Reid on Ethics
Philosophers in Depth Series Editors: Stephen Boulter and Constantine Sandis Philosophers in Depth is a series of themed edited collections focusing on particular aspects of the thought of major figures from the history of philosophy. The volumes showcase a combination of newly commissioned and previously published work with the aim of deepening our understanding of the topics covered. Each book stands alone, but taken together the series will amount to a vast collection of critical essays covering the history of philosophy, exploring issues that are central to the ideas of individual philosophers. This project was launched with the financial support of the Institute for Historical and Cultural Research at Oxford Brookes University, for which we are very grateful. Constantine Sandis and Stephen Boulter Oxford Titles include: Charles R. Pigden (editor) HUME ON MOTIVATION AND VIRTUE Sabine Roeser REID ON ETHICS Forthcoming titles: Leonard Kahn MILL ON JUSTICE Arto Laitinen and Constantine Sandis HEGEL ON ACTION Katherine Morris SARTRE ON THE BODY Daniel Whiting LATER WITTGENSTEIN ON LANGUAGE
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Reid on Ethics Edited By
Sabine Roeser Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Selection and editorial matter © Sabine Roeser 2010 Chapters © their individual authors 2010 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–21969–4 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
Contents Acknowledgments
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List of Contributors 1
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Introduction: Thomas Reid’s Moral Philosophy Sabine Roeser
1
Part I Thomas Reid’s Moral Epistemology 2
Reid, the Moral Faculty, and First Principles Keith Lehrer
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3
Reid on Natural Signs, Taste and Moral Perception Esther R. Kroeker
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4
Thomas Reid on Moral Disagreement William C. Davis
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Part II
The Role of Emotions in Reid’s Ethics
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Reid Making Sense of Moral Sense Alexander Broadie
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Reid and Modern Theories of Emotions Marion Ledwig
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Part III Reid on Moral Agency 7
Thomas Reid on Determinism René van Woudenberg
123
8
A Second Look at Reid’s First Argument for Moral Liberty Douglas McDermid
143
9
Beyond the Brave Officer: Reid on the Unity of the Mind, the Moral Sense, and Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity Gideon Yaffe Part IV
10
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Reid’s Views on Practical Ethics
Reid on Justice Nicholas Wolterstorff
187
v
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11 Reid on Hume on Justice James A. Harris
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12
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The Significance of Reid’s Practical Ethics Gordon Graham
13 Duty, Goodness, and God in Thomas Reid’s Moral Philosophy Terence Cuneo
238
Bibliography
258
Index
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Acknowledgments My work for editing this volume and writing this introduction has been sponsored by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), under grant number 275-20-007. I would like to thank the participants of the workshop ‘Reid on Ethics’ that I organized in preparation for this volume on June 23rd 2008, and the Philosophy Department of TU Delft for generously sponsoring this event. Thanks to Constantine Sandis for his many helpful suggestions during the process of compiling this volume, and to Priyanka Gibbons at Palgrave Macmillan for her support. Last but not least I would like to thank Marco Eliens, who did an outstanding job as an editorial assistant.
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Contributors Alexander Broadie is Professor of Logic and Rhetoric at the University of Glasgow (a chair once occupied by Adam Smith) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He has published about fifteen books, most recently Thomas Reid on Logic, Rhetoric and the Fine Arts (EUP, 2005) and A History of Scottish Philosophy (EUP, 2009). He has a particular interest in the philosophy of the Late Middle Ages and of the Enlightenment. Terence Cuneo is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vermont. He is the author of The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism (Oxford, 2007) and co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid (Cambridge, 2004) and Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology (Blackwell, 2007). William C. Davis is a Professor of Philosophy and the Chair of the Philosophy Department at Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Georgia, USA. In addition to his work on Reid in Thomas Reid’s Ethics: Moral Epistemology on Legal Foundations (Thoemmes Continuum, 2006), Davis has written chapters on popular culture in The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy and The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy (Open Court, 2003 and 2005). Davis has served on the Ethics Committee at Memorial Hospital, Chattangooga, TN, since 1999. Gordon Graham is Henry Luce III Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at Princeton Theological Seminary, and Director of the Princeton Center for the Study of Scottish Philosophy. From 1995–2005 he was Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen. He is editor of the Journal of Scottish Philosophy, and his publications include journal, book and encyclopedia articles on themes related to the Scottish philosophical tradition, as well as Scottish Philosophy: selected readings 1690–1960 (Imprint Academic, 2004). James A. Harris teaches philosophy at St Andrews. He is the author of Of Liberty and Necessity: The Free Will Problem in Eighteenth-Century British Philosophy (Oxford, 2005), and of articles on a number of topics on the moral philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment. He is editing The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century and co-editing (with Knud Haakonssen) Reid’s Essays on the Active Powers of Man for The Edinburgh Edition of Thomas Reid. Esther R. Kroeker is a Research Fellow at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Her work is supported by the Research Programme of the Scientific Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO), project G.0484.09N. The title of her viii
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dissertation, which she completed at the University of Southern California in 2007, is Thomas Reid: Motives and the Anatomy of the Mind. Marion Ledwig is currently visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, and received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Konstanz, Germany. Her main interests are the philosophy of Thomas Reid, decision theory, emotion theory, philosophy of religion, and aesthetics. She is the author of Reid’s Philosophy of Psychology (2005), Emotions: Their Rationality and Consistency (2006), Common Sense: Its History, Method, and Applicability (2007), and God’s Rational Warriors: The Rationality of Faith Considered (2008). Keith Lehrer (Ph.D., Brown) concentrates on epistemology, free will, rational consensus, Thomas Reid and, most recently, aesthetics. He has received many distinguished fellowships and awards including Doctor of Philosophy, from Karl-Franzens University of Graz, Austria and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of seven books and the editor of ten others, as well as numerous articles in scholarly journals. He holds the following positions: at the University of Arizona, Regents Professor Emeritus; University of Miami, Research Professor; and University of Graz, Honorary Professor. He is also an artist with exhibits of his art occurring in Miami, Santa Clara and Graz, Austria and on the Web at Paintings by Keith Lehrer. Douglas McDermid is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Trent University in Peterborough, Canada. His primary research interests are in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy and literature, and the history of modern philosophy (with four distinct sub-foci: Scottish philosophy; Schopenhauer; Pragmatism and American philosophy; and the development of analytic philosophy). In addition to publishing journal articles on these topics, he is the author of The Varieties of Pragmatism: Truth, Realism, and Knowledge from James to Rorty (London and New York: Continuum, 2006). Sabine Roeser is an Assistant Professor (tenured) at the Department of Philosophy, Delft University of Technology. She has obtained various prestigious research grants for her innovative research on risk and moral emotions. Roeser has published articles on ethical intuitionism (with a special focus on Thomas Reid), emotion and risk. She is (co-) editor of the following volumes: Emotions and Risky Technologies (2010, Springer), The Ethics of Technological Risk (2009, Earthscan) and Basic Belief and Basic Knowledge (2005, Ontos). Roeser is currently preparing a monograph, Moral Emotions and Intuitions, for Palgrave Macmillan. René van Woudenberg has the chair in Metaphysics and Epistemology in the Department of Philosophy of VU University, Amsterdam. With Terence
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Cuneo he is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid. Currently he is working on a project on responsible belief. Nicholas Wolterstorff is Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University and Senior Fellow in the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology. Cambridge University Press will soon publish a collection of his essays on epistemology, titled Practices of Belief: Essays in Epistemology. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a former president of the American Philosophical Association. Gideon Yaffe is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Law at the University of Southern California. His research concerns action, agency, personal identity and freedom. His works concern both the way these notions were understood in 17th- and 18th-century British philosophy and in their application to contemporary criminal law. He is the author of Manifest Activity: Thomas Reid’s Theory of Action (Oxford, 2004).
1 Introduction: Thomas Reid’s Moral Philosophy Sabine Roeser
1.1
Introduction
Thomas Reid (1710–1796) was one of the founders of the Scottish common sense school in philosophy. Reid’s thoughts about ethics can mainly be found in his Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind (1788). In that book, he defends philosophically controversial ideas such as agent causation, moral knowledge, intuitionism, realism, moral sense, and the idea that conscience is a reliable source of knowledge. Reid’s moral philosophy is unduly neglected. Despite the recent revival of Reid-scholarship, there are relatively few scholars working on Reid’s moral philosophy. This volume aims to stimulate greater interest in this aspect of Reid’s work. By bringing together leading experts on Reid’s work on ethics, this volume demonstrates the richness and uniqueness of Reid’s moral philosophy to a wider philosophical audience. In the following introduction, I will discuss some essential features of Reid’s moral philosophy. I will conclude with a short overview of the book, putting the various contributions in context.
1.2 Reid’s moral epistemology In this section, I will give a short overview of some essential features of Reid’s moral philosophy. I will focus mainly on his intuitionist moral epistemology. Reid’s moral cognitivism Reid’s general philosophical framework can be seen as a defence of common sense against Cartesian and Lockean idealism, which Reid sees as leading inevitably to Hume’s scepticism. In the case of ethics, this means that Reid defends moral cognitivism and realism against Hume’s sentimentalism with its threat of relativism. According to Reid, our ability to make moral judgments is analogous to the workings of our external senses. We, as it were, ‘perceive certain things to be right, and others to be wrong’ 1
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(Reid, 1969b, p. 231). Reid insists that in moral perception, as with sense perception, we always make judgments (cf. Reid, 1969a, p. 536). For example, if I hear a noise I immediately judge whether it is a loud or low noise and whether sounds are in harmony with each other. This is also the case with moral perception: there is always a judgment involved (Reid, 1969b, p. 232). By judgment, Reid means the following: I understand by it that operation of the mind, by which we determine, concerning any thing that may be expressed by a proposition, whether it be true or false. Every proposition is either true or false: so is every judgment. A proposition may be simply conceived without judging of it. But when there is not only a conception of the proposition, but a mental affirmation or negation, an assent or a dissent of the understanding, whether weak or strong, that is judgment. (Reid, 1969a, p. 570) In this passage, Reid says that judgments differ from conceptions in that judgments involve a mental activity of affirming or rejecting a proposition that we can conceive. Whereas Hume and other sentimentalists believe that moral perception is a matter of feeling, Reid believes that it is a matter of judging. Reid explains the difference between judging and feeling by the following example: compare the sentences (1) ‘Action x is good’ and (2) ‘Action x gives me a good feeling’. Sentence (1) is an opinion about a certain action and not about the speaker, while sentence (2) is a statement about a fact concerning the speaker. And whereas sentence (1) can be contradicted, sentence (2) cannot be contradicted without delivering an insult to the speaker, because everybody must know his own feelings (cf. Reid, 1969b, p. 465). According to Reid, moral judgments are expressions of opinions about the moral value of (possibly other) persons or actions. In contrast, what one feels is a matter of fact concerning the physical or psychological state of oneself. Reid argues that moral perception differs from sense perception in the following respect: in sense perception an impression is made on the organ of sense, which gives rise to a sensation that leads to a judgment, whereas in moral perception, the feeling follows on the judgment or belief (Reid, 1969b, p. 462).1 Reid says the following about our acquisition of moral knowledge: That by an original power of the mind, which we call conscience, or the moral faculty, we have the conceptions of right and wrong in human conduct, of merit and demerit, of duty and moral obligation, and our other moral conceptions; and that, by the same faculty, we perceive some things in human conduct to be right, and others to be wrong; that the first principles of morals are the dictates of this faculty; and that we have some reason to rely upon those dictates, as upon the determinations of our senses, or of our other natural faculties. (Reid, 1969b, p. 237)
Introduction: Thomas Reid’s Moral Philosophy
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According to Reid, our moral faculty enables us to see the truth of abstract, general moral principles, and also the moral value of concrete situations: the abstract notion of moral good and ill would be of no use to direct our life, if we had not the power of applying it to particular actions, and determining what is morally good, and what is morally ill. (Reid, 1969b, p. 231) The moral faculty is not only what Reid calls an ‘intellectual power’, i.e., a cognitive faculty, but also an ‘active power’: it directs our actions. Reid’s ethical intuitionism In the current discussion of ethical intuitionism, most attention is given to W. D. Ross and his contemporaries G. E. Moore and H. A. Prichard (and to a lesser degree, C. D. Broad and A. C. Ewing). Rarely is Thomas Reid included in discussions about intuitionism even though his moral epistemology is fully intuitionist. In addition, Reid’s version of intuitionism is helpful as he offers an elaborate discussion of the role of first principles or basic moral beliefs, which are crucial concepts in order to understand the core idea of intuitionist epistemology. According to Reid, each epistemic justification is based on first principles or, to use contemporary terminology, basic beliefs.2 This holds in moral reasoning, as in all other kinds. There must therefore be in morals, as in all other sciences, first or self-evident principles, on which all moral reasoning is grounded, and on which it ultimately rests. From such self-evident principles, conclusions may be drawn synthetically with regard to the moral conduct of life; and particular duties or virtues may be traced back to such principles, analytically. But, without such principles, we can no more establish any conclusion in morals, than we can build a castle in the air, without any foundation. (Reid, 1969b, p. 234) So, basic beliefs are: 1. A necessary foundation of our reasoning; and, 2. Self-evident, which means that they are not justificatorily based on other beliefs. ‘One of the most important distinctions of our judgments is that some of them are intuitive, others grounded on argument’ (Reid, 1969a, p. 593). We know basic beliefs by intuition and all other beliefs are based on those. Says Reid: It is a first principle in morals, that we ought not to do to another, what we should think wrong to be done to us in like circumstances. If a man is not capable of perceiving this in his cool moments, when he reflects seriously, he is not a moral agent, nor is he capable of being convinced of it by reasoning. (Reid, 1969b, p. 234, 235)
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Hence, says Reid, just as mathematical axioms cannot be proven, neither can basic moral beliefs (Reid, 1969a, pp. 721, 722, 727). I call these first principles, because they appear to me to have in themselves an intuitive evidence which I cannot resist. I find I can express them in words. I can illustrate them by examples and authorities, and perhaps can deduce one of them from another; but I am not able to deduce them from other principles that are more evident. (Reid, 1969b, p. 369) According to Reid, a ‘clear and intuitive judgment, resulting from the constitution of human nature, is sufficient to overbalance a train of subtle reasoning on the other side’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 409). This means that, according to Reid, basic beliefs are not inferior to reasoning and argumentation. Instead, moral intuitions are a separate source of evidence that can be even stronger and more convincing than a complex argument. The fact that self-evident beliefs cannot be proven means that if somebody does not accept a basic belief after having had appropriate experiences (I will come back to this below), we cannot convince him of this belief by deductive reasoning. We can at most try to make him see a situation in a certain light, but we cannot convince him using arguments based on more fundamental premises that would establish the belief at stake as conclusion because there are simply no more basic beliefs involved. Somebody who is not able to see the truth of basic moral beliefs is in the end not a moral agent, and his moral faculty is not functioning properly (e.g., a sociopath). On the other hand, Reid allows for the possibility that somebody who is not able to make real moral judgments can also be motivated to behave morally out of egoism. Just as we can see in, for example, Hobbesianism or rational-choice theory, the assumption of egoism can lead to the adoption of certain moral norms. However, Reid would say that, although egoism can be helpful to convince otherwise morally blind people to behave morally, such convictions are not genuine moral judgments. Compare this with colorblind people who can discern colors by the shades of gray they perceive. Although these people are able to make the appropriate color distinctions, we would hold that they do not perceive colors in the genuine sense.3 Reason involves two capacities Reid emphasizes that our faculties of sense perception and conscience are sources of basic beliefs that are as reliable as our capacity by which we can generate derived beliefs. Reid thinks that in sense perception, memory, and so on, judgment is always involved, and being able to judge is a capacity of reason. We use another capacity of our reason to deduce derived beliefs
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from primary principles or to demonstrate mathematical theorems. We ascribe to reason two offices, or two degrees. The first is to judge of things self-evident; the second to draw conclusions that are not self-evident from those that are. The first of these is the province, and the sole province of common sense; and therefore it coincides with reason in its whole extent, and is only another name for one branch or one degree of reason. (Reid, 1969a, p. 567) It might be helpful to give names to the different capacities of reason to avoid confusion. The first capacity of reason, according to Reid, is to make basic perceptual judgments or to intuit self-evident axioms. We can call this the intuitive capacity. The second capacity of reason is that by which we derive theorems from axioms, by which we develop or understand complex theoretical proofs and by which we understand the relation between different beliefs we hold. I will call this our reasoning capacity. Reason as such or rationality comprises these two abilities. Reid acknowledges that animals have ‘opinions’ and will, but he thinks that only human beings are rational beings. We can say that we share parts of both rational abilities with animals, such as judging in perception,4 which involves the intuitive capacity, and interpreting signs that point to facts we cannot observe directly, which involves the reasoning capacity. Other parts are most probably uniquely human capacities, such as making moral judgments and understanding mathematical axioms, both of which involve the intuitive capacity, and understanding theoretical proofs which involves the reasoning capacity. We can also intuit non-basic propositions Reid argues that the ‘system of morals’ is not so much like mathematics but rather like botany and mineralogy: where the subsequent parts depend not for their evidence upon the preceding, and the arrangement is made to facilitate apprehension and memory, and not to give evidence. (Reid, 1969b, p. 376) In his discussion of Reid’s moral philosophy, Keith Lehrer puts this as follows: In such a system, there would be no epistemic priority of theorems to axioms. The system would be a collection of propositions, a taxonomy of moral propositions, which, though they stand in various logical relations to each other, and are not independent, do not obtain their evidence from deduction. They possess it immediately.5
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Hence, although the different moral principles are connected by logical relations, the theorems can be as much intuited as the axioms. Even if it is possible in principle to derive some moral beliefs from basic moral beliefs by deduction or reasoning, we can also see the truth of derivable beliefs or theorems directly. According to Reid, this is apparent from the fact that the ability to reason is no guarantee for being virtuous. Reasoning can also be abused to further one’s own interest instead of following one’s duty. Furthermore, somebody who is not good at reasoning can still be virtuous. Hence, moral knowledge does not always depend on reasoning but is more analogous to perception (Reid, 1969a, p. 727). If the rules of virtue were left to be discovered by demonstrative reasoning, or by reasoning of any kind, sad would be the condition of the far greater part of men, who have not the means of cultivating the power of reasoning. As virtue is the business of all men, the first principles of it are written in their hearts, in characters so legible, that no man can pretend ignorance of them, or of his obligation to practice them. (Reid, 1969a, p. 726) According to Reid, all human beings can in principle make moral judgments without complicated arguments and deductions. Whether it concerns general moral principles or concrete moral judgments, every human being is in principle as able as any other to see what is right or wrong, provided that their moral faculty is sufficiently developed, which leads me to the next point. Our moral faculty needs to be developed Reid emphasizes that we must not think that because man has the natural power of discerning what is right, and what is wrong, that he has no need of instruction; that this power has no need of cultivation and improvement; that he may safely rely upon the suggestions of his mind, or upon opinions he has got, he knows not how. (Reid, 1969b, p. 248) This quote shows another important aspect of Reid’s intuitionism: to be able to have justified moral intuitions, it is a precondition that our moral faculty is sufficiently developed. According to Reid, all of our cognitive faculties have to be developed to be able to generate beliefs in a reliable way. Reid thinks that where, for example, vision and hearing develop at an early age, our conscience is the most sophisticated of our cognitive faculties and hence needs the most time to develop. All our cognitive faculties are innate faculties, which only means that we have the potential to
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use them. To activate conscience, exercise and education are needed (Reid, 1969b, pp. 246–250, 369–373).6 Reid does not mean merely intellectual education, but moral education, that can be provided by all virtuous people in all social groups. An appropriate education and experience help to be able to make intuitive moral judgments. It may be observed, that there are truths, both speculative and moral, which a man left to himself would not discover; yet, when they are fairly laid before him, he owns and adopts them, not barely upon the authority of his teacher, but upon their own intrinsic evidence, and perhaps wonders that he could be so blind as not to see them before. (Reid, 1969b, p. 249) Consequently, although Reid thinks that a proper education is a necessary condition to understand moral truths, he does not think that morality is just a matter of conditioning. Reid is a moral realist and not a constructivist. Moral education influences our cognitive development, but not the moral facts we can learn to understand. Reid on moral disagreement Despite his common sense-account, Reid fully acknowledges that people can disagree about moral matters. According to Reid, our intellectual faculties, including conscience, can easily be manipulated: In their gradual progress, they may be greatly assisted or retarded, improved or corrupted, by education, instruction, example, exercise, and by the society and conversation of men, which, like soil and culture in plants, may produce great changes to the better or to the worse. (Reid, 1969b, p. 247) As said before, our capacity to form moral judgments needs to be developed: I am far from thinking instruction in morals unnecessary. Men may, to the end of life, be ignorant of self-evident truths. They may, to the end of life, entertain gross absurdities. Experience shows that this happens often in matters that are indifferent. Much more may it happen in matters where interest, passion, prejudice, and fashion, are so apt to pervert the judgment. The most obvious truths are not perceived without some ripeness of judgment. For we see, that children may be made to believe any thing, though ever so absurd. Our judgment of things is ripened, not by time only, but chiefly by being exercised about things of the same, or of a similar kind. (Reid, 1969b, p. 371)
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Reid points out that a lack of understanding does not change the truth (Reid, 1969b, p. 481). A lack of understanding does not entail antirealism: It would be extremely absurd, from the errors and ignorance of mankind, to conclude that there is no such thing as truth; or that man has not a natural faculty of discerning it, and distinguishing it from error. (Reid, 1969b, p. 248) What then can we do in the face of moral disagreement? According to Reid, if there is a disagreement about derived beliefs, we try to find out which basic belief holds with respect to the issue in question and which derived beliefs follow from this basic belief. Of course, in the case of disagreement about candidates for basic beliefs, this procedure cannot be applied. Still, Reid believes that in such a case we have other ways to find out whether a supposed basic belief is true or false. Whereas other errors are merely false, an opinion contradicting a basic belief will appear ridiculous to us. Furthermore, Reid thinks that one should check whether the supposed basic belief is consistent with the other beliefs one has,7 and one should consider what people all around the world and of all times and all levels of education have thought about this (Reid, 1969a, p. 608). It is probably impossible to determine how often our moral judgments are true. We do not have neutral standards by which we could judge that the reliability of any of our cognitive faculties is more beyond doubt than that of our other faculties. It is impossible to judge our faculties from the outside. The only way we might proceed is to ask ourselves how often it occurs in daily life that our moral judgments were wrong, e.g., that somebody feels wronged by us although we thought we were doing the right thing. However, even then it might always turn out that our initial judgment was right after all. Reid says the following about how we can make sure that we make as good moral judgments as possible: by serious attention to moral instruction; by observing what we approve, and what we disapprove, in other men, whether our acquaintance, or those whose actions are recorded in history; by reflecting often, in a calm and dispassionate hour, on our own past conduct, that we may discern what was wrong, what was right, and what might have been better; by deliberating coolly and impartially upon our future conduct, as far as we can foresee the opportunities we may have of doing good, or the temptations to do wrong; and by having this principle deeply fixed in our minds, that as moral excellence is the true worth and glory of a man, so the knowledge of our duty is to every man, in every station of life, the most important of all knowledge. (Reid, 1969b, p. 261) 8
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Hence, Reid thinks that we can check our moral judgments by calm reflection and by comparing them to certain points of reference. To this we can add that in making moral judgments we are not left to ourselves with only subjective opinions or stuck with tradition. We can also interact with others and by being open to other points of view, we are able to examine our judgments and to develop them further.9 Epistemic duties Hence, Reid thinks that it is not always easy to achieve moral knowledge. Reid emphasizes that we have to do our best to make a good moral judgment (Reid, 1969b, p. 361). Proper functioning of our cognitive faculties is a constitutive and necessary condition for knowledge, but it might not always be sufficient. We also have to have the intention to find out what is right or wrong. The man who neglects the means of improvement in the knowledge of his duty, may do very bad things, while he follows the light of his mind. And though he be not culpable for acting according to his judgment, he may be very culpable for not using the means of having his judgment better informed. (Reid, 1969b, p. 249) Reid says that somebody may not think that he may safely rely upon the suggestions of his mind, or upon opinions he has got, he knows not how. (Reid, 1969b, p. 248; italics mine) So Reid thinks that we have to do our best to inform ourselves of the ways in which we form our beliefs, to make sure they are formed by a reliable source of knowledge. In the end, reason seems to be the final arbiter: Reason therefore is allowed to be the principle by which our belief and opinions ought to be regulated. (Reid, 1969b, p. 201) Translated into contemporary epistemology-jargon, we can say that Reid is an internalist-deontologist concerning derived beliefs and what I called the reasoning capacity, and also concerning the preconditions we create to obtain (basic) beliefs and the intention to find out what is right or wrong. However, he is probably best understood as an externalist concerning basic beliefs and concerning what I called the intuitive capacity. This becomes clearer when we look at what Reid says about common sense. Common sense moral philosophy Reid says that the task of philosophy is not to doubt our common sense judgments but to start from them. Without common sense, philosophy would
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be impossible (Reid 1997, p. 19). This does not mean that we should hold on to our naive prejudices in the face of other evidence, but our common sense judgments are, as it were, innocent until proven guilty. That means that we can hold on to our initial beliefs until we have good reasons to doubt them. Of course, a critical person should always examine her beliefs to see whether they are tenable or not. However, we cannot start from scratch; common sense knowledge has to be the starting point. According to Reid, as ancient skepticism died away because it was in contradiction to common sense, so will Hume’s skepticism: The modern skepticism is very different from the ancient, otherwise it would not have been allowed a hearing; and, when it has lost the grace of novelty, it will die away also, though it should never be refuted. (Reid, 1969a, p. 605) To refute skepticism in the sense of convincing the radical skeptic that we have knowledge is impossible according to Reid. This is because skepticism starts out by asking an unanswerable question, namely how we can justify our common sense beliefs. The general idea behind Reid’s common sense epistemology is the following: the skeptical project is an impossible project. To demand a justification of our common sense beliefs implies either that we assume that we have certain cognitive faculties, such as reason, that are infallible and through which we can judge our other faculties. But this is an arbitrary, unjustified assumption. Or we prove the reliability of some of our faculties by the fact that they have been successful in a lot of cases. However, this is a circular way of reasoning, because in order to judge that, we already presuppose the reliability of some of our cognitive faculties, otherwise we could not state that some judgments are reliably formed.10 Or, as a third possibility, we conclude that we cannot prove the infallibility of our cognitive faculties and hence become skeptics, but this leads to a pragmatic paradox, as in everyday life we will rely on our faculties. All this indicates, according to Reid, that the skeptical project is a pragmatically impossible project. The faculties which nature has given us, are the only engines we can use to find out the truth. We cannot indeed prove that those faculties are not fallacious, unless God should give us new faculties to sit in judgment upon the old. But we are born under a necessity of trusting them. (Reid, 1969b, p. 237) Says Reid: In matters beyond the reach of common understanding, the many are led by the few, and willingly yield to their authority. But, in matters of
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common sense, the few must yield to the many, when local and temporary prejudices are removed. (Reid, 1969a, p. 605) It is important to be careful about the development of Reid’s common sense argument. It is not that Reid thinks that in regards to all subject matters, the beliefs of the common person should be the guiding line. He thinks that certain fields of knowledge are the prerogative of philosophers and scientists, e.g., concerning knowledge of abstract and necessary propositions and concerning complex reasoning. However, concerning common sense, ‘the few’ have no right to tell the many what to believe, but the many can tell the few that they are wrong. With ‘the few’, Reid refers to the skeptical philosophers, who are the target of the ironic polemic that accompanies all of his philosophical works.11 Philosophers have no right to tell the common person that their cognitive faculties are mistaken. Instead, the philosopher should consult the common person on those matters. Of course, a minority view might be the right one— but having the right view is not a prerogative of philosophers, according to Reid. In addition, it should be possible to convince others of genuine moral principles. Intuitionists and common sense philosophers are often criticized for being naive and dogmatic. However, Reid’s rejection of skepticism can hardly be called dogmatic; to the contrary, its upshot is liberal. To take every human being as having in principle an equal right to judge is at the heart of Reid’s common sense philosophy, which is one of the aspects that makes Reid a typical enlightenment philosopher. Says Reid: The judgments grounded upon the evidence of sense, of memory, and of consciousness, put all men upon a level. (Reid, 1969a, p. 540) As to the supposed naivety of a common sense approach, Reid would say that, compared with the enormous demands that skeptics have on knowledge, common sense philosophy might appear naive. Still, our common sense is the only source of knowledge we have concerning certain domains of knowledge, and when it comes to practical matters, even the skeptical philosopher will have to rely upon his ‘naive’ common sense beliefs. We are born under a necessity of trusting to our reasoning and judging powers; and a real belief of their being fallacious cannot be maintained for any considerable time by the greatest skeptic, because it is doing violence to our constitution. It is like a man’s walking upon his hands, a feat which some men upon occasion can exhibit; but no man ever made a long journey in this manner. Cease to admire his dexterity, and he will, like other men, betake himself to his legs. (Reid, 1969a, p. 632)
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Moral properties All ethical intuitionists are non-reductive moral realists, and Reid is no exception. Reid as well thinks that we cannot reduce moral properties to anything non-moral: Upon the whole, I humbly apprehend, that true grandeur is such a degree of excellence as is fit to raise an enthusiastical admiration; that this grandeur is found originally and properly in qualities of the mind; that it is discerned in objects of sense only by reflection, as is the light we perceive in the moon and the planets is truly the light of the sun; and that those who look for grandeur in mere matter, seek the living among the dead. (Reid, 1969a, p. 778) Moral qualities and the qualities of the characters of persons are secondary qualities in the sense that they are perceivable, although strictly speaking, they are invisible: Thus the beauties of mind, though invisible in themselves, are perceived in the objects of sense, on which their image is impressed. (Reid, 1969a, p. 794) This is Reid’s realist account of secondary qualities: our senses give us a direct and distinct notion of the primary qualities, and inform us what they are in themselves: but of the secondary qualities, our senses give us only a relative and obscure notion. They inform us only, that they are qualities that affect us in a certain manner, that is, produce in us a certain sensation; but as to what they are in themselves, our senses leave us in the dark. (Reid, 1969a, pp. 252, 253) Hence, according to Reid, the main difference between primary and secondary qualities is that in the former case we can identify what the qualities really are, whereas, with regards to secondary qualities, we can only derive their existence from the sensations they cause within us, although we are not able to say exactly what the qualities consist of. Reid emphasizes that we should distinguish between the sensation we feel and the quality in the object which occasions it, a distinction an anti-realist about secondary qualities does not make (Reid, 1969a, p. 754). Says Reid: It depends no doubt on our constitution, whether we do, or do not perceive excellence where it really is: but the object has its excellence from its own constitution, and not from ours. (Reid, 1969a, p. 770) Reid points out that people feel abhorrence of certain actions because they are bad in themselves, and they feel a duty to do other actions because
Introduction: Thomas Reid’s Moral Philosophy
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they are good in themselves (Reid, 1969b, p. 224). However, the material action has to be distinguished from the intention of the agent: The opinion of the agent in doing the action gives it its moral obligation. If he does a materially good action, without any belief of its being good, but from some other principle, it is no good action in him. And if he does it with the belief of its being ill, it is ill in him. (Reid, 1969b, p. 230) According to Reid, we use the expression ‘morally good’ in two ways: 1. We can mean the action in abstraction of the intention of the agent. By this we indicate whether it is an action which is inherently good, ‘that it is an action which ought to be done by those who have the power and opportunity, and the capacity of perceiving their obligation to do it’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 395). 2. We can mean the agent and judge his intention: ‘A good action in man is that in which he applied his intellectual powers properly, in order to judge what he ought to do, and acted according to his best judgment. This is all that can be required of a moral agent; and in this his moral goodness, in any good action, consists’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 395). Reid (Reid, 1969b, p. 411) also gives the example of a person who wants to kill somebody by giving him poison, but instead of killing the other, the poison has a curing effect. Of course we would call this a (failed) attempt of murder and not a good deed. The first person has acted with bad intentions, and that has to be distinguished from possible, unintended positive effects. The same distinction applies in the opposite case where a person acts with the intention of doing something good, but she judges the situation wrongly and thereby causes a bad effect. In such a situation we judge the agent differently than if she would have intended the bad effect. We will examine whether she did her best to inform herself about the possible effects of her action. If that turns out to be the case, we would judge the bad consequences as an accident. Reid thinks that we would at most give such a person a symbolic fine but that we would not condemn her in a moral way. However, Reid apparently thinks that in the end, moral properties are in fact properties of intentional agents: Some figures of speech are so natural and so common in all languages, that we are led to think them literal and proper expressions. Thus an action is called brave, virtuous, generous; but it is evident, that valour, virtue, generosity, are the attributes of persons only, and not of actions. In the action considered abstractly, there is neither valour, nor virtue, nor generosity. The same action done from a different motive may deserve none of these epithets. The change in this case is not in the action, but in the agent; yet, in all languages, generosity and other
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moral properties are ascribed to actions. By a figure, we assign to the effect the quality which is inherent only in the cause. (Reid, 1969a, p. 773)12
1.3
Reid’s normative ethics
After having discussed several important features of Reid’s metaethical views, it is time to take a look at his more specific ideas about ethics. These include normative-ethical but also metaphysical principles. According to Reid, we can know several kinds of first moral principles by intuition. Reid gives examples of first moral principles, without claiming that this list is exhaustive (Reid, 1969b, p. 361). Hereby he distinguishes between three classes of first moral principles: the first class is related to virtues in general. The first principle of this class reads as follows: 1. that some aspects of human conduct deserve praise, others blame (Reid, 1969b, p. 361). This is a rather trivial principle, but the following principles are philosophically more contentious: namely 2. ‘What is in no degree voluntary, can neither deserve moral approbation nor blame’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 361), and 3. what is done from ‘unavoidable necessity’ deserves neither (Reid, 1969b, p. 361). So in principles 2. and 3. Reid defends the incompatibility of determinism and responsibility. He argues for this and his agent-causation account in much more detail in Reid, 1969b, Essay IV, chapters VI–XI.13 This is principle 4.: ‘Men may be highly culpable in omitting what they ought to have done, as well as in doing what they ought not’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 361), 5. ‘We ought to use the best means we can to be well informed of our duty’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 361), 6. ‘It ought to be our most serious concern to do our duty as far as we know it, and to fortify our minds against every temptation to deviate from it’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 362). With these latter principles, Reid claims that not only are we morally obliged to do what is morally right, but also to create the circumstances in which we are as well as possible informed as to what we ought to do. Reid says that the second class of first moral principles concerns principles that are more specific. To use current terminology, we might say that the first class of principles concerns issues in moral ontology, whereas the second class concerns normative ethics. The first principle is that 1. ‘We ought to prefer a greater good, though more distant, to a less; and a less evil to a greater’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 262). The other principles run as follows: 2. ‘As far as the intention of nature appears in the constitution of man, we ought to comply with that intention, and to act agreeably to it’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 364). According to Reid, the intention of nature can be seen ‘in the various active principles of man,14 in the desires of power, of knowledge, and of esteem, in the affection to children, to near relations and to the communities to which we belong, in gratitude, in compassion, and even in resentment and
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emulation’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 365). 3. ‘No man is born for himself only’, that is why we should consider ourselves as part of humanity and social groups and do as much good as we can (Reid, 1969b, p. 365). 4. ‘In every case, we ought to act that part toward another, which we would judge to be right in him to act toward us, if we were in his circumstances and he in ours; or more generally, what we approve in others, that we ought to practise in like circumstances, and what we condemn in others we ought not to do’ (Reid, 1969b, pp. 365, 366). This latter principle is of course the Golden Rule. The third class of first moral principles that Reid discusses is about the hierarchy that holds between different virtues.15 According to Reid, different virtues can never be in conflict in the person who has them; they form a harmonious and consistent system. Still, between particular external actions, which different virtues would lead to, there may be an opposition. Thus, the same man may be in his heart, generous, grateful, and just. These dispositions strengthen, but never can weaken one another. Yet it may happen, that an external action which generosity or gratitude solicits, justice may forbid. (Reid, 1969b, p. 368) With external actions, Reid means what we really do as opposed to aspects of our character. When leading to real actions virtues can conflict, but that means that one kind of action simply overrules another according to a selfevident hierarchy: That in all such cases, unmerited generosity should yield to gratitude, and both to justice, is self-evident. Nor is it less so, that unmerited beneficence to those who are at ease should yield to compassion to the miserable, and external acts of piety to works of mercy, because God loves mercy more than sacrifice. At the same time, we perceive, that those acts of virtue which ought to yield in the case of a competition, have most intrinsic worth when there is no competition. Thus, it is evident that there is more worth in pure and unmerited benevolence than in gratitude, and more in gratitude than in justice. (Reid, 1969b, p. 368) We might understand what Reid says in the second part of this passage as distinguishing between just acts and supererogatory acts. Just acts are, as it were, a minimum standard of morality, whereas supererogatory acts go beyond what can be demanded of normal human agents. In that sense, acts of justice are more important. On the other hand, somebody who is merely just is less impressive as a moral agent than somebody who sacrifices a lot to help others. The ranking that Reid suggests in the above passage might be understood as based on degrees of minimal morality rising to supererogatory acts or attitudes. If different kinds of virtues lead to acts
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in which one act excludes the other, the morally more basic act is to be preferred. So, in the case in which justice might forbid an act of generosity (see the earlier quote from Reid), Reid’s approach means that it is better to do an ungenerous but just action rather than a generous but unjust action. An example could be the generous and unjust action of favoring a friend as opposed to a stranger in the distribution of some goods if I am in an official position. It might be noticed that the principles Reid mentions are very general. Reid does not discuss the typical duties that say that one ought not to lie, steal, and so on. The most likely explanation for this generality is that Reid thinks that the typical moral duties follow from the principles he mentions, more specifically, they might follow from the Golden Rule.16 It is also noteworthy that Reid does not think that there is a possibility of conflicts of duties or even of moral dilemmas. Reid believes that all of the first moral principles he mentions (from all three classes) and the relations between the different virtues are self-evident. Still, we should keep in mind that Reid says that through conscience we not only intuit general principles, but we can also perceive the moral value of individual and concrete situations. These particular beliefs can also be basic beliefs. My discussion of Reid’s work is meant to give the reader a first idea of Reid’s metaethical and normative ethical views. Reid is an ethical intuitionist, and his work deserves to receive more attention in the renewed discussion of ethical intuitionism, as his ideas provide a solid foundation on which contemporary intuitionists can build.
1.4
Reid on ethics: Overview of the contributions
In this section I give a short overview of the various contributions to this volume and their connections. The contributions to this volume discuss the key aspects of Reid’s work on ethics which make it distinctive and should be important sources of inspiration for contemporary moral philosophers. The first part of this book focuses on Reid’s moral epistemology. In the beginning of this introduction I have argued that Reid has very welldeveloped views concerning moral epistemology that are valuable additions to the writings of the more well-known ethical intuitionists such as W. D. Ross, H. A. Prichard and G. E. Moore. The contributions to the first part of this volume highlight various other aspects of Reid’s moral epistemology. Keith Lehrer discusses Reid’s ideas about the moral faculty and first principles. Lehrer connects Reid’s thoughts about the moral faculty to an important principle that Reid has formulated and that Lehrer calls the ‘First First Principle’: ‘That the natural faculties, by which we distinguish truth from error,
Introduction: Thomas Reid’s Moral Philosophy
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are not fallacious’ (Reid, 1863, p. 448). Lehrer argues that since our moral faculty is a natural faculty, according to Reid, it is not fallacious. It is a source of moral knowledge. Nevertheless, disagreement is possible, for example due to diverging conceptions we have of actions. Lehrer also discusses and defends Reid’s ideas about the role of feeling in moral judgment: feeling necessarily accompanies but is distinct from moral judgments. Lehrer concludes his contribution by focusing on what, according to Reid, is the most comprehensive moral principle, what Reid calls ‘the law of the prophets’: ‘What we approve in others, that we ought to practise in like circumstances, what we condemn in others we ought not to do’ (Reid, 1863, p. 639). Lehrer points out that the status of this principle is fundamental, comparative to that of the First First Principle. Both principles are self-evident and don’t allow for further argument, and both provide for justification of other principles. Esther Kroeker offers an original interpretation of Reid’s ideas concerning natural signs and taste and how these can help to clarify his views concerning moral perception. Reid distinguishes three kinds of signs in perception in general. The first are ‘those whose connection with the thing signified is established by nature, but discovered only by experience’ (Inquiry 59; see also Inquiry 196). The second class mainly concerns actions and facial expressions. The third class concerns primary and some secondary qualities of objects, such as hardness. While the first class is experiential and the third instinctive, the second class is both. Kroeker offers detailed interpretations of the meanings and the relations between these three classes of signs in Reid’s work, specifically concerning aesthetic and moral perception. She shows how signs of the second category are crucial in aesthetic and moral perception. These signs suggest not only mental qualities but also aesthetic and moral qualities of objects and actions. The non-aesthetic and non-moral qualities of such objects or actions are natural signs of the second category of the aesthetic and moral qualities of these objects. The objects and actions also function as signs of the second category of mental states. There is a sense, therefore, in which aesthetic and moral qualities are mysterious and known only by instinct, but there is also a sense in which the qualities, conditions and actions which suggest them can be understood and grasped. Where Lehrer and Kroeker are largely sympathetic to Reid’s ideas in moral epistemology, William Davis identifies a problem. According to Davis, Reid cannot really provide us with a meaningful understanding of moral disagreement. This is illustrated by discussing a case study from medical ethics which Davis has himself experienced. Davis encounters a fundamental moral disagreement with a medical doctor, Dr. Pesce, with whom he serves on an ethics committee at a hospital. A female Muslim patient, Ms. Kazim, who is in urgent need of treatment, requests to be helped by a female doctor. However, the only female doctor, Dr. Jones, has a family celebration. Should Dr. Jones help Ms. Kazim? Although Davis and Dr. Pesce both agree that
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Ms. Kazim’s request is unjustified, Dr.Pesce thinks that Dr. Jones should adhere to it, whereas Davis thinks she shouldn’t. Davis argues that Reid’s conceptual framework cannot account for such a form of disagreement. According to Davis, an approach to ethics that takes into account the social context of people, such as MacIntyre’s, is better able to account for moral disagreement than Reid’s common sense approach. The second part of the volume discusses the role of emotions in Reid’s ethics. Reid proposes an alternative approach to the then-dominant rival schools in ethics, i.e., rationalists and sentimentalists. According to Reid, our moral faculty involves both rational and affective aspects. Alexander Broadie offers a very detailed study of how Reid sees the relation between moral feeling and judgment in our ‘moral sense’, and how this can be compared with perception by our external senses. Broadie shows that Reid thinks that both kinds of senses are very similar. In regular perception, the sensation of an external object gives rise to a judgment. In moral perception, the order is reversed. According to Broadie, Reid thinks that we first form a moral judgment, and this gives rise to a feeling. In the case of regular perception, a sensation ‘suggests’ an external quality. In the case of moral perception, we understand moral principles by reason. Feelings nevertheless play a role, for two reasons, according to Broadie’s interpretation of Reid: 1. A feeling helps the agent to be motivated to act in accordance with her judgment. 2. Feeling is a form of valuing, in a more profound sense than just by a detached judgment. Broadie argues that the analogy between external and moral sense helps to shed light on the notion ‘moral sense’. On the other hand, the disanalogy, given with the reversed order between feeling and judging, is motivated by Reid’s moral realist agenda. In moral perception, judgment comes first. Marion Ledwig discusses how Reid’s ideas about emotions can be related to modern theories of emotions. She shows that in several respects, Reid’s ideas foreshadow views that have become common in the recent psychological and philosophical literatures about emotions. Reid is an emotional cognitivist ‘avant la lettre’. Most of Reid’s contemporaries took it for granted that feeling and cognition were categorically distinct operations of the mind. In contrast, many present-day emotion-researchers emphasize the cognitive aspects of emotions. However, some cognitivists, such as Martha Nussbaum, make an even stronger claim, i.e., that emotions are a subclass of evaluative judgments which do not necessarily involve affective aspects. Reid, on the contrary, thinks that moral judgments paradigmatically have cognitive and affective aspects. His account comes closer to multi- component theories of emotions such as the one advanced by Aaron Ben-Ze’ev. Ledwig also points out another interesting parallel between Reid’s ideas and contemporary emotion-scholars, namely, the fact that the latter distinguish basic, non-cognitive emotions, from higher, cognitive emotions. According to Ledwig, this is very similar to Reid’s distinction between animal and
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rational affections. Like many contemporary scholars, Reid holds that emotions can be rational and serve a function. The third part of this book discusses Reid’s ideas about moral agency. The contributions by René van Woudenberg and Douglas McDermid provide for detailed analyses of Reid’s arguments for agent-causation and against determinism. Gideon Yaffe presents a novel reconstruction of Reid’s objection against Locke’s theory of personal identity by including Reid’s ideas about making moral judgments about, and ascribing responsibility to, people. René van Woudenberg discusses Reid’s objections against the deterministic views of his contemporaries. Whereas determinists think that our will is determined by external causes, Reid thinks that persons can determine their own will. When we do so, Reid thinks, we and our will are free. Reid thinks that only then can we be held morally responsible and are morally praise – and blameworthy. Van Woudenberg starts with Reid’s attack against an argument against agent causation and for determinism offered by Hobbes. According to this argument, agent causation involves an infinite regress of wills that need to be determined by wills. Hobbes thinks that we can at most be free to act in accordance with our externally determined will. However, according to van Woudenberg, Reid does not need to invoke a regress, since determining one’s will is a basic act, executed by a person, and that act does not require any antecedents. Van Woudenberg discusses several other objections against free will. He shows how Reid rejects these objections because he thinks that agents and not only external factors can be causes. Douglas McDermid discusses Reid’s first argument for moral liberty, the Argument from Natural Conviction. This argument consists of the following core aspects. According to Reid, as we also saw in the contribution by Van Woudenberg, moral liberty consists in a power to determine one’s will. We are efficient causes in our voluntary actions; agents can be causes of their wills. Moral liberty is at odds with determinism. Responsibility is only possible if we have liberty in the sense of determining our will. Moral liberty is a gift of God. The extent and existence of our moral liberty depends on God’s will. McDermid offers the following reconstruction of Reid’s Argument from Natural Conviction. That we act freely on occasion is a ‘natural conviction’ which we have in virtue of our constitution. Unless there is compelling reason to think that we always act from necessity, we are justified in believing that we act freely on occasion. McDermid discusses various objections against this package of ideas. He shows how these objections can be tackled from Reid’s framework. McDermid thinks that Reid’s common sense account offers us sophisticated arguments against skepticism concerning free will. Gideon Yaffe offers a novel interpretation of Reid’s famous ‘Brave Officer’ example, with which Reid has attacked Locke’s theory of personal identity.
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Reid’s objection against Locke’s theory of personal identity is that it is incapable of accounting for the unity of the mind. Reid thinks that we know our minds are unified based on first-personal awareness of identity between the subject of present thoughts and the subject of past thoughts. Yaffe argues that Reid thinks that, in addition, we know it from the nature of our moral sense. Yaffe reconstructs Reid’s argument as follows: if it can be shown that persons lack parts, it can be shown that they are continuously existing subjects that are strictly identical to themselves. That persons are indeed partless, according to Reid, is given with his ideas about the moral sense. When we make moral judgments about people, we presuppose that they lack parts, and hence, we presuppose their continuous existence. Yaffe thinks that Reid’s Brave Officer example is meant to show that there is a tension in a theory that takes the identity of a continuously existing thing, a person, to be determined by the features of a successively existing thing, a sequence of thoughts. The fourth and last part of this volume discusses Reid’s views on practical ethics. Nicholas Wolterstorff discusses Reid’s ideas about justice and how they fit into his more general moral philosophy. Reid thinks that justice is an important moral concept. Wolterstorff points out that this contrasts with Reid’s contemporaries, who have hardly written about justice. According to Reid, justice is grounded in rights that attach to subjects. They carry a unique form of authority in moral life. If a person has a right this means that she has a morally legitimate claim. Reid distinguishes between natural and acquired rights. Rights and duties are generally correlative, although there are some exceptions. Wolterstorff proposes to extend Reid’s approach by conceiving of rights as rights to goods that contribute to a person’s worth as a human being. Wolterstorff offers a critical discussion of Reid’s claim that the principles of duty and ‘our good upon the whole’ always coincide. However, despite these critical notes, Wolterstorff thinks that Reid’s ideas about justice were extraordinary for his time and continue to be important. James Harris is significantly more critical about Reid’s theory of justice than Wolterstorff. In his essay, Harris analyzes Reid’s objections to Hume’s ideas about justice. According to Hume, the idea that the virtue of an action lies in being done out of a sense of duty is circular. Furthermore, Hume thinks that the moral estimation of just and unjust actions depends upon the existence of societal conventions concerning the acquisition and transfer of property. Reid’s replies to Hume are grounded in his common sense moral philosophy, which starts out from trust in conscience as a genuine source of moral judgment. Harris points out that where Reid takes the output of our natural faculties as starting point, Hume is skeptical as to whether we are justified on doing so. Harris concludes his essay by arguing that Reid does not succeed in shifting the burden of proof back onto Hume.
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In his essay, Gordon Graham explores the wider significance of Thomas Reid’s recently published Lectures on Practical Ethics. Graham argues that Reid’s identity as a key figure in the Scottish philosophical tradition is confirmed by the Lectures. In addition, he investigates how the Lectures might contribute to the recent interest in Reid’s work for contemporary philosophy of mind. Graham argues that Reid’s account of the difference between speculative and practical ethics more adequately captures the contemporary distinction between moral philosophy and applied ethics than does Hume’s. However, Graham thinks that two aspects of Reid’s practical ethics might make it less palatable for contemporary scholars. First, Reid thinks that all duties are founded in duties to God. Second, Reid has a lot of confidence that philosophical systematizing will lead to moral agreement. Graham thinks that most contemporary moral philosophers will not endorse either of these assumptions, but he concludes by arguing that this is actually a weakness of contemporary ethics. Terence Cuneo’s essay explores Reid’s understanding of the relationship between morality and well being. Cuneo first examines Reid’s claim that considerations of moral duty should have priority over those of well being. Reid provides for a complex argument against eudaimonist views, based on Butler’s arguments against Hobbesian egoism. Cuneo argues that this antieudaimonist polemic provides important insights as to why Reid found utilitarianism unattractive. Cuneo then studies Reid’s idea that virtue and well being are necessarily coextensive. This argument has several dimensions, including an appeal to the claim that one cannot achieve a significant degree of well being without having virtues. Cuneo argues that, fundamentally, this argument appeals to moral faith and emphasizes the moral importance of trust in divine benevolence. Nevertheless, Cuneo thinks that according to Reid, one’s commitment to the moral life should be unconditional.
1.5
Conclusion
I hope this introduction shows that Thomas Reid’s ideas about ethics are rich and challenging. Paradoxically, what makes his views provocative is that they are so close to common sense. Some philosophers think that such common sense views can, by definition, not be philosophically satisfying. However, as the contributions to this volume show, Reid did not merely state his common sense intuitions, he provided sophisticated arguments for them and based on them. This is the essence of his philosophical methodology: philosophy starts out from common sense, not in opposition to it. Other philosophers might think that Reid’s ideas can only be accepted by people who share Reid’s theistic assumptions. It is true that Reid often refers to God in his writings. On the other hand, many of his ideas and arguments can be informative and compelling independently of Reid’s theism. We should not forget that Reid was an enlightenment philosopher; he was
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eager to take everyday experiences of all human beings, not just experiences of those who belong to a specific group, seriously. It is exactly this feature which makes Reid’s ideas universal and timeless.
Notes Sections 1.2 and 1.3 of this essay are based on fragments of the first two chapters of my forthcoming monograph Moral Emotions and Intuitions, Palgrave Macmillan 2011. 1. Cf. also Broadie (1998). For a criticism of Reid’s view on this point, see Roeser (2001). 2. I will mainly use the contemporary terminology of ‘basic belief’, but when I quote Reid the reader should realize that this is what he means by ‘first principle’, i.e., for Reid a particular observation can also function as a ‘first principle’, namely as a foundation for other beliefs. 3. This example can be found in different versions in the literature, for instance, in Reid (1969b, p. 232), McNaughton (1988) and Little (1995). 4. In the case of animals, Reid calls this opinion and reserves the term judgment for rational beings only. 5. Lehrer (1989, p. 238). 6. This is a very Aristotelian idea. 7. Moore (1988, p. 145) says something similar. 8. This is one of Reid’s first principles of morals, and although it refers mainly to our knowledge about our own duties, we can also extend it to our moral judgments in general. 9. Cf. the contributions by Lehrer and Davis to this volume which also address the issue of disagreement. 10. On this point, Alston (1993) also offers an extensive argument, largely inspired by Reid. 11. For example Reid’s introduction to the Inquiry into the Human Mind is a humorous polemic against the skeptical philosopher in defense of the convictions of the common person. 12. According to Reid, this same figurative way of assigning properties to objects, that actually are properties of the mind of the creator of the object, occurs with regards to works of art, science and God’s creation and so on, cf. Reid, 1969a, pp. 773–775. Cf. Kroeker’s contribution to this volume. 13. These issues will be discussed at length in part III of this volume. 14. By active principles of man, Reid means instincts, desires and rationality; cf. Essay III of the Reid, 1969b. 15. John Rawls (1971, p. 45) claims that his attempt to provide for a serial ordering of moral principles is a novelty, but Reid already did so two hundred years before Rawls. 16. Cf. Reid, 1969b, p. 431: ‘The simple rule, of not doing to his neighbour what he [a man] would think wrong to be done to himself, would lead him to the knowledge of every branch of justice ...’.
Part I Thomas Reid’s Moral Epistemology
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2 Reid, the Moral Faculty, and First Principles Keith Lehrer
Reid has made many important contributions to moral philosophy, but the basic view of Reid on morals is that there is faculty, a moral faculty that yields judgments, both particular and general, whose evidence of their truth is intrinsic to them. These judgments are necessarily accompanied by affections of approbation, disapprobation and feelings of esteem and contempt. This doctrine about the evidence and truth of moral judgments is a consequence of a special first principle of our faculties, I call it the First First Principle, that our faculties, though fallible, are trustworthy and not fallacious. Once the role of this principle is clarified, Reid’s theory of moral objectivity and moral truth as well as his views on moral disagreement are revealed as consequences. The first principles of morals that Reid puts forth are defensible, and I shall discuss the most fundamental one of them below, but the burden of this paper is the defense of the idea of a moral faculty rather than the particular account of the principles of the faculty that Reid enunciates.
2.1
The trustworthiness of our moral faculty
Reid’s moral philosophy extends his theory of the faculties of the human mind to morals. There are many important and special features of his philosophy of morals, which I have discussed previously (Lehrer, 1989), but the fundamentals are derived from his general views concerning the faculties laid down in the Inquiry and especially in the Intellectual Powers whose publication preceded the Active Powers. The most important of these views concerns the general view that our faculties are trustworthy and not fallacious in the judgments they yield. There is no proof of this principle, which is principle 7 of the contingent first principles in the Intellectual Powers. I have called it the Metaprinciple (Lehrer, 1989) because it refers to the other principles, and the First First Principle (Lehrer, 1998) because of the priority Reid assigns to the evidence of truth it provides. I shall use the latter title 25
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hereafter. Here is his formulation. Another first principle is—That the natural faculties, by which we distinguish truth from error, are not fallacious. (Reid, 1863, p. 448) Reid says that first principles of our faculties do not admit of proof just because they are first principles. They are the principles of our faculties that yield particular beliefs as well as the general principles. The evidence of the principles is intrinsic to them, and they are justified without reasoning. Nevertheless, Reid acknowledges that the First First Principle has a priority over all the rest, for the simple reason that it tells us that all the first principles are principles of truth, they are not fallacious, and they are trustworthy. He insists, however, that the use of our faculties does not make us infallible. We shall note below the ways in which we may fail to make the proper use of reason and the moral faculty. Reid continues after the formulation of the principle to remark on the special role of it. If any truth can be said to be prior to all others in the order of nature, this seems to have the best claim; because, in every instance of assent, whether upon intuitive, demonstrative, or probable evidence, the truth of our faculties is taken for granted, and is, as it were, one of the premises on which our assent is grounded. How then come we to be assured of this fundamental truth on which all others rest? Perhaps evidence, as in many other respects it resembles light, so in this also – that, as light, which is the discoverer of all visible objects, discovers itself at the same time, so evidence, which is the voucher for all truth, vouches for itself at the same time. (Reid, 1863, p. 448) The principle might be used to confirm the others if they were in need of confirmation. They are, however, not in need of confirmation because they are first principles, and their evidence is intrinsic to them from their origin. Nevertheless, the First First Principle vouches for the truth of all the rest and is a premise telling us that they are not fallacious. Moreover, and of some interest, is the fact that the principle vouches for the truth of itself in the same way that it vouches for other first principles. I have insisted (Lehrer, 2008) on the importance of this principle in Reid’s philosophy and have argued that it allows for explanation of the evidence, justification and truth of judgments of our faculties while avoiding a regress. Of course, the appeal to first principles itself blocks the regress. The First First Principle enables us to understand the epistemic credentials and the veracity of first principles. It also enables us to avoid the objection that first principles are mere assumptions that, if true, are so just as a matter of luck.
