[Name Redacted] (R&R)
Under Review
It is sometimes thought that, while the reasons for which an agent acts can be relevant to blame, character, or moral worth, they cannot be relevant to the permissibility of an agent’s behavior. I argue this is false. I reach this answer by first considering the kind of agency we have over acting-for-certain-reasons. I argue we have the same kind of agency over an action-done-for-certain-reasons as we have over an “ordinary” action—an action identified independently of the reasons for which it is done. Although we cannot choose what we see as reasons, we nonetheless can choose to act-for-certain-reasons in the same way we can choose ordinary actions. Thus, acting-for-certain-reasons can be permissible and impermissible just like ordinary actions can be. It follows from this acknowledgement that facts about the reasons for which an agent acts can be relevant to the permissibility of her behavior just in the same way other facts about that action can be relevant. I arrive at this conclusion by considering an argument from T.M. Scanlon which, I believe, has often been misunderstood.
In Progress
Asymmetrical Contractualism: On Content and Motivation
I identify what I take to be the most important challenge to contractualism, which goes largely unnoticed. According to contractualism, the content of morality is given, very roughly, by the rules agents who are motivated to justify their conduct to others similarly motivated would self-legislate. However, the rules they would self-legislate do not, in turn, require such motivation: often (if not always), an agent can act permissibly even if she is not motivated to justify her conduct to others similarly motivated. This seems like an undesirable asymmetry. It is at least prima facie awkward for a moral theory to appeal to a special form of motivation to derive its content only for such motivation to drop out from its content. The contractualist owes us a story about how to explain away this awkwardness, a challenge that becomes even more difficult to meet because of the contractualist’s otherwise appealing ways of understanding the nature of punishment and blame.
Ability, Obligation, and Respect
Morally obligatory or prohibited action must be under an agent’s control in some robust sense. A familiar proposal understands this control requirement as a way of ensuring that avoiding wrongdoing must be available to any agent—that moral obligation must respect individual ability. It would be unfair or unjust, according to this proposal, to hold agents morally accountable for wrongdoing if they cannot do otherwise. But this proposal is unacceptable: an agent facing vicious or demeaning conduct can always demand to be treated better. It would be disrespectful to them to suggest that, because such conduct was inescapable, their treatment is morally permissible. I then consider a better way of understanding the control requirement which avoids this pitfall.
Contractualism on the Relevance of Reasons for Action to Permissibility
I take up the challenge, suggested by many, that the contractualist cannot, or at any rate should not, think that that permissibility can turn on the reasons for which an agent acts. This is mistaken. Consider an analogy with causing pain. Causing pain is sometimes wrong because agents who will be adversely affected by such conduct can reasonably demand not to be treated that way. Similarly, acting-for-certain-reasons can be wrong because agents who will face such conduct can reasonably demand not to be treated that way. An agent’s reasons for action are relevant to permissibility, then, when, and only when, some agent who will be affected by such conduct has a reasonable complaint against it. In the course of this argument, moreover, we learn something important about contractualism: we get to see what kinds of complaints are (in)admissible in contractualist reasoning.