I’m not sure if I’m a rationalist or not, but I think morality is very demanding (under the current conditions), so if I were a rationalist I would say that it is impermissible to let children die from easily preventable causes. We can then supplement this view with a pragmatic theory of praise and blame, so that people aren’t always blameworthy for not living up to the demands of morality. Seems like we end up in a similar boat, no?
Yes, pretty similar! One way to put pressure on maximizing is to consider lower-stakes cases. Consider the smallest possible rational error. Maybe you pass by a dime, initially thinking it isn't worth the bother of picking up, and then later decide that it probably would have been (slightly) worth the (tiny) bother after all. It sounds a bit pathological to insist that you *violated an obligation* here; it's just not that big of a deal.
Insofar as impermissibility is supposed to be a "big deal", and sheer sub-optimality isn't necessarily a big deal, I think if I wasn't a sentimentalist about permissibility I would sooner just stick to scalar consequentialism (and adopt an error theory about permissibility as a concept) rather than positing maximizing "demands" that go above and beyond simply identifying what we have *most reason* to do.
Thx. I wonder if the rationalist has an advantage when it comes to suboptimal altruism? Imagine someone voluntarily choosing to make a suboptimal sacrifice for someone else (in other words, they sacrifice slightly more than the other person gains). Intuitively it seems like, within certain limits, this would be fully justified. I don't think they made any "all-things-considered error". The rationalist can explain this fact by saying that this person did what they had most reason to do given their own subjective weightings of their moral vs. prudential reasons (assuming these weightings qualify as "acceptable").
Oh, that's funny, I would have thought the very opposite! To me it seems completely obvious that disproportionate self-sacrifice is unwarranted (or contrary to reason), but we may permit it on grounds that others don't have standing to criticize you for it, or something like that. So I think the sentimentalist offers the better story here. I guess that suggests it's a nice test case for seeing which way one's own intuitions go!
I think of myself as pretty straight Norcross scalar, but whether I'd be an "error theorist" is really a psychological/linguistic claim about the people around me, isn't it? Except for those who actually believe in divine punishment/reward, karma, etc, it mostly seems like I'd be a noncognitivist about obligation/permissibility; these sentences seem a lot like non-propositional orders or allowances.
I think I'm tempted by a view on which there isn't really a *property* of permissibility. Rather, there's a thing we do when we *say* something is permissible, and this is something like explicitly not blaming or punishing someone. I'm thinking of this along the lines of something like medieval nominalism about the "property". Do you think there is any important difference between this sort of view and the one you call "sentimentalism"?
Yeah, that sounds relevantly similar as far as my practical concerns (not taking permissibility to indicate normative perfection) go. The remaining difference would be that my sentimentalist is committed to there being a fact of the matter regarding when blaming attitudes are *warranted*, which I guess your nominalist can avoid.
You claim that, for the rationalist, "[there] is no all-things-considered practical error involved in prioritizing your self-interest. Accordingly, there is nothing especially correct—or all-things-considered normatively better—about prioritizing the child’s life." I think that rationalists ought only agree to the first claim, and deny that the second claim follows.
For someone who accepts both these claims, saving the child only better in the sense of being 'morally better', but this is symmetric to the 'non-moral betterness' of taking the vacation, and it is the fact that the moral and non-moral values here are at least roughly in balance that makes both options permissible. But rationalists need not believe that the only way for two options to both be permissible is for them to be (roughly) equally good. Thus it might be that saving the child is much better all-things-considered, but some other considerations make taking the vacation rationally comparable. (I don't know if these other considerations have to be 'prerogatives' or if garden-variety reasons will do.) That is, I think rationalists can say that saving the child is best but not rationally superior.
I assume you'll want to resist this, but I'm not sure exactly how. In particular, it would be helpful to know if you think your reasons for resisting are ones which would only be compelling if one was already sympathetic to consequentialism, or if there are more ecumenical motivations in play here.
Hi Jeremy, I mean "better" as in "better decision", not "producing of a higher-value outcome"! Since non-consequentialists care about things other than value, they will take better decisions to come apart from value-promoting ones.
