moral obligation. edited by ellen frankel paul, fred d. miller, jr., and jeffrey paul. (cambridge...

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Are they ‘queer’? Koons writes that the question of the normative source of instrumental reasons ‘is not a question that can be answered’ (p. 28). But this doesn’t address the metaphysical questions just posed. More importantly, the heart of Koon’s account of morality is an appeal to an ‘objective list theory’ of wellbeing, on which life, health, autonomy, pleasure, affil- iation, and knowledge are ‘fundamental human interests’. But Koons makes it perfectly clear that his explanans is the fact that these things are ‘valuable ends’, which are ‘genuinely worthy of our pursuit’, (p. 126) rather than the fact that we want these things. We have reason to adopt strategies that promote health, for example, not because we want health (pp. 1236), but because health is on the ‘objective list’ of goods. But the fact that health is objectively valuable is a norma- tive fact and no less mysterious (if not a bit more mysterious) than the suppos- edly problematic moral and epistemic facts that are Koons’ explananda. The same point applies to Koons’ account of epistemic normativity, which appeals to ‘our interest in truth, understanding of the world, and instrumental control over nat- ure’ (p. 190). Presumably the idea, again, is not that we want truth, but (despite the talk of ‘interests’ and of what ‘we value’) that truth is objectively valuable. Koons’ account, far from avoiding commitment to ‘normative facts corresponding to some independent normative reality’, (p. 190) makes crucial appeals to such facts. ALLAN HAZLETT University of Edinburgh Moral Obligation.EDITED BY ELLEN FRANKEL PAUL,FRED D. MILLER,JR., AND JEFFREY PAUL. (Cambridge UP, 2010. Pp. xv + 345. Price £ 36.99.) As the familiar trio of editors would suggest, Moral Obligation reprints an issue of the journal Social Philosophy & Policy (vol. 27, no. 2). In the brief introduction, which along with an index makes for added value, the editors explicate the notion of obligation as that of ‘what an agent owes to himself, to others, or to society generally’ (p. vii). However, this is but one among the multiple usages of the term ‘moral obligation’, and much of what gets discussed in this volume is not easily covered by it. For a start, there are those to whom it is the concept of which G.E.M. Anscombe famously thought it lacked sense in the absence of a divine lawgiver. Then there is that notion of moral obligation which Bernard Williams put at the centre of his critique of the so-called morality system. Both senses contrast with a rather relaxed use of the word as the noun that refers to what one morally ought to do, where this is simply taken to be a matter of how one’s moral reasons balance out. And while moral obligation makes a prominent appearance as a singular term in philosophy, in everyday discourse it is more common for people to speak of our various moral obligations and their specific content. There are obligations, say, to keep one’s promises or to pay one’s grand- parents the occasional visit. Furthermore, in some contexts the emphasis is on dis- tinguishing obligations from duties, with for instance the former having rights as their correlatives. Finally, at its very loosest, moral obligation more or less serves 410 BOOK REVIEWS © 2012 The Author The Philosophical Quarterly © 2012 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly

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Are they ‘queer’? Koons writes that the question of the normative source ofinstrumental reasons ‘is not a question that can be answered’ (p. 28). But thisdoesn’t address the metaphysical questions just posed.

More importantly, the heart of Koon’s account of morality is an appeal to an‘objective list theory’ of wellbeing, on which life, health, autonomy, pleasure, affil-iation, and knowledge are ‘fundamental human interests’. But Koons makes itperfectly clear that his explanans is the fact that these things are ‘valuable ends’,which are ‘genuinely worthy of our pursuit’, (p. 126) rather than the fact that wewant these things. We have reason to adopt strategies that promote health, forexample, not because we want health (pp. 123–6), but because health is on the‘objective list’ of goods. But the fact that health is objectively valuable is a norma-tive fact – and no less mysterious (if not a bit more mysterious) than the suppos-edly problematic moral and epistemic facts that are Koons’ explananda. The samepoint applies to Koons’ account of epistemic normativity, which appeals to ‘ourinterest in truth, understanding of the world, and instrumental control over nat-ure’ (p. 190). Presumably the idea, again, is not that we want truth, but (despitethe talk of ‘interests’ and of what ‘we value’) that truth is objectively valuable.Koons’ account, far from avoiding commitment to ‘normative facts correspondingto some independent normative reality’, (p. 190) makes crucial appeals to suchfacts.

ALLAN HAZLETTUniversity of Edinburgh

Moral Obligation. EDITED BY ELLEN FRANKEL PAUL, FRED D. MILLER, JR., AND

JEFFREY PAUL. (Cambridge UP, 2010. Pp. xv + 345. Price £ 36.99.)

