E.G.

Is it inappropriate for me to link to this?  It’s on a public website, but perhaps it’s supposed to be private.  Anyway, it’s a video from the newest PEA Souper‘s website.  The audio is sort of surreal.

[This post may change significantly over time.]

Define "ODS Consequentialism" as follows:

ODS Consequentialism: One ought always act in such a way as to maximize value.  Only satisfaction of desire has value — and the stronger a desire, the more value is produced by its satisfaction.

I have previously argued that something like ODS consequentialism has a problem when it comes to a case such as the following one:

Young Augustine strongly desires to do something wrong.  (He does not care what, as long as it is wrong.)  There is a pear tree whose owner would be only slightly bothered if the pears were stolen.  Augustine decides to steal the pears because he believes it would be wrong to do so.

The problem I’ve seen for ODS consequentialism is as follows: 

(a) If Augustine ought to steal the pears, then doing so would, of course, not be wrong.  In that case, Augustine’s desire to do something wrong would not be satisfied by stealing the pears.  But then, given ODS consequentialism, Augustine ought not steal the pears, because stealing the pears would frustrate the owner’s (very slight) desire to keep his pears, without satisfying Augustine’s desires. 

(b) On the other hand, if Augustine ought not steal the pears, then doing so would be wrong.  In that case, Augustine’s desire to do something wrong would be satisfied by stealing the pears.  But then, given ODS consequentialism, Augustine ought to steal the pears, because Augustine’s strong desire to do something wrong would outweigh the owner’s weak desire to keep his pears.

Thus, it seems that, given ODS consequentialism, if Augustine ought to steal the pears, then Augustine ought not steal the pears, while if Augustine ought not steal the pears, then Augustine ought to steal the pears.

At his blog, Richard has discussed this problem and several related problems.  I take Richard to think that Augustine’s desire would be somehow meaningless or impossible.  I’m not sure Richard is still as concerned with the problem for ODS consequentialism as I (still) am; I think Richard may be concerned with a slightly wider class of problems.  However, I think we can make use of some of Richard’s thoughts for our purposes here, even if Richard has by now moved on to somewhat greener pastures.

Consider this paragraph of Richard’s from this recent post:

Imagine a sheet of paper headed with the sentence: "Most statements on this page are false." But suppose the rest of the page contains an equal number of true and false statements. The original statement would now be true iff it is false. In other words, the context converts it into the liar sentence. Contradictions are impossible. Since it’s impossible to have a statement truly asserting a contradiction, we must conclude that the apparent sentence is in fact meaningless (it refers to no proposition) in this context.

I will say something in a moment about what this case has to do with the case of young Augustine, but let’s first consider this case on its own.  Richard is right to say that, in the given context, "Most statements on this page are false" is true if and only if it is false.  But does this make it meaningless?

Let’s flesh out the example.  Imagine a page on which three statements are written:

(a) Most statements on this page are false.
(b) Paris is the capital of France.
(c) 2+2=5.

Suppose the person who writes up this page mistakenly believes that Paris is the  capital of Italy, not France.  This person believes that (b) and (c) are false, and therefore that (a) is true.  Since this person has good reason to believe (a) is true, she also has good reason to believe that (a) has meaning.  Of course, this does not show that (a) does have meaning.  We can be mistaken about whether our utterances have meaning, just as we can be mistaken about whether our utterances are true.

Under what circumstances is a proposition meaningless?  Perhaps some people think that

(i) P is meaningless when: P is true if and only if P is false.

We can subdivide the condition in (i):

(i.i) Necessarily, P is true if and only if it is false.
(i.ii) Contingently, P is true if and only if it is false.

"This sentence is false" is an example of a proposition meeting condition (i.i); in every imaginable scenario, "This sentence is false" is true if and only if it is false.  "Most statements on this page are false" is an example of a proposition meeting condition (i.ii): We can imagine scenarios in which the truth of "Most statements on this page are false" does not imply its falsity (nor vice-versa); it just so happens that in the scenario which actually obtains, its truth does imply its falsity (and vice-versa).

I think that propositions meeting condition (i.i) are always meaningless, but propositions meeting condition (i.ii) are sometimes meaningful.  But I am not that concerned about whether this can be shown or not.  I suppose a lot will depend on what is meant by "meaningful," and it’s all right if others disagree with me about what that word means.  But I think it’s worth pointing out some important differences between propositions meeting condition (i.i), and propositions meeting condition (i.ii).

