Colloquium 5 Commentary on Levin

In her rich and provocative paper, Susan Levin seeks to defend the value of anger against the views of Stoics and transhumanists, both of whom regard anger as irrational and to be eliminated. In her defense, Levin draws on Aristotle, relating his position to contemporary appraisal theorists as well as anti-racism activists and scholars, for Aristotle holds, in contrast with the Stoics, that some cases of anger are justified. The virtuous Aristotelian agent will become angry in response to injustice. I explore the extent to which Levin endorses Aristotle’s account of anger, complicating some of the associations she aims to establish. In particular, while the Stoics and Aristotle disagree about the rationality, morality, and prudential value of anger, they share a very similar conception of the emotion, according to which a desire for revenge partly constitutes anger. By contrast, Levin defends a forward-looking conception of anger, focusing on rectifying current injustice and preventing future injustice. It turns out, then, that Levin’s justified forward-looking anger may have more in common with the spirit of the Stoic response to injustice than with Aristotle’s retributive view.

It's not what you did, it's what you could have done

We are more likely to judge agents as morally culpable after we learn they acted freely rather than under duress or coercion. Interestingly, the reverse is also true: Individuals are more likely to be judged to have acted freely after we learn that they committed a moral violation. Researchers have argued that morality affects judgments of force by making the alternative actions the agent could have done instead appear comparatively normal, which then increases the perceived availability of relevant alternative actions. Across four studies, we test the novel predictions of this account. We find that the degree to which participants view possible alternative actions as normal strongly predicts their perceptions that an agent acted freely. This pattern holds both for perceptions of descriptive normality (whether the actions are unusual) and prescriptive normality (whether the actions are good) and persists even when what is actually done is held constant. We also find that manipulating the prudential value of alternative actions or the degree to which alternatives adhere to social norms, has a similar effect to manipulating whether the actions or their alternatives violate moral norms, and that both effects are explained by changes in the perceived normality of the alternatives. Finally, we even find that evaluations of both the prescriptive and descriptive normality of alternative actions explains force judgments in response to moral violations. Together, these results suggest that across contexts, participants’ force judgments depend not on the morality of the actual action taken, but on the normality of possible alternatives. More broadly, our results build on prior work that suggests a unifying role of normality and counterfactuals across many areas of high-level human cognition.

The theorisation of ‘best interests’ in bioethical accounts of decision-making

Background Best interests is a ubiquitous principle in medical policy and practice, informing the treatment of both children and adults. Yet theory underlying the concept of best interests is unclear and rarely articulated. This paper examines bioethical literature for theoretical accounts of best interests to gain a better sense of the meanings and underlying philosophy that structure understandings. Methods A scoping review of was undertaken. Following a literature search, 57 sources were selected and analysed using the thematic method. Results Three themes emerged. The first placed best interests within the structure of wider theory, noting relationships with consequentialism, deontology, prudential value theory, rights and political philosophy. The second mapped a typology of processes of decision-making, among which best interests was ambiguously positioned. It further indicated factors that informed best interests decision-making, primarily preferences, dignity and quality of life. The final theme considered best interests from a relational perspective. Conclusions Characterisation of best interests as strictly paternalist and consequentialist is questionable: while accounts often suggested a consequentialist basis for best interests, arguments appeared philosophically weak. Deontological accounts, found in law and Kantianism, and theories of political liberalism influenced accounts of best interests, with accounts often associating best interests with negative patient preferences (i.e. individual refusals). There was much more emphasis on negative interests than positive interests. Besides preference, factors like dignity and quality of life were held to inform best interests decisions, but generally were weakly defined. To the extent that preferences were unable to inform decision making, decisions were either made by proxy authority or by an intersubjective process of diffuse authority. Differing approaches reflect bifurcations in liberal philosophy between new liberalism and neo-liberalism. Although neither account of authority appears dominant, bias to negative interests suggests that bioethical debate tends to reflect the widespread ascendancy of neo-liberalism. This attitude was underscored by the way relational accounts converged on private familial authority. The visible connections to theory suggest that best interests is underpinned by socio-political trends that may set up frictions with practice. How practice negotiates these frictions remains a key question.

A Defense of Subjectivism

This chapter defends subjectivism about prudential value, the thesis that a necessary condition for all goods for a person is that the person in question value the good under the relevant conditions. This chapter provides a novel argument for subjectivism, the relationship to value argument, and defends its insistence that subjects should value, rather than take a non-valuing pro-attitude toward, individual goods

Prudential Normativity, Moral Scepticisms, and Metaethics

In earlier chapters it was argued that prudential value gives agents normative, prudential reasons and that prudential judgements are normative judgements on a par with moral judgements. This chapter spells out some ramifications of these theses by examining four different areas of inquiry about morality and moral discourse, showing how the theses hitherto defended in this book affect them. It begins with the form of moral scepticism found within the ‘why be moral?’ debate. It then examines hermeneutic moral error theory and proposes a companions-in-guilt argument based on the normativity of prudential discourse. Third, it examines arguments given within the literature on revisionary metaethical views, pointing out and questioning their commitment to prudential justifications. Finally, it is shown how the normativity of prudential properties applies to a central debate about thick concepts, that between reductionists and non-reductionists about such concepts.

Prudence as a System of Categorical Imperatives

This chapter examines whether there are prudential reasons. After clarifying the nature of prudential reasons (what it would take for there to be such reasons) it examines, and rejects, various positions that entail the denial of the existence of prudential reasons. These include forms of nihilism about prudential value, the view that all reasons are agent-neutral, and (its most pressing opponent) the view that all reasons are Humean, or fundamentally desire-based, in nature. The chapter aims to establish the following thesis: Prudential Value Matters (PVM) — Evaluative prudential facts generate directive prudential facts (including facts about prudential, normative, reasons for action and for attitudes).

What Is a Theory of Prudential Intrinsic Value?

There is little agreement among theorists concerning what we would like a theory of intrinsic prudential value to do. This chapter holds that such a theory is not meant to provide an account of a person’s well-being, life quality, or any other such notion, except derivatively. Instead, theories of intrinsic prudential value should provide (or offer a procedure to provide) a prudential ordering: those particular states, objects, or events that are intrinsic goods for a person, ordered by their comparative value.

Idealization

This chapter addresses the use and abuse of idealization from within subjectivist theories of prudential value. I argue that any subjectivist view must idealize from within a theory of valuing—only idealized judgments properly characterize a person’s actual values. Nevertheless, I argue against holding that a person’s idealized values should form the basis of her good.

Prudential Normativity

In earlier chapters, it was argued that prudential discourse is normative, like moral discourse. If that is true, then we should expect to be able to take resources from metaethics and fruitfully apply them to meta-prudential questions and vice versa. This chapter tries to do precisely that. In particular, it aims to show how various long-standing debates about prudential value can be enhanced by importing ideas from metaethics and how bringing these two lines of inquiry together generates a number of significant benefits both inside and outside of theorizing about prudential normativity.