Carla Bagnoli MORAL DILEMMAS AND THE LIMITS OF ETHICAL THEORY (in Italian, LED Edizioni, Milano, 2000, pp. 272) Abstract In this book, I consider whether the hypothesis of moral dilemmas undermines ethics' pretensions to objectivity. I argue against the view that moral dilemmas challenge the very possibility of ethical theory, as a practical and theoretical enterprise. By examining Kantian, Intuitionist and Utilitarian arguments about moral dilemmas, I show that no ethical theory is capable of avoiding them. I further argue that an adequate ethical theory should admit dilemmas. Dilemmas do not reveal a logical or normative flaw in the theory that permits them to arise, nor are they necessarily generated by subjective mistakes. Rather, dilemmas are a sign of the deliberative capacity of an agent who operates in non-ideal conditions of rationality and cooperation. The inevitability of moral dilemmas shows that we should reconsider the bounds of deliberation, and the purposes of ethical theory. My argument for the philosophical significance of moral dilemmas rests on the claim that an adequate ethical theory should make sense of moral phenomenology, and that moral phenomenology should to be understood from the perspective of an agent who conceives of herself as an agent. The view of moral dilemmas I advocate does not invite skepticism about ethical theory, but suggests that we redefine its scope and its many practical aims. Outline This inquiry concerns the possibility of moral dilemmas, their sources, and the impact they have on the structure and on the aspirations of ethical theory. Moral dilemmas are cases in which the agent is bound by incompatible moral claims and deliberating further is impossible. My contention is that we face genuine moral dilemmas because we deliberate under constraints. This thesis urges us to reconsider the requirements of adequacy of ethical theory. While our experience of moral choice seems to support the reality of moral dilemmas, it is a philosophical question whether an adequate ethical theory could admit their possibility. The existence of genuine moral dilemmas seems to undermine the practical and theoretical pretenses of ethical theory. By trying to accommodate dilemmas, ethical theory seems to condemn itself either to incoherence or to normative indeterminacy. To avoid incoherence and normative indeterminacy, it appears necessary to explain dilemmas away by pointing at the agent's moral and cognitive shortcomings. On this account, the philosophical significance of moral dilemmas resides in the question of whether they show ethical theory to be flawed or the agent to be defective. The aim of this inquiry is to provide an alternative account of the sources and of the philosophical import of moral dilemmas. My contention is that an adequate ethical theory should admit of moral dilemmas. Taking moral phenomenology seriously, B. Williams argues for the reality of dilemmas on the grounds that we feel regret or a sense of guilt, no matter which option we choose. In Chapter I, I reject several versions of the argument from moral sentiments. The appeal to the experience of specific sentiments neither proves nor disproves the possibility of moral dilemmas. In Chapter II, I offer an alternative way of characterizing the relevance of moral sentiments in accounting for the phenomenology of moral dilemmas. My view is that moral sentiments are moral activities that have evaluative autonomy. They do not merely accompany actions; rather, they constitute practical responses to a deliberative situation. Because moral sentiments are practical responses, they contribute to the agent's conception of her integrity. Moral dilemmas threaten the agent's integrity, and sentiments are practical responses to this threat. The moral phenomenology of
dilemmas is not intelligible unless we consider the sentiments of regret and guilt as appropriate practical responses. The appropriateness of these practical responses depends on the normative characterization of the context of choice. The agent experiences these sentiments because she feels bound by incompatible obligations: the question is whether she really is under incompatible obligations. Some philosophers object that the interpretation of moral dilemmas in terms of conflicting moral obligations yields a contradiction. A. Donagan and R. Hare argue that to avoid incoherence, moral dilemmas should be treated as spurious conflicts in which at least one of the conflicting obligations is merely apparent. In Chapter III, I show that this objection rests on the unwarranted analogy between moral modalities (such as practical necessity and possibility) and alethic modalities. This analogy misleadingly suggests that any theory that generates moral dilemmas is incoherent, and trivial. The problem seems to be how to contain