Some terminology

I. "Optimal"–best from the impartial point of view.

I. Since Kagan has granted constrains for the sake of argument (and keep in mind that he can pull this rug out from under the moderate whenver he likes, since he thinks that the moderate is in serious trouble when it comes to justifying options), we are back to the quesiton of options:

II. The most plausible way of defending them (putting aside the strategy discussed in Chapter Six) will be the by-now familiar appeal to cost.

A. The cost, of course, is going to be the cost to the agent measured in terms of her ability to pursue her own interests, where interests roughly coincide with what Williams calls projects. (Actually interests include more than projects, but this is relatively unimportant for our discussion.)

B. But the question remains: WHY does the cost to the agent justify an option?

1. Options, in effect, provide an excuse for not doing all that we can to promote the best state of affairs.

2. The qeustion is whether this is a LEGITIMATE excuse. Is the fact that doing all that we can to promote the best state of affairs is costly to us a good REASON to claim that we have options, or is it a MERE RATIOANLIZATION of our own selfishness?

III. It is important to keep in mind that we are not going to get a defense of options just by claiming that it is BAD to have people unable to pursue their projects and deepest concenrs.

A. That is, if the only thing we can say about sacrificing interests is that it is bad when an agent must do this, then the extremist will simply say that this bad is to be minimized, and that the best STATE OF AFFAIRS is the one in which the greatest number of people are able to pursue their projects and deepest concenrs.

B. This means that if the moderate is to justify a genuine OPTION, then she will have to avoid claiming that it is the MERE BADNESS of being alienated from one’s proejcts that is the reason for options.

IV. The way Kagan puts it is to say that the moderate must locate something that is "problematic" about a moralt heroy that requries us to sacrifice or abandon our projects and deepest concerns (253).

A. And the moderate must be clear that it is the REQUIREMENT that is problematic, and not the sacrifice or abandomnet itself(255) "it is no the sacrifice of interests per se that is problematic, but rather the requirement of such sacrifices."

B. This means that the moderate must argue that "tehre is something about he sacrifice of interstrs that (typically) prevents the rules out the general requirement to promote the good, [and thus that] prevents the pro tanto reason from being morally decisive."

V. Such an argument, according to Kagan, is going to have to depend on some claim about the nature of persons. That is, the idea is going to be that something about the way persons are is what explains why there must be a limit on the requirement to sacrifice one’s own most deepest concerns.(257)

VI. The particualr fact about persons that seems most likely to help do this is the fact that persons have a personal point of view. That fact, remember, is just the fact that there is a difference between our favorite SOAs (or consequences) on the one hand and the BEST SOAs (or consequences) on the other. The BEST state of affairs (or "the good" for short) is the state of affairs that is best for everyone, and not just for me.

REFLECTING THE PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW

I. According to Kagan, then, the most plausible argument for the moderate offer in defense of options will move from the fact that we have a personal point of view to the claim that a moralt heory must include options.

II. Such an argument will proceed, according ot Kagan, via a "meta-ethcial principle" that a moralt heory should "reflect" the facts about persons.

A. Kagan’s "meta-ethical principle" is what I have been calling a Linking Principle:

B. It is meant ot provide a LINK between a fact about the nature of prsons on the one hand, and the correct moral theory on the other.

III. Now Kagan thinks that the extremist can grant that a moral theory should reflect facts about human nature or the nature of persons. (And this is not one of htese cases where Kagan makes the concession for the sake of argument and then later threatens to revoke the concession.) That is to say, Kagan apparently thinks that there is indeed something to be said for this "meta-ethical" (linking) principle.

IV. Why? Well, there is something quite plausible about the idea that morality ties into the human condition, or that, as Aristotle and Rawls say, the proper rules for a thing depend on what that thing is. This is not a proof, to be sure, but it seems like enough to grant an argumentative presumpiton in favor of the "meta-ethical principle" that a moral theory should reflect the nature of persons.

V. In any case, Kagan himself is not going to challenge the principle directly.

TWO NOTIONS OF REFLECTING

I. Although he is willing to grant SOME VERSION of the meta-ethical (linking) principle that a moral theory should reflect the nature of persons, he notes that there is an ambiguity in the notion of "reflecting." There are two notions of reflecting that the meta-ethical principle might invoke.

