: Is The Normative Question The Right One?

Andrew Garib

Philosophy 341 Ethical

Theory

Prof. T. Hinton

6 December 2004

20 pages including cover


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What is the most plausible answer to the normative question?

In her The Sources of Normativity, Christine Korsgaard outlines a theory about the source of

ethical normativity. The question of normativity can be asked in two ways. I may ask myself,

as a moral agent, Why should I be moral in the sense of asking for an explanation to why I

behave morally. This first way may be asked in second or third person as well a first person

perspective is not required to describe the mechanisms behind my morality. The second way

to ask the question can only be asked in the first person, because it has to do with our

ultimate motivation to behave morally. I ask myself Why should I be moral in a state of

ethical crisis; I demand justification for moral behavior, for example, when acting ethically

may cost me my job, or my way of life, or my life itself. Its this second way of asking Why

should I be moral? that needs to be addressed. (Korsgaard 179) And I argue that it cannot be

properly answered.

Given determinism within the Modern Scientific World View (MSWV), the only

sense in which Why should I be moral can be answered is in terms of the mechanics of our

psychology and biology. The key word here is mechanics: morality requires an autonomous

agent in order to make ethical decisions, and such decisions cannot be made under certain

constraint: A person with a behavior-modifying chip in his brain whose actions are controlled

remotely by a supercomputer cant be held accountable for his actions. This mechanics

explanation seems to answer the question of the first kind a mechanistic answer but in

fact its the only answer to the second, first-person question as well.

Ethicists fail to solve the problem of normativity because they beg the question of

compatibilism. Of course, this is requisite to inquiring into practical morality, since moral


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accountability requires free will. (Whether the philosopher chooses compatibilism or some

sort of universal indeterminism is an important consideration, but I will speak only about

philosophers who accept determinism.) Kant, for example, finds complete determinism in the

phenomenological realm and possible intelligible or noumenal causation in the noumenal

realm of things in themselves which grounds phenomena as a source of wills as primary

causes. Christine Korsgaard holds a similar view of human autonomy, arguing as Kant does,

for the need for a law of the free will independent of external laws and constraints, including

inclinations and desires.

The problem of normativity can be formulated in a way analogous to G.E. Moores

open question. When presented with any reasons, in the first person, to behave ethically, one

may ask Yeah, sure, but why should I do it? It seems, this question fells even Korsgaards

sophisticated theory, as both formalistic and substantive answers to the normative question

fail to address the first-person challenge of a normative skeptic.

Ultimately, because free will is untenable even in first-person reflection, the

normative question in the protestant sense must derive from determinism or at least go

unanswered. If determinism is true, then the normative question is answered by the laws of

nature and past states of the universe. It is immaterial how we or anyone else justifies

behavior or beliefs, especially those that are predetermined.

Voluntarism and Realism

In proposing her argument inNormativity, Korsgaard outlines four historical attempts at

solving the problem of normativity: voluntarism, attributed to Thomas Hobbes and others;

realism, in the works of H. A. Prichard, G. E. Moore and Thomas Nagel; reflective

endorsement in the traditions of David Hume, J.S. Mill and Bernard Williams; and the appeal


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to autonomy, found in Kantian tradition, including John Rawls. According to Korsgaard,

each successive attempt draws from the recognition of flaws in proceeding tries. (Korsgaard

20) Korsgaards contribution, a normative conception through reflective endorsement of an

autonomous agent through the recognition and valuation of personal human identity, is in

part a synthesis of these four past attempts. Because of this, it a particularly instructive in

showing how all theories of normativity fall short of what may be expected.

Voluntarism is the recognition of authority through the normativity of duty to a

legislating sovereign. Hobbes world is the Modern Scientific World View (MSWV) where

our ethical valuations are projected onto a value-neutral materialistic and deterministic world.

