Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:14:57.543Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Right Version of ‘the Right Kind of Solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason Problem’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2013

LARS SAMUELSSON
LARS SAMUELSSON*
Affiliation:
Umeå [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In a recent article in Utilitas, Gerald Lang suggests a solution to the so-called ‘wrong kind of reason problem’ (WKR problem) for the buck-passing account of value. In two separate replies to Lang, Jonas Olson and John Brunero, respectively, point out serious problems with Lang's suggestion, and at least Olson concludes that the solution Lang opts for is of the wrong kind for solving the WKR problem. I argue that while both Olson and Brunero have indeed identified considerable flaws in Lang's suggestion for a solution to the WKR problem, they have not provided sufficient grounds for dismissing the kind of solution that Lang proposes. I show how a version of this kind of solution can be formulated so as to avoid both Olson's and Brunero's objections. I also raise some worries concerning an alternative solution to the WKR problem suggested by Sven Danielsson and Jonas Olson.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 383 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Scanlon, T. M., What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), p. 97Google Scholar. Although it was Scanlon who introduced the term ‘buck-passing’ for this kind of account, he is not its founder. Some writers trace it back to Franz Brentano, and it is often ascribed to A. C. Ewing and Roderick Chisholm (see Danielsson, Sven and Olson, Jonas, ‘Brentano and the Buck-Passers’, Mind 116 (2007), pp. 511–22, at 511CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Notice also that BPV is a purely formal account of value – it is supposed to cover any (fairly reasonable) substantive view about what is valuable. Thus the term ‘thing’ in the quotation from Scanlon should be interpreted widely, so as to cover any type of entity that one could take to be a bearer of value. For some notes on the alleged attractiveness of BPV, see Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other, pp. 97–8; Rabinowicz, Wlodek and Rønnow-Rasmussen, Toni, ‘The Strike of the Demon: On Fitting Pro-attitudes and Value’, Ethics 114 (2004), pp. 391–423, at 400CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lang, Gerald, ‘The Right Kind of Solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason Problem’, Utilitas 20 (2008), pp. 472–89, at 472–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 The phrase was coined by Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen, ‘The Strike of the Demon’, p. 393. I will not discuss any other problems for BPV in this article.

3 Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen, ‘The Strike of the Demon’, p. 407. This case – which is one of the most frequently discussed WKR cases in the buck-passing literature – is a modification of an example given by Roger Crisp (where the demon wants us to desire a saucer of mud), in his review of Kupperman's, Joel Value . . . and What Follows, Philosophy 75 (2000), pp. 458–62Google Scholar, at 459. Rønnow-Rasmussen has recently reported that the version provided by him and Rabinowicz was originally suggested to them by Folke Tersman (Rønnow-Rasmussen, , Personal Value (Oxford, 2011), p. 34n.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 It may be reassuring to point out that we need not invoke evil demons in order to raise the WKR problem. Another example that is sometimes used is hedonism: in order to maximize pleasure we may need to value (adopt valuing attitudes towards) other things than pleasure, things that are not really valuable according to the hedonist (see e.g. Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen, ‘The Strike of the Demon’, p. 403).

5 Lang, ‘The Right Kind of Solution’, p. 484. A buck-passing account of negative value (badness) might be formulated in terms of negative attitudes (or negative responses).

6 Cf. Rønnow-Rasmussen, Toni, ‘Instrumental Values – Strong and Weak’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 5 (2002), pp. 23–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 In section IV I discuss a special case of genuine instrumental value (‘The good demon’) that may appear to be problematic for this account, and explain how it can be dealt with.

8 Olson, Jonas, ‘The Wrong Kind of Solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason Problem’, Utilitas 21 (2009), pp. 225–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brunero, John, ‘Consequentialism and the Wrong Kind of Reasons: A Reply to Lang’, Utilitas 22 (2010), pp. 351–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Danielsson and Olson, ‘Brentano and the Buck-Passers’, p. 513. The solution to the WKR problem that I will eventually suggest is actually quite close to this formulation (the important difference being that I focus on positive responses instead of positive attitudes). Another example of a solution partly of this kind is found in Stratton-Lake, Philip, ‘How to Deal with Evil Demons: Comment on Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen’, Ethics 115 (2005), pp. 788–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Danielsson and Olson, ‘Brentano and the Buck-Passers’, p. 513.

11 Rabinowicz, Wlodek and Rønnow-Rasmussen, Toni, ‘Buck-Passing and the Right Kind of Reasons’, The Philosophical Quarterly 56 (2006), pp. 114–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen present an argument against a particular version of this approach. In section IV I consider a somewhat similar argument in relation to the version that I defend.

13 Olson, ‘The Wrong Kind of Solution’, pp. 229–32; Lang, ‘The Right Kind of Solution’, pp. 482–4.

14 Olson, ‘The Wrong Kind of Solution’, pp. 225–32.

15 Olson, ‘The Wrong Kind of Solution’, p. 226. One could argue that this first objection of Olson's arises from an unnecessarily narrow reading of Lang's proposal. The last instance of the word ‘us’ in BPV6 could simply be meant to refer to the members of the group of moral patients (however one wants to conceive of that group), to which the people on the other side of the Earth belong.

16 Olson, ‘The Wrong Kind of Solution’, p. 227.

17 Olson, ‘The Wrong Kind of Solution’, p. 228.

18 The addition ‘genuine’ is strictly speaking unnecessary: something is a value if and only if it is a genuine value. I include it only to emphasize that the account is not meant to cover instrumental ‘values’ in sense (1) discussed in section I above (i.e. the sense in which instrumental values are not really values at all, but merely means to something else that is valuable).