That said, there is a general puzzle about what you could possibly mean by claiming that it is "better all-things-considered", and yet *not* rationally superior, to save the child. (I understand claiming that it is more productive of impartial value and yet not rationally superior. But it would seem a bit odd to identify impartial value with *all-things-considered* betterness, if you think it doesn't actually incorporate all the normative reasons - considerations - that there are!)
Thank you, that's helpful. I agree that the best decision must be the one most strongly supported by reasons. (Indeed, if 'best decision' doesn't mean 'decision that produces the most value' it's hard to see what else it could mean.) Therefore, if the ought of most reason is the (fundamental? most central?) ought of rationality, then yes, the best decision must be rationally superior. What I am thinking is that a rationalist may resist by denying that the ought of rationality is the ought of most reason. Instead, they will claim that the most important deontic rational notion is permissibility (in the lax sense you are describing), and you rationally ought F just when F is your only permissible option. On this view rationality doesn't enjoin us to do what is best, but rather only to meet some lower standard; the point of rational guidance is not to lead us to do the best, but only not to do so badly as to fall below the bar of permissibility.
I am not sympathetic to this view. I accept, as I think you do, that the ought of rationality is the all-things-considered ought, and I find it hard to imagine how something could be the best decision yet not be what I, all things considered, ought to do. But unless you think its definitive of the ought of rationality that it is the all-things-considered ought, or something similar, there seems to be space for the view I describe. And I think that would be the most plausible version of a 'rationalist' view of permissibility in your lax sense.
With utilitarianism, it seems like there is no real justification for the ideas of permissability or supererogatory "options." A lot of utilitarian moral thought experiments are trying to undermine moral intuitions about blameworthiness, obligation, permissability, etc. You're not supposed to feel like the saving the drowning child is optional and so you're not supposed to feel living high and letting die in the developing world is optional.
To the extent that a "sentimentalist" is justified, it must be justified by its ability to bring about better outcomes. I think the most coherent view from the utilitarian perspective is that welfare maximization is obligatory, but it may be less than optimal to have a really reactive and judgemental attitude toward people who don't give 90% of their income and all their extra organs to those in need.
I’m not sure if I’m a rationalist or not, but I think morality is very demanding (under the current conditions), so if I were a rationalist I would say that it is impermissible to let children die from easily preventable causes. We can then supplement this view with a pragmatic theory of praise and blame, so that people aren’t always blameworthy for not living up to the demands of morality. Seems like we end up in a similar boat, no?
Yes, pretty similar! One way to put pressure on maximizing is to consider lower-stakes cases. Consider the smallest possible rational error. Maybe you pass by a dime, initially thinking it isn't worth the bother of picking up, and then later decide that it probably would have been (slightly) worth the (tiny) bother after all. It sounds a bit pathological to insist that you *violated an obligation* here; it's just not that big of a deal.
Insofar as impermissibility is supposed to be a "big deal", and sheer sub-optimality isn't necessarily a big deal, I think if I wasn't a sentimentalist about permissibility I would sooner just stick to scalar consequentialism (and adopt an error theory about permissibility as a concept) rather than positing maximizing "demands" that go above and beyond simply identifying what we have *most reason* to do.
Thx. I wonder if the rationalist has an advantage when it comes to suboptimal altruism? Imagine someone voluntarily choosing to make a suboptimal sacrifice for someone else (in other words, they sacrifice slightly more than the other person gains). Intuitively it seems like, within certain limits, this would be fully justified. I don't think they made any "all-things-considered error". The rationalist can explain this fact by saying that this person did what they had most reason to do given their own subjective weightings of their moral vs. prudential reasons (assuming these weightings qualify as "acceptable").
Oh, that's funny, I would have thought the very opposite! To me it seems completely obvious that disproportionate self-sacrifice is unwarranted (or contrary to reason), but we may permit it on grounds that others don't have standing to criticize you for it, or something like that. So I think the sentimentalist offers the better story here. I guess that suggests it's a nice test case for seeing which way one's own intuitions go!
I think of myself as pretty straight Norcross scalar, but whether I'd be an "error theorist" is really a psychological/linguistic claim about the people around me, isn't it? Except for those who actually believe in divine punishment/reward, karma, etc, it mostly seems like I'd be a noncognitivist about obligation/permissibility; these sentences seem a lot like non-propositional orders or allowances.
