Virtue, knowledge, and wickedness

Social Philosophy and Policy

Volumn 15, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 196-215

  Milo, Ronald D ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0345884895     PISSN: 02650525     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0265052500003125     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Ronald D. Milo, Immorality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), chs. 3 and 6. I there distinguished between two kinds of amorality (in a broad sense), both of which result from lack of concern about whether what one does is morally wrong. This lack of concern may manifest itself in either of two ways: (1) not bothering even to consider whether what one does is morally right or wrong; or (2) not caring that what one does is something that one believes to be morally wrong. In Immorality, I referred to the latter kind of immorality as "moral indifference" and reserved the term "amorality" for the former (which involves a lack of moral convictions). Noncognitivists, I argued, can account for amorality in this sense but not for moral indifference. In this essay, I use "amorality" in the broad sense, which includes both of these notions; and I am primarily concerned with amorality that involves moral indifference. Later in this essay, I argue that the noncognitivist conception of amorality as due to lack of moral convictions is an inadequate explanation of moral wrongdoing due to lack of moral concern.
2. Some noncognitivists' views do, however, rule out wickedness as I conceive of it. R. M. Hare, for example, claims that in order to accept a universalizable prescription as a moral one, one must accept it as overriding all nonmoral reasons for acting. See Hare, Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).
3. See John McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?" Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 52 (1978), pp. 13-29; and McDowell, "Virtue and Reason," The Monist, vol. 62 (1979), pp. 331-50.
4. See John McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?" Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 52 (1978), pp. 13-29; and McDowell, "Virtue and Reason," The Monist, vol. 62 (1979), pp. 331-50.
5. Internalism about the connection between moral beliefs and motivation holds that the motivational force of moral beliefs is internal to them. Noncognitivists are internalists in this sense, since they hold that one cannot believe that an act is morally wrong without having some negative attitude toward it. Thus, the negative attitude that motivates once to avoid the act believed wrong is part of the belief that it is wrong. As opposed to this, externalists hold that one can believe that an act is wrong without having any sort of negative attitude toward it. Thus, they hold that the motivation to avoid doing acts one believes to be wrong must come from a source external to the moral belief-for example, from a desire to avoid doing what is wrong.
6. McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?" pp. 14-15, 20.
7. Ibid., p. 15. McDowell borrows this point from Thomas Nagel, who argued famously for it in The Possibility of Altruism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), see esp. pp. 29-30. Perhaps Kant's distinction between inclination and the feeling of respect for the moral law can be understood as just another way of putting this point. See Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785), first section.
8. Ibid., p. 15. McDowell borrows this point from Thomas Nagel, who argued famously for it in The Possibility of Altruism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), see esp. pp. 29-30. Perhaps Kant's distinction between inclination and the feeling of respect for the moral law can be understood as just another way of putting this point. See Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785), first section.
9. Ibid., p. 15. McDowell borrows this point from Thomas Nagel, who argued famously for it in The Possibility of Altruism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), see esp. pp. 29-30. Perhaps Kant's distinction between inclination and the feeling of respect for the moral law can be understood as just another way of putting this point. See Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785), first section.
10. McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?" p. 20.
11. "One cannot share a virtuous person's view of the situation in which it seems to him that virtue requires some action, but see no reason to act in that way" (ibid., p. 26).
12. David McNaughton, Moral Vision (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), p. 119.
13. Ibid., p. 107.
14. McDowell claims (in "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?" p. 24) that "it would not matter if someone insisted that what appears as a desire, in the most natural filling out of the reason, is actually better regarded as a cognitive state. . . ." McDowell is here referring to the reason one has for doing something (e.g., drinking a glass of water) in virtue of having a certain desire (e.g., wanting to quench one's thirst).
