Reasonably Vicious

303 Pages·2002·1.34 MB·English

by  Professor Candace Vogler

Reasonably
Vicious
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Reasonably
Vicious
CANDACE VOGLER
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge,Massachusetts
London,England
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
For Lisa
Copyright©2002bythePresidentandFellowsofHarvardCollege
Allrightsreserved
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
FirstHarvardUniversityPresspaperbackedition,2008.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Vogler,CandaceA.
Reasonablyvicious/CandaceVogler.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-674-00741-3(cloth)
ISBN978-0-674-03072-5(pbk.)
1.Ethics. 2.Practicalreason. I.Title.
BJ1031.V642002
170(cid:2).42—dc21 2002027250
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 InstrumentalismaboutPracticalReason 10
2 InSomeSenseGood 26
3 MedievalandModern 53
4 Pleasure 74
5 Fit 97
6 Use 126
7 TheStandardPictureofPracticalReason 147
8 Ethics 180
AppendixA:Anscombe’sArgument 205
AppendixB:Anscombe’sObjectiontoDonaldDavidson 213
AppendixC:ANoteaboutKantandBefitting-Style
DesirabilityCharacterizations 223
AppendixD:MoralActions,VirtuousActions,
ExpressiveActions 230
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
vi Contents
AppendixE:SomeNotesabouttheStandardPicture
andFormalWork 238
Notes 253
Bibliography 285
Index 291
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
Ihavebeenatworkonthisbookforsometimeandhavebeentremen-
douslyfortunateinmyinterlocutorsallthewhile.Earlydraftsofbitsof
somechapterswerepresentedattheUniversityofWisconsinatMilwau-
keeandatMadison,NorthwesternUniversity,VanderbiltUniversity,the
University of Illinois at Chicago and at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois
Wesleyan University, the University of Chicago, and Princeton Univer-
sity. I am grateful to my audiences for their helpful comments on work
verymuchinprogress.Idevelopedthefirstfulldraftwhileparticipating
in a philosophical writing group with Lauren Tillinghast and Jessica
Spector, both of whom helped me hammer chapters into their first
form, as did Carol Voeller, Michael Thompson, Leonard Linsky, Adrian
Cussins, David Lloyd, and Hilary Bok. Before sending it off, I had the
benefit of several days’ intensive discussion of the whole with Elijah
Millgram,andthepenultimatedraftcouldnothavetakensuchshapeas
it had without him. Once it was set, I was guided in my final revision
by comments from two anonymous reviewers for Harvard Press, Beth
Povinelli,MarthaNussbaum,JosefStern,DanBrudney,andIanMueller.
Two additional writing groups, one with Scott Anderson and Mark
Jenkins,theotherwithJeremyBendik-Keymer,gavemeplacestoairre-
visionsinprogress.IhavebeenhelpedbydiscussionsaboutAnscombe’s
work and mine with David Gauthier, with Doug Levin, Colin Patrick,
Christopher Ferro, George Streeter, and Joe Schear. Lauren Tillinghast
and Dan Brudney stepped in again at the end to have a look at some of
themostrevisedchapters,andhelpedmetomakesomefinalcorrections
andadditions.
Throughout this rather long haul, I have been cheered on and sup-
ported by many friends, colleagues, and associates. I have already
thankedsomefortheircriticalcommentsonthetext.LindsayWatersat
Harvard University Press took an interest in the project very early on,
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
viii Acknowledgments
andcontinuedhisinterestevenafteritbecameclearthatIwasreversing
entirelythepositionIhaddevelopedinadoctoraldissertation.Working
withhimhasbeenagreatjoy.IwantespeciallytothanktheGarbanzis,
Lauren Berlant, Roger Rouse, Beth Povinelli, Hank Vogler, Michelle
Jensen, Khalif Malone, Peter Enger, and Lisa Roraback. Lisa, my sister,
saw me through multiple drafts in more ways than I can count. The
bookisdedicatedtoher,inloveandgratitude.
