(1) The second premise of the Humean argument against moral realism is dubious, independent of issues related to the Humean theory of motivation. It seems to me (and I argue for this on pp. 35-36 of "The knowledge argument, the open question argument, and the moral problem") that part of what we mean when we say, e.g., "So-and-so believes that X is wrong" is that so-and-so has a desire that X not happen (which is compatible with so-and-so's also having a desire that X happen). Thus when we say "So-and-so believes that X is wrong," we say something about so-and-so's motives (or motivating reasons), even if the content of the belief we attribute to so-and-so (=the proposition that X is wrong) is just an empirical fact, e.g. that X fails to maximize utility. (So, no need to posit mystical "magnetic" facts belief in which somehow compels one to have certain motives---we can be moral realists without going in for that.)
(2) I thought the main idea behind Humean theories of free will was that to act freely (in whatever sense acting freely is necessary for doing something for which you're morally responsible) it's enough if you intentionally bring about some harm or benefit (e.g., do some harm by acting on an intention to do harm---shark attacks don't count, since when the shark snacks on the surfer, the shark's intention is to fill its belly, not harm the surfer). True, the fact that you have and act on whatever intentions you do is a consequence of things over which you have no control (at least, if we live in a deterministic universe), but Humeans say that doesn't matter: if you routinely act on harmful desires, that just shows that factors beyond your control have made you a morally shitty person. I think there are problems with this account of freedom (for one thing, it seems to me that most of the harm human beings do results from their acting on intentions to benefit themselves rather than to harm others---thieves wouldn't mind, and in fact would probably prefer it, if the stuff they stole got magically replaced by indistinguishable stuff before the theft was discovered). But I don't think the Humean theory of motivation excludes free will. At least, I don't see how free will is harder to make sense of given the Humean theory than given e.g. ethical intuitionism. If determinism is true, then your having and acting on the ethical intuitions you do is also a result of factors over which you have no control.
Your motivating-reason vs. normative-reason distinction seems to illuminate something about political disagreement that I haven’t seen stated this clearly. Most ideological commitments look like motivating reasons—identity, coalition maintenance, emotional salience—while political philosophy aims at normative reasons that justify principles independently of psychology. That would explain why ideological disputes seldom converge even when the normative arguments seem straightforward. Do you think ideology ever tracks normative reasons directly, or is it almost entirely a motivating-reason phenomenon?
It is possible to have a rational ideology, where you are sincerely pursuing genuine values, in which case your ideology tracks real normative reasons. This may be rare, but surely it sometimes happens.
That makes sense. I agree that a person can hold an ideology that reflects genuine values and tracks normative reasons when their commitments are formed through sincere moral reflection rather than coalition pressures. What I’m trying to understand is how often that actually happens in practice. Given how strong the psychological and social incentives are toward identity-protective reasoning, do you think rational ideologies are the exception rather than the rule? And if so, what distinguishes the cases where ideology really does track normative reasons from the cases where it’s mostly a motivating-reason phenomenon?
Only someone that never acts would have “no reason to pursue consistency or coherence for desires”. How one acts in a particular circumstance will sometimes advance one desire but frustrate another. Then rationality serves the function of figuring out how to act to gain the most satisfaction, which desires to prioritize, which to resist, which to delay.
It seems odd to say that prudence is not based on desire. Hume's position might beg the question, but if so, it seems like a virtuous fallacy if that is possible. Or I just agree with him.
So this challenge to Hume boils down to the objectivity of impartial reasons, to the mechanism that makes us take them as not merely persuasive but facts of the various matters; and we ignore such facts at the same sort of peril that applies when we ignore descriptive facts. Well, that¡s not quite it, as we face some peril even if Hume is right, but maybe the idea makes sense.
Hume's explanation of (supposedly) impartial reasons could be that psychology has developed so that healthy people want to look good to others, and care at least a bit about what sort of society they live in and the people around them. I think he would approve of evolutionary psychology, at least some of it.
