Parfit, Derek - Ch 7 Moral Concepts

05/11/2012

On What Matters, Vol 1 Ch 7, Oxford University Press 2011

This is author's first main chapter on morality, and it starts by enumerating the various senses of "wrong"-- first the the ordinary sense, where someone has all the morally-relevant facts. The successive senses involve cases of partial ignorance:
Fact-relative: x is wrong if B had all the relevant facts
Belief-relative: x is wrong if B had true beliefs about the relevant facts
Evidence-relative: x is wrong if B had enough evidence to believe relevant facts

The reason for drawing these distinctions is to account for moral luck, where the consequences turn out right despite one's beliefs, or one's available evidence, or one's intentions. Author goes through a variety of cases. Cases one and two show there is a moral sense of "wrong" that is greater than belief-relative cases. (pg151-2) Cases three and four show there is a moral sense of "wrong" that is greater than evidence-relevant senses. (pg152-3) Cases five and six try to show there is a moral sense of "wrong" that is greater than fact-relevant senses. (pg153) Interestingly, author places epistemic incompetence, or failing to believe x when presented with relevant evidence, as not morally culpable, even if such incompetence fails to correct an unjustified belief that plays a part in deliberation in a moral situation. (pg153) Author's first reason for using all three senses is that other people use all three senses, so it is wise to keep the usage but guide the terminology (pg153-4).

The next discussion is about what the different senses of "wrong" pick out, and the importance of what is picked out. With the belief-relevant senses, if B was right about the facts, B's acts would be ordinarily wrong (trying to kill someone). So for blameworthiness, belief-relevance is crucial. Fact-relevance is less so, or at least that is an intuition shared especially by kantians. However, author discusses and rejects semi-kantians (pg156-7) who believe that fact-relevance in blameworthiness is sometimes partially a factor. Author introduces another sense of "wrong": the moral-belief-relative sense: when B believes x is wrong in the ordinary sense. This is meant to accommodate the Thomistic view, which is that: if you think you're doing something wrong, you're doing something wrong. Author agrees this might be blameworthy in the moral-belief-relative sense, even if it is not wrong in the evidence- or fact-relevant sense.

Another important question aside from blameworthiness is deliberation about what to do (pg159-. Here author hews toward evidence-relative factors and "expectablism", especially when looking for outcomes (pg160-1).

What relevance does the fact-relevant sense of "wrong" or "ought" have then? Author answers by claiming that discovering true moral principles is one reason to use the fact-relevant sense. Fact-relevant senses of ought are the most fundamental, leading most straight-forwardly to the ordinary sense of wrong and ought. (pg162) Then there are senses of what B ought-practically to do, where evidence-relevant senses come into play, as do belief-relative and "moral/normative-belief-relative" senses.

Author then moves from the ordinary sense of wrong (which took the various different senses, above) to other possible senses of the concept (pg164-5). The first major point author makes is that there is a basic sense of wrong that is indefinable. There are other senses like "blameworthiness" and "unjustifiable" that are definable (pg165-6).  Next author discusses the language of morality at the nexus of reason-implying senses of the words. (pg166-8) Most interestingly, author considers Rational Egoism an "external rival" to morality. But similarly, Act Consequentialism, the most fundamental form of Utilitarianism, is also considered an external rival (pg168-9).

Author circles back to the multiple senses of "wrong" and why author holds there are many (pg169-170). One reason writers think there is only one sense is that we believe we are in legitimate disagreement when we argue over moral cases. Author considers these weak and not plausible enough to underwrite one sense of "wrong" (pg170-1). Lastly, author discusses the reason-implying senses of "ought" and "wrong" (pg172-4).