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MODEL OF NEUTRAL-INCLUSIVITY by Vinsent Nandi, 41 aSWW



BOOK OF INSTRUMENTS, PART III [chapters 7-9]



7  ELEMENTS OF NORMATIVE PHILOSOPHY


7.1  ABOUT SAYING WHAT SHOULD BE


7.1.1  ONTOLOGICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL PRELIMINARIES


An attribute or relation is a kind of secondary entity (if not of a higher
order) which a primary entity, like a person, has (or had or will have), can
have or should have; or which it does not, cannot or should not have. If it
has it, this having of the predicate in question is a (specific) fact, that
is, a factual condition; if it can have it, a modal condition; if it should
or ought to have it, a normative condition. As explained in section 3.1.3,
the concept fact must be defined in terms of a nonmodal, nonnormative is or
has, and the concept norm or normative condition in terms of a nonfactual,
nonmodal should (be/have). A 'normative condition' is, then, a specific
situation in which a universal or general 'norm' applies. Neither norms nor
normative conditions, or, for that matter, modal or factual conditions, are
entities in the first- or second- or any higher-order domain of discourse.
Thus, on our ontology a normative condition does in no way resemble an
attribute or relation as existing in the second- or a higher-order
predicative domain. That is also why it is preferable to speak of "auxiliary
series" rather than of "catenas of factual values" (that is, degrees of
realization), "modal values" (probabilities) and "normative values", each
corresponding to their own attribute or relation.

If something has a high value on the normative auxiliary it may be called
"normatively superior" or "good", and if something produces a high or higher
value, "right". It is obvious that such a value, or 'goodness' or
'rightness', is not a quality like tallness or any other primary attribute.
If 'goodness' is applied to a person or other primary thing, it does at
least play the same role as a primary attribute, but if it is applied to
attributes, relations or situations even that is not the case.

Value (in the normative sense), goodness and rightness have to be defined in
terms of normative superiority, or of a normative auxiliary. The connection
is that something that should be, should be had or should be done is itself
normatively superior or promotes what is normatively superior. One may also
reverse the definitions and define (normative) superiority or should in
terms of (normative) value or goodness. Whichever way is preferred on this
level of reasoning, there is some conception involved which is incapable of
definition. In the factual sphere it is fact, (factual) value, degree of
realization or (factual) being which is equally incapable of definition.
This has been argued before, but with the use of the wrong analogies.

We must start with noting that, while they belong to the same auxiliary
series, goodness and badness correspond to different 'values'. (Now using
value in a general, auxiliary sense.) When goodness is then compared with,
for example, factual tallness, this tallness corresponds to particular
values of the collection of a particular predicate catena. If the normative
auxiliary series has negative, neutral and positive values like a catena,
and if goodness corresponds to (a) positive value(s), then goodness is
normative positivity, and then its analog in the factual sphere is factual
positivity. Perhaps tallness is a form of factual positivity, but it is not
factual positivity itself. The analog of factual tallness is not goodness
but normative tallness, that is, the normative condition (or 'fact' in a
loose sense) that something should be tall. Even if both goodness and
tallness were incapable of definition, it would not be because they have the
same status.

A major objection against goodness being indefinable like redness or some
other 'absolutely simple quality' is that people do not all agree that
certain objects are good in the way they all agree that certain objects are
red --and tall?--. There is no test for value, it is said, like there is a
test for fact. The correct analogy, however, is not between tallness or
redness and goodness, but between the question whether a certain object is
tall or red, and the question whether it should be tall or red. But, for the
sake of argument let us agree that there is a test for the former, and not
for the latter. The kind of test referred to is, then, one which makes use
of 'absolutely simple' observations, at least so far as a factual condition
like that of redness is concerned. Yet, even without these kinds of test,
people usually do have theoretical, ethical standards by which they judge
whether something should or should not be the case in a moral sense. To
arrive at such judgments it suffices to have one or a limited number of
general normative premises, but it is indeed never possible to observe in a
direct sense whether something should or should not be the case, like it is
sometimes possible to directly perceive whether something is or is not the
case.

Ethical intuitionists would not agree with what is averred here: they claim
that what makes something good is a direct sense or feeling on a person's
part that it is so, or --reformulated in terms of the triadic sphericity of
reality-- what makes something as it should be is a feeling on a person's
part that it is as it should be. However, this sort of reasoning which
confuses the world with thoughts or feelings about the world we must
repudiate as we did several times before. Also our position towards
intuitionism is instrumentalistic tho: we can live with the diehards of
intuitionism who are not willing to give up their belief. All we demand is
that they intuit the same as what we arrive at by thinking about it, and
that they accept that what we arrive at by reasoning is the same as what we
would have apprehended by intuition. Should they intuit something different,
while wanting to convince us nevertheless, they will have to turn to
reasoning as well, whether they like it or not. (And since even
mathematicians have given up the belief in a priori concepts and
self-evident truths, they had better be prepared.)



7.1.2  OBJECTIVISM VERSUS SUBJECTIVISM


The question of how to establish or prove that a certain action is right or
wrong is used as an argument against objectivism. Objectivists argue that
normative propositions have an objective reference in the same way as
factual propositions. Objectivism is also used as a synonym of
epistemological realism, the theory that reality exists independently of the
mind. Our own ontology is definitely realistic in the epistemological sense
as we have assumed that there is a reality independent of the mind. It is
not objectivistic in that we take norms or normative conditions to be
objective entities or qualities such as planets, people or attributes, but
in that we say that normative statements can be true or false, just like
factual ones, independently of the person making the statement. (The belief
that they are true or false is in itself cognitivism, but all objectivism is
cognitivistic.) What we thus oppose is the view of subjectivists who claim
that judgments such as stealing is wrong are neither true nor false
(noncognitivist subjectivism) or else that the utterance only describes the
psychological state of the person saying it (cognitivist subjectivism).

A third position between objectivism and subjectivism is the theory that
values have a relational status, that they are 'neither exclusively a
property of objects or acts nor exclusively created by human beings', and
that they thus have both a subjective and an objective aspect. Yet, those
who conceive of value in this way think of something like a diamond which is
said to be only 'valuable to someone and in some capacity'. This sort of
value, however, is instrumental. The relational status cannot hold for
ultimate values of a universal nature. For example, if happiness is a value
in itself the value relation does not concern the value of happiness as
such, but an object which can indeed be valuable to a happiness-catenal in
its capacity of something that makes happy or happier. The so-called 'value'
of the object is then another type of value than the value happiness and,
more importantly, it presupposes happiness as a value in itself. This third
position must therefore still rest upon an objectivist premise with regard
to at least one ultimate value.

The type of subjectivism which teaches that ethical judgments are neither
true nor false but are 'merely expressive of the feelings of those who utter
them and evocative of the feelings of those who listen to them' is
emotivism. This type of ethical theory is not only subjectivistic but also
'noncognitive' (or 'nondescriptive'). Noncognitivists deny the 'possibility
of proving, demonstrating or otherwise establishing that something is good
or right' or that people should 'morally act in certain ways or refrain from
acting in certain ways'. Some noncognitivists teach that ethical judgments
are simply expressions of emotions 'much like ejaculations' (while not
saying the same about factual judgments). Carried to an extreme,
subjectivism and noncognitivism thus terminate in normative skepticism or
degenerate into value-nihilism.

There are at least two reasons why we shall not embrace subjectivism and
noncognitivism in general: firstly, because of the impersonal, normative
assertions which can plausibly be made as discussed in section 3.2.3 (for a
start they concern truth and relevance as values in themselves); and
secondly, the fact that normative theorizing ultimately depends on one or
more general hypotheses is not what distinguishes it from scientific,
factual theorizing. Also science has its postulates, albeit primarily
factual instead of normative ones. But for the noncognitivist or
subjectivist who feels like desperately sticking to 'er position, we have a
similar message as for intuitionists: if your judgment is merely an emotion
or kind of wish, let your emotion or kind of wish be the same as our
judgment; if not, we will have to talk about it, and then you will have to
try to justify your judgment in a rational or valid way. It does not follow
that a subjectivist, noncognitivist theory such as emotivism is, or has
been, a worthless theory -- on the contrary. Even while holding the
objectivist view that normative propositions are true or false and not
(necessarily) about the psychology of a particular person, we can admit that
uttering a certain normative proposition does express the speaker's
attitude, and that the aim of the utterance is to evoke a similar attitude
in the listener. What emotivists have also stressed is the difference
between the conceptual or descriptive and the evaluative or emotive meanings
of words (as explained in 3.3.2). This difference is most useful to
distinguish normative judgments which are analytically true (like one should
not steal and other intuitionist pet examples) from more informative ones.

Cognitivist theories are either factualist or nonfactualist. Factualist
theories (called "definist" by others) claim that should or ought can be
defined in terms of is, or that normative values can be derived from facts.
They do not recognize the triadic sphericity of reality. (It might be
interesting to investigate if and why the modal sphere remains a separate
sphere nevertheless.) The best-known kind of factualist theory is (ethical)
naturalism, according to which all ethical judgments are not only true or
false but also entirely reducible to natural science. Nonfactualist theories
(often called "nonnaturalistic") deny that words such as should and good are
entirely definable in nonnormative terms. Altho nonnaturalism is used by
some as a synonym of intuitionism, we shall understand by 'an intuitionist
theory' a 'theory which professes that basic principles and value judgments
are intuitive or self-evident'. With our strict separation of the normative
from the factual and modal spheres, our own position is also a nonfactualist
one, but it is at the same time nonintuitionistic in that we are not willing
to depend on more intuition or on more, or less plausible, 'self-evident
truths' than in natural science. Science is not primarily to provide us with
crucial, factual information about the ground-world as in naturalist
theories; science (or philosophy of science) is primarily to provide us with
crucial, normative information about disciplinary thought itself.

Opponents of those who have attempted to define ought in terms of is have
said that people commit the 'naturalist fallacy' by identifying a normative
judgment with a factual one, or by arguing from premises of one logical type
(descriptions) to conclusions of another logical type (prescriptions). This
accusation has triggered off a whole series of arguments and
counterarguments. In this debate neither party seems, or seemed, to realize
that logics cannot prove the one or the other position to be the sole
correct one, because before anyone is able to judge whether a factualist
argument is valid or not in 'the' logical sense, the two parties will first
have to agree on an ontological framework in which to express their
nonnormative, factual and either their pseudonormative, factual or their
'truly' normative propositions. Every logical 'proof' of a factualist or
antifactualist argument therefore begs the question. And not surprisingly,
for in the end the two positions amount to exactly the same in practise.
Leaving aside the modal sphere, the factualist calls all 'er judgments
"factual". But this all is metaphysical --see 1.7.1--: where all judgments
are factual, no judgment is. What happens is that the factualist must
differentiate 'truly' nonnormative, factual and something like
'pseudonormative', factual judgments. This, however, will make none of the
normative issues we raise and none of the normative statements we make less
serious or more trivial. To be more clear about the nature of these issues
and statements, they might as well be termed "normative" straight away,
instead of something like "pseudonormatively factual".

To sum up: objectivists are (if consistent) always cognitivists, but these
cognitivist objectivists may be either factualists or nonfactualists;
subjectivists are either cognitivists or noncognitivists; cognitivist
subjectivists are always nonfactualists. Our own position is objectivistic,
cognitivistic and nonfactualistic, but insofar as this is a question of
ontology our attitude towards this choice itself is instrumentalistic. For
us ontology is a means, not an end in itself. On our account what is is
ontologically entirely separate from what probably is/can be, and this again
entirely separate from what should be. This does not mean that the belief in
what is (not) and can(not) be is not very often determined by the belief in
what should (not) be, and vice versa. The belief in what cannot be, for
instance, is but too often a mere expression of the lack of belief in what
should be.



7.1.3  MONISM VERSUS PLURALISM


The usual criticism against nonfactualist objectivism is that there is no
test for value, that there are no ways to establish or prove that a certain
action is right or wrong. Subjectivists are eager to point out that what is
lacking in moral disputes is 'the acceptance of a common method' (like the
experimental method in empirical science) and 'the willingness of both sides
to accept the judgment of disinterested observers after they have examined
the evidence'. The question is then, first of all, the acceptance of a
common method by whom?. An experimental scientific method, for instance, may
be accepted by all scientists, or all people adhering to the same scientific
paradigm, yet it is definitely not accepted by supernaturalists. (This is
not to preclude the psychosocial possibility that one and the same person
may be a scientist in the lab and a supernaturalist in the temple.) Why
should it be required that a normative method be accepted by all people
while no scientific method has ever been adopted by all people in all places
or circumstances?

