Donagan, Alan - Second-Order Precepts

9/10/2010

The Theory of Morality, Ch 4 University of Chicago Press, 1979

This chapter deals with intentions and culpability. Relying on the discussion from section 2.2 of chapter 2, author reminds us that one can perform an impermissible action yet be inculpable, or conversely be culpable after performing a permissible one. This is because actions are intensional, opaque to substitution of similarly referring expressions. (This is old philosophical ground.) Author goes through a prolonged discussion of human agency. An action from a human isn't necessarily representative of her agency-- it could be involuntarily like the beating of a heart. 'Acts', rather than 'actions' are 'ascribable to a man as a doer'. (pg113) Yet author reverts back to describing 'human actions' as those containing human agency (pg114). The taxonomy breaks down as follows:
-There are physical actions and physical acts, and physical acts can be voluntary or involuntary
-There are just mental acts, but some are still voluntary and some involuntary (e.g. seeing a teacup on the table is a mental occurrence but not really voluntary-- it is perceptual or sensational)
-Whenever a human acts voluntarily, aka knowingly/wittingly, this is an example of agency.
Author rejects a colloquial version of "voluntary" in favor of a strict one: an act done with agency, knowingly, is voluntary. If you are threatened with death or the performance of an act, that act, if you choose to perform it, is voluntary. (pg115)

Author engages in a prolonged discussion clarifying author's theory of human agency. First is to reject the believe-desire pair as causal for human action (acts) but rather as supplying motivations. (pg115-6) An interesting aside is made by author where he considers how someone might contemplate what profession to pursue and how 'it is quite possible that he will have no inclination to any.' (pg117) [This is a comment on my belief that humans are unable to make such macro choices.] The next discussion is about the inability to substitute predicates or objects under different descriptions when describing a person's human action (act). The idea goes as follows: that Oedipus did voluntarily kill a 'haughty stranger' at the crossroads is true. That he voluntarily killed his father is false. Yet the haughty stranger was his father. That it isn't possible to substitute descriptors and preserve truth is the mark of the intensional, rather than the extensional. Author's solution: "An act will be said to be voluntary only as falling under the descriptions which its agent is aware it falls under." (pg118-119) This leads to taxonomic trouble, since there are human actions that are now not voluntary (e.g. Oedipus killing his father). Author borrows from Davidson for his solution: all human actions are due to human agency, but they are only voluntary if falling under certain descriptions. (pg120)

So, to reiterate: human actions (acts) are a subset of actions-involving-humans, and human actions (acts) are all expressions of human agency. Human agency performs all acts, and those acts (however described) are a product of human agency. However, they are only considered voluntary if they fall under the description the human agent was aware of or did wittingly. The moral precepts of what acts are permissible and impermissible are intensional-- that is, an act must not fall into a certain description. However, there can be cases where a human action (act) violates a precept but the agent did not know it. (pg121) In such a case, it is a violation of respect due to a rational creature to hold someone responsible for acts that fall under descriptions she did not know about. "Actions are culpable only as falling under descriptions under which they are voluntary, that is, done knowingly" (pg121-2)

The next distinction (4.2) involves intentions. Intentions are a subset of voluntary actions, and are done 'according to a plan', though it doesn't have to be explicit. (pg122) Author resists thinking of human action as causal consequences of intentions (pg123-4), and also resists the thinking that someone intends all the foreseeable consequences of her actions (pg124), using the Christian/martyrdom example again. (Imagine a Christian who is threatened that he must either renounce his religion or be killed. Author wants to resist the idea that, if he refuses to renounce, he intended his own death.) However, just because one doesn't intend something she does voluntarily and knowingly, that does not remove her culpability. Thus there is the case of the creditor who knows he will ruin the debtor if he calls for payment, but doesn't intend to ruin him, just to receive his payment. He is responsible for all foreseeable consequences, not just the intended ones (pg125). Intentions, then, are morally important not because they can excuse someone from culpability, but because they can add a special dimension of culpability. This dimension is one of intending to perform an impermissible human action (act) but the act fails to come about for whatever reason; it is impermissible to intend what it is impermissible to do. (pg125) Author seems to think there is some difficulty here since occasionally one may willingly commit violence against another with the sole intention of committing violence against that other, but knowing that she does so justly because e.g. it is defending a third party from the unjust aggression of the other. Because of the possibility of doing the right thing but with the wrong intentions, author adds the precept 'it is impermissible to do what it is impermissible to intend'. (pg127)

Author then moves on to ignorance, and how it may reduce (or not) culpability. Since voluntary actions are knowing actions, an action from ignorance can be involuntary, therefore, inculpable. However, there are kinds of ignorance, and not all kinds are the right sort to eliminate culpability. Author distinguishes between two kinds to start: ignorance of the non-moral facts (that the 'haughty stranger' = your father), or ignorance of moral facts (that you shouldn't kill your father). Author sides with traditional practice in not excusing ignorance of moral facts, at least for a fully rational agent. (pg128) So perhaps ignorance of the non-moral facts could reduce culpability; author then introduces two more distinctions: acts done because of ignorance, and acts done in ignorance. Further distinctions immediately follow: two kinds of acts done in ignorance: acts that aren't complete human actions due to some impairment; and acts that are done without knowing particular non-moral facts, but even if they had been known, they wouldn't have affected the outcome.

So the taxonomy of ignorance is as follows:
-ignorance of moral facts = culpable
-ignorance of non-moral facts: two kinds: acts because of ignorance vs acts in ignorance
-acts because of ignorance: in these circumstances, one must examine the intentions
-acts in ignorance: two kinds: impaired or non-caring
In the case of acts because of ignorance, author argues that one can be inculpable only if, once informed, an agent would have acted permissibly, that is, the agents intentions were good. (pg130)
In the first case of 'in ignorance', the agent is inculpable unless she could have prevented her impairment, in which case being impaired is similar to having affected ignorance-- a spurious excuse and culpable. In the second case, where the agent does not care what the non-moral facts are, author pronounces her culpable. (pg129) Another close relative to this is recklessness. Ultimately author wants to find the precept that ignorance is culpable iff it springs from negligence-- from want of due care.

The final discussion of the chapter involves the conscience. Author argues that the conscience is largely influenced by cultural norms and expectations, using the example of Huckleberry Finn's bad conscience about letting Miss Watson's property, a slave named Jim, run off. The right thing was to help this slave escape, but it was contrary to Finn's conscience. (pg131-2) Author examines the historical place of conscience-- as a faculty or a disposition (pg132-3). The trouble with a conscience is that it can produce honest cases of disagreement. Since this is contrary to a deontological theory of morality, author is committed to consciences being error prone. However, one becomes culpable if one disobeys the judgment of her conscience, even if her conscience is in error. (pg135-6) Author then aims to clarify the confusion some philosophers have over the distinctions between conscience and second-order precepts and first-order precepts, using Prichard's "Duty and Ignorance of Fact" and Ross' "The Foundations of Ethics" as targets. Since conscience can err, those in the right may force people to act permissibly against their conscience, e.g. force conscription or, perhaps, to force fundamentalist Muslims to allow women to go to school.

Lastly (4.5), author discusses a moral hazard: the corruption of one's consciousness and downfall of her conscience. The explanation is that a human agent can choose what to focus on, what to pay attention to-- how to direct one's attention to particular facts (and not to others). It becomes a "sham" when one fixes her consciousness on just one particular fact to the exclusion of other pertinent ones. Yet it can allow for denial of the relevant moral considerations that might lead to the right conclusion about what to do. This is a short theory of human mental life that accounts for how the conscience of one agent, or even a whole society, can become corrupted.