As the familiar trio of editors would suggest, Moral Obligation reprints an issue ofthe journal Social Philosophy & Policy (vol. 27, no. 2). In the brief introduction,which along with an index makes for added value, the editors explicate thenotion of obligation as that of ‘what an agent owes to himself, to others, or tosociety generally’ (p. vii). However, this is but one among the multiple usages ofthe term ‘moral obligation’, and much of what gets discussed in this volume isnot easily covered by it. For a start, there are those to whom it is the concept ofwhich G.E.M. Anscombe famously thought it lacked sense in the absence of adivine lawgiver. Then there is that notion of moral obligation which BernardWilliams put at the centre of his critique of the so-called morality system. Bothsenses contrast with a rather relaxed use of the word as the noun that refers towhat one morally ought to do, where this is simply taken to be a matter of howone’s moral reasons balance out. And while moral obligation makes a prominentappearance as a singular term in philosophy, in everyday discourse it is morecommon for people to speak of our various moral obligations and their specificcontent. There are obligations, say, to keep one’s promises or to pay one’s grand-parents the occasional visit. Furthermore, in some contexts the emphasis is on dis-tinguishing obligations from duties, with for instance the former having rights astheir correlatives. Finally, at its very loosest, moral obligation more or less serves

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as a stand-in for morality in general. Since the authors of the twelve essays in thiscollection use the term ‘moral obligation’ in so many different ways, it might havebeen helpful to provide the reader with some guidance as to which meanings areat issue.

The collection opens with a paper by Charles Larmore, who tells us thatmorality is where the power of self-transcendence, which supposedly distinguisheshuman beings from other animals, shows forth most vividly. This is an unfortu-nate beginning. Larmore’s rather self-indulgent essay (unpleasantly spiked withsnide remarks on whomever he disagrees with) rambles over too many topics toget the notion of moral obligation into focus, let alone make philosophical pro-gress. A better start would have been John Skorupski’s compelling account ofmoral wrongness in terms of blameworthiness. Moral judgments are typicallythought to be about reasons for action, but on the view Skorupski puts forward,they concern evaluative reasons, specifically reasons to respond with thesentiment of blame towards an agent for her conduct. Moreover, he takes thehermeneutics of this sentiment to provide the key to the categoricity of morality,in that blame presupposes that the agent did not have sufficient reason to act asshe did. Stephen Darwall’s piece is largely congenial to this sentimentalist-cum-rationalist approach, but diverges in one important detail. Building on his analysisof moral obligation in The Second-Person Standpoint, Darwall argues that an act’sbeing wrong is a further reason not to perform it. This reason, over and abovethe features that make the action wrong, is provided by the fact that the act vio-lates a demand we have the authority to make of one another as representativesof the moral community. Darwall further suggests that this additional reason pro-vides the guarantee that there is overriding reason to act as we are morally obli-gated to act. While these claims are bound to be controversial, the paperundoubtedly makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate about howthe concept of wrongness is to be analysed.

But does morality really enjoy all that much authority? In an essay whichstruck me as oddly antediluvian, H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. maintains that thedeath of God not only renders moral pluralism intractable, but also casts doubton morality’s claim to rationality: ‘The problem is that when the God who reli-ably rewards the virtuous and punishes the guilty is no longer acknowledged, thegeneral priority of morality over prudence is brought into question’ (p. 318).Engelhardt blissfully disregards that insofar as there is a problem at all, Godnever was much of a solution in the first place. Of course, divine support bymeans of sanctions would not at all secure morality’s priority, but at best modifywhat prudence requires. The challenge to morality is put in a more persuasivefashion by R.G. Frey, who elaborating on themes familiar from Bernard Wil-liams, emphasises the importance of personal goals to our lives. Frey forcefullyurges cases where it appears that an agent’s life project takes precedence over hismoral obligations. If we accept that it would be distorting to turn pursuit of one’sgoals into yet another moral obligation, such cases should make us reject thenotion that it takes an obligation to trump an obligation. One option Frey doesnot consider is noted in passing in Thomas Hurka’s rich essay on H.A. Prichard

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and moral obligation. Hurka interestingly proposes that the basic moral elementsmight include permissions as well as duties; if so, a moral obligation could be out-weighed by something other than obligation, namely a moral permission, withoutbeing outweighed by something nonmoral. Hurka’s exploration of the various lev-els at which Prichard held duty to be underivative and of the reasoning behindhis thorough antireductionism is very illuminating. As the example shows, it isalso systematically rewarding.