15. After a presentation of this paper at Bowling Green State University, several members of the audience, including Robert Audi and David Copp, challenged the distinction between what is intrinsically motivating and what is necessarily motivating, and asked for further elaboration. This I shall now try to provide. If the thought that something, e.g., a piece of candy, is sweet is sufficient, in and of itself, to motivate someone to eat it, then this cognitive state (the belief that this is sweet) is intrinsically motivating. On the cognitivist theory of motivation proposed by McDowell and McNaughton, the desire to eat sweet things can be attributed to a person simply on the basis of the fact that the thought that something is sweet is sufficient to motivate this person to eat it. As McNaughton puts it (in Moral Vision, p. 107): On a cognitivist account of desire, we need not see desire as a non-cognitive state which needs to be added to the agent's conception of the situation in order for him to be motivated. Rather, if the agent's conception of the situation is such that it is sufficient to motivate him to act, then to have that conception is to have a desire. This means that the thought that something is sweet is intrinsically motivating. Is it also necessarily motivating? That would be so if the thought that something is sweet is always motivating, for anyone who has it. Perhaps everyone does like sweets. But not everyone likes the taste of bananas. Nevertheless, for those who do, the cognitive theory of motivation holds that the conception of an object as a banana is sufficient, in and of itself, without some additional noncognitive state being needed as a precondition, to provide them with motivation to eat it. It is thus intrinsically motivating for them. However, acknowledging this is compatible with holding that for other people-those who do not like the taste of bananas-the thought that an object is a banana is not motivating. And this is to acknowledge that this thought is not necessarily motivating. I am suggesting that we consider similarly the thought that an act is required by virtue. For those who love virtue (the virtuous), this thought is intrinsically motivating. This is just to say that for the virtuous, this thought is sufficient to motivate them to act virtuously, without needing as a precondition some additional, noncognitively understood desire to do what virtue requires. Again, however, this seems compatible with holding that for other people-the wicked, who do not love virtue-this same thought fails to be motivating. Thus, although the thought that an act is required by virtue is intrinsically motivating for those who are motivated by it (the virtuous), it is not necessarily motivating (since the wicked fail to be motivated by this thought). It is important to note that the internalists about the connection between moral beliefs and motivation whom I am discussing in this essay hold that moral beliefs are both intrinsically and necessarily motivating. This holds true of internalist moral realists like McDowell, as well as the noncognitivists.
16. McNaughton, Moral Vision, p. 138.
17. Ibid., p. 139.
18. Ibid., p. 114.
19. For Kant, a categorical imperative gives one a reason to do something that obtains independently of what one happens to desire. Kant thought that moral imperatives are categorical in this sense. We have reason to obey the moral command not to lie no matter what we desire (e.g., even if we desire money that we can only obtain by lying and we desire to have the money more than we desire to avoid lying). Moral imperatives are not conditional on what we happen to desire. Kant contrasts categorical imperatives with hypothetical ones, which give one reason to do something only because one has certain desires. For example, the imperative "Practice these exercises on the piano" gives one reason to do so only if one wants to learn to play the piano.
20. It is certainly not part of my conception of morality that everyone has a (categorical) reason to avoid moral wrongdoing. Nor does this belong to the moral phenomenology of anyone who adopts an externalist position on the connection between moral requirements and reasons for action.
21. The kind of moral realism that McDowell wishes to defend holds that moral properties (such as the wrongness of actions) are real, as opposed to merely projected properties of things. The anti-realism that he wishes to oppose holds that the moral properties that we attribute to things are merely reflections of our subjective reactions to them. On this view, when we judge cruelty to be wrong, for example, we are projecting our disapproval of cruelty onto cruelty by characterizing cruelty as having a certain property-that of being wrong. (This form of moral anti-realism is endorsed by noncognitivists.) As opposed to this, McDowell argues that when we judge cruelty to be wrong, both our judgment and our disapproval of cruelty are to be explained by our having apprehended or detected an independently existing moral property (at least when we form such judgments in the proper way).
22. McNaughton, Moral Vision, pp. 113-14.
23. See John McDowell, "Values and Secondary Qualities," in Morality and Objectivity, ed. Ted Honderich (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), pp. 110-29.
24. See John McDowell, "Non-Cognitivism and Rule-Following," in Wittgenstein: To Follow a Rule, ed. Steven H. Holtzman and Christopher M. Leich (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), pp. 141-62.
25. John Cooper has raised the following point in discussion (I am paraphrasing): "Your criticism of McDowell starts with the thought that the cruel person can know everything that the virtuous person knows. But we could say that the cruel person can believe that such-and-such acts are cruel without saying that he knows that. The morally virtuous person doesn't just believe a proposition-he must believe it against the background of reasons why it is true. These reasons are deeply ingrained in the moral person. The cruel person may believe the conclusion but not the reasons supporting it." While not wanting to deny that it is possible for one to believe but not know that an act is cruel, I do want to insist that a cruel person can know that an act is cruel. This requires that the cruel person understand the whole network of reasons that the virtuous person would cite for judging the act to be cruel. However, to understand this, I am arguing, it is only necessary that the cruel person understand the sensibilities of the virtuous person. As I argue further below, it is not necessary that she actually share these sensibilities.
