Exam:  

Take-home, 6 questions, 1.5-2 pages each.  

To be given out formally on Wed., Oct. 18 and it will be due Wed., October 24 at the beginning of class.

However, as I have already gotten requests for extensions, what I will do is this:  

In the early afternoon of Tuesday, Oct. 17, I will post the first 4 questions on the web site.  That will allow anyone who wants it to have an extra 24 hours.   

So if anyone wants an extension, my first reply will be "I just gave you one."  

I will grant further extensions only under the most serious circumstances.  Being really busy or a having the flu do not count.

Also, I do not expect to be here talking to myself on the class days during which the exam is going on.  

Part of that time we will be talking about material that I did not discuss the last time I taught this course.  

What that means is that I do not already have detailed notes on it, and I'll tell you right now that I do not plan to write notes on it that are significantly developed to put on the web site.  

So your only source of information from me about that material--which will find its way onto the final exam--will be by attending class.

A. On page 46, Gewirth contrasts what he calls the Aassertoric approach@ with what he calls the Adialectically necessary approach.@

1.  As Gewirth explains elsewhere (in Reason and Morality), to say that the method is Adialectical@ is to say that it will look at what one must presuppose in order to make sense of what she is doing or saying. In this case, Gewirth is going to argue that when a person takes a deliberate (purposive@) action as a rational agent, then she must be making certain implicit assumptions. Gewirth hopes that by exploring and analyzing these assumptions, we can find a basis for morality.

2.  The "necessary" part means that what we are looking for are assumptions that a person MUST make if her actions or claims are to make any sense.

3.  So the idea behind the "dialectically necessary method" is to look for assumptions that we cannot help but make if we are to be agents.  

4.  Gewirth thinks that there are certain "rights" that we must claim if we are to see ourselves as purposive agents.  Gewirth's idea will be to use the claim that we cannot help but to claim these rights for ourselves as a premise for the claim that we have rights. Now the way to do this will NOT be to infer that we have something because we think that we do. That would be the assertoric method, for it would end up with an assertion that we do in fact have rights.  (It would also violate the "is-ought gap" and be an example of the kind of moral relativism that Gewirth wants to avoid.)

5. So Gewirth=s argument will not be so much a matter of saying that there ARE rights, that these rights somehow EXIST, but rather it will show that it is rationally necessary for people to accept and acknowledge those rights.

B. So the inconsistency that Gewirth will locate in immorality is not going to be a matter of asserting both P and not P, but in demanding inconsistent things.

C. This move is sophisticated and clever.

1. One thing it does is neatly get him around the whole issue of moral realism, for his argument is not going to be that rights are REAL (whatever that means) but that we MUST respect them (i.e. we must comply with the demands that rights are shorthand for.)

2. It will also allow him to try to argue that we must assent to a certain universal prescription because we cannot help but make certain prescriptions relevant to our own cases.

3. Strictly speaking, of course, the claim that we must all make some prescription is not the same as saying that we all have a given right. But remember that Gewirth has already bought into a prescriptive theory of rights. If rights just are prescriptions, then if he can show that it is illogical not to make a rights-based prescription, then that is all the Aproof@ we could ever get about the existence of the right.

A. So we begin with the idea of an agent acting purposively. What is involved in being a rational agent taking a deliberate action?

B. Well, let=s begin by asking: What is a rational agent? A pursuer of goals.

C. Now if an agent is indeed rational, then she will see these goals as being worth pursuing. Otherwise she is behaving irrationally by pursuing goals that she herself sees as worthless.

D. This means that a rational agent must regard her own goals as being in some sense GOOD.

1. Now this goodness may not be moral goodness, and it may not even be intrinsic goodness.

2. It may just be that the goal in question is to perform some onerous task just because it is necessary for some reward.

3. In that sense, the task itself is good merely as a means to the reward. But goodness as a means is a form of goodness, and that is all Gewirth is worried about here.

E. Now, someone who intends X must also intend Y if Y is necessary for X. Thus if I intend to drink, and swallowing is necessary for drinking, then I must intend to swallow. That is, it is inconsistent to intend to drink but not intend to swallow given that swallowing is necessary for drinking.

F. Now, there are necessary conditions for all actions--because they are necessary for all actions, Gewirth calls them Generic Features of Action.

