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Sidgwick on Moral Motivation 1872; PPE = Principles of Political Economy, Third Edition (London: Macmil- Volume 6, No

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Sidgwick on Moral Motivation 1872; PPE = Principles of Political Economy, Third Edition (London: Macmil- Volume 6, No In the first chapter I spoke of actions that we judge to be right and what ought to be done as being “reasonable,” or “rational” … and I contrasted the motive to action supplied by the recognition of such reasonableness with “non-rational” desires and inclinations. This manner of speaking is employed by writers of different schools, and seems in accordance with the common view and language … . For we commonly think that wrong con- duct is essentially irrational, and can be shown to be so by argument; and though we do not conceive that it is by reason alone that men are influenced to act rightly, we still hold that appeals to the reason are an essential part of all moral persuasion … . On the other hand it is widely maintained that, as Hume says, “Reason, mean- ing the judgment of truth and falsehood, can never of it- Sidgwick on self be any motive to the Will”; and that the motive to action is in all cases some Non-rational Desire, including under this term the impulses to action given by present Moral Motivation pleasure and pain. It seems desirable to examine with some care the grounds of this contention before we pro- ceed any further (ME 23).1 So opens Methods I.III. Sidgwick holds that moral judgments are claims about what it is reasonable to do. In Methods I.I he Robert Shaver 1 “ME” refers to Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, seventh edition (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981). References to the first edition (London: Mac- millan, 1874) are abbreviated as “ME (1)” and to the second edition (London: Macmillan, 1877) as “ME (2).” Other abbreviations refer to the following works by Sidgwick: BB = “Bentham and Benthamism in Politics and Ethics,” in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses (London: Macmillan, 1904); CE = “Can- ons of Evidence in Psychical Research,” Proceedings of the Society for Psychi- cal Research 6, 1889; DEP = The Development of European Polity, second edi- ton (London: Macmillan, 1913); E = “Eton,” Macmillan’s Magazine, February 1861; FT = “The Feeling-Tone of Desire and Aversion,” Mind n.s. 1, 1892; GE = “Green’s Ethics,” Mind 9, 1884; LE = Lectures on the Ethics of T. H. Green, Mr. Herbert Spencer, and J. Martineau (London: Macmillan, 1902); MS = “The Morality of Strife,” in Practical Ethics (New York: Oxford University Philosophers’ Imprint Press, 1998); OHE = Outlines of the History of Ethics, fourth edition (London: <www.philosophersimprint.org/006001> Macmillan, 1896); PD = “Pleasure and Desire,” Contemporary Review, April Sidgwick on Moral Motivation 1872; PPE = Principles of Political Economy, third edition (London: Macmil- Volume 6, No. 1 lan. 1901); RS = “Review of Leslie Stephen’s The Science of Ethics,” Mind 7, February 2006 1882; UA = “Unreasonable Action,” in Practical Ethics. © 2006 by Robert Shaver Robert Shaver is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Manitoba. Robert Shaver Sidgwick on Moral Motivation writes of “rational procedure,” “rational precepts,” the “end Sidgwick holds (i) and (ii), rejecting (iii) [on one reading of of reasonable human action,” and “reasonable conduct.” (iii)]. Hume, on Sidgwick’s and the received view, holds (ii) When we fail to do what we see to be right, we are acting on and (iii), rejecting (i). I shall sometimes make reference to “irrational springs of action” or “non-rational inclinations” the debate over Smith as a way to illuminate Sidgwick. (ME 1-6). He also holds that these judgments about what it Second, when I write of moral judgments’ motivating, I is reasonable to do can motivate. He must, then, respond to intend either of two possibilities: the agent takes the moral Hume’s argument that reason cannot motivate. Most of judgment to be backed by his all-things-considered judg- Methods I.III is this response. ment about what he has most reason to do, and so desires to I shall clarify Sidgwick’s claim that moral judgments are perform, and performs, the action enjoined by the moral judgments about what it is reasonable to do (I). I then give judgment; or the agent does not take the moral judgment to two interpretations of his view of moral motivation (II-III): be backed by his all-things-considered judgment, and so has insofar as one is rational, moral beliefs cause desires; or inso- merely a desire (or “some motivation”) to perform the ac- far as one is rational, one has a standing desire to act rightly, tion, which is defeated by desires backed by other reasons. and moral beliefs combine with this desire to motivate. Sidgwick does not hold that moral judgments need always These views differ from the accounts often given by anti- be the winning motivation, even in rational agents. Humeans that rely on entities such as “besires”—accounts which there is no need to adopt (IV). I then give Sidgwick’s I argument against Hume, defending the view that judgments The topic is Hume’s objection that if moral judgments are about what is reasonable can motivate (V), and I reply to the claims about what is reasonable, they cannot motivate. But following objections (VI): the argument is question-begging; first the position Sidgwick is defending should be sketched. Hume can escape the argument by endorsing a standing- Following Smith, one can distinguish rationalism as a desire model of motivation; anti-Humean views cannot ac- count for obvious slack between belief and motivation; and conceptual position (that when I make a moral judgment, I Sidgwick’s strategy wrongly puts the burden on Hume. I am making a claim about what it is reasonable to do) from close with an objection I do not answer: Hume might ex- rationalism as a substantive position (that there are require- plain moral motivation as the noncognitivist does. ments of rationality that match up with moral require- 3 Two preliminaries. First, Sidgwick can be seen as offer- ments). By “rationalism” below, I mean rationalism as a ing a version of Michael Smith’s “moral problem”: conceptual position. Sidgwick does not give an explicit argument for rational- (i) Moral judgments are beliefs about what it is ism. He finds rationalism “in accordance with the common reasonable to do. view and language …. For we commonly think that wrong (ii) Moral judgments sometimes motivate. conduct is essentially irrational, and can be shown to be so (iii) Beliefs alone do not motivate.2 by argument” (ME 23). Rationalism is the position we need 2 See Michael Smith, The Moral Problem (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994) p. 12. For the same problem, see David McNaughton, Moral Vision (Oxford: Black- 3 Smith, Problem pp. 63-5. well, 1988) p. 23. 2 Robert Shaver Sidgwick on Moral Motivation arguments to reject. irrational in the sense of being subject to rational criticism. This might seem far-fetched. “Irrational” has a range of Indeed, Sidgwick distinguishes between moral judgments meanings.4 On a narrow account, irrationality requires in- and claims such as “the food is disagreeable” by noting that ternal inconsistency: I believe what I think I have decisive “the peculiar emotion of moral approbation is … inseparably reason to reject, or I do what I think I have decisive reason bound up with the conviction …that the conduct approved not to do.5 It is unlikely that wrong conduct always involves is ‘really’ right—i.e., that it cannot, without error, be disap- this sort of irrationality. On a wide account, irrationality re- proved by any other mind” (ME 27). “Reason” rather than quires only that one is subject to rational criticism.6 Sidg- “moral sense” is appropriate because “the term Sense sug- wick holds that I can be subject to rational criticism without gests a capacity for feelings which may vary from A to B internal inconsistency. For example, in rejecting the view without either being in error ... and it appears to me funda- that there are only hypothetical imperatives, he writes that mentally important to avoid this suggestion” (ME 34). Ra- “[w]e do not all look with simple indifference on a man who tionalism can be thought of as claiming that moral judg- declines to take the right means to attain his happiness, on ments, unlike simple reports or expressions of feeling, are no other ground than that he does not care about happiness. subject to rational criticism, although the criticism need not Most men would regard such a refusal as irrational” (ME 7). consist in showing an internal inconsistency.8 After arguing that various axioms, such as the superven- ience of the moral on the non-moral, pass his tests for high- II est certainty, Sidgwick comments that “I regard the appre- Sidgwick seems to claim that belief and rationality are suffi- hension … of these abstract truths, as the permanent basis of cient for moral motivation. For example, “[w]hen I speak of the common conviction that the fundamental precepts of the cognition or judgment that ‘X ought to be done’ ... as a morality are essentially reasonable” (ME 383). Reasonable- ‘dictate’ or ‘precept’ of reason to the persons to whom it re- ness lies in passing epistemic tests for clarity, self-evidence, lates, I imply that in rational beings as such this cognition and consistency within and between people; internal consis- gives an impulse or motive to action” (ME 34). These cogni- tency is not enough. Similarly, Sidgwick often describes cus- toms, biases, prejudices, and privileges as being “irrational,” irrationality. But Sidgwick goes on to distinguish two “grades” of inconsis- where this seems best glossed as “against the balance of rea- tency: “Our impulses to action may be such as not to conflict, and yet not har- sons.”7 All this suggests that for Sidgwick, wrong conduct is monized or systematized: or they may be actually opposed and conflicting.” As an example of the latter, Sidgwick suggests “when desiring an end we decline to 4 For a useful discussion, see T.
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