26. Michael Robins has objected, in discussion, that by attributing understanding to the psychopath, I have smuggled in an agent-relative understanding of suffering. But what the psychopath really lacks, Robins suggests, is an agent-neutral understanding of suffering. It is true that the psychopath, as I conceive of him, recognizes only an agent-relative reason to relieve suffering. That is, he recognizes that each agent has a reason to alleviate his own suffering, and does not recognize any reason that everyone has to alleviate anyone's suffering (an agent-neutral reason to alleviate suffering). But I reject the contention that there is such an agent-neutral reason to alleviate suffering. Thomas Nagel argued for that contention in his first book, The Possibility of Altruism, but has now acknowledged (in The View from Nowhere) that the argument given for this view in the first book does not succeed. He is still inclined to hold the view, and thinks it self-evident, but has no argument to support it. See Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism (supra note 6), and The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). I agree that one is morally required to alleviate the suffering of others (at least where the suffering is significant and we can alleviate it without great sacrifice on our own part-I'm not sure that we have a moral obligation to provide aspirin to people with headaches). Therefore, we have a moral reason to alleviate anyone's pain (within certain limits). This just means, however, that insofar as one intends to do what is morally required of one, one has a reason to alleviate suffering. But why suppose that everyone has reason to do what he is morally required to do?
27. Michael Robins has objected, in discussion, that by attributing understanding to the psychopath, I have smuggled in an agent-relative understanding of suffering. But what the psychopath really lacks, Robins suggests, is an agent-neutral understanding of suffering. It is true that the psychopath, as I conceive of him, recognizes only an agent-relative reason to relieve suffering. That is, he recognizes that each agent has a reason to alleviate his own suffering, and does not recognize any reason that everyone has to alleviate anyone's suffering (an agent-neutral reason to alleviate suffering). But I reject the contention that there is such an agent-neutral reason to alleviate suffering. Thomas Nagel argued for that contention in his first book, The Possibility of Altruism, but has now acknowledged (in The View from Nowhere) that the argument given for this view in the first book does not succeed. He is still inclined to hold the view, and thinks it self-evident, but has no argument to support it. See Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism (supra note 6), and The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). I agree that one is morally required to alleviate the suffering of others (at least where the suffering is significant and we can alleviate it without great sacrifice on our own part-I'm not sure that we have a moral obligation to provide aspirin to people with headaches). Therefore, we have a moral reason to alleviate anyone's pain (within certain limits). This just means, however, that insofar as one intends to do what is morally required of one, one has a reason to alleviate suffering. But why suppose that everyone has reason to do what he is morally required to do?
28. H. P. Grice, "Logic and Conversation," in Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3, Speech Acts, ed. Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (New York: Academic Press, 1975), p. 45. Grice draws a distinction between what is logically implied by a statement (by what we say, the statement we make), on the one hand, and what is conversationally implied by our saying it (the fact that we make a certain statement), on the other hand. For example, when I say that Jones is a bachelor, that Jones is unmarried is implied by what I say (the statement that Jones is a bachelor). But my making this statement to others also implies (by the conventions of trustworthy communication) that I believe that Jones is a bachelor (that I believe what I am saying, that I am telling the truth). However, that I believe that Jones is a bachelor is not implied by what I say (that Jones is a bachelor).
29. He says "So what?" But, contrary to what internalists think, allowing for this possibility seems to me a virtue rather than a defect in an account of the meaning of moral judgments. It is a virtue rather than a defect, because an adequate account ought to allow for the possibility of amorality (moral indifference)-e.g., believing that an act is morally wrong, but not caring that it is wrong.
30. For the definitions of "internalism" and "moral realism" see notes 4 and 18. 27 McNaughton, Moral Vision, p. 137.
31. Ibid., p. 139.
32. McNaughton here follows R. M. Hare, who claims that the amoral person must maintain a kind of moral silence, refusing to make any moral judgments at all-except those expressing moral indifference. See Hare, Freedom and Reason, pp. 100-101.
33. Jonathan Dancy, Moral Reasons (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), p. 53.
34. Ibid., p. 24.
35. Ibid., p. 5.
36. Ibid., p. 6.
37. Ibid., p. 5.
38. Ibid., p. 26.
39. Christopher Morris has raised the following objection (I am paraphrasing): "What type of understanding does the amoralist have? Consider an example: if no one were motivated by justice as we conceive it, I take it that justice would be a set of pointless rules (perhaps similar to outmoded rules of etiquette). For the amoralist to have a genuine understanding of justice, he must be able to understand what it would be like to be motivated by justice. If he had that knowledge, it seems implausible that the amoralist wouldn't be motivated to be just at least toward some people (he may simply be very selective)." I agree that the amoral person's understanding of justice is parasitic on the understanding of those who are motivated to observe the rules of justice. However, I have been arguing that that understanding requires only that the amoral person understand the point of these rules and that he understand the moral sensibilities that motivate people to observe them. This does not inquire, however, that the amoral person actually share these sensibilities or motivational dispositions.
40. McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?" p. 28.
41. McNaughton, Moral Vision, p. 129.
42. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII.
43. Dancy, Moral Reasons, p. 52.
44. McNaughton's Moral Vision contains an excellent discussion of the problematic nature of this kind of Satanic wickedness; see pp. 140-44.
45. Ibid., p. 145.
46. J. L. Mackie, Ethics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), ch. 1.
47. See David Wiggins, Needs, Values, Truth (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), chs. 4 and 5. Wiggins argues that there are no criteria for the applicability of such concepts that transcend the social practices that give them their life.
48. Loren Lomasky has raised a closely related point (I am paraphrasing): "If it's true that we aren't going to distinguish between the moral and the immoral person based on their having or not having moral knowledge, then what happens to the universality and prescriptivity of morality? What do you say about determining to whom morality applies, why it applies, and what we should do with people to whom it doesn't apply?" In this essay, I have been concerned to oppose a form of internalism about the relationship between moral beliefs and motivation which holds that one cannot believe, for example, that an act is morally wrong without acknowledging that one has at least some reason for avoiding such acts. What one acknowledges is a justificatory reason for not doing such acts; but the acknowledgment of this reason (embedded in the conviction that the act is wrong) is supposed to be intrinsically motivating. Another form of internalism holds that there is an internal connection between moral requirements and (justificatory) reasons for action. McDowell does not defend this form of internalism, but others do. Gilbert Harman, for example, takes it to be self-evident that a person cannot be morally required to do an act unless he has at least some reason to do it. (See Gilbert Harman, The Nature of Morality [New York: Oxford University Press, 1977].) He thinks that "P morally ought to do D" entails "P has some reason to do D." Call this version of internalism "reasons internalism" (as opposed to "motives internalism"). Harman concludes from this that since there are no moral requirements that everyone has reason to act on (he thinks that what each has reason to do depends ultimately on what each person's basic desires and interests happen to be), there are therefore no universally valid moral requirements. (Harman opts instead for a form of moral relativism.) Although I cannot argue the point here, I also reject Harman's reasons internalism. It leads him to think that it is odd to say that Hitler morally ought not to have killed millions of innocent persons, because Hitler had no reason, in terms of his aims and interests, not to do so. Like many others, I do not find it the least bit odd to say this, because I do not think that it is a necessary condition of Hitler's having a moral obligation not to act as he did that he had some reason not to do so. That his fundamental aims and preferences (e.g., putting a concern for racial purity ahead of a concern to avoid killing innocent people) provided him no reason to act otherwise does not imply that the moral requirement to avoid killing innocent people merely for the purpose of ethnic cleansing did not apply to him; it merely implies that he had a bad moral character. For, on my view, having preferences that often give one reason to do that which one acknowledges to be morally wrong is precisely what wickedness consists in. Moreover, I deny, as I argued above, that Hitler's believing that such acts are morally wrong requires that he acknowledge a reason to avoid such acts (or assents to an imperative prohibiting such acts). I deny that moral judgments are prescriptive in this sense.
49. Robert Solomon has asked, in discussion, that I give examples of affective/conative deficiencies. Specifically, he asked for cases in which it would make sense to say: "I see that it's cruel, but I don't care." The example of the latter that I gave is that of the psychopath who has been so emotionally deprived as to render him incapable of feeling any concern at all for the welfare or interests of others. But the psychopath is a rare (and perhaps controversially interpreted) case. So Solomon also pressed me for more mundane examples. We can find these more easily if we turn from cases of amorality to cases of wickedness. The wicked person has some concern to avoid moral wrongdoing (perhaps because he has some concern for the welfare or interests of at least some others), but, often, when avoiding moral wrongdoing conflicts with something else that he wants (e.g., wealth), he prefers pursuing what he wants to avoiding what he acknowledges to be morally wrong. Here, concern for the welfare or interests of others need not be totally lacking (as in the case of the psychopath); it need only be weaker than it should be. This kind of affective/conative defect seems quite common.
50. Although McDowell insists that immorality results from ignorance, he denies that it involves irrationality. See McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?" p. 13.