1. They are freedom and "well-being." He's got lots to say about well-being, but for our purposes we can just gloss it as the material necessities of action and of life.

2. In other words, if you want to perform any action, then, you gotta have freedom and well-being. Therefore, each agent must also intend to have these things if you intend to perform any action whatsoever

G. This, then, is the first step: If you are going to be an agent taking actions, then you must intend to have freedom and well-being, since they are necessary to any action at all. That is, it is inconsistent to try to do things without wanting to have the freedom and well-being that is necessary to do anything at all.

H.  Now, since rights-claims are prescriptions or demands, then to demand freedom and well-being is to assert a right to them. 

1.  Now this is not an ordinary, moral right.  Instead, it is what Gewirth calls a "PRUDENTIAL RIGHT" (on page 51).  

2.  That is, it is a right that you demand not because of any moral reasons, but merely because of your own self-interest.

3.  This is an irredeemably odd way to talk about rights.  Gewirth would claim that it is irredeemably odd that I would think this.  Be that as it may, the idea of a prudential right is VERY different from the idea of a moral right.  

a.  A prudential right is really just a demand that you make because of your own self-interest.  A moral right is a right that we can demand because of genuinely moral considerations.  

b.  Also, because a prudential right is asserted on the basis of one's own self-interest, it is only made on behalf of oneself.  That is, if I assert my prudential right to freedom and well-being, that all by itself does not commit me to saying that other people have the right to freedom and well-being.  We will need further argument to demonstrate that we have any reason to extend the rights that we claim to other persons.

4.  So when on page 49 Gewirth is talking about the agent necessarily demanding rights, he is really just saying that the agent must necessarily make certain demands.

5.  It is the fact that the agent must necessarily make these demands that (as far as I can tell) is what leads Gewirth to call them rights rather than mere demands.  For they are demands that simply come with agency, and so demanding them is part of what  agency is all about.

6.  That is, from the agent's own standpoint, given her goals (her "conative standpoint in purposive agency" as Gewirth calls it), freedom and well-being are necessary, and so it is necessary for her to demand them.  (See top of page 50). This is what makes them rights.  But the fact that they are demanded by the agent from within her own self-interested "conative standpoint", they are only prudential rights rather than moral rights. 

I.  This demand she makes AS A RATIONAL AGENT.  That is, she cannot be a rational agent and not make these demands/assert these prudential rights, at least implicitly. 

1.  If she does not make these demands (does not "assert" these "rights"), then she has engaged in a contradiction.  See bottom of 50: here's an argument that shows it to be contradictory to refuse to demand those rights.

2.  Basically it is--boiled down--if you don't demand these things, then you must not mind if someone deprives you of well being or freedom, and that is inconsistent with intending to perform actions.

A.  So far, Gewirth has argued that an agent must demand freedom and well-being.  

B.  He has called these demands "prudential rights" and shown that any agent must assert these prudential rights.  this is less impressive than it may seem, since "prudential rights" simply refers to whatever an agent must demand simply in virtue of being an agent.

C.  To make the next step, the agent must remember that his agency--his status of having intentions--plus the fact that certain conditions are necessary for successful agency together are what commit him to demanding (i.e. asserting a right to) freedom and well being. In short, agency plus universal features of action commit him to making hits demand/asserting the prudential rights.  

D.  Now, he notices that other people are in the same boat--they too are agents, and they too need the generic conditions of freedom and well-being to carry out their agency.

E.  Next, Gewirth introduces a basic principle, which he calls the "logical principle of universalizability" (top of 52).  The basic principle is this:  If I make a claim because of some reason R, I am in effect claiming that R is what justifies my claim.  However, if I make this claim, then I have committed myself to the general principle that any being to whom R applies must also be justified in making the same claim.

F.  Now if we apply this principle to the fact that we must demand freedom and well-being, we will recognize that others must also demand freedom and well-being (51).

G.  Gewirth says on p. 52 that to deny this conclusion is contradictory: I must have these things because of my agency, therefore other agents also have to have them because of their agency.

H.  Now here's where the magic happens (page 52):  "We have seen that every agent, on pain of self-contradiction, must accept the generalization that all prospective purposive agents have the generic rights to freedom and well-being.  From this generalization, because of the correlativity of rights and strict "oughts", it logically follows that every person ought to refrain from interfering with the freedom and well-being of all other persons insofar as they are prospective purposive agents."