It seems difficult to explain how reason overcomes or bypasses desire when an agent commits to impartiality. If some action is impartially best, why does that recommend it? Perhaps the agent has committed to the impartial best as an abstract category. But why make such a commitment? It is easy for me to imagine making such a commitment on the basis of a desire. That desire might ultimately be selfish, or it might be compassionate. But lacking such a desire, the commitment seems mysterious. The alternative must be some Kant-ish argument basing the commitment on reason itself. Maybe Kant succeeded and I just don’t understand his account.
Thank you for the article. I get this viewpoint. I shared it for years and years as a Libertarian who grew up in a Protestant household. My questions about it now come from subjective experience, but mirrored by empirical data on physical traits and their manifestations in physical reality - cultural expression - built on leadership capability or its lack, creative capacity, IQ. We see it also, for example, in not only the acquisition of language and median ages in this acquisition by group - but by the very creation of languages themselves - e.g. Zulu vs Tongalese, or Mandarin, or Old Norse, for example. I’d like to know WHERE the assumption there is a morality that applies to all comes from - without the assumption that there is a benevolent deity overseeing all. All. Every bird in every tree, every nestling which falls from the nest and is eaten by a family of raccoons or tiny biting flies, every banana peel an elderly man trips on his way to the mailbox and subsequently breaks his hip due, every fertile female who brakes her car in an almost-fender bender who then has delayed ovulation whereby the seemingly-spontaneous lunch sex rendezvous with the Mr. makes a female baby instead of a male, all viral splitting, all brutal acts like the IDF masked as ISIS burning up a Georgian pilot, ALL.
If one assumes the latter - the benevolent deity who is somehow benevolent in light of the problem of evil, nonetheless benevolent (somehow) as you implicitly imply benevolence - perhaps the supposition some blanket, discoverable, objective morality in the Universe - divorced from the physical - then makes rational sense. But even in that case, differentiation between individuals which come from groups, would have to end at the neck. I don't see how it'd work otherwise. Ergo: If people are not the same, a “one-size-fits-all” moral code is not just wrong; it is a category error.
If they are the same, then the manifest differences in civilizational output, social organization, and creative capacity must be attributed to external systemic oppression - or wild chance - a hypothesis that requires ignoring the biological reality of every other facet of human existence. Ultimately, this Universalism is not a scientific conclusion - but is a psychological projection.
On that note, I'd like to quote Prof. Ricardo Duchesne - published on the Occidental Observer: "One would think that the existence of a huge literature on the subject of altruism would have provided us with definite answers about the unique nature of White altruism. Not really. Since any discussion about racial differences is prohibited in academia, this behavior is invariably framed as if it were a disposition among humans in general. White academics habitually project their altruistic behaviors to humans as humans." -https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2020/08/08/the-maladapative-altruism-of-white-communities-chapter-7-of-individualism-and-the-western-liberal-tradition/
We move toward a future demanding reconciliation of our biology - which is the cornerstone of all social structures. Continued denial of the former guarantees collapse of the latter. Even Disraeli noted, "All is race. There is no other truth." Are we courageous enough to question how we "know" what we think we know, the motivations and methods of those who taught us, conditioned us? Are we courageous enough to not immediately formulate rebuttals without even revisiting our model of how it all works? Universalism isn't science. It's fantasy divorced from material reality, which is precisely what gives meaning to our own existence. Intellectual honesty improves our ability to hold onto long-term diversity - and the beauty inherent in its various moral systems and understandings of how the Universe works in objective reality.
Two thoughts on this.