incoherence. Alternatively, I propose conceiving of moral dilemmas as cases of moral conflicts in which: a) there are competing reasons for action that are morally binding, b) none of which is overriding, c) none of which is overridden, and d) such that they justify incompatible courses of action. The agent is trapped because there is no morally overriding reason for her to act; and she violates a moral reason whatever she does. The experience of a dilemma is the experience of a challenge to one's own integrity. In Chapter IV, I show in which sense coherence is a requirement of adequacy for ethical theory, by critically examining B. Williams's and R. Barcan Marcus' arguments against the view that dilemmas are cases of logical incoherence. Logical incoherence is not the only or the most interesting source of moral dilemmas, and thus moral dilemmas do not show that ethical theory is incoherent. My further contention is that coherence is an ideal, and that it is not grounded solely on logical considerations, but also on a normative view of the structure of values and reasons. In Chapter V, I examine the so-called "pluralist" argument for the possibility of moral dilemmas, a version of which is offered by J. Urmson, T. Nagel, B. Williams, and C. Korsgaard. The thrust of the pluralist argument is that the possibility of moral dilemmas depends on a specific structure of values: dilemmas are possible (or rather inevitable) insofar as values are irreducibly plural. Some object that value pluralism makes dilemmas inevitable and turns every choice into an insoluble riddle. While value pluralism is an interesting source of dilemmas, it does not necessarily generate dilemmas. Value pluralism allows for several strategies for ranking values, such as partial orderings, dominant orderings, vague orderings, and specification. Most importantly, the main difference between monism and pluralism does not concern the possibility of ordering values, but the claim of completeness of such orderings. Utilitarianism is often regarded as capable of avoiding dilemmas because of its consequentialist structure. In Chapter VI, I question this assumption by considering A. Sen, M. Slote's and P. Railton's attempts to accommodate moral dilemmas within Utilitarianism. I argue that genuine dilemmas could in principle arise within utilitarianism because of its conception of obligation, and quite independently of considerations about consequentialism. In Chapter VII, I prove that value monism does not free us from moral dilemmas. My argumentative strategy consists in a defense of the moral significance of symmetrical dilemmas. Against the received view, I argue that symmetrical choices should not be regarded as indifferent: to do so is to misunderstand the nature of a moral choice. The moral resolution of a moral problem should be grounded on overriding reasons. But a moral resolution of this sort is missing both in symmetrical (i.e. monist) and in pluralist dilemmas. The question is not whether the moral reasons in conflict are generated by one value or by many irreducible values. The crucial question is, rather, whether moral reasons can be completely ordered. My contention is that such a question is up to the agent. The agent establishes the relations of priority among reasons through deliberation by figuring out what should be considered more important. On my view, the incommensurability of values is not a hypothesis about the nature of value that appears as the input of moral deliberation. Rather, I argue that the judgment about the
incommensurability or commensurability of values is the outcome of the agent's moral deliberation. The aim of moral deliberation, however, is not to commensurate values. The aim of moral deliberation is to provide the justification of a morally decent resolution of the problem of moral choice, what I call a normative conception of importance. Sometimes no alternative available to the agent represents such a morally decent resolution. In Chapter VIII, I offer an analysis of the sources of moral dilemmas. First, I show that normative indeterminacy is not the only source of genuine moral dilemmas. Moral dilemmas arise because the agent deliberates under constraints, that is, under non-ideal conditions of practical rationality. These constraints are not only normative, but also cognitive and situational. Dilemmas generated by cognitive and situational constraints are genuine. This is because the constraints that generate them are constitutive of the agent's capacity, and not just a sign of the agent's defective rationality. Second, I show that there are different kinds of normative indeterminacy, not all of which are worrisome. Dilemmas may occur because of an indeterminate theory of deliberation. Deliberation is a complex activity. I distinguish two aspects of deliberation: the criteria of