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The truth of the First First Principle explains the truth of the others because it tells us that they are not fallacious. Moreover, it explains the truth of itself, for it is also a first principle of our faculties. So given the truth of that principle, the truth of first principles is explained, and, of course, also the truth of that principle itself. The importance of these reflections for the moral philosophy of Reid is clear and direct. Reid argues that our moral judgments are, like the judgments of perception, memory, and reason, the judgments of a faculty, which he interchangeably describes as the moral faculty, the moral sense or conscience. The philosophical payoff of arguing that our moral judgments are the judgments of a faculty, given the First First Principle, is that the principles of the moral faculty are not fallacious. So, given that principle, the defense of moral judgment requires only the defense of the claim that they are judgments of the moral faculty (a claim challenged by Hume). Noting this, we can see why Reid spends so much time arguing in the defense of the view that we make moral judgments and that they are judgments of a natural faculty, one supplied to us by nature. Reid has already argued in the Intellectual Powers that the natural faculties are the source of the conceptions contained in the first principles of them, and, indeed, in the particular judgments of the faculties. It is the faculty of perception that supplies the original conceptions of perceptions, and the faculty of morals supplies the original conceptions of morals. ... but there is this analogy between it and the external senses, That, as by them we have not only the original conceptions of the various qualities of bodies, but the original judgment that this body has such a quality, that such another; so by our moral faculty, we have both the original conceptions of right and wrong in conduct, of merit and demerit, and the original judgments that this conduct is right, that is wrong; that this character has worth, that demerit. (Reid, 1863, p. 590) Reid presses the analogy of the moral faculty to the faculty of reason, however, to explain how we may err in moral judgment as we err in speculative reasoning. The problem that leads us to err in the use of the faculty is the failure to exercise our liberty to make proper use of them. It is the exercise of our liberty that leads us into error in speculative reasoning and moral judgment. Moreover, the sound development and employment of the faculty of morals, like the faculty of reason, requires instruction, discipline, and good example to lead to the use of it that produces sound judgment. Our intellectual discernment is not so strong and vigorous by nature to secure us from errors in speculation. On the contrary, we see a great part of mankind, in every age, sunk in gross ignorance of things that are obvious to the more enlightened, and fettered by errors and false notions,
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which the human understanding, duly improved, easily throws off. ... In a like manner, our moral discernment of what we ought, what we ought not to do, is not so strong and vigorous by nature as to secure us from very gross mistakes with regard to our duty. ... we are also liable to have our judgment warped by our appetites and passions, by fashion, and by the contagion of evil example. (Reid, 1863, p. 595) The point is that our powers of judgment may lead us to error, for our judgment is not limited to the proper use of our faculties. Nevertheless, there is a truth in these matters that the proper use of our faculties can discern. It would be extremely absurd, from the errors and ignorance of mankind, to conclude that there is no such thing as truth; or that man has not a natural faculty of discerning it, and distinguishing it from error. ... Our natural power of discerning between right and wrong, needs the aid of instruction, education, exercise, and habit, as well as our other natural powers. (Reid, 1863, p. 595) Even a savage who injures his enemies out of passion, when the matter is laid before and the passion is over, will see if he be fair and candid, that his action was wrong. He will see that hitherto he acted like a man to his friends, but like a brute to his enemies; now he knows how to make his whole character consistent, and part of it to harmonize with another. (Reid, 1863, p. 596) However, though the moral faculty yields moral discernment, we must develop the habit of attending to it. Judgment, even in things self-evident, requires a clear, distinct, and steady conception of the things about which we judge. ... The habit of attending to them is necessary to make them distinct and steady ... The love of truth calls for it; but its still voice is often drowned by the louder call of some passion, or we are hindered from listening to it by laziness and desultoriness. (Reid, 1863, p. 641) Reid’s moral theory requires that there are moral judgments. Hume (Hume, 1739) was skeptical, and thought morality a matter of feeling. Reid replies, A feeling must be agreeable, or uneasy, or indifferent. It may be weak or strong. It is expressed in language either by a single word, or by such a contexture of words as may be subject or predicate of a proposition, but such as cannot by themselves make a proposition, in which there must
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necessarily be a verb in the indicative mood, either expressed or understood. (Reid, 1863, p. 671) Moral judgments express propositions about what is right or wrong, and the suggestion that the propositions only express feelings in the mind is absurd. When I exercise my moral faculty about my actions and those of other men, I am conscious that I judge as well as feel. I accuse and excuse, I acquit and condemn, I assent and dissent, I believe and disbelieve and doubt. These are acts of judgment, and not feelings. Every determination of the understanding with regard to what is true or false is judgment. That I ought not to steal, or to kill or to bear false witness, are propositions, of the truth of which I am as well convinced as of any proposition in Euclid. I am conscious that I judge them to be true propositions; and my consciousness makes all other arguments unnecessary, with regard to the operations of my own mind. (Reid, 1863, p. 673; my italics) The argument is an appeal to the first principle of the faculty of consciousness. It is the first one listed among his first principles. First, then, I hold, as a first principle, the existence of everything of which I am conscious. When a man is conscious of pain, he is certain of its existence; when he is conscious that he doubts or believes, he is certain of the existence of those operations. But the irresistible conviction he has of the reality of those operations is not the effect of reasoning; it is immediate and intuitive. The existence therefore of those passions and operations of our minds, of which we are conscious, is a first principle, which nature requires us to believe on her authority. (Reid, 1863, p. 442) Those mental operations really do exist of which I am conscious. Again the appeal to a faculty, that of consciousness, and, implicitly, the First First Principle telling us that the faculty of consciousness is not fallacious, is clear. Reid’s argument in favor of the existence of moral judgment appealing to the intellectual faculty of consciousness exactly parallels his argument about the judgments of our intellectual faculties, perception, for example. Perceptual judgments are judgments about qualities of external objects, not feelings, and moral judgments are judgments about the moral qualities of actions, not feelings. Is the argument as strong? We are all conscious of making moral judgments in sentences that have the form of those that express propositions. The existence of those judgments is certain and irresistible for us from consciousness.
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Suppose we grant Reid, what Hume denied, the existence of moral judgments. Moreover, suppose we even grant to Reid that those judgments are the judgments of the natural moral faculty. Do we have any evidence for the truth of those judgments? Reid would answer that we have the evidence of a natural faculty that, as the First First Principle tells, distinguishes truth from error and is not fallacious. The evidence of the moral faculty, like the evidence of consciousness or perception, is the evidence of a first principle of a faculty that distinguishes truth from error and requires us to believe upon her authority. However, there is a problem about disagreement. If we have the same moral faculty, should we not agree in our judgments about the rightness of actions as fully as we do about the perceived qualities of objects as the result of our perceptual faculties? Reid’s reply is that with the same clear, distinct and steady judgment, as we noted above in the discussion of the savage, the same judgment will result. He presses the analogy with the faculty of reason. Reason requires the right training and exercise. It requires not being influenced by the passions or prejudice. All this can be admitted. His claim is that the sound use of reason, guided by common sense, our power of judgment contained in our faculties, leads us to truth. One argument against the objectivity of moral judgments is disagreement. But that is equally an argument against the objectivity of any conviction reached by reason. We may reason in different ways to different and conflicting conclusions, but that does not show that reason is fallacious. We must suppose that our faculties are not fallacious. The role of the First First Principle is fundamental. Can we be misled in the use of our faculties by prejudice, false philosophy and passion? We can. Does it follow from that that there is no truth of the matter or that our faculties are inadequate to discern the truth of the matter? There may be uses of reason in which, given the complexity of the chain of reasoning, we reason to false conclusions. It may also be that the difficulty of the matter prevents us from effectively using reason to reach the truth. We are fallible. However, our faculties are not fallacious. We only fail to use them properly. We may jump to conclusions that are unsupported by the faculty or fail to attend to our conceptions of matters properly. The same is true in morals. What is the remedy? The clear, distinct and steady conceptions of actions will lead to judgments of the moral faculty that provide intrinsic evidence of their truth. Truth, Reid argues, has an affinity for our faculties. Truth has an affinity with the human understanding that error hath not. And right principles of conduct have an affinity with a candid mind, which wrong principles do not. When they are set before it in a just light, a well disposed mind recognizes this affinity, feels their authority, and perceives them to be genuine. (Reid, 1863, p. 596)
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However, setting the matter before a candid mind may require the tutelage of others so that one can recognize the evidence of it. It may be observed, that there are truths, both speculative and moral, which a man left to himself would never discover; yet, when they are fairly laid before him, he owns and adopts them, not barely upon the authority of the teacher, but upon their own intrinsic evidence .... (Reid, 1863, p. 596) The affinity between truth and the faculties was already appealed to in the Inquiry in Reid’s discussion of testimony and induction. The evidence of testimony presupposes a natural inclination to tell the truth, according to Reid, so that the disposition to accept testimony will lead us to truth. Similarly the evidence of induction presupposes a regularity in nature, according to Reid, so that truth has an affinity for our disposition to accept inductions that assume regularity (Lehrer and Smith, 1985).
2.2
The moral faculty, moral judgment and feeling
My interest in this paper is to defend Reid’s account of the moral faculty, for it seems to me to be superior to contemporary accounts of moral philosophy. Reid offers some first principles of morals. However, on his account, it is not necessary to reason from these principles to obtain moral judgments from the moral faculty. The deliverances of the moral faculty result from our consideration of the action, from our conception of it. It is Reid’s account of the way in which moral judgments and feelings result from our conceptions of actions that I wish to consider. Reid claims that to describe an action as just, as what is due, as what a person ought to do, are different ways of expressing the same conception of obligation. Obligation is a relation between an action and a person, for example, when a person is obligated to keep his promise. Consideration of a future action results in moral judgment by the person. Notice, that because the action is not yet performed, it is only something considered, thought of, or apprehended in Reid’s terminology. Nevertheless, the action is the object of thought or conception, in modern terminology, an intentional object. The future action is not the same as the thought or conception of it. The thought now exists and the future action, being only conceived, does not yet exist. Moreover, the action may be conceived in different ways. Reid, who is a nominalist, holds, as did Anscombe (Anscombe, 1957) and Davidson (Davidson, 2001) more recently, that the same individual action may be described in different ways. How you think of the action, how you conceive of the features of it, will influence the judgment of the moral faculty. Instruction and example shape how we think or conceive of the action and enable us to consider it in an informed manner.
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This does not imply that the moral faculty will always deliver a judgment when an action is considered. The faculty is designed for some uses and not others. It is not adequate to deliver judgment about some fanciful possibilities we shall never encounter. But when the judgments of conscience are clear and distinct, then they possess the intrinsic evidence of a first principle. Their justification is not the result of reasoning. The evidence of moral judgment is intrinsic to it as an immediate judgment of the moral faculty. How the judgment comes into existence, not reasoning brought to the defense of it, supplies the evidence and immediate justification for believing in the truth of the moral judgment. Evidence and justification depends on an affinity between the moral truth and the judgments of our moral faculty. Reid is convinced of the intellectual merits of the judgments of the moral faculty, that is, of their evidence and truth. However, that is not the full story about the faculty and such judgments. He calls the moral faculty a moral sense and also conscience. Indeed, he uses the terms, “moral sense,” “conscience” and “moral faculty” interchangeably. The use of the terms “moral sense” and “conscience” suggest there is a connection between moral judgments and moral affections and feelings even though, contrary to Hume, he rejects the identification of morals with feelings. Reid insists, in fact, on the connection between judgment and feeling. He says, Our moral judgments are not like those we form in speculative matters, dry and unaffecting, but, from their nature, are necessarily accompanied by with affections and feelings .... (Reid, 1863, p. 592) This sentence is of considerable importance and explains why the moral faculty is not simply an intellectual power but also an active power. We are motivated by our affections of approbation and disapprobation and our feelings, moral feelings of esteem and contempt, for example, that necessarily accompany judgment of action. The judgments are affecting. That is Reid’s answer to the objection, presented by Hume and modern authors, that mere judgment is not necessarily accompanied by motivation. It is important to understand it, so let us consider the quotation with care. First note that the moral judgments are necessarily accompanied by the affections, approbation, disapprobation, or indifference, and feelings of esteem, indifference or contempt. The expression necessarily accompanied combines two claims. That judgment is accompanied by the affections and feelings, on the one hand, so it is distinct. It accompanies them rather than their being constituents of the judgment. On the other hand, judgment is necessarily accompanied by them, which means that the relationship is not merely contingent. This notion of the affections and feelings accompanying the judgment implies that the propositional content of the judgment, that an agent ought to perform an action, is not to be defined
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in terms of those affections or feelings. Obligation cannot be defined in terms of affections and feelings contrary to the claims of Hume. But moral judgments of obligation are not independent of those affections and feelings either, and, indeed, the connection is necessary. How are we to understand this view? Suppose the moral judgment contains a conception of the obligation of an agent to perform an action. The original judgment and the original conception contained therein both result from the inborn capacity of the moral faculty. It is characteristic of Reid to argue that the faculties supply the original conceptions contained in the original judgments of our faculties as we noted above. The perceptual faculty supplies the original conceptions of the external world contained in our original judgments of perception. The moral faculty supplies the original conceptions of morals contained in our original moral judgments. So the character of our original conceptions and the judgments containing them is the work of our faculty. The moral faculty originates our moral conceptions and makes them moral. Reid holds that the moral faculty is the source of moral approbation and moral disapprobation as well as moral feelings of esteem and contempt. It may be asked whether the meaning of moral judgments is linked necessarily with feelings and action. Now on Reid’s view, moral judgments, affections and feelings are joined together necessarily. You might ask whether there could be creatures who could make moral judgments without the moral affections and feelings. Reid’s answer would be that such creatures lack our moral faculty, and, though they might say what we would in matters of right and wrong, their judgments would lack the character of moral judgment. Why? Moral judgments are the judgments of a moral faculty, and one who lacks the latter lacks the former. Someone imitating the judgments of a moral faculty, though lacking it, might utter the same words as those who have such a faculty, but they would not be moral judgments. The utterances might appear to be or express moral judgments, but the appearances would be counterfeit and not genuine moral judgment. Consider, by analogy, someone who lacked the perceptual faculty, who was blind, but spoke of seeing colors. With the aid of another who told her what to say, the person might utter sentences the rest of us would. She would say, for example, “I perceive the red color of the apple,” but the utterance would not be a perceptual judgment. It would be counterfeit. The same would be true of someone who, prompted by another, said, “I judge that the thief is obligated to return the money,” but lacked conscience and the accompanying affections and feelings. He would be speaking as we do but would not be making a moral judgment. His utterance would not express the judgments of a moral faculty. Moral approbation for an action judged to be right and moral esteem for the person performing the action are necessarily connected with the judgment by the faculty that gives rise to judgment. The faculty operates in such
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a way that the moral judgment is accompanied by the moral approbation and feelings of moral esteem. The necessity lies in the fact that the morality of the conception and judgment, as well as of the approbation and feeling, originates from their source, the moral faculty, the moral sense, or conscience. Their morality is their birthright. The moral faculty originates the morality of the conception, judgment, approbation and feeling. It ties them together. As an analogy, reflect again on perception. Reid claims that a conception of the quality of the object and a conviction of the existence of it is implied, or, put another way, necessarily accompanies, the perception. Why? Because the perception originates from the perceptual faculty that makes it what it is. It is the way that it originates from the faculty that makes it what it is. A creature that lacked the powers of conception and conviction would not perceive the red quality of the object. Or consider the faculty of consciousness. I am conscious of a pain in my neck. The consciousness of the pain implies, that is, is necessarily accompanied by conception, conviction and immediate knowledge of the pain. Consciousness of a mental operation is necessarily accompanied by conception and immediate knowledge. The conceptions, convictions and the knowledge originate from the faculty of consciousness. Similarly, conscience or the moral faculty originates the moral judgment necessarily accompanied by moral affections and moral feelings. You might ask whether what makes the faculty moral is the conceptions, judgments, affections and feelings it originates or whether what makes the conceptions, judgments, affections and feelings moral is that they originate from the moral faculty. Reid says that a faculty is an original capacity of mind. The answer to the question of what comes first is that the capacity is inseparable from what it produces. The question of what comes first is like the problem of the chicken and egg. They fly and fry together. The problem of internalism and externalism in moral philosophy, the question of whether motivation is internal to moral judgment or external to it, dissolves as conscience ties them up, down and together as their source. The moral faculty is a capacity revealed only by what it produces, but it is the original natural capacity to produce what it does, moral conceptions, judgments, affections and feelings. Why, you might ask, is the moral faculty the way it is? To meet our needs like the other faculties. There are other questions about morals raised by contemporary moral theory to which we find answers in Reid. We have considered the problems of realism about truth and externalism about motivation. Another problem concerns particularism versus generalism in morals. Which, one might ask, has priority in evidence and justification, the general principles of moral theory or the particular judgments? Reid gives an answer in other parts of the corpus, which seem to me his answer here. Reid notes that moral systems are not what provide the evidence for moral judgments. Moral systems are taxonomies of moral judgments rather than the justification for them.
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The moral faculty, like the faculty of perception, provides intrinsic evidence for both the particular judgments and the general principles. The source of evidence is the trustworthiness of the faculty. The faculties are trustworthy and not fallacious. They enable us to distinguish truth from error and do not deceive us. We may, by misuse, lead ourselves into error, but we should not blame the faculty for our faults that result from our liberty to judge contrary to what our faculties tell us. So neither the particular judgments nor the general ones have epistemic priority over the other. We do not need to reason from general principles to justify particular judgments. Their evidence is intrinsic to them. Similarly, we do not need to reason inductively from particular moral judgments to general principles to justify them. Their evidence is intrinsic to them as well. The evidence of both has the same source, the moral faculty, from which they originate, and the trustworthiness of the faculty. Of course, Reid might note that some of the particular judgments confirm the general ones, as the general ones explain the particular ones, but neither depends on such confirmation or explanation for their justification. The clear and distinct deliverances of the moral faculty provide as much evidence as the matter permits. Reid notes in the case of perceptual judgments that the particular perceptual judgments are more convincing, but the evidence for the particular judgments and the general principles is the same. It is the evidence of the faculty. Indeed, it is important to reiterate that the faculties not only supply judgments but also the evidence for the judgment. Evidence, Reid says, is the ground of belief, and ground of immediate beliefs is supplied immediately by the faculty and is intrinsic to them. If it seems oddly circular that a faculty should provide intrinsic evidence for the judgments it delivers, thus seeming to testify for the veracity of itself, that is, nonetheless, his view. Remember his comment that as the First First Principle vouches for the truth of the other first principles of our faculties, so it testifies for its own truth being itself a first principle. I have defended the merits of the circle elsewhere (Lehrer, 2007) by appeal to that principle, though I do not attribute this argument to Reid. The evidence for the immediate judgments of our faculties is not the result of reasoning, even from the First First Principle according to Reid. The evidence is intrinsic to the immediate judgments of our faculties and comes from the same source, namely, the faculty from which the immediate judgment arises.
2.3
Disagreement and the moral faculty
We have considered the issue of whether disagreement in moral matters is evidence against the truth of moral judgments and noted Reid’s reply. Reid suggests that our disagreements in moral matters are not greater than in intellectual matters, in unresolved scientific issues, and he even suggests
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that they are less great. The variety of opinions among men in points of morality, is not greater, but as I apprehend, much less than in speculative points, and the variety is easily accounted for, from the common causes of error, in the one case, as in the other .... (Reid, 1863, p. 587) Moreover, some differences that appear to be differences in moral judgments may be differences in how we act in response to the same moral judgments. Actions responding to the judgments of the moral faculty are not causally determined by the judgments or the affections and feelings that accompany them. Reid went to great pains to defend a doctrine of moral liberty that implies our power to choose to act according to conscience, the moral faculty, or to demure. We are free to act contrary to conscience and, indeed, contrary to the strongest motive we have. Without that liberty, we could not be accountable for our actions and would not be moral agents at all. This is Reid’s second argument for moral liberty. ... no man can be under a moral obligation to for him to do or to forbear what it is impossible for him to forbear. (Reid, 1863, p. 621) The details of Reid’s account of liberty, of our power to determine our will rather than to simply do what we will, is crucial for an understanding of the influence on action of the judgments, affections and feelings resulting from the moral faculty. The short version is that moral liberty requires that it is in our power to choose to act according to conscience, and, on the other hand, in our power to choose not to act according to conscience instead. So liberty implies that even if the moral faculty always yielded the same moral judgments, affections and feelings for all, the same choices and actions need not result. Reid was an opponent of the view that our actions were necessitated by our motives. However effective the doctrine of liberty might be for explaining diversity of action and choice, we still require an account of how disagreement in judgment results from the moral faculty concerning an action. If we think of the moral faculty as a capacity to consider an input conception of an action and deliver a moral judgment as an output, it would seem that the same moral judgments must result from the same input. But does consideration of the same action by two people imply that they conceive of the action in the same way? To answer this question, it will be essential to have a better understanding of Reid’s account of our moral conceptions themselves. Let us begin with a fundamental question about Reid’s account of our moral conceptions. Having acknowledged the necessary connection between our moral judgments and feelings, the question remains as to why Reid did not go on to concede that those feelings are part of our conception
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of right and wrong. The question arises because Reid has argued, as Broadie (1998) and Roeser (2001) note, that sensations constitute a capital part of our conceptions of secondary qualities and, indeed, of aesthetic qualities, most notably, beauty. Reid says that our conception of secondary qualities is the conception of some quality in the object that gives rise to the sensation, of color, for example. Similarly, our conception of beauty is the conception of some quality in the object that gives rise to a sensation, of pleasure, for example, in us. Notice that these views do not commit Reid to Hume’s theory that identifies secondary qualities with some impression or sensation. The quality that gives rise to the sensation is an objective quality of the object on Reid’s view. It is our conception of the secondary quality, and not the quality itself, of which the sensation is a part. So, Reid could have maintained that the rightness of an action is an objective quality of the action but that our conception of the quality is a conception of a quality that gives rise to certain affections and feelings, those of approbation and esteem for the agent who performs the action. So why not give a secondary quality account of morals as he does of aesthetics? First of all, such a conception of moral features would be what Reid has called an obscure conception. It would amount to saying, as he says of secondary qualities, that the conception is merely of some quality, we know not what, that gives rise to certain feelings in us. But Reid says that our moral conceptions are not obscure but rather clear and distinct like those of primary qualities. What he means is reflected in the account offered of the principles of morals, the first principles. Reid affirms that these are necessary truths about morals. We have a clear and distinct conception of right and wrong because of the necessary first principles concerning right and wrong recognized by the moral faculty, even if those principles do not suffice to define the moral conceptions. As an analogy, consider the reference to Euclid above. That I ought not to steal, or to kill or to bear false witness, are propositions, of the truth of which I am as well convinced as of any proposition in Euclid. We have clear and distinct conception of geometrical properties from the principles of geometry even if some of the properties are indefinable. If Reid had affirmed that the moral qualities are only conceived as something we know not what producing sensations in us, then he could not have affirmed, as he does, that we obtain a clear and distinct conception of moral relations from the first principles of morals. It is those principles of morals that provide us with clear and distinct conceptions of morals, whether they are contained in general principles or in particular judgments. The clarity and distinctness of our moral conceptions, like the clarity and distinctness of our conceptions of primary qualities, results from general principles telling us what the qualities are like.
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There is, however, a metaphysical reason for denying the secondary quality account of our conceptions of morals. Reid says that obligation is a relation between an agent and an action. An agent may be obligated to perform an action that he fails to perform or, more importantly, one that he considers performing in the future. A judgment that one is obligated to perform an action in the future is a moral judgment. Indeed, it is a paradigm of a moral judgment. Now an action that is not performed, either because one failed to perform it or because it lies in the future, cannot give rise to anything for the simple reason that it does not exist. An action performed may cause feelings in us, but an action merely contemplated cannot cause anything. Of course, our contemplation and judgment of the action may cause approbation and feelings of esteem, or, on the contrary, disapprobation and contempt. But it is our judgment, something that exists, that is the cause rather than the future action that does not exist. The point is of some importance, because it shows that the moral sense differs in a crucial way from the sense of perception. The quality of the perceived object exists. A future action only contemplated does not. Indeed, moral deliberation concerning future action is deliberation concerning what does not exist, the future action, whose performance is the intentional object of thought. The rightness or wrongness of something that does not exist cannot be the cause of feelings in us, though our contemplation and judgment concerning them may, and, indeed, does give rise to such feelings. Thus, a secondary quality account of right and wrong is precluded both because we have a clear and distinct conception of it from the first principles of morals and because it is existing contemplation and judgment of actions that are not performed, rather than the non-existent actions, that gives rise to the affections and feelings. The intentionality of the objects of moral judgment, that we can judge actions that do not exist, is important for a proper understanding of the moral faculty. We may, in modern terms, think of the faculty as something that responds to something with judgment. Notice that the perceptual faculty responds to the perceived object with conception and conviction. The process of perception involves sensation, which may be part of the conception of the quality of the object, in the case of secondary and aesthetic qualities, or simply occasioned by the perceptual process in the case of primary qualities. But the external quality gives rise to perception, Reid insists, even if we do not understand the details of the relation between the external body and the mind. The perceived object exists and the qualities of it are part of the causal process activating the faculty of perception. The faculty responds to external reality. The moral faculty, by contrast, responds to the consideration of future actions, which do not exist, as well as to the consideration of past actions. Consequently, the input for the moral faculty is our consideration of actions and, most crucially, how we conceive of them. Reid is aware of the possibility of diverse descriptions or conceptions of the same action, as we have noted above. The brutal act
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of the savage toward his enemy is conceived differently in clear and steady reflection than in the passion of the attack. This point is crucial for an understanding of the role of feelings in morals. Roeser (2001), for example, suggests that Reid fails to assign a proper role to feelings in forming moral judgment. She presents Reid lucidly and accurately, noting the feature of Reid’s view that affections and feelings accompany moral judgments. She objects, nevertheless, that Reid does not allow for the appropriate role of feelings in forming moral judgment. According to Reid, we make moral judgments by reason, and feelings are merely a result of such judgments. But as Little points out, without feelings and emotions, we would not be able to see certain morally relevant features: in order to “see” the moral landscape clearly, in order to discern it fully and properly, one must have certain desires and emotions. Caring, being outraged, being motivated to act—all these are part of discerning moral features clearly. The ideal epistemic agent herself would have appropriate affect, for it is needed if one is to discern all that there is to see. (Little, 1995, p. 127) Lawrence Blum emphasizes that the perception of morally salient features is mainly pre-deliberative and emotional: two people can see the same facts, but they do not get the same information from them. Only somebody who cares about certain moral issues can be receptive for aspects of situations that are relevant for such moral issues. (Blum, 1994) This means that we not only have a sensitive disposition but that in fact we have a feeling occurring at the moment of moral perception. We are getting acquainted with the emotional state another is in by feeling. For example, if we see somebody in a certain situation, we first have to understand that he is, for example, suffering before we can determine that he might be suffering unjustly. Roeser (2001, p. 28) then proposes her own position: CME 2: A cognitive moral emotion is a complex state that is constituted by a moral judgment, positive or negative affection for the persons who are the intentional object of that judgment and of an agreeable or disagreeable feeling in ourselves. In some cases a certain feeling is the input that gives rise to the judgment that in turn gives rise to other feelings. Now Roeser allows that Reid could have held this view, but thinks it is contrary to his position to allow feelings a role in the formation of moral judgment. It must be admitted that Reid did not think that feelings were an immediate component of the input of the moral faculty. Reid’s desire to separate his view from Hume’s motivates his emphasis on the conceptual
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aspects of moral reflection. The way in which we conceive of an action is the immediate input for the moral faculty that results in judgment, and feelings are not conceptions. To suppose they are leads to the errors of Hume, according to Reid. Does that mean that Reid is committed to the view that feelings cannot play any role in the formation of moral judgment? It does not seem to me that it does. His position seems consistent with all but a small detail in Roeser’s view. The reason is that feelings may play a role in how we conceive of an action. It is our conception of the feelings, rather than the feelings themselves, that would be the input for the moral faculty on a Reidian version of CME 2. However, according to Reid, consciousness gives us immediate conception and, indeed, knowledge of feelings. To be sure, it is the conception of the feelings and not feelings themselves that would be the input for moral judgment. So there remains a distinction between Reid’s view and Roeser’s. Notice, however, that the examples Roeser uses involve not simply feelings but the understanding of them. Consider her example of the role of feeling in moral judgment: In such a case a person might be unable to judge that something morally wrong is being done to her (this frequently happens in cases of sexual abuse). Often it is somebody else (for example, a close friend) who is able to experience the feelings the victim should have felt herself and only the other is able to feel the feeling of outrage this situation indeed should arouse. The victim instead might have developed a complex pattern of reasoning to excuse what the perpetrator did, and only by seeing her friend suffering in her place, might slowly come to understand what really has happened to her. (Roeser, 2001, p. 28) It appears that it is the understanding resulting from the feeling that occasions the new conception of the situation resulting in the new moral judgment. For Reid it is the conception of situation that makes the difference in moral judgment. It is important to notice, moreover, that the conception of the feeling that accompanies the feeling may occur at the same time. Roeser (2001), following Broadie (1998) seems to think that if one state of mind is the result of another, there must be a temporal gap. If you hold that the cause must precede the effect, you may be led to that view. That was not Reid’s view of the result of something resulting from something else. His example of the movement of the needle of a loadstone resulting from magnetic force did not imply temporal precedence of the acting force. In perception, conception and conviction are immediately implied, as in moral judgment affection and feeling are necessary accompaniments. I find no evidence that Reid held that the implication in one case or accompaniment in another involves temporal precedence rather than occurring at the same time. This is because Reid thought of genuine causation as agency
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and other talk of causal as amounting to no more than the conjunctions of natural laws. One might reply to Reid’s idea that a person might conceive of the same action in different ways by claiming that the different conceptions describe diverse actions because different properties are attributed to the action.. The objection is not decisive against Reid because of Reid’s interesting account of properties. Reid is a nominalist, so he denies the existence of properties. However, Reid also contends that we can think of things that do not exist, of centaurs, for example. Thought has an immanent or, as we would say, intentional object. Moreover, the objects of thought that do not exist admit of true or false predication. A centaur, though it does not exist, is half man and half horse. Therefore, properties, though they do not exist, are the subjects of true and false predication as well as being truly or falsely predicated of other subjects. So, thinking of the same actions in different ways, affirming different properties of them, does result in different judgments. That explains disagreement. Individual deeds may have different properties ascribed to them, but it is the individual deed of the individual agent that is right, wrong or indifferent.
2.4 The most comprehensive principle of morals: The law of the prophets The clarity and distinctness of our conceptions of right and wrong resulting from the necessary first principles does not imply that those principles define the moral conceptions. Indeed, examination of them soon reveals that they are not definitions or the basis thereof. There are a number of first principles, but one of them appears, like the First First Principle of our faculties, to have priority in morals. This is the principle Reid lists as Principle 4: In every case, we ought to act that part towards another, which we would judge to be right in him to act toward us, if we were in his circumstances and he in ours; or more generally – What we approve in others, that we ought to practise in like circumstances, what we condemn in others we ought not to do. (Reid, 1863, p. 639) Reid says the principle is the most comprehensive and that one who conforms to it will never deviate from the path of duty. As the equity and obligation of this rule of conduct is self-evident to every man who hath a conscience: so it is, of all the rules of morality, the most comprehensive, and truly deserves the encomium given it by the highest authority, that “it is the law of the prophets.” It comprehends every rule of justice without exception. It comprehends all the relative duties, arising either from the more permanent
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relations of parent and child, of master and servant, of husband and wife, or from the more transient relations of rich and poor, of buyer and seller, of debtor and creditor, of friend and enemy. It comprehends every duty of charity and humanity, and even of courtesy and good manners. Nay, I think that, without any force or straining, it extends even to the duties of self-government. ... To sum up all, he who acts invariably by this rule will never deviate from the path of his duty, but from an error of judgment. And, as he feels the obligation that he and all men are under to use the best means in his power to have his judgment well-informed in matters of duty, his errors will only be such as are invincible. (Reid, 1863, p. 639) These remarks are striking, for they suggest that the principle tells us all that there is to know about morals. So why does he list it last, and why does he preface it with others? The reason is like the reason for listing the First First Principle of contingent truths as principle 7, for it refers to the other principles. The other principles tell us how to act, to be sure, but the Law of the Prophets, as I shall refer to it, adds something informing us how we can tell that the other principles are true, namely, that by the Law of the Prophets we will conform to our duty by following the other principles. It is the most comprehensive. Questions arise. First of all, why, if the principle is the most comprehensive and if one who acts from it “will never deviate from the path of duty, but from an error of judgment” should we not use it as the sole first principle and reason from it to all of our duties? The answer is that though the principle is self-evident and a first principle, the self-evidence of this principle, like the self-evidence of particular moral judgment, is intrinsic to them all because they are the judgments of the moral faculty. That is what makes them moral, for the faculty is the source of our conceptions of duty, justice and obligation. It provides the intrinsic evidence and justification for them. If I promise another to return his money when he asks for it in the appropriate circumstances, my obligation to do so is self-evident from the moral faculty. I could reason from the Law of the Prophets that it is my obligation because, if he were to have promised me to return my money in such circumstances, I would judge him to be obligated to do so. But what is the point of the reasoning? It would not add to the strength of the evidence I have for judging that I am obligated to return his money in the circumstances. It is self-evident and has the highest degree of evidence intrinsic to it. The Law of the Prophets is a fundamental principle of morals, which comprehends all the others, but the moral faculty delivers judgments that are intrinsically evident and immediately justified without reasoning from it. Similarly, the intellectual faculties deliver judgments that are evident in themselves and immediately justified without reasoning from the First First Principle.
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The second question is whether the comprehension of the Law of the Prophets fails to be complete because of the qualification “the obligation that he and all men are under to use the best means in his power to have his judgment well-informed in matters of duty” presupposes a duty not comprehended by the Law of the Prophets. The answer is clear. If I condemn another who fails to use the best means in his power to have his judgment well-informed about his duty to me, as I would, then I must acknowledge that I am obligated to use the best means in my power to have my judgment well-informed about my duty to him. So the principle comprehends the obligation to be well-informed about one’s duty. The last question is whether the principle defines duty. It is clear that Reid’s principle cannot define the moral notion of obligation or wrongdoing. On the contrary, it presupposes that one can judge when one is wronged by another for the application of the principle. Reid argues, against Hume, that even the young child has a notion of being wronged. Indeed, that is his argument that justice is an original conception and not an artificial virtue. The child, without tutelage, has a sense of being treated unjustly, of being injured, not merely hurt, in some circumstances. It is that original conception and conviction that is the basis of morals. The Law of the Prophets assumes that we know when we are treated unjustly, when we are wronged, and comprehends the rest of morals by requiring the impartial extension of those original judgments. The Law of the Prophets is a principle of impartiality, but the application of it rests on original conceptions and judgments of the moral faculty about when we are wronged by another. The principle is comprehensive, but it depends on an original capacity of the moral faculty to judge when we ourselves are wronged. In reply to Hume, Reid argues that the child can distinguish between a hurt, which is innocent, and an injury, which is a wrong, without instruction. A favor is, he suggests, the opposite of an injury, and Reid argues that the child recognizes that as well without instruction. Reid’s view concerning the innate capacity of the moral faculty is that the child begins with original, that is, innate judgments of being injured, treated unjustly, accompanied by negative affections and feelings, and of being favored, accompanied by positive affections and feelings. These judgments of being favored or injured, which occur so early in the child, imply judgments of justice and injustice, right and wrong. This is Reid’s most basic argument for the claim that moral judgments are judgments of a moral faculty, that is, of an innate capacity of the human mind. The notions of a favour or of an injury, appear as early in the mind of man as any rational notion whatever. ... That as soon as men have any rational conception of a favour or an injury, they must have a conception of justice and perceive its obligation. (Reid, 1863, p. 654)
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These are judgments of the actions of others toward us. The development of the faculty connects the moral conceptions with moral principles, most fundamentally, the Law of the Prophets, a principle of impartiality. The principle, like other first principles of morals, is a necessary truth. Moral development is incomplete until they are self-evident to the moral faculty. So the role of instruction, exercise and example appears to be that of bringing the first principles into play in the moral judgments of the faculty. Once the development is complete, the moral judgments of the moral faculty are settled. This does not mean that there are no cases in which disagreement can result from different conceptions of an action. But, as Reid indicated in the quote above, differences in moral judgments can in principle be resolved, and the only errors that remain are those that are invincible.
2.5 Conclusion It is consistent with Reid’s account to maintain that there are invincible errors that cannot be rectified. Hence invincible disagreement is possible. Our faculties, though not fallacious, are fallible. Moreover, we are at liberty to go beyond what is evident from our faculties as the use of the faculty of reason clearly exhibits. Unless error is invincible, which is the result of judgment that goes beyond the evidence of our faculties, it is the result of the exercise of our liberty. However, that liberty is a necessary condition of our being moral agents. We have a faculty that, if properly used, will enable us to distinguish truth from error, right from wrong, and to provide us with evidence and justification for believing what is true in morals as well as other matters. Our liberty leaves us free to act contrary to moral judgments of our faculties, however, and for that we are liable. It is for that reason that we feel esteem for those who act justly and contempt for those who act unjustly. We are at liberty to conform to the judgments of conscience or to act contrary to those judgments. The judgments supply motivation in the affections, approbation and disapprobation, as well as in feeling of esteem or contempt, which includes, of course, self-approbation, self- disapprobation, self-esteem, self-contempt, which necessarily accompany the judgments. These are strong motivations. But even the strongest motives do not determine what we shall do, as Reid has argued, for we are at liberty to act contrary to our strongest motives. Moreover, Reid acknowledges that the passions can provide the strongest motive and overwhelm the moral faculty, the moral sense and conscience. One question remains concerning the relation of moral theory and feelings to matters of moral judgment. Sometimes moral reflections can lead us to judge in conflict with moral judgment that seems evident and justified. Sometimes feelings, moral feelings, can lead us to revise our moral sentiments and with them our moral judgments that are part of the sentiments.
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Should we agree with Reid that the judgments of the moral faculty are beyond revision? Reid could acknowledge that, being fallible, we can be mistaken about whether something is a first principle. But what about the Law of the Prophets itself? Some have argued against it, or they might. Reid could reply that they are in error, that they are misled by reasoning, feeling and passion. The reply is like his reply to the skepticism of Hume. The original judgment of a faculty remains, however one argues against it. But is he right, or is his view just 18th century parochialism? The question to confront him is whether one might, as a result of reflection, cease to judge in moral matters in a way that conforms to the first principles of morals. In the case of the intellectual powers, Reid claims that there is no point in making war with our intellectual powers, in denying the existence of the external world, for example, because nature triumphs over speculation, as even Hume admits, and we find that the convictions that we reject in speculation remain irresistible in practice. But is the same true in morals? Are the judgments of the moral faculty irresistible? Reid may be right. I find that no matter how much I argue for the conclusion, there is nothing the matter with my living so comfortably while others suffer from want through no fault of their own, that I am not convinced. I think it would be wrong for them not assist me were I in their circumstances and judge that I am wrong not to assist them. The judgment brings with it some self-disapprobation and some loss of self-esteem, however persuasively I argue that I am not obligated to ameliorate the suffering of strangers. I experience self-approbation and self-esteem when I assist someone I judge to be in need. I find there is a moral faculty in me, that it judges by the Law of the Prophets, and that this is not negotiable within. I think my conscience is not unique. There may be many errors of moral judgment that are invincible. There may be difficulties in deciding when circumstances are alike and when they are not, for circumstances are rarely identical, but the principle is, to my consideration, a principle that stands the tests of speculation, reflection and practice. It speaks within me, as Reid says, without appeal to moral theory. It is part of my constitution as the most comprehensive principle of my conscience.
3 Reid on Natural Signs, Taste and Moral Perception Esther R. Kroeker
Understanding what Reid means by ‘moral perception’ is not an easy task. Reid often draws parallels between perception by the external senses (by smell, taste, hearing, touch and sight) and perception by the internal senses of taste and of morals. However, the only essay entirely devoted to the subject of morals (Essay V of the Essays on the Active Powers) concentrates mostly on the different axioms of morals and on a reply to Hume concerning the role of judgments in our moral evaluations. Reid assumes that moral perception is similar to perception by the external senses, but there are many questions concerning this relation and the exact understanding of moral perception and of the qualities perceived that seem to be left unanswered. My aim is, in general, to continue the task already started by several Reid scholars (like Terence Cuneo, see for example, Cuneo, 2004) of understanding Reid’s account of moral perception and, in particular, to understand the role of natural signs in moral perception. In order to do so, I will present an interpretation of Reid’s account of natural signs that, I think, has not been suggested before and that I believe is closer to Reid’s own understanding. Understanding Reid’s account of natural signs in this way will shed new light on certain aspects of Reid’s account of aesthetic and moral perception and is, I believe, important to grasp the nature of aesthetic and moral perception.
3.1
Natural signs
In its most general form, Reid’s theory of perception could be summarized as follows: An agent A perceives an external object O if and only if there is an external object O, and in consequence of a physical impression (resulting from O or from some physical medium), a certain sign suggests, contingently, non-inferentially and immediately, the conception by A of O and a belief about O. 46
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According to Reid, signs are entities that lead us to form beliefs or conceptions of objects (Reid, 1997, p. 58). Some signs, like words, are the fruit of human invention or intelligence and are therefore conventional. Other signs, Reid holds, are natural and therefore suggest conceptions and beliefs because of our natural constitution. The movement from sign to object and to our thought about the object is prior to any human convention, invention, agreement or custom. Examples of such signs are sensations (Reid, 1997, p. 58), events that are constantly prior to other events (Reid, 1997, p. 59), facial expressions (Reid, 1997, p. 60), material impressions on the retina (Reid, 1997, p. 86), visible figure (Reid, 1997, p. 97), and so on.1 Reid writes about natural signs in different passages throughout the Inquiry, the Essays, and the Lectures on the Fine Arts. One relatively clear classification that Reid offers is found in the Inquiry, chapter 5, section 3, where he mentions three categories of signs. In the first category (‘sign 1’) we find “those whose connection with the thing signified is established by nature, but discovered only by experience” (Reid, 1997, p. 59; see also Reid, 1997, p. 196). The presence of one event, like smoke for instance, suggests another event, like fire. But smoke does not suggest fire when we see it for the first time. We need to experience the constancy of the conjunction in order to believe something about the effect as soon as we consider the cause, or about the cause as soon as we perceive the effect. Reid speaks of natural signs of the first category as they play a role in suggesting beliefs about laws of nature (Reid, 1997, p. 59). In this case, we do not actually perceive fire, for example, when we perceive smoke. But we do have, because of principles of our constitution, a belief that there is fire when we see smoke. But Reid also mentions the role signs 1 play in perception, and more specifically in what he calls acquired perception. When perception takes place, Reid writes that there are different ways in which the appearance of the sign leads to the conception and belief of the thing signified. In the case of what he calls original perception, the mind forms the conception and belief “by original principles of our constitution” (Reid, 1997, p. 177, see also p. 171). In other cases, however, we learn, by experience, to perceive by one sense what we first perceived by another. Hence, I first perceive a coach passing by sight, but I also hear something. As I experience the constancy between what I see and what I hear, the sign of sound comes to suggest what I first perceived by sight. And because of custom or habit, the sound suggests immediately and non-inferentially the coach passing in the street, which I do not even see anymore. Hence, the sound is an acquired sign, a sign of the first category, of something I first perceived by sight. In the rest of this paper, signs 1 are used to refer to those signs that are involved in acquired perception. Let us now turn to Reid’s account of signs of the second and third category. The difference between these two categories of natural signs is not
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easy to ascertain. This is what Reid writes: A second class is that wherein the connection between the sign and thing signified, is not only established by nature, but discovered to us by a natural principle, without reasoning or experience. Of this kind are the natural signs of human thoughts, purposes, and desires, which have been already mentioned as the natural language of mankind ... the principles of all the fine arts, and of what we call a fine taste, may be resolved into connections of this kind. A fine taste may be improved by reasoning and experience; but if the first principles of it were not planted in our minds by nature, it could never be acquired. ... A third class of natural signs comprehends those which, though we never before had any notion or conception of the thing signified, do suggest it, or conjure it up, as it were, by a natural kind of magic, and at once give us a conception, and create a belief of it ... The notion of hardness in bodies, as well as the belief of it, are got in a similar manner; being, by an original principle of our nature, annexed to that sensation which we have when we feel a hard body. (Reid, 1997, p. 60) Hence, both kinds of signs are related to the thing signified by nature. In the second class we find signs like facial expressions, behaviors and attitude. And these are signs of thoughts, feelings, intentions, and other operations of the mind. In the Essays on the Active Powers, Reid writes the following about these natural signs: The involuntary signs of the passions and dispositions of the mind, in the voice, features, and action, are a part of the human constitution which deserves admiration. (Reid, 1969b, p. 185) Reid also thinks that voices, features and actions that are signs of thoughts, passions and dispositions are the “natural language of mankind” and that this natural language made possible the development of conventional language (Reid, 1997, pp. 51–59). The signs of the third class are not actions or facial expressions, and so on; they are sensations that suggest, it seems, all primary qualities of objects and some secondary qualities also. Reid seems to suggest that the qualities perceived by touch and by sight (by original perception only) are perceived by signs of the third category (see Reid, 1997, pp. 65–66). Qualities like smell, sound and taste, however, seem to involve signs 3 and also signs 1. Indeed, as I pointed out before, acquired perception involves signs of the first category (which suggest thanks to our experience of a constant conjunction), but acquired perception always functions in association with original perception (which involves signs 3). Indeed, I smell something – this sensation is a sign 3 and the perception is original. But I come to know by experience
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(by smelling something and by seeing the apple and by experiencing this constant conjunction) that this smell is the smell of apple (Reid, 1997, p. 171). Signs 3, therefore, never suggest because of experience. But when experience plays a role, what we perceive by signs 3 becomes a sign 1 of other qualities. Hence, signs 2 and signs 3 seem to suggest different qualities (mental qualities and physical qualities), but how are the signs themselves different? Unfortunately, Reid does not offer clear distinguishing features for differentiating between signs 2 and signs 3. In fact, he only speaks of two kinds of signs in his Lectures on the Fine Arts, signs discovered by experience and signs that are known without experience (Reid, 1973, p. 30). He also points out in these lectures that his discussion of natural signs is completely original and hence perhaps still in need of improvement. He writes: This is a path which hitherto has not been explored by any philosopher I am acquainted with, and consequently, errors in it are more excusable. (Reid, 1973, p. 29) Reid is therefore aware that his account of natural signs is perhaps incomplete and must perhaps be perfected. Several philosophers have tried to understand what the difference between signs 2 and 3 might be. For example, in his recent book, Thomas Reid’s Theory of Perception, Ryan Nichols distinguishes between Experiential (class 1) signs, Instinctual (class 2) signs and Constitutional (class 3) signs (see Nichols, 2007, pp. 87–90). Here is how Nichols distinguishes between signs of the second and third category. He writes that instinctual (class 2) signs are those that require no experience to suggest certain qualities. And constitutional (class 3) signs are those that are the building blocks of all our perceptual beliefs. He then offers as distinguishing features the examples cited by Reid himself (Reid, 1997, p. 60). The problem I find with this interpretation, however, is that Reid writes of both class 2 and class 3 signs as instinctual, because these signs suggest qualities before any experience or knowledge. Reid writes that the connection, in the second category of signs, is not only established by nature, but discovered to us by a natural principle, without reasoning and experience. (Reid, 1997, p. 60) And the third class of natural signs, Reid writes, comprehends those which, though we never before had any notion or conception of the things signified, do suggest it, or conjure it up, as it were, by a natural kind of magic, and at once give us a conception, and create a belief of it. (Reid, 1997, p. 60)
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Nichols only calls signs 2 ‘instinctual’ and yet signs of the second and third category are both instinctual, as the passages just quoted suggest. However, Nichols’ account is instructive because he draws attention to the fact that only signs of the third category suggest qualities that are basic to all of our perceptions. Indeed, signs 3 do seem to be constitutive of our perception by the external senses. In his book Manifest Activity, Gideon Yaffe’s distinction is helpful as well, but he still does not seem to completely capture what Reid has in mind. For Yaffe, the signs in the third category signify an object O “even if we have never encountered anything of the same kind as O; we need never have encountered anything hard in order to conceive of hardness after having a certain tactile sensation” (Yaffe, 2004, p. 29). About signs of the second class, however, like facial expressions that express intentions or other mental states, he writes that “we have encountered things of the same sort as those that are expressed by the signs; that is we have conscious experience of the features of our own inner lives” (Yaffe, 2004, pp. 29–30). What Yaffe seems to think is that we have experienced having our own thoughts, dispositions, intentions, and so on. We know what it’s like to feel certain emotions, for example. And hence, when we see certain facial expressions, we are led to think that others have certain subjective mental states. So what distinguishes class 2 signs from class 3 signs is that in the former case the signs suggest a quality O because we have had experience of something of the same kind as O but in the latter case we need not have this experience. The problem, however, is that Reid does not write that we need have encountered “things of the same sort as those that are expressed by the signs” (Yaffe, 2004, p. 29) when he discusses signs 2. Indeed, the infant might have no consciousness of her own mental states, or very little such consciousness. Or, she might never have experienced fear before and yet Reid writes that she is put into a fright by an angry countenance, and soothed again by smiles and blandishments. (Reid, 1997, p. 60) In the Essays, Reid writes that the “signification of these signs is known to all men by nature, and previous to all experience” (Reid, 1969b, p. 185). It is true that we seem to understand some emotions, passions, moods and intentions because we experience them ourselves. But Reid writes that we do not need this experience to know their signification. Nichols only characterizes signs 2 as instinctive, as suggestive of qualities without the help of experience. For Yaffe, on the other hand, signs 2 seem to involve experience of our own mental states whereas signs 3 do not. In a sense, both views are correct but incomplete. I want to suggest that class 1 signs are experiential, as we have already noticed; class 2 signs, however, seem to be for Reid both instinctive and experiential; and class 3 signs seem
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to be instinctive only; they suggest by a kind of magic, because of our constitution and without any experience at all. In many passages Reid writes that signs 2 suggest “without reasoning or experience”. Later in the Inquiry, he writes, for example, that The signs in natural language are features of the face, gestures of the body, and modulations of the voice; the variety of which is suited to the variety of the things signified by them. Nature hath established a real connection between these signs, and the thoughts and dispositions of the mind which are signified by them; and nature hath taught us the interpretation of these signs; so that, previous to experience, the sign suggests the thing signified, and creates the belief of it. (Reid, 1997, p. 190) And in the Lectures on the Fine Arts, he writes: Thus we find that angry words frighten children upon the breast. One kind of music inspires grief, another love, another rage or fury. These are all material representations of some affection of the mind. None of these are gained by experience. They equally affect savages and children. (Reid, 1973, p. 30) However, he also writes that the connection between the sign and thing signified and the use and mastery of such signs “may be improved by reasoning and experience” (Reid, 1997, p. 60). What Reid seems to have in mind is that the connection between the sign and the mental state can be understood and one can come to know by experience that such expressions and behaviors are the signs of affections and other mental states. Signs 3 are different because no degree of experience or reason can make us understand the fact that this sensation of touch suggests hardness, extension, smoothness, and so on. Let me clarify the distinction between the two categories of signs by laying out the kind of reasoning from experience that could be given in each case. Let us imagine a feeling like anger, which is expressed by certain facial expressions. In the case of the child, this is what happens: 1. I see your face and it is contorted, distorted; you speak in a loud and hurtful way. 2. I run away and go hide in my mother’s arms. Reid also writes that we do not usually learn the meaning of natural signs by experience. Even as adults, the moment we observe some new facial expression we immediately recognize the mental state (Reid, 1969b, p. 440). However, even if we do not learn the significance of signs 2 by experience
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we could still, I believe Reid would add, offer an explanation of the connection that relies on experience. This is what we could say: 1. I see your face and it is contorted, distorted, and so on. 2. When I look and act like that, it is because I am filled with a certain feeling (I call anger). 3. So, when you look like that, it is because you have the same feeling (anger). 4. So, (1) is a sign of anger. Or, I could reach the conclusion by relying on testimony and noticing that you are truthful and that you say you are angry. Many people who act this way say they are angry, and hence I think of this kind of behavior as a sign of anger. Hence, I am not offering a logical proof of the connection, and I am not relying on experience to explain how I first learned this connection, but I could still offer an explanation from experience. The situation is different, however, when we try to understand the connection between my sensation of touch and hardness, for example. What would such reasoning from experience be? We must reason from the fact that I feel something to the fact that this sensation is the sign of hardness. Whatever explanation you or I give would already presuppose the conclusion, that is that this sensation is the sign of hardness. I could say: 1. I feel something (I have a sensation). 2. I have felt this before. 3. Hence, this feeling is the sign of hardness. Obviously, ‘premise’ 2 presupposes that I know that this sensation is the sign of hardness. I could not rely on experience to explain the connection between my sensation and the quality perceived. There is no other way of knowing that this sensation is the sign of hardness. In the case of signs 2, however, even though they are natural and suggest before experience, I believe Reid holds that one could come to understand or explain by relying on experience that some behaviors indicate certain mental states. I have only commented on the knowledge of the connection between sign and thing signified. But Reid also seems to speak differently about our knowledge of the sign itself. Indeed, he writes that we can gain mastery of the signs of the second category (Reid, 1997, p. 102). It seems that one can become an expert in the knowledge and use of signs that best express certain mental states. Hence Reid writes about signs 2 in the Essays on the Active Powers: The signs in this natural language are looks, changes of the features, modulations of the voice, and gestures of the body. All men understand
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this language without instruction, and all men can use it in some degree. But they are most expert in it who use it most. It makes a great part of the language of savages, and therefore they are more expert in the use of natural signs than the civilized. (Reid, 1969b, p. 440) Reid thinks that the ‘savages’ master these signs more than the ‘civilized’ and that they are therefore experts in the use of them. In the Lectures on the Fine Arts, he repeats that we usually fail to attend to these signs, but painters and artists study them with great care. Hence It is only great painters that can arrive at this: to know the particular formation of the face and features to express every passion. (Reid, 1973, pp. 31–32) Reid often speaks of the mastery, knowledge and use of signs of the second category, but never of the third. One could object that it does seem possible to master signs of the third category. One can pay more attention to one’s sensation of touch and one can learn to distinguish the texture of different kinds of fabric, for instance, or to read Braille. However, it seems to me that we are here speaking about acquired perceptions, about perception that involves different sensations and where the quality first suggested by one sense comes to be suggested by another sense. Indeed, the blind person might feel a hard shape (by touch), but he must learn (somebody must tell him) what this shape represents. Then, by use and habit, he comes to associate what he touches with what he first heard. Signs 3 play a role, but it is the experience of a constant conjunction, and hence the sensation of one quality suggesting by sign 1 the quality first suggested by another sensation, that leads to habit and mastery. Nevertheless, one could still argue that it is possible to recognize different qualities by mastering signs of the third category themselves. After all, wine tasters and perfume producers certainly need to master their sensations of taste and smell. What Reid says on this topic is that there is a multitude of smells and of tastes. There is more variety of sensations and of qualities sensed than language can express (Reid, 1997, p. 48). He writes If a man was to examine five hundred different wines; he would hardly find two of them that had precisely the same taste: the same holds in cheese, and in many other things. (Reid, 1997, p. 48) Hence, it is possible, by experience, to master our sense of taste, for example. What this means, however, is either that our organs of sense are working well, or that we are able, by attention and use, to identify different sensations and different qualities in objects. We do not master one sensation
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(one sign 3), but we learn to distinguish one sensation from another, or one quality suggested from another. What this discussion shows, however, is another difference between signs of the second and third category. In the case of signs of the second category, one mental state might be expressed by different signs 2 (by different expressions, by a tone of voice, by the position of the body; and so on).2 When the sign is a sensation and functions as a sign 3, however, either one same sensation suggests different qualities (touch might suggest at the same time qualities like heat, figure and hardness), or we tend to describe our sensations of touch differently according to the different qualities perceived (the sensation is one of heat, of figure and of hardness). Hence, signs 3 are quality specific in a way that signs 2 are not. However, signs of all three categories work together in our perception of reality. Indeed, in order to perceive, by signs 2, a reality not accessible to our five senses, one must first perceive with the external senses. Perception of external physical objects (involving usually signs 3 and 1) is prior and basic. We must first see faces, or hear voices, or perceive behaviors to perceive moods. The empirical information about the external world we sense and perceive thanks to signs 3 (aided with principles like experience) functions as a sign of a reality that is hidden from view or not perceived by s. In conclusion then, the mark of signs of the second category is that they are both instinctive and experiential. They give us our first conceptions or beliefs before the use of experience or custom. However, as we grow older, we can use our experience to explain the connection between behaviors and thoughts. Signs 3, however, are more instinctive. They always suggest in a ‘magical’ way and they cannot be understood, explained, or mastered by experience. Of course, most of our perception involves not only signs 3 but also signs 1, and hence, we can use our experience to explain the connection between certain signs and what they suggest. Now, we perceive the external world and objects, like human beings and their behavior, by external perception (perception which is based on the use of signs 3 and signs 1). And what we perceive in this way is itself a sign 2 of a mental reality. I perceive with my senses that you are loud, that your mouth is turned down, that your eyebrows are pulled together. And at the same time and probably as immediately (although this might be a point to discuss in the future), your behavior functions as a sign 2 and I perceive your anger.