Hobbes important point is that authority is the only means by which one is ever obliged to

do anything. There is no obligation until a sovereign capable of enforcing the laws of

nature is in power. Obligation must come from law, and law from the will of a legislating

sovereign; morality only comes into the world when laws are made. (Korsgaard 23)

Importantly, authority is derived from the consent of the subject, and thus action

under the sanction of an authority is done out of a sense of duty, and not directly out of fear

of punishment or other harm. Morally good action, as Korsgaard puts it, is action which

proceeds from the motive of duty. (Korsgaard 24) For Korsgaard, it is erroneous to interpret

Hobbes as saying that the power to impose sanctions to enforce the law, as required in

Leviathan for the creation of authority, is the motivation to obey the law. For both Hobbes

and his ideological compatriot Samuel von Pufendorf, a good person does the right thing for

the intrinsic motive that doing the right thing is identical to the law. (25)

But in answering the normative question, Hobbes and Pufendorf show an essential

flaw in their theory according to Korsgaard. Korsgaard asks that key version of our open

question when it comes to duty: if normativity is derived from contract, one must ask why


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were obliged to obey beyond the needs of basic egoism? (28,30) What makes authority

authoritative? The derivation of authority from the power of a sovereign could mean that the

sovereigns authority is derived solely from its ability punish, creating a morality that is

based only on realist power relations. (29) Thats certainly not the kind of morality most of

us imagine, one due to the deference to a moral authority in its own right.

This is why moral realists take a different turn on normativity. For moral realists, we

do what is right simply because it is morally right. Value and ethical normativity are real and

unanalyzable properties of the world. The very notion of normativity is irreducible, and it is a

mistake to try to explain it. (30)

There are several problems with a realist account, and key to these problems is

realisms unabashed inability to answer the normative adaptation of the Moorean question:

Sure, its good in a real and substantial sense; but still, why should I do it? Requiring

normative force by fiat seems to be what realists intend to do; as Korsgaard writes, realism is

a simple statement of confidence, not a substantial proof of the way ethics is. In this way, it

simply avoids answering the normative question altogether. (33, 39) I may be convinced that

goodness or rightness or justice is a real property of an act or state, but I may still question

any motivational force such valuation has as an ethical agent.

Realism is unable to address H. A. Prichards Dilemma: saying that something is

wrong is not a sufficient normative claim; however, the account of why its a reason not to do

something must be sufficiently connected to what it is to be wrong. (Scanlon 149-150) As we

shall come to see, indeed no conception of morality can sufficiently address Prichards

Dilemma, because the normative question itself is misplaced.


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Reflective Endorsement and Autonomy: Korsgaards Synthesis

The discussion above leaves out an important cleavage in realism. Realism can be defined in

two ways: substantive or procedural realism. Both assert that there are right or wrong

answers to ethical questions. One, substantial realism, posits that ethical statements are right

or wrong because of reference to real-world phenomena: It is wrong to kill a person without

very good reasons because that act is in a very strong sense a wrong act. But procedural

realism can produce right or wrong answers merely by virtue of the structure of the moral

conception in use. Kants ethics, for example, can show whether an act is right or wrong by

testing ones ability to will that act into a universalized law. If an act passes the test, then it is

morally correct; if it does not pass the categorical imperative, then its wrong. (Scanlon 150-

151; Korsgaard 36-37)

Korsgaards target in the above discussion is substantial realism, but she certainly

posits the necessity of a procedural realism similar to Kants. The procedure in her

procedural realism is reflection. Reflection provides reasons for action, and through personal

identity, provides normative force for our ethical beliefs. When we ask the normative open

question why should I?, we ask whether morality can survive reflection. Here, the potential

answer is contained in the question: the solution to the normative problem is that morality

may well survive reflection. (Korsgaard 49-50)

Reflexive moral conceptions range from David Humes reflection on our sentiments,

Mills reflection on whether actions produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number,

and Bernard Williams second-order reflection, which destroys colloquial ethical

conceptions, but forces an agent to ask whether that overall conception is best for human

flourishing in a given society.


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Reflection is important because it produces reasons. If we simply followed our

desires and other motivations without reflecting on them wed be automatons there would

be no choice in our decisions. Reflection allows for consideration of different reasons and

thus for moral deliberation. For Hume, reflection is normative: a verdict of endorsement for a

certain moral action or belief upon reflection produces the normative quality in our

deliberations. Examining our desires and motivations and then coming to a conclusion about

them is the source of normativity. (Hinton)

This is generally true for Kant and Korsgaard as well. But there is a key difference.