(1) The second premise of the Humean argument against moral realism is dubious, independent of issues related to the Humean theory of motivation. It seems to me (and I argue for this on pp. 35-36 of "The knowledge argument, the open question argument, and the moral problem") that part of what we mean when we say, e.g., "So-and-so believes that X is wrong" is that so-and-so has a desire that X not happen (which is compatible with so-and-so's also having a desire that X happen). Thus when we say "So-and-so believes that X is wrong," we say something about so-and-so's motives (or motivating reasons), even if the content of the belief we attribute to so-and-so (=the proposition that X is wrong) is just an empirical fact, e.g. that X fails to maximize utility. (So, no need to posit mystical "magnetic" facts belief in which somehow compels one to have certain motives---we can be moral realists without going in for that.)
(2) I thought the main idea behind Humean theories of free will was that to act freely (in whatever sense acting freely is necessary for doing something for which you're morally responsible) it's enough if you intentionally bring about some harm or benefit (e.g., do some harm by acting on an intention to do harm---shark attacks don't count, since when the shark snacks on the surfer, the shark's intention is to fill its belly, not harm the surfer). True, the fact that you have and act on whatever intentions you do is a consequence of things over which you have no control (at least, if we live in a deterministic universe), but Humeans say that doesn't matter: if you routinely act on harmful desires, that just shows that factors beyond your control have made you a morally shitty person. I think there are problems with this account of freedom (for one thing, it seems to me that most of the harm human beings do results from their acting on intentions to benefit themselves rather than to harm others---thieves wouldn't mind, and in fact would probably prefer it, if the stuff they stole got magically replaced by indistinguishable stuff before the theft was discovered). But I don't think the Humean theory of motivation excludes free will. At least, I don't see how free will is harder to make sense of given the Humean theory than given e.g. ethical intuitionism. If determinism is true, then your having and acting on the ethical intuitions you do is also a result of factors over which you have no control.
Yes, Hume was a compatibilist about free will. However, compatibilism is false (https://fakenous.substack.com/p/freedom-determinism-are-incompatible). Once you reject compatibilism, the Humean theory of reasons makes it hard to accommodate free will.
Your motivating-reason vs. normative-reason distinction seems to illuminate something about political disagreement that I haven’t seen stated this clearly. Most ideological commitments look like motivating reasons—identity, coalition maintenance, emotional salience—while political philosophy aims at normative reasons that justify principles independently of psychology. That would explain why ideological disputes seldom converge even when the normative arguments seem straightforward. Do you think ideology ever tracks normative reasons directly, or is it almost entirely a motivating-reason phenomenon?
It is possible to have a rational ideology, where you are sincerely pursuing genuine values, in which case your ideology tracks real normative reasons. This may be rare, but surely it sometimes happens.
That makes sense. I agree that a person can hold an ideology that reflects genuine values and tracks normative reasons when their commitments are formed through sincere moral reflection rather than coalition pressures. What I’m trying to understand is how often that actually happens in practice. Given how strong the psychological and social incentives are toward identity-protective reasoning, do you think rational ideologies are the exception rather than the rule? And if so, what distinguishes the cases where ideology really does track normative reasons from the cases where it’s mostly a motivating-reason phenomenon?
Interesting but not persuasive.
Only someone that never acts would have “no reason to pursue consistency or coherence for desires”. How one acts in a particular circumstance will sometimes advance one desire but frustrate another. Then rationality serves the function of figuring out how to act to gain the most satisfaction, which desires to prioritize, which to resist, which to delay.
It seems odd to say that prudence is not based on desire. Hume's position might beg the question, but if so, it seems like a virtuous fallacy if that is possible. Or I just agree with him.
So this challenge to Hume boils down to the objectivity of impartial reasons, to the mechanism that makes us take them as not merely persuasive but facts of the various matters; and we ignore such facts at the same sort of peril that applies when we ignore descriptive facts. Well, that¡s not quite it, as we face some peril even if Hume is right, but maybe the idea makes sense.
Hume's explanation of (supposedly) impartial reasons could be that psychology has developed so that healthy people want to look good to others, and care at least a bit about what sort of society they live in and the people around them. I think he would approve of evolutionary psychology, at least some of it.