Another part of the criticism against nonfactualist objectivism focuses on
experiments and on observers who examine evidence, but this is a requirement
which can logically only be made with respect to factual disciplinary
thought. Yet, as follows from our analysis in The normativeness of 'purely
descriptive' theorizing (3.2.3), the criticism itself objectively
establishes a number of values, namely truth (or falsity as a disvalue),
relevance (or irrelevance as a disvalue), one or more focuses of relevancy
and some principle of conceptual and axiomatic austerity. As soon as a
subjectivist claims that there is no test for value and expects this to be
not a merely factual, personal utterance, but a valid criticism of
objectivism, 'e implicitly takes it that both a subjectivist and an
objectivist must (or ought to) agree that tests themselves have value. Why
would they have value? To make sure that the normative judgments are at
least not false or irrelevant. The subjectivist's criticism thus contains an
intersubjective or objective, normative core itself, namely that truth and
relevance are fundamental values, and that tests have an instrumental value
because they serve to establish what judgments are plausible in the light of
truth and relevance.

No normative theory is adequate which does not somehow have truth and
relevance as explicit or implicit principles. But we will now take a brief
look at the role of austerity or simplicity. All science is governed by some
principle of simplicity. When comparing scientific with normative,
disciplinary thought one can therefore not forgo the question what such a
principle entails when governing a normative doctrine, not only with respect
to its concepts but particularly with respect to its normative ground-world
principle or principles.

Of two theories which are, or could, both be true, and which have the same
substantive scope, the one is more simple than the other if it makes fewer
distinctions, that is, fewer irrelevant distinctions. To aim at disciplinary
simplicity is therefore to aim at an undifferentiated oneness without
encroaching upon truth and relevance, and without diminishing the
informative content of the theory. (If informative content did not matter,
the simplest theory possible would be something like Truth is.) The attitude
underlying the principle of simplicity is the same as that underlying the
so-called 'principle of the uniformity of nature' in empirical science,
which reads that 'the course of nature continues always uniformly the same'
and that 'instances of which we have had no experience resemble those of
which we have had experience'. It cannot be proved that this principle is
true; it functions as a universal hypothesis in inductivist science, and it
furnishes the more specific hypotheses in more specific theories. Once the
specialist scientific theories have been developed with their own specialist
principles there is bound to arise a need to search for the lost unity. It
is then that scientists may start looking upon different types of physical
forces as all representing one archetype. They may accomplish unification
directly in that they manage to describe the various forces under one
heading in one theory; or indirectly in that they still must be dealt with
in several theories, but with complete analogies between those theories or
their mathematical equations.

The ideal of a unitary field in science, or in certain departments of
science, is a factual type of monism. The meaning of this monism is
different in philosophical and religious metaphysics. There it refers to the
view that there is merely one kind of ultimate substance in the universe.
This kind of substance may be called "matter", "mind" or "the abstract"; it
may be called "the ultimate, undefinable reality which is beyond all
concepts and cannot be comprehended by the intellect or adequately described
in words"; it may also be 'one truly substantial thing' in the whole
universe like nature or a 'supreme soul without beginning or end'. A form of
normative monism in ideology is normative authoritarianism. While the prime
example of authoritarian practise may be political, the prime example of
authoritarian theory (and perhaps practise as well) is orthodox monotheism.
It teaches that the moral code is an objective and infallible guide to
correct behavior which is the expression of the will of a supreme being (the
ubiquitous Mono of the previous chapter). If Mono would have proscribed and
prescribed the very opposites of what he is believed to have proscribed and
prescribed, the former proscriptions and prescriptions would have been
considered the morally correct ones. Of course, something is not true (nor
false) because a person, or personified being, has said or commanded so
(while disregarding all the contradictions in that being's professions). But
however fallacious or fascistoid monotheist (or for that matter
non-monotheist) authoritarianism may be, it certainly is 'Monistic'; and its
sole principle is: whatever Mono has said, says and will say is true. (Note
that where polytheist religion is also monistic, yet not authoritarian, its
monism is of the metaphysical type.)

Authoritarianism is the worst and most counterscientific form not only of
normative but also of factual and modal monism in disciplinary thought.
Hence, it is time to look at normative monism in a more sensible shape. It
is, then, to be contrasted with normative pluralism. The easiest way to
compare the two is in terms of 'values', but one may also read "values,
rights and/or duties": a normative doctrine which is monistic recognizes
only one ultimate value; one which is pluralistic recognizes two or more
values which --it suggests-- cannot be reduced to each other, or to a common
origin. If, for example, two values really cannot be reduced to each other,
or both to a third value, it suffices to examine whether the values in
question engender plausible should-statements. But, perhaps, the pluralist
doctrine in question does not realize that all its separate values can be
reduced to one, even tho each of its values engenders plausible
should-statements on its own. Theoretical simplicity then requires us to opt
for the monist variant instead of the pluralist one, altho it is equally
true. To put it more generally: in disciplinary thought which is scientific,
or which evinces the same quality of argumentation in the nonscientific
sphere, monism is an ideal in itself. In a certain respect every degree of
theoretical pluralism is an admission of intellectual failure. (When it is
advocated that the members of diverse groups in a society should be allowed
to maintain an autonomous participation in and development of their own
subcultures or special interests, such societal pluralism is or can be based
on people's rights or on respect for persons -- an entirely different
subject altogether.)

Granted that every comprehensive normative doctrine will have to acknowledge
at least truth and relevance as principles, and at least one focus of
relevancy, no normative doctrine can be monistic in the strict sense. And
this does not only follow from the values of truth and relevance, but also
from the hierarchy of propositional levels which corresponds to a great
variety of types of norms (and also of types of facts and modes). From the
perspective of our ontology monism will only make sense with respect to a
particular type of norm or principle, that is, one principle governing
nonpropositional reality, one governing first-level propositional reality,
one governing the correspondence between nonpropositional and first-level
propositional reality, and so on. Coherence is, then, clearly a principle
applying to the first and all higher levels of propositional reality. Truth
is clearly a principle applying to the correspondence between a first- or
higher-level propositional reality and the lower levels of propositional or
nonpropositional reality. The status of a principle of relevance is not so
clear as that of coherence and truth, but such a principle requires at least
one focus, that is, a value, in nonpropositional reality. If it can be shown
that there is merely one such value in nonpropositional reality, the
normative doctrine is as little pluralistic as it can be, and --excepting a
principle of relevance-- even monistic with regard to the ground-world.

The question of monism versus pluralism is still much more complicated than
sketched so far. When we continue our study of normative-philosophical
issues and are going to develop our own normative doctrine, we will be
confronted with two other fundamental questions which have an important
bearing on its being monistic or pluralistic. Our rule shall remain tho,
that every distinction to be made in the typology of values, or in the
addition of a new value, right or duty, must be a justifiable one. On the
whole we will have to take a few steps away from the most absolute form of
monism in order to arrive at the proper point, but we will do this by
justifying every deviation from such an absolute form. This approach is
quite a different one from that of those who start out with a hotchpotch of
nice-looking values, duties and rights, and who will care about their
underlying unity or lack of unity later, if ever.



7.1.4  NORMS AS INTERPRETED PRINCIPLES


The more pluralistic a normative doctrine, the easier it is to devise it:
just collect all the values you like, and let the people who have to
implement the scheme worry about the numerous conflicts between all those
'ultimate' values later, even if all the relevant modal and factual
information is available to them. On the other hand, in theory it is not
hard either to devise a monist or lesser pluralist doctrine: just make sure
that the value, or limited number of values you collect, has as little
denotative meaning as possible, or as many different denotative meanings as
possible. An extreme example of such monism would be a doctrine with
goodness, rightness or virtue as sole value. But a doctrine with justice as
sole value, or as an important value, is hardly a better example, unless it
gives an interpretation in denotative terms of what it means by that value,
or a procedure for establishing it.

'Everyone' is in favor of justice, like 'everyone' --or "every sound mind"
as some have it-- is against murdering and stealing. For all people (or all
these people) terms like justice and fairness have a positive connotative
meaning, but it is not until their common belief is put into practise that
it turns out that justice and fairness have entirely different denotative
meanings for each person or group of persons. Hence, to really determine
whether a doctrine is monistic, or monistic in a certain respect, it is
necessary that its value is, or can be, defined in unequivocal descriptive
or conceptual terms. Ritual values like 'virtue' and 'justice' will not do
then, whereas values like happiness and kindness presumably do. There
probably is not a sharp boundary between evaluative or polysemous concepts
and concepts with only one conceptual or descriptive meaning, yet it is
definitely possible to make headway in the one or the other direction.

When disciplinary thought focuses on a certain value, the attainment of that
value is one of its principles. In a normative doctrine the principle is a
normative assumption or rule of conduct to the effect that the value in
question should be attained, should be aimed at, strived for, and so forth.
However, if that principle is defined in terms which are primarily
normative, evaluative or polysemous themselves, it does not give any, or
hardly any, direction in practise. It then remains of purely, or
predominantly, doctrinal, that is, propositional interest. In order to be
more than merely a normative assumption or symbol, namely an unambiguous
rule of conduct, a principle has to be interpreted by and within the
doctrine itself in terms which are ultimately nonevaluative and unequivocal
themselves. (Obviously this does not apply to a term like should which makes
the principle into a normative one.) It is such an interpreted principle
which we shall call "a norm", or "a doxastic norm" to be precise, for what
is believed to be 'a norm' need not be a norm from our ontological point of
view. Whereas a norm is a carpenter's square made of solid material, an
uninterpreted principle is a square made of nothing else than dough or some
such kneadable stuff. The carpenter who wants to lay out a right angle needs
a norm, not just a principle.

That a principle is interpreted means that it is either wholly defined in
denotative terms (like a principle of happiness), or part of a doctrine
which has a built-in, interpretational procedure for determining what is and
what is not in accordance with that principle. An example of the latter kind
of interpreted principle is a principle of justice in a theory of justice
explicating how to arrive at it. It is with such a theory that there can be
a (doxastic) norm of justice, but without such a theory it has no, or hardly
any, practical significance to adhere to a principle of justice. This does
not only hold for principles in which the value is explicitly present, it
equally applies to uninterpreted precepts such as that one should not murder
or steal. If a precept like thou shalt nor murder is redefined in terms
which are denotative, or if it is employed in a doctrine indicating what
kind of killing is wrong, or that all killing is wrong (and to be called
"murder"), only then can that precept function as a norm and provide people
not just with a principle but with a normative direction or authoritative
standard.

(That a normative doctrine which is not merely a second- or third-level
propositional theory about normative thought must provide practical,
normative directions may be self-evident. However, it is perhaps less
self-evident for some that it is not the task of a normative doctrine to
supply people with factual or modal information, altho it may do so. A moral
agent who has received all normative information may thus still need more
directions before 'e can act, or before 'e can assess 'er own actions on the
basis of the norm or norms given.)

The great difference between an interpreted and an uninterpreted principle
implies that a normative doctrine may only be called "monistic" or "monistic
in a certain respect" if it has not more than one norm or interpreted
principle. The most notorious example of a pseudomonist ethical theory is
probably agapism or the ethics of love. It professes that love (or 'agape')
would be the sole ultimate value and that all other values are derived from
it, or that the sole fundamental moral imperative is to love. Anyone who
might think that the love of agapism is not a purely evaluative term, but
has a denotative meaning too, will be quickly undeceived with 'er mouth
agape: it has such widely divergent denotative meanings that it can be
tailored to anyone's amoristic or antiamoristic wishes. Agapism leaves the
interpretation of its only principle (the besotted injunction to love)
entirely to the user, and that user loves to have no normative directive
whatsoever. But, while we reject the agapist's position ideologically,
personally we shall bear 'im neither love nor hatred.


7.1.4.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


NO LOVE FOR AGAPISM

We hate to hate,
yet we must not ignore
that those who believe in love as a supreme value
have but too oft been seduced into not thinking of it,
have but too oft been seduced into not feeling it,
have but too oft been seduced into not making it.
Their besotted agapism failed and fails,
like hedonism always failed and still fails.
Just as no-one will fall asleep
by actively pursuing sleep itself,
so no-one will become happy
by embracing pleasure or happiness as an end in itself, and
so no-one will become loving or loved
by embracing love as an end in itself.
Sleep and happiness and love cannot be forbidden, and
sleep and happiness and love cannot be commanded.
The hedonists in search of happiness for its own sake
did not find it in the end,
whereas those who pursued good but altogether different goals
did seem to have found it.
The agapists in search of love for its own sake
will similarly neither show, nor find it in the end,
whereas those who pursue good but altogether different goals
may show and find it.