Williams and Hume see reflection as a justification for our existing morality, a philosophical

exercise that entrenches the normativity of our inclinations or our ethical system. (Williams

contests Korsgaards use of the term philosophical exercise, but I believe it to be accurate

for our purposes.) But for Kant, reflection upon whether a maxim can be willed to universal

law is the test for normativity as well as ethical viability for each agent and for each practical

application. Thus reflection is not only a source of normativity: in Korsgaards reckoning, it

is morality. [Kants] test of reflective endorsement is the test used by actual moral agents to

establish the normativity of all their particular motives and inclinations. So the reflective

endorsement test is not merely a way of justifying morality.It is morality itself. (Korsgaard

89)

Reflective endorsement depends on a conception of ethics that is grounded not in

epistemology or power structure but in human nature itself. Williams, Hume and Kant are

non-cognitivists, for whom ethics is a projection of human sentiments and dispositions. This

seems entirely correct: power and knowledge of real-world entities seem tangential to ethical

considerations, and in particular, their normative effects. There are important considerations

about this to be discussed later.


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Kant and Korsgaard take reflection a step further, and argue that our individual

autonomy is the source of all obligations, and in particular, all moral obligations. (Korsgaard

91) Our autonomy and self-consciousness mean that we are autonomously thoughtful, giving

us both the possibility of asking the normative question, and according to Korsgaard, the

possibility of resolving it, too. Our capacity to reflect on our own mental activities produces a

distance between our inclinations and our will between the acting self and the thinking self

and thus creates the problem of normativity. If we were simply unreflective animals, then

all we could go on would be our temporal inclinations. We would be Hobbesian automatons.

(Korsgaard 93)

Following the reflective tradition, a reason for acting is symptomatic of reflective

success. Think of what [normative terms like good] mean when we use them as

exclamations. Good! Right! There they mean: Im satisfied, Im happy, Im committed,

youve convinced me. They mean the work of reflection is done. (Korsgaard 94) But what is

also symptomatic of reflection is free will. Any outside force or reason must be reflected

upon and endorsed even our innermost desires. Both Kant and Korsgaard argue for a

compatibilism in the first person: the existence of a free will despite determinism and the

MSWV.

A free will for Kant is a rational causality which is effective without being

determined by an alien cause, whether that alien cause includes physical constraint or the

desires and inclinations of the individual. (Korsgaard 97) Korsgaard argues that this free will

is produced by the reflective nature of the human mind, which requires the law of the free

will to be Kants categorical imperative: the law that any maxim must be willed to a

universalized law. Her argument flows as follows:

The will is practical reason

Therefore, the will cannot act for no reason at all.

But all the reasons are derived from principles.


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Therefore the will must have a principle.

But since the will is free, the principle of the will cannot be imposed from the outside.

Therefore, the will must be autonomous and have its own principle.

But where is the law or principle to come from?

If this law or principle is imposed from the outside, then the will is not free.

Therefore, the will must take this law or principle itself. (Hinton)

The will is a causality unto itself, but a free will, without principles imposed upon it

from the outside. But because its a causality, it requires some sort of law or principle, so it

must have its own principle. And that principle must be the law of the categorical imperative.

(Korsgaard 98)

Practical Identity and Humanity-based Valuation

But the categorical imperative alone is an empty formalism without ethical content. For it to

be the moral law, the law of the Kingdom of Ends, the range of the categorical imperative

must be established: it must extend over all rational beings. And for this to happen, an agent

must consider herself a citizen of the Kingdom. Korsgaards construction is possible through

the invocation of the concept of practical identity. Morality needs to encompass laws for

which breaking them sometimes is worse than death. (For example, we may ask ourselves

why we should die for a good cause, like defeating the Nazis?) And Korsgaards suggestion

is that attacks on the integrity of personal identity can be worse than death.