justification and the decision procedure. The criteria of justification are normative criteria for judging morally and offer grounds for decision making. Dilemmas do not prove that the justification is insufficient, since the moral demands the agent recognizes as binding are well grounded. Rather, dilemmas show that the decision-making procedure is indeterminate, and thus it prescribes no determinate action. My third and final contention is that normative determinacy is not a requirement of adequacy for ethical theory. To claim otherwise is to neglect the agent's integrity for the sake of completeness. Not only is completeness dispensable, it is also an absurd request in the case of moral dilemmas. To force completeness on the agent's choice is to forget that she is not an ideal agent and that she deliberates under constraints. The critique of completeness suggests that we should review what moral dilemmas really show: They offer a test of the viability of an ethical theory for non-ideal agents. In the perspective of non-ideal agents, dilemmas are not just pervasive: they are inevitable. In Chapter IX, I consider whether the inevitability of dilemmas undermines the practical and theoretical pretenses of ethical theory. B. Williams and A. Baier argue that the inevitability of dilemmas proves the impossibility of a systematic and coherent theorizing on ethical matters. This objection is grounded on a narrow and questionable account of ethical theory, and of what count as an appropriate practical response. Because actions are not the sole object of moral deliberation, attitudes and sentiments count as practical responses to a moral problem. Thus, dilemmas do not prove ethical theory to be practically inert. Rather, dilemmas urge that the practical aims of an ethical theory should be characterized both at ideal and non-ideal levels. An adequate ethical theory should recommend a worthy ideal of life, and also take into account the constraints under which the agent operates. Consequently, the view of moral dilemmas I advocate does not invite skepticism about ethical theory, but suggests that we redefine its scope and its many practical aims. Introduction Chapter I Reasons and moral sentiments (p. 21) 1.1 The argument from regret. 1.2 Residue and loss of value. 1.3 The appropriateness of the sense of guilt. Table of contents
Chapter II The paradox of negative sentiments and deliberative coherence (p. 35) 2.1 Moral sentiments and prima facie duties. 2.2 The moral relevance of negative sentiments. 2.3 Moral sentiments as practical responses, and deliberative coherence. Chapter III Conflict of obligations and incoherence (p. 53) 3.1 Moral obligation and practical necessity: moral dilemma as a logical incoherence. 3.2 Strategies of containment of incoherence. 3.3 The principle of agglomeration. 3.4 The ambiguity of "ought": R. Hare. 3.5 The ambiguity of "ought": S. Hurley. 3.6 The ambiguity of "can". 3.7 The normative relation between "ought" and "can". 3.8 Against the principle of deontic neutrality. 3.9 For an alternative definition of moral dilemmas. Chapter IV Coherence and relevance (p. 93) 4.1 Incoherence and triviality of an ethical theory. 4.2 Williams' argument from disanalogy 4.3 Barcan Marcus: coherence as an ideal. 4.4 Coherence and relevance: a critique of Barcan Marcus. 4.5 Moral dilemmas and coherence. Chapter V Reasons and values: the pluralist argument (p. 119) 5.1 Urmson's intuitionist argument for pluralism. 5.2 Williams' argument from incommensurability. 5.3 Nagel's argument from the fragmentation of value. 5.4 Korsgaard on moral dilemmas and practical identities. 5.5 The argument from the separateness and dignity of persons. 5.6 Moral dilemmas as arguments for pluralism. 5.7 Pluralism and moral overridingness. Chapter VI Utilitarianism and moral dilemmas (p. 151) 6.1 The normative powers of utilitarianism. 6.2 Moral dilemmas in non-reductivist utilitarianism. 6.3 Beneficence and negative sentiments. 6.4 Consequentialism and moral dilemmas. 6.5 Moral obligation in tragic choices. Chapter VII Symmetrical moral dilemmas (p. 175) 7.1 Monist strategies for ranking moral reasons. 7.2 Are symmetrical dilemmas moral dilemmas? 7.3 Deliberative resolutions in symmetrical choices. 7.4 Arbitrary decisions. 7.5 Personal rankings of reasons. 7.6 Pluralist and monist dilemmas. 7.7 Relations of importance. Chapter VIII Indeterminacy and Integrity (p. 197) 8.1 Moral conflicts and false dilemmas. 8.2 Types of normative indeterminacy. 8.3 Aspects of deliberation: justification and decision procedure. 8.4 The argument from integrity. 8.5 Is normative determinacy a desideratum?
Chapter IX The possibility and the limits of ethical theory (p. 221) 9.1 Skeptical pluralism. 9.2 Ideal and non-ideal dimensions of ethical theory. 9.3 The aims and the bounds of ethical theory. Bibliography (p. 241)