3.2 Natural signs and aesthetic perception What are the signs involved in our perception of aesthetic qualities? In this section I will examine what Reid thinks about our perception by the sense of taste and more specifically about the natural signs involved in such
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perception. Reid seems to hold that aesthetic qualities in general can be either derived or original. This is what he writes concerning beauty: I apprehend, therefore, that it is in the moral and intellectual perfections of mind, and in its active powers, that beauty originally dwells; and that from this as the fountain, all the our external sensebeauty which we perceive in the visible world is derived. (Reid, 1969a, p. 792, my italics) the beauties of mind, though invisible in themselves, are perceived in the objects of sense, on which their image is impressed. (Reid, 1969a, p. 794) I come now to consider what this beauty is or in what it consists. It consists then, I apprehend, in those actions & qualities of mind which command our admiration and esteem. Altho’ this is allowed, yet still there remains an objection, it is thought, for material objects have also their beauty. This I grant; but here I beg leave to make a distinction between original and derived beauties. The first consists in that which I have already mentioned. This principle diffuses itself over a number of other things, whether as they are the effects or signs or some other thing correspondent to it – hence derived beauties. (Reid, 1973, p. 41, italics are mine) Original beauty, or beauty per se, and other aesthetic qualities like grandeur, inherently dwell in the mind for Reid (Reid, 1969a, p. 788). Thoughts, dispositions, passions and affections are the objects that truly raise our admiration and esteem the most (Reid, 1973, p. 41). Aesthetic qualities, properly speaking, are therefore qualities of mind. However, Reid also thinks that derived beauty or derived aesthetic qualities are found in material objects. This derived beauty is a picture (Reid, 1969b, p. 789), an imitation (see Reid, 1973, p. 49 where he speaks of the imitative beauty of music), a reflection (Reid, 1969b, p. 789) and an expression or sign of “some amiable mental quality, ... of design, art, and wise contrivance” (Reid, 1969b, p. 791). Hence, the kind of beauty we perceive in matter is derived or expressive of original beauty found in minds. Could it be, then, that aesthetic qualities as they are original or derived are suggested by different kinds of signs? As we have seen, qualities of mind are perceived thanks to signs of the second category. And because original beauty is found in beautiful states of mind, it is no surprise to find Reid relating natural signs 2 to taste, or to aesthetic perception (Reid, 1997, p. 61).3 We know that signs 2 are facial expressions, behaviors, features of the face, and so on. But Reid extends their range in his discussion on taste to include works of art that are expressive of beautiful passions and even, for Reid, material objects found in nature (Reid, 1969b, p. 794). Hence, natural signs of the second category, natural signs which suggest beautiful mental
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states, are also beautiful objects of sense. The beauty of objects for Reid is derived beauty. And therefore, derived beauty is itself a sign of the second category of original beauty. Indeed, Reid writes that all works of nature are stamped with the signature of the Creator’s wisdom, power and beauty (Reid, 1969b, p. 793) in the same way that the works of men bear the stamp of the qualities of mind employed in their production (Reid, 1969b, p. 793). Hence, Reid writes that these works of God and of man are signs of the mental qualities of God and of man. And The signs of those qualities are immediately perceived by the senses; by them the qualities themselves are reflected to our understanding; and we are very apt to attribute to the sign, the beauty or the grandeur, which is properly and originally in the things signified. (Reid, 1969b, p. 793) Hence we perceive beautiful states of mind thanks to signs of the second category, which suggest some mental reality that is not directly available to our external senses. And signs 2 are not only human actions and behaviors but also human artwork and divine artwork (nature). But what about our perception of derived beauty? Derived beauty is found in material objects that are accessible to our senses. Could it be possible, then, that the perception of this kind of beauty is a perception by our external senses, based on signs 3? If this were the case, then this would mean that there are some aesthetic qualities that are perceived in exactly the same way we perceive color, taste, smell, and so on. Signs of the third category certainly do play a role in our perception of aesthetic qualities, as some have noticed. Michael DeMoor, for example, writes that the artist must master things like perspective, shape, color, in order to create a work of art that is beautiful. Hence, he writes that the artist attends to class 1 and 3 signs, like visible figure and color, in order to make the viewer’s eyes believe that she is seeing a real object (like a smiling face) rather than a representation of it (DeMoor, 2006, pp. 44–45). Hence, DeMoor argues that there is a kind of art-relevant perception (which is suggested mostly in the Inquiry) that is based on signs of the first and third category only. And this kind of perception is different from aesthetic perception as it is presented in the Essay on Taste and which involves the perception of mental states based on signs 2 (DeMoor, 2006, p. 45). Indeed, DeMoor is correct that the artist pays close attention to the appearance of object and to colors, and so on. And Reid does seem to think of a beautiful work of art as one in which the artist is able to copy reality as much as possible, or to make us believe we are seeing the real object and not a copy of it (see Reid, 1997, p. 83). I believe Reid would point out that we do evaluate the artist’s understanding of perspective and color, for example, and hence his understanding of signs of the first and third category. But
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when we find the painting beautiful it is because we admire the artist’s skill, and hence a mental quality. But nevertheless, it is still possible to find the things or objects beautiful, independently of their author. Reid writes that we find the verdure of fields in the spring beautiful (Reid, 1973, p. 42). In music, there are certain relations of sounds that are harmonious and that we find beautiful (Reid, 1973, p. 49). We also perceive beauty in the brilliancy of some color (Reid, 1969b, p. 787). My question then is whether the beauty we find here is not perceived by signs of the third and first category. It is clear that in order to perceive such beauty, we must see color, have a color sensation (sign 3), or we must be able to hear (sign 3) the music. However, I believe Reid holds that even derived beauty is suggested by signs of the second category. Signs 1 and 3 are involved in such perception, but they are not responsible for the perception of aesthetic qualities. Indeed, the signs that are the building blocks of our perception of the external world are sensations for Reid (signs 3). As I have pointed out, much of our perception is acquired and hence involves our experience of the world, but, still, Reid seems to think that perception of the external world always involves sensations or feelings that are tied to our senses. Our perception of aesthetic qualities also involves sensations or feelings. Reid writes When a beautiful object is before us, we may distinguish the agreeable emotion it produces in us, from the quality of the object which causes that emotion. (Reid, 1969a, p. 754) However, Reid never speaks of sensations (the mental states that are formed thanks to our external senses) as suggesting beauty. Now, some might think that our sensation of pleasure might function as a sign 3 that suggests aesthetic qualities. But once again, Reid never speaks of the pleasure we feel when we perceive a beautiful object or living being as the sign that suggests the aesthetic quality. In fact, Reid usually writes of these feelings as accompanying the judgment or as a consequence of our aesthetic judgments. He writes, for example: Our judgment of beauty is not indeed a dry and unaffecting judgment, like that of a mathematical or metaphysical truth. By the constitution of our nature, it is accompanied with an agreeable feeling or emotion. (Reid, 1969a, p. 760; my italics) What is clear is that beauty is not only a feeling in the mind but it is a quality of the object. The beauty in the object or in the melody is a quality that pleases my taste (Reid, 1969a, p. 754). Nevertheless, I cannot find any passage in which Reid would suggest that the beauty in the object is
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suggested by the feeling of pleasure in the same way that hardness is suggested by the feeling of touch. Still, signs of the first and third category are involved in our perception of beauty because we must first perceive the structure, shape or color of the object in order to perceive beauty. Reid writes that the sense of taste is a secondary sense, a sense that depends upon our antecedent perception by the external senses. He writes: Beauty or deformity in an object, results from its nature or structure. To perceive the beauty, therefore, we must perceive the nature or structure from which it results. In this the internal senses differ from the external. Our external senses may discover qualities which do not depend upon any antecedent perception. Thus I can hear the sound of a bell, though I never perceived any thing else belonging to it. But it is impossible to perceive the beauty of an object, without perceiving the object, or at least conceiving it. (Reid, 1969a, pp. 760–761) Hence, we must first perceive objects and their shapes, color or structure by our external senses (signs 3 and 1) in order to be able to perceive aesthetic qualities. Now, one could point out that signs of the third (and first) category could suggest qualities like color and shape and at the same time the aesthetic quality. Hence, perception of derived beauty would also be based on perception by our external senses (based primarily on signs 3). The problem, however, is that Reid seems to think of sensations or signs 3 as being quality specific. Softness and hardness are both sensations of touch, but I have a different sensation when I feel soft than when I feel hard. Reid also points out that there is a multitude of various sensations. Reid seems to think that there is such a great variety of sensations because there is such a variety of quality in objects. And Such an immense variety of sensations of smell, taste, and sound, surely was not given us in vain. They are signs, by which we know and distinguish things without us; and it was fit that the variety of the signs should, in some degree, correspond with the variety of the things signified by them. (Reid, 1997, p. 49) Therefore, it does not follow the analogy of nature to use quality-specific sensations to suggest other qualities like beauty, sublimity, grandeur, and so on. One could also point out that to perceive the structure, or the fitness of a part to its end, for instance, is to perceive beauty. The objection could be given that there is no need to think of beauty as a quality different from what is perceived by our external senses (by signs 1 and 3). Reid would
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answer, however, that the physical qualities themselves are necessary for our perception of beauty, but there is nothing about these qualities themselves that is called beauty. This is what he writes about music: When I hear a certain sound, I conclude immediately, without reasoning, that a coach passes by. There are no premises from which this conclusion is inferred by any rules of logic. It is the effect of a principle of our nature, common to us with the brutes. Although it is by hearing, that we are capable of the perceptions of harmony and melody, and of all the charms of music; yet it would seem, that these require a higher faculty, which we call a musical ear. This seems to be in very different degrees, in those who have the bare faculty of hearing equally perfect; and therefore ought not to be classed with the external senses, but in a higher order. (Reid, 1997, p. 50) It is one thing to perceive the sound of a coach passing by or the sound of bells. It is another to perceive the harmony of sounds. Music might be expressive of mental states and follow certain mathematical rules, but yet the beauty of the music seems to transcend those qualities (which are recognized by the expert in music). Hence, even the perception of derived beauty seems to depend on our perception of something that is not equivalent to the structure or composition of parts; that is not captured by our external senses. I believe, therefore, that Reid held that derived beauty or derived aesthetic qualities, which are in objects of nature, are not suggested by signs 3 (and 1), but by signs 2. However, signs 2 in the case of derived qualities are not facial expressions or behaviors. The signs in this case are the shapes, colors, structures, perceived by our external senses. These physical qualities suggest both instinctively and because of experience. And this is the mark of signs of the second category. Indeed, this seems to follow from what Reid says about our perception of beauty, for example. Our perception of beauty can be ‘magical’, instinctive, prior to experience. Our first notions of beauty are formed in this way and even as adults, if we do not have much instruction in art, for example, we might still rely on our instinct in our evaluations of different objects. But at the same time, Reid writes that we can come to understand the structure from which beauty results. We can also come to understand the purpose of the object and how it is fitted to reach this purpose or the good it brings to others (see Reid, 1973, pp. 36, 42, 43). Reid offers the following illustration: In a heap of pebbles, one that is remarkable for brilliancy of colour, and regularity of figure will be picked out of the heap by a child. He perceives a beauty in it, puts a value upon it, and is fond of the property of it. For this preference, no reason can be given, but that children are, by their constitution, fond of brilliant colours, and of regular figures.
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Suppose again that an expert mechanic views a well constructed machine. He sees all its parts to be made of the fittest materials, and of the most proper form; nothing superfluous, nothing deficient ... He pronounces it to be a beautiful machine. He views it with the same agreeable emotion as the child viewed the pebble; but he can give a reason for his judgment, and point out the particular perfections of the object on which it is grounded. (Reid, 1969a, p. 787) Hence, certain colors and structures perceived by our external senses (with signs 3 and 1) are found beautiful either in an instinctive way or in a more informed way. This, as we have seen in section 3.1, is similar to the way in which signs 2 function. External perception is therefore necessary in order to perceive aesthetic qualities. We perceive objects and their primary and secondary qualities thanks to sensations or signs 3 (with signs 1 in acquired perception). However, my suggestion has been that the qualities perceived by our external senses are themselves signs of the second category of derived beauty. Indeed, a child might perceive the beauty of an object in an instinctive, magical, way. But one might also describe the structure of the object or the way the parts are fitted to meet some end, and so on. And, as I have shown in section 3.1, to be able to perceive a quality both instinctively and because of experience is the mark of perception that involves signs of the second category. Now, derived beauty is also a sign of the second category of beauty that is found in the mind. In fact, Reid thinks that derived beauty is just an image, expression or reflection of beauty that is found in the mind either of human beings or of the Author of nature (Reid, 1969a, pp. 776–777). Aesthetic qualities in general, be they original (in the mind) or derived (in objects), are therefore suggested by signs of the second category.
3.3 Moral perception In the last section, I pointed out that beauty in nature or in other objects is derived beauty for Reid and that this derived beauty is suggested by the qualities perceived by our external senses (like color, shape, and so on suggested by signs 3 and 1) that function as a sign 2 of derived beauty. And secondly, the beautiful object is also a sign 2 of original beauty. What I want to suggest here is that, although Reid is not explicit about this account, moral perception can be understood in the same way. First of all, moral qualities per se are suggested by signs of the second category. Indeed, Reid often writes that moral qualities are first of all found in agents. They are certain intentions, dispositions, and so on. As we have seen, “thoughts, purposes, and dispositions of the mind, have their natural signs in the features of the face, the modulation of the voice and the motion
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and attitude of the body” (Reid, 1997, p. 59). And in the Essays on the Active Powers, Reid writes: We consider the moral virtues as inherent in the mind of a good man, even when there is no opportunity of exercising them. And what is it in the mind which we call the virtue of justice, when it is not exercised? It can be nothing but a fixed purpose, or determination, to act according to the rules of justice, when there is opportunity. (Reid, 1969b, p. 85) Moral virtues or qualities, Reid writes here, are fixed purposes or resolutions to follow the rules of justice. It follows from these passages that because moral qualities are purposes or resolutions to follow duty, that is, they are mental states or qualities; we perceive these qualities by means of the natural signs of the second class which suggest them.4 One might object that if moral virtues are properly qualities in the mind like fixed purposes or resolutions, then it seems difficult to imagine facial expressions or behaviors suggesting these mental states. Are there really facial expressions and tones of voices, and so on that suggest fixed purposes? Reid would answer that there is no particular tone of voice or facial expression that suggests a fixed resolution (when it is not exercised). However, our whole character and our actions suggest our moral resolutions. It is clear, for Reid, that fixed resolutions will have an effect on one’s conduct. Indeed, the character of the agent is the agent’s characteristic way of acting. And one’s character, for Reid, is formed mostly by one’s resolutions or purposes. He writes that moral resolutions, of all purposes, have a “greater effect in forming our character” (Reid, 1969b, p. 85). In the chapter on Voluntary Operations (Essay II, chap. 3 of Reid, 1969b), Reid writes that character is a “consistency of conduct” and character is “governed by fixed purposes” (Reid, 1969b, p. 87). Reid writes: Every man who uses his reason in the conduct of life, will have some end, to which he gives a preference above all others. To this he steers his course; his projects and his actions will be regulated by it. Without this, there would be no consistency in his conduct. (Reid, 1969b, pp. 88–89) Hence, when one has fixed purposes or resolutions one will tend to have a certain character, that is, a consistent way of acting. Overall, the person who resolves to do his duty whenever he has occasion to do so will tend to act, in general, in a virtuous way. And we believe a person is virtuous because her actions suggest such a character, or such moral resolutions. Therefore, what seems to suggest virtuous (or vicious) resolutions are the agent’s character or tendency to act in a certain way. It seems possible, then, that actions are signs of the second category of certain moral states of mind.
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Secondly, let us turn to the distinction between original and derived moral qualities. In our discussion of aesthetic perception I pointed out that original beauty is beauty of certain mental states and that derived beauty is beauty of objects found in nature or which are the fruit of human creativity. And derived beauty is a sign 2 of original beauty. I believe that Reid’s account could lead us to something similar in the case of moral qualities. Moral qualities per se are found in the mind, in mental resolutions and decisions, but they are also found, in a derived way, in actions, and these actions are also signs 2 of moral qualities found in the mind. Indeed, there is a sense in which Reid speaks of derived and original moral qualities. Reid writes that: We ascribe moral goodness to actions considered abstractly, without any relation to the agent. We likewise ascribe moral goodness to an agent on account of an action he has done; we call it a good action, though, in this case, the goodness is properly in the man, and is only by a figure ascribed to the action. (Reid, 1969b, p. 394) It is possible, for Reid, to consider an action independently of an agent’s intentions and purposes. For example, Reid writes, an action considered abstractly could be relieving a person in distress. In itself, this action (helping a person in distress) is a good or virtuous action. The goodness of such an action, he states, is inherent in its nature, and no opinion or judgment could change this nature. The action is good, it is virtuous, and although the action is good in so far as it must be carried out by agents, the moral quality here is in the action and it is not a mental quality of an agent. 5 Thirdly, let us examine how moral qualities of actions (derived morality) are perceived. One could point out that actions are perceived to be morally right or wrong because they fall under certain general moral axioms whose truth is self-evident. Indeed, in Essay V, chapter 1 of the Active Powers, Reid writes that these moral axioms are first principles of action that are not deduced from what we perceive and that are not deduced from other abstract truths. They are neither the fruit of sensation nor of reflection but of common sense. However, he points out that in order to perceive the truth of these axioms, one’s moral faculty must first grow to maturity. And in order to become moral adults, one must be educated in general (all the powers of the mind must grow to maturity) and one must first contemplate our actions and the actions of others and perceive moral qualities. Reid writes: When we are capable of contemplating the actions of other men, or of reflecting upon our own calmly and dispassionately, we begin to perceive
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in them the qualities of honest and dishonest, of honorable and base, of right and wrong, and to feel the sentiments of moral approbation and disapprobation. These sentiments are at first feeble, easily warped by passions and prejudices, and apt to yield to authority. By use and time, the judgment, in morals as in other matters, gathers strength, and feels more vigour ... By an impulse of nature, we venture to judge for ourselves, as we venture to walk by ourselves. (Reid, 1969b, p. 369) He continues by pointing out that this is how the moral sense grows to maturity. And, he says, such a person who has perceived right and wrong and whose intellectual faculties have come to maturity, “to such a man, I think, the principles of morals I have above mentioned, will appear selfevident” (Reid, 1969b, p. 370). It is therefore possible to perceive right and wrong before perceiving the truth of self-evident axioms. And even a person come to maturity has moral knowledge by reflecting on moral axioms, but this person also knows or believes that certain persons or actions are virtuous or vicious by perceiving such qualities (see Reid, 1969b, p. 233). As adults, however, our moral knowledge is received from perception and from the knowledge of general axioms (and the application of these axioms “extends to every part of human conduct”, Reid, 1969b, p. 374) and also from other sources like testimony, all working together. Whatever the source of our moral beliefs, in order to perceive the moral quality of actions, one must first perceive the action itself; one must perceive it in its circumstances and context (Reid, 1969b, p. 373) and its relation to the agent. In order to perceive these things all the external senses come into play. If we are to consider the action itself, one must perceive, for example, the person going under the water and screaming and a person diving in the water to get the first person, and so on. We perceive these elements by our external senses, and all of these qualities are suggested by signs of the third and first category. And the perception of these qualities together with the mastery of certain concepts like ‘drowning’ and ‘helping’, and so on constitutes the perception of the action of helping somebody in danger. We rely, therefore, on our external senses and the perception of primary and secondary qualities in our perception of actions (actions being events carried out by human beings). But how do we perceive that such an action is good? Although Reid does not explain exactly how we perceive such a moral quality, I want to suggest we can rely on what he says about natural signs and about aesthetic perception. Hence, it seems plausible to hold that the qualities suggested by natural signs of the third and first category (the qualities perceived by our external senses) suggest qualities that are not perceived by our external senses. Hence, qualities of objects like color, distance, shape, the relation between persons, and so on suggest moral qualities that depend on external
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qualities but are not reducible to such qualities. Actions as they are grasped by our external senses function as signs of the second category of moral qualities of actions considered abstractly. There is a great difference, however, between derived aesthetic qualities and derived moral qualities or moral actions. Moral actions, though we can perceive them independently of the intentions of agents, are never independent of agents. Indeed, they are actions, they are events that agents ought to carry out. Hence, we never completely consider moral actions independently of agents. Indeed, what is this action considered abstractly? Reid answers: To me it appears to lie in this, and in this only, that it is an action which ought to be done by those who have the power and opportunity, and the capacity of perceiving their obligation to do it. (Reid, 1969b, p. 395) If we consider the abstract notion of duty, or moral obligation, it appears to be neither any real quality of the action considered by itself, nor of the agent considered without respect to the action, but a certain relation between the one and the other. (Reid, 1969b, p. 228) The action itself leads us to think of agents and to think of the decisions and purposes of agents. When a person dives in the water to save somebody, we perceive the goodness of the action and, at the same time, we perceive the goodness of the person. What we perceive by our external senses therefore suggests not only moral qualities of the event but also of the mind of the agent performing the action. I have suggested that there is a parallel between aesthetic qualities and moral qualities. Hence, the moral qualities of actions are derived moral qualities and moral qualities of agents are original moral qualities. There is evidence that Reid would accept that external actions function as signs 2 of moral qualities (which, themselves, are not perceived by our external senses). Indeed, I have argued that Reid thinks of signs 2 as being both instinctive and experiential. The mark, therefore, of something that is perceived thanks to signs of the second category is that the perception takes place in an instinctive, almost magical, way. But the perception could also be explained or come to be known in another way than by perception. It seems to me that this is the case for our perception of moral qualities. On one hand, especially before we come to think about moral axioms, our moral perceptions are instinctive. Reid writes: Our first moral conceptions are probably got by attending coolly to the conduct of others, and observing what moves our approbation, what our indignation. These sentiments spring from our moral faculty as naturally as the sensations of sweet and bitter from the faculty of taste. (Reid, 1969b, pp. 372–373)
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When we consider our actions and the actions of others in moments of calm, when we are not moved by selfish motives, we naturally and instinctively perceive these actions to be right or wrong. We perceive these qualities in the same way we perceive sweet and bitter. And we know that qualities like sweet and bitter are suggested by signs in an instinctive and magical way (Reid, 1997, p. 59). Without any conception of general rules, of axioms, of right or wrong, we can perceive in an instinctive way some actions to be morally right or wrong. But, on the other hand, as we think about agents and their conducts, and once we come to think about the moral rules that apply to classes of actions, we could come to understand and explain which non-moral qualities are tied to moral qualities. An action could be seen as an instance of a more general axiom. Or, we might come to understand the conditions that must be obtained for an action to be morally obligatory. And in fact, this is what Reid does when he offers a list of conditions that must be met for moral obligation to obtain, and he calls them “qualifications of the action and of the agent” (see Reid, 1969b, pp. 229–230). He writes, for example, that the action must be voluntary, the agent must have the power to perform the action, the agent must have understanding and will, the materially good action (the action considered abstractly) must be performed with the belief of its being good, and so on. Hence, when we say that the person diving in the water to save somebody did something good, we can point out that we know this is a good action because it falls under the golden rule (Reid, 1969b, p. 366), the person diving in can swim, he wants to save the drowning person and his intention is not to finish off the job in a quicker way, and so on. And all these elements lead us to perceive the action as a good action. Nevertheless, it is possible to perceive the goodness of the action in an instinctive way and even before the complete maturity of our moral sense. In conclusion, therefore, aesthetic and moral qualities, whether they are qualities of external objects (derived) or qualities of mind (original) are suggested by signs of the second category. We rely on our external senses (and hence on signs 3 and 1) to perceive objects and persons. However, our external senses do not suggest qualities like beauty and virtue (and their contraries). Nevertheless, the qualities perceived by our external senses do suggest, as signs 2, the beauty and virtue of actions. And the beauty and virtue of actions are signs 2 of beautiful and virtuous qualities of minds. These signs suggest in an instinctive way, but they are also experiential. We can come to understand how such signs suggest aesthetic and moral qualities. Hence, our moral sense and our sense of taste may be improved by reasoning and experience, and our perceptions could be explained by a perfected understanding of the non-moral and non-aesthetic qualities that are the bases for moral and aesthetic qualities. This implies that, for Reid, there is a sense in which moral qualities, be they original (qualities
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of mind) or derived (qualities of actions), are mysterious because they are not completely grasped, perceived, by our external senses. But there is also a sense in which the qualities that suggest moral qualities can be studied, mastered and explained.6
Notes 1. As a direct realist, Reid does not think of signs as objects that must be perceived in order to perceive external objects. As James Van Cleve argues, we need not be acquainted with signs. Objects of perception, however, are objects of acquaintance. Hence, signs are not objects of perception. See Rebecca Copenhaver’s 2000 and 2004 papers and also Van Cleve’s 2004 paper, pp. 114–119. 2. See Reid’s illustration of two people who do not speak the same language and who want to express a promise (Reid, 1990, p. 157). 3. See also Reid, 1969b, p. 792 where Reid mentions the virtues and intellectual talents perceived by signs 2. 4. Terence Cuneo, in his recent papers on the subject, also recognizes that moral qualities are qualities of the mind which are perceived thanks to the behavior, countenance, and so on of the agent, thus by signs of the second category. See especially Cuneo, 2006, p. 72 and Cuneo, 2003, p. 240. 5. Reid also writes: “Between the several virtues as they are dispositions of mind, or determinations of will to act according to a certain general rule, there can be no opposition. They dwell together most amicably ... But, between particular external actions, which different virtues would lead to, there may be an opposition” (Reid, 1969b, p. 368, my italics). 6. I want to express my gratitude to Terence Cuneo, Sabine Roeser, James Van Cleve and Gideon Yaffe for their valuable comments and suggestions on various drafts of this paper. I also wish to thank Sabine Roeser for organizing a fine workshop in preparation for this volume, and I also thank the participants of this workshop for their comments.
4 Thomas Reid on Moral Disagreement William C. Davis
Moral disagreements are not hard to find. Some rest on simple misunderstandings, but others are deep, resisting serious attempts at thoughtful resolution. Disagreements are often socially distressing; but for those who share with Thomas Reid (1872, pp. 586b–99b) a belief in moral facts (Shafer-Landau, 2006) and a common moral sense (Roeser, 2005; Cuneo, 2003), moral disagreements are epistemologically distressing as well. In this essay, I will assess Reid’s resources for answering some of the questions that arise from the evidence of deep moral disagreement. Elsewhere I have argued that Reid could have answered these questions without abandoning any of his central claims (Davis, 2006, chap. 7). Here I will significantly qualify that conclusion. I will show that Reid’s ability to answer these questions is limited by his pursuit of a broadly Enlightenment project. Following MacIntyre (1990) and others, I will refer to this limitation as Reid’s “encyclopaedist” commitments (Pakaluk, 2002, p. 564; Poovey, 2002, p. 125). Reid can turn back challenges from moral disagreement that attack overly simplistic versions of his moral sense theory. Nevertheless, the confidence pervading his approach to moral knowledge cuts off strategies for responding to moral disagreements that resist simple rational resolution. I will argue that it would have been easier for Reid to defend his moral sense theory against the challenge of moral disagreement if he had embraced a Scottish Calvinist approach rather than encyclopaedist principles. Explaining Reid’s available responses to moral disagreement must build on an account of Reid’s moral sense doctrine, the data of moral disagreement, and the problems that these disagreements raise. After describing a clear instance of moral disagreement, I will summarize the principal features of Reid’s moral epistemology. Because others have capably explored the many problems of moral disagreement, my explanation of the problems will focus on the defining feature of deep moral disagreement, the apparent impossibility of rational resolution, or rational impasse. 67
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4.1
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Deep disagreement about a doctor’s duty
Richard Pesce, M.D., and I serve on a hospital ethics committee. Dr. Pesce is an intensivist who oversees patient care and collaborates with other physicians in three intensive care units at Memorial Hospital, Chattanooga, Tennessee. He recently asked for my analysis of a problem faced by Dr. Jones, a doctor at another hospital. A Muslim woman, Mrs. Kazim, was admitted to the hospital at which Dr. Jones had privileges. Mrs. Kazim was visiting from out of town. Her condition was life threatening and called for immediate attention. Mr. and Mrs. Kazim, however, both insisted that their religion did not permit Mrs. Kazim to be examined or treated by a male doctor. Male doctors with the appropriate specializations were available on site. Dr. Jones was at home finishing the complex preparations for her child’s birthday party, and her entire extended family was on their way for the event. Question: Does Dr. Jones have a moral duty to abandon her family’s plans and attend to Mrs. Kazim? Exercising my moral sense, I formed the conviction that Dr. Jones was not morally obligated. Leaving her family to gratify this patient’s wishes might have been a commendable thing to do, depending on her family’s needs; but it was not a moral duty. This seemed obvious to me, and I was confident that Dr. Pesce would agree. Dr. Pesce saw it very differently. He thought it was obvious that Dr. Jones did have a duty to attend to the patient. Placing a family gathering ahead of a patient’s needs would be a gross violation of what it means to be a doctor. Significantly, Dr. Pesce did not infer his conviction about Dr. Jones’ duty from other beliefs. While he had many beliefs that might justify his conclusion, his moral sense detected a duty and he formed the judgment. The disagreement surprised both of us. We each expected that it would be resolved if we backed up and looked at the details together. Our discussion of the case started out in a tone of bemused curiosity. Although the case involved multicultural complexities, we didn’t disagree about those features. We both were troubled by the implicit sexism in the demand and by the specific role that the couple’s religious convictions were playing in the case. But the disagreement did not rest there. I probed for facts Dr. Pesce had not mentioned. Had Dr. Jones explicitly promised to provide care in such a situation? Did Dr. Jones have a history of using frivolous family needs as an excuse to neglect patient requests? Before long, it became evident that we were working with the same facts. But if we had the same facts, and Reid’s theory of the moral sense is correct, then how could we be disagreeing?
4.2
Reid’s moral sense
Thomas Reid’s doctrine of the moral sense is a robustly confident moral realism. In Thomas Reid’s Ethics (Davis, 2006), I attempt to explain Reid’s
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approach to moral knowledge. Here I will only highlight his central claims. Reid takes for granted the existence of objective, determinate moral facts that are not reducible to non-moral facts. These moral facts about duty are relational facts: facts about an objective relation between an agent and his or her action. Moral facts concern not only the moral value of individual human actions, but also the objective truth of general moral principles. Reid claims that our moral faculty has epistemic access to these facts, both as they bear on our own actions and on the actions of others. Although moral judgments can be the result of intentional deliberation, they most often arise spontaneously if we turn our attention to an agent and her action. As Roeser (2005) has shown, Reid’s account of the progress of moral judgment is a form of moral intuitionism. Moral beliefs arise immediately and non-inferentially from a consideration of non-moral facts. It is thus a kind of perception, sufficiently similar to other forms of external perception to justify the use of the term “moral sense” (Davis, 2006, chap. 5). As with our other perceptual powers, Reid’s moral sense fits the cognitive input-output device picture advocated by Lehrer (1989) and developed by Wolterstorff (2001). It takes as its input a pair of conceptions of a particular agent and the agent’s particular action – and returns as its output a verdict involving the original conception “duty.” (Lehrer’s description of Reidean moral judgment elsewhere in this volume only mentions one input conception, the conception of the action. This difference is slight. Often the conception of the agent is simply assumed.) Reason tests this immediate verdict for consistency with other beliefs, and unless reason opposes it, the verdict is affirmed as a moral judgment. Because reason may block acceptance of a moral belief, I will use “verdict” to refer to the immediate output of the moral sense, and “judgment” to refer to the final belief that issues from the overall working of the moral faculty. Even though moral verdicts are immediate, in Reid’s system the resulting moral judgments are not always moral knowledge. Everyone makes moral judgments, but only competent moral judges have moral knowledge. This conclusion parallels Reid’s treatment of other kinds of judgment, including other perceptual judgments. For example, the visual judgment that a ship is on the distant horizon depends upon the kind of acquired perception peculiar to sailors (Reid, 1997, pp. 171–172). As I have argued elsewhere, competence is a central requirement in Reid’s treatment of knowledge claims, and his descriptions of competence in moral matters make extensive demands (Davis, 2006, pp. 98–102). In addition to the maturity of mind and clarity of conception that he requires for competent judgment in other areas, in moral matters Reid also calls for freedom from interest and an upright heart. Although Reid emphasizes the commonness and immediacy of moral beliefformation, Reid also insists upon the importance of moral education in his treatment of moral judgment (Gallie, 1998, pp. 96–99).
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Reid’s moral epistemology shares key features with the intuitionisms defended by Ross (1963) and Huemer (2005). Reid acknowledges our ability to apprehend the truth of moral principles as well as the value of particular actions, but our moral sense perceives the particular moral facts immediately. With competent moral judges, these particular judgments will cohere with the judges’ apprehension of the moral principles involved, but the particular judgments need not be derived from the principles. Reid’s theory of the moral sense is a kind of intuitionism because moral beliefs are typically immediate and non-inferential, arising directly from a cognitive power aimed at moral facts. Put this way, Reid’s moral epistemology also shares similarities with Plantinga’s (1994) proper functionalist account of warrant. Reid’s moral sense is a cognitive power given to us by the “Author of our Nature.” When this power is functioning properly, its output is moral knowledge. Reid’s emphasis upon maturity, moral education, and moral rectitude can be understood as requirements for the proper function of a power that produces moral judgment. It is evident in his works that Reid aimed to provide the kind of moral education that his students needed. He contends that moral principles are a matter of common sense, but he also taught these principles. He recommended developing what we might call “moral imagination,” including techniques for developing sympathy (Reid, 1872, p. 565). Because the ability to reason well in general is an important part of reasoning well about morals, instruction in reasoning was also a part of moral education. Reid’s approach to moral education in itself suggests ways that moral disagreements can arise. Divergent moral training and differing degrees of moral rectitude, for example, might lead to opposing judgments. Even so, Reid’s encyclopaedist commitments hamper his ability to respond to moral disagreement. An embrace of enlightenment individualism is evident in his meager attention to the social aspects of moral deliberation. As Rysiew (2002) notes, Reid avoids substantive theological claims. This antisectarianism leads Reid to exclude spiritual depravity and blindness from his treatment of the sources of moral error. Finally, and most importantly for the problem of moral disagreement, Reid’s confidence in reason restricts his understanding of what might count as a rational resolution of moral disagreement. Had Reid’s moral philosophy drawn instead on commitments from the tradition of Scottish Calvinism, his resources for responding to moral disagreement would have been more extensive.
4.3 The problems of moral disagreement Reid’s moral sense epistemology is ambitious in ways that open it to different versions of the problem of moral disagreement. The most pointed use of disagreement as a reason for questioning Reid’s moral theory is found in Alasdair MacIntyre’s Whose Justice? Which Rationality? MacIntyre (1988)
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argues that the issue of slavery doomed Reid’s account of the moral sense within only a few years of the appearance of Reid’s works. The practice of human slave trading is now obviously contrary to duty. MacIntyre contends that if all humans possessed a Reidean moral sense, then people of good will should all agree in their perceptions of the wrongness of the practice. As we know from history, however, educated people of seemingly good will did not agree about their moral perceptions in this matter. According to MacIntyre, the historical failure of rational debate to end the dispute over the human slave trade undermined Reid’s theory of the moral sense. MacIntyre’s complaint by itself is a serious challenge to Reid’s moral epistemology. It is not, however, the only problem moral disagreement poses for Reid’s defenders. Rational impasse over moral disputes lies at the heart of other versions of the argument from moral disagreement. These arguments attack moral realism by suggesting that moral realism is not the best explanation for the facts of our moral discourse. Deep moral disagreement and rational resolvability The deep disagreements that cause problems for moral realists concern judgments that are clearly moral, practically incompatible, and appear to be irresolvable by rational means. Clearly moral matters concern the rightness or wrongness of actions. Deep moral disputes are also, ultimately, over judgments about particular moral actions. As MacIntyre (2006, p. 72) points out, moral deliberation and judgment ultimately rest on the evaluation of particulars. For MacIntyre, the social dimension of deliberation – the way it is learned and nurtured – forces us to acknowledge the priority of the particular. In Reid, the priority of the particular is less explicit, but it is evident in his claims about the moral sense. Although moral disagreements may begin as disputes about principles, the priority of particular moral judgments will eventually bring moral disagreements back to differing judgments about particulars. Reid’s ability to handle the facts of moral disagreement will ultimately depend upon his ability to account for deep disagreements about particulars. The defining characteristic of deep moral disagreement is rational impasse, the seeming impossibility of rational resolution. What counts as a rational resolution, however, is a key issue. A clear case of a rational resolution has the disputing parties reaching agreement by appealing to a set of principles that they already accept. I will call the principle that settles the matter a “determinative” principle. In order for a dispute to be resolved this way, one of the parties must admit that the determinative principle overrides his particular judgment. Slightly more controversial, though, are resolutions that depend upon determinative principles that the disputants come to share. Brink (1989) argues that resolutions are rational so long as agreement arises from rational argumentation. MacIntyre (2006) allows for rational resolution through dialogue. In the last section of this essay, I will argue that
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submission to moral education is also a rational strategy for resolving deep disagreements. Reid’s encyclopaedist commitments favor only the argumentative strategies, limiting his ability to handle deep moral disagreement. Versions of the problem of moral disagreement Rational impasse is central to all the problems of moral disagreement that challenge Reid’s moral realism. The three versions of the problem that I will summarize here move from the existence of deep moral disagreements that resist rational resolution to a conclusion about the implausibility of Reid’s moral sense realism. All three versions have the same logical form: inference to the best explanation. Arguments from moral disagreement aim to show that some account of moral ontology or moral judgment other than moral realism provides a better explanation for our actual practice of moral judgment. By “actual practice,” I mean the evident fact that we all find ourselves making, believing, and expressing moral evaluations of our own and others’ particular actions. This practice is the thing to be explained. As with all inferences to the best explanation, background expectations play a pivotal role. Many have offered explanations for moral practice that they suppose to be superior to Reid’s theory of the moral sense. Here I will only consider the three that Reid would find most troubling: subjective relativism, cultural relativism, and MacIntyre’s tradition-dependent realism. The relativist versions of the problem of moral disagreement prefer explanations of moral practice with ontological and epistemological commitments less ambitious than Reid’s. Harman and Thomson (1996), Harman (1998) and Mackie (1977) contend that it is possible to explain moral practice without accepting the existence of absolute (person- and culture-transcending) moral facts. Indeed, Harman (1998, p. 207) concludes that the moral diversity we see today is “strong evidence” against moral realism. Harman and Mackie prefer relativist explanations because they explicitly assume that if we possessed a Reid-like moral sense, then genuine moral disagreement would be either non-existent or much less common. Harman’s subjective relativist version of the argument highlights the persistence of interpersonal moral disagreements. The cultural relativist version of the argument sets aside intracultural disagreements and focuses on the intractability of cross-cultural moral disputes. For both alternatives, the pervasive failure to reach resolution by argumentation or appeal to determinative principles is thought to be decisive. Alasdair MacIntyre uses moral disagreement against Reid’s theory of the moral sense, but not in the service of relativism. MacIntyre’s target is Reid’s encyclopaedist approach to moral epistemology (MacIntyre, 1988, p. 329ff). MacIntyre’s use of the debate about the moral permissibility of the human slave trade may suggest that he is trying to undermine confidence in the existence of a moral sense of any kind. As his defense of Thomas Aquinas’
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moral theory shows, however, MacIntyre (2006, p. 65) holds that people have a native, non-inferential power to discern objective moral facts. In Whose Justice? Which Rationality? MacIntyre finds fault with Reid for expecting that our powers of moral judgment can be detached from their intellectual and social context. For MacIntyre, the debates over the slave trade did not show that we lack a power of moral perception. Rather, the interminability of the debates showed that this power functions in the context of a tradition, and that it is sensitive to diverging convictions about human flourishing. MacIntyre faults Reid’s theory of the moral sense for being simplistic not about moral realism, but about the way moral reasoning is socially embedded. I agree with MacIntyre that Reid’s claims about moral rationality fit neatly into the general encyclopaedist rejection of the need for tradition or religiously thick conceptions of the good. Reid’s optimism about reason makes it difficult to explain why moral debates do not end quickly. If Reid is right, then mature, educated, candid people should be able to figure out whose judgment is mistaken. They should be able to discover a shared set of determinative principles through polite argumentation. Reid does not explain what we are to do when argument fails. In the next section, I will suggest rational strategies that Reid might have recommended. The most effective of them will be hard to reconcile with his encyclopaedist optimism about reason.
4.4 Reidean responses to moral disagreement The attention Reid gives to moral disagreement is relatively meager. He appears in his works to be confident that everyone – from the “vulgar” farmer to the well-educated gentleman – will find that they make the same moral judgments about nearly everything. Disputes that arise will have simple, possibly even obvious explanations: immaturity, prejudice, or the reckless embrace of skeptical philosophical principles. Although these explanations for moral disagreement are inadequate in themselves, Reid’s broader epistemology has resources for filling out a response. In this section, I will detail the strategies he might have employed in answering the versions of the problem described earlier. I will show that if Reid had been willing to allow for a humble stance in dealing with deep moral disputes, he would have been able to give his theory of the moral sense a more compelling defense. The data and the sources of moral disagreement A significant part of any realist response to moral disagreement is an examination of the actual disagreements that people have. Reid is aware that people disagree about moral matters, but he holds that disagreements about morals are less frequent than they are in other matters (Reid, 1872, pp. 587b and 646a). He may not have experienced any inexplicable moral
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disagreements in his personal interactions with other gentlemen that he considered mature and upright. The disputes that he had experienced or heard about may all have seemed to arise from embracing philosophical principles that obscured the workings of the common moral sense. Reid lived in an age that was both culturally homogenous and epistemologically optimistic. He probably would have been surprised to hear that deep, rationally intractable moral disagreement could be widespread among honest, mature people. Although deep disputes might have seemed rare, Reid’s discussion of the moral sense mentions possible explanations for simple disagreements. Moral error, he suggests, can arise from either rational or moral immaturity. Both of these sources of error are kinds of dysfunction in the overall process of moral judgment, and they can look like failures of the moral sense that produce the initial moral verdict. Rational immaturity may involve lack of attention, imprecise conceptions of the agent or the action, or undetected inconsistency between the immediate moral verdict and other beliefs. Moral maturity may include interest, prejudice, lack of sympathy, and want of candor (Reid, 2002a, p. 460). “Uprightness of heart” is for Reid a summary term to indicate sufficient freedom from these sources of error; and Reid suggests that a person’s moral judgments will be reliable only if he or she lacks these defects. Reid’s encyclopaedist approach to morals leads him to limit moral maturity to matters that could be addressed by argumentation or effort. Diligent neutrality or reconsideration with biases in mind would be remedies for interest and prejudice. Lack of sympathy might be corrected by deploying the imaginative technique of the “change of persons.” Esteem for honest gentlemen would bring about an increase in candor. Reid’s treatment of the moral sense and judgment includes all of these recommendations (Davis, 2006, p. 126ff), and moral immaturity is an evident cause of some moral disagreements. Reid’s treatment of moral maturity suggests that rhetorically skillful argumentation may be sufficient to inspire the esteem and effort needed to resolve moral disputes. In another chapter in this volume, Keith Lehrer accurately captures Reid’s encyclopaedist confidence in the powers of reason to answer problems arising from moral disagreement. Lehrer focuses – as Reid would – on the moral anti-realist challenge that Reid’s moral realism cannot give any coherent explanation for the facts of moral disagreement. Following Reid, Lehrer argues that differences in rational and moral maturity can explain all moral disagreements in a way consistent with moral realism. Lehrer also reports Reid’s confidence that the moral perceptions of the upright gentleman can serve as a standard for settling moral disputes. I agree with Lehrer that Reid can give a coherent explanation for moral disagreement, and thus can answer this particular challenge. My focus is on Reid’s inability to handle a different challenge: the claim that the facts of moral discourse
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make the realist explanations—however coherent—inferior to anti-realist explanations. Before considering the limitations of Reid’s approach, it is worth noting that Reid’s moral theory can draw on more than just rational and moral maturity. Judgments about “our good on the whole” extend Reid’s encyclopaedist resources even further (Reid, 1872, pp. 580b–584a). Reid claims that our moral duty is coextensive with acting for our good on the whole. He treats our ability to determine our good on the whole as one of our rational powers, and Reid does not expect sectarian or cultural differences to influence the outcome of these judgments. Easy access to culturally and religiously neutral judgments of our good on the whole would provide a powerful tool for resolving moral disagreements. In Thomas Reid’s Ethics (Davis 2006, pp. 124–126), I argued that determinations of our good on the whole might be used both to vindicate the truth of Reid’s first principles of morals and to allow for the rational resolution of moral disagreements. Although I am still comfortable with the truth of Reid’s first principles of morals, I no longer think they can help in forcing resolution in cases of deep moral disagreement. Two considerations changed my mind. First, it is hard to see how agreement about first principles is likely to resolve disagreements. Second, and more decisively, I no longer have Reid’s confidence in a neutral rational power for determining our good on the whole. Moral disagreements may seem to be about general principles, but they ultimately rest on differing judgments about the moral value of particular actions. Reid’s moral sense does not infer particular moral judgments from moral principles. The particular judgments arise non-inferentially. We may suppress the particular judgment if we notice that it contradicts one of our moral principles, but people who agree about the first principles of morals may still deeply disagree about particular duties. Looking to moral principles to resolve moral disagreements can’t be counted on to work even if the principles have been otherwise vindicated. Despite Reid’s confidence that we share a common power for making these determinations, any estimation of “our good” depends upon prior convictions about human flourishing and the best kind of life. These prior convictions are both the possession and the product of communities and traditions of inquiry. Reid seems to assume that we are able to stand outside of any community or tradition in order to determine what is for our good. This assumption neglects the extent to which language and judgment formation are socially embedded. Moreover, confidence that neutral reason will vindicate our moral principles militates against humility in the midst of disagreement. So if humility is crucial to resolving some disagreements, Reid’s encyclopaedist optimism about reason gets in the way of the rational resolution of moral disputes and weakens his case for a common moral sense.
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Humility may seem necessary only if there is no matter of fact involved. In order to see how humility might be necessary even though moral judgments are about moral facts, consider the following thought experiment. For the experiment, assume that the world is objectively in color in just the way we are used to. (Take for granted whatever it is about the external world and our perceptual apparatus that makes color judgments objective.) The experiment: suppose that all at once everyone on earth receives permanent ocular implants that give a colored tinge to the lenses in both their eyes. Everyone’s tingeing is different, and all color memories are erased. Even after this mass transformation of our visual faculties, there would still be a fact of the matter about whether the left field wall at Boston’s Fenway Park is or is not green. Despite this fact, however, people would begin to disagree about their color judgments regarding the wall. Disagreements about color would be extensive, and might seem rationally irresolvable. Clever skeptics might start insisting that the facts of color disagreement are strong evidence for the conclusion that color judgments are not about any external, objective facts. The color anti-realists would do well until the color realists found a way to correct for the distorting influence of lens-tingeing. The color realists might discover a way to identify the hue and intensity of each person’s tingeing, and thus to produce implants that counter the tingeing effect. Or, they might find that some children born after the mass transformation were free from tingeing. In either case, methods would be available to resolve color disputes quickly, even scientifically. Encyclopaedist convictions about reason and our color faculties would be vindicated. As Lehrer rightly reports, Reid is confident that moral realists have discovered similar methods for resolving moral disagreements: the corrective lenses of steady, dispassionate attention, and the clarity of the moral perception of upstanding, candid men like Reid and his peers. Suppose, though, that the lens-tingeing effect included a sporadic randomizing feature. Slowly, but unpredictably, the lens-tingeing would change color. Finally, suppose that no one was free from this condition. Under these conditions, corrective implants could not be fabricated. Moreover, no one’s unaltered eyesight could serve as an absolute standard. Even though the external color facts would be unchanged, color disagreements would be deeply intractable. Reid’s approach to moral disagreement takes for granted that divergences in moral judgments are like the color disagreements from orderly lens-tingeing that leaves some people with tinge-less sight. The Calvinist tradition that Reid might have followed suspects that human depravity makes moral perception enough like the disorderly lens-tingeing situation to limit the power of quick, individualist methods to resolve moral disagreements. A more seriously Calvinist Reid would have allowed that human depravity, the downstream effect of humanity’s fall, includes a
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disordering of all our faculties, even our moral faculties. Even with moral facts and largely reliable moral powers of moral perception, our remaining disability would be grounds for humility in a number of areas. Unable to counteract all of our prejudices and immaturities, we would have to find supplemental ways to pursue the moral facts and to manage our disagreements about them. Any tradition that accepts this kind of disordering to our powers of moral judgment would face similar problems in defending a moral realist epistemology. For Reid, the Scottish Calvinist tradition was readily available. Although Calvinists in general are not famous for their humility, Calvinist convictions about human depravity could have led Reid to recommend humility as the only stance that fits our epistemic condition. Working with Calvinist commitments could also have led Reid to acknowledge moral failings beyond the reach of argumentation and diligence: spiritual perversity, spiritual blindness, and prideful self-love. All of these defects can corrupt moral judgment. Disordered loves express themselves as self-destructive ultimate ends. These misguided ends affect the formulation of input conceptions and the development of the beliefs against which moral verdicts are tested for consistency. Pride leads to self-complacency that is untroubled by disagreement and that resists the kind of open exploration that can lead to resolution. People lacking humility easily believe that those who disagree with them must be suffering from some defect, whether it is ignorance, confusion, stupidity or perversity. The proud will think that rational resolution is impossible until their opponent admits to having a defect, so disagreements that are not quickly resolved by argumentation count as deep and intractable. A Calvinist Reid could have acknowledged that human depravity is a profound obstacle to resolving moral disagreements. In his years as a pastor in the Church of Scotland, Reid preached the sermons of the Scottish divines. He would have taught both the virtue of humility and the possibility of supernatural healing for spiritual pride. It is too bad that neither of these considerations play a significant role in his description of the workings of the moral sense. Taking them into account would have made the facts of moral disagreement much easier to explain. Responses to relativism and MacIntyre Reid’s response to today’s versions of the problem of moral disagreement would probably follow lines similar to those indicated by Lehrer elsewhere in this volume. Reid would reject the relativist versions as inferior explanations of the facts of moral practice. The success of this response would depend upon what Reid could count as a rational resolution for a moral disagreement. To MacIntyre’s worry, Reid’s response would probably be puzzlement. MacIntyre’s tradition-dependent objection would seem needlessly hesitant about our ability to determine our good on the whole by neutral reason.
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Both of the relativist versions of the problem of moral disagreement contend that a Reid-like moral sense is a poor explanation for the data of our moral discourse. These versions assume that if people shared a common moral sense, then disagreements would be much less frequent. Disagreements that did arise would have to rest on an error that could be discovered and corrected quickly. Rational resolutions would be common, and irrational recourse to threats would be rare. Sadly, disagreements are all too common, they are rarely settled quickly on the basis of shared premises, and too often force is used to impose an irrational resolution. Moral realism and a common moral faculty hardly seem like the best explanation for these facts. Reid’s response to this more aggressive argument could begin by expanding the facts that need to be explained. While moral disagreement is an obvious feature of moral discourse, it is also obvious that the practice of holding people morally accountable for their actions is universal. Also, moral judgments arise spontaneously and naturally. Small children do not need to be taught to condemn acts of unfairness. The existence of a commonly held moral belief-forming mechanism is a much better explanation for the universality, spontaneity, and earliness of our practices of moral judgment than moral subjectivist explanations. If moral subjectivism were true, we would expect to find cultures with no moral discourse; and we do not. Mackie’s preference for cultural relativism as an explanation for moral discourse requires a more careful answer than moral subjectivism. He finds moral disagreement (all but) inexplicable for a Reid-like moral sense because he makes two background assumptions. The first is that a moral sense would have an output as uniform or free from dysfunction as our external senses (such as vision or touch). The second is that the exercise of the moral sense would not depend upon skillful moral education. Reid would reject both of these assumptions. Reid’s treatment of perception in general is more subtle than Mackie’s argument anticipates, and Reid’s insistence on the importance of moral education greatly enhances his ability to account for moral disagreement. Lack of uniformity in a sense does not undermine the conclusion that the sense detects objective facts. One of the achievements of Reid’s Inquiry (Reid 1997) is the careful way Reid distinguishes the unique powers and limitations of the external senses. Lack of uniformity in the external senses can result from incomplete training. Similarly, if the reliability of the moral sense depends upon education, then defective education could explain the data of moral disagreement. As Reid, (1997, p. 178ff) notes, our ability to judge relative distance by eyesight alone depends upon learning the connections between tactile sensations and subtle differences between visual appearances. While it is difficult to undermine these connections with perverse education, it is possible. Education matters. Moral education admits of a wider range of perversion than visual training, and perverse moral education is more readily successful. Because moral education is both influential and diverse, we
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should expect moral disagreement. Reid could easily argue that his moral sense theory is superior to Mackie’s cultural relativism as an explanation of our moral practices as a whole. Even deep moral disagreement should not outweigh the evidence of universal moral practice. Mackie’s rejoinder to Reid here would likely focus on rational impasse as a crucial difference between the visual perception of depth and moral perception. Perverse visual education, Mackie might argue, can be exposed quickly and decisively; debates about the quality of moral education cannot. This is a serious problem for Reid’s position. His ability to respond to Mackie’s relativist explanation for moral disagreement is significantly hindered by his encyclopaedist confidence in reason. Because of this confidence, it is likely that Reid’s response to Mackie would ultimately follow the line Lehrer reports: cultures that produce moral judgments that diverge from Reid’s are populated by savages. A more humble response would make Reid’s moral realism easier to defend, whether it came from Calvinist convictions or from some other source. Reid’s response to MacIntyre’s attack would also hinge on his confidence in reason and the limits of rational resolution. Although critical of Reid, MacIntyre defends Thomistic moral realism against the challenge of deep moral disagreement (MacIntyre, 2006). This defense sheds important light on the limitations of Reid’s approach. Thomas Aquinas’ theory of moral judgment and practical reason shares similarities with Reid’s claims about the moral sense. Both focus on judgments about the moral value of particular actions, and both acknowledge the distorting effects that interest and prejudice can have on moral judgments. MacIntyre (2006) gives a prominent place to the distorting influence of the lust for pleasure, money, and power. Nevertheless, his defense of Thomas Aquinas highlights sources of moral error foreign to Reid’s encyclopaedist commitments: dogmatic pride and naïve individualism. These failings corrupt moral judgment by driving people away from genuine dialogue. Moral disagreements in which both parties arrogantly assume that the other must be wrong are unlikely to be resolved rationally. MacIntyre argues that individualism underestimates the social dimensions of moral discourse and deliberation. He might also have noted that individualist rationalism too easily treats moral education primarily as the development of intellectual powers. Reid’s treatment of the moral sense has these tendencies. Apart from his references to moral education, Reid’s moral theory is noticeably individualistic. Arrogance is not a requirement in Reid’s account of moral judgment, but he recommends it implicitly. While students’ powers are maturing, teachers may expect students to be deferential; but pride deferred is not humility. Reid does not discuss the effects of pride on the moral judgment of teachers. In the next section, I will argue that genuine humility and sensitivity to social factors are crucial to answering the problems of moral disagreement.
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Reid would have been familiar with Calvinist alternatives to his encyclopaedist convictions. Reid’s moral epistemology would be easier to defend along Calvinist lines because a Calvinist approach could take into account the depth of our epistemic limitations about moral matters. Rational resolution without reorientation Given the existence of deep moral disagreements, a compelling defense of moral realism rests on a willingness to admit the extent of our epistemic limitations. Admission of susceptibility should lead to commitments that extend the range of rational resolution, but without providing a simple mechanism for predicting the outcome of the rational process. Embracing humility as an epistemic virtue is crucial to defending a moral realist epistemology. In order to show this, I will return to my deep disagreement with Dr. Pesce. Tracing the steps in Reid’s account of moral judgment, I will highlight the points at which my moral judgments may have diverged from Dr. Pesce’s. The possible sources of divergence include many that are correctable by rational means, but also one that is not. If Dr. Pesce and I share crucial convictions, then we may reach rational resolution through short-term strategies. If not, longer-term strategies may be necessary. The longer-term approaches to rational agreement require genuine humility. Dr. Pesce and I disagreed about a simple moral fact. His moral sense detected a moral duty that Dr. Jones was obligated to fulfill. Mine did not. I know more about the process that led to my intuitive judgment, so I will only trace the emergence of my judgment. On Reid’s treatment of the moral sense, Dr. Pesce’s judgment would have arisen from a similar process. Throughout this description, I will be making two Reidean assumptions: there is a moral fact of the matter regarding Dr. Jones’ duty, and Dr. Pesce and I both have epistemic faculties designed to detect this fact. As explained above, moral judgments for Reid are the result of an inputoutput process. My input material was a pair of conceptions. One concerned the agent (Dr. Jones, her standing relationships, and the unalterable details of the circumstances); the other concerned a prospective action (attending to Mrs. Kazim, with all the difficulties that would be involved). Given these inputs, my moral faculties returned a verdict: “Dr. Jones does not have a duty to perform the action.” If I had conceived of either Dr. Jones or the action differently, my immediate verdict may have been different. Although my disagreement with Dr. Pesce about this specific case is not yet resolved, I can bring myself to see it his way if I change the input conceptions. For example, if I add to the conception of Dr. Jones an explicit promise to attend to Muslim women because of the hospital’s limited staff, I quickly conclude that Dr. Jones has a duty to leave her family. In Reid’s treatment of the moral sense, the input-to-verdict part of the process is clear. It is less clear whether Reid would count my immediate, unreflective conclusion as a moral judgment, because judgment involves the
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exercise of reason. When Dr. Pesce asked me about Dr. Jones, I remember pausing between recognizing the spontaneous conclusion and reporting my judgment. I will take this as typical (and in keeping with Reid’s intentions): moral judgments are the output of the moral faculty, which includes the immediate deliverance of the moral sense (which supplies the concept of duty) and some kind of review by reason. The contribution of reason in this process is to test for consistency. The immediate verdict of my moral sense was compared to other standing commitments and prior conclusions, and judgment may have been withheld if a problem was detected. The verdict may have conflicted with a moral principle previously intuited, a cherished philosophical tenet, or even my sense of our good on the whole. Such a conflict may have turned aside confidence in the immediate verdict of my moral sense. Had this happened, I hope I would have pulled back from reporting any clear judgment. But seeing no conflict and having no reason to withhold judgment, I reported my conclusion as a moral perception: “I see no duty here.” Dr. Pesce, at the end of a similar process, disagreed. These details about the role of input conceptions and reason expose a number of points at which moral disagreement might enter. Diverging input conceptions could have been the problem. Indeed, we both expected that we were overlooking or misconstruing the (non-moral) facts. Did Dr. Pesce know of explicit hospital policies or signed commitments? Was I carelessly adding facts that Dr. Pesce was not? Was I assuming that other female doctors really were available? If I had smuggled details in, our disagreement could have been understood and resolved. Input conceptions can diverge for at least three different reasons. In our initial discussions, Dr. Pesce and I explored the possibility that incompleteness or ignorance was leading us apart. It is also possible that my own moral poverty is a source of trouble. An unwarranted fear of Muslim people may have led me to diminish the significance of Mrs. Kazim’s need. If that happened, prejudice would have tainted my input descriptions of the prospective action and of Dr. Jones as well. If I perceived Mrs. Kazim as a threat, I would have personally identified with Dr. Jones. Even if my conception of Dr. Jones aimed at neutral factuality, it may have been distorted by an (also wicked) expectation that I would be annoyed if I were in Dr. Jones’ place. If Dr. Pesce and I agree about the distorting effects of these prejudices and come to share identical input conceptions, we may reach rational resolution relatively quickly. Sadly, though, even perfect agreement about the input conceptions may not resolve the disagreement. The verdicts recommended by our moral senses may have been set aside as inconsistent with other commitments we hold. If I believe, for example, that all moral judgments are merely expressions of self-interest (or class interest, or gender prejudice, and so on), then I may be careful never to assert my own moral verdicts as matters of fact.
