Moral Appraisability: Puzzles, Proposals, and Perplexities

284 Pages·1998·19.5 MB·English

by  Ishtiyaque Haji

MORAL APPRAISABILITY
This page intentionally left blank
MORAL
APPRAISABILITY
Puzzles,
Proposals,
and Perplexities
ISHTIYAQUE HAJI
New York • Oxford
Oxford University Press
1998
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires
Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong
Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne
Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1998 by Ishtiyaque Haji
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haji, Ishtiyaque.
Moral appraisability: puzzles, proposals, and perplexities
Ishtiyaque Haji.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN o-19-511474-4
1. Ethics. 2. Free will and determinism. 3. Responsibility.
I. Title.
BJ1461.H26 1997
170—dc21 96-40432
1 3 5798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For my mentors
This page intentionally left blank
PREFACE
Among the grandest of philosophical puzzles is a riddle about moral responsibility.
Almost all of us believe that each one of us is, has been, or will be responsible
for at least some of our behavior. But how can this be so if determinism is true
and all our thoughts, decisions, choices, and actions are simply droplets in a river
of deterministic events that began its flow long, long before we were ever born?
The specter of determinism, as it were, devours agents, for if determinism is true,
then arguably we never initiate or control our actions; there is no driver in the
driver's seat; we are simply one transitional link in an extended deterministic
chain originating long before our time. The puzzle is tantalizingly gripping and
ever so perplexing—because even if determinism is false, responsibility seems im-
possible: how can we be morally accountable for behavior that issues from an
"actional pathway" in which there is an indeterministic break? Such a break might
free us from domination or regulation by the past, but how can it possibly help to
ensure that the reins of control are now in our hands?
This book is concerned with aspects of this age-old grand puzzle. I distinguish
between moral responsibility and moral appraisability, the latter being more re-
strictive than the former. To say that a person is morally appraisable for an action
is to say that the person is deserving of either moral blame or praise for that
action. I begin by explaining what moral appraisability is. I propose, roughly, the
following analysis: one is morally appraisable for performing some action just in
case one performs it freely (that is, one has what I call "volitional control" in
VIII PREFACE
performing it), autonomously (that is, it issues from what I call an "authentic
evaluative scheme"), and in the belief that one is doing something morally obliga-
tory, right, or wrong. Next, I trace certain implications of the analysis. Specifi-
cally, first I suggest that the conditions registered in the analysis, with suitable
amendments, capture conditions for nonmoral but other normative varieties of
appraisability like etiquettical or prudential appraisability. One result of this ex-
ploration into varieties of appraisability that will undoubtedly strike many as con-
troversial is that, even if appraisability is not undermined either by determinism
or indeterminism, most of us most of the time are not morally appraisable for what
we do. Second, I discuss the implications of the analysis for what I dub "intersoci-
etal" attributions oi blameworthiness: people who are not part of a particular
culture—"outsiders" relative to a culture—often attribute blame to a person
within that culture for doing something regarded as morally repulsive by the out-
siders. Relying on the epistemic element of my analysis—that blameworthiness
requires belief in what is wrong (and not "objective" wrongness)—I argue that
outsiders' attributions of blame are probably frequently erroneous. Third, I address
the concern of whether addicts can be morally appraisable for behavior that is, in
some significant fashion, caused by the drug or drugs to which they are addicted.
Fourth and finally, falling back partly on conclusions I draw regarding appraisabil-
ity for unconscious thoughts, I argue that we can be appraisable for some of the
thoughts of our dream selves (at least if dreams are experiences involving mental
activity). My last objective in this work is to motivate the suggestion that the
three conditions laid down in the analysis of appraisability I defend are threatened
neither by determinism nor by (certain varieties) of indeterminism.
My chief expository device is the use of a whole slew of cases in which agents
act or are acted on in various ways that highlight one of the three aspects of
moral appraisability under discussion: the freedom or control aspect, the epistemic
aspect, or the autonomy or authenticity aspect. The cases serve to set up various
riddles about appraisability. I follow with proposals for resolution, and, finally, I
discuss residual (often numerous residual) problems or perplexities.
The book, I think, will be of interest to philosophers and students of philoso-
phy. Those in related disciplines, like law, should, I expect, also unearth some-
thing of value in it. But I very much hope, in addition, that people from all walks
of life, engaged in practices like praising, blaming, rewarding, and punishing—
practices that frequently contribute toward making our lives vibrant, cataclysmic,
or comic—will find something engaging in the ensuing pages. In the interest of
readability, I have striven to keep the prose simple and devoid of unnecessary
technical expressions.
Some of the writing for this book was done in 1995, during my tenure of a
Summer Fellowship for College Teachers from the National Endowment for the
Humanities (NEH). I am grateful to the NEH. Various chapters were refined and
completed in the following summer during which my work was partially supported
by a Faculty Summer Research Fellowship and the President's Faculty Minority
Research Grant (awarded by the University of Minnesota), and a McKnight Sum-
mer Fellowship for the Arts and Humanities. I thank the Office of the Vice Presi-
PREFACE IX
dent for Research of the University of Minnesota and the McKnight Foundation
for their generous support.
Parts of the following previously published articles of mine appear either verba-
tim or modified in the book: "Liberating Constraints," The Journal of Philosophical
Research 22 (1997); "Blameworthiness, Character and Cultural Norms," The Jour-
nal of Social Philosophy 27 (1996); "Moral Responsibility and the Problem of In-
duced Pro-Attitudes," Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review 35 (1996); "An Epi-
stemic Dimension of Blameworthiness," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
57 (1997); "Autonomy and Blameworthiness," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 24
(1994); and "Doing the Best One Can and the Principle of Alternative Possibili-
ties," Southwest Philosophy Review 10 (1994). I am grateful to the editors and pub-
lishers for their permission to use material from these essays.
I owe a special debt to Michael Zimmerman, Al Mele, and John Fischer. It
was really Michael who rekindled my interest in the grand riddle of responsibility;
he provided detailed comments, which were insightful and constructive, on a late
draft of the entire manuscript, as well as on a number of exploratory essays on
responsibility. I am extremely grateful to him for his supererogatory efforts to help,
his support, and his companionship. Al helped considerably with early versions of
some chapters, and I thank him for his commentary. I am also deeply indebted to
John Fischer and Mark Ravizza, from whose work I have benefited greatly; my
special thanks to John for his tremendous support. Fred Feldman has been a con-
stant source of assistance and encouragement; indeed it was on Fred's strong rec-
ommendation that I began work on the book. I thank him for all his help and
support. I am very grateful to Gary Matthews, who convinced me to take Au-
gustine's views on the moral dream problem seriously. Many other friends and
colleagues helped in one way or another with portions of the material in the
book. In particular, I thank Ken Akiba, David Copp, Beth Dixon, Peter French,
Lory Lemke, Michael McKenna, and Kadri Vihvelin. My sincere thanks, too, to
Dwight Purdy for his enormous confidence in me and his friendly reassurance. I
give special thanks to Cynthia Read of Oxford University Press, and to Robert
Milks and the production staff at Oxford for their invaluable editorial assistance.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude, finally, to Shaheen my wife, for
the love she gave me to see the work to completion and for all the "bad-Ish" sorts
of things with which she had to put up during the times I worked on the book,
and to my mother, Khatoon, who has been a wonderful, wonderful source of
inspiration.
This page intentionally left blank