II. MINIMAL REFLECTING: One way for a moral theory to reflect a fact about human nature or the nature of persons is for it to merely do "all that it must." Kagan calls this "minimally reflecting."

A. The idea here is that a moral theory MUST reflect facts at least in some minimal way.

B. Kagan is not explicit about what this minimal way is, but based on my reading of him and my own thoughts on the matter, I would say that minimal reflection can be seen to include: logical consistency with the feature, and not ignoring the feature.

C. So we can say that a moral theory minimally reflects a fact about the nature of persons if it does not DENY or IGNORE it.

III. FULLY REFLECTING: A second way for a moral theory to reflect a fact about human nature or the nature of persons is for it to do "allt hat it can" to reflect it. Kagan calls this "fully reflecting."

A. Here the idea is that a moral theory might do more than merely take account of and be consistent with a fact about human nature or the nature of persons. It might incorporate that fact in some more robust way.

IV. To see the difference a bit clearly, let me bring in something that Kagan does not mention till the beginning of the next chapter.

A. Minimal reflecting can be seen as a sort of begrudging attitude toward the nature of persons.

1. It is a kind of miserly or stingy attitude toward the nature of persons, for it makes only those concessions that it must.

2. It is like the attitude toward your least favorite uncle who stops by for dinner unexpectedly–you have to let him eat, but you are not happy about it, and you are not going ot go out of your way to do anymore than you have to.

B. Full reflecting can be seen as a more favorable attitude toward the nature of persons.

1. It is a kind of bending over backwards to accomodate the facts.

2. It is like the attitude toward your best freind whom you;ve invited over for dinner: You go out of your way to welcome her in, and make whatever arrangements you can to accomodate her.

V. Now it makes a big difference which of these kinds of reflecting we think that a moral theory should do. That is, it makes a big difference whether we think that a moral theory must FULLY reflect the facts about the nature of persons, or whetehr it only needs ot MINIMALLY reflect those facts.

VI. At first glance, it looks like even an extremist theory MINIMALLY reflects the nature of persons.

A. For it does not DENY that persons are concerned with their personal point of view.

B. Nor does the extremist IGNORE this fact, for she is quite willing to look at its implications in deciding how best to get people to promote the best STATE OF AFFAIRS.

VII. On the other hand, it seems as though the extreme theory does not FULLY reflect human nature or the nature of persons.

A. For it COULD do more to incorporate the fact of the personal point of view. In particular, a moral theory COULD include options.

B. Including the agent-centered option would be a way for a moral theory to FULLY reflect the fact of the personal point of view, for it woudl involve allowing persons to use the personal point of view in tehir own moral deliberations.

VIII. So it makes a big difference which way we read the meta-ethcial principle. So even if we grant the "meta-ethical principle" that a moral theory should reflect the nature of persons, we still have to answer the question of what notion of reflecting to use.

IX. Kagan claims that if we read the meta-ethical principle as calling for FULL REFLECTING, then it will be "controversial."

A. That means that the moderate is going to have to offer an argument for it if she wants to use it.

B. Such a reading of the principle would impose a large requirement on a moral theory.

C. It would make a large demand, so to speak, and it would be encessary to see some argument to see why this demand is justified.

X. On the other hand, he claims that if we read the meta-ethical principle as requireing only minimal reflection, then it is much less controversial.

A. Such a reading of the principle would impose a much smaller requrment, and amke a much smaller demand on a moral tehroy.

B. It is a demand that even the extremist is likely to grant, and that Kagan does grant (and not in the provisional "I reserve the right to pull the rug back out from under you" way that he grants constraints).

D. We can see why this is something that is hard to deny if we keep in mind that Kagan seems to think of minimal reflecting as simply requiring that a moral theory neither deny nor ignore the facts about the nature of persons:

1. Who would want to deny that it is an advantage for a moral theory to take account of relevant facts about human nature or the nature of persons, and to be consistent with them?

2. To say this would be to say that it is perfectly fine for a moral theory to deny the facts, or for it to ignore them. Surely we don’t want any theory about anything to ignore or deny important facts.

XI. Now the problem that Kagan sees is that the "refleciton argument" faces a dilemma:

(1) The demand that a moral theory must FULLY reflect the personal point of view will get the moderate what she wants (i.e. not enough to jsutify options), BUT this demand needs to be defended somehow.