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Concern for consistency might thus have led me to say I see no duty in the case of Dr. Jones. Or I may have held moral convictions that resist the conclusion that Dr. Jones has a duty. For example, I might have believed that no one is ever obligated to cater to others’ religious beliefs. In that case, my considered judgment could differ from Dr. Pesce’s even if the progress of my moral judgment was identical to his right up to the test for consistency with other beliefs. My disagreement with Dr. Pesce about Dr. Jones’ duty would have resulted from an unexplored disagreement about the force that religious demands should be allowed to play. But Dr. Pesce and I did not disagree about the moral legitimacy of Mrs. Kazim’s demand! We both found her demand morally unjustified; but this judgment did not alter Dr. Pesce’s judgment about Dr. Jones’ duty to attend to Mrs. Kazim. In addition to my disagreement with Dr. Pesce, I also disagree with Mrs. Kazim about Dr. Jones’ duty. Because I only know what she demanded and cannot ask her to clarify her reasons, I would have to make numerous guesses about beliefs and motivations to analyze my disagreement with her. I am focusing on my disagreement with Dr. Pesce both because it was surprising and because I am able to question him directly about the progress of his thinking. Our disagreement about Dr. Jones’ duty did not rest on differing principles about the role religious demands ought to play in determining someone’s duty. Humility and rational resolution by reorientation It is hard to know how long it would take Dr. Pesce and me to clear up these potential sources of our disagreement. Even so, diverging input descriptions and diverging prior principles and beliefs are only short-term difficulties. While we might fail to isolate the problem quickly, we will make rapid progress once we locate the source. If we are both willing to consider alternate descriptions and principles, it is possible that the disagreement can be resolved without significantly reordering our moral outlook. This last “if,” however, is no simple matter. Few people are willing to give alternative descriptions genuine consideration. It takes humility; and willingness to consider alternatives is only the beginning of the kind of humility that is ultimately required. Deep disagreements may rest on diverging beliefs about moral excellence. In that case, resolution may require strategies that go beyond adversarial argument. As an extreme (and contrary to fact) example of disagreement about moral excellence, Dr. Pesce and I may disagree about whether a morally excellent person will count women as moral agents. We would have to clear up this disagreement before we could make any progress on the specific case of Dr. Jones and Mrs. Kazim; and it is hard to see how that dispute could be resolved by arguments alone. Less exotically, though, we may have different conceptions of a morally excellent doctor. I may believe that a morally excellent doctor will have the same commitment to patient health
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that a computer technician has to computer performance. I may think that moral excellence for anyone consists entirely in fulfilling explicit contracts or promises. A morally excellent doctor, then, would be one who keeps her promises and fulfills her contractual commitments. My conception of Dr. Jones did not include any explicit commitments, so Dr. Jones’ being a doctor did not influence what my moral sense saw. I have discovered that Dr. Pesce has a different understanding of moral excellence. He believes that morally excellent doctors see and honor obligations that go beyond honoring contracts and promises. They recognize and fulfill the duty to protect life. Because Dr. Jones is the only available doctor that Mrs. Kazim will allow to attend her at this medically crucial moment, Dr. Jones has an obligation as a doctor to set other prima facie duties aside and to care for Mrs. Kazim. For Dr. Pesce, “Dr. Jones is a doctor” is a highly relevant fact, and it figures prominently in his input conception of the case. Our diverging conceptions of what it means to be a morally excellent doctor may lie at the heart of our disagreement. It is likely that Reid would treat “Dr. Jones is a doctor” as a non-moral fact. If he did, he would overlook a source of moral disagreement not easily resolved by argumentation alone. Consistent with encyclopaedist expectations, Reid assumed that reason only authorizes one form of life. This is evident in his conviction that our “good on the whole” is a non-moral fact about empirical consequences, not about duty (Reid, 1872, pp. 580b–581a). Dr. Pesce and I agree that Dr. Jones is a doctor; but it is not a non-moral fact. We may rationally disagree about what it means to be a good doctor, and how being a good doctor relates to other social goods. For example, I may think that strong family ties are the glue that makes all other social goods possible. Regardless of my other beliefs, this one conviction may lead me to conclude that our good on the whole is maximized by Dr. Jones staying with her family. Dr. Pesce, on the other hand, may well believe that public confidence in doctors is a necessary condition for social flourishing (and that family ties are not). These judgments would lead us to permit or correct our immediate moral verdicts in very different ways. Our disagreement about Dr. Jones’ duty would be a manifestation of our disagreement about social ideals, or our good on the whole. Even if we discovered this disagreement, it is not easy to see how the difference could be quickly resolved. Diverging beliefs about moral excellence and social flourishing are not simple obstacles to moral agreement. These beliefs flow from our convictions about the best kind of life, about the nature of human flourishing. MacIntyre (2006, p. 80) identifies these convictions as the ultimate foundation for all deep moral disagreements, and argues that disagreements at this level will resist easy resolution. A long and difficult process is probably required to resolve disagreements that rest on divergent conceptions of human flourishing. MacIntyre (2006, pp. 72–74) suggests that a commitment to genuine dialogue is one process that can lead to resolution in
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these cases. I agree, but will add another: submission to the need for moral education. The longer-term strategies of dialogue and moral education demand even more humility than the short-term strategies aimed at consensus on descriptions and background principles. Consider dialogue first. Genuine dialogue involves a commitment to seeking the objective truth through a disagreement. It requires that both parties see the other’s moral judgment as a resource, not an obstacle. This is only possible if both parties accept the fallibility of the epistemic equipment that produced their conclusions. Admitting our epistemic limitations is never easy; it is especially difficult when moral judgments are at stake, and even harder for people with a professional stake in being right. By this point, however, it should be evident that our epistemic limitations are extensive. Some of these limitations are not our fault, including ignorance of relevant details, or seeing from only one perspective. Others, such as uncorrected prejudice or partiality, are less innocent. Finally, whether culpable or not, our conceptions of human flourishing and their attending affections may be mistaken or disordered. Dialogue requires a kind of epistemic self-denial that is hard to swallow today. It was even more difficult to accept among the epistemically optimistic and individualistic encyclopaedists of the 18th century. The expectation that rational resolution requires an admission of failure on one side partakes of this same optimism and individualism. Resolution through protracted, humble dialogue is difficult; but it is a rational strategy nonetheless. To return to the thought experiment involving universal lens-tingeing, dialogue would be the only effective, rational strategy for managing color disagreements after the mass transformation. Because no one person or group’s eyesight could serve as the dogmatic arbiter, individual strategies would be futile. Social dependence and humility would be the only way forward. Given our epistemic limitations, dialogue can be a rational strategy for managing our moral disagreements. Accepting the need for moral education is also rational, and it is even more difficult. Reid’s many references to the importance of moral education are all from the side of those waiting for others to learn. The moral formation of young gentlemen was a goal of Scottish education, so Reid’s admonitions about education make sense. Even so, Reid never suggests that he would ever need further education himself. Accepting the need for moral education goes beyond acknowledging the kinds of epistemic limitations that make dialogue a rational strategy for pursuing the truth. It also requires acknowledging that someone else is morally superior. We expect children to accept moral education willingly, and it is rational for them to submit to this kind of instruction. Expecting educated grown ups to sit at someone else’s feet and pursue moral formation may seem laughable. It shouldn’t. It is dangerous to think that everyone
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is equally skilled at making moral judgments. While it may wound our pride to admit it, all of us need moral education in some way. Although no mere mortal is perfectly equipped to teach every virtue, some people are adequately equipped to teach some virtues and to correct others’ moral judgments. It may not seem rational for a self-respecting intellectual to submit to moral education in response to deep moral disagreement. But it is no less rational than accepting training in other areas when we realize a defect in our powers of perception. The resolution of my disagreement with Dr. Pesce may ultimately depend upon my own moral education. I have only an outside spectator’s understanding of what it means to be a doctor. Dr. Pesce’s medical training has involved more than the mastery of facts about human physiology. Medical training is a richly moral education, an induction into a tradition with its attendant virtues, ideals, and practices. If I had a low opinion of the character of people formed in this moral tradition, I would not consider it productive to pursue moral education as a means to resolving our disagreement. Because I esteem the virtues and ideals of doctors and nurses, I can accept that their training gives them an epistemic advantage regarding Dr. Jones’ duty. To see a doctor’s duty rightly, I may need the moral education of a doctor or a nurse. This community-specific education would shape and specify my thinking about moral matters. It would inform not only my values, but also my moral reasoning. Reasons for my moral judgments that would seem insufficient without the training could well become convincing. Both MacIntyre (1988) and Hauerwas (1981) argue for this kind of community-embeddedness for moral character and moral rationality. Reid’s approach to moral disagreement depends upon the common possession of a community-transcending moral rationality. He expects that sufficient moral reasons will be sufficient for any audience. If, however, moral formation plays a crucial role, then mere argumentation will not lead to resolution; and the absence of quick resolution will not count against a realist moral epistemology. To this point, I have suggested short-term and longer-term strategies for pursuing rational resolutions of deep moral disagreements. These strategies still may not produce resolution. Lack of patience or insight may lead to frustration. Pride or partiality may make continued effort unappealing. Even so, humble persistence may overcome the correctable sources of disagreement. Working past these difficulties is likely to reduce the number of disagreements thought to be irresolvable. Sadly, uncorrectable sources may exist, and even the longer-term strategies may fail. If moral judgments have an essentially theological dimension such as offending or pleasing God, then spiritual blindness would also affect moral judgment. This would be another implication of what Plantinga (1998, pp. 213–240) calls “the noetic effects of sin”: epistemic brokenness that only faith can repair. Moral disagreements that rest on diverging powers of spiritual sight may
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resist resolution by any of the strategies I have described. The supernatural repair of our faculties may be necessary. Humility about our limitations and a commitment to pursuing the truth together can lead to the rational resolution of even deep moral disagreements; but it would be naïve to think every disagreement will be resolved. I realize this is a hard word, and that it is out of keeping with some of what Reid says about our powers of moral judgment. Nevertheless, Reid might have advocated submission to moral education and dialogue as rational approaches to resolving moral disagreements. Had he been a self-consciously serious Calvinist, Reid should have found it possible to move from an acknowledgment of human depravity, to the attending epistemic limitations, to the need for humility and the pursuit of the longer-term strategies. This would have been a difficult position for a philosopher to take in 18th-century Scotland, and it still is. Helm (1983), Plantinga (1998), and Wolterstorff (2001) are philosophers working within the Calvinist tradition today. As a self-conscious Calvinist, I know how difficult it is to set aside the kind of confident intuitionist realism that Reid advocates. His doctrine of the moral sense assumes the finality of the moral principles commonly accepted by the gentlemen of his age. Most of those principles seem obviously true to me, and it was easy for me to argue that a simple (traditionneutral) determination of our good on the whole would vindicate all of the first principles of morals (Davis, 2006, chap. 7). While I still believe Reid’s moral principles are true, I am much less sure about the tradition-neutral standpoint that Reid’s system takes for granted. In my disagreement with Dr. Pesce, tradition-neutrality fails. We both intend to honor the principle that people should receive like treatment in similar cases. Yet we disagree about the range of relevant similarity, which is the result of being trained in different moral traditions. Moral disagreement is a threat to our cherished notions of infallibility. Treatments of the problem of moral disagreement too often demand quick or easy resolutions. They are willing to accept moral anti-realism in order to walk away from the issue with confidence in their rational powers in tact. They overlook or knowingly reject the more arduous path to rational resolution through genuine dialogue and moral education. Reid’s encyclopaedist approach to the moral sense is ultimately too confident about the use of our individual powers of reason to correct our epistemic limitations. An ignoble part of me wishes that he was right, and that I would never have to depend upon others in my pursuit of the moral truth. I suspect that I need moral education about more than what it means to be a doctor.1
Note 1. I am indebted to my colleagues John Wingard and Richard Pesce, MD, for help with this essay, to my graduate students Shirley Brackett, RN, Cindy Brooks, RN,
Reid on Moral Disagreement 87 Shannon Faires, BSN, Karen Frank, RN, Eloise Garland, RN, Deb Galovich, RTT, Jerry McCrary, RN, Theresa Radeker, RN, and Theresa Smallen, RN, for help with the medical ethics problem, and to my philosophy students Kathryn Baddorf, Matthew Baddorf, Lauren Fritz, Luke Irwin, James Krystaponis, Jared McKee, Anna Phillips, Jimmy Rich, and Emily Taylor for critical comments on early drafts.
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Part II The Role of Emotions in Reid’s Ethics
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5 Reid Making Sense of Moral Sense Alexander Broadie
Reid has important things to say about the relation between external sense and moral sense, and his account forms in certain respects a central part of his system. Nevertheless his position has never been fully investigated, and I shall seek to argue here that it merits such investigation in light of the valuable insights it offers. Reid’s tone is polemical; he emphasises the differences between his account of the faculties of sense and the account which he sees as prevailing in his own day. Yet on the face of it he exaggerates the differences. For he holds crucially that external sense and moral sense have a great deal in common; and yet the philosophers whom he opposes likewise wish to maintain that moral sense and external sense have a great deal in common. But the devil lies in the detail. In Reid’s view the prevailing doctrine is radically mistaken about the nature of external sense, and it is only because that doctrine is also radically mistaken about the nature of moral sense that it is able to maintain with consistency that the two sorts of sense have a great deal in common. I shall investigate the similarities that Reid finds between external and moral sense, and shall argue that his belief that the similarities run deep and wide derives from his fundamental philosophical perspective. To get our bearings within Reid’s discussion it will be helpful first to see what he means by ‘sense’: ‘Every power to which the name of a Sense has been given, is a power of judging of the objects of that Sense, and has been accounted such in all ages; the moral sense, therefore, is the power of judging in morals’. (Reid, 1863, p. 674b) By the same token external sense is the power of judging in respect of the olfactory, gustatory, audible, tangible and visible properties. (This is the order of exposition of the external senses in the Inquiry.). But there is more to sensing than simply judging. On Reid’s analysis there are at least three elements in play which interact with each other in a variety of ways, and here we shall explore the elements and their interaction. One feature of Reid’s discussion of external sense concerns his attention to what he regards as systematic ambiguities in terms we use to speak about 91
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sensing. We say that chocolate has a given taste, as if the taste is a quality of the chocolate, something that the chocolate ‘has’, and that a rose has a given smell as if the smell is a quality of the rose. Yet we also use active forms of the corresponding verbs, and say that we taste the chocolate and that we smell the rose, as if the taste and the smell are things we do, mental acts, or are in some other way modifications of the mind. We can without difficulty grant that the terms ‘taste’ and ‘smell’ are ambiguous in that each can refer both to a sensing, a mental act, and also to a quality in the object sensed. But for Reid the crucial philosophical point is that the taste and the smell, which are acts of mind, are metaphysically utterly unlike the taste and the smell which are qualities of physical objects, for a piece of insensate matter, such as a rose is, cannot have sensations. Furthermore, the smell of a rose, considered as a quality of the rose, has a spatial location; it is approximately where the rose is. But considered as an olfactory sensation, it has no spatial location, any more than joy, for example, has a spatial location. (It is true that any sensation is in someone’s mind, but, as Reid argues (Reid, 1863, pp. 221b–222a), to be in the mind is not to have a location but to be a particular sort of act, of sensing, thinking, imagining, conceiving, judging, remembering and so on, or to be a power to perform such acts.) Furthermore the sensation ceases when the mental act (which is what the sensation is) ceases, whereas the duration of the external quality is not a function of the mental act. The distinction between sensation and external quality is therefore greater for Reid than for Locke. For Locke held, on a common interpretation (and one that Reid, fairly or otherwise, did much to foster), that a sensation, a sensory idea, resembles the external thing which is the cause of the idea in the mind, with the result that we can know the qualities of external objects by means of our knowledge of the similitudes in our mind. For Locke if there were not this relation of resemblance between the external quality as cause and the sensation as effect, there would be no cognitive route from our minds to the external world. Reid therefore offers a different account of the relation between sensation and external quality. The technical term he employs, which is borrowed from Berkeley, even if the precise Berkeleian sense is not also borrowed, is ‘suggest’. A sensation ‘suggests’ the external quality, and suggests also a belief in the existence of that quality. (Reid, 1997, p. 38) The initial data in our perception of the external world are therefore our sensations, mental acts which by the original constitution of our nature suggest to us beliefs about the existence of things having qualities of a kind that correspond to our sensations. A metaphor that Reid deploys frequently is that of reading; in particular, he thinks of us as reading our sensations. The sensations are signs in relation to which the qualities of external things are significates, and just as when reading a page of print we do not in general attend to the physical properties of the print considered as marks on paper but instead attend solely to what is important for us, namely the meanings of the signs (see
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Reid, 1997, p. 43), so also we do not in general attend to our sensations but instead attend solely to what the sensations signify. Of course, it is not being claimed that we cannot attend to our sensations. That would be absurd. For example, as the feeling of hardness increases as we press harder on the table, we begin to notice the tactile sensation (especially if it hurts) and in that case we do not attend only to the quality of hardness in the table. But that is not the norm. Indeed, though Reid does not say this, if we always focused upon our sensations, as no doubt we would if they were always very pleasant or very painful, they would not do the job which nature intends for them, that is, the job of directing our attention to external objects and their qualities. We noted that in addition to the sensation and the conception of the qualities of an external object, there is a third element in Reid’s analysis, the belief that we have, naturally and irresistibly, in the actual existence of the external object and of its qualifies which are signified by our sensations. It is a principle of common sense that external qualities are qualities of objects, and hence in so far as we have an invincible belief, due to the original constitution of our nature, that the external qualities exist, we have likewise just such beliefs in the existence of the external objects also – though there is no suggestion in Reid that we actually formulate such syllogisms to ourselves as a way of reaching beliefs in the existence of external objects. The beliefs are antecedent to any possible proof. What proof of the existence of external objects could we possibly offer to someone who did not believe there to be such objects, and who therefore did not even believe there to be us who are trying to convince him of something of which he really can need no convincing if he has a properly human belief system? The belief is a judgment about what there is now in the world, and in relation to our present topic, the powers of sense, external and moral sense, the judgment is the most significant of the elements mentioned. For, as we noted at the start, according to Reid: ‘Every power to which the name of a Sense has been given, is a power of judging’ (Reid, 1863, p. 674b). The sense of sight is a power of judging of the objects of sight, and, to use the terminology now sometimes employed in this context, the judgment is output in relation to which the visual sensations are input. There are therefore in perception these three elements: first, a sensation or feeling, considered as an act of mind, something therefore which is a proper object of consciousness; secondly, a conception that we form, by our nature, of a quality which is signified by the sensation; and thirdly, a belief or judgment that we naturally and irresistibly form of the existence of the quality signified and of the substance that has this quality. This order does not reflect a temporal ordering, for Reid appears to think of the three elements as occurring simultaneously. But they might be described as having an order in nature, a natural order of dependence, with the sensation or
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feeling first, and then the conception and the belief or judgment dependent upon the sensation. It is not so easy to say what Reid’s view is on the matter of the order of the conception and the belief or judgment. The obvious suggestion is that unless we first formed a conception of the external quality we would not be in a position to say that the quality actually exists or that something has that quality, and that therefore in the order of nature there is a relation of dependence in which the judgment is dependent upon the conception and not vice versa. But there are suggestions in Reid that it is only by a process of abstraction from judgments that conceptions are brought into cognitive focus. There are two places where Reid makes this idea, or one very like it, work hard for him. The first is in the Inquiry I, iv, the section entitled ‘Judgment and belief in some cases precede simple apprehension’. Here he has the theory of ideas in his sights on account of its teachings that the first operation of the mind about its ideas is a simple apprehension, the bare conception of a thing without any belief about it, and that belief or judgment is reached by the act of perceiving agreements or disagreements of our ideas. Reid’s reply is: apprehension accompanied with belief and knowledge, must go before simple apprehension, at least in the matters we are now speaking of [sc. sensation, memory and imagination]. So that here, instead of saying, that the belief or knowledge is got by putting together and comparing the simple apprehensions, we ought rather to say, that the simple apprehension is performed by resolving and analysing a natural and original judgment. (Reid, 1997, p. 29) Secondly, in the Intellectual Powers, Essay VI, ch. 1, Reid emphasises the priority of judgment. He writes: [W]ithout some degree of judgment, we can form no accurate and distinct notions of things; so that one province of judgment is, to aid us in forming clear and distinct conceptions of things, which are the only fit materials for reasoning. This will probably appear to be a paradox to philosophers, who have always considered the formation of ideas of every kind as belonging to simple apprehension; and that the sole province of judgment is to put them together in affirmative or negative propositions. (Reid, 1863, pp. 416b–417a) In light of these considerations it seems at least plausible to maintain that, for Reid, at the very least it ought not to be taken for granted that our act of formation of a conception of an external quality must be antecedent to our act of judging or believing that something has that quality. The evidence
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I have considered here suggests that for Reid we are dealing with two acts that are simultaneous in time and in the order of nature, and that we are able separately to consider a conception of a quality only after we have formed a judgment which employs that conception. Of course, these points apply to the faculties of conception and judgment considered as already formed, and they have little or no bearing on the question of the process of their formation. Reid distinguishes between their mature and their infant states: I believe in their infant state they are very weak and indistinct; and that, by imperceptible degrees, they grow to maturity, each giving aid to the other, and receiving aid from it. But which of them first began this friendly intercourse, is beyond my ability to determine. It is like the question concerning the bird and the egg. (Reid, 1863, p. 417b) It follows from these considerations that in the case of the mature faculties we cannot demonstrate that an act of conception must precede the act of judgment which contains that conception, and in the case of the faculties in their infant state also we are not in a position to say that, antecedent to the first act of judgment, there had to have been an act of conception which had to be available if a judgment containing that conception was to be formed. These points have to be emphasised here because when we come to consider the question of the degree of similarity between the external and the moral senses, the ordering of the various elements that enter into the exercise of these senses is a crucial matter. The salient features of Reid’s teaching on external sense are therefore the following. First, a power of sense is a power of judgment, and therefore any act of sense includes an act of judgment. A judgment about the external world is one element in the exercise of the power of external sense. In the case of external sense we judge that some given external quality presently exists, or that some given external thing which has that quality presently exists. We cannot form such a judgment without having a conception of the external quality. That conception is a second element in the exercise of the power of the external sense. For Reid the external quality is a significate of something on the inside, a mental act of a distinct kind, a sensation. This sensation is the third element. Any exercise of the external sense involves a distinct set of interactions between these three elements. Considered from one perspective, the act of judgment has its origin in the sensation which is the sign of the external quality. Reid, who refers in the opening paragraph of the Inquiry to ‘the wisdom and skill of the divine Architect’ which have been employed in the structure of the mind, and speaks there also of the faculties of the mind as adapted to their several ends (Reid, 1997, p. 11), sees nature as having purposes which are in reality God’s
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purposes for his world. It is therefore appropriate to inquire into the purpose of our sensations, and Reid’s conclusion is that their purpose is to produce for us knowledge of the material world. So by a natural necessity of our constitution, a necessity which is in place because God wills that our sensations should function in that way, when we have a sensation we immediately and quite independently of any act of our will form a judgment about the material world, about qualities that exist in that world, and about the things that have those qualities. Any attempt to determine the extent to which Reid’s account of moral sense parallels his account of external sense has to take into account all the foregoing features of his analysis of external sense and to determine how many if any of those features are present in his account of moral sense. We shall see that most of them are indeed present and that there is a formidable degree of isomorphism between his teachings in these two apparently disparate fields. Reid himself tells us that there is a ‘very evident’ analogy between external sense and moral sense, and that therefore he sees no reason to take offence as some have done at the name of moral sense (Reid, 1863, p. 589b). What he principally has in mind is that sense is a faculty of judgment. When I see something I judge that the thing exists and has such-and-such qualities; and the judgment is a judgment of sense. Merely having the sensation is not enough. If on the basis of some inner act I do not make the judgment about the present existence of the thing sensed, I could not take myself to be sensing the thing, but instead only to be imagining or conceiving it. On the other hand neither is the judgment by itself enough. If within the faculty there is no mental act of sensation there is no reason to call the faculty involved a faculty of sense. What makes it a faculty of sense and not some other kind of faculty of judgment (of which there are several) is that as part of the exercise of the faculty there is within it, and by the constitution of our nature, a movement either from or towards a sensation. This account of a faculty of sense has immediate application to morality, because according to Reid moral sense is a faculty of judgment, and he therefore rejects Hume’s dictum that ‘morality is more properly felt than judged of’ (Hume, 1978, p. 470). As quickly becomes plain there is for Reid an essential role played by feeling in moral sense, but there is a role for judgment which is distinct from that of feeling and is no less important. A judgment is ‘a determination of the understanding, with regard to what is true, or false, or dubious’ (Reid, 1863, p. 671b). But if a given moral judgment is true or is false then there is something that makes it so. What? Reid’s answer is that the situation here, considered from the point of view of common sense, is no different from the situation regarding judgments of the external sense. He tells us that: ‘every judgment is, in its own nature, true or false; and, though it depends upon the fabric of a mind, whether it have such a judgment or not, it depends not upon that fabric whether the judgment be
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true or not. A true judgment will be true, whatever be the fabric of the mind; but a particular structure and fabric is necessary, in order to our perceiving that truth.’ (Reid, 1863, p. 676b) What it is that does not depend on the judgment that a given act is wicked that determines the truth value of that judgment is the obvious thing, namely the quality of wickedness in the act. Reid finds support for this common sense position where he usually looks for such support, in our linguistic practice. If I say that ‘such a man did well and worthily’, (Reid, 1863, p. 673a), I am predicating a quality of a subject, and am doing so as a reflection of my belief that, whatever be the fabric of my mind, that subject has such a quality as is necessary to make my judgment true. We can no more form moral judgments without the help of moral conceptions than we form judgments of external sense without the help of conceptions proper to such judgments. Reid is explicit regarding the source of those moral conceptions: ‘by our moral faculty, we have both the original conceptions of right and wrong in conduct, of merit and demerit, and the original judgments that this conduct is right, that is wrong; that this character has worth, that demerit’ (Reid, 1863, p. 590a–b). Conception is the second type of act that we find in moral sense, and for Reid the same thing has to be said about moral conceptions as about conceptions of outer sense – that it is not possible to place the judgment and the conception in an order of appearance in the soul. A moral judgment is not formed by aggregating antecedently present moral conceptions; what can be said about temporal ordering is that if we wish to focus upon a given moral conception, then that conception has to be reached by a process of abstraction from judgment, and it does not have a life of its own within the soul and independent of judgment. A third element has to be considered – feeling. Reid writes: “Our moral judgments are not like those we form in speculative matters, dry and unaffecting, but, from their nature, are necessarily accompanied with affections and feelings” (Reid, 1863, p. 592a). And an indication of Reid’s thinking on the relation in which feeling stands to the associated judgment is to be found in his affirmation: “in most of the operations of mind in which judgment or belief is combined with feeling, the feeling is the consequence of the judgment, and is regulated by it” (Reid, 1863, p. 672b). It is not because a given feeling wells up in me that I judge a person to have acted well; instead the feeling wells up because of the antecedent judgment. The position, which is, in the technical sense of the term, common sense to Reid, is opposed to the sentimentalism of Hume, for whom “Morality ... is more properly felt than judg’d of” (Hume, 1978, p. 470). There is not therefore an antecedent feeling which is able to produce in us a moral judgment as there is an antecedent sensation able to produce a judgment of external sense. Of course antecedent sensations usually play a critically important role in the production of our moral judgments, because
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many such judgments are consequent upon our perceptual judgments about what is actually happening in the world; for example, we see a person performing a given act and we judge him to be acting well, or badly. But I do not find in Reid a hint of the doctrine that there are sensations which produce in us a conception of a moral quality and a belief in the existence of such a quality, in at all the same way in which sensations produce in us conceptions of external sensory qualities and a belief in the existence of such qualities. Sensations play a crucial role in Reid’s account of moral sense, but they do not play that role. It should be added that the conception of a moral quality no more resembles the feeling produced in us by the judgment that something has that moral quality, than a sensation of external sense resembles the conception of a quality of external sense produced in us, or ‘suggested’ (in Reid’s technical sense), by the sensation. It is Reid’s belief that Hume was equally confused and in exactly the same way on both these matters; that is, on this interpretation Hume thought, in respect of external sense, that a conception is nothing more than a sensation, and he thought, in respect of moral sense, that a moral conception is nothing more than a feeling. In each case, therefore, Hume reduces one kind of entity to a different kind. My purpose in producing these various passages from Reid is to emphasise that his discussion of moral sense introduces three elements, judgment, conception and feeling or sensation, and to note that in his discussion of external sense he finds the same set of three elements. We have here grounds for exploring the relations between moral sense and external sense, and an immediate prospect of agreeing with Reid in his judgment that there is an analogy between the two kinds of sense. Yet there is a conspicuous difference, namely that the two triples move in opposite directions. As regards external sense, in the order of cause and effect sensation is antecedent to conception and judgment and, as regards moral sense, conception and judgment are antecedent to sensation. In each case it is not possible to order conception and judgment in relation to each other, but there is no room for dispute concerning how they should as a pair be ordered in relation to sensation. Nevertheless there is a conspicuous similarity also, one which is insufficiently noted in the literature on Reid, and I should now like to turn to it. It relates to his interest in the purposes of nature. We are told, in the first paragraph of the Inquiry: ‘it is reasonable to think, that as the mind is a nobler work, and of a higher order than the body, even more of the wisdom and skill of the divine Architect hath been employed in its structure’ (Reid, 1997, p. 11), and much of Reid’s philosophy can be seen, as it is seen by him, as an attempt to detect that divine wisdom by seeking the purposes fulfilled by nature in the workings of the mind. Thus we learn of a principle of veracity and a principle of credulity put in our mind by the “wise and beneficent Author of Nature, who intended that we should be social creatures, and that
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we should receive the greatest and most important part of our knowledge by the information of others.” (Reid, 1997, p. 193; cf. Reid, 1863, p. 244b) Here, as in many other cases, the purposes of nature (or the purposes of God working through nature) are demonstrated by the manifest way in which certain principles in our constitution are fitted to contribute to the production of a certain end. A further example of the purpose of nature is discussed in the earlier part of this paper, the purpose nature has for our sensations, which is to produce in us judgments about the existence of external qualities and of things having those qualities. The judgments that we form on the basis of our sensations are therefore no mere accidental or incidental by-products of those sensations but are rather the explanation of the fact that we possess a faculty of sensation. The move from sensation to judgment is evidently too important to be left to our will; it occurs instead by a necessity of our nature. Because it is essential that we make reliable judgments about the world in which we live, God has given us a natural mechanism for fulfilling this purpose that he has for us. Let us therefore wonder about the move we make, by a necessity of our nature, from moral judgment to feeling, and ask what purpose of nature, if any, is served by this move. If we find one this will demonstrate a yet greater similarity between external sense and moral sense. I think there are two plausible answers to our question. The first concerns the possibility of moral action. At times Reid speaks as though the presence of the moral judgment can be sufficient to produce moral action. Thus he writes: A judge, from a regard to justice, and to the duty of his office, dooms a criminal to die, while, from humanity or particular affection, he desires that he should live ... The determination of the mind may be, not to do what we desire to do. (Reid, 1863, p. 532a) Here certainly there seems an implication that, in so far as the judge has moved from judgment to feeling, the judgment has produced a feeling which works against the direction of the judgment. And hence if the judge acts on the basis of his judgment concerning what justice demands he will not have feeling on his side. Evidently in this situation he is able to act even if there is no feeling produced by the judgment. For if he can act according to his judgment when his feelings say ‘no’, he can surely act according to his judgment when his feelings are silent. And in that case we have not yet found a purpose of nature in our movement from judgment to feeling. However the situation is more complicated than the last point suggests for, first, we need to consider the concept of ‘regard’ that Reid employs when he says that the judge acts from a regard to justice. For it is possible that this regard includes an affective element. But secondly, we have to remember that for Reid there is a necessary connection between judgment and
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feeling, and it would be odd if he thought that if there were just one feeling produced by a moral judgment it might be a feeling that actually worked against the judgment. A judgment might produce several feelings, but I am speaking here of the feeling which is, in the appropriate sense, necessarily connected with the moral judgment. In this respect a passage concerning Richard Price is particularly significant: I am very apt to think, with Dr Price, that, in intelligent beings, the desire of what is good, and aversion to what is ill, is necessarily connected with the intelligent nature; and that it is a contradiction to suppose such a being to have the notion of good without the desire of it, or the notion of ill without aversion to it. (Reid, 1863, p. 581a) This certainly suggests that the feeling which is necessarily connected with moral judgment, connected, that is, by the nature of our constitution, is always a feeling which works with and never against the moral judgment. The judge therefore, who acted as justice required and despite his sense of humanity must be supposed to have had more than the feeling of humanity; he must also have had a feeling that went with the grain of his judgment. And it might therefore be speculated that this feeling with the grain of the judgment was necessary for the performance of the act required by the judgment. If it were, we may have to conclude that nature’s purpose in moving us from judgment to feeling is precisely to create the possibility of the performance required by the moral judgment. Without moving far from the point just made, I should like to turn now to the second of the two suggestions that I wish to make concerning the natural purpose implicit in the fact that, by the constitution of our nature, we move from moral judgment to feeling. I have already quoted part of the following: Our moral judgments are not like those we form in speculative matters, dry and unaffecting, but, from their nature, are necessarily accompanied with affections and feelings ... we approve of good actions, and disapprove of bad; and this approbation and disapprobation, when we analyse it, appears to include, not only a moral judgment of the action, but some affection, favourable or unfavourable, towards the agent, and some feeling in ourselves. (Reid, 1863, p. 592a) A similar triplet of elements is to be found later: ‘In the approbation of a good action, therefore, there is feeling indeed, but there is also esteem of the agent; and both the feeling and the esteem depend upon the judgment we form of his conduct’ (Reid, 1863, p. 673). The distinction between the ‘dry and unaffecting’ judgments of speculation and the judgments of morality takes us, I think, to the heart of the matter. Morality is not simply a matter
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of judging but also of responding affectively to the moral value of things embodying such value. To judge that an act is morally good is not in itself to value the act. For this, we must in addition feel esteem for the agent and also feel pleasure at the performance, both things. In advancing in this way from judgment, nature’s purpose is served, for it is not nature’s purpose that we judge in a ‘dry and unaffecting way’ about morality. I think that it is with this consideration in mind that Reid affirms; ‘Nor can we conceive a greater depravity in the heart of man, than it would be to see and acknowledge worth without feeling any respect to it; or to see and acknowledge the highest worthlessness without any degree of dislike and indignation’ (Reid, 1863, p. 592b). From one point of view Reid has already excluded the possibility of this level of depravity, because his doctrine is that moral judgment is necessarily accompanied by a feeling which goes with the grain of the judgment. From this it seems to follow that a degree of depravity marked by the presence of the judgment and the absence of the corresponding feeling would not be according to a properly human constitution. But that might well be the way that Reid would prefer to respond to the fact that he appears to have excluded the possibility of the depravity he describes. When he sets up his position he is not speaking about what might take place in a soul suffering from a high level of moral corruption. In this respect the situation is similar to Reid’s teaching on principles of common sense, which are part of the constitution of the human mind, for it can happen that some of these principles are ‘strangely perverted from their natural form, and others checked, or perhaps quite eradicated’ (Reid, 1997, p. 14; cf. also his comment on the man who thinks he is made of glass. Reid, 1997, p. 16). On the basis of the foregoing interpretation of Reid’s assertions about the attribution of moral values, we have to conclude that there are two things involved, related as act to object. There is first the act of valuing which is a complex act of mind involving both intellect and sentiment, and secondly the value of that which is thus valued. In this respect the term ‘value’ has an ambiguity of a kind to which, as we noted earlier, Reid attends with care in his discussions of perception of the external world, as when he notes that we taste something and the something has a taste, the former taste being a sensation and the latter being a quality whose conception enters into a judgment. We have here therefore a further parallel between external sense and moral sense, one which substantially deepens the analogy, already demonstrated, between the two sorts of sense. It is however necessary to emphasise not merely the similarities in Reid’s doctrines concerning the two types of sense, but also the unity of the overall doctrine and its progressive form. What Reid is dealing with is not just an analogy but a two-stage process in our encounter with the world. First there is a sensation, considered purely as an act of mind and wholly nonintentional, and a movement therefrom to a conception of an external
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quality and to a judgment about the existence of an object having that quality. Secondly there is a conception of a moral value and a judgment that something embodies that moral value, and a movement therefrom to a feeling or set of feelings proper to such a judgment. Thus for example 1 have a sensation which, by a movement dictated by the constitution of my nature, produces in me a judgment about the existence of a person’s act. On the basis of that judgment, and also on the basis of moral conceptions and moral judgments whose source is my moral sense or my conscience, I judge that that act has a given value, and on the basis of that judgment, and by a movement dictated by the constitution of my nature, have some affection, favourable or unfavourable, towards the agent, and also have a feeling appropriate to the moral judgment though not directed towards the agent. First therefore I become acquainted with things in the world and then I value them. In the Inquiry Reid develops a theory of external sense and in the Active Powers a theory of moral sense and, as we have seen, the structural similarities between the two theories are impressive. It might be thought that we are dealing here with nothing more than a set of coincidences, but I am sure that we are not. Precisely why we are not is part of a further story. But it has to be remembered that for Reid, who above all else defends a realist position in respect of our knowledge of the external world and of morality, the first step that has to be taken against Hume is to recognise that a faculty of sense is essentially a faculty of judgment and that judgment is a different kind of thing from sensation or feeling. Judgment involves an act of conception of a quality where the quality is by its nature different from sensation or feeling. And in addition to judgment and conception the exercise of a faculty of sense must of course involve acts of sensing. We have therefore three elements, sensation, conception and judgment, whether we are dealing with external sense or moral sense. Furthermore in the case of each type of sense there is a radical difference in kind, I mean a metaphysical difference, between our sensation and the quality which, by the constitution of our nature, is associated with the sensation. Then a question arises concerning the order of these elements in the exercise of the two faculties. As we have seen, the two senses are different in respect of the ordering of the elements. Nevertheless for each of the two senses the overall structure with the three elements has to be in place, given Reid’s realist agenda. That there are fundamental similarities between the two senses is therefore no mere coincidence.
Note This essay was originally published as Broadie, Alexander (1998), Reid Making Sense of Moral Sense’, in Reid Studies, 2, 5–16. Reprinted with kind permission of the author and The Journal of Scottish Philosophy (the journal that has incorporated Reid Studies).
6 Reid and Modern Theories of Emotions Marion Ledwig
6.1
Introduction
There are two main reasons why one should relate Reid to modern theories of emotions: (1) It was Reid’s intention to apply the Newtonian method not only to physics but first and foremost also to the mind (Ledwig, 2005, p. 2). Hence, as today the necessary means for studying the mind become more and more available, it seems fitting to see what Reid already was able to find out about the emotions. (2) Reid’s account of instincts doesn’t differ so much from Nikolaas Tinbergen’s contemporary account (Ledwig, 2005, Chapter 1). Because Reid was so groundbreaking with regard to instincts, it could be possible that he also might have had groundbreaking ideas with regard to the emotions. Therefore, it seems worthwhile to find out whether there is a connection between Reid’s account of the emotions and contemporary accounts in order to contribute to Reid scholarship with regard to the emotions and in order to improve Reid’s reputation as an important philosopher. Reid was a common sense philosopher. If you are a common sense philosopher only certain emotion theories could turn out to be true; for instance, an emotion theory which has absurd consequences might not be a good emotion theory to have even according to Reid’s standards, because he considers a reductio ad absurdum as one criterion which a common sense theory has to pass successfully (Reid, 1969a, p. 606). However, common sense might not be enough for a good theory of the emotions, because common sense lags behind science (Dummett, 1979, p. 35), and therefore common sense also lags behind a science-based philosophy of the mind. Hence, it is important to see what in particular Reid has to advance in the case of a conflict of a science-based philosophy of the mind with common sense. A common sense theory of the emotions could for instance advance that love is an emotion, because the belief that love is an emotion is a universal belief and universality was for instance one of the criteria of common sense according to Balmes (Clark, 1990, p. 218; cf. Ledwig, 103
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2007, pp. 47–48) and also one of the criteria of common sense according to Buffier (Marcil-Lacoste, 1982, pp. 34–35; cf. Ledwig, 2007, p. 48) and also according to Reid (Lobkowicz, 1986, pp. 118–127; Jensen, 1979, p. 360; cf. Ledwig, 2007, p. 39, 47). There are, however, some philosophers today who doubt that love belongs to the emotions (cf. Goldie, 2000, p. 105) and who therefore wouldn’t advance a common sense theory of the emotions. One of the many different interpretations of common sense which Reid gives is his identification of common sense with common use in language (Reid, 1969b, p. 179) and this view still has a connection to contemporary philosophy by means of ordinary language philosophy in Wittgenstein, Austin, and Searle, who are also considered common sense philosophers (cf. Ledwig, 2007, Chapter 1). In case common sense conflicts with philosophy, according to Reid cases of vulgar error should be corrected by philosophy (Reid, 1969a, p. 14). As I said in the previous paragraph, common sense could advance that love is an emotion, because it is a universally held belief that love is an emotion. Indeed Reid was of the opinion that love belongs to the benevolent affections (Reid, 1969b, pp. 154–155). It is also a universally held belief that love is not something short-lived which only lasts for a few seconds or minutes, but something which lasts for months or even years. The intensity of the emotion is not at issue here, but only the emotion’s duration. However, according to the current scientifically oriented emotion theorist Ben-Ze’ev (2000a, p. 48), the basic characteristics of typical emotions are instability, great intensity, a partial perspective, and brevity of duration. If Ben-Ze’ev is right that typical emotions are indeed short-lived, then love would not turn out to be a typical emotion which would go against our common understanding of love as a typical emotion. Hence any common sense theory which would advance the view that love is an emotion would be inconsistent with Ben-Ze’ev’s current account of the emotions. Moreover, in case Ben-Ze’ev’s view turns out to be right that typical emotions are indeed short-lived, this would falsify any theory which advances that emotions are long-lived. Reid, however, doesn’t specify that love is long-lived. That common sense notions of the emotions might be considered problematical in contemporary theories is in accordance with what the biomedical engineer Fellous and the neuroscientist Le Doux (2005, pp. 84–85) state, namely that in most discussions of how the limbic system mediates emotion, the term ‘emotion’ is used in such a way that it resembles the common English-language use of the term, that is to say ‘feelings’; yet according to these authors, the common English use of the term ‘emotion’ is a poor theoretical notion, because ‘emotion’ is actually a very rich and complex theoretical concept with many different nuances, some of which
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turn out to be nonintuitive and therefore are inconsistent with the ordinary use of the term. After this short introduction, I will give an overview of the emotions in Reid relating his theory to current accounts, which is followed by a section on emotions and their objects comparing Reid to contemporary accounts of the emotions. When dealing with contemporary accounts of the emotions, I will only give a short summary of Damasio’s and Griffiths’s theories, because I explored their connection to Reid in previous work (Ledwig, 2005, Chapter 3). In section 6.4, I will investigate how emotions and judgments are related to each other in Reid and compare that to contemporary accounts, while in section 6.5, I will elaborate on the function of emotions in Reid and current theories. The chapter ends by drawing some general conclusions.
6.2
Affection and passion
In Reid affection and passion fall under animal principles of action; the latter operate upon the will and intention, but don’t suppose any reason or judgment. Reid doesn’t use the term ‘emotion’, but only uses the terms ‘affection’ and ‘passion’ (Ledwig, 2005, p. 49). Reid distinguishes between benevolent and malevolent affections on the one side and passions on the other side (Ledwig, 2005, p. 50). The distinction between affection and passion is an important one, for according to Reid (1969b, p. 179) passion is much more vehement than affection, but otherwise doesn’t differ from affection in its kind. Hence, passion can have a great effect on moral and other kinds of behavior. In particular, the following two text passages by Reid support the distinction between benevolent and malevolent affections: But there are various principles of action in man, which have persons for their immediate object, and imply ... our being well or ill affected to some person, or ... to some animated being. Such principles I shall call by the general name of affections, whether they dispose us to do good or hurt to others. (Reid, 1969b, p. 139; cf. also Reid, undated a) And: The principles which lead us immediately to desire the good of others, and those that lead us to desire their hurt, agree in this, that persons, and not things, are their immediate object. Both imply our being some way affected toward the person. They ought therefore to have some common name to express what is common in their nature; and I know no name more proper for this than affection. Taking affection therefore in this extensive sense, our affections are very naturally divided into benevolent
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and malevolent, according as they imply our being well or ill affected towards their object. (Reid, 1969b, pp. 140–141; cf. also Reid, undated a; Reid, undated b) Reid admits that he extends the meaning of the word ‘affection’ beyond its common use by giving it this general name; furthermore, Reid (1969b, p. 140) argues that As we give the name of passion, even to benevolent affection when it is so vehement as to discompose the mind, so, ..., we may give the name of affection even to malevolent principles, when unattended with that disturbance of mind which commonly, ..., goes along with them, and which has made them get the name of passions. That Reid extends the meaning of the word affection beyond its common use, is in accordance with what Fellous and Le Doux (see section 6.1 of this chapter) said with regard to how the term emotion is understood in most discussions on how the limbic system mediates emotions. Hence, we already have found a parallel between Reid’s account of the emotions and contemporary accounts, namely that both Reid and at least some contemporary accounts don’t advance a common sense theory of the emotions (cf. also Goldie, 2000, p. 105), although Reid uses the word passion as it is understood in common language. This is an important parallel, because it might reasonably suggest that a common sense theory of the emotions might not be a viable position to hold. For Reid passions are nothing but strong desires and affections, so what is said about affections in Reid also applies to passions (Ledwig, 2005, p. 51). Moreover, for Reid passion has the following effects: (1) agitation of mind of limited duration, (2) changes in voice, features, and gesture, (3) one’s thoughts are involuntarily turned to the passion’s related objects, so that one almost cannot think of anything else, and (4) passion biases in many cases one’s judgment in such a way that one is blind to everything that might change one’s passion and that one is quick-sighted in everything that might fuel one’s passion (Reid, 1969b, pp. 175–176). Affections differ from passions in Reid in such a way that the former are calm, while the latter are violent; also, affections and passions can be agreeable, but can also be uneasy (Ledwig 2005, p. 54). Finally, while one finds the distinction between indirect and direct passions in Hume, there is no such distinction in Reid (Ledwig, 2005, p. 53). Also in contemporary accounts of the passions one doesn’t find such a distinction. That is to say, in Hume’s account (2000, p. 214) indirect passions have a person as an object – oneself in the case of pride and in the case of humility, and someone else in the case of love and in the case of hate – whereas direct passions such as fear, hope, desire, and aversion don’t have to have a person as an object. That is, fear
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is of something, desire is for something,and so on (cf. Ainslie, 1999, p. 471). With regard to a definition of direct and indirect passions, Hume (2000, p. 182) states the following: By direct passions I understand such as arise immediately from good or evil, from pain or pleasure. By indirect such as proceed from the same principles, but by the conjunction of other qualities. Unfortunately Hume doesn’t specify any further what he means by these ‘other qualities’ in that passage. In contemporary accounts, however, such as de Sousa’s (2003), further distinctions are to be found as we will see in section 6.3, namely that an emotion can have three different kinds of object, that is, a target, a focus, and a propositional object, and the terminology of indirect and direct passions has completely vanished. Contemporary researchers identify the intentionality of an emotion with the object of an emotion (cf. Siemer, 2001, p. 454). The latter identification might also explain why Reid only talks of the object of an emotion, as we will see in section 6.3 of this chapter, and not of the intentionality of an emotion. With regard to contemporary emotion theorists, one doesn’t find the term ‘affection’ any longer in the literature, but the term ‘affect’ (see for instance Ekman, 1972; Ortony, Norman, and Revelle, 2005). De Sousa (2003), for example, claims that Ekman considers emotional expressions as important parts of ‘affect programs’, which are complex responses found in all human populations; the latter are controlled by mechanisms operating below the level of consciousness. If one compares this account of affect programs with Reid’s account of the affections, it becomes apparent that Reid doesn’t state anything in particular with regard to affections operating below the level of consciousness, so that Reid and contemporary accounts might mean something different when they both use the term ‘affect’. With regard to the term ‘passion’, this term isn’t used any longer in the contemporary clinical psychological literature, but one can still find it used in the philosophical literature. For instance, Robert Solomon (1979, p. 6) states that the term ‘passion’ makes up the generic term, whereas the term ‘emotion’ refers to one of the species, which is in contrast to moods and desires; the latter are passions but not emotions. Unfortunately, Solomon doesn’t become more specific with regard to what distinguishes emotions from moods and desires in that article. Solomon (1979, p. 4) points out that Ricoeur (1966) distinguishes between emotions and passions and stays with the involuntaristic tradition, in the sense that both emotion and passion are involuntary. According to Solomon (1979, p. 6), Ricoeur in Freedom and Nature claims that emotion is the first stirring of feeling while passion is its full-grown and often violent development. Yet, even on this simple point, Ricoeur is not
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at ease. On the same page as the preceding illustrations, he comments; ‘There are always emotions which passion revives from a minor shock. In this sense all passion, which has the entire body to amplify it, takes on emotive form,’ [Ricoeur, 1966, p. 278] and, a bit before, ‘emotion is born of passion and passion of emotion.’ [Ricoeur, 1966, p. 277] And, ‘The majority of emotions, such as joy, sadness, fear or anger, arise from a ground in passion which introduces an involuntary factor other than wonder or shock. Here emotion appears as an ardent moment of passion.’ [Ricoeur, 1966, p. 277] Hence, if Solomon’s interpretation of Ricoeur is correct, then there is a certain parallel between Reid and Ricoeur, for both of them maintain that passions are nothing but strong affections, although Reid doesn’t make a claim with regard to whether emotions can be the origin of passions and vice versa. One can find another parallel between Ricoeur and Reid. For according to Berner (2001), Ricoeur advanced the view that Emotional impoverishment is one of the hallmarks of the genesis of evil. (Ricoeur, 1992) While Reid is of the opinion that moral judgments are accompanied by affections or passions as we will see in section 6.4 of this chapter, Ricoeur also maintains a connection between emotions and morals. A further parallel is that according to Dauenhauer (2008), Ricoeur (1991; 1992) takes moral norms to be universal, whereas Reid (1969a, p. 360) advances first principles of morals which are held universally (Reid 1969a, p. 608). Moreover, Ricoeur’s notion of practical wisdom which he uses in order to determine what is best when respect for a universal law conflicts with respect for another person (Dauenhauer 2008), seems to be very similar to Reid’s notion of common sense. According to Solomon (1979, p. 4), in Ricoeur the connection between emotions, passions, and judgments consists in fast implicit value judgments which are bodily judgments. In Reid, however, as we have seen, affections and passions are animal principles of action which don’t involve any judgments. Yet, in both Reid and Ricoeur the will is involved. In Reid this is the case with regard to animal principles of action. According to Reid (1969b, p. 200) animal principles of action are blind desires which require intention and will. Ricoeur (1966, p. 277) makes the following claim: Passion is consciousness which binds itself. It is the will making itself prisoner of imaginary evils, a captive of Nothing, or better, of Vanity. Since its role is to rule over its body, the will can only be its own slave. Nourished by the wind and victim of the vertigo of fatality, passion is in its essence wholly mental. But it has very close dealings with emotion,
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which is most frequently its physical stirring. ... Hence the ambiguity of most emotions which bring together the truly corporeal involuntary emotion strictly speaking and the intimate involuntary of passions. From all the foregoing we can conclude that there are surprising parallels between Ricoeur and Reid, parallels which so far have not been detected in Reid scholarship, although other French philosophers such as RoyerCollard, Cousin, and Jouffroy were also influenced by the philosophy of common sense (Grave, 1960, pp. 2–4; Martin, 1961, p. 176). Yet, no one has so far pointed out a connection between Reid and any contemporary French philosopher. The connection between Reid and Ricoeur might solidify itself, though, if one considers that both Reid and Ricoeur are influenced by Aristotle (Reid, 2005; Dauenhauer, 2008).
6.3 Emotions and their objects After having established the distinction between benevolent and malevolent affections on the one side and passions on the other side in Reid and after having related Reid to Ricoeur’s view on the emotions and passions, one can ask oneself what emotions are made of. In Reid affections consist of two components, namely on the one hand a feeling or a sensation and on the other hand an object (Reid, 1969b, p. 141; Ledwig, 2005, p. 52). Furthermore, Reid (1969a, p. 29) distinguishes between the following two meanings of feelings or sensations: First, it signifies the perceptions we have of external objects by the sense of touch. When we speak of feeling a body to be hard or soft, ..., to feel these things, is to perceive them by touch. They are external things, and that act of the mind by which we feel them, is easily distinguished from the objects felt: secondly, the word feeling is used to signify the same thing as sensation, ...; and, in this sense, it has no object; the feeling and the thing felt are one and the same. In my opinion, in the case of affections the second meaning is adequate for the first component of affections, because affections in Reid are not related to the sense of touch as is typical of feelings in the first meaning. One might want to object that if these feelings in this second meaning don’t have objects that feeling and object can’t be related in affection according to Reid. Yet, what Reid here means is for example that the pain I feel is the same as my feeling the pain, and not that your humiliation pains me. That affections are not related to the sense of touch in Reid might be debatable, however. For passions are related to the body in Reid (1969b, p. 175). Because affections just differ in degree and not in kind from passions (Reid, 1969b, p. 179), affections might also be related to the body,
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although not so drastically. Hence in Reid both meanings of feeling and sensation are adequate for the first component of affections (Ledwig, 2005, p. 52). Reid (1969a, p. 248) calls sensation proper those feelings or sensations which human beings have in common with animals and which belong to the animal part of our nature, while feelings proper are those feelings or sensations which belong to the rational and moral part of our nature. That emotions have an object has been commonly recognized in the contemporary literature on the emotions (cf. Ledwig, 2006, p. 153); this in contrast with moods, which supposedly don’t have objects. For example de Sousa (2003) claims that emotions mostly have an object and a justification. Also Nussbaum (2001, p. 24, pp. 133–135) maintains that emotions have an object, even if it is a vague, highly general, or hidden one. Goldie (2000, pp. 17–18), however, states that emotions only have more specific objects than moods, that is to say, he in contrast to de Sousa and Nussbaum doesn’t find a qualitative difference between emotions and moods but only a quantitative difference. De Sousa (2003) points out that an emotion can have three different kinds of object, namely a target, a focus, and a propositional object. For example, love has a target in that it is directed at a particular object. A number of aspects of the loved one may be the motive for the focus of the emotion, such as good manners, good looks, certain skills the person has, and so on. One can say ‘I am angry that p’, as in ‘I am angry that Peter missed the date’, so that a propositional object is involved. Although Reid doesn’t distinguish between different kinds of objects which an emotion can have, he quite clearly acknowledges that they have an object, in the sense of having a target, such as a person or an animated being (Reid, 1969b, p. 139). With regard to Reid’s claim that emotions have a feeling component, there are also contemporary multi-component theories of the emotions which include a feeling component, such as developed by Ben-Ze’ev (2000a, p. 48). In this regard, Aleman, Medford, and David (2006, p. 194) point out that Scherer (2004) proposed that three hypothetical types of central representation can be distinguished in the emotion process: (1) unconscious reflection and regulation (involving cognitive appraisal, physiological symptoms, motor expression and action tendencies); (2) conscious representation and regulation (involving feelings); and (3) verbalisation and communication of emotional experience. Hence, not only Reid, but also contemporary accounts of the emotions consider feelings as one component of the emotions. In Reid’s account one could also find motor expression, action tendencies, and communication of emotional experience, if one takes changes in voice, features, and gesture as falling under these categories and if one takes into account that emotions are just reduced passions in Reid. Moreover, that passions often give a
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strange bias to one’s judgment on Reid’s account seems similar to a tainted appraisal process discussed by Scherer. Another question is which kinds of feelings we are actually talking about when we say that a person might be angry for years without feeling constantly angry. Is it bodily feelings or sensations, such as your heart racing, or is it feelings towards something, such as feeling fear towards the snake in front of you (Goldie, 2000, p. 51)? In my opinion both types of feelings are constitutive of the emotions (Ledwig, 2006, p. 11). Just because an individual, for example, is upset without knowing why this is so, does not force us to infer that there are no feelings towards an object involved. Furthermore, by deliberating the agent might become conscious of the object of his agitation. In my opinion bodily feelings seem to be part of feeling towards an object (Ledwig, 2006, p. 11). For how could we otherwise reasonably explain that the heart starts racing on seeing a bear six feet away, unless this feeling is aimed towards this particular bear’s appearance? However, other explanations could be found for the agent’s heart racing in this particular situation, such as having drunk five cups of very strong tea. Yet, if the heart always starts racing on seeing a bear, this attribution to the five cups of very strong tea becomes less and less reasonable (Ledwig, 2006, p. 11). Ultimately the question uprises: are bodily feelings and feelings towards an object the same? This does not seem to be the case, because bodily feelings do not have to be aimed at anything in particular (Ledwig, 2006, p. 11). The idea that bodily feelings don’t have to be directed at anything and that they don’t have to have an object corresponds to Reid’s second account of feelings (see above), where the pain I feel is the same as my feeling the pain. Yet, in Reid the second account of feelings assumes that feelings are acts of mind, whereas it is not so obvious that bodily feelings are actually acts of mind according to contemporary emotion theorists. Moreover, Reid also assumes that these acts of mind constitute objects. For the view that bodily feelings are at least to some extent acts of mind speaks that according to Panksepp (1998, p. 57) total separation of the viscera from the brain diminishes the intensity of emotions.