It seems difficult to explain how reason overcomes or bypasses desire when an agent commits to impartiality. If some action is impartially best, why does that recommend it? Perhaps the agent has committed to the impartial best as an abstract category. But why make such a commitment? It is easy for me to imagine making such a commitment on the basis of a desire. That desire might ultimately be selfish, or it might be compassionate. But lacking such a desire, the commitment seems mysterious. The alternative must be some Kant-ish argument basing the commitment on reason itself. Maybe Kant succeeded and I just don’t understand his account.
Thank you for the article. I get this viewpoint. I shared it for years and years as a Libertarian who grew up in a Protestant household. My questions about it now come from subjective experience, but mirrored by empirical data on physical traits and their manifestations in physical reality - cultural expression - built on leadership capability or its lack, creative capacity, IQ. We see it also, for example, in not only the acquisition of language and median ages in this acquisition by group - but by the very creation of languages themselves - e.g. Zulu vs Tongalese, or Mandarin, or Old Norse, for example. I’d like to know WHERE the assumption there is a morality that applies to all comes from - without the assumption that there is a benevolent deity overseeing all. All. Every bird in every tree, every nestling which falls from the nest and is eaten by a family of raccoons or tiny biting flies, every banana peel an elderly man trips on his way to the mailbox and subsequently breaks his hip due, every fertile female who brakes her car in an almost-fender bender who then has delayed ovulation whereby the seemingly-spontaneous lunch sex rendezvous with the Mr. makes a female baby instead of a male, all viral splitting, all brutal acts like the IDF masked as ISIS burning up a Georgian pilot, ALL.
If one assumes the latter - the benevolent deity who is somehow benevolent in light of the problem of evil, nonetheless benevolent (somehow) as you implicitly imply benevolence - perhaps the supposition some blanket, discoverable, objective morality in the Universe - divorced from the physical - then makes rational sense. But even in that case, differentiation between individuals which come from groups, would have to end at the neck. I don't see how it'd work otherwise. Ergo: If people are not the same, a “one-size-fits-all” moral code is not just wrong; it is a category error.
If they are the same, then the manifest differences in civilizational output, social organization, and creative capacity must be attributed to external systemic oppression - or wild chance - a hypothesis that requires ignoring the biological reality of every other facet of human existence. Ultimately, this Universalism is not a scientific conclusion - but is a psychological projection.
On that note, I'd like to quote Prof. Ricardo Duchesne - published on the Occidental Observer: "One would think that the existence of a huge literature on the subject of altruism would have provided us with definite answers about the unique nature of White altruism. Not really. Since any discussion about racial differences is prohibited in academia, this behavior is invariably framed as if it were a disposition among humans in general. White academics habitually project their altruistic behaviors to humans as humans." -https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2020/08/08/the-maladapative-altruism-of-white-communities-chapter-7-of-individualism-and-the-western-liberal-tradition/
In short, with respect, you’re projecting.
You aren’t describing the nature of the human species, broken up into hybrids created by mating over thousands of years with other hominids - as reported in Nature, Haaretz, and other notable publications - you are engaging in wishful fantasy, and calling it Natural Law. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2016.19394https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-11-08/ty-article-magazine/.premium/remains-of-hybrid-neanderthal-sapiens-population-found-in-israel/0000017f-dbcf-db5a-a57f-dbef18940000
We move toward a future demanding reconciliation of our biology - which is the cornerstone of all social structures. Continued denial of the former guarantees collapse of the latter. Even Disraeli noted, "All is race. There is no other truth." Are we courageous enough to question how we "know" what we think we know, the motivations and methods of those who taught us, conditioned us? Are we courageous enough to not immediately formulate rebuttals without even revisiting our model of how it all works? Universalism isn't science. It's fantasy divorced from material reality, which is precisely what gives meaning to our own existence. Intellectual honesty improves our ability to hold onto long-term diversity - and the beauty inherent in its various moral systems and understandings of how the Universe works in objective reality.