19 All things considered it may be that we ought not to respond to a valuable thing X in the way corresponding to its value, if, for instance, an evil demon has threatened to punish us if we do, but we still have reason to respond to X in that way; it is just that that reason has been outweighed by some reason(s) not to respond to X in that way, e.g. the reason provided by the demon's threat.

20 Plausibly, a particular agent's acting successfully in accordance with a rule-consequentialist rule is normally to some extent causally related to bringing about what that version of rule-consequentialism takes to be finally valuable, but exceptions are surely conceivable.

21 Crisp, Roger, ‘Goodness and Reasons: Accentuating the Negative’, Mind 117 (2008), pp. 257–65, at 260CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Crisp, ‘Goodness and Reasons’, p. 262.

23 Brunero, ‘Consequentialism and the Wrong Kind of Reasons’, p. 357.

24 Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other, p. 97. One may wonder why Lang has chosen to depart from Scanlon's formulation and formulate BPV in terms of attitudes. One reason may be that BPV is often combined (and sometimes perhaps conflated) with the so-called ‘fitting-attitudes analysis’ of value, according to which (roughly) to be valuable is to be a fitting object of a positive attitude (the phrase ‘fitting-attitudes analysis’ is introduced in Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen, ‘The Strike of the Demon’, p. 391). This kind of analysis is also prevalent among the early buck-passers.

25 Cf. Crisp, ‘Goodness and Reasons’, p. 260.

26 Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other, p. 100.

27 Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other, p. 98 (see pp. 79–86 for Scanlon's understanding of teleological conceptions of value).

28 E.g. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other, p. 95.

29 Note that refraining from doing something may also – in some cases – count as a positive response. Perhaps the appropriate response to a certain valuable thing is to preserve it, where this is best achieved by doing nothing.

30 Brunero, ‘Consequentialism and the Wrong Kind of Reasons’, p. 358.

31 Brunero, ‘Consequentialism and the Wrong Kind of Reasons’, pp. 356–7.

32 That is the case in the argument provided by Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (‘Buck-Passing and the Right Kind of Reasons’, p. 118) mentioned in footnote 12 above. Their argument draws on a person who is lovable because he has the disposition to respond with love to love. Hence that argument does not affect BPV12.

33 It might be thought that I am here relying on Derek Parfit's distinction between state-given and object-given reasons (Parfit, Derek, ‘Rationality and Reasons’, Exploring Practical Philosophy: From Action to Values, ed. Egonsson, D., Petersson, B., Josefsson, J. and Rønnow-Rasmussen, T. (Aldershot, 2001), pp. 17–39, at 21Google Scholar) – a strategy widely rejected as a viable way of dealing with the WKR-problem (see Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen, ‘The Strike of the Demon’, pp. 404–8, and Lang, ‘The Right Kind of Solution’, pp. 475–8). But that is not so. My point is not that the true reason to admire the demon is a fact about the state of admiring the demon. The point is that this reason depends on a consequence of admiring the demon. This reason could just as well be expressed as a fact about the object, i.e. the demon: that the demon is such that unless we admire him we will experience severe pain. It is just as obvious under this description of the reason that it depends on a consequence of admiring the demon (i.e. that this consequence plays a part in the direct explanation of this reason).

34 See e.g. Lang, ‘The Right Kind of Solution’; Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen, ‘The Strike of the Demon’; Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen, ‘Buck-Passing and the Right Kind of Reasons’; Danielsson and Olson, ‘Brentano and the Buck-Passers’.

35 Lang, ‘The Right Kind of Solution’, pp. 482–4.

36 Olson, ‘The Wrong Kind of Solution’, pp. 229–32.

37 Danielsson and Olson, ‘Brentano and the Buck-Passers’, pp. 516–17.

38 Danielsson and Olson, ‘Brentano and the Buck-Passers’, pp. 514–15.

39 Danielsson and Olson, ‘Brentano and the Buck-Passers’, pp. 516–17.

40 Danielsson and Olson, ‘Brentano and the Buck-Passers’, pp. 518–19.

41 For some other concerns, see Rønnow-Rasmussen, Personal Value, pp. 40–2.

42 Danielsson and Olson, ‘Brentano and the Buck-Passers’, p. 520.

43 Danielsson and Olson, ‘Brentano and the Buck-Passers’, p. 515.

44 Of course, given BPV this would imply that not only is pleasure valuable according to this version of consequentialism, but also bringing about pleasure. While a hedonistic consequentialist reasonably holds the latter to be instrumentally valuable, this ‘value’ need not be conceived as a genuine value (see the discussion in section I above), which it would have to be on the Brentano-style BPV. I will not develop this point any further, however.

45 Cf. Rønnow-Rasmussen, Personal Value, p. 39; Lang, ‘The Right Kind of Solution’, pp. 482–3.

46 As Danielsson and Olson write: ‘the distinction between content-reasons and holding-reasons is not drawn in terms of the properties that provide reasons’ (Danielsson and Olson, ‘Brentano and the Buck-Passers’, p. 515n.).

47 Note again that even Danielsson and Olson find such an explanation intuitively plausible: ‘Intuitively, one is inclined to think that this is the heart of the WKR problem: reasons of the right kind are not provided by the consequences of taking up the relevant attitude’ (Danielsson and Olson, ‘Brentano and the Buck-Passers’, p. 513).

48 Some of the points raised in this article were presented at the Seventh European Congress of Analytic Philosophy (ECAP7) in Milan, September 2011. I am grateful for the comments I received on that occasion. I am also grateful to the participants in a seminar at my department where I presented an earlier draft of the article. Special thanks are due to Bertil Strömberg, with whom I have discussed this work on several occasions, and whose comments have been particularly valuable.