Patricia Greenspan is more explicitly concerned with making room for per-sonal choice within morality. Some latitude is traditionally seen to be provided byimperfect duties, which to a considerable extent leave it to the agent to decide onwhat occasion and in which manner she discharges them. However, Greenspanidentifies an interesting problem that arises when the common conception ofpractical reasons as prima facie requirements of action is brought into play: Whathappens to the leeway for choice in a case where there is one course of actionthat is uniquely supported by the strongest moral reasons and thus rationallyrequired? Greenspan’s ingenious way out appeals to the wider reconceptualisationof the role of reasons she has been working on. Like other proposals that havecome up in recent literature, it involves a distinction between reasons that require(‘critical reasons’) and reasons that justify (‘favouring reasons’). Just as Greenspanwants to loosen the tie between reasons and requirements, Terry Horgan andMark Timmons endeavour to undo the so-called ‘good-ought tie-up’, which isthe knot that makes the concept of supererogation seem paradoxical. Their expla-nation of how it is possible that an action is morally best yet fails to be morallyrequired introduces yet another role reasons can play: In addition to determiningthe deontic status of an action (by requiring or by justifying), moral reasons mayindependently confer moral merit. Supererogatory action can thus be meritoriouswithout being required. As I have just presented it, this solution is likely to smackof adhoccery. But in fact it is anchored by Horgan and Timmons in a carefulphenomenological description of everyday cases of supererogation.

In a strong contender for the most rigourous contribution, Holly M. Smithtackles the concept of subjective rightness. Talk of an action being ‘subjectivelyright’ has been introduced to deal with cases where people do their best, but hap-pen to be mistaken about the facts. Moreover, the notion can be utilised to givemoral guidance to agents who must act in conditions of uncertainty. Subsequentto a critical review of the literature, Smith advances a novel strategy for definingthis concept, with a shift of focus from acts that are subjectively right to principlesof subjective rightness. A comprehensive moral theory, she further maintains, willinclude not only principles of objective rightness but, relative to these, also anarray of principles of subjective rightness, tailored to the various epistemic situa-tions in which agents may find themselves. To me, this has an air of the byzan-tine, not unlike the essay itself. That said, Smith’s meticulous piece amplyrewards the close study it requires.

Three essays discuss specific moral obligations. While they are all noteworthyfor not spilling yet more ink on duties that have received a great deal of attentionin moral philosophy, Andrew Jason Cohen’s exploration of what is wrong with

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waste could even be said to break new ground. Taking his cue from Locke’s sec-ond proviso on property acquisition, he first engages in a circumspect, if ratherlong-winded conceptual analysis of waste. He then argues that wasteful behaviouris morally problematic insofar as it can cause or exacerbate need. Unfortunately,and not without irony in a volume on this particular theme, this discussion of themorality of waste suffers from being unclear about the relevant moral concepts:Cohen’s decision midway in the paper to reframe the issue as one of permissibleinterference may sanction his appeal to the harm principle, but it does bad serviceto his initial concern to determine ‘whether there is a moral failing involved inwasteful behaviour (i.e., whether there is a duty not to waste)’ (p. 238). Surely, peo-ple could be blameworthy for wasting resources regardless of whether it would beappropriate to stop them or have them punished for violating a moral obligation.

According to Kant, we have a duty to seek peace. Bernard R. Boxill’s article isconcerned with the way he seeks to give support to this duty. Why, Boxill asks,did Kant engage in a quite desperate attempt to bolster our hope for peacerather than appeal to the fear of war and our compassion for its victims? Boxill’splausible explanation refers to Kant’s peculiar idea of peace and what value hesaw in it. In another essay devoted to Kant, Paul Guyer defends Kant’s view thatbesides the specific duties of virtue we also have a general obligation to be virtu-ous. The latter, as Guyer explains, is not redundant but calls for distinct efforts tocultivate our natural tendencies for moral feeling and conscience. We are thus toprepare ourselves for fulfilling our particular duties as they arise. To my mind,Guyer’s piece not only provides a persuasive solution to what may seem a minorexegetical problem, but more importantly serves to correct popular caricatures ofKantian moral agency.

Overall, even though the collection as a whole may not be a very fine one, itcontains a remarkable number of essays that do merit such praise.

NORBERT ANWANDERHumboldt-Universitat zu Berlin

Reasons for Action. EDITED BY DAVID SOBEL AND STEVEN WALL. (Cambridge UP,

2009. Pp. 288. Price £53 (hardcover), £21.99 (paperback).)

Sobel and Wall’s excellent volume collects twelve new essays (seven of whichwere presented at a 2006 conference at Bowling Green), contributed by leadingmoral philosophers. The topics of the (mostly outstanding) essays are diverse andare unified only in that they all concern ‘reasons for action.’ This theme is broadenough to cover essays on various issues in metaethics, moral psychology, actiontheory, and the philosophy of language. Some essays concern normative reasonsfor action (e.g. Bratman), while others concern action explanation (Smith). Someconcern the nature of epistemic reasons (Raz); some concern the nature of auton-omy (Railton); still others concern semantic issues about normative discourse(Dreier, Ridge).

Sobel and Wall, in their excellent introduction, rightly reject any attempt tounify the collected essays, opting rather for a survey of some of the volume’s

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