One can’t really believe propositions meeting condition (i.i).  Consider the proposition "This sentence is false."  I might mistakenly believe I believe this proposition, but there is no proposition there to believe; the sentence is a mere combination of words.  But one easily could believe propositions meeting condition (i.ii).  For instance, in the above example, I can believe "Most sentences on this page are false" as long as I believe that Paris is not the capital of France.  Indeed, I can believe "Most sentences on this page are false" even if Paris really is the capital of France, so long as I am ignorant of this fact.  Put another way: I can believe "Most sentences on this page are false" regardless of context, even though I may need to be mistaken about the context in order to believe "Most sentences are false."

So: If we say that propositions meeting conditions (i.i) and (i.ii) are all "meaningless," we should remember that they are each meaningless in "different ways."  Propositions meeting condition (i.i) are not rationally believable; I must have some wires crossed in order to believe they are true (or to believe they are false).  Propositions meeting condition (i.ii) do not all have this property.  I may sometimes need to be mistaken in order to believe such propositions, but such propositions can usually be coherently incorporated into a possible body of beliefs.

What does any of this have to do with anything?  Return to the case of young Augustine.  I have claimed that given ODS consequentialism, if Augustine ought to steal the pears, then Augustine ought not steal the pears, while if Augustine ought not steal the pears, then Augustine ought to steal the pears.  The proposition "Augustine ought to steal the pears" thus appears to be true if and only if it is false, given ODS consequentialism.  But "Augustine ought to steal the pears" meets condition (i.ii), not condition (i.i).  For if Augustine wanted to steal the pears because he is extremely hungry, and not because he wants to do something wrong, then "Augustine ought to steal the pears" would not be true if and only if it is false, even given ODS consequentialism.  So "Augustine ought to steal the pears" is, it appears, rationally believable for the ODS consequentialist.  Its truth implies its falsehood, and its falsehood implies its truth, but only in the context where Augustine really does desire to do something wrong. 

This may seem like good news for the ODS consequentialist.  After all, the ODS consequentialist should want to be able to say whether Augustine ought to steal the pears.  This shows that the ODS consequentialist can do this, at least in certain contexts.  In a context such as the one in which Augustine finds himself, of course, the ODS consequentialist cannot do this.  But this is only problematic if the context such as the one in which Augustine finds himself can actually obtain.  Perhaps it cannot.

We can size up the situation for the ODS consequentialist by once again considering the proposition "Most statements on this page are false."  As we’ve seen, in the example considered above, either "Most statements on this page are false" is true iff it is false, or Paris is not the capital of France.  A similar situation obtains for the ODS consequentialist.  For the ODS consequentialist, either "Augustine ought to steal the pears" is true iff it is false, or Augustine does not desire to do something wrong.  (This is an "exclusive-or"; one, but not both, of the disjuncts has to be true.)  The ODS consequentialist should want to deny the left disjunct, and therefore to affirm the right disjunct.  The ODS consequentialist is certainly free to deny the left disjunct.  However, it seems to me that the ODS consequentialist cannot deny the left disjunct just because the left disjunct would make problems for ODS consequentialism.

As things turn out, Paris is the capital of France.  But Paris is the capital of France for reasons entirely independent of whether I have written "Most sentences on this page are false" on a page.  To know what makes Paris the capital of France, I guess you have to look away from the page and consider some historical facts.  Perhaps a similar thing is true of young Augustine.  Young Augustine claims he desires to do something wrong.  Perhaps this claim is false; perhaps what he really desires is to look cool in front of his friends — a desire he could conceivably satisfy without doing anything wrong.  But, it seems to me, whatever would make this claim of Augustine’s true or false should be kept separate from the problem we are facing here.  "What does Augustine really desire to do?"  This is a psychological question, I think.  I do not think we can answer it by considering the incompatibility of ODS consequentialism with a desire to do wrong.

Augustine claims that he desired to do something wrong.  Many other people seem to desire the same thing (e.g. Nazis, maybe).  It is possible — perhaps probable — that all these people do not really desire what they seem to desire.  But I do not think we can say that a person could not hold such a desire simply because holding such a desire would cause the problem with which we have been concerned here.

Jacqueline recently summarized her moral views as follows:

(J1) Knowingly harming someone or their property through force or fraud is immoral.  Aiding in this harm is immoral.  The exception to this is necessary force for self defense.