I think I'm tempted by a view on which there isn't really a *property* of permissibility. Rather, there's a thing we do when we *say* something is permissible, and this is something like explicitly not blaming or punishing someone. I'm thinking of this along the lines of something like medieval nominalism about the "property". Do you think there is any important difference between this sort of view and the one you call "sentimentalism"?
Yeah, that sounds relevantly similar as far as my practical concerns (not taking permissibility to indicate normative perfection) go. The remaining difference would be that my sentimentalist is committed to there being a fact of the matter regarding when blaming attitudes are *warranted*, which I guess your nominalist can avoid.
Hi Richard
You claim that, for the rationalist, "[there] is no all-things-considered practical error involved in prioritizing your self-interest. Accordingly, there is nothing especially correct—or all-things-considered normatively better—about prioritizing the child’s life." I think that rationalists ought only agree to the first claim, and deny that the second claim follows.
For someone who accepts both these claims, saving the child only better in the sense of being 'morally better', but this is symmetric to the 'non-moral betterness' of taking the vacation, and it is the fact that the moral and non-moral values here are at least roughly in balance that makes both options permissible. But rationalists need not believe that the only way for two options to both be permissible is for them to be (roughly) equally good. Thus it might be that saving the child is much better all-things-considered, but some other considerations make taking the vacation rationally comparable. (I don't know if these other considerations have to be 'prerogatives' or if garden-variety reasons will do.) That is, I think rationalists can say that saving the child is best but not rationally superior.
I assume you'll want to resist this, but I'm not sure exactly how. In particular, it would be helpful to know if you think your reasons for resisting are ones which would only be compelling if one was already sympathetic to consequentialism, or if there are more ecumenical motivations in play here.
Hi Jeremy, I mean "better" as in "better decision", not "producing of a higher-value outcome"! Since non-consequentialists care about things other than value, they will take better decisions to come apart from value-promoting ones.
That said, there is a general puzzle about what you could possibly mean by claiming that it is "better all-things-considered", and yet *not* rationally superior, to save the child. (I understand claiming that it is more productive of impartial value and yet not rationally superior. But it would seem a bit odd to identify impartial value with *all-things-considered* betterness, if you think it doesn't actually incorporate all the normative reasons - considerations - that there are!)
Thank you, that's helpful. I agree that the best decision must be the one most strongly supported by reasons. (Indeed, if 'best decision' doesn't mean 'decision that produces the most value' it's hard to see what else it could mean.) Therefore, if the ought of most reason is the (fundamental? most central?) ought of rationality, then yes, the best decision must be rationally superior. What I am thinking is that a rationalist may resist by denying that the ought of rationality is the ought of most reason. Instead, they will claim that the most important deontic rational notion is permissibility (in the lax sense you are describing), and you rationally ought F just when F is your only permissible option. On this view rationality doesn't enjoin us to do what is best, but rather only to meet some lower standard; the point of rational guidance is not to lead us to do the best, but only not to do so badly as to fall below the bar of permissibility.
I am not sympathetic to this view. I accept, as I think you do, that the ought of rationality is the all-things-considered ought, and I find it hard to imagine how something could be the best decision yet not be what I, all things considered, ought to do. But unless you think its definitive of the ought of rationality that it is the all-things-considered ought, or something similar, there seems to be space for the view I describe. And I think that would be the most plausible version of a 'rationalist' view of permissibility in your lax sense.
With utilitarianism, it seems like there is no real justification for the ideas of permissability or supererogatory "options." A lot of utilitarian moral thought experiments are trying to undermine moral intuitions about blameworthiness, obligation, permissability, etc. You're not supposed to feel like the saving the drowning child is optional and so you're not supposed to feel living high and letting die in the developing world is optional.
To the extent that a "sentimentalist" is justified, it must be justified by its ability to bring about better outcomes. I think the most coherent view from the utilitarian perspective is that welfare maximization is obligatory, but it may be less than optimal to have a really reactive and judgemental attitude toward people who don't give 90% of their income and all their extra organs to those in need.
What you describe is certainly the more orthodox utilitarian perspective! But I prefer to supplement utilitarian reasons for action with broader reasons for fitting attitudes, as explained here: https://www.goodthoughts.blog/p/the-utilitarian-tradition-is-conceptually