Normativity is established because humanity is law unto itself: our humanity and our

reflective nature establish an authority between our thinking and acting selves; our identities

are the elements referenced when asking ourselves whether a maxim can be willed into a law

by beings such as ourselves. We ask ourselves what it means to be a good citizen, or a good

neighbor, or a good husband and whether maxims fit these descriptions. (Korsgaard 111) But

more importantly, we ask ourselves whether a maxim is a good idea not only from our

contingent identities (our being Protestants, or Tamil-speakers, or male, or political


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conservatives) but from our identity as a human being. As Korsgaard argues, the relativism in

her system (the individuals partaking in reflection about individual identity) creates a

universality at another level: regardless of the kinds of maxims willed to law, its plain that

all human beings must will something to a law, and the reason for this is our humanity: It is

a reason you have only if you treat your humanity as a practical, normative, form of identity,

that is, if you value yourself as a human being. (Korsgaard 121)

So an agent can shed and take on roles within ones practical identity and will

maxims that comply; but if he remains committed to a role but fails to meet the obligations

it generates, he fails himself as a human being, as well as failing in that role. (Korsgaard

121) A failure to value his humanity, thus, is a failure to value anything. Its a failure to

generate reasons. It leaves an agent with no motivation to live, but no reason to commit

suicide either. Its a state worse than death.

This isnt sufficient to secure the normativity of moral behavior towards others.

Korsgaard rejects private reasons for action and belief in place of reasons that are publically-

shared goods between conscious beings. I am a law unto you because when I pass you on the

street and say hello, it takes a particular effort for you to ignore; you feel compelled at least

to say hello back, or if you know me, to rationalize your inability to stop and have coffee

with me. (Korsgaard 142-143) Its a keen observation about the nature of human interaction

that Korsgaard makes: It seems humans are inherent producers of reasons for other humans

(or perhaps other rational beings). Its empirical evidence that we value not only our own

humanity, but that of others: egoism is impossible because of the very nature of reasons and

humanity. Thats why we are compelled to act morally.

Sources of Normativity Proper


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A possible criticism of Korsgaards theory is that of pain, and she addresses it in Lecture 4 of

Normativity. Pain, it would seem, is a wholly private reason and a possible substantive basis

for both normativity and morality. Hedonism has been a popular theory of morality in various

forms for thousands of years, and its intuitive appeal basing the good on pleasure and the

absence of pain has added to its longevity. Pain seems to be a kind of normative fact. If

that is so, pain is an objection to Kantian ethics, or to any ethics which makes the value of

humanity the foundation of all value. (Korsgaard 145) Pain could threaten public reasons,

and Korsgaards whole edifice of morality.

But those who think so are mistaken, thinks Korsgaard. Pain is not inherently

normative; it is a particularly acute expression of our intense desire to maintain identical

integrity, whether physical or emotional. Pain is the perception of a reason Pity is painful

because it is the perception of anothers pain, and so the perception that there is a reason to

change his condition. (Korsgaard 149) As such its the sharing of a reason just like humanity

itself, and conforms with Korsgaards overall theory. Obligation is the reflective rejection of

a threat to your identity. Pain is the unreflective rejection of a threat to your identity. So pain

is the perception of a reason, and that is why it seems normative. (Korsgaard 150)

This kind of reasoning may seem silly to many. Pain certainly doesnt seem like a

perception at all. It certainly feels and perhaps acts like an intrinsically normative entity, a

creature on par with our other inclinations and desires which push our wills this way or that

or at least, make available to our wills certain reasons which we feel. If Korsgaards

reasoning may be taken to its logical extents, then any of our gut feelings or our hearts

desires are just perceptions of a reason, the reason being the maintenance of our identity.

But this seems like a fanciful analogy to Scanlons fallacy of sanction. Moral

motivation doesnt come out of our concluding that acting in a certain way would be


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morally wrong and then weigh against competing motives (like the sanction that is attached

to violating the law). (Scanlon 155) We act not just because weve considered something

morally wrong, but because of more concrete considerations like shes counting on me or

he needs my help or doing that would put them in danger (Scanlons examples). We may

experience pain due in part to a threat to bodily integrity, but the threat doesnt seem to be the

normative element of the pain. The normative element is more concrete its the pain itself,

or at least our normal emotional reaction to it.

In fact, a general complaint can be and is made about the artificial feel of Korsgaards

entire theory by G. A. Cohen in his commentary in Lecture 5 ofNormativity.