Now the "correlativity of rights and oughts" just means the principle that if I have a right to X, then you ought not interfere with it.  So that stuff in the parenthetical is harmless. 

V.  Summary of the Argument: (sorry, but I am introducing a whole new set of "step numbers"):

1.  I must demand F-W because I am an agent

2.  We can define the term "prudential rights" to refer to whatever I must demand as an agent.

3.  So we can rephrase (1) as:  I assert prudential rights to F-W

4.  Since agency is what  grounds the fact that I must assert my prudential rights to F-W, I have to accept that other agents will must make the same assertion (=they must also demand F-W)

5.  So everyone asserts prudential rights to F-W.

6.  Since a right entails an "ought", the fact that every agent asserts a right to F-W means that each person ought to refrain from interfering with the F-W of each other agent.

VI.  The Rest of Gewirth's Theory

A.  The Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC).  This is the restatement of the conclusion of the argument (52).  It can be stated as:

"Act in accord with the generic rights of your recipients [i.e. those who are affected by your actions--rn] as well as of yourself." (52)

OR:

Respect those same rights that you accord the same rights to others that you claim for yourself (p. 53)

B.  Further definition of freedom and well-being.

1.  Well-being consists of three kinds of goods (56)

a.  Basic goods: preconditions for any action (or anything else, for that matter):  They include:  Bodily integrity, life itself, rationality, and the means of the same.  Thus food, health, sobriety, etc. are goods of this basic sort.

b.  Nonsubtractive goods: those are roughly whatever goods he person has achieved that increase and enhance his abilities to act effectively

c.  Additive goods are those goods that would further increase the agent's ability to act effectively.

2.  Freedom consists of the agent's ability to control her own actions and to be free of coercion or deception.  It also includes having a "sphere of privacy and autonomy" (57) in which to exercise her freedom without any external interference.

C.  Conflicts (57-59):  Where generic rights come into conflict, three principles are to be used to settle them:

1.  We can violate a person's generic rights in order to prevent that same person from violating another person's generic rights, or to rectify the violation after the fact.

2.  We can violate someone's generic rights if this is the only way to prevent a more serious violation of generic rights (either to that same person or to another person).

3.  We can violate someone's generic rights in certain cases in which doing so is necessary to comply with a rule or social institution that is itself justified by the PGC.

D.  Institutions (59- )--PGC can be applied directly to govern individual interpersonal interactions, but it can (and should) also be used indirectly

1.  The indirect use of the PGC will be to let it govern the creation of social rules and institutions that will further protect the generic rights.  

2.  This will involve both a criminal law to punish and deter violations of generic rights, but also some sort of welfare provision to (62) promote and equalize the abilities of persons to be effective agents.  These provisions will help the less fortunate to realize the generic goods.

VII.  Analysis of the Argument:

A.  Let's go back and look at Gewirth's argument.  It seems almost magical:  We start with non-moral premises and--abracadabra--show that immorality is a logical error.  And  we do not do this by "fudging" the definition of morality in the way that we might think that Gauthier did.

B.  Unfortunately, like most magic, I think that this is mere sleight of hand.

C.  Most readers of Gewirth have had this same impression, but not everyone does, and even among Gewirth's critics, there is no real consensus as to where the slight of hand occurs.  What follows is my take on it.  I do not claim that it is the definitive criticism of Gewirth, nor do I claim that it is original to me.

D.  My view is that the problem is with the move from 5 to six.  It seems to me that the fact that each agent must CLAIM or DEMAND these rights does not prove the conclusion (p. 52) that each agent must RESPECT THOSE CLAIMS AND RIGHTS.

1.  The stuff about the "oughts" in step 6 obscures this.  

2.  But let's "unpack" or translate the rights claims into what they really are--simple demands based on one's own self-interest.   

a.  Since the only rights we have proven so far are prudential rights, and since these are only demands that each individual makes, then so to are the oughts that go with them.  

b.  That is, we cannot get a moral ought from a prudential right.  

c.  If the right is just my selfish demand for F-W, the only "ought" that logically follows is the kind of ought that also reflects my own selfish desire to have those things. 