(J2) Harming someone accidentally (without knowledge that your actions would cause harm), allowing someone to come to harm through your inaction, and actions that have nothing to do with helping or hurting anyone other than one’s self are amoral.

(J3) Intentionally acting in such a way as to prevent harm to others, or actively helping them, is moral.

(Above, I’ve inserted "(J1)," etc., for ease of reference.)

Jacqueline seems to take "moral" to mean "worthy of praise," and "immoral" to mean "worthy of condemnation."  So for Jacqueline, "moral" is probably not equivalent to "morally permissible," since some morally permissible actions (e.g. chewing gum) are not worthy of praise.  Perhaps Jacqueline’s "moral" isn’t equivalent to "morally obligatory," either, since many morally obligatory actions are not worthy of praise.  (For instance: We do not normally pat one another on the back for not-raping.)

I think Jacqueline’s view is interesting, and in this post I’ll try to say what I think is interesting about it.  But before beginning it’s worth noting that Jacqueline’s view seems clearly false.  For instance, it seems that "allowing someone to come to harm through inaction" can be immoral, at least sometimes, despite (J2)’s implication to the contrary.  To illustrate: Suppose I am a paramedic, and have performed the Heimlich maneuver many times.  I am eating lunch with my mother when she begins to choke.  Undoubtedly, it would be immoral — i.e., "worthy of condemnation" — if I were to sit quietly in my chair and watch while my mother is suffocated by a piece of ham.  Given this susceptibility of Jacqueline’s view to such obvious counterexamples, it is interesting to ask the question: What considerations could possibly motivate this view?

Politically, Jacqueline is a libertarian, and some parts of Jacqueline’s moral view sound like certain typical formulations of libertarianism.  For instance, if you substitute "ought to be illegal" for "immoral" in (J1), you get:

(L1) Knowingly harming someone or their property through force or fraud [ought to be illegal].  Aiding in this harm [ought to be illegal].  The exception to this is necessary force for self defense.

(L1) is the sort of thing that libertarians are usually inclined to say, so let’s assume that (L1) is a consequence of libertarianism.  Now, it is usually worthy of moral condemnation to do something which ought to be illegal.  (There are exceptions to this, but they are uninteresting for our purposes).  From this it follows that if (L1) is true, then (J1) is probably true, as well.  Therefore: Since we have assumed that (L1) is a consequence of libertarianism, (J1) seems to be a consequence of libertarianism, as well.

The fact that (J1) seems to follow from libertarianism might lead us to believe that (J2) and (J3) could also be derived from libertarianism.  If so, then perhaps what motivates Jacqueline’s moral view is simply Jacqueline’s libertarianism.  But this turns out not to be the case.  For though (J1) does seem to follow from libertarianism, I do not think the other components of Jacqueline’s moral view can be similarly derived.  Consider two action-types:

(a) Allowing someone to come to harm through inaction
(b) Intentionally acting in such a way as to prevent harm to others

According to libertarianism, I take it, both of these kinds of actions have precisely the same status: Neither of them ought to be illegal; the state "should stay out of" them.  But according to Jacqueline, the first action is "amoral" (given (J2)), while the second is "moral" (given (J3)).  Since libertarianism fails to distinguish between (a) and (b), while Jacqueline’s moral view does distinguish between them, it should follow that Jacqueline’s moral view cannot be motivated solely by libertarianism. 

In fact, it would be perfectly consistent with libertarianism to say that actions of type (a) are immoral, as most of us will want to say, and as Jacqueline, apparently, does not want to say.  Libertarians think that actions of type (a) ought not be illegal, of course — but this does not commit them to say that actions of type (a) are not immoral.  After all, intuitively, there seem to be many things which are immoral even though they ought not be illegal (e.g. cheating on one’s partner).  So the libertarian is able to consistently condemn actions of type (a).  Yet Jacqueline’s view holds back from doing this.

I do not see any easy way to explain this aspect of Jacqueline’s moral code.  I suspect that parts of Jacqueline’s views (e.g. (J1)) are inspired by libertarianism, but I do not understand the other parts.  Perhaps the best way to understand Jacqueline’s view is as an attempt to graft the categories of legality onto the categories of morality.  One should expect such attempts to be made, since in the popular media, discussions about morality and legality often intertwine and flow into one another, and pundits from both the left and the right often seem to see no important difference between these two types of categories.  I suspect that this tendency to conflate legality and morality has led many people to believe that to say that something is immoral is the same as to say that it ought to be illegal.  As a consequence, many people seem to exhibit two different, though logically related, tendencies:

(i) If you think that something is immoral, you will tend to believe that it ought to be illegal;

(ii) If you think that something ought not be illegal, you will tend to believe that it is not immoral. 