It is a huge exaggeration to say, as Korsgaard does, that an obligation always takes

the form of a reaction against a threat of a loss of identity. I could remain me, both

in the evident banal sense and in every pertinent non-banal sense, if I gave nothing to

help the distant dying who oppress my conscience. I just wouldntfeel very good

about myself. (Cohens emphasis, Korsgaard 177)

It seems much of what any agent does may have no connection to that agents sense of

identity. And here Cohen hits the key point, although its probably not the point hes making:

Its a feeling we get in contemplating or doing a certain action that gives it normative force.

Ultimately, when we consider why we feel we must do something, it comes down to a

feeling, no matter your conception of ethics.

Consider pain. According to Korsgaard, its a perception of a reason, and an

expression of the desire to fight threats to ones identity. But where does the passion or

motivation come from? From our deep-seeded desire to maintain identical integrity. But why

do we react that way? Because we have some pre-programmed element of our humanity, an

inclination or passion, to react in such a way. So the reaction is a pre-determined reaction?

Well, it must be.

Consider others as laws to us. Its in our human nature to treat others as sources of

reasons. You have to really force yourself to avoid someone when they see you and say hi,


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for example. Where does that automatic respect come from? Why are others laws unto us?

Its in human nature. So its a set of automatic inclinations? Well, yes. And are they pre-

determined? Well it seems so when I see someone, I cant help acknowledge them.

Consider the supposed pain of the loss of our identity. I act and value because I value

myself. But why? Because if I didnt, Id not value myself, and Id have no reasons to live.

But why do I value myself? Because it is in my nature, my human nature apparently. How

so? Its a kind of urge I have to value myself. Is it a pre-determined element of my nature,

then? Yes, I suppose so.

This exercise in the normative open question can lead an agent in first-person to

conclude that her moralitys normativity, at base, is a set of compulsions. Theyre not

reflective, because even upon reflection they remain: they dont become reasons to deliberate

over, but remain passions which sway the will one way or the other. Well talk about this

more in the next section. The point is that reflection itself is not the source of normativity, but

can in fact show that source, and it turns out to be as basic an animal trait as possible. Human

ethics is a form of non-cognitive expressivism based upon certain feelings and inclinations.

Thats why the normative question is truly unanswerable.

One may counter that Korsgaards theory is not an empty formalism, but provides a

true possible source for our motivations. Human value is treated in a way by humans as an

intrinsic and normative value. Forget what Korsgaard said about maxims being intrinsically

and finally good and normative because of their internal composition: she really meant that

humanity is the intrinsic and final good. If this is the case, then at least we cannot dismiss her

theory as an empty formality without normative content. But this view is substantive realism,

and carries all the philosophical arrogance Korsgaard accuses of it with it. Korsgaards

theory, in its hindsight and careful formulation, instead of surmounting traditional problems


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with normative theories falls for either void formalism or substantial realisms faults. It

sidesteps the true origins of normativity and begs the question of compatibilist free will,

which I will address presently.

Free Will and Inclinations

The above theory would not stand without a refutation of free will, because, given agent

causation, it would be possible for individuals to will for or against inclinations. We could

will to develop inclinations, or will ignoring them. Thats the basis behind choicemaking and

behind Korsgaards reflective argument: we dont have reasons without the reflection of an

autonomous free will on our desires.

But the argument for an autonomous free will given determinism has flaws.

Korsgaard argues that free will is a matter of perspective: Its irrelevant whether or not one

can predict my future actions and decisions, because in the first person perspective, I am still

forced to make a decision. Having discovered that my conduct is predictable, will I now sit

quietly in my chair, waiting to see what I will do? (Korsgaard 95) If someone does make

previously correct predictions about my behavior, he certainly should take into consideration

the fact that he just told me he made such a prediction.

This argument evades the essential point of determinism: Our wills are at the whims

of our desires and inclinations and aversions. Kant and Korsgaard may argue for agent

causation, but they cannot account for how an autonomous agent can make decisions without

those decisions being informed by outside information whether that includes passions,

physical phenomena, or whatever. An autonomous will must act; but it cant act alone, for it

would have nothing to incite action. One may claim that the will itself is a reason for action.

But what would that action be? What would that reason be? It doesnt seem possible for an


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agent to act without inclinations and passions and without information about the world

around her.