From time immemorial,
the lords and ladies of agapism have produced and adopted
obscure, incoherent and abominable beliefs
which readily enabled them to 'justify' violence and inequity;
they have made their followers pay lip-service to love,
while but too oft arousing only hatred or cupidity; and
they have heinously oppressed any love or sort of love
which did not serve their misological purposes.
From time immemorial,
the 'supreme being' of the agapist believers
has been a guru of reward or a god of revenge as well,
judging of peoples and not of persons,
judging of persons and not of particulars;
'He' has been a swordsman of fury,
an overlord of venomous punishment,
not sparing, nor having pity;
'He' has been a teacher of abnegation,
and a messiah of aggrandizement,
hateful to different belief and behavior,
and inflicting hardship upon all people and peoples
not obeying and not loving 'Him'.

Those who have learned from history,
and those who have gained insight into the connections
between the diverse tenets and actions and occurrences
so unrelated in superficial belief,
pursue an ultimate goal other than mere pleasure or happiness,
and other than mere love.
And while showing inclusive respect in practise,
a kind of respect some might also call "love" or "agape",
they are not the ones who love agapism or any of its fictions.


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7.2  THE HORIZONS OF A TRIPLE-TIERED PROFILE


7.2.1  GOOD, RIGHT AND PRAISEWORTHY


We use normative in the widest nonfactual, nonmodal sense possible.
'Normative' is, then, what relates to a norm or a nonfactual, nonmodal
principle, or what accords with a norm or principle in the nonfactual,
nonmodal sphere. Hence, our normative may logically apply to any state of
being. If it does, we say that such a state of being, or the predicate
involved, is normatively superior, inferior, both or neither. In the
nonpropositional world no person need be involved in this normative
evaluation; in the propositional world this is different, for only persons
can develop theories which are incoherent, or say things which are false.
When comparing normative with moral, the meaning of moral is narrower: one
would not say that someone who develops an incoherent theory or says
something that is untrue, even when on purpose, acts 'immorally', unless 'er
action somehow affects other beings in the ground-world. And one would
certainly not say that a particular state of being is moral or immoral, if
no people (or personified beings) are involved in any way. We shall
therefore define moral as normative with regard to a person's conduct. In
this definition conduct implies a particular concern with the ground-world.
'Nonmoral' is, then, either what is normative, but not with regard to a
person's conduct, or what is nonnormative.

The term ethics refers to a system of moral principles by which it is
believed that people ought to live, or to the study of such systems. Because
the subject of ethics is morality, ethical is often also used as a synonym
of moral. Strictly speaking, ethics is in our terminology only part of
normative philosophy (even while legal and political philosophy are merely
'normative' in our sense insofar as they are ethical instead of factual or
modal). Whereas in nonethical, normative philosophy something is, or can be,
normatively superior, inferior, both or neither, without further ado, this
is not the case in ethics where we are dealing with the behavior of people
who intend or may not intend something, and who have dissimilar motives.

Given that ethics investigates the varieties of thought by which people's
'conduct is guided and may be appraised', its special concern is their
actions and the normative principles underlying them. Some theorists,
however, reject this 'morality of principles' or 'of doing' and construe
morality as primarily a cultivation of certain dispositions and traits, that
is, a 'morality of traits' or 'of being' (not to be confused with the
normativeness of being in a context not necessarily involving persons). It
has been correctly argued before that the one type of morality does not
exclude the other, that a morality of doing must 'get off the ground thru
the development of dispositions to act in accordance with its principles'.
In order to know what traits to evaluate positively and to encourage, one
must first subscribe to certain principles to judge them by.

A morality of principles is primarily concerned with people's conduct in
particular situations, whereas a morality of traits is primarily concerned
with qualities of their conduct which remain the same in many different
situations over a long period of time. Nonetheless there is in itself no
essential difference between these two approaches, unless a theory claims
that traits could do without principle. What is more important is that the
'traits' or 'dispositions' we are dealing with here are not merely
tendencies to do certain kinds of actions in certain kinds of situations,
but are 'traits of character' as honesty and friendliness. Someone does not
have an honest and friendly character because 'e happened to be honest and
friendly in one particular situation, yet whether someone does have an
honest and friendly character depends on how 'e acts and reacts in
particular situations, albeit many of them. We had therefore better
concentrate on actions and the morality of doing. As we will see: the
morality of being ensues from it, and the normativeness of being precedes
it.

Actions are traditionally called "right", "wrong", both or neither; the
motives which prompt them "virtuous", "vicious", both or neither; the agents
who perform them "praiseworthy", "blameworthy", both or neither; and the
consequences to which they give rise "good", "bad", both or neither. (Of
these expressions virtuous has a vicious origin: it derives from vir, which
means man and denotes manliness and strength, neither of which are, when
taken literally, praiseworthy qualities in themselves, let alone
praiseworthy qualities before all others. Since androcentrism is a vice, we
shall use an uncontaminated term in our own doctrine.)

All normative concepts from right to bad belong to an auxiliary dimension or
set with two or three members. Thus there is an auxiliary set of right,
wrong and possibly neither right nor wrong. (To say that something is both
right and wrong is only comprehensible, if it means 'right in one respect
and wrong in another respect'.) Altho this set is not a
catena-extensionality, it may resemble either the extensionality of an
explicit triad or of a quasi-duad, probably a bipolarity catena. When
resembling an explicit triad, the concept neither right nor wrong
corresponds to the neutrality, which means that it does apply to actions,
but not to nonactions like character traits or states of being: they are
'neither right nor wrong' because they logically cannot be 'right' nor
'wrong'. As part of an auxiliary explicit triad concepts like neither right
nor wrong and neither good nor bad are not, and do not refer to, catenated
neutralities: at the most they are auxiliary pseudoneutralities.

Antonymical metaphysicians of the yang-yin school have asserted, and may
still assert, that a virtuous person would not try to eliminate the bad and
strive for the good but would rather try 'to maintain a dynamic balance
between good and bad'. This absurd and half-wicked belief is precisely a
result of confusing auxiliary concepts such as badness and goodness with
nonauxiliary, nonnormative negativities and positivities respectively. (To
illustrate this difference for one aspect only: one can sensibly wonder
whether something should be small or not, but not whether it should be good
or not.) It may be that normative badness is not even an auxiliary
pseudonegativity but rather an auxiliary pseudo-bipolarity. Of course, it is
the task of those using good and bad to clarify the kind of conceptual
relationship between these terms. To say that they have an 'opposite'
meaning leaves this relationship in well-nigh complete obscurity.



7.2.2  PERFORMANCE, INTENTION AND MOTIVATION


While the connection between concepts of one and the same auxiliary
dimension (like between good and bad) may already cause problems, the
connections between concepts of different dimensions (like between wrong and
vicious) may even be more problematic and controversial. In order to deal
with these relationships we must have a clear picture, not only of what is
going on when a person acts, but also of what is going on when 'e decides to
act. Too many ethical theorists believe that moral agents base their
judgments on the facts of the moment and of the past, or even on future
consequences. Unfortunately they are mistaken in so thinking: instead,
people base their judgments upon personal information and presuppositions.
(Let us say: including their personal interpretation of the facts.) Not only
does a moral agent not literally base 'er judgment on the facts, 'er conduct
need not be rational or purposeful either: in practise it may be intuitive,
emotional, impulsive or even antirational. However, when a person does not
just act like a mere body would, we must assume that 'e has one or more
goals or objectives, and that 'e acts rationally or purposefully, thus
promoting or furthering 'er goal or objectives. This rational or purposeful
action is therefore determined by a goal (or objectives), and information
and presuppositions concerning the relevant, factual and modal conditions.

From the point of view of rationality itself it does not matter what
someone's goal is. It may be any: one's own well-being, somebody else's
well-being, truth, deceit, and not less any goal which in the eyes of 'sane'
people would look completely foolish or immoral. We need not be afraid of
propounding such a rational decision-theory, notwithstanding the great
antipathy many people feel towards anything that smells of rationality.
Presumably they feel so, because many 'rationalists' embraced the wrong
ultimate values and one-sided presuppositions, not because there is anything
incorrect with rationality per se. One can rationally promote egoism and
equally rationally promote altruism. A moral rational decision, however, is
founded upon a (normative) value-theory (or a 'theory of duty' or 'of
right', if not accepted as part of a value-theory). Such a theory tells the
moral agent what kind of situation is the better one and what are
good-making features (or right-making characteristics of duties to be
fulfilled). The theory to which the practical problems of the decision and
action themselves belong has been called "normative theory", but this term
is obviously far too broad, and we shall speak of "(normative)" or "(moral)
decision-theory". A moral decision-theory presupposes --as has been said
before about this 'normative theory'-- 'some value-theory and derives from
it the requirements which it imposes on the behavior of individuals'.

Ideally speaking an agent acts in such a way that 'e furthers the goal, or
one of the goals, of the theory of value; that is, 'ideally speaking' from
the value-theoretical point of view. From this point of view it is
performance which counts. The relationship between rightness and goodness is
then simply that an action is right which promotes the good. (It does not
follow from this that an action can only be right if promoting what is
good.) In practise, however, the situation is often far from ideal because
the agent's information and/or presuppositions may be wrong or insufficient,
and it is on the basis of these that 'e has to decide what to do. Even tho
the agent's intention may be to promote the good, or to fulfil a certain
duty, 'er actual performance may have very bad consequences, or may not
result in the fulfillment of that duty at all. From a decision-theoretical
standpoint the moral agent should not do what promotes the good on the basis
of the facts (which results in the right performance) but what may be
expected to promote the good on the basis of 'er own information and
reasonable presuppositions. When 'e does act in such a way --and a rational
moral agent cannot do differently--, 'er action is the right one. Hence, on
the decision-theoretical level the relationship between rightness and
goodness has become more indirect, and from the performatory standpoint it
may even be said to be lacking, for an intentionally right action may have
bad consequences (or result in the nonfulfillment of a duty). It is then
wrong on the performatory scheme, but can be excused on the intentional
scheme.

Many acts can only be described within the framework of a social
institution. (If it is said "all acts", then (social) institution is used in
a very broad sense.) For example, voting can only be described by referring
to the whole formal system within which it takes place; raising a hand or
marking a piece of paper is not voting by itself. Now, when judging acts or
abstentions from a decision-theoretical, moral position one must take care
that the information and presuppositions concerning the particular act or
abstention do not contradict the information and presuppositions concerning
the whole institution, and participation or nonparticipation in that
institution. It is a value-theory in combination with information and
presuppositions concerning a particular act or abstention which determines
whether an act or abstention is right, and it is the same value-theory which
also determines in combination with other information and presuppositions
whether one should participate in an institution, or whether the upkeep of
that institution itself is right.

But not only should the value-theory be the same for the act and for the
institution on which its definition depends, also the information and
particularly the presuppositions with regard to the singular act and the
whole institution should be such that they can be rationally accepted by one
agent on the basis of one value-theory. And just as acts can be right on the
intentional level, yet wrong on the performatory level, so it could be that
a whole institution is normatively acceptable on the basis of the agent's
information and presuppositions about it, yet unacceptable on the basis of
the facts, or vice versa. As illustrated in figure I.7.2.2.1, this makes the
situation in decision-theoretical ethics clearly more complicated than in
performatory ethics. The decision-theoretical scheme is also more realistic,
however, as ethics is supposed to deal with the conduct of persons, not just
with the behavior of bodies.