6.4
Emotions and judgments
What kind of relations do emotions have to judgments in Reid? This is an important question, because in Hume’s sentimentalism morality has more to do with one’s feelings than one’s judgments (Broadie, 1998, p. 11; Jaffro, 2006, p. 21). This has important consequences, for according to Reid, Hume’s non-cognitive model of moral judgment cannot explain how moral judgments cause and regulate feelings (Cuneo, 2006, p. 75). Moreover, if reason and feeling are inseparable according to Reid, this has an advantage over Hume’s model, namely that one can criticize, modify, and change one’s feelings (Pritchard, 1978, p. 296; cf. also Roeser, 2001, p. 25). Furthermore, if
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one is able to change one’s feelings or emotions, it is also possible to reason as to the agent’s emotional rationality and therefore it is possible to improve the agent’s emotional rationality. One can answer the question ‘what kind of relations do emotions have to judgments’ in Reid with regard to temporal relations (Ledwig, 2005, pp. 5556). Reid (1969b, pp. 164–165, 148) maintains that in the case of gratitude, deliberate resentment, esteem, and pity affection follows opinion, whereas in the case of friendship, self-love, and parental love opinion follows affection. Consequently, affections are not identical with opinions. Moreover, when Reid claims that affection follows opinion and vice versa, he doesn’t mean that affection causes opinion and vice versa, because Reid only uses the terms ‘create’, ‘influence’, and ‘follows’ (Reid, 1969b, pp. 164–165, p. 148). Reid (undated c) also doesn’t use the word ‘cause’, but points out that many of our affections and passions depend on judgment and portrays his view by maintaining that hope is founded on some apprehension of some future good and fear upon the contrary. Reid (1969b, pp. 462–463) admits, however, that in most cases when judgment is combined with feeling, the feeling results from the judgment and is regulated by it. In Reid affections and passions cannot be efficient causes of opinions, because only intelligent beings can be efficient causes (Reid, 2002c, p. 175). Moreover, in my opinion it is implausible to assume that affections and passions on the one side and opinions on the other side are connected by means of scientific causation in Reid (Ledwig, 2005, p. 56). For why doesn’t Reid use the term ‘cause’ if he really meant cause when he talks of the connection between affection and passion on the one side and opinions on the other side? In the letters to James Gregory, Reid (2002c, p. 174) admits that the word ‘cause’ is ambiguous and he points out that a reason, an end, an instrument and a motive is often called a cause. With regard to scientific causation, Reid (2002c, p. 178) however points out that A cause, in this sense, means only something which, by the laws of nature, the effect always follows. Yet when Reid considers what happens to a person who feels uneasiness when he is surpassed by someone in a race, Reid (1969b, p. 165) points out that two different effects may follow, namely that one gets motivated to run faster or that one tries to hinder one’s opponent. Besides the fact that Reid uses the word ‘may’ and not the words ‘has to’, the reference to two very different effects excludes the possibility of scientific causation. In Reid one finds a hierarchy among the benevolent affections which corresponds to their extent (Reid, 1969b, p. 161). That is, the good husband, father, friend, and neighbor are honored, but even more so is the person who benefits his country and mankind. Moreover, Reid’s reason for this hierarchy among the benevolent affections has to do with the fact that Reid considers
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only such affections as benevolent where the good of the object is desired ultimately and not as the means for something else (Reid, 1969b, p. 143). If there is such a hierarchy among the benevolent affections in Reid, this seems to suggest that a judgment is involved. For at least from an observer’s perspective one has to be able to evaluate the greatness of the impact of the desired object on people in order to determine the benevolence of the respective affection. This, however, is contradicting what Reid claimed with regard to animal principles of action (see section 6.2), namely that no judgment is involved, and this is problematical, because affections and passions are animal principles of action according to Reid. But perhaps Reid meant to say that judgments are not essential parts of animal principles of action, they rather follow affection and vice versa making it clear that judgments are distinct and apart from the affections. This evaluation gets supported by the following observations with regard to Reid’s account of the affections and passions. Besides the temporal connection, one can also say something with regard to the deterministic or probabilistic nature of the connection between the emotions and moral judgments in Reid (Ledwig, 2005, pp. 59–60): in Reid the moral judgments of a person are necessarily accompanied with affections and feelings, that is, while indifferent actions don’t produce affections and/or feelings (Reid, 1969b, p. 238), good actions are approved and bad actions are disapproved. Moreover, this approbation and disapprobation includes not only a moral judgment of the action, but some favorable or unfavorable affection towards the agent and in the agent. Yet, is it really the case that good respectively bad actions get morally judged and are accompanied by some favorable respectively unfavorable affection towards the agent and in the agent? In Ledwig (2005, p. 60) I argued that the emotionlessness of sociopaths and not the emotions of sadists, masochists, the approval of the killings of innocent people in the Colosseum in ancient Rome and/ or emotions towards a murderer seen on TV speak against Reid’s account of moral judgments. Although these are exceptional cases, one can doubt Reid’s claim that our moral judgments are necessarily accompanied with affections and feelings. With regard to contemporary theories of the emotions, the experiments by Schachter and Singer (1962) have demonstrated that cognition constitutes another integral part of the emotions next to feelings (Ledwig, 2006, p. 14). Ben-Ze’ev (2004, p. 451) points out that In Nussbaum’s view, emotions can be defined in terms of the cognitiveevaluative component alone (64). Emotions are judgments of value, which include cognitive aspects. She sees such judgments as not merely necessary constituent elements in the emotions, but also as sufficient elements – that is, if the emotion is not there, the judgments themselves are not fully ... there (44). If emotions are identified with judgments, then no other component is necessary or sufficient for emotions. Feelings and
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motivations (desires) in her view are intimately connected with emotions, but are not essential to them. Since Nussbaum says that emotions are judgments of value, Nussbaum’s question whether feelings are essential to emotion is similar to Reid’s question whether moral judgments are necessarily accompanied with emotions. Yet, just because Nussbaum holds that emotions are value judgments, this doesn’t have to mean that every value judgment involves an emotion. After all, the class of value judgments might be bigger than the class of emotions. In addition, for Nussbaum (2001) emotions are a subclass of judgments, whereas for Reid emotions and judgments accompany each other. Moreover, Reid in contradistinction to Nussbaum considers feelings as a component of an emotion (see section 6.3 of this chapter). With regard to emotions having a cognitive component, in some cases emotional responses might be triggered by certain patterns and consequently don’t need so much of a cognitive evaluation of the respective objects (Ledwig, 2006, p. 17). For instance, in human infants two eyes are the minimal visual stimulus which are needed to elicit the smiling response. This is insofar non-cognitive that a mere perception and not a cognitive evaluation is necessary for that response. Similarly, Jones (2003, p. 185; cf. also Le Doux 1996) highlights the fact that fear responses can start even before the relevant stimulus is processed by the visual or auditory cortices. Also Marks (1969, pp. 30–31) highlights the fact that children at the toddler stage are relaxed with live or toy animals until they see that the animal is stalking or rushing towards them, which according to Marks very probably causes immediate fear. In such a case one can consequently say that fear is triggered by a particular configuration of movements and not by the object itself (Marks, 1969, p. 31). This configuration of movements is the basis for a perception which then can be the object of a conscious cognitive evaluation. In Reid, however, these kinds of responses might rather fall under instincts (cf. Ledwig, 2005, Chapter 1) than under the affections or passions. In the literature, one finds the distinction between basic emotions and higher cognitive emotions (cf. Griffiths, 1997, pp. 14, 77–99, 100–122; Damasio, 1994, pp. 131–134, who similarly distinguishes between primary and secondary emotions). Higher cognitive emotions, which involve a judgment, such as in the case of an individual, who feels guilt, because it thought that it did something wrong, are very similar to what Roeser (2001, p. 22) calls ‘cognitive moral emotions’ in Reid, in which the affection and the feeling result from the judgment. Higher cognitive emotions cover such cases as envy, guilt, shame, pride, feelings of loyalty, and vengefulness. Yet, we don’t only find cognitive moral emotions in Reid, but also something like basic emotions, such as animal resentment, where there might not even be time for deliberation given (Reid, 1969b, p. 168). Hence,
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one might want to conclude that the contemporary distinction between basic and higher cognitive emotions goes as far back as Reid and that it might even coincide with Reid’s distinction between natural and rational affections, where rational affections differ from natural affections by being accompanied by an opinion of merit in the object (see section 6.5 of this chapter). Roeser (2001, p. 28) tried to improve Reid’s account of the cognitive moral emotions by clarifying that the feeling doesn’t merely result from the judgment, but actually interacts with the judgment. Yet, what happens in cases of affective inertia where an emotional feeling displays such inertia that it still lingers after the directed emotion in which it originated ceases? An example of such a case is when someone reports of himself: ‘I was still fuming, even though I was no longer angry at Peter after learning that he was not responsible’. Yet, in fact Roeser is of the opinion that feeling and cognition don’t have to interact, but that they can interact, so that this is no counterexample of Roeser’s account. Even so, Roeser and Reid could have also advanced that this phenomenon doesn’t prove that feelings are independent of emotions, for there is an alternative explanation for this phenomenon, namely that it takes time for a feeling to stop because of all the physiological effects needing to recede. Moreover, Reid could advance that in this particular case the feeling is still given, but the object has vanished, which explains why the emotion of anger is not present any longer which is in accordance with his theory, for according to Reid emotions consist of feelings and objects as components.
6.5
The function of emotions
Can emotions be considered rational in Reid, and therefore might they perhaps serve a rational function or even several rational functions? In Reid an affection is called rational if it is based on an opinion of merit in the object (Reid, 1969b, p. 148). While parental affection, pity, love, emulation, and animal resentment are not considered to be rational in Reid, but are called natural affections, esteem of wise and good persons, gratitude, and deliberate resentment are rather considered to be rational than natural (Reid, 1969b, pp. 145–174). With regard to current emotion theories, emotions can be termed rational, if one has good reasons for one’s emotion in the given situation, where good reasons stem from personal developmental processes and evolutionary processes (Ledwig, 2006, Chapter 1). In case the agent him- or herself is not aware of those reasons, the agent cannot ascribe rationality to his or her emotion from the first person perspective; yet, another person from the third person perspective in case he or she knows the agent’s personal developmental processes closely might know these good reasons and therefore might be justified in ascribing rationality to the
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agent’s emotions (Ledwig, 2006, p. 31). With regard to Reid’s opinion of merit in the object, one could defend the view that these opinions could constitute good reasons in my sense, so that there is not so much of a discrepancy between Reid and current emotion theories, although I specified in a more detailed way than Reid what kind of criteria a good reason has to fulfill in order to be called a good reason. Good reasons have to be consistent, solid, and robust. Reason a is solid, relative to a belief set K, in the case where a is robust against the removal of inconsistencies in this respective belief set K, and where reason a is robust with respect to reason b if P(a) is high and equal or very close to P(ab) (cf. Ledwig, 2006, Chapter 1). In my view and in contradistinction to Reid also parental affection, pity, love, emulation, and animal resentment could turn out to be rational, given that one has good reasons for the emotion in the given situation, where good reasons are as previously specified. As animal resentment probably seems to be the most irrational on this list and as it differs from all the other ones in an important way, I will make my position clearer by discussing this particular case: When considering animals one could argue that an animal doesn’t have the same kinds of reasons at its disposal that a human has. This agrees with the view which Jones (2003, pp. 189–190; cf. Ledwig, 2006, p. 29) has adopted, namely that it is probably necessary to distinguish between reason responders and reason trackers when one compares animals with human beings. A reason responder guides his or her action by means of a concept of its reasons as reasons, a reason tracker, however, is capable of registering reasons and to behave in accordance with them (by means of innate and learned behavior in the case of animals and sometimes also in the case of humans) and neither needs a concept of a reason nor have a self-conception. Thus, if you are a reason responder, as humans sometimes also are, reasons are at your disposal. Moreover, as retaliation of the ill that was done to the animal or human seems to be the main purpose of animal resentment (Reid, 1969b, p. 168) and as it doesn’t do existential harm to even occasionally retaliate against mere objects, such as a stone, because it wastes only a little energy, it seems rational to respond in such a way. I am not the only contemporary philosopher who defends the rationality of the emotions (cf. Ledwig, 2006, Chapter 1). We find something similar already in the classic de Sousa (1987), who is accompanied by Solomon (1993), Nussbaum (2001), Greenspan (2004), and so on. De Sousa (1987, p. 172; cf. also de Lancey, 2002) advances the following thesis: we need to know when not to retrieve some irrelevant information from the vast store of which we are possessed. But how do we know it is irrelevant unless we have already retrieved it? I proffer a very general biological hypothesis: Emotions spare us the paralysis potentially induced by this predicament by controlling the salience of features of perception and reasoning.
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De Sousa not only considers emotions to be rational, but also defends the view that they serve a function: The function of emotions is to fill gaps left by ... ’pure reason’ in the determination of action and belief, by mimicking the encapsulation of perception: it is one of Nature’s ways of dealing with the philosophers’ frame problem. (De Sousa, 1987, p. 195; cf. also Ledwig, 2006, p. 50) The philosophers’ frame problem means how to make use of what we need from induction, knowledge, and logic, so that we can live our lives properly, and how not to retrieve what is not needed. Concerning the encapsulation of perception, de Sousa (1987, p. 195) explains: The role of emotion is to supply the insufficiency of reason by imitating the encapsulation of perceptual modes. For a variable but always limited time, an emotion limits the range of information that the organism will take into account, the inferences actually drawn from a potential infinity, and the set of live options among which it will choose. De Sousa is not the only contemporary scholar who defends the view that emotions serve a function. We find that view also expressed in Lazarus (1991), who advances that emotions have a motivational function, namely coping, in Öhman, Flykt and Lundqvist (2000, p. 297), who advance an evolutionary function of the emotions, and in Frijda according to Denollet, Nyklíček, and Vingerhoets (2008, p. 3), where emotions serve an interpersonal, communicative function. Johnson-Laird and Oatley (1992, p. 201) defend a very similar thesis to de Sousa, namely in case there is no fully rational solution available for a decision problem, a basic emotion prompts us in a direction that is better than chance. Oatley and Johnson-Laird (1987) have argued for the view that the function of emotions consists in filling the gap between fixed action patterns and rationality. So according to modern emotion theorists, emotions are or at least can be considered to be rational and they can fulfill a rational function. Ben-Ze’ev (2000b) highlights the fact that emotions also serve a function in Reid’s work, namely that emotions in many cases supply the defects of reason. To this I wish to add that emotions serve a rational function in Reid, taken in such a sense that emotions are instruments to the best outcomes. According to Reid, reason is supported by affections and passions to preserve life, human beings, and even is used for excelling in the arts, the sciences, and government, as one can see from the following points: Reid (1969b, p. 148) maintains that (1) the upbringing of children requires so much time and care, that, if it were done by means of reason and duty alone and were not made more palatable by affection in their guardians,
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one could reasonably doubt that many children were raised in that way. (2) Reid (1969b, p. 185) claims that if one wants to excel in the arts or sciences one must love and admire them or must have a desire for fame. For without these affections one wouldn’t undergo the labor and fatigue of one’s faculties in order to achieve these ends. (3) Reid (1969b, p. 185) maintains: If the passions for fame and distinction were extinguished, it would be difficult to find men ready to undertake the cares and toils of government; and few perhaps would make the exertions necessary to raise themselves above the ignoble vulgar. According to Reid emotions are instruments to the best outcomes, although also instinct, habit, and reason work towards these ends. With regard to the latter something similar is defended by the contemporary philosopher Robert Solomon (1993, p. 222; cf. also Solomon, 1977a), who claims that emotions are subjective strategies for the maximization of personal dignity and self-esteem. However, if that holds for all emotions, then also sadness should maximize the person’s dignity and self-esteem. Yet, how can it be that sadness maximizes the agent’s personal dignity and self-esteem (cf. Audi, 1977; Quinn, 1977)? Solomon (1977b, p. 131) replies by stating that self-esteem involves the self-image a person has and also involves what kind of person one wants to be. Consequently, for someone who wants to be the type of individual who cries when a loved person passes away, crying when that loved one dies maximizes their self-esteem. Yet, a person who is crying does not show many signs of dignity and therefore does not maximize his or her dignity in that way (Ledwig 2006, p. 22). With regard to point number one above, that is, how in Reid reason is aided by affections and passions to preserve life, the continuation of mankind, and so on, we can find something similar in Rolls (2005, pp. 126–127) who in his list of functions of emotions includes the following functions: 5. Social bonding. Examples of this are the emotions associated with the attachment of parents to their young and the attachment of young to their parents. The attachment of parents to each other is also beneficial in species, such as many birds and humans. ... 6. The current mood state can affect the cognitive evaluation of events or memories. ... This may facilitate continuity in the interpretation of the reinforcing value of events in the environment. Rolls is not the only contemporary emotion theorist who noticed the social bonding function of emotions. For Hendriks, Nelson, Cornelius, and Vingerhoets (2008, p. 87) maintain that crying serves several interpersonal functions, one of the most important ones being to communicate distress
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to others and to facilitate social bonding with others; in this way crying improves the physiologic and psychological well-being of the suffering person. Breazeal and Brooks (2005, p. 274; cf. also Greenspan, 2001, for the case of depression), report another function which sadness has besides social bonding and communicating distress to others which Reid hasn’t noticed yet, namely its ability to slow the cognitive and motor systems down; the former might ensure a more careful and deliberate scrutiny of the self and the circumstances in which one is in in adults, which allows individuals to gain a new perspective, so that they can improve their performances in the future. Rolls was also not the only contemporary emotion theorist who noticed the connection between memories and the emotions on the one hand and reinforcement and the emotions on the other hand (number six in the above list), for Ortony, Norman, and Revelle (2005, p. 196) claim that there is some neuroscientific evidence that emotions are a prerequisite for establishing long-term memories; another function of emotions is to provide possibilities for learning ranging from simple forms of reinforcement learning to complex learning as is necessary for conscious planning and experimentation. Yet, Ortony, Norman, and Revelle (2005, p. 196) have also highlighted a connection between the emotions and the allocation of attention – a fact ignored by Rolls and Reid, namely that negative affect tends to result in the focusing of attention on local details neglecting the global structure. So far we have only talked about the emotions, but Reid also has an account of the passions, so that one may equally ask whether passions serve a function, too. Reid’s claim that passion often makes us do the wrong thing needs a little correction (Ledwig, 2005, p. 58), because Reid has probably overlooked the following fact: anger given that one’s wallet has been stolen might have the function of deterring future thieves or jealousy if one’s partner flirts with another potential mate might keep the partner from further flirtatious adventures, and so on. Yet, as passions just differ in degree from the emotions in Reid (see section 6.2 of this chapter), everything what I said with regard to the emotions should hold with regard to the passions, too. Consequently also the passions should serve a function in Reid.
6.6 Conclusion Reid and contemporary accounts of the emotions suggest that a common sense theory of the emotions might not be a viable position to hold, for Reid goes in his characterization of affection beyond its common use and in contemporary accounts of how the limbic system mediates emotion emotion gets conflated with feeling due to taking over a common use notion of emotion, whereas emotion theorists actually think that emotion is a much
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richer concept. In Reid affections consist of two components, namely on the one hand a feeling or a sensation and on the other hand an object, which can also be found in contemporary accounts. One could argue for the view that Reid’s distinction between natural and rational affections finds a parallel in the contemporary distinction between basic and cognitive emotions. While Reid ascribes rationality only to some emotions, I have advanced that all emotions can be deemed rational. This is also advocated by other contemporary emotion theorists, such as Solomon, de Sousa, and Johnson-Laird and Oatley. In Reid emotions serve a function, for instance a social bonding function. The latter has also been observed by Rolls on the one hand and Hendriks, Nelson, Cornelius, and Vingerhoets on the other hand. All of this establishes Reid as an important predecessor and perhaps even mastermind of contemporary accounts of the emotions and that we can learn considerably by studying his work.
Part III Reid on Moral Agency
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7 Thomas Reid on Determinism René van Woudenberg
Reid has been widely hailed as a champion of ‘libertarian freedom’, i.e. of the thesis that human beings have free will in a way that is incompatible with determinism (e.g. Rowe, 1991; O’Connor, 1994). I have no objection whatsoever against this portrayal of Reid; it is correct. It should be noted, however, that in Reid’s work ‘determinism’ is the name of a thesis that is strikingly different from the thesis that currently goes by that name. To the best of my knowledge, extant discussions of Reid’s moral philosophy have paid no attention to this fact. This paper aims to rectify that situation. More specifically it aims to discuss Reid’s criticisms of determinism as he understood it.
7.1
What is determinism?
According to the current lore (e.g. Fischer, 1986, p. 33; Van Inwagen 1986, p. 242) determinism is the thesis that at every point in its history, the world has only one possible future. Somewhat more picturesquely it is the thesis that were the history of the world to be ‘rolled back’ to a particular time point in the past, say 1555 and from then onwards were to enfold in the future direction again, history would take all the twists and turns that the actual history of the world has taken from 1555 onwards. Somewhat less picturesquely, determinism is the thesis that the laws of nature and the state of the world at a particular time t entail the state of the world at any other time t*. Eighteenth century determinism is defined in a strikingly different manner – as I will now proceed to show. A first step in that direction requires the introduction of the notion of ‘determination of the will’, a notion that figures prominently in Reid’s discussion of freedom and determinism. Consider the following things that one might will, or that one might not will: ● ● ●
going to Amsterdam climbing Mt. Blanc going to the London Philharmonic Orchestra 123
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and next consider someone who wills any of the things; then ask yourself: what is the mental state that person is in? Most likely you will think that person is in the state of wanting or wishing to go to Amsterdam, and so on. But that is not the way Reid and his fellow-discussants thought about willing (or about exercising the will). To will any of these things, they held, is to decide to do any of these things. When one wills to go to Amsterdam, one decides to go to Amsterdam. And when one wills to go to Amsterdam, they said, one’s will is determined. When you haven’t decided whether or not you are going to Amsterdam, your will is undetermined. But when you have decided to go, your will is determined. So, when you will to go to Amsterdam (when you decided to go there) then going to Amsterdam is ‘the determination of your will’ i.e. then that is how your will is determined.1 The deep divide between Reid and the determinists opens up when it is asked by what our wills are determined, or what the causes of the determination of our wills are. The determinist’s answer is, basically, that our wills are always determined by what is itself involuntary: they are determined either by involuntary states of mind (desires, aversions, hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, appetites, passions, affections – see Reid, 1969b, p. 58) or by external circumstances. The determinations of our wills, they affirm, are the ‘necessary consequences’ of involuntary mental as well as non-mental states. Reid, by contrast holds that our wills are at least sometimes determined by something other than involuntary mental and non-mental (external) states. The cause of the determination of our wills he holds is, sometimes at least, we ourselves, we persons. (And reasonably enough he thus takes for granted that we ourselves are neither mental states nor non-mental external circumstances.) In contrast with the determinists, then, Reid holds that persons can cause the determination of their wills, that persons can cause their wills to be determined in certain ways. And whenever we ourselves determine our wills, Reid holds, we are free – and so are our wills. The controversy between Reid and the determinists, then, is not about whether we have a will. All sides agree that we fdo. Nor is the disagreement about whether our wills are determined. All agree they are. The disagreement is about the causes of the determinations of our wills: are those causes involuntary states (mental or non-mental) or are they persons? Determinists held the former, Reid the latter – or, more cautiously, he held that our wills are at least sometimes determined by ourselves. The controversy over freedom versus determinism was, for Reid, of prime importance because the way it is resolved, he held, decides whether or not we hold ourselves and each other morally responsible for some of the things we do. If determinism is true, then a person might do well, or he might do ill – but whatever he does, he is neither entitled to esteem and approbation, nor to blame and disapprobation. When we compare the 18th century definition of determinism with the one currently favoured, we may note some striking differences. Whereas
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the former is formulated in terms of ‘will’ the latter is not, as it states that the laws of nature and the state of the world at time t jointly entail the state of the world at any other time t*. And this has a further consequence: if determinism as currently defined is true, then God, if He exists, cannot have any influence on the current affairs of the world other than through ‘front loading’, i.e. by having set up the initial conditions of the cosmos. If, however, determinism as defined in the 18th century is true, then no such consequence follows. Determinism so defined is entirely compatible with God’s actual influencing current world affairs in ways that go beyond front loading: God can perform miracles, guide courses of events and determine our wills – all of that is compatible with the truth of determinism as defined in the 18th century. With these clarifications in place, I now turn to a number of arguments that have been advanced in favour of 18th century determinism. The main aim of this paper is to discuss Reid’s responses to them. A particular feature of the dialectical situation must be noted up front. Determinism and Reidian freedom are mutually exclusive, but they also exhaust the field. The dialectical consequence of this is that arguments pro determinism are also arguments contra Reidian freedom, and that arguments contra determinism are also arguments pro Reidian freedom.
7.2 Arguments pro determinism/contra freedom An argument for determinism from the inconceivability of free will One argument in favour of determinism, one that Reid thinks was first advanced by Hobbes and that has been generally adopted by ‘defenders of necessity’ (determinists), runs as follows:2 Liberty consists only in a power to act as we will; and it is impossible to conceive in any being a greater liberty than this. Hence it follows, that liberty does not extend to the determinations of the will, but only to the actions consequent to its determination, and depending upon the will. To say that we have power to will such an action, is to say that we may will it, if we will. This supposes the will to be determined by a prior will; and, for the same reason, that will must be determined by a will prior to it, and so on in an infinite series of wills, which is absurd. To act freely, therefore, can mean nothing more than to act voluntarily; and this is all the liberty that can be conceived in man, or in any being. (Reid, 1969b, p. 263) What sort of argument is this? When introducing it, Reid says it is an argument that purports to show that a certain thesis is ‘inconceivable and as involving an absurdity’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 263), and when he looks back upon his discussion of it he says that it purports to show that a certain thesis ‘is
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inconceivable, and involves a contradiction.’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 326) What is it for a thesis to be ‘inconceivable’? Someone might say ‘It is inconceivable that John cheated on Jane’. These words, however, don’t mean that the state of affairs consisting in John’s cheating on Jane cannot be conceived. That state of affairs can be perfectly well conceived. Those words mean that it is extremely hard to believe that John cheated on Jane. But the thesis we are about to discuss is not inconceivable in the sense of being unbelievable. It is supposed to be inconceivable in another sense. What sense? Think about it this way: I ask you to think of a triangle that has no angles. You cannot pull that off, for a triangle without angles is inconceivable in the sense that you cannot depict to yourself a possible world in which there exists an angle less triangle. And why can’t you depict such a possible world to yourself? Reid’s answer would be: because such a world involves contradictory states of affairs, because such a world is absurd. And worlds with contradictory states of affairs, so absurd worlds, cannot exist. And what cannot exist cannot be conceived. Now, what is the thesis that according to Reid Hobbes’ argument aims to show is inconceivable? That thesis is expressed in the last sentence of the quoted passage: ‘to act freely ... can mean nothing more than to act voluntarily; and this is all the liberty that can be conceived in man, or in any being’. So the thesis is about what it is to act freely; it is that to act freely is to act voluntarily. And to act voluntarily, as the first sentence of the quoted passage indicates, is to act as one wills. What this means is that S’s act of going to Amsterdam is free and thus voluntary provided S wills that act and subsequently performs it, i.e. provided S wills that act and no impediment prevents S from performing it. So the thesis that Hobbes’ argument aims to establish is that voluntary action is the only liberty or freedom that we can conceive. And this entails that we cannot conceive of liberty or freedom in the sense of ‘determining our will’; we cannot conceive that we have ‘power to determine our will’. So Hobbes’ argument also aims to show that it is inconceivable that humans have the power to determine their wills. Given the previous explanation of what it is to conceive something, what this comes to is this: we cannot depict to ourselves a world in which we have the power to determine our own wills – such a world would involve a contradictory state of affairs and hence would be absurd; such a world is impossible. Discussion of the argument will be facilitated when reconstructed in the following more perspicuous form: (1) Humans have liberty (or are free).
(2) Liberty in the sense of [A] the power to determine one’s will is inconceivable. (3) What is inconceivable is impossible. (C1) So, liberty in the sense of [A] is impossible.
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(C2) So, humans don’t have liberty in the sense of [A]. (4) Liberty in the sense of [B] the power to act as one wills is conceivable. (5) What is conceivable is possible. (C3) So, liberty in the sense of [B] is possible. (C4) So, possibly, humans have liberty in the sense of [B]. (6) Liberty in the sense of [B] is the only conceivable liberty. (C5) So, liberty in the sense of [B] is the only possible liberty. (C6) So, humans have liberty in the sense of [B]. I will first explain why I think this is indeed an adequate reconstruction of the argument and then go on to discuss Reid’s criticism of it. By way of explanation: the first thing to see is that the reconstructed argument is formally valid. The intermediate conclusions as well as the final conclusion do follow from the relevant premises. Let me comment on each of the premises. As to (1): this premise is not explicitly stated in the quoted passage but it must clearly be supposed that Hobbes adopted it. After all, he clearly intended to affirm that humans have liberty – that they are free. I therefore take it to be a hidden premise. Reid too affirms that humans are free. Because (1) doesn’t tell what liberty amounts to, both Hobbes and Reid can agree on it – at least verbally. The content of premise (2) is almost literally present in the quoted passage: it is impossible to conceive of liberty other than [B], the liberty that consists in the power to act as we will. The only difference is that whereas the quoted passage says that a ‘greater’ liberty than [B] is impossible to conceive, (2) says that a liberty ‘other’ than [B] is impossible to conceive. My justification for this rendition is that the last sentence of the quoted passage says that [B] ‘is all the liberty that can be conceived’ – and this really seems to be driving the argument: liberty other than [B] is inconceivable. It is to premise (2) that Reid directs his criticism. He denies that liberty in the sense of [A] is inconceivable – as we will see shortly. Like (1), the content of premise (3) is hidden in the quotation. The passage doesn’t explicitly say that what is inconceivable is impossible. Still, if the argument is to work, its truth must be assumed. After all, if inconceivability was not supposed to entail impossibility, from the fact that [A] is inconceivable nothing much of any substance would follow—it certainly would not follow that liberty in the sense of the power to determine one’s will is absurd. But the argument clearly requires, if it is to be valid, that (3) is true. Premise (4), stating that liberty in the sense of the power to act as one wills is conceivable, is explicitly stated in the quoted passage. Premise (5),
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however, the thesis that what is conceivable is possible, is not. Still, if the argument is to go through, its truth must be assumed. For if it wouldn’t follow from something’s being conceivable that it is possible, the fact that we, as the argument has it, can conceive liberty in the sense of [B], the power to act as one wills, wouldn’t be of much moment. If it wouldn’t, then the intermediate conclusion (C4) that states that it is possible that humans have liberty in sense [B] wouldn’t follow. But the intermediate conclusion is clearly required if the final conclusion is to follow. The final premise, (5), states that liberty in the sense of [B] is the only conceivable liberty. This premise too is clearly present in the passage quoted. This, I take it, explains and justifies my claim that the reconstructed argument is indeed a reconstruction of the argument that Reid attributes to Hobbes. Because the reconstructed argument is valid, if Reid wants to escape the deterministic conclusion, he should reject at least one of the premises. As indicated earlier on, he attacks premise (2); and thereby also premise (6). That is, he attacks the claim that liberty in the sense of [A] the power to determine one’s will is inconceivable; he argues that [A] is conceivable. And thus that (2) is false. But he thereby also attacks (6). For if liberty in the sense of [A] is conceivable, then (6) is false; for then liberty in the sense of [B] is not the only conceivable liberty. How does Reid attack premise (2)? Here is the relevant quotation: Whether the notion of moral liberty [i.e. the notion according to which liberty is [A] the power to determine one’s will, RvW] be conceivable or not, every man must judge for himself. To me there appears no difficulty in conceiving it. I consider the determination of the will as an effect. This effect must have a cause which had power to produce it; and the cause must be either the person himself, whose will it is, or some other being. The first is as easily conceived as the last. (Reid, 1969b, p. 265) So Reid reports that he has no difficulty in conceiving the notion of liberty in the sense of ‘freedom to determine one’s will’. When one’s will is determined, e.g. determined to go to Amsterdam, then, he says, the determination of the will is an effect. And it may be the effect of either oneself, or of something else. What is the problem? There is certainly no problem in conceiving liberty in that sense. But if there isn’t, then (2) is false and so is (6); and thus the deterministic conclusion is not established. And there is more. For Reid produces a third notion of liberty, viz. the notion of liberty whose opposite or complement is ‘obligation’. A person has liberty (or is free) in this sense when he [C] has ‘a right to act one way or another, in things which the law has neither commanded, nor forbidden’. (Reid, 1969b, p. 264) A person has liberty to go to Amsterdam in this sense, when it is permitted for him to go there. This is clearly a conceivable notion of liberty. But if it is, then (2) and hence (6) are shown to be false once more,
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and this is an additional reason for thinking that Hobbes’ argument does not establish the deterministic conclusion. It is unlikely that Hobbes, or friends of Hobbes’s argument, would be impressed by Reid’s reply. First, because liberty in sense [C], viz. being permitted, is entirely compatible with determinism and hence is not a sense that is relevant for arguments for or against determinism. Reid’s reply is adequate insofar as it shows that (6) is literally false: contrary to what (6) says, [B] is not the only liberty that can be conceived. But because [C] is immaterial to the question of determinism, when determinism is the issue, only [A] and [B] are the relevant senses of liberty. And if that is the case, then Reid’s reply so far would seem to be question begging against the determinist, with Reid simply reporting that he denies (2) because, other than Hobbes, he can conceive of liberty in the sense of [A]. This is question begging, for Hobbes offers an argument for (2), i.e. an argument for the thesis that liberty in the sense of [A] is inconceivable – an argument that, strikingly enough, Reid doesn’t engage with. Here is Hobbes’ argument for (2), already quoted earlier on: To say that we have power to will such an action, is to say that we may will it, if we will. This supposes the will to be determined by a prior will; and, for the same reason, that will must be determined by a will prior to it, and so on in an infinite series of wills, which is absurd. (Reid, 1969b, p. 263) These words are not entirely easy to interpret, and the reasoning they are supposed to convey is not entirely easy to capture. James Harris has suggested the reasoning here is this: ‘Freedom in the first instance is a matter of being able to act as we will; and so, if the will is free, it can only be in virtue of a prior act of will; and so on in an infinite series of acts of will, which would be absurd.’ (Harris, 2005, p. 191) The idea, I take it, is as follows. Suppose S wills to go to Amsterdam and suppose furthermore that S is able to do so (nothing hinders S from going there); then S is free to go to Amsterdam. But if the will itself is free, then S’s willing to go to Amsterdam is the result of a prior act of willing on S’s part – the act namely of willing to will to go to Amsterdam. But if the will is free, then this last complex item (S’s willing to will to go to Amsterdam) must itself be the result of a prior act of willing on S’s part – the act namely that must be described as willing to will to will to go to Amsterdam. But this way of thinking is absurd, for it entails that previous to any action an infinite series of wills is involved. And because we can’t conceive contradictions or absurdities, we can’t conceive liberty in the sense of [A] the power to determine one’s will. What should we think of this explication of Hobbes’ words? The first thing to see is that in this explanation ‘will’ is used to denote two different things: a certain faculty or power (‘the will’) but also particular exercises of
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that faculty or power (certain determinations of the will, such as ‘the will to go to Amsterdam’, ‘the will to climb Mt. Blanc’,and so on). The second thing to see is that the alleged regress concerns not a regress of will faculties but a regress of exercises of one and the same will faculty; it concerns a regress of acts of the will (i.e. of the will faculty). Let us assume this explanation of Hobbes’ reasoning is on target. Is it also convincing? Is there anything in Reid’s thought that might make us think it is not? Let us consider these questions in turn. As to the first question: Hobbes’ reasoning doesn’t seem to force itself upon us. It seems anything but inevitable. To see this, suppose S wills to climb Mt. Blanc, i.e. suppose he determines his will faculty in such a way that he wills to climb Mt. Blanc (and this means that climbing Mt. Blanc is a determination of his will). As I have said in section 1, for Reid and his fellow-discussants, to will to climb Mt. Blanc is not to wish or want to climb Mt. Blanc; it is to decide to climb Mt. Blanc. So suppose S decides to climb Mt. Blanc. Then why should we think that if S so decides, an infinite regress of decisions ensues? Why should we think, as Hobbes apparently does, that if S decides to climb Mt. Blanc, he must first have decided to decide to climb Mt. Blanc? Or rather first have decided to decide to decide to climb Mt. Blanc. Or rather ... ad infinitum? Why should we think anything like this? In order to decide to climb Mt. Blanc, S need not at all decide to decide to climb Mt. Blanc. All he needs to do is decide whether or not he shall climb Mt. Blanc. If he decides to do so, he wills to climb that mountain, and if he decides not to, then he wills not to climb it. No infinite regress is lurking. The issue at stake here is this: is willing to climb Mt. Blanc (i.e. deciding to climb Mt. Blanc), or more general: is willing to do X (i.e. deciding to do X) a direct or an indirect act? And let us say that an act A is an indirect act provided it is performed by means of performing another act A*; and furthermore that an act A is a direct act provided it is performed not by means of the performance of an act that is distinct from A. Some examples may be helpful. When I perform the action of switching on the light, I do so by means of performing another action, viz. moving my hand and fingers in a specific way. But when I move my hand and fingers, I don’t do so (at least not in the normal case) by doing something that is distinct from moving my hand and fingers. Switching on the light is therefore an indirect act; but moving my hand and fingers a direct one. It seems clear that willing to climb Mt. Blanc (i.e. deciding to climb Mt. Blanc) is an act, an act of the will faculty – and a direct one at that. And if it is a direct act, no infinite regress can ensue. But if there is no infinite regress required in order for someone to will to do X (i.e. to decide to do X), then liberty in the sense of [A] the power to determine one’s will, is not inconceivable – at least not inconceivable for the reason that it involves the absurdity of an infinite regress. But then premises (2) and (6) have been shown to be false. And thus the deterministic conclusion is avoided.
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Although Reid didn’t explicitly take issue with the regress argument, the reply to it just offered is very much in Reid’s spirit. For as Reid sees it, a person’s will can be determined by that person himself. And a person can determine his will (i.e. decide to do a certain thing) just like that, i.e. without performing any other or previous acts. And what this comes to is this: deciding to do a certain thing is an indirect act. And this undercuts Hobbes’ argument for (2). This ends my discussion of premises (2) and (6). If I am right in what I have said so far, the verdict must be that Reid was right in thinking that Hobbes’ argument is a failure. I don’t want to leave the discussion of Hobbes’ argument at this, however, but note that in his criticism of the argument, Reid doesn’t criticize (3), the principle that states that what is inconceivable is impossible. It is striking that although, as we saw, Reid describes the argument he criticizes as an argument that aims to show that a certain thesis is inconceivable, and thus involves one or more conceivability/possibility principles, and although he elsewhere criticizes certain versions of such principles, in the present context he doesn’t criticize the argument on the basis that it involves such principles. (For a discussion of Reid’s engagement with conceivability/possibility principles see Van Woudenberg, 2006.) Still, it merits noting that this principle is quite obviously false – and hence Hobbes’ argument fails for that reason if for no other. To see what is wrong with (3), suppose that, due to dullness, fatigue, lack of imagination, or anything else, someone cannot conceive of a certain scenario p. Then (3) licenses the conclusion that p is therefore impossible. But this seems ludicrous. Suppose in a moment of dullness S cannot conceive of p – but that at a later moment he can. Then on (3) p is impossible at the earlier but possible at the later moment – which is absurd. Metaphysical possibilities are not time-indexed. Or suppose S can conceive of p, whereas S* cannot. Then on (3) p is both possible and impossible – which is absurd too. Metaphysical possibilities are not person-relative. In addition, it seems utterly plausible that there are many possibilities that we are unable to conceive. Our minds are finite, limited, frail and halting. So there are good reasons to reject (3). But if one does, one has thereby undermined the deterministic conclusion. An argument for determinism from the incompatibility of free will and the influence of motives Another argument for determinism that Reid discusses runs as follows: Every deliberate action must have a motive. When there is no motive on the other side, this motive must determine the agent: when there are contrary motives, the strongest must prevail: we reason from men’s motives to their actions, as we do from other causes to their effects: if man be a free agent, and be not governed by motives, all his actions must be mere
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caprice, rewards and punishments can have no effect, and such a being must be absolutely ungovernable. (Reid, 1969b, p. 283) This argument, I suggest, can best be reconstructed as follows: (1) If persons are free, their actions are not governed by motives. (2) If the actions of persons are not governed by motives, those actions would be mere caprice, rewards and punishments would have no effect on them, and they would be ungovernable. (3) The actions of persons are not mere caprice, rewards and punishments do have an effect on them, and they are not ungovernable. (C1) So, the actions of persons are governed by motives. (C2) So, persons are not free. I take it that ‘free’ in this argument refers to what I have earlier on referred to as [A], the power to determine one’s will. Thus the argument assumes that to be free is, or means, to have the power to determine one’s will. A further elucidation of the argument requires going into the notion of a ‘motive’. Reid makes a distinction between two sorts of motives, animal motives and rational motives (Reid, 1969b, pp. 289–291). Hunger and thirst are paradigm examples of animal motives. They influence an agent’s will directly. Hunger, for example, influences an agent in this way that it inclines him to will to eat: it inclines him to determine his will in such a way that he takes food. It inclines his will directly. The inclination can be resisted however, although that may require a serious effort on the part of the subject and some degree of self-control. Convictions about our duties, for example the conviction that we ought to help our ageing parents, are paradigm examples of rational motives. Such motives influence in a direct fashion not our wills but our judgements in that they convince us that certain things ought to be done. It is via such judgements that our wills are influenced. As to the argument itself: we can see that it is valid; the conclusions follow from their respective premises. So in order to avoid the deterministic conclusion (C2), one needs to reject or undermine one of the premises. Which premise is Reid’s target? I contend it is (1), the premise that states that if persons are free, their actions are not governed by motives. Reid offers a number of considerations against (1). The most important one is this: if (1) is to be true, a friend of the argument needs to help herself to a very implausible account of what it means for motives to govern or influence an agent’s actions, viz. that the relation between motives and actions is the relation between causes and effects. Motives for actions need to be taken as causes for actions. But this is very implausible, Reid contends, for ‘the influence of motives is of a very different nature from that of efficient causes’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 283). In order
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to be able to evaluate Reid’s contention, we need to be aware of the fact that for Reid a ‘cause’, in the strict and proper sense of that word, is something that acts, or something that has active power. When a thing has active power, it has the ability to produce effects that it was also able not to produce. (For discussion of Reid’s notion of ‘cause’, see Rowe, 1991, chap. 4.) And Reid held that only intelligent substances, i.e. substances with will and understanding, can have such powers. Because I have the power to raise my arm while it is also in my power to refrain from raising my arm, I, in Reid’s terms, am the cause of the rising of my arm. I am a cause in the strict and proper sense of that word; I am an agent, i.e. a substance with active power. But when the sun shines on a stone thus warming it up then, in Reid’s terms, the sun is not the cause of the stone’s warming up. For while the sun warmed up the stone, it didn’t have the power to refrain from warming it. Given this understanding of a ‘cause’, motives cannot be causes. For they cannot act; they are not agents, i.e. they are not substances with active power. This is not to deny that motives may influence to action – i.e. may influence actors to do certain things. But they aren’t causes in the strict and proper sense of the word. If, however, the influence of motives isn’t causal influence, then what sort of influence do they have? Says Reid: ‘They may be compared to advice, or exhortation, which still leaves a man at liberty’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 283). Advice may influence an actor to act in a certain way, but it doesn’t cause him to act in that way. For it is ‘up to the actor’ whether or not he will heed the advice. But if this is correct, then (1) is false. For then, contrary to what (1) says, free agents can act in ways that are governed by motives. The influence of motives is then entirely consistent with liberty in the sense of [A] and hence no argument against it. Reid also attacks premise (2). He says, for example, that it is unreasonable to conclude ‘that if men are not necessarily determined by motives, rewards and punishments would have no effect’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 292). The idea is that if motives aren’t causes of behaviour, rewards and punishments would be without effect. But this, Reid avers, is weak reasoning. For suppose that agent S is free and freely performs action A; suppose furthermore that A is a bad action but that S is a good person. Then punishment will have a proper positive effect on S. Surely, if we assume that S is foolish or vicious, punishment won’t have such a positive effect. But this is exactly what we see: on wise and good persons punishment and reward have a proper and positive effect, but on foolish and vicious persons they don’t. And this is exactly what the doctrine of liberty leads us to expect.3 So, Reid criticizes the argument (as reconstructed) on the ground that (1) assumes an implausible account of how motives influence actions; and he attacks premise (2) as well. But he criticizes the quoted argument on yet further grounds as well. As the quotation has it, (a) ‘we reason from men’s motives to their actions’; we know, for example, that S is greedy, and given what we know of S’s external circumstances, we infer that he will do X. And
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from (a), the determinist avers, we must conclude that (b) human actions are determined and hence that humans are not free. So this is a somewhat alternative argument for determinism that takes its cue from the role that motives play in human action. To argue from (a) to (b), Reid contends, ‘is very weak reasoning’. (Reid, 1969b, p. 291) And here is why: if we suppose that humans are free, then we should expect (a) to be true. That is: if we suppose that humans are free, we should very much expect that we can reason from a person’s motives to his actions. Suppose, then, that person S is free; and suppose furthermore that doing A will ensure, or make likely, the realization of a real though distant good, while doing B will give only instant gratification. Then, if S is wise (and we know it), we can infer from S’s motives that he will do A; but if S is foolish (and we know it), we can infer from S’s motives that he will do B. So, that we can rightly reason from motives to actions, is precisely what the doctrine of free will leads us to expect. And thus we should rather argue from (a) to not–(b), so to the denial of determinism, than to (b)! An argument for determinism from the principle of sufficient reason There is a further argument for determinism that Reid discusses: To prove that liberty of determination is impossible, it has been said, that there must be a sufficient reason for every thing. For every existence, for every event, for every truth, there must be a sufficient reason. (Reid, 1969b, p. 326) But how exactly is the principle this quotation speaks of – the Principle of Sufficient Reason, or PSR for short – supposed to make trouble for liberty in the sense of [A]? In the following way: The determination of the will is an event for which there must be a sufficient reason, that is something previous, which was necessarily followed by that determination, and could not be followed by any other determination; therefore it was necessary. (Reid, 1969b, p. 328) I submit this argument can best be reconstructed as follows: (1) There is a sufficient reason for everything (for every existence, event, and truth) (=PSR), i.e. everything is the necessary consequence of something previous. (C1) So, there is a sufficient reason for the determination of the will to do A, i.e. the determination of the will to do A is the necessary consequence of something previous
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(2) If the determination of the will to do A is the necessary consequence of something previous, the will to do A is not free. (C2) So, the will to do A is not free. (3) If the will to do A is not free, the doing of A is not free. (C3) The doing of A is not free. This argument is valid. To escape the deterministic conclusion, at least one of the premises needs to be rejected. And that is, of course, exactly what Reid does. He has various misgivings about premise (1), the statement of PSR. The principle, he says, is offered by Leibniz without proof, and even without explanation. Yet it is badly in need of explanation, for it is ‘evidently a vague proposition, capable of various meanings, as the word reason is.’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 329). To see this, let us assume that S voluntarily did A, and ask the following question: was there a sufficient reason for S’s doing A? As Reid points out, this question is multiply ambiguous. It might, first, mean to inform us whether ‘there was a motive to the action sufficient to justify it to be wise and good, or at least innocent’. (Reid, 1969b, p. 329) So understood, asking whether there was a sufficient reason for A is asking whether the action is justified, or permitted. But if this is the question, then the answer must be that not every action has a sufficient reason, for there are many actions that are foolish, unreasonable and hence unjustifiable. So if ‘has sufficient reason’ means ‘is justifiable’ then PSR as applied to actions is false. The question whether there was a sufficient reason for action A might, secondly, mean: did A have a cause? To this question, Reid says, the answer must be: ‘Undoubtedly there was: of every event there must be a cause, that had the power sufficient to produce it, and that exerted that power for the purpose. In the present case either the man was the cause of the action, and then it was a free action, and is justly imputed to him; or it must have had another cause, and cannot be justly imputed to the man.’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 329) So Reid affirms that action A, just like any action, has a sufficient reason in the sense that it has a cause. To be sure, Reid holds that the cause of an action might either be the person, or something other than the person. But whichever is the case, the action has a cause. So when reason=cause, PSR applies to actions. But so taken there is no argument from PSR to determinism. For so taken PSR is entirely compatible with free action. The question whether there was a sufficient reason for action A might finally mean: ‘was there something previous to the action, which made it to be necessarily produced?’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 329) When used in this third sense, an action has a ‘sufficient reason’ provided it is necessarily produced, which we may take to mean that it is necessary, i.e. that it was impossible for it not to be performed. If PSR is taken this way, it straightforwardly entails determinism. However, as Reid rightly points out, PSR taken this way ‘is a mere assertion of necessity without proof’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 330).
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It should be noted that these points about PSR apply to actions in general, so not only to overt actions such as raising one’s arm, but also covert actions such as the determination of one’s will to do a certain thing, i.e. one’s decision to do it (e.g. the determination of one’s will to say ‘Yes!’, i.e. the decision to say ‘Yes!’). The question whether or not one’s decision to do A has a sufficient ground, is multiply ambiguous too. It can be the question whether the decision is justified, or the question whether it has a cause, or the question whether it is necessarily produced. If a decision is unjustified it is, in one sense of that phrase, without sufficient reason. But this understanding of PSR doesn’t lead to a deterministic conclusion. Understood as ‘being caused’, however, every decision has a sufficient reason. And because, on Reid’s understanding, our decisions are caused by ourselves, all decisions have a sufficient reason. This way of understanding ‘having a sufficient reason’, therefore, doesn’t entail determinism. Lastly, understood as ‘being necessarily produced’ the claim that every decision has a sufficient reason is a mere assertion of determinism, not an argument in its favour. This goes to show that the reconstructed argument fails because of premise (1), the statement of PSR. Depending on how one understands PSR, (1) is either false or true. When it is so understood that it is false, the conclusion doesn’t follow. But when it is so understood that it is true, then it cannot be used in an argument for determinism; for then either PSR is compatible with free decision making (and hence premise (2) false), or it is the mere assertion that free decision making is impossible.4 An argument for determinism from the notion that freedom excludes causation The previous argument was, in effect, an argument for determinism from the impossibility of free action – an impossibility having to do with the supposed truth of PSR. But there is another argument that fits this label: ‘Another argument that has been used to prove liberty of action to be impossible is, that it implies “an effect without a cause” ’. (Reid, 1969b, p. 352) For clarity’s sake we may reconstruct the argument as follows: (1) If an action is free, it is uncaused. (2) Nothing is uncaused. (C) No action is free As we may guess, Reid is unimpressed by this valid argument. He escapes the conclusion by rejecting (1). For he affirms ‘that a free action is an effect produced by a being who had power and will to produce it; therefore it is not an effect without a cause’. (Reid, 1969b, p. 332) Reid capitalizes on a point that he makes over and over again, viz. that agents are causes, viz. the causes of their own actions, as well as of their own
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decisions. As Reid thinks of it, S is the cause of A if and only if the following conditions are met: (a) S is a substance that had the power to bring about A. (b) S exerted its power to bring about A. (c) S has the power to refrain from bringing about A. It is easy to see that on this account of causation an action A can be caused and at the same time be free. If I raise my arm, then I am, on this account of causation, the cause of the raising of my arm provided the three conditions are met, so provided (a) I am a substance that has the power to raise his arm, (b) in order to raise my hand I indeed used that power, and (c) I had the power to refrain from raising my arm. Let us suppose these conditions are met – so let us suppose I am the cause of the raising of my hand. Then still the raising of my hand is a free action, for although I did raise my arm, I had the power to refrain from doing so. It was, in one important sense, ‘up to me’ whether or not I raised my hand. And so that action was free. So, Reid attacks premise (1) by showing that free actions need not be uncaused. An argument for determinism from divine foreknowledge Let me finally turn to what Reid thought is ‘the most formidable’ argument for determinism: ‘God foresees every determination of the human mind. It must therefore be what he foresees it shall be; and therefore must be necessary’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 340). This argument, Reid adds, may be understood in three different ways. On one understanding the argument involves the idea that ‘as nothing can be known to be future which is not certainly future; so if it be certainly future, it must be necessary’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 340). The argument may be reconstructed as follows: (1) God foreknows every choice anyone will make. (C1) So, God foreknows that at time t S will choose to do A. (2) If it isn’t certain that at future time t S will choose to do A, then it cannot be foreknown that at t S will choose to do A. (C2) So, it is certain that at future time t S will choose to do A. (3) If it is certain that at future time t S will choose to do A, then it is necessary that at future time t S will choose to do A. (C3) Therefore, it is necessary that at future time t S will choose to do A. I have taken the phrase ‘determination of the mind’ so as to include the determination of the will, and ‘to determine one’s will’ I have taken, as I did
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earlier on, to be equivalent to ‘to make a choice’ – and I have formulated premise (1) in those terms. As to (C1): for convenience’s sake I have introduced a time operator t which indicates a time that, on the time axis, follows the time at which God has that particular bit of foreknowledge. Premise (2) involves the notion of certainty. The normal meaning of it is this: if S is certain of something p, then S very firmly believes that p, is assured of p being the case, in one word, if S is certain of p, S displays a certain psychological characteristic. As is well-known, many epistemologists in the Cartesian tradition have held that the presence of this psychological characteristic marks the presence of knowledge in the sense that if S knows that p, then S is certain of p. It is tempting to think that Reid’s use of ‘certainty’ stands in this tradition. But the temptation should be resisted because Reid clearly used ‘certain’ in a non-psychological way, as is evidenced by the following quotation: ‘It must be granted that as whatever was, certainly was, and whatever is, certainly is, so whatever shall be, certainly shall be. These are identical propositions.’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 340) ‘Certainly’ as used here refers to a characteristic not of a person but of things ‘out there’ in the world – not to a psychological characteristic but an ontological one. This being said, I must admit, however, that I have no clear idea as to what this ontological characteristic is supposed to be. But then again, perhaps Reid doesn’t think of ‘certainly’ as referring to a characteristic of anything. After all, he says that Whatever was, certainly was,and so on are ‘identical propositions’, which I take to mean that whoever says ‘X certainly was’ says no more and no less than ‘X was’ in which case ‘certainly’ is redundant, except, perhaps, for reasons of emphasis. But this may not be correct either, for the argument (as I have reconstructed it) doesn’t go through, nor does Reid’s criticism of it, unless it involves a premise that connects certainty and necessity – that is, a premise like (4), that contains the thought from the already quoted passage that says that ‘if something be certainly future, it must be necessary.’ The task, then, is to find a decent sense for Reid’s use of the notion of ‘certainly’, such that (i) both the argument and Reid’s criticism of it make sense, and (ii) ‘X certainly was’ (and so on) is identical with ‘X was’ (and so on). My suggestion is that the operator ‘It is a fact that’ does the job. For to assert ‘It is a fact that X was’ is to say the very same thing as when one asserts that ‘X was’; and to assert that ‘It is a fact that X is’ is to say the very same thing as when one asserts ‘X is’; and finally to assert ‘It is a fact that X will be’ is to say the very same thing as when one asserts that ‘X will be’. So we have identical propositions here. Furthermore, both the reconstructed argument and Reid’s criticism of it make sense if we take ‘certainly’ to be (or refer to) the ‘It is a fact’ – operator. The final comment concerns the notion of necessity in premise (3). I shall take that to be physical or causal necessity, i.e. the necessity that determinists
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claim underlies every event and every action. The necessity (3) speaks of, then, isn’t ‘broadly logical necessity’ or ‘metaphysical necessity’. From Reid’s discussion of the argument it is very clear that the premise that draws his critical fire is (3). That premise, or one in the close neighbourhood, he declares to be false when he says: ‘I know no rule of reasoning by which it can be inferred, that, because an event certainly shall be, therefore its production must be necessary. The manner of its production, whether free or necessary, cannot be concluded from the time of its production, whether it be past, present, or future. That it shall be, no more implies that it shall be necessarily, than that it shall be freely produced; for neither present, past, nor future, have any more connection with necessity, than they have with freedom. I grant, therefore, that from events being foreseen, it may be justly concluded that they are certainly future; but from their being certainly future, it does not follow that they are necessary’ (Reid, 1969b, pp. 340–341). The point Reid is making here is, in terms of my suggestion, that you can’t go from ●
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It is a fact that at t S will choose to do A to It is necessary that at t S will choose to do A. And why is that? For the very same reason that you can’t go from
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It is a fact that X was to It is necessary that X was, nor from
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It is a fact that X is, to It is necessary that X.
And what is that reason? The reason is that facts come in two groups: contingent and necessary ones. Decisions made by humans, if freely made, are contingent. That S at t will choose to do A is contingent provided S’s choice is free. And if S’s choice is free, it isn’t necessary. Where does this leave us? Here: there is good reason to reject premise (3), and hence good reason to reject the conclusion of the argument for determinism from divine foreknowledge, understood in the first way. Let us now turn to the second way in which this argument may be understood according to Reid: viz. that by this argument is meant ‘that an event must be necessary merely because it is foreseen’. (Reid, 1969b, p. 341) Spelled out the argument is this: (1) God foreknows every choice anyone will make. (C1) So, God foreknows that at time t S will choose to do A.
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(2*) If it is foreknown that at future time t S will choose to do A, then it is necessary that at t S will choose to do A. (C3) Therefore, it is necessary that at future time t S will choose to do A. Reid attacks (2*) for two reasons. The first is ‘that an event must be necessary, merely because it is foreseen ... is [not] a just consequence: for it has often been observed, that prescience and knowledge of every kind, being an immanent act, has no effect upon the thing known. Its mode of existence, whether it be free or necessary, is not in the least affected by its being known to be future, any more than by its being known to be past or present.’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 341) From an event’s being foreknown, one can’t conclude that it is necessary. And the reason is that an event’s being foreknown doesn’t causally necessitate the event to happen. I may know that my son will do A tomorrow, but my foreknowledge does not causally necessitate his doing A tomorrow. My foreknowledge is entirely compatible with his freely doing A tomorrow. Likewise, God’s foreknowledge, also his foreknowledge of future decisions that persons will make is compatible with those choices being free. God’s foreknowledge doesn’t causally necessitate their future choices. But if that is correct, then premise (2*) is false, and hence the argument for determinism fails. There is, as Reid points out, a further reason to reject (2*), viz. that ‘The Deity foresees his own future free actions, but neither his foresight nor his purpose makes them necessary.’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 341) So again, it is wrong to conclude to X’s being necessary from X’s being foreknown. The third and final understanding of the argument for determinism from divine foreknowledge is that ‘it is impossible that an event which is not necessary should be foreseen; therefore every event that is certainly foreseen, must be necessary’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 341). Thus understood the argument is: (1) God foreknows every choice anyone will make. (C1) So, God foreknows that at time t S will choose to do A. (2*) If an event (such as making a choice) can be foreknown, the event isn’t free. (C2) Therefore, if God foreknows that at time t S will choose to do A, then S’s choice to do A is not free. (C2*) So, S’s choice at t to do A is not free. (4) If an event isn’t free, it is necessary. (C3) Therefore, it is necessary that at future time t S will choose to do A. The unique feature of this version of the argument is, of course, premise (2**) that states that if an event can be foreknown, it can’t be free – which
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is equivalent to the claim that only necessary events can be foreseen. Reid argues against this premise by drawing out some of its unpalatable consequences for theists (and so suggests a reductio). One unpalatable implication of (2**) is that the theist cannot foreknow things that he thinks he does foreknow – viz. ‘that the Judge of all the earth will always do what is right, and that he will fulfil whatever he has promised’ and does so ‘with the most perfect freedom’ (Reid, 1969b, pp. 341–342). Another unpalatable implication of (2**) is that God either isn’t free, or else that he doesn’t foreknow his own future actions. For if (2**) is true and God foreknows his own actions, then God cannot be free. But if (2**) is true, and God is free, God cannot foreknow his future actions. And this is unpalatable. To be sure, these consequences are only unpalatable for theists – they don’t have any force with an atheist. But this is no weakness in Reid’s reductio of the argument. For those in favour of the argument and its deterministic conclusion are theists themselves. After all, they argue for determinism on the basis of presumed divine foreknowledge – which makes sense only if one presumes that God exists.5
7.3
Conclusion
Reid firmly believed that human beings are free in the sense that they have the power to determine their wills. He was fully aware of a battery of arguments for the conclusion that human beings are not free in this sense: the Argument from the Inconceivability of Free Will, the Argument from the Incompatibility of Free Will and the Influence of Motives, the Argument from the Principle of Sufficient Reason, the Argument from the Notion that Freedom Excludes Causation, and finally the Argument from Divine Foreknowledge. As this paper has shown, Reid found all of these arguments wanting. The main point of the paper is that Reid was justified in this. His rebuttals of arguments for determinism are as good as philosophical arguments can be. They may not convince a determined determinist. But they are convincing to anybody who is prepared to accept a number of theses that I think are sensible and defensible – and that have the virtue of being in accordance with common sense.
Notes 1. Accordingly, the objects of the will in 18th century philosophy aren’t individual things such as ice creams, or boats; these are indeed items that one can want or wish for but they aren’t items one can will. The objects of the will are events and states of affairs such as buying an ice cream or sailing a boat, i.e. items that one [thinks one] is able to bring about by making a decision. 2. Reid put the argument between quotation marks, thus suggesting he is actually quoting a source. I have been unable, though, to trace it.
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René van Woudenberg Reid also seems to attack that part of premise (2) of the reconstructed argument that states that ‘if men are not necessarily determined by motives, all their actions must be capricious’. (Reid, 1969b, p. 292) But that attack is unsuccessful. What the attack amounts to is that an agent can act against certain motives. He can act against certain of his animal motives, e.g. hunger, when duty requires him to do so. And this, Reid contends, is not caprice, but wise and virtuous. But this is insufficient to undercut (2) – it doesn’t show that it is false that If the actions of persons are not governed by motives, those actions would be mere caprice. For the case adduced is not an example of an action of a person that is not governed by motives; it is a case of an action of a person governed by a rational motive. Reid has further misgivings about PSR apart from its being ambiguous. Applied to natural phenomena, PSR would seem to say that there must be laws of nature of which the natural phenomena are the necessary consequences – but this, Reid argues, may not be correct. He furthermore doubts whether a decent sense can be given to the notion that every truth has a sufficient reason. (Reid, 1969b, pp. 330–332) Because these points aren’t directly relevant to arguments for determinism, I won’t discuss them. It must be noted that Reid not only offers a reductio for (2**) but that he also argues that arguments in favour of (2**) are seriously flawed. Such arguments have been offered by Joseph Priestly. In a brilliant analysis of Priestley’s arguments Reid convincingly shows them to be confused, as involving a petitio principii. (See Reid, 1969b, pp. 342–344) Presently I won’t go into this, because it would lead to lengthy issues in Priestley exegesis.
8 A Second Look at Reid’s First Argument for Moral Liberty Douglas McDermid
If there are certain principles, as I think there are, which the constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life, without being able to give a reason for them – these are what we call the principles of common sense; and what is manifestly contrary to them, is what we call absurd (Reid 1992, p. 31).