Possibly, Jacqueline’s (J2) can be explained as a consequence of tendency (ii).  Jacqueline clearly believes that allowing someone to come to harm through inaction ought not be illegal.  Perhaps she infers from this that allowing someone to come to harm through inaction is therefore not immoral.  If so, I think this would be an invalid inference.

The Philosophers’ Carnival yesterday generated something like 500 visits.  The vast majority of these arrived via Leiter’s blog.  It was fun to write the Carnival; I read a lot of posts I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise.  Thanks to Richard for having me host it, and thanks to everyone else for reading.

I initially considered using Borges’s famous taxonomy of animals to classify the posts in this Carnival.  I decided against this for three reasons: (1) Some people might be offended by having their posts classified as "belonging to the emperor"; (2) nearly all of these posts "look from a long way off like flies";  and (3) there doesn’t seem to be any fair way of deciding whose post should get to fall into the "fabulous" category.  So I’ve decided to present these posts in no particular order at all.

(1) In this post from Dissoi Blogoi, Michael raises some questions:

Given developments in science since the time of Plato and Aristotle, are the accounts offered by these philosophers even close to being ones that we can regard as true?

and suggests that students of ancient philosophy are faced with a dilemma:

Either admit that you are simply doing history of ideas, or justify–in a way that contemporary philosophers and scientists would regard as reasonable, if not compelling–this talk of ‘nature’, ‘form’, ‘matter’, and ‘ends’.

I think these questions should provoke an interesting discussion, so I hope that readers of this Carnival who are qualified to address Michael’s points will do so in comments over at Dissoi Blogoi.

(2) A post on Peirce and common sense from Mormon Metaphysics touches on a bunch of interesting aspects of Peirce’s thought, including his views of vagueness, the scientific method, signs, and more.

(3) There’s an interesting post by Siris on Darwin’s logic.  I think it’s the first in a series of posts which will discuss Darwin’s argument for evolution.

(4) At Philosoraptor, there’s a post by Winston Smith on the "obnoxiousness" of discourse in analytic philosophy.  Winston thinks that many philosophers engage in "sophistry."  He provides an anecdote to support this claim.  He says that many philosophers follow the "Crossfire model" of discourse:

start the discussion with the goal of ending the discussion with the same position you started with. Any change of position signals that you have lost what is, in effect, a fight. When problems are raised for your position, the goal is not to consider them honestly, but to say something—anything—to muddy the waters or change the subject.

Winston’s claim seems to be mainly about how spoken philosophy gets done, as when, e.g., papers are presented in public.  I’d be interested to know whether Winston has a similar view about written philosophy.  Would the same dirty tricks work in writing?  If not, does this mean that writing about philosophy is less likely to lead one into error than talking about it?

(5) In a post on thought experiments by Jonah at Bishop Berkeley, Jonah discusses the role of thought experiments in scientific theory-testing.  Jonah argues that thought experiments teach us "something new" about the world.  Among other interesting things, this post contains a list of historically-useful thought experiments, and some brief descriptions of competing views about the role of thought experiments in science.

(6) The inimitable Enwe has an interesting post at her meta-blog on a recent paper by Janet Levin on the proper role of philosophical intuition.  Apparently, Levin thinks that since the objects of philosophical inquiry aren’t natural kinds, philosophers are better equipped to study them than non-philosophers (e.g. scientists) are.  Enwe gives reasons to think that Levin has failed to demonstrate this conclusion.  For instance, according to Enwe, Levin argues from intuitions for the view that intutions are useful in determining the essences of "philosophical kinds" (e.g. knowledge).  Enwe thinks that taking this line of argument is already to presuppose the intended conclusion.  I take Enwe’s view to be that Levin’s argument is thus methodologically circular — i.e., it attempts to show the validity of a method by using the same method.