Every value-theory has one or more axiomatic, normative values (also called
"nonmoral values" to distinguish them from the 'moral values' which persons,
groups of persons or elements of personality are said to have). Being
axiomatic, these normative values are ultimate. Being ultimate, they are
ends in themselves which should not be treated as means to other ends.
However, when an agent intends to promote a value which is ultimate in the
value-theory concerned, it is not necessarily the case that 'e promotes that
value, or tries to promote that value as an end in itself. It may be that 'e
promotes it, because the promotion of that value by 'imself is a means to
another end. That it is a means to another end does not imply that 'e does
not intend to promote it. On the contrary: if the promotion of a certain
objective will serve a higher goal, it is rational to promote that
objective, in spite of its not being ultimate. We are thus faced with a
contradiction: according to the value-theory a certain value is ultimate,
whereas the agent treats it as a means to something else. That is why it is
not only the agent's performance and intention which count, but also 'er
motivation. As regards ultimate values the agent's intention should be 'er
motive (and 'er performance should be what 'e intends to do). If so, then
the motive is traditionally called "virtuous" and the agent "not
blameworthy" or, perhaps, "praiseworthy". However, if the motive is
detrimental to an ultimate value, it is vicious and the agent blameworthy.
(We will not go into what it means that a motive is 'virtuous' in one
respect and 'vicious' in another respect, or neither virtuous nor vicious.)

The ethical profile now uncovered turns out to have three successive layers
or horizons: a performatory, an intentional and a motivational one. The
sharpest line in this profile is the one which separates the performatory
horizon (the 'A-horizon') from the intentional horizon (the 'B-horizon').
The line between the intentional and the motivational horizons (the 'B-' and
'C-horizons') is much vaguer. People (also ethical theorists) often do not
differentiate between intention and motive. In those cases that it is indeed
not necessary to do this, we ourselves will speak of "(the)
decision-theoretical (aspect of) ethics" as contrasted with "its
performatory aspect" or "performatory ethics".

When endeavoring to locate the morality of doing (and also the normativeness
of being) in the ethical profile, we find that it lies firm in the
performatory horizon (without necessarily being absent in the intentional
horizon); when endeavoring to locate the morality of being, we find it in
the motivational horizon. This, however, is not the sole difference between
the two forms of morality: the former starts in theory with individual
actions and their good consequences or right-making characteristics, whereas
the latter is not so much concerned with one motive which prompted one
action, but rather with long-term motivational considerations. In an ethical
doctrine based on performance the good consequences or right-making
characteristics are believed to come first and moral value of character (or
'virtue') is made to depend on the right actions it promotes in the long
run; in an ethical doctrine based on motivation (or 'ethics of virtue') it
is the motive which is believed to come first, and the rightness of an act
is made to depend on the motive from which it was done. This 'motivism' --as
it is also called-- explains things back to front (a case of hysteron
proteron), but it is certainly meritorious for demonstrating to us that
there is also some worthwhile material lying beneath the superficial layer
of brute factual, modal and normative elements.

A nonmotivist ethical doctrine which is not concerned about the agent's
intentions and motives at all is (purely) performatory: it does not reach
beyond the scope of the ethics of performance. If it is also concerned about
the agent's intention, then it is (performatory-)intentional; and if also
about motives, then (performatory-)motivational. Both intentional and
motivational ethical doctrines are decision-theoretical. The connection
between the three horizons of the ethical profile and the depth of
nonmotivist ethical doctrines is shown in figure I.7.2.2.2.



7.3  SIEVING THE VALUES OF THE A- AND C-HORIZONS


7.3.1  THE MATCHING AND MISMATCHING OF VALUE CATEGORIES


Normative values relating to the normativeness of being in general, and not
to acting persons in particular, we shall call "nonagential (normative)
values". Stability, harmony and equilibrium, for instance, are traditional
nonagential values. Normative values which are the subject of ethics, we
shall call "agential (normative) values". Ethical or moral values would do
too, but many ethical theorists use the phrase moral value to refer to the
agential values of the 'C-horizon' exclusively. In our terminology the
agential values of the 'C-horizon' are motivational values; those of the
'B-horizon' intentional values; and those of the 'A-horizon' performatory
values. Traditional, moral and other philosophers lump performatory,
nonagential normative and esthetic or other nonnormative values together
under the heading of the perplexing phrase nonmoral values. To make matters
worse they may treat moral valueand virtueas synonyms while simultaneously
speaking of "religious", "intellectual" or other types of "virtue" in
addition to "moral virtue" (that is, 'moral moral value'?). This gibberish
about 'moral', 'esthetic', 'religious', 'intellectual' and other values is
the vulgar result of an awful jumbling of categories.

On the basis of an ontological system of classification one may
differentiate factual, modal and moral or other normative values; on the
basis of ontology and epistemology one must distinguish values in a strict
sense from doxastic values; and on the basis of the classification of
disciplinary thought one may differentiate scientific, philosophic, artistic
and religious or other ideological values. Especially religious or
theodemonical values are, then, doxastic, and can be factual, modal or
normative. Conversely, normative values such as certain motivational
(doxastic) values may be recognized by a particular religion or form of
theodemonism, or not, but such a recognition does not make it into a
nonnormative (doxastic) value, even if that religious or theodemonical
doctrine is the sole one to recognize it. Thus we had better forget about
the traditional mismatch of categories and stick to the ontological basis of
the classification of values here, since the subject of ethics or of
normative philosophy, as distinct from other philosophical subjects, rests
itself upon that classification.

Values cannot only be categorized on the basis of ontology or epistemology,
on the basis of the type of disciplinary thought in which they play a role,
and on the basis of the triple-tiered profile of ethics, they can also be
categorized on the basis of their position in a value hierarchy. Each value
on a lower level can, then, be derived from a value on a higher level (but
not vice versa). For example, if happiness is a value, then both the
happiness of human happiness-catenals and the happiness of nonhuman
happiness-catenals are values. But if the happiness of human
happiness-catenals is a value, it is not logically necessary that happiness
is a value, and that the happiness of nonhuman happiness-catenals is a
value. Now, the value which is not and cannot be derived from any other
value is the ultimate value, and the next one the penultimate value. A
penultimate value may be perfective, corrective or instrumental. A
perfective penultimate value merely relates to a special instance of the
ultimate value. For example, the happiness of human happiness-catenals will,
or would, be a penultimate perfective value if happiness is, or were, an
ultimate value. A corrective penultimate value relates to a quality which is
logically and catenically necessary to promote the ultimate value. For
example, making happiness-catenals happier (or less unhappy) will, or would,
be a penultimate corrective value if extreme happiness is, or were, an
ultimate value. An instrumental penultimate value relates to a quality which
is physically, socially or mentally needed or recommendable to promote the
ultimate value. For example, beauty is an instrumental penultimate value if
the presence of beauty makes people happier and if (extreme) happiness of
persons is, or were, an ultimate value. The ultimate value itself is of
course always perfective. It is relatively easy to see whether a value is
perfective instead of corrective, and if it is perfective whether it is
ultimate or not. It is much harder to see that many, if not most, values are
instrumental instead of perfective (and ultimate). It does not matter, then,
what level they belong to: the penultimate, the antepenultimate or a lower
level.

When we speak of "values" in this context, we mean 'doxastic values', that
is, values which are explicitly or implicitly taken seriously in one or more
normative doctrines, particularly traditional ones. A pluralist has choice
enough. Examples of what 'e can find in the A-horizon are (in alphabetical
order): beauty, equality, freedom, happiness, intelligence, justice (in a
sense), knowledge, liberty, love (in a sense), naturalness, peace, strength,
truth and utility. (A few of these values may be identical for some people,
but not for others.) In the C-horizon 'e can find, among others:
benevolence, charity, chastity, conscientiousness, considerateness, courage,
faith, fidelity, fortitude, gratitude, good-will, honesty, hope, integrity,
justice (in a sense), kindness, love (in a sense), manliness, motherly love,
prudence, temperance and wisdom. (Anything missing? If you're a pluralist,
just add it! Even rarity and complexity have been suggested as intrinsic
values.) For a nonmotivist, every motivational value is an instrumental or
corrective value related to a perfective or nonperfective, performatory or
intentional value. This nonmotivism does not necessarily make a normative
doctrine less pluralistic tho, because the perfective values in the motivist
doctrine may be the instrumental or corrective ones in the nonmotivist
doctrine, and vice versa.

What does make an existing morality or normative theory less pluralistic
(perhaps even monistic) is the removal of all doxastic values which are
either disvalues or nonperfective values. This has already been done before
with the values in the motivational horizon by distinguishing second- from
first-order virtues. Second-order virtues would, then, be virtues covering
the whole of the moral life, like courage, integrity and good-will. It has
been argued that all the 'moral' (nonreligious, nonintellectual) virtues
could thus be derived from two 'cardinal virtues' (ultimate motivational
values), namely justice and benevolence. Others have distinguished four
'cardinal virtues': justice, temperance, courage or fortitude and wisdom or
prudence. To these 'natural cardinal virtues' supernaturalists have added
faith, hope and charity (or love or kindness). In no doctrine is manliness
explicitly mentioned as a virtue, let alone as one of the cardinals, yet
this is the origin of talking in terms of 'virtue'. The underlying
stereotype is the same sexist one as that of chastity when laid down as a
praiseworthy quality for girls and women, and as that of motherly love when
mentioned and stressed without mentioning fatherly love, or for that matter,
foster love.

With justice (or love) as a doxastic value it is always possible to subsume
a wide variety of values under this 'cardinal virtue' but --as explained
earlier-- without the normative doctrine getting any nearer to monism.
Values like conscientiousness, faith (if you like), fidelity, honesty,
integrity and wisdom presuppose some principle of truth (with or without
other principles), that is, truth as a fundamental value. None of these
values can therefore be wholly derived from justice which --if it is to have
some denotation-- presupposes first of all a principle of relevance (with or
without the recognition of certain rights). Perhaps justice presupposes a
principle of truth too, but then we might as well speak about whole
normative doctrines and leave justice alone, cloaked in secrecy (and a
convenient polysemy).



7.3.2  NATURALNESS


We do not yet have all the instruments needed to judge the fantastic
collection of doxastic values and disvalues spawned by moralists and ethical
pluralists. Moreover, to develop a new normative doctrine (albeit a
denominational one in our case), starting from this collection and removing
what one does not like is not the right procedure, because traditional
ethics may not only have some disvalues in store, it may be that there are
one or more perfective, ultimate values it even does not have in store at
all. We could never ascertain the existence of such values by removing a
number of traditional values, by subsuming them under more general ones, or
by reinterpreting them. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile as an exercise of the
mind to sift the traditional values in the ethical profile so as to find out
which ones cannot go thru in any case, either because they are not values or
because they are not perfective and ultimate ones.

After having considered a few attempts at finding some unity in motivational
values, we will now take up our sieve again to remove the coarsest values of
the A-horizon. Besides love and justice, which we have discussed already, it
is particularly naturalness which cannot be taken seriously as a nondoxastic
value, and knowledge and intelligence which cannot be taken seriously as
perfective values, let alone ultimate ones.

Naturalness very much behaves like love and has always been an equally
useful notion, especially in orthodox ideology. The directions for usage are
simple: (1) is something natural and you like it, call it "natural" and
profit from its traditional, positive connotation; (2) is something natural
but you don't like it, don't mention its naturalness; (3) is something not
natural and you like it, call it "cultural" (or "civilized") and profit from
this term's traditional, positive connotation; and (4) is something not
natural and you do not like it, call it "unnatural" and exploit that term's
negative connotation to the utmost. But what is 'natural'? Or: what is that
mysterious 'nature' of human beings, of girls and women, of boys and men?
There are many definitions of natural; as always this multiplicity of
meaning is precisely what furnishes it with its ideological utility. With
one of those definitions it may be more or less clear how to act naturally,
but then there is no reason why one should do so. It is natural, say, to
walk about stark naked on a warm day and --cynical or not-- to casually make
love like a dog; it is unnatural or cultural to wear clothes on such a day
and to go to temple in order to share in the communal love of a god. But is
this a reason why it is wrong to love a god in public, to erect temples, or
to wear a habit on warm days? Of course, this is unadulterated hot air.

An alternative way to go about naturalness as a perfective value is to give
a serious, appealing account of nature so that people are all convinced that
they ought to be natural. However --as has been thoroughly demonstrated by a
feminist philosopher-- the problem is then not 'why one should act in
accordance with nature', but how to do what is according to nature, and
therefore good. The philosopher concerned treats this predicament of the use
of natural as tho it were a problem typical of natural, but the question
applies in principle almost to any term. One can either anchor a term in the
factual sphere by means of its descriptive or conceptual meaning or anchor
it in the normative sphere by means of its evaluative meaning, for to do
both at once would be begging the question. Anchoring it in the factual
sphere requires a special normative justification, something which has never
been given for naturalness as a value. This would not yet in itself be a
matter for great blame if it were not for the fact that most, or all, of
those who appeal to naturalness as a value never decide to quit smoking,
drinking alcohol and using medical or nonmedical drugs, to stop driving a
car, to take off all their clothes (if necessary after having remigrated to
a warm climate), to have sex only on those occasions that it is needed for
procreation (or for showing male dominance), and --this is the virtual
climax-- to wholly abstain from all forms of supernaturalism.