Kant, however, requires a law of the free will in the form of a categorical imperative.

Its this imperative that gives a law and direction to the causation that is the will (required

because a causation needs some law in order to function). But even here, we can see a

functioning will working within the constraints of causally-orchestrated phenomena around

it, including that categorical imperative. Its important for Kant that the categorical

imperative is based on reason and not on human nature; but its just one more constraint on a

supposedly free will, one more determinant in a sea of predetermined causes. Even if the will

is uncaused, its decisions must somehow be guided by a causally deterministic real world,

including a law that defines the free will. The Categorical Imperative simply builds-in

morality into a deterministic system.

Korsgaard, on the other hand, grounds human decision making functions solely on

human nature and the practical identity. And as weve seen, the normative elements of

Korsgaards theory are still fundamentally based upon inclinations and passions. Its equally

susceptible to the inclinations and passions argument, as Korsgaard begs the question on free

will in attempting to explain morality and normativity.

Korsgaard and Moral Authority

Cohens criticisms of Korsgaard draw out its weaknesses in the most telling way by

undermining her assumptions about authority. Taking her queue from Hobbes, Korsgaard

argues that any obligation requires authority, and that the splitting of the mind between the

acting and the thinking parts in the process of reflection creates an authority which wills

maxims into laws and thus deliberates on all ethical matters. In Cohens interpretation of


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Korsgaard, the subject of the law is also the author, and this presents an essential problem.

According to Hobbes, the Sovereign isnt a subject to the laws that he makes because he can

change them at will. (Korsgaard 168)

Kant, too, recognizes this problem. Kant notes that if the moral law came just from

my own will, then it would have no claim on me, rather as the law of the sovereign has none

over the sovereign in Hobbes, according to Cohen. Kants solution is to universalize morally

allowable actions actions based on maxims that are willed into universal laws in such a

way that although it is the product of an individual will, the agent cant unmake the universal

law. So authority is granted by the universality of laws passing the categorical imperative

test, granted by pure reason, and Kant solves the problem of a law obligating its maker.

(Korsgaard 171-172)

But Korsgaard isnt off so easily. As weve said before, Korsgaards authority rests

solely with human nature, and not with wholly rational grounds as Kants categorical

imperative that transcends merely human nature. (Korsgaard 173) So its difficult to see

how a Korsgaardian agent can create a law that she is required to obey: For Korsgaard Its

not the bare fact that it would be a good idea to perform a certain action that obligates us to

perform it. It is the fact that we command ourselves to do what we find it would be a good

idea to do. (Korsgaard 104) Could not an agent, Cohen asks, change the very content of the

laws that she obeys?

Cohen claims that in fact that what Korsgaards agent wills arent even always laws.

What the reflective structure requires, if anything, is not that I be a law unto myself, but that

I be in command of myself. And sometimes commands that I issue will be singular, not

universal. (Korsgaard 176) One may endorse first-order impulses upon reflection, but its


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not true that he identifies himself with a law or principle. Our having a principle may be a

law of humanity, but what of the principles of morality?

So reflective endorsement, if Cohen is right, could reduce to reflective endorsement

of mere inclinations and passions. Theyre not laws that we endorse on reflection but

individual actions and beliefs. And we dont seem to have any true authority over ourselves

the only option left to us is that we deliberate only on the strongest inclinations and passions

(or in Hobbes world, the last appetitions or aversions). Worse than Cohens will run amok

with no authority above, the will may be slave to the passions after all, to paraphrase Hume.

Korsgaard writes Reflection does not have irresistible power over us. But when we do

reflect we cannot but think that we ought to do what on reflection we conclude we have

reason to do. (Korsgaard 104) And given this statement alone, theres the distinct possibility

that its only inclinations and passions that guide even the reflective mind.

Of course theres an even more fundamental determinism here for what could

possibly push or pull the will into making certain decisions even in reflective considerations

but other inclinations and passions? The answer is that all our decisions derive their

normativity only from these inclinations and passions. Authority is reduced to the bare

mechanisms of our biological and psychological systems.