(7) In a post on personal identity, Richard of Philosophy, et cetera shows that what he calls the "common sense" conception of self is problematic.  He says:

The common-sense view seems to involve a separately existing ‘self’, or ‘Cartesian ego’, to which our bodies and minds belong. This ego is the subject of conscious experiences. We can imagine magically finding ourselves in someone else’s body. We may even be able to imagine having total amnesia and a sudden change in personality. So neither physical nor psychological continuity seems necessary for the folk conception of personal identity. All that matters is that it’s me that has the conscious experiences.

Richard goes on to raise a lot of interesting questions about personal identity.  Parfit comes up.  A follow-up post is located here.

(8) Here’s a good post from Mumblings of a Platonist which is difficult to summarize.  A distinction between two different approaches to rationality is offered here.  I’m afraid to say anything more, for fear of misrepresenting a very interesting but inconclusive post. 

(9) There’s a post on truth in fiction by Jonathan from Fake Barn Country.  Jonathan aims to show that David Lewis’s account of fictional truth is flawed.  According to Jonathan,

Roughly, Lewis’s view amounts to this: a proposition is true in the fiction if and only if it is true in all of the possible worlds that are maximally close in which the fiction is told as known fact. With this theory we can hold, as we wanted to, that it is fictionally false that Harry put his left shoe on first, and false that he put his right shoe on first, but true that he put one shoe on first.

Jonathan thinks that this account has problematic consequences, which arise from its involving the phrase "told as known fact."

(10) A post on the theory-ladenness of observations, from Hugo at Studi Galileiani, argues that observations are theory-laden "all the way down."  Hugo argues that this is not as bad a thing as it has sometimes been taken to be.

(11) Chris from Mixing Memory has a post, "Concepts I," on the "classical view" of concepts.  It’s the first in a series; the others are located in archives.  This post contains a useful overview of some historical views of concepts.

(12) Adam Potthast of Metatome has a post on teaching logic.  This post includes instructions and files to be used for creating a game of Fallacy Jeopardy for your students.

(13) Apparently, some people think that abortion is sometimes genocidal.  A Parableman post argues that

a good case can be made for the thesis that abortion is not just the decision of the individual person but is at least partially coerced in enough cases, particularly those of young girls and especially in lower-income environements, which is likely to include many of the cases that those using genocide-language have in mind.

(14) Jason Kuznicki, of Positive Liberty, has this post on "evolutionary psychology and the blank slate."  Here’s a representative paragraph from the post:

Another take on tabula rasa may be that it is not a statement precisely about human minds–but rather about our capacity to know or to control the minds of our neighbors: We ought to think of people as if the proposition were true, for thinking of them otherwise tends strongly to bring out our worst authoritarian impulses. In this formulation, tabula rasa is not so much true as it is useful and good. It is no longer a scientific claim, but a moral one.

(15) Chris of Mumblings and Grumblings asks whether we perceive negative facts.  For instance: Chris wants to know whether we perceive that a box is empty, or merely perceive that the lining of a box is visible.

(16) At Obsidian Wings, Hilzoy examines a "confused" National Geographic News article and ends up asking some interesting questions from bioethics:

The one part of the body that really does seem to make us who we are is the brain. Now: no one is now proposing injecting animal neurons or neural stem cells into human brains, and if they did, I can’t see how it would pass normal ethics review. But scientists are transplanting human neural stem cells (which go on to form human neurons) into animals. Is this wrong?

(17) A post at Universal Acid

tries to refute John Searle’s "Chinese room" argument by using a combination of the Systems Reply and the Virtual Mind Reply. It also points out that the use of "Chinese room" as an intuition pump is somewhat racist and offensive.

(18) A post from Pragmatik suggests that dissatisfaction with Bush will drive people to read Sartre. 

(19) Max Goss has a post on conservatism and rootedness.  "Rootedness" is a condition attaching to an individual who is situated

firmly and, if possible, permanently – within a particular social network of family and neighbors where everyone knows you or, if not, can find someone who does.

Max argues that

conservatives, for the most part, share with the ancient Greeks a recognition that rootedness is an absolute prerequisite to both a civilized society and a cultivated individual, and that, consequently, the anonymous man can only be a bad man.

In the post, Max sketches the beginnings of a distinctively conservative view of the value attaching to being a "rooted man."  Max acknowledges that many liberals claim to value "community" — a concept closely related to Max’s "rootedness."  But Max gives reasons to think that conservatives approach rootedness differently than liberals would or do.