7.3.3  KNOWLEDGE AND INTELLIGENCE


Civilized or nonnatural as we are ourselves at this moment, we will turn our
attention to knowledge now. Unlike naturalness, knowledge has often been
explicitly proclaimed an ultimate value in ideological and ethical
doctrines. But when considering it in earnest, the idea is preposterous or
incomprehensible. Imagine that someone tells you how many blades of grass
there are in 'er garden. This will increase your personal knowledge about
the world, and if not increasing humankind's knowledge in general, counting
those blades of grass for the first time definitely will. Other things being
equal, people should just keep on observing, counting and analyzing ad
infinitum and forever, while the subject (or victim) of their intellectual
activity would not matter in the least. Tho it is evident from the beginning
that knowledge is a perfective value where omniscience is an ultimate
perfective value, it should now also be clear that knowledge as an ultimate
value is omniscience as an ultimate value.

But does the absurdity of knowledge or omniscience as an ultimate or
perfective value preclude knowledge from being a value at all? No, it
doesn't: while knowledge does not appear to be a corrective value, it is
obviously an instrumental value with respect to other values which really
are perfective. Take the equality of wealth as a perfective value, for
instance, whether ultimate or not: it is quite plain that one needs
knowledge to establish the actual distribution of wealth, and the best ways
to improve this distribution in the sense of leveling out economic
differences. It is plain too, that a lot more knowledge is needed when not
only the equality of wealth, but also the total happiness of the population
would be a perfective value, because then one also has to know whether an
equal distribution of wealth would not be detrimental to that total
happiness. Nonetheless, most knowledge would be irrelevant with respect to
these two values.

If it is possible at all, science is the first (if not only one) to furnish
us with knowledge we can rely upon, while the social sciences are the first
ones to provide us with reliable information with respect to people as
mental and social beings, and with respect to social groups or institutions.
Or, at least they would be the first ones, for if knowledge is really an
ultimate value, it is also in the social sciences a good thing regardless of
how it would be obtained. By isolating people or social groups for one or
many years, or for one or many generations, and by manipulating them just
like closed systems in physics, or just like plants and other animal beings
in biology, scientists could obtain a full storehouse of psychic and social
information. And this knowledge would be 'good', and this pursuit of
knowledge would be 'right', merely because of its being knowledge. Some
might now object that altho the knowledge thus obtained is indeed good in
itself, other normative considerations, like those concerning the personal
rights infringed upon, are far more important. The violations of these
rights are so evil that they would always outweigh the goodness of the
psychological and sociological knowledge obtained as knowledge. This
objection would still not make knowledge acceptable as a good thing in
itself, however. It would also have to be claimed that knowledge of whatever
kind is good even tho it would and could never reduce the suffering of
people or sentient beings; even tho it would and could never lead to a
greater socioeconomic equality between people; even tho it could never and
would never make them act better in a moral sense.

Knowledge as an ultimate or derivative, perfective value, as something to be
maximized for its own sake, is the self-aggrandizing fabrication of a
certain type of intellectuals who but too emphatically and blithely also
label the human species "Homo sapiens". (This pseudoscientific name is
supposed to designate a biological category, but being 'wise' or
'intelligent' --what sapiens means-- is not a biological, bodily criterion
whatsoever. Biologists should stick to their last as biologists and not use
an epithet which does not belong to their field of inquiry and which,
naturally, has been selected for anthropocentrist, ideological, rather than
for scientific, reasons.) It is no use trying to acquire knowledge if it
would and never could have any relevance with respect to one or more other
values which are perfective. The belief that knowledge would be a good thing
in itself, for example, regardless of whether there is even a chance that it
reduces suffering or distributive injustice, and regardless of whether it is
experienced as something pleasant, is too outrageous to be taken seriously.
Such belief is an intellectual excrescence.

The acquisition of knowledge can, indeed, be a pleasure in itself, and some
theorists assert that knowledge, power and the like are valueless in
themselves ('cold and bare') unless they are experienced with some kind of
enjoyment. Yet, this is to admit that they are not ultimate values, and
serve enjoyment or pleasure or happiness instead as a perfective or other
instrumental value. That knowledge is merely of instrumental significance
does by no means imply tho that it would not be important -- on the
contrary.

What holds for knowledge, holds for intelligence if it is possible to look
at that value as a performatory value, that is, a value which plays, or can
play, a role in a person's actions. This entails that intelligence can be
created or improved, but even then it is at the most an instrumental value
like knowledge. If there is one thing that intelligent people should not mix
up in the mind, it is the instrumental and the ultimate.



7.4  CONSEQUENTIALIST THEORIES


7.4.1  IN GENERAL; UTILITARIANISM IN PARTICULAR


The classification of the main streams of the normative-philosophic
landscape is partially based on whether they spring from goodness, from
rightness or from good character. Having already discussed and rejected
motivism which primarily rests on what is (believed to be) virtuous and
praiseworthy (or a good character), we will now first direct our attention
to two other sorts of normative theory traditionally distinguished. One
warning is called for tho: the subdivision here presented does not parallel
the three horizons of the ethical profile. When comparing the two
subdivisions all nonmotivist types of theory can be located on the level of
performatory values, rights or duties, or on the two levels of performatory
and intentional values, rights or duties.

We will start with consequentialism in general, which claims that the
ultimate criterion of what one should (not) do (is right, obligatory, and so
on) is the performatory value which is brought into being. In other words:
the agent should produce the best state of future affairs as seen from the
standpoint of one or more performatory values. An act is said to be 'right'
in consequentialism 'if and only if it, or the rule under which it falls,
causally produces, or is intended to produce, at least as great a future
balance of good over evil as any available alternative'. From this
definition alone it follows already that (purely) performatory
consequentialism is to be distinguished from (performatory-)intentional
consequentialism. The former is exclusively concerned with the actual
outcome of the act; the latter is also concerned with the agent's intention,
and 'er acting on the basis of 'er information and presuppositions.

In all consequentialist (and mixed) theories one should not only consider
the short-term, direct effects of an act but also the long-term and indirect
ones. This means that the situation in which the act takes place should be
considered over a period long enough to establish to a sufficient degree
what all the consequences of the act at issue are. The total effect of what
is abstracted from a situation as being a 'single' or 'simple act' can only
be determined when all the past, present and future causally relevant
features are taken into account. For example, the direct effects of the act
at issue may turn out to be very much smaller (even naught) in a situation
where similar acts are seldom performed than in one where they are
frequently performed (in particular if there are the kind of
threshold-related effects we will deal with in the next section under
Decision-theoretical consequentialism). An indirect effect of an action
which does, perhaps, not have the desired, direct consequences is the
positive effect which setting a good example may have in the long run. A
person may decide to cast 'er vote, for instance, even when this one vote is
not needed (anymore), only to make clear to 'er fellow-citizens that there
are (nonegoistic) people in favor of the institution in question. This will
encourage those who think likewise and if the institution can be justified
on consequentialist grounds, the indirect, long-term effect of such a vote
has to be judged favorable as well.

Some theorists characterize all versions of consequentialism as not
agent-relative; others propagate an agent-relative form of consequentialism,
that is, a form in which values are 'specified by reference to the agent for
whom they provide reasons'. We will return to this subject in the context of
goal-rights systems (8.1.1 and 8.3.1). At the moment it suffices to consider
only non-agent-relative consequentialism. Whether a particular normative
doctrine or theoretical complex which is agent-relative or
identity-dependent in some way is, then, still to be termed
"consequentialistic" is, perhaps, in the end merely a question of
definition.

If a single act is assessed on the basis of the consequences it has in one
particular case, ethical theorists speak of "act-consequentialism"; if it is
assessed on the basis of the consequences of the adoption of a general rule
of which it is one particular instance, then of "rule-consequentialism". In
act-consequentialism an act is said to be right if it produces, or is
intended to produce, the greatest balance of good over evil in the world,
without reference to a rule. Rule-consequentialism, on the other hand,
emphasizes the central role of rules in morality and claims that it is in
practise hardly possible to judge what the separate consequences of single
acts might be every time. There is also a third variant, which is called
"general consequentialism" because it does not demand that people follow
certain rules, but rather that they ask themselves in every situation what
would happen if everyone were to do so and so in this or such a situation.
It has already been mentioned that the general consequentialist appeals to
the principle that if an action is right for person A to do in 'er
situation, then it is right for everyone to do who is similarly situated in
relevant respects. The general consequentialist thus makes an implicit use
of the relevance principle, or --as has been argued-- a principle of
universalizability. As noted in section 5.3.5 the relevance principle may
already be part of the consequentialist definition of bringing about or
producing a value and the general consequentialist does then nothing else
than to use it again in a wider context. It would serve clarity, however, to
recognize it explicitly. (The question of universalizability we will briefly
discuss in the next division.)

The performatory values of a consequentialist theory, or the principles
based on it, may be either aggregative or distributive. Aggregative
principles deal with a value which is the sum total of something, whereas
distributive principles deal with a value which represents a certain way of
distributing something (let's say "goods"). An aggregative value is, for
example, the (greatest) sum total of happiness in the world, and
distributive values are, for example, (distributive) equality or justice.
Perhaps relevance may be called "a distributive value" too. Utilitarianism,
as a form of consequentialism with the greatest happiness as sole principle,
has no way to guarantee that the distribution of goods among sentient beings
or persons will be an equal or proportional one (proportionate to their
needs and/or merits, for instance). Therefore, if an equal or proportional
distribution is a good thing in itself (with equality or proportionality as
a performatory value), utilitarianism fails.

To bring about an unequal or disproportional distribution of goods among
sentient beings or persons is wrong and an act of injustice, assuming that
disproportional refers to the condition in which the differences cannot be
justified as being relevant. The consequentialist starts, however, with the
badness of the inequality or irrelevance, whereas a nonconsequentialist
nonmotivist (a deontologist to be precise) would start from the wrongness of
what 'e calls "an unjust act". Some ethical theorists contend that a pattern
of distributing things could be 'right' in itself, but this is a mistake: a
pattern is good or bad (or maybe neither); bringing about a pattern by a
certain way of distributing things is right or wrong (or neither). Here the
relationship between the right and the good resembles more and more that
between the chicken and the egg (with the consequentialist representing the
School of the Eggs and the deontologist representing the School of the
Chickens). If equality is a distributive value, it is also in
consequentialism a value in itself, irrespective of what (else) it may be
conducive to, or not be conducive to.

Monism is a doctrinal ideal in disciplinary thought, but if we value justice
or equality and relevance, then utilitarian monism violates an important
principle. Altho it has been made plausible, or not implausible, that the
greatest happiness principle need not lead to gross inequalities in
practise, it remains a contingent matter in utilitarianism that gross
inequalities or injustices are absent (if so). A utilitarian who could bring
about more happiness in a human community by making the rich richer and the
poor poorer would have to do so (assuming that the situation remains the
same for all other sentient beings). Not only would 'e have to do that on
the happiness- or utility-principle, 'e would not even have to regret the
inequality or injustice. It is also possible in a pluralist theory that
people would, on balance, have to increase certain differences in order to
maximize an aggregative value, but if equality is one of such a theory's
values, increasing these differences would still be prima facie wrong in
that particular respect, and therefore regrettable.

What applies to equality, relevance and justice, also applies to truth,
which is not recognized as an independent value either in utilitarianism.
Should in a particular situation lying have more good than bad consequences
in terms of happiness (for example, because it makes the liar more happy
than it makes the person lied to unhappy), the act-utilitarian will have to
lie. Now, a rule-utilitarian would argue that a rule against lying is very
useful, that always telling the truth is for the greatest general good, even
if it yielded more bad effects than good ones in a limited number of cases.
But also this argument, altho plausible, makes the wrongness of lying a
contingent matter, for if the rule did not happen to be utility-maximizing,
it would not be valid. Antiutilitarians have been eager to point out that
the utilitarians' great anxiety about getting values like justice and
honesty somehow included in the hedonistic calculus is itself an admission
that justice and honesty, or equality, relevance and truth, are indeed
values besides happiness or utility. There certainly is much more than a
grain of truth in this accusation, yet it may be equally plausible that
certain antiutilitarians do not only recognize some other values which
should be strived for, but also ignore some values which should be strived
for, namely conceptual and axiomatic clarity and austerity. Altho the
utilitarian attempt at devising a normative unitary field theory has failed,
the attempt at finding such a theory is in itself praiseworthy.