3.  In other words, the ought that follows from a prudential right is just the kind of ought that is backed up by self-interest.  

a.  Imagine a child saying: You ought to buy me candy.  Suppose we say: Why?  Suppose the child simply replies: "because I want it".  the child would be using a prudential ought.

E.  So my guess--and I am not alone in this--is that the conclusion does not follow from the premises purely as a matter of logic.  

F.  Suppose that hits is correct.  What does it mean?  Well, notice that what Gewirth was trying to do is more ambitious than what Hare was trying to do.  

1.  Gewirth wants to show that the refusal to act morally, to obey the PGC, is ILLOGICAL.  

2.  Hare does not have such ambitions:  He only wishes to show that IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE MORAL, THEN YOU HAVE TO ACT ON PRESCRIPTIONS THAT YOU COULD ACCEPT WHEN THEY ARE UNIVERSALIZED.  

G.  Now, if Gewirth's does not work because (as is my hunch) pure logic is not enough to get you from step 5 to step 6, then all that shows (by itself) is that someone who fails to accept (6) has not committed an error in logic.

H.  Nevertheless, there does seem to be something odd or hypocritical about making claims based on your agency but failing to honor these same claims made on the basis of the agency of others.

VIII.  A Less Ambitious Argument?

A.  Even if Gewirth's argument fails to show that morality is rationally necessary as a matter of logic for all agents, maybe it can show that all agents who want to be moral agents must accept rights. IF that is right, then he will have shown that morality must include rights, even if we have not shown that it is a logical error to fail to be moral.

B.  If I'm right that the move from step 5 to step 6 is not mandated by pure logic, then Gewirth has not really proven that morality (as developed in step 6) it is something that all RATIONAL beings must accept.

C.  But what if it is one that all MORAL beings must accept?

D.  If that is so, then Gewirth's argument MIGHT fail as an answer to the why be moral question, but might succeed as a WHAT DOES MORALITY REQUIRE question.

1.  How might this go?

2.  Well, suppose that the generalization principle is a principle of MORALITY rather than of LOGIC. Then morality (rather than logic) would require that we accept rights.

3.  And that would be just the conclusion we need to defeat the utilitarian.

E.  So we might restate Gewirth's argument in a less ambitious way:

1.  It is a basic principle of MORALITY (rather than logic) that if you make a demand then you must be willing to abide by that same demand if someone else makes it of you.

2.  As a rational agent, I MUST demand generic rights

3.  ALL other rational agents must do likewise.

4.  THEREFORE, It is a MORAL (not necessarily rational) requirement that I (and likewise each other rational agent) abide by the demands of each other rational agent to generic rights.

F.  Now THAT argument looks valid. Or at least if it is not valid as written, then presumably it could be cleaned up. OF course we need to know whether it is sound, i.e. whether the premises are all true.

G.  This suggests that Gewirth's argument might give us insight about the shape of morality even if he is wrong about the derivation of morality from pure reason. 

 

A.  At this point, however, we face a puzzle.  The less ambitious, neo-Gewirth argument and Hare's argument have a VERY similar form and a virtually identical initial premise, yet they lead to conflicting conclusions.

B.  Now, I can imagine 3 possibilities:

1. Gewirth is right that if morality is universal prescription, then morality must be deontological (i.e. rights based i.e. there are limits to the permission/requirement of maximizing utility.

2. Hare is right that if morality is universal prescription, then morality is utilitarianism.

3. Neither one is right, and even if morality is universal prescription, that fact is not enough to tell us what the basic shape of morality is. That is, the claim that morality is universal prescription is consistent with EITHER utilitarianism or deontology.

C.  Of course all these possibilites contain the condition: "If morality consist of universal prescrption" 

1.  A 4th possiblity is that this is not what morality is about at all.

2.  What might morality be if it is not a system of universal prescription?

Well, one answer, which we will examine in a bit and spend most of next week on, is that morality might be a way for rational self-interested agents to cooperate and avoid killing each other.

Paper topic: Hare and Gautheir both claim that a person who opts out of morality is likely to suffer in terms of her own self-interest. Yet hare and Gauthier have very different theories of wha tmorality is about. Why is this? If they both claim that opting out of morality is imprudent, then should they end up with the same theory of morality? Why or why not? (To cover Hare=s side of things, you may have to read a bit more of Hare=s work, in particular ______________)