(20) At Left2Right, David Velleman has a post which draws on Nagel’s views of privacy and sexual identity.  The title of the post was changed from "A Closet Heterosexual" to "A Closet Private Heterosexual" in response to commenters’ objections to the original title.  This is an example of Velleman’s generally admirable way of dealing with readers’ criticisms.  Left2Right‘s commenters are notoriously passionate; a few of them are rude.  So Velleman’s almost invariable willingness to take seriously all comers is commendable.

(21) Philosophical discussion occasionally transpires in comments over at 1 or 2.

(22) Finally, this post seems to have something to do with forgiveness.

The Philosophers’ Carnival homepage is here.

Here are four claims:

(1) Any outcome of any action is either more valuable than, less valuable than, or equally as valuable as any other outcome of any other action.
(2) When choosing among possible actions, one ought to do that action whose outcome has the greatest value.
(3) When choosing among possible actions, it is one’s duty to do that action whose outcome has the greatest value.
(4) When choosing among possible actions, one ought most to do that action whose outcome has the greatest value; one ought least to do that action whose outcome has the lowest value; one ought more to do an action whose outcome has higher value than one with lower value; etc.

I think that a person who believed none of these claims could not properly be called a consequentialist.  Many consequentialists, I think, believe all four of these claims, but I take claims (1) and (4) to be the most "central" to consequentialism.  (2) may follow from (4).  (3), I think, does not follow from the others.  In the course of this post I will try to give reasons to think that consequentialists should to reject (3).

Actions are "supererogatory" when they "go beyond the call of duty."  If moral reality were a high school class, then supererogatory actions would be done for extra-credit points.  You wouldn’t lose points if you failed to perform these actions; you could pass the class without ever once performing one.  But you’d certainly be encouraged to perform them, and all the best students would perform them.

Sometimes it is said that consequentialists are unable to classify any actions at all as supererogatory.  This would be bad for consequentialism, since supererogation seems to occupy a central place in everyday moral reasoning.  I think (3) is likely to commit consequentialists to this bad result, but I think that if consequentialists reject (3), then they can avoid this bad result.

Consider the following example.  Suppose that, after Monica has budgeted for groceries and other necessities, 30% of her annual income is unaccounted for.  Monica is trying to decide how to spend that 30%.  She has four choices:

(a) Give the money to a charity.
(b) Spend the money on an expensive car.
(c) Throw the money into a river.
(d) Give the money to a fascist dictator.

Let’s assume that these choices are presented in descending order of value, so that if Monica wants to maximize the amount of value resulting from her action, she will choose to do (a).  In that case, if (3) is true, then doing (a) would be Monica’s duty.  And in that case, there does not seem to be any room for supererogation.  For the only possible supererogatory actions left are (b), (c) and (d).  But these actions all result in less value than would the action we have identified as Monica’s duty.  It seems highly unlikely that one could go beyond one’s duty by doing something with a outcome than one’s duty itself.

Suppose, then, we reject (3).  Then Monica’s duty is not necessarily to do (a).  Perhaps she has no duty.  I think this would be consistent with (1), (2) and (4); after all, those claims do not mention duty.  Or perhaps Monica does have a duty — perhaps her duty is to do (b).  This is also compatible with (1), (2) and (4).  In that case Monica would be going beyond her duty to do (a), since doing (a) would result in greater value than doing her duty itself, i.e. (b).  So, by rejecting (3), it appears that room is made for supererogation, at least in the example just discussed.

What would a consequentialism without (3) look like?  Obviously, it would be a consequentialism according to which one’s duty is sometimes to do something other than maximize value.  This might sound like a non-consequentialist theory.  But I would still want to classify it as a consequentialist theory if it held on to (1), (2) and (4).  For if it held on to those claims, then it would say that one could always morally do better by maximizing value, and it would say that one always ought most to do whatever must be done in order to maximize value.

There appears to be an inconsistency between (2) and the denial of (3).  For if one always ought to maximize value, as (2) says, then how can it be that one’s duty is not always to maximize value, as not-(3) says?  I think it is true that one ought always to do one’s duty.  But I think it is also true that one ought always go beyond one’s duty.  "Duty" seems to be a kind of moral "zero-marker."  Any action "below" one’s duty is "negative," and ought not be performed; any action "above," or "at," one’s duty is "positive," and ought to be performed.  This means that if one always ought to maximize value, then maximizing value is either one’s duty, or is beyond one’s duty.  So, if one holds (1), then one can consistently deny (3), as long as one continues to classify actions which maximize value as beyond duty.