7.4.2  DECISION-THEORETICAL CONSEQUENTIALISM


Moral philosophers tend to treat consequentialism, even when not
decision-theoretical in any way, as a synonym of teleology, but we shall
reserve this latter term for the type of (consequentialistic or
nonconsequentialistic) normative doctrine in which the value of the
performatory level has become a goal, end or purpose (the meaning of telos).
It is not until we take intentions into consideration that a value which is
simply there 'being normatively superior' (as on the purely performatory
interpretation) becomes an end towards which effort is, or should be,
directed, or a thing towards which the agent attempts, or should attempt to
advance. Teleology shall therefore not be used by us as a synonym of
consequentialism (which is only future-regarding and need not take
intentions or motives into account) but as a synonym of decision-theoretical
value-based ethics (which may be present- and past-regarding as well). It is
intentional when the goal aimed at may be a means to arrive at another goal
which cannot be derived from the same ultimate goal; and motivational when
the goal aimed at is not treated as a means, but as something perfective in
itself. (We shall pay no attention here to the descriptive,
pseudodescriptive or supernaturalist doctrines which are also called
"teleologies" and which, we are made to believe, deal with 'purpose as an
explanation of natural phenomena', 'final causes' or 'evidences of design in
nature'.)

To understand the meaning of decision-theoretical consequentialist ethics as
distinct from purely performatory consequentialist ethics, we will direct
our attention for a moment at general utilitarianism which, like
rule-utilitarianism, has been developed to meet the objections against
act-utilitarianism. (General utilitarianism is general consequentialism with
happiness or 'utility' purportedly as sole value.) Standard cases to which
these objections apply are those of people crossing a lawn where the lawn
would be destroyed, if everyone crossed it; or of people abstaining from
voting where a democratic institution would collapse, if no-one voted. The
basic general-consequentialist idea is clear and lucid: since the
consequences of everyone's crossing the lawn or of everyone's not voting are
bad, no-one ought to cross the lawn, and no-one ought to abstain from
voting. An important characteristic of these examples is that they have
thresholds (or for the sake of argument, some transition zone to be narrowed
down to a threshold). A certain number of people can cross the lawn in a
certain period without damaging it, and in certain kinds of electoral system
additional votes do not have any effect on the election results anymore once
the number required for passage has been reached. Antiutilitarians or
-consequentialists have argued that one 'should not forget the importance of
the pattern of other people's behavior which is the crucial factor in the
production of threshold effects', and that one 'must not only distinguish
between acts within and outside general practises, but relate them to the
threshold in question as well'. In other words: acts which produce, or are
causally related to the production of, the threshold effect have to be
distinguished from acts which do not. The consequences of those acts are
different. Thus, someone voting before the threshold has been reached
(supposedly) produces a good effect, whereas someone voting after it has
been reached produces at best nothing. It has been demonstrated that general
utilitarianism and act-utilitarianism are 'extensionally equivalent', that
is, that it does not matter at all whether the utility test is applied in
these threshold-related cases to simple acts or whether an appeal is made to
general practises, or for that matter, rules, grounded in utility.

This conclusion, however, is at once true and trivial. It is trivial because
solely concerned with purely performatory (or if preferred, 'extensional')
consequentialism. In that case it is obvious that performatory
act-consequentialism and performatory general consequentialism must be
'extensionally', that is, from the performatory point of view, equivalent.
Neither the performatory consequentialists nor the performatory
anticonsequentialists are concerned with 'the practical problems of getting
the required information and correctly inferring judgments from the
principles on the basis of that information'. But the first ones to blame
are definitely those consequentialists who themselves do not explicitly
recognize the different layers of the ethical profile.

The consequentialist's general practise is always related to a function,
utility or institution which is (believed to be) desirable. For example, if
someone ought to vote, it is because the institution of democracy or the
support of a particular good cause is desirable, and if someone ought to
abstain from crossing the lawn, it is because a nice, green lawn is a good
thing, and a path visibly trodden thru it a bad thing. The function, utility
or institution which is a common good recognized by the members of a certain
group or community must be desirable or morally acceptable on the grounds of
the same value-theory which makes an individual act or omission into a right
act or omission. In performatory consequentialism this is an uninspiring
truth, but particularly when presuppositions come in (in
decision-theoretical value-based ethics) it will turn out to be of no little
import. No doubt, one of the most important incentives to develop general
utilitarianism was the need felt to justify on utilitarian grounds the moral
'law' that one should never lie, should never steal. (What will happen if
everyone lies or steals?) Yet, it is precisely this kind of acts which
cannot be described in purely performatory (or 'extensional') terms at all.

A person only lies if 'e asserts something that 'e 'imself believes to be
untrue with the intent to deceive. In the event that 'e asserts something
that is untrue (while not intending to deceive), 'e is wrong in another
sense, not connected to a moral judgment. The same holds for stealing:
stealing is not just taking what is morally speaking someone else's
property, but taking it with the intent to keep it, while appropriation has
not been sanctioned. The general utilitarianism whose anatomy has been
exposed as 'extensionally equivalent' to act-utilitarianism only employs
brute facts to render moral judgments, while acts such as lying and stealing
it was designed to bring into moral disrepute cannot even be described in
that way. Before saying that someone lies when 'e says something untrue, or
that 'e steals when 'e takes something away that belongs to someone else, we
need to know the person's intentions against the background of 'er
information and presuppositions. In short: the general utilitarianism which
includes acts such as lying and stealing in its generalization tests simply
could never be performatory, that is, entirely independent of intentions, to
start with.

Ideally, there should be a complete correspondence between the agent's
information and presuppositions on the one hand and the brute facts or modal
conditions on the other, but this is only contingently so. Nonetheless, the
correspondence seems to be covertly assumed in performatory
consequentialism. One principle of consequences, for instance, is if the
consequences of A's doing x would be undesirable, then A does not have the
right to do x. On the supposition that it only uses would be because the
antecedent is counterfactual this formulation is ethically inadequate, as it
does not give a cue to the moral agent in a strict sense. Only indirectly,
after assuming that the agent's information and presuppositions wholly
correspond with (past, present and future) reality, does it provide a
suitable cue for 'im. To make such an assumption beforehand is irrational
from a decision-theoretical standpoint.

Given that the value-theory determines the moral agent's intention or
goal(s) and thereby what consequences are desirable or undesirable (if
future-regarding), A ought not to do x, if according to 'er own information
and reasonable presuppositions, 'er doing x would have undesirable
consequences. Or, it ought not to be A's intention to do something that
would have undesirable consequences according to 'er theory of value(s) and
'er (own) information and presuppositions. (This might logically be
formalized as " ( Ef ) Oty " in which E is an epistemic operator and Ot a
temporally relative operator used in dyadic systems of deontic logic. A
definition of f  Oy  is under circumstance f  it is obligatory that y  in
terms of f -ideal worlds, that is, worlds which are at least as ideal as any
world in which f  is the case may be.)

Granted that there is an objective reality, facts and modal conditions
themselves cannot contradict each other, only interpretations of the factual
and modal conditions can. Therefore in performatory consequentialism the
(true) conditions with regard to a function, utility or institution and the
(true) conditions with regard to an act or abstention will always match. In
the moral decision-theory of intentional (and motivational)
consequentialism, however, there is the additional requirement that the
agent's presuppositions (and information) with respect to the institution,
for instance, themselves cohere with 'er presuppositions (and information)
with respect to the particular act to be performed or abstained from. It can
then be proved that voting consequentialist with good intentions does make a
difference with voting on the purely performatory schema (assuming that the
value-theory adhered to does not have self-interest as its sole value, and
that it does not have participation in democracy by means of voting or
otherwise as a separate, perfective value). Essential to the proof is that
the agent has accepted the institution itself as being in agreement with 'er
value-theory, or at least that its (universal) advantages are greater than
the disadvantages of supporting it. The trouble of having to vote is then,
presumably, the only disadvantage. Furthermore, the desirability of the
institution implies that its advantages would outweigh its disadvantages
even if everyone voted, altho only a certain minimum number of favorable
votes is required. (If this is not the case, the institution is not worth
it, or the voting system itself has to be reformed.)

We should not forget either that the person we are focusing on is not
someone acting out of plain self-interest, but is a moral agent who
rationally bases 'er decisions upon a certain nonegoistic value-theory. In
particular 'e does not yield to statistically or otherwise unwarranted
assumptions which would merely be to 'er own benefit.

A fundamental question which remains in decision-theoretical
consequentialism (and in all nonperformatory ethical doctrines) is whether
the agent is allowed to assume that other people will act from the same
value-theory (or theory of rights, or theory of duties). This is an issue no
calculus can solve, for it precedes every value- and decision-theoretical
exercise. In our discussion of relevancy an affirmative answer to this
question corresponded to the universal version of the principle of
discriminational relevance, and a negative answer to the personal version of
that principle. (See 5.4.4.)

Consequentialist ethics cannot bypass the realm of the intensional, of
propositional attitudes. It must take account of the difference in kind of
normative judgments on the level of the purely performatory (nonintensional,
nonpropositional or lower-level propositional), the level of the
intentional, and the level of motives and traits of character. If it does
not make a difference --as has been demonstrated-- whether acts are judged
from the point of view of simple or general utility, then the normative
system in which this equivalence holds is inadequate or incomplete in the
first place, even from the standpoint of monistic consequentialism, because
it sticks to judgments on the first, performatory level only.

Every adequate normative system needs at least implicitly a moral
decision-theory. By definition such a theory does not bluntly calculate on
actual performances or the actual effects of actions. As in intentional
consequentialism it elevates both the agent and the observer watching 'im to
a higher level -- 'higher' in that it encompasses more of what is required.
But even after having recognized two or three levels of normative judgment,
a monistic consequentialist will still have to add one or more values, or
change 'er value, if generalization or rules cannot accomodate under the
heading of utility (or whatever else it might be) everything that is
believed to be moral. Little imagination is, then, needed to introduce more
criterions of evaluation at the performatory level. But after the adoption
of a pluralistic value-theory the difficult task remains to develop a moral
decision-theory which gives directions to the agent what to do or not to do,
also when two or more values conflict which cannot in any way be reduced to
one another or to one fundamental value. The duty to solve this problem
seems to be the main result of ruling out utilitarianism and performatory
consequentialism.



7.5  NONCONSEQUENTIALIST THEORIES


7.5.1  DEONTOLOGY'S DUTIES AND DILEMMAS


Voting in performatory utilitarianism is a matter of seconds, if not of
nanoseconds. Until a certain moment in a sequential act or an only roughly
simultaneous nonsequential act, your vote contributes to the 'production of
value-laden threshold effects' and one second later, whether you know it or
not, what you thought was the same act as your predecessor's, is useless, or
even antiutilitarian. Instead of having performed, you have committed
something. Now, this time-dependent discrepancy between what is actually
done and what is intended is not a problem which typifies consequence
theories (or rather performatory consequence theories) in particular. To
show that it does not, we will now turn to a typically deontological example
of a case as circulating in deontic (theodemonical) logic.

The dilemma described in the following story is called after --let's
assume-- a historical figure, but as we shall not mention the personal name
of any being that once lived or existed, or that still lives or exists, in
the books of this Model, we will refer to the dilemma as "the classical
deontological dilemma". The story is a religious one in which a certain man
promised to Mono --it could be anyone-- to immolate whatever would meet the
man first on his return home. But the first one he met on his arrival was
his daughter. On the one hand, because of his promise, he had to sacrifice
his daughter. On the other hand, because of the prohibition to murder,
interpreted as a prohibition to kill human beings, he ought to abstain from
killing her. According to one deontological theorist the promise itself
ought already not to have been made, for it gave rise to conflicting duties.
Another one argues that the man in question did not have the duty to abstain
from his promise, since the fact that the first one he met was a human being
was an only later forthcoming contingency. The man's promise gave indeed
rise to conflicting duties --the argument runs-- but did not create a
conflict of duties (granting that the man's ethics did not even contain a
prima facie duty to abstain from killing any animal being not reared by
'imself, something that has to be bluntly accepted on this reasoning.) That
this distinction cannot be made in traditional deontic logic has been said
to be a flaw in those systems which do not relativize acts to time. (This
recognition is the first step from an 'eternal' or nontemporal, performatory
ethics of duties to an ethics of moral agents who decide and act at a
certain moment in time.) To make deontic judgments temporally relative is
only a partial improvement, however. Let us look at an extension of the
story as proposed at a later date.