8.1 In Book II of Paradise Lost, we are told that Satan’s more cultivated minions, once flung from heaven, sought solace in metaphysics. And what, pray tell, was the topic of this first, infernal seminar? None other than the conundrum of free will: Others apart sat on a hill retired, In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will and Fate, Fixed Fate, Free Will, Foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wand’ring mazes lost. (Milton 2000, II) Many of us still find no end in those “wand’ring mazes”. Deprived of reliable guides or signs, our thoughts soon spin in circles both vicious and vertiginous; and when we contemplate the polished sophisms with which the old maze-paths are paved, we are frequently dazzled but seldom enlightened. Before we know it, conviction has given way to doubt, resolve to exhaustion, and self-possession to enervating despair. There is nothing for it, we finally feel, but to lay our Liberty down and surrender to the metaphysical minotaur of brute Necessity. According to Thomas Reid, it doesn’t have to be this way. There is indeed a route out of the labyrinth, pleads Reid; and he insists that the philosophy of common sense, like the celebrated thread of Ariadne, can help us find it. Some philosophers will find the latter claim preposterous, accustomed as 143
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they are to assuming that the thread of common sense, once twisted, must fray or snap in a trice. To get a better sense of what can be said for their view, as well as what can be said against it, I want to inspect Reid’s first argument for moral liberty: the Argument from Natural Conviction. Before we can scrutinize that commonsensical line of reasoning, however, we must acquaint ourselves with the version of libertarianism it is intended to support.
8.2 Locke, writing almost a century before the publication of Reid’s Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind, asked: “How can we think anyone freer than to have the power to do what he will?” (Locke, 1690, II, pp. xxi, 21). Although Locke’s question was purely rhetorical, Reid’s theory of moral liberty can be seen as an elaborate answer to it. What follows is a sketch of eight of that theory’s core commitments. R1. Liberty Defined: Moral liberty, or the liberty attributed to a moral agent, consists in “a power over the determinations of his own will” (Reid, 1969b, p. 259). Reid expands on this definition as follows: If, in any action, he had power to will what he did, or not to will it, in that action he is free. But if, in every voluntary action, the determination of his will be the necessary consequence of something involuntary in the state of his mind, or of something in his external circumstances, he is not free; he has not what I call the liberty of a moral agent, but is subject to necessity. (Reid, 1969b, p. 259) Reid thus disagrees with those philosophers – and they are legion, as Gideon Yaffe reminds us (2007, pp. 268–269) – who insist that “liberty does not extend to the determinations of the will, but only to the actions consequent to its determination, and depending upon the will” (Reid, 1969b, p. 263). True, Reid can agree that to say that I am free is to say that I “could have done otherwise”; but according to Reid, to say that I could have done otherwise means not that I could have done otherwise if I had so chosen or willed (à la Hume), but rather that I could have chosen or willed otherwise under the circumstances which obtained. Reidian moral liberty is thus a species of what later philosophers have labelled “contra-causal” freedom (Campbell, 1967a, p. 19). R2. The Reality of Liberty: Moral liberty is no myth or fond fiction, for we are justified in regarding ourselves as free agents – that is, as “efficient causes in our deliberate and voluntary actions” (Reid, 1969b, p. 269). To say that a person is endowed with moral liberty is not, of course, to say that such liberty extends “to all his actions, or even to all his voluntary actions” (Reid, 1969b, p. 262). Nothing is in an agent’s power except what depends upon her will; but some things may depend upon her will and yet not be
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in her power – as when madness, violent motives, or strong passions supervene (Reid, 1969b, pp. 309–312). Moreover, each of us frequently acts from instinct or from habit “without any thought at all, and consequently without will” (Reid, 1969b, p. 262). It must be stressed, then, that “the power which we are led by common sense to ascribe to man, respects his voluntary actions only, and that it has various limitations even with regard to them” (Reid, 1969b, p. 313). To say that a person is endowed with moral liberty is, therefore, “no more than to say, that in some instances he is truly an agent and a cause, and is not merely acted upon as a passive instrument” (Reid, 1969b, p. 280). This thesis can be defended by means of various arguments, three of which Reid finds especially persuasive: The arguments to prove that man is endowed with moral liberty, which have the greatest weight with me, are three: 1st, Because he has a natural conviction or belief, that, in many cases, he acts freely; 2dly, Because he is accountable; and, 3dly, Because he is able to prosecute an end by a long series of means adapted to it. (Reid, 1969b, p. 303) It is the first of these arguments – that from Natural Conviction – which shall exclusively engage our attention in Sections 8.3–8.7. R3. Agents as Causes: Because the determination of an agent’s will is an effect, it must have “a cause which had the power to produce it” (Reid, 1969b, p. 265). But just what causes or determines the will of a free agent? Not some state of affairs or event, but rather the agent herself; and nothing – no other agent or event – makes the free agent will or choose as she does: If the person was the cause of that determination of his own will, he was free in that action, and it is justly imputed to him, whether it be good or bad. But, if another being was the cause of this determination, either by producing it immediately, or by means and instruments under his direction, the determination is the act and deed of that being, and is solely imputable to him. (Reid, 1969b, p. 265) Free agents thus possess active power, that is, “that in virtue of which a thing initiates a causal sequence” (Yaffe, 2007, p. 269). As Roderick Chisholm memorably observed, this view of agency implies that “we have a prerogative which some would attribute only to God: each of us, when we act, is a prime mover unmoved. In doing what we do, we cause certain events to happen, and nothing – or no one – causes us to cause those events to happen” (Chisholm, 1989, p. 12). Another way of putting this would be to say that such actions are “genuinely creative” (Campbell, 1967b, pp. 50–51), inasmuch as they ultimately originate with the god-like agent.
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Note that because free agents function as causes, Reid’s understanding of liberty implies neither (a) that free actions are uncaused, nor (b) that what determines S’s will is “a prior will” (Reid, 1969b, p. 263). This means his position is not vulnerable to either of the following objections: first, that it is at odds with the principle of universal causation; second, that S cannot determine her will without generating an infinite regress of volitions. Any attempt to show that Reidian liberty is absurd on these grounds rests on a misunderstanding. R4. Liberty and Necessity: If determinism is true, then at any given time, t, there is one and only one way the world could (physically) be, given the prior state of the world and the laws of nature. Yet if I am endowed with moral liberty – if, that is, I have power to determine my will – then I could have chosen to act differently under the circumstances which obtained at t. But if I could have chosen to do something else at t – to flex my left finger, say, instead of sitting perfectly still – then more than one outcome was (physically) possible. Hence if determinism is true, there can be no Reidian freedom; and if there is Reidian freedom, determinism is false. In short, compatibilism is mistaken: moral liberty is “opposed to necessity” (Reid, 1969b: 264; cf. 259, 261), not consistent with it. R5. Liberty and Responsibility: Liberty, in Reid’s sense, is a sine qua non of moral responsibility: “The effect of moral liberty is, that it is in the power of the agent to do well or ill” (Reid, 1969b, p. 261). I am not responsible or accountable for my actions unless I could have done otherwise; but I could not have done otherwise without the power to determine my will: “What is done from unavoidable necessity may be agreeable or disagreeable, useful or hurtful, but cannot be the object either of blame or of moral approbation” (Reid, 1969b, p. 361). Ascriptions of moral responsibility thus presuppose that we have some degree of power: “If man had no power, he would have nothing to account for ... If man had no power, he could be neither wise nor foolish, virtuous nor vicious” (Reid, 1969b, p. 320). R6. Liberty and Divinity: Moral liberty, Reid tells us, is the “gift of God” (Reid, 1969b, p. 261), who will judge how well we have used it: like the master in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30), to which Reid frequently alludes in [TS: delete the author query.]this context (Reid, 1969b, pp. 48, 301, 320, 324, 359), God “will require an account” from us (Reid, 1969b, p. 320). And just as the servants in that parable received different sums or amounts from their master, some moral agents have been granted more power by God than others: “To some persons more power is given than to others” (Reid, 1969b, p. 48; cf. p. 51). R7. The Limits of Liberty: Inasmuch as our power is a gift from God, “[i] ts existence, its extent, and its continuance depend solely upon the pleasure of the Almighty” (Reid, 1969b, p. 48). It follows that my liberty may
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be “enlarged or diminished, continued or withdrawn” (Reid, 1969b, p. 262). Although one’s liberty may be increased or extended (Reid, 1969b, p. 51; cf. p. 311), then, it may also be suspended, reduced, or lost in various ways: “by disorder of body or mind, as in melancholy, or in madness”, “by vicious habits”, or “by divine interposition” (Reid, 1969b, p. 262). Though dire, these possibilities are potent reminders of a great metaphysical and theological truth – a truth Reid expresses with the help of some hallowed phrases plucked from the Book of Job (Job 41:1–2): No power in the creature can be independent of the Creator. His hook is in its nose; he can give it line as far as he sees fit, and, when he pleases, can restrain it, or turn it whithersoever he will. Let this be always understood, when we ascribe liberty to man, or to any created being. (Reid, 1969b, p. 262; emphasis mine) R8. A Via Media: True to his dictum that “extremes of all kinds ought to be avoided” (Reid, 1969b, p. 357), Reid urges that a just estimate of our power is consistent neither with self-deifying pride, in which “the sense of our dependence upon God” is lost (Reid, 1969b, p. 357), nor with selfdefeating despair, in which “the sinews of action and of obligation” are cut (Reid, 1969b, p. 357). There is no cause for despair, he says, because we are not without power over the determinations of our will; but neither is there any cause for pride, because such power as we possess is derived from God Himself, “the fountain of power, and of every good gift” (Reid, 1969a, p. 628). We are enjoined to use that great gift wisely and well, mindful that “its perversion and abuse is the cause of most of the evils that afflict human life” (Reid, 1969b, p. 56): [T]hat degree of power which we have received from the bounty of heaven, is one of the noblest gifts of God to man; of which we ought not to be insensible, that we may not be ungrateful, and that we may be excited to make the proper use of it. (Reid, 1969b, p. 56)
8.3 Now that we have outlined some of the central tenets of Reid’s theory of moral liberty, we are poised to take a closer and longer look at his Argument from Natural Conviction. The premise on which this line of reasoning rests, and from which it takes its name, is stated tersely in the first paragraph of Essay IV, Chapter VI in Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind: We have, by our constitution, a natural conviction or belief that we act freely. A conviction so early, so universal, and so necessary in most of our
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rational operations, that it must be the result of our constitution, and the work of Him that made us. (Reid, 1969b, pp. 304; 6, 37, 269) This claim is formulated in a slightly different way in Essay VI, Chapter V of the Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. There it is presented not as a natural conviction, but as a first principle of contingent truths: Another first principle, I think, is, That we have some degree of power over our actions, and the determinations of our will. (Reid, 1969a, p. 628) Regardless of what label we pin on this proposition (i.e. – first principle or natural conviction), it is held to have important implications, one of which is announced in Essays on the Active Powers at the very end of the chapter mentioned above. This natural conviction of our acting freely, which is acknowledged by many who hold the doctrine of necessity, ought to throw the whole burden of proof upon that side: for, by this, the side of liberty has what lawyers call a jus quaesitum, or a right of ancient possession, which ought to stand good till it be overturned. If it cannot be proved that we always act from necessity, there is no need of arguments on the other side, to convince us that we are free agents. To illustrate this by a similar case: if a philosopher would persuade me, that my fellow men with whom I converse, are not thinking intelligent beings, but mere machines; though I might be at a loss to find arguments against this strange opinion, I should think it reasonable to hold the belief which nature gave me before I was capable of weighing evidence, until convincing proof is brought against it. (Reid, 1969b, pp. 313–314) How, then, does the Argument from Natural Conviction run or unfold? The passages we have reviewed suggest the following straightforward reconstruction: P1. That we act freely on occasion is a “first principle” or a “natural conviction” which we have in virtue of our constitution. .: P2. Unless there is compelling reason to think otherwise (i.e. – that we always act from necessity), we are justified in believing that we act freely on occasion. Reid, in the passages cited above, stops at this point; but it must be remembered that the Argument from Natural Conviction is ultimately intended to justify belief in something stronger than P2 – namely R2, or the proposition that we are actually “endowed with moral liberty” (Reid, 1969b, p. 303) and have “some degree of power over our actions, and the determinations of our will” (Reid, 1969a, p. 628). And so we may complete our reconstruction by
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adding a third premise which, when conjoined with P2, yields the desiderated conclusion: P3. But it seems there is no compelling reason to think otherwise. .: C. We are justified in believing that we act freely on occasion. At first glance this line of reasoning may strike some as simple, not to say simple-minded; but I believe there is more to it than meets the untutored eye. In order to bring into focus certain features of the Argument from Natural Conviction which may not be immediately apparent, I propose to consider seven objections which might be directed against it. These objections, I must stress at the outset, are of variable quality. Some are crude and superficial; others are more nuanced and challenging. However, even naive criticisms and questions can help us understand what the aims and assumptions of Reid’s dialectic of common sense are – as well as what they are not.
8.4 We begin with four objections directed at P1. My modus operandi throughout will mimic that of the scholastics: first I shall formulate the objection, then essay a succinct pro-Reidian Respondeo. Objection 1: P1 alleges that belief in moral liberty is a natural conviction or a first principle of common sense. But the terms “natural conviction”, “first principle”, and even “common sense”, while not lacking in rhetorical force, are intolerably vague, and seem to have little or no descriptive content. Indeed, these honorific epithets can be used pretty much as one likes, à la Humpty-Dumpty, so that what is “common sense” to one person may prove arrant nonsense to another. And this Babel-like diversity of views and intuitions creates an obvious difficulty for Reid and his congeners; for if there is no well-defined Credo of Common Sense, supposedly authoritative appeals to its “articles” (such as R2) are bogus and settle nothing. Reply: This objection plainly misses the mark. In Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Reid succinctly explains what he means by “first principles” when he distinguishes two kinds of judgments: those which are “grounded on argument” and those which are “intuitive” (Reid, 1969a, p. 593). Though lengthy, the passage in which this important distinction is articulated is worth reproducing in its entirety: One of the most important distinctions of our judgments is, that some of them are intuitive, others grounded on argument.1 It is not in our power to judge as we will. The judgment is carried along necessarily by the evidence, real or seeming, which appears to us at the time. But in propositions that are submitted to our judgment, there is this great difference; some are of such a nature that a man of ripe understanding may apprehend them distinctly, and perfectly understand their meaning
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without finding himself under any necessity of believing them to be true or false, probable or improbable. The judgment remains in suspense, until it is inclined to one side or another by reasons or arguments. But there are other propositions which are no sooner understood than they are believed. The judgment follows the apprehension of them necessarily, and both are equally the work of nature, and the result of our original powers. There is no searching for evidence; no weighing of arguments; the proposition is not deduced or inferred from another; it has the light of truth in itself, and has no occasion to borrow it from another. Propositions of the last kind, when they are used in matters of science, have commonly been called axioms; and on whatever occasion they are used, are called first principles, principles of common sense, common notions, self-evident truths. Cicero calls them naturae judicia, judicia communibus hominum sensibus infixa. Lord Shaftesbury expresses them by the words natural knowledge, fundamental reason, and common sense. (Reid, 1969a, p. 593) If our imaginary critic had only attended to passages like this, he would soon have learned four things about Reidian first principles or natural convictions: a. First, assent to such propositions is psychologically immediate or spontaneous, as opposed to being the product of reasoning: “There is no searching for evidence; no weighing of arguments; the proposition is not deduced or inferred from another ... ” (Reid, 1969a, p. 593). Once the content of such principles is grasped, we cannot help but embrace them: “The judgment follows the apprehension of them necessarily, and both are equally the work of nature, and the result of our original powers” (Reid, 1969a, p. 593). Accordingly, one’s belief in them is determined by “the constitution of our nature” (Reid, 1992, p. 31), and does not depend upon the peculiarities of one’s sensibility, temperament, worldview, or ideology. b. Second, Reid’s “intuitive” propositions are not merely evident or justified; they are “self-evident”, or justified immediately and non-inferentially (i.e. – their justification does not depend on their relations to any other judgments). In argot of contemporary epistemology, common sense principles and convictions are foundational or basic.2 As a result, it would be a grave mistake to require that they be justified – if by “to justify” we mean “to support with evidence and arguments” or “to infer from premises which are better known or more evident in themselves”. c. But why suppose that there are any self-evident propositions? Reid’s reply to this challenge is arguably as old as Aristotle: either we allow there is such a thing as non-inferential justification, or we must confess that no judgments are justified. For if all judgments are “grounded on argument” or “got by reasoning” (Reid, 1969a, pp. 593, 596), an infinite justificatory regress ensues: judgment A would derive its justification
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from judgment B; B, from C; C, from D; and so on, without end. Because “we cannot go back in this track to infinity” (Reid, 1969a, p. 596), we must stop at some point – but where? Reid’s answer could not be clearer: we are entitled to stop “only when we come to propositions, which support all that are built upon them, but are themselves supported by none, that is, to self-evident propositions” (Reid, 1969a, p. 596). Using a different metaphor, he says that such judgments possess “the light of truth” in themselves and do not “borrow it from another” (Reid, 1969a, p. 593). They are intrinsically credible or self-evident, and without them nothing else could be known: “[A]ll knowledge got by reasoning must be built upon first principles” (Reid, 1969a, p. 596; cf. pp. 541, 559; 1969b, p. 360). d. Just as there are two classes of truths – necessary and contingent (Reid, 1969a, pp. 614–615; cf. pp. 536–537) – there are two classes of first principles (Reid, 1969a, pp. 614–643, 644–671; 1969b, pp. 360–370). The first principles of necessary truths are a rather heterogeneous lot, including as they do axioms drawn from disparate domains of discourse: grammar, logic, mathematics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and morals. Reid spills the most ink on the last two domains, descanting on the underlying principles of metaphysics (e.g. – that whatever begins to exist must have a cause) and morals (e.g. – a version of the Golden Rule). More space is given over to the first principles of contingent truths, which include the following: that our cognitive faculties – consciousness, memory, senseperception, reason – are not unreliable; that there are other minds; that personal identity is not a fiction; that nature is uniform; and – lest we forget – that we have contra-causal free will. These principles, as Keith Lehrer observes, “are, for the most part, those principles that we must presuppose to avoid the scepticism of Hume but which we cannot account for, if Hume is right, by appeal to reason” (Lehrer, 1989, p. 157). Now that we have reviewed Reid’s basic characterization of first principles or natural convictions, one thing should be achingly obvious: no one acquainted with his account could possibly think that these terms can be manipulated Humpty-Dumpty style, or that anything is a first principle provided someone says it is. And this means that Objection 1 can be set aside as a risible non-starter, as we move on. Objection 2: It is all very well to say that there must be some first principles. But if we should happen to disagree about what they are, how are we to proceed? Unless we have some way(s) of identifying the genuine article and distinguishing them “from those that assume the character without a just title” (Reid, 1969a, p. 596), we are not entitled to make claims such as P1; but without P1, Reid’s Argument from Natural Conviction cannot get off the ground.
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Reply: Though Reid grants that “men who really love truth, and are open to conviction, may differ about first principles” (Reid, 1969a, p. 603), he nonetheless lists “marks” by which such principles may be recognized and impostors exposed. i. Far from being prejudices peculiar to a given time, place, culture, caste, or sect, first principles have been accepted by virtually all people in all ages: “I conceive that the consent of ages and nations, of the learned and unlearned, ought to have great authority with regard to first principles, where every man is a competent judge” (Reid, 1969a, p. 608). ii. Our inclination to believe in such principles is “immediate”, “irresistible” (Reid, 1969a, p. 617), and cannot be extirpated by argument. Even the sceptic, who is committed ex officio to doubting them, cannot shake them off: try as he might, “when his strength is spent in the fruitless attempt, he will be carried down the torrent with the common herd of believers” (Reid, 1992, p. 223). iii. Anyone who actually managed to doubt or deny such principles would put himself on par with the lunatic and the fool, because these propositions are practically indispensable: “[W]hen an opinion is so necessary in the conduct of life, that without the belief of it, a man must be led into a thousand absurdities in practice, such an opinion, when we can give no other reason for it, may safely be taken for a first principle” (Reid, 1969a, p. 613). iv. Such principles appear so early in our minds – indeed, we are unable to remember a time when we were not ruled by them – that they cannot be reckoned the products of education, tradition, convention, or speculation: “Opinions that appear so early in the minds of men, that they cannot be the effect of education, or of false reasoning, have a good claim to be considered as first principles” (Reid, 1969a, p. 613). v. There can be no “direct, or apodictical proof” of first principles (Reid, 1969a, p. 607). Because these propositions are self-evident, we cannot find “any antecedent truth from which it [i.e. – a first principle] is deduced or upon which its evidence depends. It seems to disdain any such derived authority, and to claim my assent in its own right” (Reid, 1969a, p. 617). vi. Such principles are so fundamental to our worldview that they are rarely formulated or made explicit, except when targeted by sceptical philosophers (such as Hume). In other words, acceptance of these basic judgments is typically tacit or ‘goes without saying’: “We may here take notice of a property of the principle under consideration [i.e. – that our faculties are not inherently deceptive] that seems to be common to it with many other first principles, and which can hardly be found in any principle that is built solely upon reasoning; and that is, that in most men it produces its effect without ever being attended to, or made an object
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of thought. No man ever thinks of this principle, unless when he considers the grounds of skepticism; yet it invariably governs his opinions” (Reid, 1969a, p. 632; emphasis mine). vii. The negations of such principles strike us not merely as false, but as positively absurd and fit to be ridiculed: “We may observe, that opinions which contradict first principles are distinguished from other errors by this; that they are not only false, but absurd: and, to discountenance absurdity, nature has given us a particular emotion, to wit, that of ridicule” (Reid, 1969a, p. 606). Much could be said about each item on this list; but here, alas, is not the place. For our purposes, the essential point about Reid’s “marks” is that they give us a neutral framework in which disagreements about first principles may be resolved by means of reasoning, as opposed to being left as matters of fiat. And the significance of this in the present context is plain: if we have standards by which such disputes can be adjudicated – if we can separate the pure wheat of common sense from the chaff of ephemeral prejudice – then it is possible for us to assess claims such as P1 (i.e. – claims to the effect that certain propositions are first principles or natural convictions). Of course, whether we should endorse P1 in particular is a separate issue, to which we now turn in earnest. Objection 3: Suppose that I am convinced that I act freely in Reid’s sense; that is, I believe that I have some power over the determinations of my own will. Why should I suppose that this is a “first principle” or a “natural conviction” with roots deep in my constitution? Reply: Reid knows that he must furnish sceptics and doubting Thomases with “evidence of our having a natural conviction that we have some degree of active power” (Reid, 1969b, p. 305). His brief for P1 may be summarized as follows. a. First, he inquires into the origin of our idea of active power. Here – as Gideon Yaffe (2003) rightly points out – he forms a curious but strategic alliance with Humeans, who flatly deny this idea can be derived from experience. Reid concurs: “If we had no notions but such as are furnished by the external senses, and by consciousness, it seems to be impossible that we should ever have any conception of power” (Reid, 1969a, p. 628; cf. 1969b, pp. 5–6, 305). Nevertheless, it is abundantly clear to Reid that we do have a conception of active power: It is evident that all men, very early in life, not only have an idea of power, but a conviction that they have some degree of it in themselves: for this conviction is necessarily implied in many operations of mind, which are familiar to every man, and without which no man can act the part of a reasonable being. (Reid, 1969a, p. 629)
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Accordingly, we are driven to conclude that “the very conception or idea of active power must be derived from something in our own constitution” because “[i]t is impossible to account for it otherwise” (Reid, 1969b, p. 305). b. As we have just seen, Reid thinks the belief that we are bearers of active power is “necessarily implied in many operations of mind, which are familiar to every man, and without which no man can act the part of a reasonable being” (Reid, 1969a, p. 629). But which operations, specifically, are held to imply “the belief of our having active power” (Reid, 1969b, p. 308)? Let the following list serve as a catalogue raisonné: i. Volition, or the voluntary exertion of one’s power: “[T]hough a man may be unconscious of his power when he does not exert it, he must have both the conception and the belief of it, when he knowingly and willingly exerts it, with intention to produce some effect” (Reid, 1969b, p. 305). ii. Deliberation: “[N]o man in his wits deliberates whether he shall do what he believes not to be in his power” (Reid, 1969a, p. 629); “To deliberate about an end, we must be convinced that the means are in our power; and to deliberate about the means, we must be convinced that we have power to choose the most proper” (Reid, 1969b, p. 305). iii. Resolution subsequent to deliberation: “Suppose our deliberation be brought to an issue, and that we resolved to do what appeared proper, can we form such a resolution or purpose, without any conviction of power to execute it?” (Reid, 1969b, p. 305; cf. 1969a, p. 629). iv. Promising: “Again, when I plight my faith in any promise or contract, I must believe that I shall have power to perform what I promise. Without this persuasion, a promise would be downright fraud” (Reid, 1969b, p. 306).3 v. Blaming oneself, or holding oneself morally responsible: “[A]ll conviction of wrong conduct, all remorse and self-condemnation, imply a conviction of our power to have done better” (Reid, 1969b, pp. 306–307). vi. Holding others morally responsible, or blaming and praising them: “When we impute to a man any action or omission as a ground of approbation or of blame, we must believe he had power to do otherwise” (Reid, 1969a, pp. 629–630; cf. 1969b, pp. 306–307). vii. Telling others what they should do, or what they should have done: “The same is implied in all advice, exhortation, command, and rebuke” (Reid, 1969a, p. 630). viii. Expecting others to keep their promises or their word: “The same is implied ... in every case in which we rely upon his fidelity in
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performing any engagement, or executing any trust” (Reid, 1969a, p. 630). c. Assuming these operations indeed imply the belief that we possess contra-causal freedom (and not merely Humean hypothetical liberty), it stands to reason that “the belief of our having active power ... must be coeval with our reason; it must be as universal among men, and as necessary in the conduct of life, as those operations are” (Reid, 1969b, p. 308). It follows, pleads Reid, that R2 has a good claim to be regarded as a first principle or natural conviction: “A conviction so early, so universal, and so necessary in most of our rational operations, that it must be the result of our constitution, and the work of Him that made us” (Reid, 1969b, p. 304; cf. 1969a, p. 630). And with this, we have Reid’s brief for P1 – and his answer to Objection 3. Objection 4: First principles, it is said, are accepted by all who are of sound mind and ripe understanding. How, then, can R2 be a first principle, given that – as Reid himself acknowledges – many philosophers vociferously deny it? Reply: Anticipating something like this objection,4 Reid astutely observes that “men in their practice may be governed by a belief which in speculation they reject” (Reid, 1969b, p. 308). For instance, a sensible man may poke fun at “the popular belief of apparitions in the dark” but fear them when left alone late at night; people looking down from the top of a high tower may be terrified, though “their reason convinces them that they are in no more danger than when standing upon the ground”; moral sceptics, who contend that “there is no distinction between virtue and vice”, have nevertheless “resented injuries, and esteemed noble and virtuous actions” ; and epistemological sceptics, “who profess to disbelieve their senses, and every human faculty”, find themselves trusting those faculties in practice (Reid, 1969b, p. 309). The case of his philosophical adversaries is similar, opines Reid: though a necessitarian may abjure R2 in theory, in the sphere of practice and common life she must submit like the rest of us – unless, that is, she can altogether refrain from deliberating, making resolutions, promising, holding others responsible, feeling remorse, and the like. As Reid says, There are some points of belief so necessary, that, without them, a man would not be the being which God made him. These may be opposed in speculation, but it is impossible to root them out. In a speculative hour they seem to vanish, but in practice they resume their authority. This seems to be the case of those who hold the doctrine of necessity, and yet act as if they were free. (Reid, 1969b, p. 309) We may develop Reid’s point a bit further by recalling his dictum that some first principles “force assent in particular cases, more powerfully than
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when they are turned into a general proposition” (Reid, 1969a, p. 633). Now, R2 seems to be one principle of which this is true. Although nothing could be easier than to deny R2 in the abstract or in print, I may still find it exceedingly difficult – if not psychologically impossible – to believe that I do not have the power to decide whether to raise my right arm at this moment, or that whether I choose to remain seated now isn’t ultimately up to me, or that you couldn’t have done otherwise when you lied to me about drinking the last of the single malt yesterday. Because our belief in moral liberty seems virtually ineradicable, “the greatest skeptic finds, that he must yield to it in his practice, while he wages war with it in speculation” (Reid, 1969b, p. 308).
8.5 Having examined P1’s credentials at some length, we turn now to an objection concerned with its implications. Objection 5: How can the inference from P1 to P2 possibly be defended? It seems remarkably uncritical to attach such significance to the fact – assuming it is a fact – that we are inclined by nature to believe we act freely. Surely between the platitudes of the vulgar and the verities of the metaphysician there is a great gulf fixed; and it is unworthy of a true philosopher to forget this, or to collapse the gap separating the dogmas of the demos from the insights of the wise. Reply: Here are three replies drawn from Reid’s writings: a. First, a reminder: our belief in moral liberty is in very good company. For if that belief is truly a natural conviction or first principle (as per P1), then it is epistemically on par with our belief in an external world, our belief in other minds, our belief in the reliability of memory, and our belief in personal identity, among others: It resembles, in this respect, our belief in the existence of a material world; our belief that those we converse with are living and intelligent beings; our belief that those things did really happen which we distinctly remember, and our belief that we continue the same identical persons. We find difficulty in accounting for our belief of these things; and some philosophers think, that they have discovered good reasons for throwing it off. But it sticks fast, and the greatest skeptic finds, that he must yield to it in his practice, while he wages war with it in speculation. (Reid, 1969b, p. 308; cf. 1969a, p. 630) Most of us think that we are justified in believing in the external world, in other minds, and the like; but we cannot give reasons or arguments in support of these beliefs any more than we can give reasons or arguments
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in support of our belief in moral liberty. In light of this, the move from P1 to P2 may not strike us as such an absurd non sequitur after all – unless, of course, we are thoroughgoing sceptics, convinced that all the beliefs just mentioned are epistemically beyond the pale. b. Second, we are told that doubting one’s natural convictions would be tantamount to doubting the veracity of God Himself: “The genuine dictate of our natural faculties is the voice of God, no less than what he reveals from heaven; and to say that it is fallacious, is to impute a lie to the God of Truth” (Reid, 1969b, p. 304). Because this is manifestly absurd (not to mention impious), we must not doubt our natural convictions or demand that they be justified by reasoning. Instead, it must be reasonable to accept the deliverances of our God-given faculties unless there is some positive reason for doubting them. One problem with this argument is that while such a philosophical deus ex machina may silence those who already believe in a non-deceiving God, it will have no such effect on critics who do not. Note, too, that any attempt to win over such critics by offering a proof of God’s existence which uses natural convictions as premises is fated to fail, inasmuch as it would be flagrantly circular. It would also be ironic, because – as commentators have not been slow to point out – Reid chastises Descartes for reasoning in just such a circle: “It is strange that so acute a reasoner [i.e. – Descartes] did not perceive, that in this reasoning there is evidently a begging of the question” (Reid, 1969a, p. 631). All in all, then, I hesitate to attribute this rejoinder to Reid unless it is understood as an ad hominem argument aimed at philosophers who conjoin theism with necessitarianism. c. Those rooting for Reid need not despair quite yet, however. For a more promising possibility lurks in the following three paragraphs: Some of the most strenuous advocates for the doctrine of necessity acknowledge, that it is impossible to act upon it. They say that we have a natural sense or conviction that we act freely, but that this is a fallacious sense. This doctrine is dishonourable to our Maker, and lays a foundation for universal skepticism. It supposes the Author of our being to have given us one faculty on purpose to deceive us, and another by which we may detect the fallacy, and find that he imposed on us. If any one of our natural faculties be fallacious, there can be no reason to trust to any of them; for he that made one made all. (Reid, 1969b, p. 304) With its appeals to “our Maker” and “the Author of our being”, this passage may seem little more than a restatement of the preceding argument. That there is another, fruitful way to read it becomes evident, however,
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when we recall the ingenious treatment of scepticism offered in An Inquiry Into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense: I am aware that this belief which I have in perception stands exposed to the strongest batteries of scepticism. But they make no great impression upon it. The sceptic asks me, Why do you believe the existence of the external object which you perceive? This belief, sir, is none of my manufacture; it came from the mint of Nature; it bears her image and superscription; and, if it is not right, the fault is not mine: I even took it upon trust, and without suspicion. Reason, says the sceptic, is the only judge of truth, and you ought to throw off every opinion and every belief that is not grounded on reason. Why, sir, should I believe the faculty of reason more than that of perception? – they both came out of the same shop, and were made by the same artist; and if he puts one piece of false ware into my hands, what should hinder him from putting another? (Reid, 1992, p. 222) Is Reid saying that cognitive faculties such as perception can be shown to be reliable? No; that way, he sees, lies circularity: “[E]very argument offered to prove the truth and fidelity of our faculties, takes for granted the thing in question, and is therefore that kind of sophism which logicians call petitio principi” (Reid, 1969a, p. 750; cf. pp. 630–631). The point, then, is not that sceptical doubts about the basic reliability of perception can be positively refuted; it is that such doubts cannot be coherently articulated or defended. And just why are such doubts reckoned indefensible? Because all our cognitive faculties “came out of the same shop” (Reid, 1992, p. 222) and are “equally the gifts of Nature” (Reid, 1969a, p. 608), consistency demands that a philosopher who defends scepticism about one faculty – perception, say, or consciousness, or memory – extend that scepticism to all the rest: Thus the faculties of consciousness, of memory, of external sense, and of reason, are all equally the gifts of nature. No good reason can be assigned for receiving the testimony of one of them, which is not of equal force with regard to the others. The greatest sceptics admit the testimony of consciousness, and allow, that what it testifies is to be held as a first principle. If therefore they reject the immediate testimony of sense, or of memory, they are guilty of an inconsistency. (Reid, 1969a, p. 608) Reason, like perception, is allowed to be one of our natural faculties. Consequently, any philosopher who is prepared to condemn perception as inherently deceitful or “fallacious” is obliged to take an equally dim view of reason: “If any one of our natural faculties be fallacious, there can be no
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reason to trust to any of them” (Reid, 1969b, p. 304). But one who positively distrusts reason as such is in no position to argue for anything. Scepticism about our perceptual powers inevitably subverts itself, as its scope ineluctably expands; and the sceptical philosopher who attempts to justify her position ironically ends up silencing herself.5 The objection is simple but powerful: a philosopher who argues that one of our faculties is fundamentally deceptive is bound to condemn all of them; but if one is persuaded that “there is no truth in human faculties” (Reid, 1992, p. 19), one is thereby committed to a form of “universal scepticism” according to which no opinion or thesis – including that more limited form of scepticism about perception with which we began – can be deemed justified or credible. The moral which emerges is hard to miss: if we are to avoid such self-stultifying scepticism, we must begin by assuming that our cognitive equipment is fundamentally sound and trustworthy – by assuming, in other words, “[t]hat the natural faculties, by which we distinguish truth from error, are not fallacious” (Reid, 1969a, p. 630), and that the deliverances of said faculties are justified by default (albeit defeasibly). And once this assumption is securely in place, the inferential chasm between P1 and P2 narrows, and the great gulf between common sense and philosophy can be safely crossed. The upshot? Provided the belief that we possess active power truly comes “from the mint of Nature” (Reid, 1992, p. 222) and has “its origin from something in our constitution” (Reid, 1969b, p. 305), it is reasonable for us to acquiesce in that belief – until or unless we are presented with compelling reasons against doing so. The question now before us, then, is this: Are there such reasons? And this leads us to inspect the argument’s next premise: P3.
8.6 Objection 6: According to P3, the case against R2 is inconclusive. This, surely, is a controversial claim. How can Reid defend it? Reply: Once again, several points must be made if we are to do justice to Reid’s reply. a. First, Reid identifies numerous stock objections to R2, and offers incisive rejoinders to them. Here, for the purposes of illustration, are just some of the challenges he addresses: (i) that liberty is inconceivable because it “supposes the will to be determined by a prior will” (Reid, 1969b, pp. 263; 326); (ii) that free actions are “mere caprice” unless motives are causes (Reid, 1969b, p. 283; cf. p. 326); (iii) that liberty is inconsistent with government “by God or man” (Reid, 1969b, p. 294); (iv) that liberty is inconsistent with the Principle of Sufficient Reason as formulated by “the famous German philosopher Leibnitz” (Reid, 1969b,
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p. 326); (v) that liberty is inconceivable because it implies “an effect without a cause” (Reid, 1969b, p. 332); (vi) that liberty is inconsistent with divine foreknowledge or “the prescience of the Deity” (Reid, 1969b, p. 339); and (vii) that liberty is inconsistent with the “system of materialism” (Reid, 1969b, p. 356). While space limitations prevent us from giving Reid’s rebuttals the sort of critical attention they have received from commentators such as Keith Lehrer (1989, pp. 279–283) and James Harris (2005, pp. 189–201), we can at least appreciate the soundness of his basic strategy: that of defending P3 by neutralizing traditional opposition to R2. b. Philosophers who inveigh against R2 can also be accused of employing a double standard. How so? Suppose I wish to defend determinism. As the determinist thesis is not self-evident, some argument must be offered in support of it; and it is a melancholy truth that arguments, if they are to be cogent, must rest upon plausible premises. Suppose, then, that my pro-determinist argument invokes (as many such arguments do) some well-known and widely accepted philosophical principle(s), such as a principle of universal causation – “[T]hat whatever begins to exist, must have a cause which produced it” (Reid, 1969a, p. 652) – or a principle about the uniformity of nature: “That, in the phenomena of nature, what is to be, will probably be like what has been in similar circumstances” (Reid, 1969a, p. 641). Commonsensical champions of P3 will be only too pleased to point out that such propositions are first principles; and they will be quick to add that if I think that I am justified in accepting such propositions “without being able to give a reason for them” (Reid, 1992, p. 31), I am in no position to deny R2. As Reid says elsewhere: “It is a good argument ad hominem, if it can be shown, that a first principle which a man rejects, stands upon the same footing with others that he admits: for, when this is the case, he must be guilty of an inconsistency who holds the one and rejects the other” (Reid, 1969a, p. 608). c. It might be thought that necessitarians can avoid this dialectical mousetrap with the greatest of ease; but such is not the case. As long as a philosopher deigns to give arguments against our belief in moral liberty, it seems she must take it for granted that reason is basically reliable; but (as we saw in our reply to Objection 5) this means that she is constrained to pay the same compliment to our other faculties. If so, the necessitarian must take it for granted “[t]hat the natural faculties, by which we distinguish truth from error, are not fallacious” (Reid, 1969a, p. 630). But this, as we know, is a first principle; and if one is prepared to be ruled by it and to obey the dictates of our constitution, what logical or epistemic right has one to repudiate our “natural conviction or belief that we act freely” (Reid, 1969b, p. 304)?
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At this point some of Reid’s adversaries, sensing that things have gone too far, will no doubt be keen to revisit the earlier stages of the Argument from Natural Conviction (i.e. – to contest P1 and/or the move from P1 to P2) in order to stave off defeat. As they beat a hasty retreat, the philosophical battle shifts back to terrain which is already familiar to us from our examination of Objections 1–5.
8.7 We come at last to a blunt and curious query concerned not with Reid’s premises or his logic, but with the drift or gist of his argument as a whole.6 Objection 7: In his Life of Johnson Boswell confesses that he once “attempted to agitate” a discussion of “the perplexed question of fate and free will”, only to be brought up short by his redoubtable friend. “Sir,” Dr. Johnson brusquely thundered, “we know our will is free, and there’s an end on’ t” (Boswell, 1980, pp. 410–11). A more unhelpful retort can scarcely be imagined – and yet Reid’s critics may urge that Dr. Johnson, in a single simple sentence, has neatly summed up the Argument from Natural Conviction. Is this so? Reply: No – and seeing why such an equation would be grotesque helps put Reid’s achievement into perspective. True, both Johnson and Reid are firmly persuaded that we are free and responsible agents; both find the doctrine of necessity beyond belief (Boswell, 1980, p. 1319; cf. p. 947); both are sharply critical of Hume and his sceptical paradoxes; and both have a high regard for the dictates of sound common sense. And yet it is plain that Reid does four things well which Johnson doesn’t do at all: namely, (i) offer us a subtle and nuanced analysis of liberty; (ii) explore how the problem of liberty is related to a wide range of issues in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and theology; (iii) anticipate and rebut criticisms both major and minor; and, finally, (iv) make sense of common sense philosophically, identifying its principles with scrupulous care and defending their authority with ingenuity. This is why we cannot say of Reid what we are surely inclined to say of Dr. Johnson – namely, that his plea for liberty is either philosophically inept (because blatantly question-begging), or simply an obstinate refusal to philosophize. This, at any rate, is how I would sum up the difference between the two – and there’s an end on’t.
8.8 If Reid is right, common sense is made of tougher stuff than most philosophers have realized. Composed of coarse but durable fibres known as natural convictions or first principles, common sense is a thick thread – or,
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better yet, a cable – which sceptics of various persuasions pull apart in vain and at their peril. In vain, because that thread’s multifarious strands cannot be frayed or worn bare by the frictionless doubts of philosophers. At their peril, because unless that thread is left whole and intact, sceptics cannot hope to navigate the sinuous labyrinths of their own philosophy. What, then, of those “wand’ring mazes” with which we began? Has Reid found a way out, as advertised? In this essay, of course, we have not set ourselves the formidable task of answering this question. Nor have we attempted to answer the logically prior question as to whether the particular escape route Reid describes represents a coherent possibility – though I have explored that question elsewhere (in McDermid, 1999). Based on what we have seen here, however, I believe that we can say this much: whether or not Reid ultimately extricates himself from Milton’s maddening mazes, he has at least left us a map of what he saw within those ancient walls. Such logical cartography is a hard, austere art; but few philosophers have been as good at it as Thomas Reid.7
Notes 1. Reid, it should be observed, concedes there may be judgments that we find it difficult to classify (i.e. – we are unsure whether they are intuitive or grounded on argument). Doesn’t this possibility discredit his distinction? Not at all, says Reid, who replies with a homely analogy worthy of Socrates: “There is a real distinction between persons within the house, and those that are without; yet it may be dubious to which the man belongs that stands upon the threshold” (Reid, 1969a, p. 594). 2. See Vernier (1976) for more on Reid’s foundationalism. For a qualified defence of some foundationalisms, see McDermid (2006). 3. See Yaffe (2007) for a helpful interpretation of Reid’s views on promising. 4. For the record, the objection Reid considers is “that the belief of our acting freely cannot be implied in the operations we have mentioned, because those operations are performed by them who believe that we are, in all our actions, governed by necessity” (Reid, 1969b, p. 308). 5. Variations on this argument can be found in Reid (1992, pp. 8–11, 19, 80–81, 84–87). For commentary, see Lehrer (1989, pp. 18–19, 30–31, 78–80, 270–271). 6. Another question we might ask about the argument as a whole is whether Reid is even in a position to offer it. For he seems to say three things that can’t all be true: first, that R2 is a first principle; second, that “[i]t is contrary to the nature of first principles to admit of direct, or apodictical proof” (Reid, 1969a, p. 607); and third, that the Argument from Natural Conviction is a proof of R2: “The arguments to prove that man is endowed with moral liberty, which have the greatest weight with me, are three ... ” (Reid, 1969b, p. 303; emphasis mine). Though I once took this objection seriously – see McDermid (1999, pp. 295–296); cf. Beanblossom (1983, p. xxxv )[TS: delete author query] – I have changed my mind after reading Harris (2003). As I have little to add to what Harris says on this point, I am content to refer interested readers to his instructive paper (especially p. 122) and to Duggan (1976), whom Harris cites in this connection: “Reid’s first argument, however, is not, in fact, an argument in support of the thesis that man
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is endowed with moral liberty. It is, rather, an argument in support of the claim that this thesis is a first principle of contingent truths” (Duggan, 1976, p. 107; cf. Harris, 2003, p. 124, n13). 7. I should very much like to thank the following people for comments, suggestions, pointers, and help: Marco Eliens, Gordon Graham, James Harris, Esther Kroeker, Keith Lehrer, Sabine Roeser, and Gideon Yaffe.
9 Beyond the Brave Officer: Reid on the Unity of the Mind, the Moral Sense, and Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity Gideon Yaffe
9.1
Introduction
Many syllabi for undergraduate courses include “Reid’s Brave Officer”. Here is Reid’s description of the example: (1) Suppose a brave officer to have been flogged when a boy at school for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a general in advanced life; suppose, also, which must be admitted to be possible, that, when he took the standard, he was conscious of his having been flogged at school, and that, when made a general, he was conscious of his taking the standard, but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his flogging. (Reid, 2002a, p. 276) The example, we tell undergraduates, illustrates an objection to Locke’s theory of personal identity. We then go on to explain how Locke’s theory might be revised to accommodate the example and others that might be constructed in its wake. How would we revise the theory, for instance, to explain the case in which both the general and the officer remember being flogged, but the general cannot remember the officer’s military exploits? By asking and answering questions like this we trace a line of philosophical thought about personal identity traveling from Locke to Reid to Quinton to Grice and on to Parfit. It’s a tidy story. Despite the fact that the Brave Officer example is usually attributed to Reid, who offers it in his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (Reid, 2002a, p. 276), published in 1785, Berkeley scholars have been stridently aware for some time that it was offered much earlier by Berkeley – in Alciphron (Berkeley, 1948–7, v. 3: p. 299) which was written around 1730. Although 164
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Reid expended much effort trying to refute Berkeley’s theory of sensory perception, Berkeley was one of his philosophical heroes, so it is unsurprising that Reid should have taken the example from him. Recently, however, Reid scholars have become aware that not only did Reid make no claim to have thought of the example himself, he attributed it in his manuscripts not to Berkeley, but to his friend George Campbell (MS 2131/6/III/5, 2, cited in Reid, 2002a, p. 276 n. 10). This suggests that even if Reid had noticed the example while reading Berkeley, he had forgotten that Berkeley offered it by the time he used it in the Essays on the Intellectual Powers some 40 years later. Given this history, there seems little reason for optimism about the prospects for finding anything of interest in those parts of Reid’s discussion of Locke’s theory of personal identity that can be legitimately attributed to Reid. After all, Reid’s discussion of that issue is not remembered for anything but the Brave Officer example, and it appears that even the insights contained in that example are not to be credited to Reid. This paper, however, uncovers a penetrating criticism of Locke’s theory of personal identity that can be found in Reid, a more powerful objection than that contained in the Brave Officer example as usually interpreted. Roughly, the objection is that Locke’s theory of personal identity is incapable of accounting for the special unity of the mind. As will be suggested, Reid thinks that we know our minds are unified in this special way from consideration of first-personal awareness of identity between the subject of present thoughts and the subject of past thoughts. But, in addition, we know it from consideration of the nature of the moral sense, and its link to the self-directed faculty of conscience. Reflection on Reid’s response to Locke’s theory of personal identity, in short, helps us to understand better what, for Reid, the moral sense is supposed to be, and what relation he takes it to bear to other fundamental faculties of the mind, such as the faculty through which we judge identity. Seeing what Reid takes the fundamental problem with Locke’s theory to be helps us to see what lesson Reid wants us to take from the Brave Officer example. It turns out that it is a different lesson from that we now teach our students to take from it. Reid’s Brave Officer is supposed to be an example of a person whose mind is unified in a way that Locke’s theory cannot explain. However, as I will show in this paper, Reid would have offered the same objection, and for the same reasons, to the more complicated “Lockean” theories of personal identity that have been developed in an effort to accommodate the Brave Officer and its variants. In short, the tradition of development of Locke’s theory of personal identity that runs through Quinton and Grice and on to Parfit has missed the point of Reid’s Brave Officer example; even though the most sophisticated Lockean theories have managed to respond to its letter, they haven’t responded to its spirit, the spirit in which Reid, anyway, offered it. The mind, Reid thought, possesses a kind of unity
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that entails the inadequacy of analyses of personal identity through appeal to relations among acts of mind. The usual lesson taken from the Brave Officer example is encouraged by the way Reid describes its import. After describing the example, he writes, (2) These things being supposed, it follows, from Mr. Locke’s doctrine, that he who was flogged at school is the same person who took the standard, and that he who took the standard is the same person who was made a general. Whence it follows, if there be any truth in logic, that the general is the same person with him who was flogged at school. But the general’s consciousness does not reach so far back as his flogging, therefore, according to Mr. Locke’s doctrine, he is not the person who was flogged. Therefore the general is, and at the same time is not the same person with him who was flogged at school. (Reid, 2002a, p. 276) Reid seems to draw out the consequences of simultaneous commitment to three propositions: (i) the transitivity of identity, (ii) the ability of A to remember B’s experience entails that A = B, and (iii) the inability of A to remember B’s experience entails that A ≠ B. (i) and (ii) together imply that the general and the boy are the same person, while (iii) implies that they are different. So, the lesson goes, Locke is committed to an inconsistent triad. Many modern developments of Locke’s theory can be thought of as efforts to revise it in order to avoid simultaneous commitment to these three inconsistent propositions. As we’ll see, I think this way of reconstructing Reid’s objection misses the example’s import. The example appears in a chapter entitled “Of Mr. Locke’s Account of Our Personal Identity”. It appears in a series of paragraphs concerned with the “consequences” of Locke’s account. Reid follows the statement of the example with a remark making it clear that he has little invested in the question of what those “consequences” might be. He writes, “Leaving the consequences of this doctrine to those who have leisure to trace them, we may observe ...” and he goes on to offer three objections to Locke’s theory. These three objections are abbreviated versions of points made in earlier chapters and we learn something about what Reid takes to be wrong with Locke’s theory through consideration of what is said in those earlier chapters. In particular, in the earlier chapters Reid draws a pair of distinctions and makes a further claim about the indivisibility of persons. The distinctions are between strict identity and not strict, or derived identity, on the one hand, and between continuous and successive existence, on the other. As we will see in the next section, these two distinctions track each other: Reid thinks that things that stand in strict identity relations to themselves necessarily exist continuously and things that stand only in derived identity relations to themselves can exist successively. As we will see in the
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section to follow, Reid uses this pair of distinctions, together with appeal to the indivisibility of persons, to argue against Locke’s theory of personal identity.
9.2 Strict and derived identity, continuous and successive existence To get a handle on this pair of distinctions, consider, first, the following remark: (3) Identity in general, I take to be a relation between a thing which is known to exist at one time, and a thing which is known to have existed at another time. (Reid, 2002a, p. 263) It is easy to overlook how peculiar this claim is. Reid seems to be precluding the possibility that identity could be a relation between a thing and itself where each of the relata are picked out through appeal to properties possessed at a single time. To see the point, let’s use the term “the general” to mean “the person who has the property of sitting in the nursing home and boring his compatriots with stories of his military exploits” and the term “the officer” to mean “the person who has the property of capturing the enemy’s flag”, where both of these are to be understood de re. The relation of identity does not obtain, Reid seems to think, between the general and the general, although it does obtain between the general and the officer. This is peculiar because, given that he accepts that identity is transitive and symmetrical, he has to admit that identity holds between the general and the general. After all, there is identity between the general and the officer, and thus, by symmetry, between the officer and the general, so, given transitivity, there is identity between the general and the general. In what sense does the relation of identity, then, hold only between the general and the officer, only between things “known to exist” at different times? Reid is reformulating an idea of Locke’s. Locke’s chapter on personal identity opens like so: (4) ANOTHER occasion, the mind often takes of comparing, is the very Being of things, when considering any thing as existing at any determin’d time and place, we compare it with it self existing at another time, and thereon form the Ideas of Identity and Diversity. (Locke, 1690, p.328) Locke seems to think that the idea of identity is acquired by comparing the idea of a thing existing at one time and the idea of a thing existing at another; we acquire the idea of identity, he thinks, by recognizing that the two ideas pick out one and the same thing. Even if it would be possible, we do not in fact, he thinks, acquire the idea of identity by comparing
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the idea of the general with the idea of the general; we need, also, the idea of the officer. It is far from clear why Locke holds this view. Why can’t a person acquire the idea of identity by thinking about the body of which the left hand before him is a part and comparing it to the body of which the right hand before him is a part? Or by comparing the body before him with itself without thinking about it in two different ways? Such questions seem particularly pressing given that Locke uses his criterion for personal identity to specify conditions under which there is identity in synchronic cases of this sort (see Essay II.xxvii.17, for instance). Still, for Locke, once we acquire the idea of identity – the acquisition of which requires ideas representing a thing at different times – we can recognize that it holds between that which is represented by two ideas representing different but simultaneous properties of a thing, or by that which is represented by a single idea and itself. The concept acquired, that is, is not limited in the way in which its acquisition is limited. Thus, for Locke, there is a distinction between, on the one hand, pairs of ideas of a single thing from which the idea of identity can be acquired – namely, at least some of those in which the pairs represent the thing as possessing properties at different times – and, on the other, pairs from which the idea cannot be acquired, even though the relation holds between the things that the ideas represent. The pair consisting of the idea of the general and the idea of the officer falls into the first class; the general, who has both of these ideas, could use them to acquire the idea of identity. The pair of ideas consisting of the idea of the general and the idea of the general falls into the second; the general is identical to the general, of course, but the person who has those two ideas (the general, for instance) could not use them, Locke thinks, to acquire the idea of the relation of identity. Although the relation of identity is there between the general and himself, it is only visible when we consider the relation holding between the general and the officer. Or so, anyway, Locke seems to think. As is so often the case, where Locke sees a distinction in our ideas, Reid sees a distinction in things themselves. We can think of Reid as distinguishing between what we might call “strict identity” and “derived identity”. Strict identity holds only between things picked out at different times the conceptions of which allow us to recognize – we might even say “to perceive”1 – the identity relation between them. Derived identity holds where the relation of identity can be inferred by appeal to relations of strict identity and other principles like transitivity and symmetry. The officer and the general are strictly identical; in remembering the officer’s experience, the general perceives a relation of identity between himself and the officer. From this fact we are able to derive the identity of the general and the general by applying symmetry and transitivity principles. So the general is derivatively identical to the general. To say that A is identical to B without qualifying the word “identical” is to say that either the relation of strict identity or the relation
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of derived identity hold between A and B. In other words, the ordinary notion of identity is the union of the two relations. Just as two ideas sometimes can, and sometimes cannot, be used, for Locke, to acquire the idea of identity, sometimes we are and sometimes we are not, for Reid, capable of perceiving, as opposed to inferring, an identity between two things that we individually perceive. When we are so capable, the identity relation is strict. Reid says many times that our own identity is a first principle (cf. Reid, 2002a, p. 472). For Reid what this means is that we are able to perceive the relation of identity between ourselves now and earlier without the aid of any inference. Where there is the possibility of such perception – awareness without inference – there is the relation of strict identity. By contrast, we need also to use our capacity to reason to recognize a relation of derived identity between two things. This is a functional definition of strict identity: it is a relation that can be directly perceived through the exercise of one of the natural faculties of the human constitution and without the aid of reason. The distinction between strict and derived identity is important for understanding Reid’s attitude towards Locke’s theory of personal identity. Consider the following passage, to be discussed at some length. Let’s call the argument offered here the “Gap Argument”: (5) I see evidently that identity supposes an uninterrupted continuance of existence. That which hath ceased to exist, cannot be the same with that which afterwards begins to exist; for this would be to suppose a being to exist after it ceased to exist, and to have had existence before it was produced, which are manifest contradictions. Continued uninterrupted existence is therefore necessarily implied in identity. Hence we may infer, that identity cannot, in it proper sense, be applied to our pains, our pleasures, our thoughts, or any operation of our minds. The pain felt this day is not the same individual pain which I felt yesterday, though they may be similar in kind and degree, and have the same cause. The same may be said of every feeling, and of every operation of mind: They are successive in their nature like time itself, no two moments of which can be the same moment. (Reid, 2002a, p. 263) In the second paragraph, Reid infers from what he has argued in the first that the relation of strict identity – identity “in its proper sense” – never holds between mental states or events, and that mental states and events are “successive in their nature”. We can understand what is meant by this by reflecting on what it is supposed to follow from, which are the claims of the first paragraph. What is that paragraph saying? Let’s say that A is a thing that exists at one time and B is a thing that exists at another. Reid claims that if A = B, then A (and B) exists at every time between the time at which A exists and the time at which B does. He
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offers a reductio ad absurdum for this claim that involves considering, as in Figure 1, the possibility that the thing in question has a gap in its existence. In Figure 1, we imagine a universe that has nothing in it except A – the thing that exists at least between t1 and t2 – and B – the thing that exists at least between t3 and t4; in this universe, nothing exists between t2 and t3. Reid seems to be claiming that what is described in Figure 1 is possible only if A and B are not identical. Or, in other words, he claims that what is pictured in Figure 1 is only possible if the universe contains two objects. A
t1
B
t2
t3
t4
Figure 1 A is the thing that exists from t1 to t2; B is the thing that exists from t3 to t4. Nothing exists from t2 to t3.
What is the obstacle to the possibility of A being identical to B? First, let’s try to reconstruct Reid’s argument without using the distinction between strict and derived identity. This would be to reconstruct Reid’s reasoning as involving the following pair of arguments; in fact, such a reconstruction is strongly encouraged by the text just quoted: 1. 2. 3. 4.
A ceases to exist at t2. Nothing exists after it ceases to exist. If A = B, then A exists between t3 and t4. ∴ A ≠ B.
1’. 2’. 3’. 4’.
B starts to exist at t3. Nothing exists before it starts to exist. If A = B, then B exists between t1 and t2. ∴ A ≠ B.
As reconstructed, only someone who already accepts that A and B are not identical will accept premises 1 and 1’. To see this, assume that A and B are one and the same. It follows that A does not cease to exist until t4. A stops existing at t2, but it turns out that A does not cease to exist at t2 – if “cease” means “stop for good” – because, after all, A starts to exist again at t3; that’s the force of saying that A and B are identical. To put the point another way, a person trying to determine if premise 1 is true must check to see if 4 is true. If 4 is false, then so is 1, but it follows that 1 cannot serve as a premise in an argument intended to establish 4. Similar remarks apply
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to the second argument. In short, premises 1 and 1’ presuppose the truth of the conclusions. But, perhaps Reid’s argument should be understood differently and in such a way that takes advantage of the distinction between strict and derived identity. Perhaps his point is that a person who is in a position to perceive that A and B are strictly identical – that the relation between them is of the sort that we can perceive without the help of our capacities for rational inference – must presuppose that there is no point in time between A’s beginning to exist and B’s ceasing to exist at which neither exists. Inferring identity might not require any such presupposition; but perceiving it requires the presupposition that the relata of the relation one is perceiving is not gappy in its existence. But why would this need to be presupposed? The answer probably comes from the way in which Reid thinks of awareness that something is the case through the exercise of one of the “original faculties of the human constitution. I explain. Reid takes himself to be aware through the exercise of an original faculty of the human constitution of the subject of the succession of his thoughts: (6) The thoughts and feelings of which we are conscious are continually changing, and the thought of this moment is not the thought of the last; but something which I call myself, remains under this change of thought. This self has the same relation to the successive thoughts I am conscious of, they are all my thoughts; and every thought which is not my thought, must be the thought of some other person. If any man asks a proof of this, I confess I can give none; there is an evidence in the proposition itself which I am unable to resist. (Reid, 2002a, pp. 472–473) The last remark involves a familiar Reidian move, invoking the technical notion from the period of a “proof”. A “proof” of a proposition increases the epistemic certainty that one has in the proposition by citing other propositions that are of greater epistemic certainty and from which the proven proposition follows. Proofs are contrasted with “demonstrations”, which are deductive arguments that may appeal to premises that are no more certain than the conclusion was antecedent of the demonstration. “p, therefore p” is a demonstration – the conclusion follows deductively from the premise –but it is no proof because the premise is exactly as antecedently certain as the conclusion. In claiming that Reid cannot prove that his mind is a subject distinct from all of his thoughts and standing in the same relation to each of them, Reid is asserting that he recognizes this to be so through a faculty of the mind that is distinct from his capacity to recognize reasons for propositions, a faculty that is just as trustworthy as his faculty of reason. That he is such a subject is something of which he is convinced and for which no reason that would increase his certainty can be given.