My apologies for the lack of posts.  I’ve been a little busier than normal recently.  Regular posting will resume shortly.

The next Philosophers’ Carnival will be up on the 28th, hosted here at E.G.  If you’d like to submit a post, you can do so here.

In this post, I won’t really answer any of the insightful objections that have been raised against my "Stolen Photo" argument.  I’m writing this post in order to improve my own understanding of what is at stake in the problem or pseudo-problem of "Stolen Photo."  I hope none of those who have offered objections to the previous argument will be annoyed when I repeat the same errors here.

Value is often a function of morality.  The "Stolen Photo" case is a case where value varies inversely with moral status.  Before discussing that case, and its possible implications for consequentialism, consider another case in which value varies positively with moral status. 

(a) I assign value to an act of charity A.  A receives 1 value-point for being such that it helps others, receives 1 point for invariably giving me a warm feeling inside, and receives 1 point just in case it is the right thing to do.  Thus, its total value is equal to 3 in cases where A is the right thing to do, and is equal to 2 in cases where A is the wrong thing to do.

(b) In circumstance C, I have to choose between act of charity A, and act of selfish indulgence B.  If I choose B, the total value which results will be equal to 2.7.  (Suppose this resultant value of B is fixed by factors other than morality, so is not dependent on whether B is right or wrong.)

(c) According to consequentialism, I ought to maximize value.  (Assume, for present purposes, that to "maximize value" is to maximize my own value assignments.)  Suppose consequentialism is the correct moral theory.

(d) If A is right, then A results in a total value of 3.  In that case, A is right according to consequentialism, since the alternative course of action produces only 2.7 units of value.  If A is wrong, then A results in a total value of 2.  In that case, A is wrong according to consequentialism, since greater value could be produced by pursuing action B.

Is there a problem for consequentialism here?  I don’t think so.  There is nothing contradictory about (d).  (d) may sound weird, but I don’t think (d) is incoherent.  Perhaps the lesson we should learn from (d) is just that consequentialism "underdetermines" rightness — that is, that consequentialism cannot always say whether a given act is right or wrong.  But this is not really a knock against consequentialism.  Many other moral theories are "incomplete" in this way, and need to be supplemented by other considerations in order to produce a determinate result.  There’s no reason to think consequentialism won’t be similar in this regard.

Now consider another case.

a) I assign value to an artwork A.  A receives 1 point for being beautiful, receives 1 point for being fabulous, and receives 1 point for having been produced in an immoral way.  Thus, A’s total value is equal to 3 in cases where A has been produced in an immoral way, and is equal to 2 in cases where A has not been produced in an immoral way.

(b) In circumstance C, I have to choose between financing the production of A, or spending my money on selfish indulgence B instead.  If I choose B, the total value which results will be equal to 2.7.  (Suppose this resultant value of B is fixed by factors other than morality, so is not dependent on whether B is right or wrong.)

(c) According to consequentialism, I ought to maximize value.  (Assume, for present purposes, that to "maximize value" is to maximize my own value assignments.)  Suppose consequentialism is the correct moral theory.

(d) If financing the production of A is right, then financing the production of A results in a total value of 2.  In that case, financing the production of A is wrong according to consequentialism, since the alternative course of action produces 2.7 units of value.  If financing the production of A is wrong, then A results in a total value of 3.  In that case, financing the production of A is right according to consequentialism, since no greater value could be produced by pursuing action B.

I think the consequentialist does need to deny (d).  Assuming that any given action is either right or wrong, (d) results in a contradiction.  If your moral theory results in a contradiction, then it is probably false.  I suppose the best thing for the consequentialist to do, in this case, is to deny that (a) is possible; (b) and (c) seem clearly possible.  I, for one, don’t see any reason to think that (a) is impossible.  However, the consequentialist does seem clearly committed to denying the possibility of (a).  So if nothing else, this argument seems to show that consequentialists are committed to deny that value can increase in inverse proportion with immorality, or at least to deny something along those lines.  For consequentialists who accept desire-satisfaction theories of value, this amounts to the declaration that wrong-doing cannot be a component of anyone’s desires.  But I think this declaration would probably be false.  People do seem to be able to perversely desire that wrong is done.

Fake badgers are now officially below the median.  I’m afraid this is my fault, at least in part.