Suppose the man's daughter in the original story promised her mother to
surprise her father and meet him as the first one on his arrival. It would,
from the purely performatory point of view, make a crucial difference
whether she made her promise before her father's or after. If she made it at
a later moment, she created a conflict of duties; if she made it one second
before her father's, she did nothing wrong. It seems more plausible tho,
that the moral status of the daughter's promise is independent of the
question whether it was made before or after her father's. At least some
deontic logicians realize that lack of knowledge does play a role in moral
decisions, and that the 'accessibility of the set of best possible worlds'
should be thought of in more doxastic terms. When one of them concludes that
the accessibility for a moral agent at a certain moment should be looked
upon as an 'epistemic datum' --read "doxastic datum"-- it is the distinction
between purely performatory and decision-theoretical ethics 'e is implicitly
referring to. In a 'logic of cues' for the moral agent the procedure is to
be a rational one 'with cues defined in terms of best alternatives': this is
one of the things the deontic logician regards as essential, besides a
'subjective-accessibility requirement'. Since the nature of traditional
deontic logics seems to be very much, if not entirely, deontological, such
points reemphasize that the requirements of an adequate normative system are
little different from each other in deontology and consequentialism where
the need of a normative decision-theory is concerned.

What the deontological theorist claims as distinct from the
consequence-theorist is that keeping one's promise is right in itself, and
that murder is wrong in itself, or --if 'e is smarter-- that certain kinds
of killing are wrong in themselves, or that all killing is wrong in itself.
Keeping a promise and abstaining from murder (or killing) are said to have
characteristics which make them right independently of the good or bad
consequences with respect to some performatory value, other than the moral
value of keeping a promise or abstaining from murder in itself. It has been
argued by others that it is, strictly speaking, not promises themselves but
a so-called 'principle of fidelity' which binds people to their promises.
Yet, if this is correct, breaking a promise is wrong because it violates the
principle of fidelity, and this violation always corresponds to an action
which has bad noncausal, simultaneous 'effects' with respect to a
performatory value of fidelity. (Note firstly, that these 'effects' are not
consequences, for they are not causal and do not follow afterwards. Note
secondly, that the value of fidelity may be considered to be performatory if
a person can break a promise without having the intention to do so, altho 'e
may not be blamed for not doing what 'e promised in case of a
misunderstanding or something of that sort.)

A deontologist is bound to rejoin now that fidelity or faithfulness can only
be defined in terms of promises and duties like in firmness in adherence to
promises or in observance of duty. This is not only a vicious circle; every
separate ultimate duty, or deontic rule, in general seems to have its own
little vicious circle. Consider, for example, the duty or rule that one
should not lie, that one should keep agreements, that one should not steal,
or perhaps more detailed duties and rules such as that one should not cross
a lawn or that one should vote. All these ad hoc duties tend to make
deontology excessively pluralistic with all the consequent dilemmas (like
the classical deontological one), unless they can all be reduced to one or a
small number of ultimate duties, or deontic rules, in which the actions to
be done or abstained from are described in purely denotative terms. An
uninterpreted 'principle of justice' or 'axiom of equity' will, then, not
provide a foundation for such an ultimate duty. (These ad hoc duties and
interpretations arouse suspicion, particularly because --with one or a few
exceptions-- ethical theorists just seem to be, or have been, running behind
the social norms of their own subculture, or of their own era and country.)



7.5.2  RULE-DEONTOLOGY


In trying to find some unity in the morassy spawn of unconnected
right-making characteristics and deontic rules, the 'categorical imperative'
and 'principle of universalizability' have been proposed. According to the
categorical imperative one should 'only act on a maxim which one can at the
same time will to be a universal law'. This imperative was designed to
establish a monistic kind of rule-deontology. (Rule-deontology holds that
moral judgments should be at least implicitly based on nonconsequentialist
rules or maxims.) According to the principle of universalizability (already
mentioned in 5.1.2) one should be able to universalize one's maxim, that is,
if x is right, then anything exactly like x in relevant respects must also
be right. This principle tho is nothing else than a principle of relevance
turned upside down: the moral agent starts with the distinctions made in the
maxim and is asked to inquire subsequently whether these distinctions are
perhaps irrelevant, in which case the maxim is not universalizable, or is
lost when universalizing it.

To illustrate the impracticability (and naivity) of an ethical guideline
such as the categorical imperative, let us consider a biracial community
with races R and S, and let us take two individuals in this community: A and
B. A loves B, and expresses this love in a physical way towards B. How to
describe this action so that it might fall under the categorical imperative
or some other rule? It might be said that 'A has physical contact with
somebody of the opposite race' if A belongs to race R, and B to race S, or
vice versa. (Opposite is then used in the simple antonymical sense, when A
and B have never heard and thought of other races than R and S.) Secondly,
it might be said that 'A has physical contact with somebody of race S' if B
belongs to race S. But thirdly, it could also be claimed that 'A has
physical contact with somebody 'e loves' (or 'just likes to have physical
contact with'). Now, what maxim does the categorical imperative want A to
will to be a universal law? Should A wonder whether 'e can will that
everybody is allowed to have physical contacts with person or body B; with a
human being of the opposite race; with somebody of race S; or with somebody
'e loves or likes? And if A rejects the idea that all members of 'er
community should exclusively express their love towards B, or towards
members of race S (so that no-one expresses 'er love towards members of race
R), should 'e then consider it 'er duty not to love B, or not to express 'er
love in a physical way? Naturally, the right answer is somehow that A is
allowed to express 'er love towards B in a physical way if B does (at least)
not mind, whether 'e be of the same or of the 'opposite' race, of race R or
of race S. The categorical imperative, however, is useless in ascertaining
that this is the correct description of the act or maxim in question. What
is worse, it has been demonstrated that a 'suitable' description can always
be found of any act. (It will be fun to apply the categorical imperative to
someone who has decided to practise philosophy as a profession. And what if
such a philosopher tells a conscientious objector that if everybody in 'er
country refused to join the armed forces nobody could defend 'er country,
and the conscientious objector replies that if every moral agent in the
world refused to join the armed forces no foreign power could and would
attack 'er country to start with?)

In the first instance it seems plausible to infer from the categorical
imperative or the principle of universalizability that one should not lie,
and that the injunction not to lie is the rule with respect to the truth of
one's statements. For if everyone lied, or lied when it suited 'im, lying
would not be possible anymore, since a lie can only work in a social
environment in which most people expect someone to tell the truth. Yet, if a
liar acts on a maxim at all, that maxim need not be that 'e lies or ought to
lie. It might be, for example, --as has been argued-- lie when it is the
sole way to avoid harming someone or lie when it is entertaining or
harmless. Not only is it possible to get around the categorical imperative
by employing other or more detailed descriptions of the act, in everyday
life implications are also easily avoided by a change in meanings of the
terms employed: if telling a (natural or supernatural) falsehood is
entertaining and harmless, it is no deceit, and 'may' (or 'must') not even
be called "a lie"; and if no-one expects someone to do something, altho 'e
has said so, it may not even be called "a promise".

It should have become clear that deontological theories, like all ethical
theories, need at least an implicit moral decision-theory, an implicit
principle of truth and an implicit principle of relevance. It should have
become clear, too, that deontology is doomed to remain a very pluralistic
form of ethics with all the ensuing difficulties (or conveniences?) of
conflicting ultimate duties. Conflicting duties or values are inherent in
every normative doctrine with truth as a principle besides other ones, but
when they can be reduced to the smallest number of ultimate duties or
values, they can, at least in principle, be solved or avoided. The
deontological agent who promises the authorities to kill the first living
being 'e will meet on 'er return home, but who simultaneously has the duty
not to kill, for example, somebody belonging to 'er own in-group, has no way
whatsoever to determine what to do when the first living being 'e meets on
'er return home happens to be somebody of 'er own in-group. To assert that
killing somebody of one's own in-group must be worse than breaking a
promise, presupposes a higher or more general standard of appraisal
(happiness maybe?), and presupposes that there is a higher-level duty to do
what gives a better result, or not to do what gives a worse one. To say that
killing somebody is worse than breaking a promise is to go by some
higher-level principle. If so, then it ought to be revealed, even when it is
merely that of adherence to the factual morality of the past and present (a
'principle' all lexical orderings of ultimate duties, values or rights seem
to be subjected to). In the event that the deontologist is not capable of
doing this, it is probably because there is no normative one on the
deontological reckoning. But then it should be underscored that no conflict
of duties may ever be created or given rise to, however many ultimate duties
may be believed to exist.



7.5.3  BOTH CONSEQUENTIALISTIC AND DEONTOLOGICAL, OR NEITHER


To overcome the more or less notorious situations in which pure deontology
turned out to provide no substantive normative directive, or to be too
meager a doctrine on its own, deontology has been mixed by some with
consequentialism. And to overcome the more or less notorious situations in
which utilitarianism turned out to provide the wrong normative directive,
or, similarly, to be too meager a doctrine on its own, this form of pure
consequentialism has been mixed by some with deontology. So a theory may be
deontological in that it recognizes, and in the way it interprets, a
principle of justice, and consequentialistic in that it recognizes a
principle of utility or beneficence. Such theories have been classified as
"mixed deontological", but this expression is as confused and partial as the
message mixed male when used by an informant to describe the makeup of a
group consisting of both female and male, moral agents.

Deontology is also used by many ethical theorists to denote any normative
doctrine or theoretical complex which is not entirely consequentialistic and
future-regarding in every respect. However, this terminology bypasses the
following division of nonmotivist normative theories into three classes,
namely:
  1.  value- or goal-based theories (consequentialistic if only
      future-regarding);
  2.  duty-based theories (to be classified as "deontological" by us);
  3.  right(-duty)-based theories (not to be classified as "deontological"
      by us).
Just as in deontology an act can be right regardless of its consequences
with respect to a performatory value, so can in a right-based theory someone
or something have a right, not only regardless of the consequences of being
given that right, but also regardless of fulfilling a deontological duty. If
respecting a right would have bad consequences, or if in exercising this
right a consequentialist or deontological duty would not be fulfilled, the
person or being in question could have this right nevertheless on the
account of a right-based theory.

The concept of right is so important in normative philosophy, and the role
of value-based or duty-generating principles in relation to the ethics of
rights so delicate, that we will devote the following chapter to this
subject. When we eventually opt for a goal-based doctrine which is not only
future-, but also present- and past-regarding, it is our right to turn to
such a form of teleology which morally enables us to personally do so.



8  RIGHT-DUTY CONSTELLATIONS


8.1  THE BASICS OF HAVING A RIGHT


8.1.1  SOME TRADITIONAL CONCEPTIONS


It may be right to do something, or not to do something, and it may be wrong
to do something, or not to do something. It is quite a different matter tho,
to claim that someone has the right to do, or not to do, something. There is
nothing inconsistent in asserting that someone has the right to do right or
to do wrong. In other words: one may have the right to be moral; one may
also have the right not to be moral, or to be immoral. Only those who commit
the right-should fallacy believe that one should do something one has a
right to. Maybe, a particular normative doctrine vehemently rejects every
right to be immoral, while recognizing many other rights, but that is a
question of the content of rights, not of their meaning or possible form.
(Many, if not all, political and religious ideologies are unable to make
this conceptual distinction.)

Could it be that the difference between something being right and having the
right to something is one between an ethical or normative notion and a
legal, and therefore factual-modal, notion? If so, then it would be obvious
that a person can have the (legal) right to do something that is (morally)
wrong, or that 'e might not have the (legal) right to do something that is
(morally) right. But this position would amount to denying that there exist
any nonlegal rights, or rights in a normative sense, at all. Yet, this is an
issue to be divorced from the question of what having a right in the
normative sense means. Even if there is a meaning for this expression, we
still do not have to acknowledge this kind of right for that reason, let
alone all kinds of fancy, alleged, moral or 'natural' right. The very fact
(or rather mode) that one can meaningfully speak of the rights of people or
nonpersonal beings in a context where there is no legal system at all, or
where a law is morally bad, is itself a proof of the significance of a
nonlegal concept of right.