The Lesson from Korsgaard

In Deliberation, the last appetite or aversion immediately adhering to the action, or

to the omission thereof, is that we call the [act of willing] And though we say in

common discourse, a man had a will once to do a thing, that nevertheless he forbore

to do; yet that is properly but an inclination, which makes no action voluntary;

because the action depends not of it, but of the last inclination. (Hobbes 127-128)

If Hobbes is right, then our entire idea of normativity must be misconceived. We

cant be talking about wills with moral demands poking at the guts of humanity. These gut

reactions themselves we must define as normativity of all kinds.


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Korsgaard is right to connect all forms of valuation and normativity to ethics and

moral normativity: theyre one and the same thing, or rather, on the same continuum. And

Korsgaard cant be wrong in insisting on a first-person answer to the normative question.

Even more profound are Korsgaards insights into how others presence in our psychology

contributes to our valuation and ethical considerations of them. But none of this is

meaningful if our quest for normativity ignores the very basic fact that our inclinations

dominate our lifes functioning, even in the most profound and reflective matters. Given

determinism, human free will must be an illusion, and normativity must be reduced to our

inclinations and passions.

Given whats said above, especially given the fact that reflection can produce the

realization that normativity is at root psychological impulse, its no wonder that Cohens

Mafioso example appears in the commentary ofNormativity. A Mafioso can reflect on his

personal identity, and will maxims that steel himself as he commits atrocities that go against

his inclinations, in the name of the risk to his personal identity. (Korsgaard 183) Korsgaards

system is an empty formalism, one in light of the hundreds of previous empty formalisms and

audacious substantive realisms of which Prof. Korsgaard is a scholar. The problem is not

with Korsgaards analysis of past theories, but her ignoring the basic phenomenology of

normativity along with other moral philosophers, partially, Id imagine, in hopes of

maintaining free will. All theories that ignore the true nature of normativity may be destined

for the same empty formalism.

The normative question is the wrong question because of the true nature of

normativity. Its a salient question only if we have a say in moralitys machinations. But it

seems, if determinism is right, then we dont have any say at all. Thats perhaps why the


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standard of being able to convince another in second person of the need for ethical behavior

is too high. As Cohen writes,

I do not think I can show the intransigent why they should be moral. But I think that

I can show the sincere inquirer why I must be moral. I have to be moral because,

indeed, I could not otherwise live with myself, because I would find my life shabbyif I were not moral. I can show that morality is a rational way, without being able to

show that it is the (only) rational way. (Korsgaard 181)

Normativity is private and based upon the algorithms of our own biology and psychology.

In the two ways of asking the normative question, the mechanistic and interrogative

senses, we find an answer to both, simultaneously. In third person, determinism ensures that

our behaviors are predictable if enough is known about science. But in the first person, as we

maintain the illusion of free will, the question is moot, although the answer can be gotten

through reflection. Prichards Dilemma, too, is an empty variable. It seems to me that

philosophers wish to find a source of normativity in order to build a conception of ethics

which can guide and systematize our ethical beliefs. But if determinism is true and the

inclinations-and-passions model of normativity stands alone, then clearly the normative

question is the wrong one in this sense, too.


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Andrew Garib 20

Bibliography

Boyd, Richard, How To Be A Moral Realist,Essays on Moral Realism. Geoffrey Sayre-

McCord, ed. pp 181-217. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Hinton, T., Lectures, Philosophy 341: Ethical Theory. Fall 2004. Cornell University, Ithaca,

NY.

Hobbes, Thomas,Leviathan, or the matter and forme and power of a common-wealth

ecclesiasticall and civill. C. B. Macpherson, ed. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1971.

Korsgaard, Christine M., The Sources of Normativity. New York: Cambridge University

Press, 2003.

Moore, G. E., The Subject-Matter of Ethics Chapter 1 ofPrincipia Ethica (revised edition)

edited with an introduction by Thomas Baldwin. Cambridge University, Cambridge:

1993. pp 53-78.

Scanlon, T. M., What We Owe Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Stevenson, C. L., The Emotive Meaning of Ethical TermsMind, Vol. 46 (1937, JSTOR).

pp 14-31.

Williams, Bernard, Knowledge, Science and Convergence,Ethics and The Limits of

Philosophy. pp 132-155. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.

04.12.06 normativity hinton

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