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Whatever mental faculty it is that Reid takes to be exercised in this recognition, it seems likely that it is the same faculty through which we recognize the identity between subjects perceived through the perception of qualities at different times. The general is aware of the subject of present thoughts, something additional to the thoughts of which he is conscious. He is also aware of the subject of past thoughts, the thoughts of the officer. And, further, Reid thinks, he is aware that the relation of strict identity holds between the two subjects. He does not infer that the general and the officer are identical by, say, spotting some similarity between the two subjects, or by spotting some third subject that each is identical to. Rather, he simply recognizes without any help from any other mental faculty that there is a relation of identity between the two subjects. Put another way, if a person recognizes that p through the exercise of a natural faculty unaided by reason, then there is no proof of p possible even in principle for him. Nothing that could be said in favor of the truth of p would increase his epistemic certainty in it. Now imagine that you recognize that p in this way, but you do not presuppose that q. And, further, imagine that if you had reason to believe that q, then your belief that p would be more certain. And, further, there is reason to believe that q. This state of affairs, under Reid’s view, is flatly impossible for it implies that you recognize something through the exercise of a natural faculty that could be proven; the proof would provide the reasons for q and would show how q’s truth makes p more likely to be true. Rather, under Reid’s view, if you recognize that p through the exercise of a natural faculty unaided by reason, then you must presuppose the truth of everything that would give you greater certainty in your belief that p. You might not be aware that you are presupposing these things, but, still, you are. But if you already presuppose these things, being shown their truth would not make you any more certain that p. Now consider the following question: Why does the exercise of the capacity to spot an identity between subjects of experience require a presupposition that the subject is not gappy in its existence? The answer is that in perceiving the identity between subjects of experience, encountered through properties at different times, we must assume that there is no difference between the two subjects that provides any reason to doubt their identity. The subjects cannot differ in some respect that would need to be explained away in order to support the claim of identity. If there was something that needed to be explained and that would give us greater confidence in the judgment of identity, then there would be a proof of the belief in identity available. The proof would involve offering the explanation and thereby raising the degree of certainty of identity; it would quell the doubt supplied by the difference. Now, if A and B, in Figure 1, are identical then they both begin to exist at t1 and both cease existing at t4. The possibility that things are as described in Figure 1 does not show, that is, all by itself, that there is something that the person who asserts
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A and B to be identical needs to give a reason for denying. However, if things are as described in Figure 1, then there is a possibility of distinction between A and B that would need to be explained away if identity between A and B is to be asserted. A person who claimed to perceive subject A and subject B, in Figure 1, and perceived that the two are identical could not also accept that the universe is as described in Figure 1 without providing a reason for his belief that A does not cease existing at t2 and that B does not start existing at t3. After all, if there is a time between t1 and t4 at which nothing exists, then there is the possibility that A is annihilated at t2 – genuinely ceases to exist – and there is the possibility that B is born at t3 – genuinely starts to exist for the first time at t3. The person who perceives that A and B are identical could defeat these possibilities by citing a reason for thinking that A and B are identical despite the gap; perhaps each is perceived to be identical to some third subject. But then such a person would have to derive the identity between A and B by appeal to that reason, and would not be perceiving it without the help of his capacities for inference. If he is completely certain that A is identical to B then he takes there to be no possibility to defeat and so he presupposes that things are not as described in Figure 1; he presupposes that the subject exists continuously. We might worry that because, for all he knows, there is a gap, he cannot be certain that he is really perceiving the identity despite what he thinks. But Reid’s response to this would be to accept the contrapositive: because he is certain that there is identity between A and B without giving any reasons for this, he is certain that there is no gap, and so no possibility to defeat with reasons. It is one thing to say that a proposition is presupposed, another to say it is true. And so it is one thing to say that perceiving identity between bare subjects involves presupposing continuous existence and another to say that the subject really does continuously exist. However, for reasons invoked in his response to skepticism and idealism, among other places, Reid thinks that presupposed propositions are true when presupposed by an exercise of one of the original faculties of the human constitution. Roughly, the argument runs that acceptance of a reason that opposes what one believes must be made on the basis of greater trust in the faculty through which one recognizes that reason than one has in the faculty that gave rise to the belief in the first place. We have just as much reason to trust the faculty through which we come to believe in the existence of the external world as we have to trust the faculty through which we recognize the validity of, say, Berkeley’s arguments against material substance, and so, Reid thinks, those arguments lack traction. Similarly, we have just as much reason to trust the faculty through which we perceive the current subject of our experiences to be identical to the past subject of experience, and so just as much reason to trust what we necessarily presuppose in making that judgment as we have to trust the faculty of reason, or any other faculty. What follows is that he holds that where there is strict identity, there are in fact no gaps in existence.
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The possibility of perception of the identity relation – as we have where there is strict identity – undermines the possibility of gappy existence. The Gap Argument can be reconstructed, then, as follows, where, as before, A is the subject that exists at least from t1 to t2 in Figure 1, and B is the subject that exists at least from t3 to t4, and where nothing exists from t2 to t3: 1’’. It is possible that A ceases to exist at t2 or that B starts to exist at t3, or both. (p) 2’’. If it is possible that A ceases to exist at t2 or that B starts to exist at t3, or both, then one could not be certain that A is strictly identical to B without giving a reason why that possibility is not realized. (p Æ s) 3’’. If one perceives the identity between A and B through the exercise of an original faculty of the human constitution, then one can be certain that A and B are strictly identical without recognizing any reasons for that claim. (r Æ not–s) 4’’. If A is strictly identical to B, then perception of the identity between them is an exercise of an original faculty of the human constitution. (q Æ r) 5’’. ∴ A is not strictly identical to B. (not–q) Of course, little of this structure is found in passage (5). But passage (5) comes quite late in the Essays on the Intellectual Powers at a point at which Reid takes himself to have established, already, all of the various claims that are drawn on in the argument as I am reconstructing it. The argument just reconstructed provides Reid with a tool for distinguishing between entities that exist continuously and those that exist successively. If it is possible to perceive the identity between bare subjects considered as the subjects of temporally separated properties, then the subject in question has continuous existence. If, by contrast, perception of identity between entities encountered at different times must be mediated by awareness of something else from which identity is inferred or derived – an awareness, for instance, of similarity between the two entities – then the entity in question could have only successive existence. Reid takes the paradigm instance of a thing with successive existence to be the mental state of pain. There is a sense in which the pain caused by an injury to the knee, experienced last night, and the pain from the same injury experienced this morning are perceived by me to be the same pain, despite the fact that, given that I was unconscious through the night and so felt no pain at all, it was gappy in its existence. However, in perceiving the identity between the two pains, I am not aware of two bare subjects and aware of the identity relation between them. Rather, I infer that the pains are derivatively identical from the fact that they have the same cause and feel the same. As Reid says in passage (5), strictly speaking, the pains are distinct from one another. That is, the
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relation of strict identity – the relation that can be perceived through an exercise of one of our natural faculties – does not hold between the pain encountered last night and the pain encountered this morning. So it is, Reid thinks, with all our mental states. This is not to say that mental states do not stand in identity relations. That’s not true. They stand in derived identity relations. What this implies is that there is such a thing as a single pain that exists over a long temporal interval. That single thing is a single sequence of strictly distinct pains. Each of the things in the sequence is distinct from the others in the sense of strict identity. But there may, nonetheless, be relations between them – such as similarity and common cause – that makes it the case that the sequence is a single thing, a single pain, in the sense of derived identity. Such a single thing has successive existence, not continuous, and could have a gappy existence. Notice that Reid is not committed to the clearly false claim that a successively existing thing necessarily is gappy in its existence. It would be possible to feel a pain for a full hour without end. What Reid is committed to is that a gap in the existence of a successively existing thing is compatible with judgments of identity between successively existing things encountered at different times (so long as it is understood that these are not judgments of strict identity, but of derived). This contrasts with the case of bare subjects where our judgments of identity (strict in this case) necessarily presuppose the absence of such gaps. It follows that there is no reason to take the pain that I feel for an hour without break to be a bare subject, strictly identical to itself, and existing for that hour. My judgment of identity is compatible with there being, strictly speaking, a different pain each and every moment over the course of the interval, where none of the pains in the succession is, itself, a subject possessing properties. Reid does not conclude that pains could either exist continuously or successively, while bare subjects can exist only continuously. Rather, he concludes that pains and other mental states exist only successively. The reason Reid jumps in this way is that, in the wake of Locke’s, Hume’s and Berkeley’s attacks on the very idea of substances and bare substrata, he takes himself to be in position to assert the existence of a continuously existing subject only when there is no other way to explain our judgments of identity. In the case of pains and other mental states, we can explain the judgments of identity through appeal only to (sometimes densely packed) successive existences and do not need to appeal to continuously existing things. Not so when it comes to our judgments of our own identity over time. The distinction between continuous and successive existence, and the companion distinction between strict and derived identity, mark a distinction between true unity and its absence. If we assume that a thing with temporal parts possesses none of them essentially, then strictly identical things are true unities for they lack even temporal parts. Someone who perceives a
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strict identity between the bare subjects of temporally separated properties presupposes not just that the thing is not in fact gappy, but that it couldn’t possibly be. If it could be, then the person would have to have some reason to believe that possibility to be unrealized in order to be certain that he is perceiving identity; because he is certain that he is perceiving an identity, he presupposes the impossibility of the thing being gappy. But every thing with temporal parts could be gappy, even if it is not in fact. It would be possible for it to lose one of its temporal parts without thereby being destroyed. So strictly identical things necessarily lack temporal parts. By contrast, successively existing things necessarily possess temporal parts. What this implies is that if it can be shown that persons lack parts, it can be shown that they are continuously existing bare subjects that are strictly identical to themselves, Reid thinks. Why does Reid believe that persons are partless? As we’ll see in the next section, answering this question exhibits the nature of the link that Reid sees between the metaphysics of identity and the ethical evaluation of persons.
9.3 Partless persons and the moral sense Consider the following passage: (7) [A]ll mankind place their personality in something that cannot be divided, or consist of parts. A part of a person is a manifest absurdity. When a man loses his estate, his health, his strength, he is still the same person, and has lost nothing of his personality. If he has a leg or an arm cut off, he is the same person he was before. The amputated member is no part of his person, otherwise it would have a right to a part of his estate, and be liable for a part of his engagements: It would be entitled to a share of his merit and demerit, which is manifestly absurd. A person is something indivisible, and is what LEIBNITZ calls a monad. My personal identity, therefore, implies the continued existence of that indivisible thing which I call myself. (Reid, 2002a, pp. 263–264)2 Like the notion of “proof” the notion of “the absurd” is semi-technical, for Reid. Reid contrasts absurdities with contradictions. To accept a contradiction is to accept something that cannot possibly be true. To accept an absurdity is to accept something that could be true, but the acceptance of which is in conflict with what one’s natural faculties tell one is the case when they function correctly. To accept an absurdity, that is, is to run counter to human nature, even though what one accepts could be true. That the subjects of two temporally separated properties are strictly identical and yet gappy in their existence is a contradiction, for Reid. It could not possibly be the case. It is ruled out by the nature of strict identity, which is a relation that is by its nature perceivable through the exercise of
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one of one’s native, natural faculties and without the help of reason. But to accept that a person has parts is to accept something that could be true, but which our native natural faculties tell us is false. Reid’s appeal to the indivisibility of entitlement, debt, merit and demerit is intended to show that we presuppose the partlessness of persons when making certain ordinary moral judgments. These judgments are exercises of a natural faculty: the moral sense or the faculty of conscience. Reid’s point is that when that faculty is working correctly its dictates presuppose the partlessness of persons. This claim needs to be evaluated – it is far from obviously true that ordinary moral judgments of persons presuppose their partlessness – and a few steps towards evaluating it will be taken shortly. But first note that the point serves to unite two strands in Reid’s thought. The first strand, which has been examined to some degree already here, concerns the lesson that can be drawn from the fact (or, in any event, what Reid takes to be a fact) of the special nature of first-personal awareness of one’s own identity. From the inside, as it were, there is often no inference to be made, and no room for doubt about the possibility that the subject of one’s present experiences is identical to the subject of some past ones. The judgment that there is identity here is a deliverance of a natural faculty of the human constitution. And from this fact each person is able to conclude, Reid thinks, that the subject of his experiences is a continuously existing thing and not a successively existing one. The second strand of thought concerns the link that Reid evidently sees, as did many in the period, between the moral sense, which is exercised both in the evaluation of ourselves and of others, and conscience, which is exercised only in the evaluation of ourselves. In fact, the link for Reid is so strong that he uses the two notions interchangably (cf. Reid, 1969b, p. 231). Still, there is a distinction here even if Reid does not accept it: strictly speaking, one’s conscience is always self-directed – it takes as its object one’s own actions, character traits, emotional responses and perhaps more besides, but only things that are one’s own. The negative dictates of conscience involve a judgment to the effect that one has fallen short, in some respect, of one’s very own standards. In equating conscience and the moral sense, Reid seems to be holding that to judge of the moral qualities of another is to get as close as one can to taking the first-personal perspective towards someone else. Literally speaking, this is impossible: to take the first-personal perspective on something is to conceive of it as identical to, or part of, oneself, and so that perspective cannot be directed to something one recognizes to be entirely distinct from oneself. But, still, the idea is that in making a moral judgment of another, such as a judgment to the effect that another’s action was wrong, it is as if one is saying, “If I were you, my conscience would disapprove of that act.” Moral attitudes concerning others, including judgments, are the dictates of the faculty of conscience directed towards others.
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Combining these two strands of thought in Reid, we reach the following idea: Conscience, when directed at oneself, involves awareness of strict identity between the subject of the act, attitude or character trait being evaluated and the subject of the dictate of conscience3; similarly, conscience, when directed at another, involves not the awareness but the presupposition of the same strict identity between the subject on whom the sentence, as it were, is being passed, and the subject of the act, attitude or character trait for which the sentence is being passed. The idea is that what we are aware of when we judge ourselves – namely that there is strict identity – is a presupposition of the exercise of the same faculty when directed at another. Put more simply, if it is true that “If I were you, my conscience would disapprove of that act” it must also be true that the subject being criticized is in a position to spot the strict identity between himself and the subject, the agent, of the act. Because A must have continuous existence to be rightly judged by A’s conscience – a fact of which A is aware when exercising his conscience – B must also have continuous existence to be rightly judged by A’s moral sense. If, for instance, A exercises his moral sense to perceive that the defendant in the courtroom has the objectionable moral quality of the one who committed the crime, then A thereby presupposes that the defendant could be non-inferentially aware of the identity between himself and the man who committed the crime. What has just been reconstructed is a way of reaching the conclusion that persons are partless, that they have continuous and not successive existence, from the premise that to judge of another is to employ the very same faculty, the faculty of conscience, that one employs when judging oneself. The reconstruction connects two things that Reid accepts, but it is a speculative reconstruction, for there is no evidence I know of that Reid made the connection himself explicitly in this way. Now the premise that judgments of another involve the same faculty that one employs in judging of oneself is plausible enough. But is there more than intuition that would lead us to accept it? Is there something about moral judgment of others, itself, that suggests this deep kinship? There very well may be. A place to start is reflection on the idea that to hold another morally responsible – in contrast, for instance, to holding him merely causally responsible – is to see him as violating standards that, in some sense, are his own standards. The words “in some sense” in this formulation serve as a patch over an area of darkness, for it is quite clear that we often hold people responsible for behavior that they thought, explicitly anyway, to be perfectly acceptable. Be that as it may, there is truth in the idea, and it is part of what motivates the thought that animals are never to be judged morally, even if they are to be judged as, for instance, dangerous. Moral judgment involves a presumption of capacity for the appreciation of the very standards with respect to which the judged is taken to fall short, a capacity that animals seem to lack. It is quite possible that this is the seed from which grows Reid’s
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conception of the moral sense, when directed at others, as involving a presupposition about persons that we find explicitly confirmed, he thinks, in the experience of ourselves that is implicated in self-directed deliverances of conscience.
9.4
Reid’s brave officer
We’re now in position to appreciate the lesson that Reid wants us to take from the Brave Officer example. Whatever precisely Locke’s theory of personal identity is – however we are to understand the idea that identity between the subjects of temporally separated experiences is constituted by the “consciousness” that one possesses of the other’s experience – it seems clear that Locke takes relations between mental states existing at different times to be constitutive of identity of the subjects of those mental states. He takes the features of a successively existing thing, namely the sequence of thoughts, to be determinative of the identity of a continuously existing thing, namely the subject of those thoughts. The General and the Officer are the same person just in case the thoughts of the general are part of the same sequence of thoughts as the thoughts of the officer. As I will suggest, Reid’s worry, expressed in one form in the Brave Officer example, is that nothing that has merely successive existence could possibly serve to constitute the identity of something that has continuous existence. The Gap Argument points out one crucial difference between something with successive existence and something with continuous existence: something with successive existence could be gappy while something with continuous existence could not. The Brave Officer example points out another: there is nothing about the nature of a successively existing thing which rules out the possibility that A and B could be parts of the same successively existing thing, and B and C could be part of the same successively existing thing, even though A and C are not. The nature of a continuously existing thing, by contrast, does rule something like this out. I explain. Start by considering Reid’s claim in passage (2) that the Boy and the General are the same person. Say I look at object A and then at object B. I also touch object B and then object C. I never touch A and I never look at C. A and B are in the same sequence – the sequence of objects I looked at. B and C are in the same sequence – the sequence of objects I touched. But A and C are not both in either sequence. They might be in some third sequence, but they are not in whatever sequence they both belong to in virtue of the fact that each is in a sequence with object B. Is this a violation of transitivity? Not really. When I say, “A and B are in the same sequence” I mean something different by the term “same sequence” than when I say, “B and C are in the same sequence”. Still, the example illustrates something
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important. If a thing has successive existence, then its parts are things that are capable of being members of distinct sequences, or distinct things that also exist successively. Two distinct successive existences could overlap in parts. By contrast, something that has continuous existence, necessarily lacks parts that could be parts of other things. The very idea of overlap requires a region of overlap that could be meaningfully considered in isolation from the thing of which it is a part. But continuously existing things necessarily lack such parts and so necessarily do not overlap partially with anything else. Now, look at the first half of passage (2) in which Reid says “if there be any truth in logic”, the General and the Boy are the same person. Notice that if a person were a successively existing thing, we could not reach this conclusion. The fact that the Boy and the Officer are in the same sequence and the fact that Officer and the General are do not entail that the Boy and the General are; perhaps, instead, we have two different sequences that share a common part, namely the Officer. If we were dealing with a successively existing thing, we could no more conclude that the Boy and the General are parts of the same sequence than we can conclude that the object I looked at without touching and the object I touched without looking at are parts of the same sequence because each is in sequence with something I both looked at and touched. Rather, we are able to reach the conclusion that the Boy and the General are the same person by thinking of the Boy and the Officer as the same continuously existing thing, and by thinking of the Officer and the General that way. We can reach the conclusion that the Boy and the General are the same person if there is truth in logic – if, that is, there is something about the nature of the objects in play, namely that they are continuously existing things, that licenses unguarded appeal to the principle of transitivity. Put another way, the principle of transitivity is not a principle of formal logic, but a principle that is true of certain types of objects, namely those enjoying continuous and not successive existence. So, in drawing the conclusion that the Boy and the General are the same person, Reid is noticing that this very ordinary judgment is supported by a supposition to the effect that persons are continuously existing things. Now consider the second conclusion that Reid reaches: namely, that the Boy and the General are not the same person. This conclusion is reached on the strength of the fact that the General does not remember the Boy’s experience. However, if we were talking about the identity of a continuously existing thing, we could not reach this conclusion on this basis. After all, in perceiving the identity between himself and the Officer, the General presupposes that the Officer exists continuously from the moment the enemy flag is taken to the moment that he sits in the nursing home. But it is not the case that he remembers all of those intervening moments. Mere absence of awareness of the experience of a time does not show that there is not identity between the subject of that experience and one’s self, assuming the
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subject is a continuously existing thing. On the other hand, there is good reason to think that the Boy’s thoughts are not parts of the same sequence of thoughts as the General’s. The law of the series here is this: two thoughts are parts of the same sequence, in the sense that matters, if the later includes a memory of the earlier. The General’s and the Boy’s thoughts are not in that same sequence. So, in drawing the conclusion that the Boy and the General are not the same person, Reid is showing what conclusion one reaches when taking the person to be a successively existing thing or merely a sequence of thoughts. So what’s the point of the example? Through the example, Reid shows us that there is a tension in a theory that takes the identity of a continuously existing thing, a person, to be determined by the features of a successively existing thing, a sequence of thoughts. The tension arises because the fact that a thing is continuously existing licenses certain sorts of inferences that cannot be made about the successively existing thing that purportedly constitutes the identity of the continuously existing thing. A silent premise in the argument for the claim that the General and the Boy are the same person is that each is a continuously existing thing. But because the sequence of thoughts is a successively existing thing, the analogous inference there – namely to the conclusion that the Boy’s thoughts are in sequence with the General’s – is blocked. Now imagine a Lockean theory of personal identity which preserves all of the inferences that one makes under the assumption that one is dealing with a continuously existing thing. (In fact, Grice’s theory has a claim to this title.) Under such a theory, two thoughts are in the same relevant sequence of thoughts if and only if the subjects of those two thoughts are the same continuously existing subject. Among other things, such a theory preserves transitivity. Such a theory specifies a law of the series of thoughts, that is, under which if thought A and thought B are in the same sequence under that law, as are thought B and thought C, then so are thought A and thought C. Would the objection that I take the Brave Officer example to illustrate still apply to such a theory? Yes. The reason is that although under such a theory we could still infer, for instance, that the Boy and the General are identical without the assumption that they are continuously existing things it would not be the nature of the entities involved that licensed that inference. We would reach the conclusion that they are identical by using the theory of personal identity – the theory that specifies the law of the series of which their thoughts are both elements – as a premise. The thoughts of the Boy and the thoughts of the General are the sorts of things that fit into many different sorts of sequences. To insist that the relevant sequence is the one under which they are elements in the same sequence is to appeal to something extrinsic to the nature of the entities involved. Or, to put the point another way, it is nothing about the nature of thoughts, or the nature of successively
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existing things, that dictates the law of the series specified by such a theory of personal identity, the law which maintains transitivity. By contrast, the transitivity principle is implicated by the very nature of continuously existing things. So, to alter a Lockean theory of personal identity by altering the law of the series of thoughts that the theory insists to be constitutive of personal identity and thereby to take the features of a successively existing thing to be constitutive of the features of a continuously existing is to fail to respond to the objection that Reid is offering with the Brave Officer example. This is so, even if the proposed Lockean theory of personal identity licenses all the inferences that are licensed by the fact that a thing exists continuously.
9.5
Conclusion
There is a well-known tradition, of which Locke is a part, of claiming that the unity of the mind is in some way linked to, or even a product of “consciousness”, however that is to be understood. Despite the fact that Reid objects to Locke’s theory of personal identity, and does so on the grounds that it cannot account for the unity of the mind, Reid, too, is firmly in this tradition. We can see this by reflecting a bit further on the notion of strict identity: identity perceivable through a natural faculty of the human mind and without the aid of other faculties such as the faculty of reason. To have what Reid calls a “conception” of a thing – such as a property of an object, or the subject of that property, or a relation between objects – is to be aware of the thing. Such awareness does not involve, as it does on the theory of ideas, an apprehension of a mental representation of the thing. Whatever apprehension of an idea, under the theory of ideas, is supposed to be, the conception of a thing, for Reid, involves that same form of apprehension. Just as we are directly aware of our ideas, under the theory of ideas, we are directly aware of things, on Reid’s theory. To recognize a strict identity relation between the subject of one’s present experiences and the subject of certain past experiences is to have a thought, a thought the immediate object of which is the relation of strict identity. Further it is from the nature of that thought – that it involves an irresistible conviction that there is but one subject there, and that it springs from an original principle of the human constitution – that we are able to conclude that where there is that thought there is but a single subject of experience. The nature of the thought justifies our reliance on it. So it is under the tradition that sees the unity of the mind as deriving from the unity of consciousness. On all such views, it is something about the act of reflective awareness of the mind that justifies the assertion of the mind’s unity. The difference, of course, between Reid’s view and Locke’s, anyway, if not others in this tradition, is that, for Reid, the fact of
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identity, discovered by the perception of identity, is not constituted by the discovery of it. In fact, thinks Reid, it is precisely because he fails to see this that Locke’s theory fails. A failure that, I’ve suggested, is illustrated by the Brave Officer example.
Notes 1. I’ll refer to the kind of awareness that we sometimes have of a strict identity relation as one of “perception”. Reid scholars will recognize the inaccuracy here. Still, as we will see, such awareness involves a conviction in the existence of the relation of which one is aware and behaves in other ways just as Reidian perception behaves. 2. Another similar passage: “The identity of a person is a perfect identity; wherever it is real, it admits of no degrees; and it is impossible that a person should be in part the same, and in part different; because a person is a monad, and is not divisible into parts” (Reid, 2002a, p. 265) 3. It thus might be no surprise that in the period, although not by Reid, the word “conscience” and the word “consciousness” were sometimes interchanged.
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Part IV Reid’s Views on Practical Ethics
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10 Reid on Justice Nicholas Wolterstorff
Thomas Reid’s moral philosophy is one of the most neglected parts of his corpus. An indication of this neglect is that, of the thirteen essays in The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid, only one is devoted to Reid’s moral philosophy, that by Terence Cuneo, one of the editors of the Companion. A thought that comes to mind, as an explanation for this neglect, is that Reid had little of interest to say about moral philosophy, in contrast to the truly fascinating, novel, and provocative things he had to say about epistemology and about free action. Not so. Whatever be the reason for the neglect, that’s not it. In this essay I want to focus on just one aspect of Reid’s moral philosophy, his account of justice. What he had to say about the nature of justice and its fundamental place in the moral life was not only novel in its day but also, in my judgment, extremely insightful. My discussion will come in three parts. First, I will sketch the overall contour of Reid’s moral philosophy.1 Then I will present his understanding of justice. Last, I will look at how he fits justice within the general contours of his moral philosophy. I will base my discussion entirely on Reid’s published writings on these matters, in Essay III and Essay V of his Essays on the Active Powers.
10.1
The general contours of Reid’s moral philosophy
Let’s follow for a while the order of Reid’s discussion in Essay III. The heading of Essay III is The Principles of Action. Part I deals with what Reid calls ‘the mechanical principles of action,’ Part II with what he calls ‘animal principles of action,’ and Part III with ‘the rational principles of action.’ Mechanical principles of action are those features of the self that incite one to act without any involvement of will or intention on one’s part.2 As examples, Reid cites instincts, such as our breathing instinct and an infant’s sucking instinct, and habits, such as habits of movement, of gesture, and of pronunciation. Reid concedes that ‘in the strict philosophical sense, nothing can be called the action of a man, but what he previously conceived 187
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and willed, or determined to do’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 94). He observes that in ordinary speech, however, ‘we call many things actions of the man, which he neither previously conceived nor willed’ (ibid.). And he says that he has found this common usage unavoidable in discussing the mechanical principles of human action. Animal principles of action ‘are such as operate upon the will and intention, but do not suppose any exercise of judgment or reason’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 118). Reid calls such principles of action animal principles because ‘most of them are to be found in some brute animals, as well as in man’ (ibid.). He organizes his discussion of animal principles under five heads: appetites, desires, affections, passions, and dispositions. Though the terms suggest the sorts of things he has in mind, Reid makes a point of saying that his use of the terms departs somewhat from ordinary usage. I find much of what Reid says about mechanical and animal principles of action extraordinarily acute and interesting. It would distract us from our purpose, however, to enter into the details. Let me instead quote what he says in one place as to how the mechanical and animal principles of action fit into his larger picture: We have seen how, by instinct and habit, a kind of mechanical principles, man, without any expense of thought, without deliberation or will, is led to many actions, necessary for his preservation and well-being. It may perhaps be thought, that his deliberate and voluntary actions are to be guided by his reason. But it is to be observed, that he is a voluntary agent long before he has the power of reason. Reason and virtue, the prerogatives of man, are of the latest growth. They come to maturity by slow degrees, and are too weak, in the greater part of the species, to secure the preservation of individuals and of communities. ... Therefore the wise Author of our being has implanted in human nature many inferior principles of action which, with little or no aid of reason or virtue, preserve the species, and produce the various exertions, and the various changes and revolutions which we observe upon the theatre of life. (Reid, 1969b, p. 138) What, then, are rational principles of action? Animal principles require intention and will; definitive of rational principles of action is that they require, in addition, judgment. And judgment is an exercise of reason. Hume argued, in Reid’s words, that ‘it is no part of the office of reason to determine the ends we ought to pursue, or the preference due to one end above another’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 202). Reid’s contention, to the contrary, is that ‘among the various ends of human actions, there are some, of which, without reason, we could not even form a conception’ (ibid.). Among these, in turn, are some that provide an inducement to action, by being what one
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judges to be a good reason for performing the action. Not only is it in fact the case that reason, in this way, is a principle of action; Reid holds that ‘our actions ought to be regulated’ by reason (Reid, 1969b, p. 201; emphasis added). Why not simply act on the basis of our animal principles? What use is reason? Well, every appetite, desire, affection, and so forth, ‘has some particular and present object, and looks not beyond that object to its consequences’; I have an appetite for this dish of food, I desire the esteem of that person, and so on. So too, an appetite or desire does not ‘look to the connections it may have with other things’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 204). Accordingly, if animal principles were the only things that induced voluntary intentional action on our part, ‘the present object, which is most attractive, or excites the strongest desire, [would determine] the choice, whatever be its consequences. The present evil that presses most [would be] avoided, though it should be the road to a greater good to come, or the only way to escape a greater evil. This is the way in which brutes act, and the way in which men must act till they come to the use of reason’ (Reid, 1969b, pp. 204–205). As we grow up to understanding, we extend our view both forward and backward. We reflect upon what is past, and, by the lamp of experience, discern what will probably happen in time to come. We find that many things which we eagerly desired, were too dearly purchased, and that things grievous for the present, like nauseous medicines, may be salutary in the issue. (Reid, 1969b, p. 205) In short, whereas animal principles are focused on ‘some particular and present object,’ reason enables us to form and act on general principles. What then is the principle, or what are the principles, on which reason acts? Well, taking into account what one has learned about the connections of things, and the consequences of our actions’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 205), and employing the notions one has acquired of ‘good and ill, one form[s] the conception of what is good or ill upon the whole’ for one. Something is good upon the whole for one just in case it, with all its connections and consequences, brings more good than ill during the whole of one’s existence (ibid.). It is impossible, says Reid, to judge that something is good upon the whole for one without also desiring it. He says that on this point he agrees with Dr. Price, who regarded this impossibility as an essential feature of a rational being. The fact that we desire what we judge to be good upon the whole for us makes it possible for one to do something because one judges that it will prove good upon the whole for one; it makes it possible for the judgment of reason, that something is good upon the whole for one, to be a principle of action.
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A rational principle of action does not simply operate alongside the animal principles. It serves, or can serve, to govern the animal principles. It’s true that the desire for what one judges to be good upon the whole for one may, on a given occasion, be overwhelmed by other desires. But that’s not how it need be, nor how it should be; ‘all our animal principles ought to be subordinate’ to this principle, along with whatever additional rational principles of action there may be (Reid, 1969b, p. 206; emphasis added).3 Reid says that he sees no reason to believe that ‘brute animals’ have the concept of what is good upon the whole for one; if he is right about that, then of course animals cannot act on the principle cited. The ‘conception of what is good or ill for us upon the whole, is the offspring of reason, and can be only in beings endowed with reason’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 205). That’s what makes it appropriate to call the corresponding principle, a rational principle of action. To the fact that animals lack the conception of what is good upon the whole for one may be added the fact that animals ‘cannot lay down a rule to themselves, which they are not to transgress, though prompted by appetite, or ruffled by passion. We have no reason to think that they can form the conception of a general rule, or of obligation to adhere to it’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 251). In my opening comments I said that there is much that was novel for its time in Reid’s moral theory. There was nothing novel in the rational principle of action cited; the principle was already affirmed by the ancient eudaimonists. Reid himself makes the point: ‘I pretend not in this to say any thing that is new, but what reason suggested to those who first turned their attention to the philosophy of morals’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 206). Not only was this rational principle of action affirmed by the ancient moral theorists; it was the only such principle affirmed by them. ‘The whole question of morals [by them] was reduced to this question, What is the greatest good? Or what course of conduct is best for us upon the whole?’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 211). Though I judge that Reid was not, in general, a very accurate historian of philosophy – his interest in the big picture often led him to be cavalier with details – in this case I think he has things exactly right. It was the view of the moral theorists of pagan antiquity that the fundamental question we should all constantly be asking ourselves is, what should I do so as to live my life as a whole well? They described the well-lived life as the eudaimôn life, usually translated as the happy life. I am not aware that they had any standard terminology for the action that is constitutive of, or contributory to, the well-lived life; but Reid’s term, the action that is good upon the whole for one, captures the idea precisely. When describing the views of the ancient moral theorists, Reid sometimes uses the terms ‘happy’ and ‘happiness’ (e.g., on Reid, 1969b, p. 211); I find it noteworthy, however, that when stating his own view he seldom uses the term. That seems to me to have been a wise policy on his part. Our English
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term ‘happiness’ is far from being a synonym of the ancient Greek ‘eudaimonia.’ It was a famous doctrine of the ancient Stoics that a wise person would be eudaimôn on the torture rack; even in this highly undesirable circumstance, the fully wise person will live his life well. Given the meaning of our term ‘happiness,’ it would be nonsensical to say of anyone whatsoever that he was happy on the torture rack, or even that he could be. Reid was not a eudaimonist, however. For he believed that there was a second rational principle of action, namely, duty, or obligation. We can do something for the reason that it is, in our judgment, our duty. Reid says that he finds it impossible to give a ‘logical definition’ of the concept of duty; the concept is ‘too simple’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 223). Of course we can discern some necessary truths about duty. For example, duty is ‘neither any real quality of the action considered by itself, nor of the agent considered without respect to the action, but a certain relation between the one and the other’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 228). And ‘with regard to the action, it must be a voluntary action, or prestation of the person obliged, and not of another’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 229). But no true definition is possible. In particular, the concept of duty cannot be defined in terms ‘of interest, or what is most for our happiness’ (ibid.). The eudaimonist principle and the duty principle are fundamentally distinct rational principles of action; neither is explicable in terms of the other. When I say this is my interest, I mean one thing; when I say it is my duty, I mean another thing. And though the same course of action, when rightly understood, may be both my duty and my interest, the conceptions are very different. Both are reasonable motives to action, but quite distinct in their nature. I presume it will be granted, that in every man of real worth, there is a principle of honor, a regard to what is honorable or dishonorable, very distinct from a regard to his interest. It is folly in a man to disregard his interest, but to do what is dishonorable is baseness. The first may move our pity, or, in some cases, our contempt, but the last provokes our indignation. (Reid, 1969b, pp. 223–4) Though Reid held, for reasons we will discuss later, that one’s duty coincides with what is good upon the whole for one, he held that duty should nonetheless have motivational priority for us.4 One reason is that duty ordinarily ‘gives a clearer and more certain rule of conduct than a regard merely to interest would give’ (Reid, 1969b, pp. 222–223), it often being extremely difficult to determine what is good upon the whole for one to do. The right application of this principle to our conduct requires an extensive prospect of human life, and a correct judgment and estimate of its goods and evils, with respect to their intrinsic worth and dignity, their
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constancy and duration, and their attainableness. He must be a wise man indeed, if any such man there be, who can perceive, in every instance, or even in every important instance, what is best for him upon the whole. ... (Reid, 1969b, p. 213) Not only is the acknowledgement of duty a clearer guide to action than the eudaimonist principle; it is also, in general, more efficacious. Men stand in need of a sharper monitor to their duty than a dubious view of distant good. There is reason to believe, that a present sense of duty has, in many cases a stronger influence than the apprehension of distant good would have of itself. And it cannot be doubted, that a sense of guilt and demerit is a more pungent reprover than the bare apprehension of having mistaken our true interest. (Reid, 1969b, p. 217) Perhaps more important than either of these two considerations is the fact that duty is a ‘nobler principle’; without duty as a principle of action, ‘man would not be a moral agent’ (ibid.). The eudaimonist is able to account for prudential virtues and vices; he cannot account for moral virtues and vices. For that, we need the duty principle.5
10.2 Some questions about the general contours of Reid’s moral philosophy Before moving on to Reid’s account of justice, let me raise a question or two about the general contours of his moral philosophy, as we now have it before us. Earlier I took note of Reid’s acknowledgment that there was nothing novel in his citing, as a rational principle of action, doing something because one judges it to be good upon the whole for one. He makes no similar remark concerning the duty principle. But anyone who knows a bit about the history of ethics will be struck by how similar Reid’s position is to that of Duns Scotus. There are differences of detail between, on the one hand, what Scotus called the affection for advantage and the affection for justice, and, on the other hand, Reid’s two rational principles of action; but the similarities are striking. Whether Reid was directly or indirectly influenced by Scotus I am not able to say. In any case, the point I now want to make about Reid applies also to Scotus. Reid says that the two rational principles of action that he has cited are the only ones he is ‘able to conceive which can reasonably induce a man to regulate all his actions according to a certain general rule, or law’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 222). Philosophical and theological developments since Reid make it easy for us to think of additional rational principles of action. Utilitarianism operates with a rational principle of action distinct
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from either of Reid’s two, as does the position that came to be known in 20th century theological ethics as agapism. The utilitarian says that we are always to act so as to bring about the greater good overall, giving no preference to any one person’s goods over another’s, including one’s own. The agapist says that we are always to act so as to promote the good of everyone equally who is one’s neighbor. Eudaimonism, utilitarianism, and agapism are united into a single family of positions by the fact that they all operate exclusively with the concepts of life-goods and life-evils. The only worth-bearing entities they recognize is lives, and those states and events comprising a life that contribute, positively or negatively, to the worth of that life. Given this close similarity, I find it surprising that Reid did not take note of utilitarianism and agapism as rational principles of action in addition to the two that he cited. Of course no one had yet explicitly formulated utilitarianism; but the principle was right there in front of him, in his discussion of Hume on justice. And the centrality of benevolence in Hutcheson’s system of ethics made his position a forerunner of 20th century agapism. It any case, Reid and Scotus were right in discerning a fundamental divide among rational principles of action, with the duty principle occupying one side of that divide, but mistaken in thinking that only eudaimonism is to be found on the other side of the divide. On the other side of the divide are those various positions that recognize only states and events in a person’s life as bearers of worth, eudaimonism, utilitarianism, and agapism being now familiar examples. Let’s call them all, well-being principles, to be contrasted with the duty principle. My way of describing the members of the non-duty side of the divide, as positions that recognize only life-states and life-events as bearers of worth, gives an intimation of how I think of the duty-side of the divide. I think of duties as grounded (for the most part) not in the worth of lives but in the worth of those entities that have lives – persons, human beings, animals, social organizations of various sorts.6 A person is not identical with his or her life, nor is the worth of the person identical with how well his or her life is going. A person is an Aristotelian primary substance; she is born at a certain time and dies at a certain time. Her life, by contrast, is something that occurs, that takes place; it is not the sort of entity that is born or dies. And a person may be truly admirable, in all sorts of ways, even though her life is miserable. Another question I would pose to Reid is whether, as he suggests, it is impossible to say anything illuminating about the concept of duty. I do not have a definition of duty to offer. But a rather widely held view in present day ethics is that an action that one is obligated to perform is an action whose performance is required of one. And I think it is possible to illuminate, to some extent, what this requiredness comes to. I am obligated to treat you a certain way just in case, were I not to treat you that way, I would not treat
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you as befits your worth but as only befits someone or something of less worth. Respect for your worth requires that I treat you thus.
10.3
Reid’s account of justice
Let me now move on from the general contours of Reid’s moral philosophy to his discussion of justice in Essay V. I will organize my discussion by listing the major features of his understanding of justice and saying just a bit about each feature. A comprehensive discussion of Reid on justice would add to this a discussion of the many fascinating things he says along the way, in particular, his truly devastating critique of Hume’s claim that justice is an artificial virtue. (1) In the mworal life as understood by the bulk of the 18th century Scottish moralists, justice occupied a minor role. In Hutcheson, justice is ancillary to benevolence. In Hume, justice hardly extends beyond property rights, to Reid’s bafflement. In Reid, by contrast, justice is fundamental to the moral life. This becomes especially clear in his discussion of the emergence of the concepts of justice and injustice in the lives of individuals. Reid observes that early in the maturation of a human being, the concepts of favor and injury emerge; he claims, indeed, that they emerge as early ‘as any rational notion whatever’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 410). Both concepts presuppose the concept of justice. ‘The very notion of an injury is, that it is less than we may justly claim; as, on the contrary, the notion of a favour is, that it is more than we can justly claim. Whence it is evident, that justice is the standard, by which both a favour and an injury are to be weighed and estimated. Their very nature and definition consist in their exceeding or falling short of this standard. No man, therefore, can have the idea either of a favour or of an injury, who has not the idea of justice’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 173; see also 410 and 413). Reid held that believing that someone has done one a favor ‘naturally produces gratitude,’ and believing that someone has done one an injury naturally ‘produces resentment’; ‘when done to another, it produces indignation’ (ibid.). He further held that these affections, as he calls them, are to be found already in children. This, then, is another, and related reason, for holding that children already possess and employ the concept of justice. Reid emphasizes the importance here of distinguishing between hurt and injury, between being harmed and being wronged. Before children have the concept of being wronged, they may try to retaliate against someone who has harmed them; in ordinary speech, we may say that they feel resentment. But such resentment is to be distinguished from that which one feels upon believing that one has been wronged. (Reid, 1969b, pp. 167–173, 410–412).
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(2) Justice is grounded in rights, that is, in what are nowadays often called subjective rights, rights that attach to subjects. What makes social relations just is not, as the Platonic tradition holds, that they conform to some standard for the rightly ordered society; what makes them just is that the members of the social order enjoy those goods to which they have a right. ‘An innocent man,’ says Reid, ‘has a right to the safety of his person and family, a right to his liberty and reputation, a right to his goods, and to fidelity to engagements made with him. To say he has a right to these things, has precisely the same meaning as to say, that justice requires that he should be permitted to enjoy them, or that it is unjust to violate them. For injustice is the violation of right, and justice is, to yield to every man what is his right’ (Reid, 1969b, pp. 415–416).7 (3) Rights carry a unique form of authority within the moral life. Rights are peremptory; they function as trumps. No matter how many life-goods one may bring about by depriving someone of that to which he has a right, if no one has a right to any of those life-goods, then one is not to violate that person’s right. ‘It may happen,’ says Reid, ‘that an external action which generosity or gratitude solicits, justice may forbid. That in all such cases, unmerited generosity should yield to gratitude, and both to justice, is selfevident’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 368). The fact that justice is grounded in rights and that rights are peremptory implies that justice cannot be treated, as it was by Hume, as a minor part of the moral life, an addendum dealing with property. Justice is fundamental to the moral life, in authority as well as extent. (4) A way of saying that a person has a right to being treated a certain way is that that way of being treated is due the person; same thought, different words (Reid, 1969b, p. 411). Yet another way of saying the same thing is that the person has a morally legitimate claim to being treated thus (Reid, 1969b, p. 379). I find it remarkable that Reid never confuses rights thus understood, namely, as legitimate claims, with rights as permissions.8 Perhaps even more remarkable is that Reid displays no interest in the claim of the Aristotelian tradition that justice always take the form of equality of some sort; justice as equality plays no role whatsoever in his thought. Justice is rendering to a person what is due the person, rendering to a person what he or she has a morally legitimate claim to. (5) There are natural rights, for example, ‘the right of an innocent man to the safety of his person and family, [and] to his liberty and reputation.’ Such rights are ‘called natural rights of man, because they are grounded in the nature of man as a rational and moral agent,9 and are, by his Creator, committed to his care and keeping. By being called natural, or innate, they are distinguished from acquired rights, which suppose some previous act or deed of man by which they are acquired, whereas natural rights suppose nothing of this kind’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 416).
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As to the importance of recognizing natural rights, part of what Reid says is this: It is of use in civil controversies between states, or between individuals who have no common superior. In such controversies, the appeal must be made to the law of nature. ... And. .. it is of great use to sovereigns and states who are above all human laws, to be solemnly admonished of the conduct they are bound to observe to their own subjects, to the subjects of other states, and to one another, in peace and in war. The better and the more generally the law of nature is understood, the greater dishonor, in public estimation, will follow every violation of it. (Reid, 1969b, p. 384) (6) Acquired rights presuppose antecedent natural rights and obligations. ‘A statute may create a right which did not before exist, or make that to be criminal which was not so before. But this could never be, if there were not an antecedent obligation upon the subjects to obey the statutes. In like manner, the command of a master may make that to be the servant’s duty which, before, was not his duty, and the servant may be chargeable with injustice if he disobeys, because he was under an antecedent obligation to obey his master in lawful things’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 432). I noted above that in the course of developing his own views on justice, Reid undertakes to attack Hume’s thesis that justice is an artificial virtue – that is, that rules of justice have no other rationale than the social utility promoted by general obedience to the rules. I find almost all of Reid’s objections to be extraordinarily acute. But the most acute seems to me to be the one just given. ‘It is true,’ says Reid, that ‘when men become members of a political society, they subject their property, as well as themselves, to the laws, and must either acquiesce in what the laws determine, or leave the society. But justice, and even that particular branch of it which [Hume] always supposes to be the whole, is antecedent to political societies and to their laws; and the intention of these laws is, to be the guardians of justice, and to redress injuries’ (Reid, 1969b, pp. 431–432).10 ‘All these particular laws and statutes derive their whole obligation and force from a general rule of justice antecedent to them, to wit, that subjects ought to obey the laws of their country’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 432).11 To this may be added the point that the laws themselves may be unjust even though useful (Reid, 1969b, p. 431). (7) Rights and duties are correlative; that is, X has a right against Y to Y’s doing Z if and only if Y has a duty toward X to perform Z. ‘Right and duty are things very different,’ says Reid, ‘and have even a kind of opposition; yet they are so related, that the one cannot even be conceived without the other; and he that understands the one must understand the other. ... What I have
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a right to do, it is the duty of all men not to hinder me from doing. What is my property or real right, no man ought to take from me; or to molest me in the use and enjoyment of it. And what I have a right to demand of any man, it is his duty to perform’ (Reid, 1969b, pp. 378–379). The fact that he regards duties and rights as correlatives allows Reid to state the peremptory, or trumping, principle (see point [3] above)not only in terms of rights but also in terms of duties. Speaking of the duty principle, he says that ‘other principles may urge and impel, but this only authorizes. Other principles ought to be controlled by this. ... [In] all cases a man ought to do his duty’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 254). Reid held that the principle of correlation between duties and rights is not only necessary but analytic. He says, ‘Between the right, on the one hand, and the duty on the other, there is not only a necessary connection, but, in reality, they are only different expressions of the same meaning; just as it is the same thing to say, I am your debtor, and to say, you are my creditor; or, as it is the same thing to say, I am your father, and to say, you are my son’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 389).12 The 20th century legal theorist, W.H. Hohfeld, became famous for affirming the principle of correlation between claim-rights and duties that Reid affirmed already in the 18 century; Hohfeld also held that it is necessarily true. With a qualification that I will mention straightaway, I agree that the principle is necessarily true, as are all its particular instances. I doubt, however, that it is analytically true – that is, true by virtue of the meanings of the words plus the principle of non-contradiction. To say that you have been wronged by me in how I treated you is not to say the same as that I am guilty for how I treated you. As we will see shortly, Reid gave serious consideration to the question whether we might have duties toward persons who do not have rights correlative to those duties. I myself think that we have duties toward inanimate objects that do not themselves have rights; thus the qualification that I would attach to the principle of correlation between duties and rights is that the principle holds for entities that have rights.13 Reid does not consider this possibility; his focus is on the rights of persons. But in his consideration of cases in which it appears that we have duties toward persons who do not have correlative rights, he does not settle the issue by appealing to the meanings of the words ‘duty’ and ‘right,’ as surely he would appeal to the meanings of the words if someone asked whether A could be the father of B without B being the child of A, or vice versa. Thus in practice Reid does not treat the principle of correlatives as analytic – true by virtue of the meanings of the words plus the principle of non-contradiction. (8) Reid considers two sorts of cases in which it appears that there are duties without correlative rights (Reid, 1969b, pp. 380–381). One is familiar from
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present day discussions, namely, duties of charity. Rather than explaining how Reid proposes dealing with such cases, let me move on to the other, less familiar, type of case that Reid deals with. Suppose, says Reid, that my neighbor has a horse in his barn which he stole; he has no right to the horse. I assume, however, that he owns the horse. I don’t know that he stole it, and there is no reason why I should know; my ignorance is non-culpable. My duty in this situation is to interact with my neighbor as if he owned the horse; in Reid’s words, ‘it is my duty to pay the same respect to this conceived right as if it were real.’ But my neighbor does not in fact have a right to such treatment. So it seems that here we have a duty to which there is no corresponding right. Reid’s solution is to appeal to writers on jurisprudence who ‘have recourse to something like what is called a fiction of law’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 381). I am to treat my neighbor as having the rights that he would have if my belief that he purchased the horse were correct; call such rights, external rights. My duties correspond to those external rights. We must qualify the principle of correlatives so that, in such cases, the correlation is not between genuine rights and duties but between external rights and duties. Though this solution may save the principle of correlatives, it strikes me as short on illumination. I think a much better solution is available if we introduce the distinction, common among present-day writers on ethics, between objective and subjective obligations, that is, between the obligations one would have if one knew all the relevant facts, and the obligations one does in fact have. Whereas rights correlate with obligations of the former sort, blame and praise attach to obligations of the latter sort. If you are innocent of committing the dastardly deed with which you have been charged, but all the evidence available to me points to your guilt, then if I impose hard treatment on you, I wrong you but am not blameworthy. Let me state, in conclusion, that when we put all these points together, I find it to be a remarkably rich and perceptive account of justice. Hume’s account is thin by comparison, he deals only with justice in distributions; and it is shown by Reid to be utterly wrong-headed, a veritable hive of fallacies. Yet Hume’s account is famous, Reid’s, scarcely known. Such are the vagaries of fame.
10.4 How Reid’s account of justice fits within his moral philosophy as a whole For the most part, there are no surprises in how Reid fitted his account of justice into his moral philosophy as a whole. As we saw, fundamental to Reid’s moral philosophy is his distinction between two rational principles of action: the duty principle and the eudaimonist principle. Given the fact
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that justice, for Reid, is grounded in rights, and given his affirmation of the principle of correlation between duties and rights, the former principle might equally well be called the rational principle of justice. Despite Reid’s extraordinarily insightful discussion of justice, I nonetheless find his discussion of the rational principle of duty, or justice, to be curiously thin in a certain way.14 His discussion of duty hangs in the air, as it were, as does his discussion of rights. We have duties, we all acknowledge that we have duties, but no analysis can be given of the concept of duty; that’s what Reid says. So too we have rights, we all recognize that we have rights, but no analysis can be given of the concept of a right. I propose that we go beyond Reid in two important respects. In the first place, a right is always a right to a good. More specifically, a right is always to a life-good, that is, to a state or event in one’s life that contributes positively to the worth of one’s life. More specifically yet, a right is always to the life-good of being treated a certain way. The contrast between goods and duties that haunts Reid’s discussion is misleading. Those goods to which one has a right are a subset of one’s life-goods in general.15 One of the principle challenges facing the person who wants to develop a theory of rights is to explain what brings it about that one has a right to certain life-goods and not to others. My own suggestion is that one has a right to the life-good of being treated a certain way by someone just in case, were one not treated that way, one would be treated as only befits someone or something of less worth than oneself. Rights are grounded in the fact that not only do lives have worth but the entities whose lives those are have worth, and in the fact that it is possible to treat the worth of those entities with under-respect. Rights exist at the intersection between the worth of lives and the worth of those entities that have those lives. I submit that the reason Reid’s discussion of the duty or justice principle seems so theoretically thin is that he never managed to break loose from his opponents’ assumption that the only goods relevant to rational action are life-goods. He never saw with clarity that rights are rights to those actions and restraints from action that are required by respect for one’s worth as a human being.16
10.5 Concluding criticism I limit myself to one final point. As we have seen, Reid offers a number of reasons for thinking that it is better to act on the duty principle than on the eudaimonist principle. He claims that one’s duty is usually much more clear than what is good upon the whole for one, and that one’s recognition of duty is usually a stronger motivator. But as I remarked earlier, more important than either of these considerations is the fact that ‘though a steady pursuit of our own real good may, in an enlightened mind, produce a kind of virtue which is entitled to some degree of approbation, yet it can
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never produce the noblest kind of virtue, which claims our highest love and esteem’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 218). We account him a wise man who is wise for himself; and, if he prosecutes this end through difficulties and temptations that lie in his way, his character is far superior to that of the man who, having the same end in view, is continually starting out of the road to it, from an attachment to his appetites and passions. ... Yet, after all, this wise man, whose thoughts and cares are all centered ultimately in himself, who indulges even his social affections only with a view to his own good, is not the man whom we cordially love and esteem. ... Our cordial love and esteem is due only to the man whose soul is not contracted within itself, but embraces a more extensive object, ... who, forgetful of himself, has the common good at heart, not as the means only, but as the end. ... Disinterested goodness and rectitude is the glory of the Divine Nature, without which he might be an object of fear or hope, but not of true devotion. And it is the image of this divine attribute in the human character, that is the glory of man. (Reid, 1969b, pp. 218–219) All this having been said, and keeping in mind that rights trump mere goods, Reid nonetheless holds that consistently acting on the eudaimonist principle and consistently acting on the duty or justice principle yield the same results. ‘When rightly understood, they lead to the same course of life,’ he says. ‘They are like two fountains whose streams unite and run in the same channel’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 228). And again, ‘as to the supposition of an opposition between the two governing principles, that is, between a regard to our happiness upon the whole, and a regard to duty, this supposition is entirely imaginary. There can be no such opposition’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 256). What leads Reid to such a surprising position? The answer is clear: his Christian faith in providence. ‘While the world is under a wise and benevolent administration, it is impossible, that any man should in the issue, be a loser by doing his duty. Every man, therefore, who believes in God, while he is careful to do his duty, may safely leave the care of his happiness to Him who made him. He is conscious that he consults the last most effectually, by attending to the first’ (Reid, 1969b, pp. 256–257; see also 221). I submit that the reason Reid offers here fails to support his contention that the two rational principles of action coincide in their results. God so administers the world, he says, that the life of the person who consistently acts out of duty will prove to be happy overall. Notice, in the first place, that this says nothing about the person who never thinks in terms of duty but only in terms of what is good upon the whole for himself. Reid says nothing
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at all to establish that such a person will never act contrary to duty; I think we must expect that often he will. Further, it is likely that such a person’s eudaimonist principle of action will require him to pursue goods that the person guided by the call of duty regards as purely optional. What then about the other sort of person, the one of whom Reid speaks, the one who is guided by the call of duty? Will he always do what is in fact good upon the whole for himself? A natural interpretation of the passage I quoted, about God’s administration of the world, is that Reid is referring to Christian eschatology. But I rather doubt that that is in fact the correct interpretation. Consider this striking passage: The highest pleasure of all is, when we are conscious of good conduct in ourselves. This, in sacred scripture, is called the testimony of a good conscience; and it is represented, not only in the sacred writings, but in the writings of all moralists, of every age and sect, as the purest, the most noble and valuable of all human enjoyments. Surely, were we to place the chief happiness of this life, a thing that has been so much sought after, in any one kind of enjoyment, that which arises from the consciousness of integrity, and a uniform endeavour to act the best part in our station, would most justly claim the preference to all other enjoyments the human mind is capable of, on account of its dignity, the intenseness of the happiness it affords, its stability and duration, its being in our power, and its being proof against all accidents of time and fortune. (Reid, 1969b, p. 242) Notice that there is no note of eschatology in this passage. It appears to me that Reid intends his claim to hold true for this-worldly enjoyment. The flaw in the argument is that Reid has here lost his otherwise firm grip on eudaimonism. Eudaimonism was not a strategy for securing enjoyments. If it were, the infamous doctrine of the Stoics, that the wise person would be eudaimôn on the torture rack, would be nonsense. Eudaimonia is living well, living admirably; it consists of doing what is good upon the whole for oneself. Reid’s providentialist claim, that the person who consistently acts out of duty has the most enjoyable life available to a human being, is, to my mind, dubious. But in any case, what Reid’s line of thought required him to establish was not that thesis but the very different thesis, that the person who acts out of duty always does what is good upon the whole for himself. And to return to the first point, his argument doesn’t even pretend to establish the converse, that the person who always does what is good upon the whole for himself will always turn out to have done what he was obligated to do. But let me not close on these critical remarks. I submit that Reid’s account of the nature of justice and of its fundamental role in our moral lives was not only extraordinary for its day but also deeply insightful.