BUT

(2) The demand that a moral theory must MINIMALLY reflect the personal point of view is a demand that even the extremist can grant, BUT this demand is not enough to get the moderate what she wants (i.e. not enough to justify options).

X. This suggests that the moderate has two possible strategies for using facts about the nature of persons to defend options. She can either:

(1) argue that, contrary to Kagan’s suggestion, the extreme theory does NOT even MINIMALLY reflect the nature of persons. This he will call THE NEGATIVE ARGUMENT.

OR

(2) defend the controversial version of the meta-ethical principle, the one that claims that a moral theory is inadequate unless it FULLY reflects the nature of persons. THIS HE WILL THE POSTIVE ARGUMENT

(After about page 267, Kagan goes into a few twists and turns that we won’t follow here.)

CHAPTER 8--THE NEGATIVE ARGUMENT

I. Now, this strategy is going to try to show that, contra Kagan, E really does not minimally reflect the personal point of view.

II. THE BASIC IDEA WILL BE TO CLAIM THAT SOMEHOW THE FACT THAT WE HAVE A PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW WILL CONFLICTS WITH THE EXTREMIST’S CLAIM THAT WE ARE ALWAYS UNDER A REQUIREMENT TO PROMOTE THE GOOD.

III.  How will it do that? By showing that something about the nature of persons MAKES THE pro tanto reason NOT decisive.

A. If the moderate can do that, then she will have demonstrated a contradiction between the extremist’s claim that the pro tanto reason is always decisive on the one hand and the fact of the personal point of view on the other.

B. Now, remember that one way to argue that a pro tanto reason could fail to be decisive and thus fail to produce a requirement ot promote the good is to argue that there is SOME OTHER CONDITION ON MORAL DECISIVENESS that the pro tanto reason (at least sometimes) does not meet.

V. What will the condition be?

THE MOTIVATIONAL CONDITION

I. Kagan thinks that the most plausible thing to say would be to offer a motivational condition. (remember, though, that we might want to beware of Kagan bearing gifts!).

II. The idea would be that if the nature of persons prevents us from being motivated to obey the extremist demand, then it will fall afoul of SOMETHING LIKE the "ought implies can" principle. Kagan says explicitly that he is not talking about the "standard" ought implies can principle. However, what he is talking about is quite close to it.

III. The idea here would be that, as Kagan puts it, you cannot be required to do just any old thing. The motivational structure of persons sets some limits on what we can require them to do.

A. The claim that a requirement must be capable of motivating persons is sometimes called internalism. The reason for the name is that any legitimate requiremens must have an "internal" source of motivation.

B. The idea of internalism is that moral requirements must be tied into possible motivations of the persons to whom they apply.

C. It is worth pointing out–as Kagan himself does–that a lot of people do not accept internalism. Actually a lot of people on BOTH sides of the moderate-extremist debate reject internalism.

IV. This would connect up nicely with the argument from cost spelled out in terms of the PPV, for part of what the PPV seems to be about is the fact that our motivations seem to be governed by how things appear from our own PPV rather than from the IPV. So some sort of motivational condition on moral decisiveness would be just what the Mod would need, and it would be just the sort of thing that should come out of the arugment from cost.

V. Now Kagan, the nice guy that he is, is going to let the Moderate off the hook as far as defending the motivational condition. Of course there are lots of perople who deny that htere can be any such condition, but sorting out this mess would take a whole book (at least) and neither Kagan nor we have time for all that. So he's going to make the magnanimous gesture of grantign the motivational condition arguendo (for the sake of argument). (277)

VI. So, given this magnanimous gesture of granting the motivational condition, we can, for the sake of argument, claim that

IF A PERSON CANNOT BE MOTIVATED TO OBEY A REQUIREMENT ALWAYS TO PROMOTE THE GOOD (I.E. TO ACT FROM THE IMPERSONAL POINT OF VIEW RATEHR THAN FROM HER PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW) THEN SHE CANNOT BE MORALLY REQUIRED TO ACT IN THIS WAY.

VII. So now we need to know this:

CAN WE BE MOTIVATED TO ACT ON THE IMPERSONAL POINT OF VIEW, I.E. TO ALWAYS PROOTE THE GOOD?

VIII. Kagan wants, of course, to answer "yes" How's he going to do it?