The special, linguistic connection between legal and 'moral', or other
nonlegal, rights is nevertheless typical of the concept of right where it is
used in a normative doctrine. It suggests at least that what may not be an
actual right according to the law or legal practise, should be or become a
right according to the doctrine in question. Since the law in a particular
country may not guarantee a fair trial, and since the actual practise of
judging people in courts of law in a country may not be fair, the right to a
fair trial, for instance, means that the law should guarantee a fair trial,
and that the actual judgments should be fair.

Some theorists on rights want us to believe that a right is nothing else
than a 'claim upheld by law', or a 'future judicial remedy', or an
'opportunity guaranteed by the state', and so forth. Of course, such
definitions drain the concept of right of all normative significance and
make it into a factual-modal, legal notion. Other theorists are less
one-sidedly legalistic or 'archistic'. Nonetheless, their conceptions
display a similar attitude. They may define a right as a permission secured
by public force or as a power of influencing the acts of another by the
force of society or as an interest recognized and protected by a rule. But
even when merely conceiving of a right as a 'liberty', it has still to be
made explicit whether reference is made to a liberty someone (actually) has,
or a liberty someone should have. (And then there remain all the different
meanings of liberty and freedom to be tackled.)

When speaking of the concept of right as a factual-modal notion, this does
not necessarily involve the law. Any existing system of cultural or 'social'
norms is or would be factual-modal in the same sense, even in an anarchical
society or community. Yet, it is the law of a state, or between states,
which is the most clearly institutionalized system of such cultural norms.
It is therefore the legal concept of right which has attracted more
attention than any other factual-modal concept of right. One legal theory of
rights in particular has been very influential. According to this theory
there is a strict and a loose usage of right. In the strict sense a 'right'
would be the jural opposite of a 'no-right' and the jural correlative of a
duty. In this view a right is, strictly speaking, only a claim, but in a
looser sense it covers privileges or liberties, powers and immunities too.
The whole scheme centers round the relations of being-the-jural-opposite or
-correlative between legal right elements.

On the basis of the legal theory of right elements an analogous conception
of ethical rights has been developed. This theory recognizes also four
'advantages' (claims, liberties, powers and immunities) and four
'disadvantages' ( no-claims, duties, liabilities and disabilities). But
instead of being described as a 'complex system of legal advantages', an
ethical right is now described as a 'complex system of ethical advantages'.
The concept of right is in neither field restricted to a single feature, but
refers to a constellation of four different elements (for other theorists to
several of those elements). A distinction has been drawn, next, between
--what has been called-- 'the defining core of a right' (an element or pair
of elements 'fundamental to its existence') and the other elements belonging
to it. Dependent on the element(s) in the defining core, both legal and
ethical rights have been subdivided into 'claim-', 'liberty-', 'power-' and
'immunity-rights'. However, from a normative point of view it seems hardly
necessary (if at all) to speak of the latter two types of 'right'.
Power(-right) and immunity(-right) are primarily modal and not normative
notions. Power refers to an ability required for performing some sort of act
with a certain kind of 'legal or ethical consequence'. As the argument goes,
one must have the power, for example, to make a promise. But when talking
about rights and duties with respect to a particular situation in which
someone promised a certain thing, this power or ability is already
presupposed. (Ought implies can in practise.) And when talking about rights
and duties with respect to the question whether someone ought to be able or
not to be able to perform 'the', that is any act of promising, this is
another subject altogether.

Those who do not take the view that the concept of right itself is a
compositional notion have usually analyzed a right as essentially a claim or
a liberty. It need not be merely a claim in their eyes; it has also been
defined as a 'valid claim to something and against someone'.

The most outspoken noncognitivistic is probably the position of those who
maintain that uttering a proposition with (to have a) right (to) in it, is
merely a question of 'choosing a side' or that such an utterance is merely
some 'complicated performance'. Altho linguistic considerations have always
played, and will continue to play, an important part for us, because
language is our only means of communication at this place, it is something
else to remain completely entangled in propositional affairs without ever
getting closer to the subject matter itself. At the moment we are interested
in rights, or if they do not really exist, in the norms or absence of norms
which give rise to them. It is more than the language of rights we are
concerned about, more than the propositions in which the word right occurs.

On a functionalist, cognitivist account rights have also been portrayed as
'trumps over collective goals'. This account rests on a conception of
individual, human dignity and political equality. It treats of right as a
notion relating to the distributive principles which counteract the effects
of one or more purely aggregative principles such as that of ordinary
utilitarianism. Consequentialist theories with aggregative goals only need
not aim at something abstract like maximum or average utility; they may aim
at less abstract goals too, like general welfare or maximum security. But in
all these cases everyone's behavior must somehow serve these collective
goals, and a doctrine which exclusively recognizes one or more aggregative
principles disallows any act which does not serve these collective goals. If
on another view a person or living being is free to perform such an act
nevertheless (altho the one or more collective values may be recognized as
well), this person or living being is said to 'have a right' to that
particular act or kind of act.

A purely aggregative form of consequentialism cannot cope with rights very
well, or not at all. Yet, even a consequentialist theory with one or more
distributive values might be incompatible with certain alleged rights, such
as the right to give or to bequeath -- it has been argued. Any
distributional pattern (egalitarian or not) would be upset anyhow by the
individual's right to hold and to choose that someone else holds in 'er
place. Hence, there are bound to be many conflicts, not only between rights
and aggregative principles, but also between rights and pattern-based
distributive principles. The fundamental question which usually remains
hidden in discussions on the latter kind of conflict is the question of what
having (a right to or of) property means in a normative sense -- not in some
legal or social, factual-modal sense of owning, nor in some factual sense of
possessing. Not until we know sufficiently what 'property' is, or is not,
can we know what we or some collective agency hold, and what we or that
collective agency may give away. If there is a moral right to hold and a
moral right to give and bequeath, then certainly not to hold, give or
bequeath what one morally does not own, whatever the legal or social
practise may be. This issue we have to leave for now until we are going to
discuss the concept of property itself.

Traditional consequentialism has been criticized for other or broader
reasons, namely that it could not accomodate agent-relative values and the
autonomy or integrity of human beings or people. However, if a
consequentialist system does allow to look at its goal or goals from
different angles, and if it does allow for agent-relative evaluations of
consequences, then --it has been argued-- rights can be incorporated in such
a system as 'goal-rights'. We will return to this concept of rights as goals
when reviewing some theories of the justification of rights.



8.1.2  THE CORRELATIVITY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES


Do rights, indeed, always correlate with duties as many a theorist on rights
suggests? Some of those who hold that they do, have used this correlativity
to identify rights: they are mere correlatives of duties. Others have
qualified that view while accepting the correlativity itself. They have
defined a right as the correlative of a relative duty ('relative' in that it
is the duty to one or more persons other than oneself or the state); or as
the correlative of a conditional duty ('conditional' in that the possessor
of the right may choose not to exercise it.)

If rights and duties are connected to each other in a two-place relation, or
in a three-place relation between different people, then one of both
categories could perhaps be eliminated. It has thus been argued that right
is redundant, for right is ambiguous, whereas duty is not. Right may denote
both 'the right against another' and 'the right to perform an action', and
this would make it necessary to refer to the corresponding duties anyhow:
the duty to perform an act for someone else's benefit and the duty not to
interfere with someone else, respectively. Duty and penalty have also been
identified as the only expressions required for a rational, legal code.

Opponents of the doctrine of correlativity (and of the redundancy theory of
right) have argued that there is no universal correlativity. This may be
'proved' by calling attention to 'duties' for which there would be no
correlative rights, like 'duties of status', 'of obedience' and 'of
compelling appropriateness' (with such specimens as 'duties of perfection'
and 'duties of love'). The discovery of such noncorrelative 'duties' is
largely due to an ethical intuitionism or impressionism in which every
alleged right and every alleged duty of every customary morality
--bourgeois, proletarian or whatever-- is put on the list of 'genuine'
possibilities. In trying to dismantle the correlativity of rights and duties
some 'active rights' (rights to do something) have also been listed as
rights which would not fit the pattern of correlativity. As an example of an
ordinary 'active right' which would not directly imply any specific
obligation not to interfere, the right 'to make a right turn on a red light
in countries where traffic keeps to the right' has been mentioned (even tho,
or if, it is required when traffic allows). On this view an 'active right'
need not be discretionary; as a matter of fact all choice may be ruled out.

In a more fruitful attack on the correlativity doctrine it has been argued
that people usually read too much into that doctrine. From their
correlativity it does not follow that statements about rights justify or
explain statements about duties or obligations; only statements about
'exercisable' rights do this. Exercisable rights are on this account the
only genuine ones, and having such a right implies that one has or should
have a certain freedom of action, while others are obligated not to
interfere with its exercise. On the other hand, 'nonexercisable' rights
would not be distinct from the duty with which they correlate. The right to
turn right on a red light would be exercisable if one were allowed to wait
before the light even if no traffic were approaching from the left or ahead,
while someone else would be waiting behind the 'right-holder'. Only then
would it correspond to a duty by others not to interfere. However, if one
has the right 'to turn on a red light if traffic allows' and if one must
turn on a red light if traffic allows (and there is someone impatiently
waiting behind the 'right-holder'), then the right is nonexercisable and
does not contain an element of full freedom.

We started with distinguishing a right from what is the right thing to do.
Now, what is morally right to do, presupposes that people have the (moral)
freedom to do this, and it implies that people can claim to do this on the
basis of the particular morality in question. It is this what causes many
theorists on rights to confuse an 'extrinsic' right from an 'intrinsic'
right in the sense of something that is the right thing to do according to a
particular system (like turning to the right if this makes traffic run more
smoothly). Parallel to this distinction we will have to differentiate
'extrinsic' duties or obligations and the 'intrinsic' ones which follow from
what is the right thing to do (as in the utilitarian justification of
duties). The former ones are, then, the correlatives of extrinsic rights and
are duties which one can even have if their performance is contrary to, for
example, collective goals. (The duty not to injure someone else and the duty
not to interfere with someone else's expression of free speech are good
examples.) The latter duties are the correlatives of intrinsic rights, but
do not derive from them: they rest on doctrinal principles, or are generated
by a certain system of norms. A duty 'of perfection' is teleologically a
pleonasm, a duty 'of love' is, taken at face value, a psychological or
physiological absurdity to be compared to a duty 'not to be hungry' or 'to
be talented'. Duties like those of 'status' or 'obedience' may be
justifiable in a particular normative theory on the basis of the utility or
other merits of a system in which someone has this status or can demand this
obedience, one can only conceive of such duties if the acts in question are
right or if the system is good on the basis of that very utility or those
other merits of the total system. They are therefore intrinsic duties which
do appear to correlate with intrinsic rights.



8.2  SEVEN PARTIES WITH THEIR RIGHTS AND DUTIES


8.2.1  A CONSTRUCTIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES


When it is stated that exercisable rights impose a duty on others, it is the
right and the correlative duty of two different parties which is being
talked about. When it is suggested that nonexercisable rights cannot be
distinguished from the duty with which they correlate (and when it is
assumed that there always would be such a corresponding duty), it is the
right and the corresponding duty of one and the same party which is being
referred to. Altho this distinction between exercisable and nonexercisable
rights is, like practically all other kinds of right traditionally
distinguished, far too simplistic, it tells us one thing we should do: that
we should look at the different kinds of parties involved in every kind of
system to which a certain right or duty belongs, and that we should examine
what is the right (if any) and what is the duty (if any) of that particular
(kind of) party in that particular (kind of) system. And then, it is one
thing that there is no duty correlating with a certain right of the same
person, or vice versa, and quite another thing that there would be no duty
of any party correlating with a certain right of a party in the same total
system of rights and duties.

Talking about the (possible) universal correlativity of rights and duties
does not make sense if this correlativity is confined to one and the same
person or party. But when it is extended to 'both' parties in a right-duty
situation (as is done in the case of exercisable rights), the question
arises immediately whether there are always only two parties, and whether
these parties are always of the same character. It now turns out that the
distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic rights and duties is most
useful, but not sufficient. A second distinction is needed: that between
general and special rights and duties. A special right is (traditionally)
defined as a right of a definite person or party which has some special
relationship with another definite person or party. It is agent-relative.
For example, if A (who has the duty) promised something to B (who has the
right), the special relationship is that of a personal promise. (In the
event that the relationship is one between persons, a special right and duty
may also be called "in personam".)

General rights and duties are the