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
REASONABLYVICIOUS Introduction
Introduction
Herearetworemarksdrawnfromrecentworkonethics:
In contemporary philosophy of action, there is a fervid debate about
whether any intentional action must be prompted in part by a desire,
orwhetheritispossibletobemovedtoactionbyabelief—suchasthe
beliefthatdoingso-and-soismorallyrequired—alone.Thedebateall
takesplaceagainstthebackgroundoftheassumptionthatbeliefsand
desiresareasdifferentasgoldandoxygen.1
—RosalindHursthouse
[Myopponents]willinsistthatthefactofanagent’shavingreasonto
do something (say to keep promises) is itself dependent on his feel-
ings,passions,ordesires.2
—PhilippaFoot
Hereisathirdtakenfromworkaboutpracticalreasoning:
Iconjecturethatthecauseofthisfailureofpercipienceisthestandard
approach by which we first distinguish between “action” and what
merelyhappens,andthenspecifythatwearetalkingabout“actions.”
Sowhatweareconsideringisalreadygivenas—inaspecialsense—an
action,andnotjustanyoldthingwhichwedo,suchasmakinganin-
voluntarygesture.3
—ElizabethAnscombe
ItistheaimofthisbooktoarguethatifwetakeAnscombe’ssuggestion
toheart,andifweattendtosomeofhersourcescarefully,thenthecon-
temporary philosophical wrangle over desire will look much less inter-
esting, the discussion of reasons to do something will become more
1
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
2 REASONABLYVICIOUS
focused, and the trouble about explaining the connection between eth-
ics and reason—addressed by both Hursthouse and Foot in different
ways—willstaywithusinitsoldfamiliarform.
Hursthouse’s observation concerns moral psychology (that region of
philosophicalpsychologyconcernedwiththeaspectsofsubjectivitythat
informrationalagency).Foottiestherelevantformofmoralpsychology
toanassociatedpictureofpracticalreason(reasondirectedatactionor
policy). The target they share has many names: “Humeanism” or “neo-
Humeanism,” for instance, or “noncognitivism.” Following one stan-
dardAmericanpractice,Icallitinstrumentalviewsofpracticalreason—
instrumentalism, for short. Instrumentalism takes several forms (dis-
cussedatlengthinthefirstchapter).Whattheyallshareisthethought
thateffectivereasonsforactingmustengagebothbeliefanddesire,that
belief’s role in rational action lies in finding means to ends, in schedul-
ing pursuits, and in making trade-offs when one cannot get everything
onewants.Desire’srole,ontheotherhand,liesinsettingtheendsofhu-
manaction.Desireisfurtherdistinguishedfrombeliefthisway:whereas
belief is by its nature open to rational criticism and assessment (it is a
cognitivestate,astatethataimstotrackthetruthofitsmatter),desireis
tosomeextentimmunefromrationalcriticism(itsaimisrathertomake
itsmattercometrue).Instrumentalismaboutpracticalreasoninvolvesa
familyofwhatIcall(followingAnscombe)calculativeviewsofreasonin
action:viewsthatlocatetheexerciseofpracticalreasonintakingmeans
toends,doingpartsofanactivityinordertodothewhole.Ethicistscare
about instrumentalism because many think that, if instrumentalism is
true,thentherecanbenorationalgroundingforethics.Suppose,forin-
stance, that bad people have no desire to change their ways. If desire is
neededforrationalmotivation,thenitfollowsthattheywillhavenorea-
sontochangetheirways.
The most curious feature of instrumentalism in practical philosophy
is this: instrumentalist views are usually described as standard theories
of practical reason—theories philosophers can take for granted in their
work—but hardly anyone believes that instrumentalism is true, and
there has been an enormous amount of philosophical work in the past
quartercenturysuggestingthatsuchviewsarenotonlyfalse,butwildly
implausible.
When most people in a field of philosophical inquiry take it that the
standardtheoryoftheirtopicisaviewnoonecouldseriouslymaintain
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College