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Notes 1. I have benefited in this part of my discussion from Chapter 13 of this volume by Terence Cuneo, ‘Duty, Goodness, and God in Thomas Reid’s Moral Philosophy.’ I have also benefited from his comments on an earlier draft of this present paper. 2. Reid adds that ‘we may, by a voluntary effort, hinder the effect [of mechanical principles of action]; but if it be not hindered by will and effort, it is produced without them’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 200). 3. Cf. 207: ‘In innumerable cases in common life, our animal principles draw us one way, while a regard to what is good on the whole, draws us the contrary way. Thus the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary. That in every conflict of this kind the rational principle ought to prevail, and the animal to be subordinate, is too evident to need, or to admit of proof.’ 4. I borrow the term ‘motivational priority’ from Terence Cuneo, in op.cit. 5. Reid has an extremely acute discussion of this point about prudential versus moral virtues and vices on Reid, 1969b, p. 399. On Reid, 1969b, pp. 219–221, Reid offers an additional reason for giving motivational priority to the duty principle: the person who acts out of duty will find his life more enjoyable than the one who governs his actions by what he judges to be good upon the whole for him. The points made are very interesting; but I do not find them persuasive. Reid says, for example, that the ‘road to happiness’ will be ‘found dark and intricate, full of snares and dangers, and therefore not to be trodden without fear, and care, and perplexity’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 220). I would have thought that people who seriously try to do their duty often find themselves perplexed as to what is their duty, and when their duty is clear, often find it onerous. 6. I defend this thesis in Chapter 17 of Wolterstorff (2008). 7. Knud Haakonssen (2003), says about certain of the Scottish moral theorists that ‘Rights were a secondary device which was to be invoked in situations of moral malfunction and the moral ideal was to make them superfluous.’ He then adds that ‘Much the same can be said of the theories of Reid and Stewart. If morality is conceived as natural to humanity, then rights are either nothing but a different conceptualization of virtue, or they are a demand for the restoration of virtue in cases of failure’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 215). It seems to me decisively clear that this is not how Reid thought of rights. In the same essay, Haakonssen says that ‘for the Scottish theorists, justice was primarily a personal virtue’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 205). Whatever may have been true of the other Scottish theorists, this, too, was certainly not true of Reid. 8. The distinction was first drawn with care and discussed at some length by W.N. Hohfeld (1919). 9. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only place in Reid’s published writings in which he suggests that natural rights are grounded in our nature as rational moral agents. He does make the same suggestion in one place in his unpublished papers: ‘it is easy to see how men those especially who made the Laws their Study would be led to form a Notion of a Natural Law and Natural Rights of Men which were not grounded upon the Code or Pandects but in the human Nature and in that faculty by which we discern Right from Wrong.’ (Haakonssen, 1990, p. 143). In the Introduction to The Active Powers Reid connects human dignity, though not natural rights, to our active powers: ‘in the right employment of our active power consists all the honour, dignity and worth of a man; and, in the abuse and perversion of it, all vice, corruption, and depravity’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 2).
Reid on Justice 203 10. This is not the totality of government’s business, as Reid sees it. ‘The art of government is the medicine of the mind, and the most useful part of it is that which prevents crimes and bad habits, and trains men to virtue and good habits, by proper education and discipline. The end of government is to make the society happy, which can only be done by making it good and virtuous’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 194). 11. A variation on the argument is this: ‘To perceive that justice tends to the good of mankind, would lay no moral obligations upon us to be just, unless we be conscious of a moral obligation to do what tends to the good of mankind’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 433). 12. Sabine Roeser called my attention to the fact that, remarkably, Reid forgets about mothers and daughters in this remark. Hence, the two statements do not have the same meaning. 13. I give my argument for some entities not having rights in Chapter 17 of Wolterstorff (2008). 14. His discussion of the good, and hence, of what is good upon the whole for a person, also strikes me as theoretically thin. 15. Reid does say, at one point, that the morally good action is one that ‘ought to be done by those who have the power and opportunity, and the capacity of perceiving their obligation to do it’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 395). This does connect obligation with goodness in a certain way; but it does next to nothing to illuminate the connections. A morally good action is one that is obligatory for someone or other to do. Well, Yes. But what we really want to know is which, of all the good things that I could do, are the ones that I am obligated to do, and what makes them obligatory? 16. Though it plays no role in his account of rights, one does now and then find indications of Reid’s recognition of the worth of entities that have lives, and of the relation of that worth to rights. He says, for example, that ‘men may attend more willingly to their rights, which put them in mind of their dignity, than to their duties, which suggest their dependence’ (Reid, 1969b, pp. 381–382).
11 Reid on Hume on Justice James A. Harris
11.1 Reid’s lectures on practical ethics proceed on the assumption that a clear distinction may be drawn between, on the one hand, the teaching of man’s duty to himself, to his maker, and to other men, and, on the other hand, examination of ‘theoretical’ questions concerning the nature of the moral faculty and the ground of moral motivation. (See the manuscripts collected and edited by Knud Haakonssen in Reid, 2007; for commentary, see Haakonssen, 2007.) In the Essays on the Active Powers of Man, Reid observes that accounts of our duties have tended to be made more voluminous and bulky than is necessary, partly on account of the fact that political questions have been intermixed with moral ones, and partly by the unnecessary adding in of accounts of ‘the structure of our moral powers; that is, of those powers of mind by which we have our moral conceptions and distinguish right from wrong in human actions’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 376). The latter is both a controversial and an important matter, Reid acknowledges, but it has nothing to do with promulgating knowledge of our duties. Moreover, to the extent that theoretical questions are included in treatments of practical ethics, there is every chance that men may be led into the mistake which Reid wishes very much to avoid, namely, the belief ‘that in order to understand his duty, a man must needs be a philosopher and a metaphysician’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 377). Reid’s desire to keep the theory of morals separate from practical ethics issues in a thoroughgoing rejection of the deductive ambitions characteristic of the natural jurisprudence of Grotius and Pufendorf (cf. Dalgarno, 1984, p. 15). ‘A system of morals is not like a system of geometry’, Reid says in the Active Powers: ‘It resembles more a system of botany, or mineralogy, where the subsequent parts depend not for their evidence upon the preceding, and the arrangement is made to facilitate apprehension and memory, and not to give evidence’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 376). This understanding of the nature of a moral system explains why Reid is able in his lectures to follow more or less the 204
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course of instruction laid out by Hutcheson in his natural jurisprudence, and by Carmichael before Hutcheson, without the need for the raising, let alone the answering, of the questions that had in the mean time been raised by Hume about the extent to which it is plausible to regard the distinction between virtue and vice in terms of a distinction between the natural and the unnatural. It would not do, however, to infer that Reid was perfectly sanguine as to the possible consequences for practical ethics of the arguments put forward by Hume concerning the grounds of our estimation of such virtues as justice, promise-keeping, and political allegiance. As elsewhere in his account of the powers of the human mind, Reid in his writings on moral philosophy combines a confidence in the capacity of the natural constitution of the mind to issue in beliefs that we need in order to act the part of rational and virtuous agents with a certain anxiety about the corrosive effects of Hume’s style of philosophical analysis. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Reid did not imagine that Hume had deliberately set out to loosen the hold of the sense of duty upon his readers. (The obvious comparison is with James Beattie, who was convinced that Hume’s intention was ‘to subvert the principles of truth, virtue, and religion’ (Beattie, 2004, p. 57). But Reid clearly did worry that the questions Hume asked, along with the answers he gave to those questions, might damage the trust that we naturally repose in judgments to the effect that particular courses of action, along with particular modes of self-restraint, are unconditionally a matter of duty. A response to Hume’s depiction of some of virtues as ‘artificial’ and not ‘natural’ was therefore necessary in order to remove a means by which the natural sense of duty might, so to speak, be infected, and weakened. It would not be consonant with Reid’s general philosophical method to provide positive reasons to believe that the sense of duty is veridical and should be acted upon. Reid’s ambitions with respect to a natural belief, whether in the real, physical existence of the objects of sense perception, or in the freedom of human agents with respect to both choice and action, are never justificatory in character. Rather, what he seeks to do is to remove putative grounds of doubt, thereby to shift the burden of proof firmly back onto the sceptic who asks why we should trust such beliefs. (Here I follow the interpretation of Reid’s response to scepticism given in, e.g., de Bary, 2002, and Rysiew, 2002.) The purpose of this paper is to examine Reid’s response in Essay Five of the Active Powers to Hume’s treatment of justice. First we shall examine Reid’s response to Hume’s charge that there is vicious circularity to the idea that the virtue of an action might lie in its having been done out of a sense of duty. Then we shall consider Reid’s response to Hume’s argument that moral estimation of just and unjust actions depends upon the existence of societal conventions to do with the acquisition and transfer of property. Our question will be whether in his responses to these arguments Reid succeeds in shifting the burden of proof back onto Hume. The conclusion reached here will be that
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he does not. (For the larger philosophical context of Reid’s reply to Hume on justice, see Harris, forthcoming B.)
11.2 We begin with Chapter 4 of Essay 5 of the Active Powers, ‘Whether an action deserving moral approbation, must be done with the belief of its being morally good’. (For discussion, see Jensen, 1989; and Rowe, 1991, pp.139–44; see also Haakonssen, 2007, pp. lii–iii. There is a useful analysis of Hume’s argument in Treatise 3.2.1 in Mackie, 1980, pp. 76–82.) Hume had opened his treatment of justice in Book Three of A Treatise of Human Nature with a general consideration of the basis of moral approval and disapproval. Hume takes it as uncontroversial that the object of moral estimation is always a motive. Actions, he says, are considered only ‘as signs or indications of certain principles in the mind and temper’ (Hume, 1978, p. 477). Hume is right that his contemporaries agreed with him about this. But then Hume makes an inference to the rather more controversial conclusion ‘that the first motive, which bestows merit on any action, can never be a regard to the virtue of that action, but must be some other natural motive or principle’ (Hume, 1978, p. 478). Let us delay for a moment a consideration of exactly how Hume makes this inference, and concentrate on the character of the conclusion. That conclusion, according to Reid, is a principle of practical ethics. That is, what Hume is putting forward is a substantive moral principle, concerning the proper object of approbation and disapproval. Hume is saying that there is no moral value in an action done solely out of a sense of duty, that that is not the kind of motive we approve of, that the kind of motive we approve of is the ‘natural’ kind – for example, a parent’s instinctive concern for the well-being of his or her children. Reid counters that this is plainly false. His moral sense tells him that, on the contrary, there is little or no moral value in an action done simply out of natural instinct or affection. It is both necessary and sufficient for an action to be counted as virtuous that it be done out of a belief on the agent’s part that such an action was what duty required of him. Reid gives no argument for the truth of this judgment of the moral sense. It is simply evident, he says, that an agent acts the part of a good man just in so far as he follows the light of his conscience, so long as he has reflected in a serious manner, and acts in good faith. There is no need that the action be in itself a virtuous action. It might indeed be an action contrary to law. But so long as the mistake is not his fault, the agent has done all that is necessary to deserve moral approval. ‘These determinations appear to me to have intuitive evidence’, Reid remarks, ‘no less than that of mathematical axioms. A man who is come to years of understanding, and who has exercised his faculties in judging of right and wrong, sees their truth as he
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sees day-light’ (Reid, 1969b, pp. 389–390). Hume has let a ‘metaphysical argument’ get between him and a self-evident truth. Reid is not alone in finding it obvious that the proper motive of a virtuous action is a regard for duty. Among the eighteenth-century moral philosophers both Butler and Price assert it as a fundamental principle of morality. It is noteworthy that in both cases, the dialectical context is a consideration of the idea that virtue might be, as Butler puts it in the dissertation ‘Of the Nature of Virtue’, ‘resolvable into Benevolence’ (Butler, 1736, p. 316). Benevolence is not to be trusted, Butler warns, for it can prompt us to actions which are very far from virtuous. The happiness of our fellow creatures is God’s concern, while ours is to listen to the voice of duty, and to obey it. We are fitted with a conscience that has the signs of a natural authority over all other principles of action, and, given that this is so, the moral government of human beings ‘must consist, in rendring them happy and unhappy, in rewarding and punishing them, as they follow, neglect, or depart from, the moral Rule of Action interwoven in their Nature, or suggested and enforced by this moral Faculty: in rewarding and punishing them upon Account of their so doing’ (Butler, 1736, p. 318). In Chapter 8 of A Review of the Principal Questions of Morals Price argues that ‘If a person can justly be styled virtuous and praise worthy, when he never reflects upon virtue, and the reason of his acting is not taken from any consideration of it, intelligence certainly is not necessary to moral agency, and brutes are full as capable of virtue and moral merit as we are’ (Price, 1948, p. 191). He goes on to conclude that ‘instinctive benevolence is no principle of virtue, nor are any actions flowing merely from it virtuous’. Making use of the example employed by Hume at the opening of Treatise 3.2.1, Price says that the things a parent does for his or her child ‘appear to have as much less moral value, as they are derived more from natural instinct, and less attended with reflexion on their reasonableness and fitness’ (Price, 1948, p. 191). Price claims that Shaftesbury shares this view. Needless to say, though, the doctrine spelled out here by Butler and Price is older than the eighteenth century. It has its origins in the Stoic notion that the highest good lies in virtue conceived as the exercise of reason – as, in the words of Diogenes Laertius, ‘consistent character, choiceworthy for its own sake and not from fear or hope or anything external’ (Long and Sedley, 1987, vol. 1, p. 377). On the Stoic view, only virtue, defined in this way, is of any value. Thus Seneca says that ‘There is no good except where there is a place for reason’ (Long and Sedley, 1987, vol. 1, p. 371). The eighteenth-century talk of living in accord with the principle of reflection, or conscience, more or less self-consciously reiterates this line of thought. There is certainly reason to believe that it is a Stoic account of virtue that Hume has in his sights when he raises the question of the moral value of the regard for duty at the beginning of Treatise 3.2.1. In a letter to Hutcheson,
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apparently responding to the elder philosopher’s criticisms of a draft of Book Three of the Treatise, Hume writes as follows: You are a great admirer of Cicero, as well as I am. Please to review the 4th Book, de finibus bonorum & malorum; where you find him prove against the Stoics, that if there be no other Goods but Virtue, tis impossible there can be any Virtue; because the Mind would then want all Motives to begin its Actions upon. And tis on the Goodness or Badness of the Motives that the Virtue of the Action depends. This proves, that to every virtuous Action there must be a Motive or impelling passion distinct from the Virtue, & that Virtue can never be the sole Motive to any Action. (Grieg, vol. 1, p. 35) Hume goes on to intimate that he believes that Hutcheson might disagree with him here. This is puzzling because there is nothing in Hutcheson’s moral philosophy to suggest that in this respect, at least, he and Hume are at odds with each other. Hutchesonian virtue is a matter of acting out of the benevolence supposed to be natural to human beings. The more ‘universal’ and ‘calm’ the benevolence is, the more virtuous is the action, but there is no indication that Hutcheson believes in the importance of acting out of regard for duty alone. Indeed, there are places in the Essay on the Passions where Hutcheson appears explicitly to reject such a view. In his later publications Hutcheson adopts the language of ‘conscience’ as a new means of characterising the moral sense, but without arguing that virtue is to be defined in terms of acting out of respect for that faculty. As we have seen, Butler and Price insist on such a definition of virtue in the context of what looks like a critique of Hutchesonian moral philosophy. Hutcheson’s brand of neo-Stoicism is, we infer, not full-blooded enough for them. Reid follows Butler and Price in this. His critique of Hume’s circularity argument is surely intended as a reassertion of Stoic principles in the face of what, as we will see, he perceived to be renascent Epicureanism. Reid offers two kinds of response to Hume. The first is a reiteration of his conviction that it is no more or less than a matter of plain common sense that the primary object of moral approbation, when it comes to agents, is respect for conscience (Reid, 1969b, pp. 393–394). In making this point again, Reid makes it clear that as he reads Hume, Hume’s objection to such a principle is it entails a false belief that such-and-such an action is what virtue requires could somehow be turned into a true belief, just in so far as the agent acted out of regard for conscience and duty. As Reid sees things, Hume counters this by insisting on the fact that if the action is wrong, it remains wrong, no matter what the beliefs of the agent may be in performing it. As Reid puts it, aiming to capture the essence of Hume’s point, ‘what can be more absurd, than that your estimating a thing to be what it is not, should make it what you erroneously esteem it to be?’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 393). How
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can a bad action be turned into a good one just because one believes it to be good? Believing that p is true when it is false remains a mistake no matter how sincerely one believes it. Now, Hume does seem to have identified an absurdity here, and it is not easy to see at this point exactly how Reid’s appeal to common sense is supposed to show the absurdity to be a matter of appearances only. What Reid says next indicates that he takes Hume’s line of thought to lead in a direction away from a principle that Hume has himself laid down as axiomatic, the principle that the virtue of an action is in its motive. To insist so much on the moral qualities of actions considered in themselves is to lose touch with the self-evident truth that how we assess an agent in light of what he does depends very much on why he does it. Hume appears to accept this truth as self-evident, so why is he forgetting it now, unless out of sheer opportunism? I think that the answer is that what Hume is doing in this argument is to expose a confusion in common sense thinking as regards the moral estimation of just actions. It is indeed a matter of common sense, according to Hume as according to Reid, that we judge people not only for what they do, but for why they do it, and we do approve of things that are done out of respect for conscience alone. The problem is how it can be that this is true: that is, how it can be that we approve of actions that are done out of respect for conscience. The problem Hume takes himself to have identified concerns the explanation of a mode of moral approval that is a familiar fact of experience, but which cannot be explained while one looks to motives to give actions that moral value. For, Hume thinks, it is just not obvious what is good about acting out of a sense of duty. It is hard to see why we should approve of that, even when the action done is one that we would naturally condemn. We will return to this problem shortly. Reid’s second response to Hume is to claim that a straightforward and well-known distinction between the moral qualities of actions and the moral qualities of agents in performing actions will show that the absurdity Hume thinks he has identified does not in fact exist. No one is saying that an agent’s believing that such-and-such an action is virtuous is sufficient to make that action virtuous. The agent might be virtuous in doing an action that, in itself, is not virtuous. The beliefs of the agent are not able to change the qualities of actions ‘considered abstractly, without any relation to the agent’. The moral character of the action considered abstractly is a quite different thing from the moral character ascribed to an agent for doing an action. Determination of the first is irrelevant to determination of the second. There is, then, pace Hume, no implication that it follows from the fact that an agent is deemed virtuous in performing an action that the action is in itself, considered abstractly, a good action. Unlike earlier philosophers of ‘rationalist’ persuasion, Reid is not in fact especially interested in the characterisation of the moral goodness of actions considered abstractly. All he says is that the goodness or badness of an action ‘appears to lie in this, and in this only, that it is an action which ought to be done by those who
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have the power and opportunity, and the capacity of perceiving their obligation to do it’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 395). Reid is more interested in the goodness of agents than of actions. And the question that arises, from Hume’s point of view, concerns, again, how it is that we come to believe that people are good just in so far as they obey their consciences. How is it, Hume is asking, that such a belief arises? How do we come to judge as good the man who ‘applied his intellectual powers properly, in order to judge what he ought to do, and acted according to his best judgment’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 395)? What is it about listening to conscience and acting in light of it that we approve of? How does the whole business gain the reputation of being the way we should live our lives, such that it becomes something generally esteemed and inculcated? Reid cannot take such questions seriously. Mr. Hume has a conscience, and his conscience will supply answers to these questions. Conscience, that is to say, approves of itself, and approves of all actions done out of respect for it, whether those actions are one’s own or those of others. And it is at this point that it becomes plain that the dispute between Reid and Hume here is not, after all, merely an issue in practical ethics. There is a large theoretical question looming in the background – a question, that is, about the powers of the mind employed in the making of moral judgments. Hume’s question concerning the moral estimation of actions done out of a regard for duty is a question about the possibility of giving a causal explanation of what Hume fully accepts is an everyday phenomenon. We do approve of people who act out of a sense of duty. But why? Hume is worried about what looks like an instance vicious circularity: a claim to the effect that acting out of a sense of duty is approved of because such actions are what duty enjoins. Hume’s point is that more needs to be said if an explanation is to be given, and that what needs to be said must, presumably, concern approval of some additional motive to the actions that duty enjoins, because, as everyone agrees, moral estimation is always of motives. That there is some additional motive, distinct from the sense of duty, and that that motive is morally estimable, explains why we come to regard such actions as morally estimable. Once we have such regard for those actions, we come to see them as what duty requires, and then, and only then, is it possible that we might come to do them out of a regard for duty alone, and be approved of for so doing. This entire line of thought makes no sense to Reid, from whose point of view the question Hume is asking does not need to be asked. There is no explanation needed, or indeed possible, as to why our sense of duty is as it is. When we recognise that an action is done out of conscience, there is nothing to be said as to why the agent is judged to be virtuous. The simple fact is that we recognise conscientiousness in the actions of others, and immediately approve of it, presumably on the grounds that we experience conscience as self-validating in the first-person case. Humean ‘theoretical’ questions about conscience, about what kind of
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sense it might be, and what impressions might be the originals of its ideas, are not questions that Reid is prepared to engage with. This is the impasse which a Hume and a Reid will always reach. A Hume presses for an aetiological explanation of what a Reid believes can legitimately be taken as not in need of such explanation. We will meet the same problem in our consideration of Reid’s response to the second stage of Hume’s argument to the conclusion that justice is an artificial virtue. Before we move on, though, it is worth pausing for a moment to consider what Reid’s reply to Hume reveals as to the differences between his and Hume’s ways of treating ‘theoretical’ questions concerning ‘those powers of the mind by which we have our moral conceptions and distinguish right from wrong in human actions’. I have claimed that Hume’s account of justice begins with an explanatory puzzle concerning why it is that we approve of actions as just and disapprove of them as unjust. In making moral estimations, we look for a motive to approve of, and we do not seem to be able to find a motive to approve of in the case of justice and injustice. Hume recognises that usually we act justly out of a sense of duty, but he cannot find a motive to approve of in acting out of the sense of duty. He quickly moves on to consider self-interest, general benevolence, and particular benevolence, and having failed to find in any of them a motive able to explain our approval of justice, he concludes that such approval must be ‘artificial’, possible only given the establishment of certain conventions, rather than ‘natural’, in the sense of being the product of an innate disposition of the mind such as might be excited even in a state of nature. Hume’s mistake, according to Reid, is made very early on, when he fails to find a motive to approve of in acting out of a sense of duty, when he makes a puzzle of what is, from Reid’s point of view, and Butler’s, and Price’s, simply a matter of common sense. I suggest that what is responsible for Hume’s mistake, if mistake it be, is the fact that he is attempting to analyze the powers of the mind by which we make moral judgments without trusting from the outset the reliability of the first-person sense that certain things are absolutely required and that others are absolutely forbidden. Butler, Price, and Reid begin with that sense of the reliability of the moral faculty, with what they regard as its natural authority. In other words, they begin with the first-person phenomenology of morality, and then move out to the judgment of others. Hume works the other way around. As has been often noted, his examination of morality is in the first instance conducted from a spectatorial point of view. From that point of view, he observes people’s actions with respect to the rules of justice, and finds the moral assessments that he makes puzzling. What he finds strange and in need of explanation, Reid finds so familiar as to be the foundation of morality of such. The difference between them is thus at bottom a difference about the way in which we experience the claims morality makes upon us. Another way of putting this is that they differ fundamentally as regards what it means to
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talk in terms of the natural in morality. We will return to this matter at the end of the present paper.
11.3 Our focus moves now to Chapter 5 of Essay 5, ‘Whether justice be a natural or an artificial virtue’. (For discussion, see Mackinnon, 1989; McGregor, 1987; Pritchard, 1978; and Pritchard, 2008.) In Treatise 3.2.2 Hume had looked for a ‘natural’ motive to justice and had looked in vain. There appears to be nothing to explain our approval of justice and disapproval of injustice, Hume argues, and so we are left in a quandary, faced with the obvious fact that we do approve of justice and disapprove of injustice, but without an account of why we do so. Hume solves the problem with the suggestion that just actions become recognisably praiseworthy when, and only when, they are identifiable as instances of generally adhered to conventions. The conventions in question are plainly recognisable as useful to society at large, and the actions which constitute these conventions gain their moral worth from the recognition of that fact. Reid sees clearly what is going on here. Hume has rejected absolutely the idea that there might be something ‘good in itself’ to a just action. The value of a just action is derived from the utility of the convention of which it is an instance. Reid is right when he says that ‘There is no room left for that honestum which Cicero thus defines, Honestum igitur id intelligimus, quod tale est, ut detracta omni utilitate, sine ullis premiis fructibusve, per se ipsum possit jure laudari’ (Reid, 1969b, p.401; [‘By Moral Worth, then, we understand that which is of such a nature that, though devoid of all utility, it can justly be commended in and for itself, apart from any profit or reward’: Cicero, 1914, p.133 (De Officiis, II.xiv).]). That is precisely Hume’s point. The Stoic conception of the honestum, of something that is praiseworthy in itself, apart from any profit or reward, is indeed one of his principal targets in his moral philosophy. This is if anything more obvious in the second Enquiry than in the Treatise, in that Hume organises his reformulation of Book Three of the Treatise around the principle that all our ideas of moral goodness can be analysed in terms of the useful and the agreeable, and leaves an echoing silence as regards the honestum. (For a slightly different view, see Moore, 2002.) Hume knew that he had to be subtle here, for he knew that, such was the continuing hold of ancient categories of moral thought on the eighteenth-century philosopher, an explicit attack on the honestum would immediately lead to accusations of Epicureanism, with all attendant implications of atheism and licentiousness. But perhaps it was impossible to be subtle enough as regards this question. Certainly, as we will see in Section 11.4 below, Reid levels the charge of Epicureanism against Hume on account of his theory of justice. In Section 11.4, I shall suggest that this is clear evidence that Reid fundamentally misunderstood Hume’s treatment of justice. For the moment, though, our task
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is to determine the nature of Reid’s reply to Hume’s utility-based account of the moral estimation of justice. Reid begins by considering Hume’s larger claim that all of virtue can be analysed in terms either of the useful or of the agreeable. And he goes straight to what we have already seen to be the heart of the matter as he sees it: If God has given to man a power which we call conscience, the moral faculty, the sense of duty, by which, when he comes to years of understanding, he perceives certain things that depend on his will to be his duty, and other things to be base and unworthy; if the notion of duty be a simple conception, of its own kind, and of a different nature from conceptions of utility and agreeableness, of interest and reputation; if this moral faculty be the prerogative of man, and no vestige of it be found in brute animals; if it be given us by God to regulate our animal affections and passions; if to be governed by it be the glory of man and image of God in his soul, and to disregard its dictates be his dishonor and depravity: I say, if these things be so, to seek the foundation of morality in the affections which we have in common with the brutes, is to seek the living among the dead, and to change the glory of man, and the image of God in his soul, into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass. (Reid, 1969b, pp. 403–404) I shall defer for the moment consideration of the significance of the use of the language of religion here. Part of the point of describing conscience, the sense of duty, as given us by God is to indicate that the faculty is innate, part of what Reid likes to call the furniture of the mind, as much an original and elementary part of the mind as the faculties of sense perception, as memory, as imagination, as judgment. This is the faculty that Butler describes in his Sermons, and that Reid himself has characterised in strongly Butlerian language earlier on in the Active Powers, when considering the rational principles of action. And it is the faculty that Hume does not believe exists. Reid declares that ‘The very conception of justice supposes a moral faculty’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 406). This is what Hume denies. There is no need for a special ‘moral faculty’ to explain the conception of justice. Sympathy can do the necessary work. Moreover, Hume holds, postulating special faculties is not the business of a science of the mind. On the contrary, a science of the mind deserving of the name seeks to eliminate faculty-talk by means of reduction to much more general explanatory principles. So – and this is a valuable insight on Reid’s part – here there is immediately an absolutely fundamental disagreement between him and Hume. Direct engagement with the Humean view is therefore impossible. In order to motivate his own position, Reid instead seeks to bring before the reader everyday phenomena
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which Hume ignores, and which, Reid thinks, are sufficient to show that the balance of evidence is in his favour. The first of these phenomena is the simple and obvious fact that the indignation of every honest and honourable man is ‘immediately inflamed against an atrocious act of villany, without the cool consideration of its distant consequences upon the good of society’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 406). In fact, even those not notably honest or honourable, even ‘robbers and pirates’, can be supposed to have had struggles with their conscience at first, and to continue to feel occasional pangs of guilt in solitary and serious hours. Most people never think about the good society at all, and if we needed to think about it in order to have a regard for justice, very few, especially among ‘the lowest class of men’, would be able to think in terms of justice at all. But, even so, most, even among the lower classes, do worry in thought and action about the difference between the just and the unjust, and this is sufficient evidence, Reid believes, of ‘a voice within that proclaims [injustice] to be base, unworthy, and deserving of punishment’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 407). Now, as Reid himself immediately points out, Hume does not deny the fact that, in Reid’s words, ‘there is, in all ingenuous natures, an antipathy to roguery and treachery, a reluctance to the thoughts of villany and treachery’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 407). This is indeed, for Hume as for Reid, a common fact of experience. Reid takes this admission of Hume’s – made in the discussion of the ‘sensible knave’ in Section 9 of the second Enquiry – to be tantamount to an admission that justice is not, in fact, an artificial virtue approved of for its utility. At least, he takes it as such provided that Hume’s talk of a ‘rebellion of the heart’ against injustice includes in its meaning ‘a natural intuitive judgment of conscience, that injustice is base and unworthy’. Only then will the knave’s question be answered, as Hume says it can be, and a reason found to pursue justice even when detection of injustice is unlikely. If, on the other hand, the rebellion of the heart is a matter only of ‘an uneasy feeling’, then Hume, contrary to what he himself supposes, can allow for no answer to the knave’s question. But Reid does not make clear why the knave can only be answered by ‘a natural intuitive judgment of conscience’, and not by an uneasy feeling. Furthermore, the fact that ordinarily we do not make moral judgments on the basis of considerations of utility is no objection to Hume’s theory of justice. Utility was relevant only to the initial establishment of justice as a moral virtue, something which happened at a rather distant time in human history. Most of us now are successfully inculcated into regard for justice by a combination of the efforts of parents, teachers, priests, and politicians. Hume’s position, clearer perhaps in the Treatise than in the second Enquiry, is that our ordinary regard for justice has little to do with a regard for utility, and a great deal to do with such things as desire for approval, fear of social and legal sanction, and regard for reputation. The second piece of evidence that Reid brings in support of his picture of an innate conscience as the basis for our moral estimation of justice is rather
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more troubling for the Humean. Reid argues that we have basic, natural, pre-social notions of a favour and of an injury that are, so to speak, moralized from the first, and that contain within them notions of justice and its obligatoriness. The core idea is that there is an obvious and completely nonconventional distinction between two kinds of harm: between the harm that one is done through non-rational agency, or as a matter of unintended consequences of the agency of a rational being, and the harm that one is done by an agent who knows what he is doing and does it freely. Our reactions to these two kinds of harm are utterly different. In the second case one feels a resentment that has within it the belief that one has been done a wrong, and that the person who has done that wrong deserves some kind of punishment. In other words, one feels instinctively that one’s rights have been violated, that injustice has been done, and that there is an obligation on the perpetrator to make some kind of reparation. Reid argues that, in the same way, there is an obvious and non-conventional distinction between two kinds of benefit, and that the benefits occasioned by the intentional actions of another are plainly deserving of a reward, in the first instance a reward of gratitude, that would be absurd in the case of benefits that are accidental or have no source in rational agency. The notion of desert is, Reid claims, in essence a legal notion, a matter of something’s being due to someone as a matter of right, and thus here, too, the notion of justice is already there, prior to all social convention. As soon, therefore, as men come to have any proper notion of a favour and of an injury; as soon as they have any rational exercise of gratitude and resentment; so soon they must have a conception of justice and injustice; and if gratitude and resentment be natural to man, which Mr. Hume allows, the notion of justice must be no less natural. (Reid, 1969b, p. 413) The etymological connection between ‘injury’ and ‘injustice’ perhaps gives resentment a claim to being the more significant of these two reactive attitudes. And resentment is not, it is to be admitted, a prominent concern in Hume’s moral philosophy. Reid was not the first to mine the resources offered by it. There is an account of resentment in Butler’s Sermons, for example, and Butler’s analysis is taken up by Smith and given a significant role in the moral psychology described in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. So why does Hume say so little about it? An initial answer to this is that in his theory of justice Hume focuses on harms to property to the exclusion of the other harms that are perhaps more likely to be the object of the instinctual resentment. But this is no answer really, because one immediately wants to know why Hume focuses exclusively on harms to property. It is difficult not to suspect that Hume makes his case for the artificiality of justice very much easier than it should be by limiting his focus in this way.
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This is not a suspicion that Reid is slow to voice. Just as there are various ways in which a man may be injured, he points out, so also there must be various branches of justice relating to the different kinds of injury: A man may be injured, 1st, in his person, by wounding, maiming, or killing him; 2dly, in his family, by robbing him of his children, or any way injuring those he is bound to protect; 3dly, in his liberty, by confinement; 4thly, in his reputation; 5thly, in his goods or property; and, lastly, in the violation of contracts or engagements made with him. (Reid, 1969b, p. 415) The first four branches of justice – which is also to say, the rights that may be violated in these four ways – are, Reid holds, ‘natural, in the strictest sense, being founded upon the constitution of man, and antecedent to all deeds and conventions of society’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 417). In all four cases, a perfectly natural resentment expresses itself in the face of the harms in question, a resentment that is no less than a part of the constitution of the human mind. This resentment will be felt not only of the injured party, but by all who come to know of the harm; and such resentment, as we have seen, contains the notion of injustice within it. At this point two issues arise. The first is why Hume, who will have known of this very traditional way of categorizing the branches of justice, more or less ignores the first four kinds of right, precisely the kinds which might well be said to give grounds to believe that in some of its aspects at least, justice is properly considered natural. The second is how Reid copes with the fifth and sixth branches of justice, which, by his own admission, are not natural in the sense of being founded on the constitution of man. Having noted that the first issue is, or should have been, a pressing one for Hume, I shall put it to one side for the purposes of this paper. More directly relevant to our concerns here is the issue of how Reid proposes to answer Hume’s contention that with respect to property and contracts, at least, justice has no basis in the natural. Reid’s view is that though the right of property is acquired, and not innate, still, it is a natural right in so far as it can be acquired in the state of nature, prior to the establishment of society, by means of powers of body and mind with which all men are naturally equipped. He says that ‘Writers on jurisprudence have explained its origin in a manner that may satisfy every man of common understanding’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 419). The brief account given in the Active Powers begins with the claim that the earth was originally given to all men in common, for the purposes of sustaining them in existence. The earth is further compared to a theatre, in which ‘every man has the right to accommodate himself as a spectator, and to perform his part as an actor, but without hurt to others’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 420). Legitimate appropriation is of two kinds, that which is necessary to the satisfaction of immediate needs, and that which is necessary to the ‘supply of future
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wants’. Both kinds derive their justification from the ‘right to life’, not only of each man, but also of his dependents. So long as we do not injure others, we all have the right to exercise our ingenuity as best we can towards the acquisition of goods that will be of use in the future, whether for our own consumption, or for purposes of trade. It is a striking feature of Reid’s position that it heavily emphasizes limitations of the right of property, to the extent that rights of private property stand to be overridden by what, in his lectures, he terms ‘the Publick Good’ (Reid, 2007, pp. 105–107). This should not, however, be taken as the introduction of a utilitarian element into the theory. As Haakonssen has shown (see Haakonssen, 2007, pp. lxi–xxvi), the governing idea of Reid’s natural jurisprudence, as of Hutcheson’s, is the idea of a structured and regulated system designed, by God, to enable the moral perfection of all individuals. Given the overall purpose of the realisation of moral perfection, the rights of individuals have to be defined in terms of the place of those individuals, considered in terms of their various ‘offices’, within the system. The point of the emphasis upon the public good is, we might say, to remind us of the ultimately relational aspect of the notion of a right. What militates against the absolute sanctity of the right of private property is not consideration of how the maximisation of utility might be effected, but rather of how the rights of all individuals are to be kept in harmony with each other. As Reid himself says, none of this is new, and it is a picture with which Hume would have been perfectly familiar. So what is it that gives Reid confidence in the value of telling the old story again, in the full knowledge of Hume’s efforts to discredit it once and for all? One answer to this question is suggested by the ways in which Reid responds to the arguments of the second Enquiry’s treatment of justice. In Section 3 of the second Enquiry Hume introduces several thought experiments designed to show that the idea of property rights cannot be sensibly regarded as in any sense ‘natural’. Change in one way the circumstances in which human beings find themselves, and there would never have been such ideas at all; change the circumstances in another way, and ideas of right would be quite different from what they are. The property rights that we accept are, for the most part, rights that have proved useful to us in the circumstances in which we encounter each other. And surely the obvious inference is that it is consideration of their utility that explains the character of the conventions that obtain amongst us. In an attempt to sum things up, Hume constructs the following dilemma: As justice evidently tends to promote public utility and to support civil society, the sentiment of justice is either derived from our reflecting on that tendency, or like hunger, thirst, and other appetites, resentment, love of life, attachment to offspring, and the other passions, arises from a simple, original instinct in the human breast, which nature has implanted for like salutary purposes. If the latter be the case, it follows, that prop-
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erty, which is the object of justice, is also distinguished by a simple original instinct, and is not ascertained by any argument or reflection. But who is there that ever heard of such an instinct? (Hume, 1975, p. 201) Reid’s reply, in light of what we have already seen, is entirely predictable: I doubt not but Mr. Hume has heard of a principle called conscience, which nature has implanted in the human breast. ... From this principle, I think, we derive the sentiment of justice. As the eye not only gives us the conception of colour, but makes us perceive one body to have one colour, and another body another; and as our reason not only gives us the conception of true and false, but makes us perceive one proposition to be true, and another to be false; so our conscience, or moral faculty, not only gives us the conception of honest and dishonest, but makes us perceive one kind of conduct to be honest, another to be dishonest. By this faculty we perceive a merit in honest conduct, and a demerit in dishonest, without regard to public utility. (Reid, 1969b, p. 434) We may feel at this point that we are listening to a dialogue of the deaf. Reid rests his entire theory of justice on a faculty the existence of which Hume will not admit. From the Humean point of view, there is simply no need to postulate such a faculty. Justice has its origins in rational response to human circumstances; and sufficient explanatory resources to account for the manner in which we distinguish morally between justice and injustice are provided by sympathy. If it goes along with this kind of explanatory account that we need to give up on the idea that a moral distinction between justice and injustice was discernible in the state of nature, then so be it. What, in any case, hangs on how things might be in the state of nature? The notion of such a state is, after all, merely a ‘philosophical fiction’ (Hume, 1975, p. 189). In conclusion we will consider why it matters so much to Reid that there be a conscience implanted by nature in the human breast, able to discern merit in honest conduct and demerit in dishonest even in the state of nature.
11.4 At several places Reid makes it plain that he sees affinities between Hume’s approach to justice and Hobbesian conceptions of the state of nature and of the basis of all moral and legal distinctions. The way Hume ignores all aspects of justice other than rights regarding property and contract, Reid says, cannot but suggest the Hobbesian view ‘that it is not naturally criminal to rob an innocent man of his life, of his children, of his liberty, of his reputation’ – even while, as Reid immediately acknowledges, Hume nowhere
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explicitly adopts that view (Reid, 1969b, p. 418). Hume argues that creatures, including human creatures, who have not the strength to make us ‘feel the effects of their resentment’ are not properly thought of as protected by principles of justice (Hume, 1975, pp. 190–191). Reid takes this to mean ‘that right has its origin from power; which, indeed, was the doctrine of Mr. Hobbes’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 428). He finds here also a return to the Hobbesian view that justice has its origin in self-interest, in that Hume simply ignores the obvious fact that to be treated with justice might be in the interests of the weak and defenceless. And if, indeed, in the state of nature there can be no distinction of property, then ‘Mr Hume’s state of nature is the same with that of Mr. Hobbes’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 431). Reid assumes that Hobbesianism must follow from the broadly Epicurean view, as Reid puts it in his critique of Hume on promising and contract, ‘that virtue is an empty name, and that it is entitled to no regard, but in as far as it ministers to pleasure or profit’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 448). That is, Reid assumes that where it is denied, as it surely is by Hume, that there is any sense to talk of justice as being ‘good in itself’, it must also be denied that there is any means of defining justice other than in terms of the decisions of a supreme and arbitrary sovereign power. So, if Hume rejects the thought contained within the Stoic notion of the honestum, that there is something to virtue, and justice in particular, good even if no one actually recognises it as good, then there is no alternative to extreme voluntarist conventionalism. The choice for a moral theorist is a simple one in Reid’s eyes: either virtue is grounded in God-given powers of the human mind, or we are immediately on a road that leads quickly and directly to Hobbesianism. Reid was not alone in seeing the matter this way. But this way of seeing things is mistaken even so. It severely underestimates the extent to which Hume differs from Hobbes in his account of the origins of rules of justice. Yes, Hume rejects the honestum, yes, he embraces the Epicurean account of morality as grounded in consideration of the useful and the agreeable, and yes, he has no means of showing it to be true that there were distinctions of justice made in the state of nature. But, on the terms of Hume’s analysis, it is no longer to be assumed that a ‘state of nature’ is the place to begin in an explanation of how a regard for property and contracts emerged among human beings. And, relatedly, it is no longer necessary to try to portray rules governing property and contracts as determined in their character by the arbitrary decisions of an absolute sovereign power that is necessary to preventing society from falling apart. Hume thinks of the origins of sociability as lying in the family, and devises a model which is meant to allow a more extensive sociability to develop gradually out of interactions between families. He replaces Hobbesian contracts with what he terms ‘conventions’, which, again, can take shape gradually, without need of a sharp line between pre-social atomism and the existence of a body politic. On the Humean view, societies develop almost by accident, as the unintended consequences
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of repeated interactions between individuals, interactions which slowly define and embed the conventions on which large-scale societal existence depends. There is no longer the possibility of a sharp division between the state of nature and the state of civil society. The logical consequence of this move was, in fact, to undo the very distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ which Hume himself set out with. Hume comes to see that it has to be made clear that justice is not artificial in anything like a Hobbesian sense of the term. The development of conventions concerning property is ‘natural’ if anything is, in the sense of being entirely what one would expect from human beings in the circumstances in which they find themselves. Thus there is none of the prominence afforded in the Treatise to the naturalartificial distinction in the second Enquiry. ‘If self-love, if benevolence be natural to man’, Hume remarks in Appendix 3; ‘if reason and forethought be also natural; then may the same epithet be applied to justice, order, fidelity, property, society’ (Hume, 1975, p. 307). The dispute about what to call the virtue of justice is a ‘merely verbal’ one, and nothing of importance hangs on it. What matters is prosecution of a properly historical account of the development of law, something that Hume, following Montesquieu, came to believe had to be done by close analysis of the particular laws of particular countries, and not in terms of generalisations about humankind as such. It is commonplace to observe that there is little interest in history evident in Reid’s writings, whether published or unpublished, and an explanation surely has to be given of why in Reid there is none of the historical ambition so prominent not only in Hume, but also in many of the eighteenthcentury Scots who shared Reid’s discomfort at Hume’s apparent acceptance of several of the principal tenets of Epicurean moral philosophy. Both Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson, for example, engage with Hume on more or less his own terms, as historians of sociability willing to acknowledge the need to find a better language in which to explore the development of legal and political institutions than that to be found in the previous century’s natural jurisprudence. Reid’s answer to Hume, grounded as it is in the notion of an innate faculty of conscience, suggests a refusal to make anything like that kind of concession. It is, I believe, reasonable to hypothesize that what is responsible for this is Reid’s sense that healthy moral self-consciousness is at the same time consciousness of the relationship between man and his creator. The state of nature as traditionally conceived figures as significantly as it does in Reid’s approach to justice because it is a state in which there is nothing man-made that might come between the individual and God. It is in that state that the duties owed by the individual to himself and to others come into clearest focus, as duties derived from the various roles, or offices, which God has created us to occupy. And the faculty of conscience, Reid’s version of what a 17th century philosopher might have portrayed as a faculty of rational intuition, is what is necessary to account for the possibility of the grasp that we undoubtedly have of our duties and their systematic
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inter-relations. Duncan Forbes once remarked that Hume did not mean to destroy natural law, as had been often assumed, so much as to bring it down to earth. Hume, on Forbes’s reading, sought to make natural law properly natural, in the sense that he sought to derive justice from a genuinely empirical, historical, and ‘scientific’ assessment of man’s ineliminably social constitution (see Forbes, 1982, p. 193, and passim; see also Forbes, 1975, ch.2, and, for complimentary perspectives, Haakonssen, 1981, and Buckle, 1991; scepticism about this way of reading Hume is expressed in Moore, 1976). What prevented a proper dialogue about justice between Hume and Reid was a deep and insoluble disagreement about the meaning of the word ‘natural’. For Reid, we approach the state that is natural to human beings precisely when we strip history away, consider ourselves clearly from the first-person standpoint, and recognise the extent to which our native powers and abilities manifest the wisdom and goodness of God. (For some discussion of the role of theism in Reid’s philosophy, see Harris, 2007). For Hume, human nature is revealed by an examination of the beliefs and sentiments that develop out of social interactions between human beings, an examination that depends for its very possibility on the occupation of a detached, spectatorial, ‘philosophical’, point of view. Hume and Reid thus come at the moral approval of justice from two quite different points of view. Reid begins with the experience, what we might now call the phenomenology, of conscience, and finds in that experience an element of the native constitution of the human mind, a means whereby to relate the character of the human mind to the intentions of God our creator. There is nothing more basic to which the experience of conscience might be reduced, and no means of explaining in other terms why it is that conscience operates as it does, except through direct appeal to the ultimately inscrutable intentions of the divine mind itself. Conscience for Reid is the voice of God within us. It has no history above and beyond the story of its development in each and every healthy human individual. Hume, on the other hand, takes as his point of departure the curious fact that we attach moral value to how others behave with respect to property, and takes it as his task as a philosopher to explain why we do that. It is the business of a philosophical approach to the powers of mind to be true to the analogy of nature, and to look for a general explanatory device to which particular phenomena may be reduced. The hypothesis he is working with in the Treatise is that sympathy is that explanatory device. His treatment of justice is intended from the outset to show that sympathy, and neither Hutchesonian moral sense nor Mandevillean self-love, is what explains the way our moral sentiments operate. The very fact that he rejects the Mandevillean account shows that Hume is not in any full sense an Epicurean in his moral philosophy, but he is Epicurean, or Lucretian, enough to believe that there are aspects of morality, including justice, which demand a historical treatment. (For a consideration of the extent of
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Hume’s Epicureanism, see Harris, forthcoming A.) Justice is artificial in one sense, but natural in another, in the sense that a historical treatment can show how it developed out of the needs and circumstances of the earliest human societies. On Reid’s understanding of ‘natural’, then, what is natural has no history; on Hume’s understanding, history is the means whereby the natural can be identified as such. There is no point to asserting that one of these understandings of the natural, and of how to identify it, is right and the other wrong. Nor is there anything plausible to the claim that one is more ‘modern’ than the other.1
Note 1. For comments and discussion, I am grateful to Amber Carpenter, Rebbeca Copenhaver, Terence Cuneo, Sabine Roeser, and the participants in a workshop at Delft University of Technology in June 2008.
12 The Significance of Reid’s Practical Ethics Gordon Graham
12.1 It is plausible to hold that the expression ‘Scottish philosophy’ gained a new prominence with the publication of James McCosh’s book The Scottish Philosophy in 1875. But the idea of something called ‘Scottish philosophy’, or ‘the Scottish School of philosophy’ undoubtedly predates McCosh. Several decades earlier Victor Cousin had given a course of lectures entitled Philosophie Ecossaise and these were published in 1857. Earlier still, Priestley’s Examination of Reid’s Inquiry, which appeared in 1774, was commonly referred to as ‘An Examination of the Scotch Philosophers’. But who is to be classed as a Scotch philosopher and what makes them a distinctive group? This is a matter of some uncertainty. Since Priestley’s Examination made Reid’s Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense its main target, it firmly associated the Scottish School with the appeal to ‘common sense’ as a philosophical rejoinder to paradox and scepticism, and identified Beattie and Oswald alongside Reid as its members. Though he seems to have known nothing of Reid, it was this group (plus Priestly, ironically) that Kant clearly had in mind in the Prolegomena, where he describes Hume’s opponents as having ‘painfully’ failed to understand him. In Philosophie Ecossaise Cousin employs something of the same criterion when he commends the Scottish philosophy for its emphasis on common sense which, though ‘it is not the end point of the science of man, is the starting point, and ought always to remain its measure’ (Cousin, 1864, p. 24). At the same time, alongside the six lectures devoted to Reid, Cousin gives almost 230 pages to Hutcheson and Smith, in whom the appeal to common sense has no specially prominent role, deals with Beattie and Ferguson together in a single lecture of less than thirty pages, and doesn’t mention Oswald at all. What this suggests is that by the early 19th century, the appeal to common sense against the sceptic was not regarded as the only, or even perhaps the main distinguishing feature of Scottish philosophy. 223
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McCosh, who is much more self-conscious about the identification, underlines this shift in which, we might say, it is the subject matter and not the method of Reid’s Inquiry that matters. For McCosh, however, Reid is not so very important. By his account, ‘the Scottish philosophy’ starts rather earlier with Carmichael and Hutcheson, and he devotes more pages to Hume than to Reid, Oswald and Beattie combined. For him the characteristics of the Scottish school lie in the advances in our understanding of the human mind brought about by a combination of observation, introspection and intuition. There is still some allusion to what might be called common sense in his account of these characteristics. ‘All who are truly of the Scottish School’ he tells us ‘agree in maintaining that there are laws, principles, or powers in the mind anterior to any reflex observation of them, and acting independently of the philosophers’ classification of them’ (McCosh, 1875, p. 7). But the great merit of Scottish philosophy lies in the large body of truth which it has – if not discovered – at least settled on a foundation which can never be moved. It has added very considerably to our knowledge of the human mind, bringing out to view the characteristics of mental as distinguished from material action; throwing light on perception through the senses; offering valuable observations on the intellectual powers, and on the association of ideas; furnishing, if not ultimate, yet very useful provisional classifications of the mental faculties. (McCosh, 1875, p. 9) In the light of this characterization, it is easy to explain the importance McCosh gives to Hume, though by implication it excludes most of Hume’s Essays and his Natural History of Religion. By the same token, McCosh’s characterization of Scottish philosophy can find no place for Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Ferguson’s Essay on Civil Society, or Stewart’s Lectures on Political Economy, and thereby discounts all the social, political and economic and linguistic investigations to which so many major Scottish philosophers of the period gave so much attention. Partly for this reason, and in sharp contrast to McCosh’s identification of Scottish philosophy with psychological inquiry, in Man and Society (Bryson 1945) Gladys Bryson makes social inquiry its central feature. Her book is a sustained investigation of the striking relation between the Scottish philosophers of the 18th century and the emergence of what subsequently became known as the social sciences. Of course, it had long been acknowledged that Adam Smith was both a moral philosopher and a founding figure in economics, and over the years intellectual historians had attributed an important role to Adam Ferguson in the early development of sociology. But whereas in the light of McCosh’s characterization, these could only be somewhat fortuitous confluences of intellectual interest within and among individual thinkers, Bryson showed how the intellectual project that held
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the Scottish philosophers together went far beyond the formulation of psychological laws and naturally extended to the systematic empirical study of social development, political activity, economic behaviour, ‘conjectural’ history and ‘natural’ religion. ‘Probably no other group of thinkers before the 20th century’, she writes, so self-consciously set about encompassing the whole range of discussion which now has become highly elaborated and parcelled out among the several social sciences. To be a moral philosopher in the eighteenth century was to take for one’s self just such a comprehensive program, within the limits of the knowledge of the time. (Bryson, 1945, p. 239) The Scottish philosophers Bryson identifies as the intellectual leaders in this project are not the popularizers of the ‘Common Sense School’ i.e. Beattie and Oswald. Both were held in considerable esteem in their lifetimes, but neither, she declares, exhibited the intellectual acumen and originality of Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, Reid, Ferguson, Kames, Monboddo or Stewart. But whereas for obvious reasons both the criteria of ‘common sense philosophy’ and ‘introspective psychology’ make Thomas Reid a leading, even a founding figure in the Scottish school, Bryson finds Reid to be something of an exception, an outsider almost. Unlike all the rest, Reid interested himself not at all in the problems of man’s past. He did not concern himself with the physical aspects of man’s life; he did not write of domestic or political economy, of jurisprudence, of religion or of government. His range was limited to psychology and theoretical ethics, with a little attention given to aesthetics. .. [Even] James McCosh ... throughout his life an exponent of the Scottish philosophy [and] especially eager to extol Reid as the bulwark against Hume’s scepticism ... had to admit .. that unless Reid taught his classes more than he put into print, his system of moral philosophy would be appear very defective, as judged by the scope accepted by most of the philosophers toward the end of [the eighteenth] century. (Bryson, 1945, p. 84) It is relatively rare that a contention in intellectual history is straightforwardly refuted. But forty five years after this passage was written, and almost 200 years after his death, the publication of Reid’s Practical Ethics effected just such a refutation. Reconstructed by Knud Haakonssen from hand written notes of his lectures to students in Glasgow, and subtitled ‘lectures and papers on natural religion, self-government, natural jurisprudence and the law of nations’, Practical Ethics showed that McCosh’s conditional had been met, and that pace Bryson, Reid was not an exception to others in the group she identified as founders of the social sciences. Although there is little evidence to attribute to him the sort of historical interest that is to be found
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in Ferguson or Kames, Reid did concern himself with the principal topics of the social sciences in their infancy – jurisprudence, religion, government and so on. At the same time, there is one respect in which Reid does stand out somewhat from the other members of Bryson’s group. Having fallen into almost complete neglect among philosophers for a hundred years or more, around the time that Practical Ethics was published, interest in Reid was on the rise again. However, unlike similarly renewed interest in Hutcheson, Ferguson, Kames, Stewart and Smith this interest was not primarily historical, an interest, that is to say, largely confined to Reid’s place in the history of ideas. Contemporary philosophers of mind in the analytical tradition found a valuable resource in Reid – and continue to do so indeed. Reid has joined (or re-joined) Descartes, Kant, Mill and so on as a conversation partner in contemporary philosophical debate. The appearance of Practical Ethics showed him to fulfil Bryson’s criterion for membership of ‘the Scottish philosophers’; his investigations in epistemology and the philosophy of mind in the Inquiry and two volumes of Essays restored his enduring philosophical reputation. The main aim of this paper is to reflect on the significance of this dual status. Is there any sense in which Reid’s identity as a Scottish philosopher is or ought to be connected to his interest for contemporary philosophy? The most obvious answer to this question is ‘No’, because it is the philosophical works he published in his own lifetime and not his newly published Practical Ethics that make Reid of interest to contemporary philosophy. If it is true that Bryson’s account of what made the Scottish philosophers a group is more compelling than either the alleged appeal to common sense or McCosh’s psychological criterion, then, pace Bryson, Reid’s Practical Ethics reveals him to be a Scottish philosopher of the kind that she describes. But it is his Inquiry, not his Practical Ethics that has attracted the attention of contemporary philosophy, and from this we may conclude that it is not qua Scottish philosopher that Reid has continuing philosophical interest. Of course, a large part of the explanation might be that Practical Ethics has appeared so recently, but something very similar can be said about Hume in whom philosophical interest has been pretty much continuous in each succeeding generation of philosophers, beginning with Kant. This interest focuses on his Treatise and Enquiries, and not on his Essays or Natural History of Religion, which are of equal if not greater significance for Bryson. In short, we are dealing here with two separate issues. The basis upon which Hume and Reid are meaningfully classified as Scottish philosophers is not what makes them of continuing philosophical interest, and vice versa.
12.2 This is a very plausible contention, and it has the advantage of separating the historical from the philosophical rather neatly. Nevertheless, there is
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something more to be said about the philosophical significance of Reid’s Practical Ethics than this straightforward account of the matter allows. It emerges when we consider the comparison between Reid and Hume more closely, and in particular, certain salient differences in their respective conceptions of philosophy. To put the matter briefly, despite a similar intellectual agenda and a common subscription to Newtonian methods, most of Hume’s philosophical contemporaries, Reid included, regarded him not as a fellow collaborator in the science of man, but as a sceptic whose conclusions were both false and dangerous. This was not merely the shrill reaction to radical opinion that is to be found in the somewhat hysterical Beattie. It rested on the perception of a crucial difference in their understanding of the relation between scientific investigation and moral education. Bryson identifies nine fundamental ideas on which the project of the science of man rested. Chief amongst them was the concept of a universal and enduring human nature, of progressive development over time, and the assumption that teleological explanations, including theological ones, were properly scientific. For present purposes, however, it is the last on her list that is of greatest interest. [T]hese philosophers made a practice of introducing norms and values into their science [and] ethical relationships were not only the ultimate but the immediate desiderata of their study. They were working as consciously to educate administrators and public servants as were Plato and Aristotle. (Bryson, 1945, pp. 242–4) David Allan in his recent biography expressly makes this point about Ferguson when he remarks on the centrality of ‘one feature of Ferguson’s intellectual career’, namely his unswerving devotion, as one of the Scottish Enlightenment’s leading teachers of philosophy, to the traditional duties of moral instruction. For it bears endless repetition that Ferguson was, more than anything else, a moralist ... [J]ust like many of his closest Scottish friends and contemporaries who likewise combined a penchant for philosophical investigation with the obligations of university teaching, [he] was in no sense the objective purveyor of a descriptive science of society. Rather he was – and we can be certain that he would have been blissfully content with the description – a shameless partisan for the cause of virtue. (Allan, 2007, p. 21) The publication of Practical Ethics showed Reid, no less than Ferguson, to be properly described as ‘one of the Scottish Enlightenment’s leading teachers
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of philosophy [committed] to the traditional duties of moral instruction’. This is plain from his introductory remarks. The Dignity the Glory and Perfection of a Man consists in doing his duty and acting the Part that is Proper for him. Ethicks therefore or Moral Philosophy which treats of human Duty ... has always on account of its Dignity and importance been considered as a chief branch of Philosophy. (p. 10) This high conception of the role of reason in human life is expanded in the lectures on ‘Duties to Ourselves’. It is the prerogative of Man in his adult state to be able to propose to himself and to prosecute one great End in Life & by this to reduce the whole of his Life to a connected System making every part of it subservient to his main End and regulating the whole of his conduct with a view to that. The brutes are incapable of this: they are necessarly (sic) carried away by the appetite or Instinct which {is} strongest at the time without any view more distant than its Gratification. We have a Superior Principle given us by the Author of our Being, by which we can, from an Eminence as it were, take a view of the whole Course of human Life; and consider the different Roads that men take & the Ends to which they lead. When we thus take a general view of human Life we can not but perceive that some Roads we may take lead to Ruin and infamy, others are mean and below the dignity of our natures. ... Nor can any Man who uses his Reason be in any doubt which is best. (Reid, 2007, p. 32) Hume’s scientific endeavours bear most of Bryson’s hallmarks no less than those of Ferguson and Reid. But it would be odd to say of Hume that he was, ‘more than anything else, a moralist’. ‘Upon the whole’ he tells us ‘tis impossible that the distinction betwixt moral good and evil can be made by reason’ (Hume, 1888, p. 462) and his famous declaration that ‘ought’ cannot be derived from ‘is’ establishes a gap between scientific investigation and moral opinion. The distinction flows from his ‘discovery’ that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it’. ‘[T]his discovery in morals’ Hume goes on to say, is ‘like [any discovery] in physics’, and though it is ‘to be regarded as a considerable advancement of the speculative sciences ... has little or no influence on our practice’ (Hume, 1888, p. 469). Hume’s reason for thinking this is that Morals and criticism are not so properly objects of the understanding as of taste and sentiment. Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt more
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properly than perceived. Or if we reason concerning it, and endeavour to fix its standard, we regard a new fact, the general taste of mankind, or some such fact, which may be the object of reasoning and enquiry. (Hume, 1902, p. 165) Any science of morals properly so called, accordingly, is the study not of moral values, but of beliefs about moral values, in modern terms a sociological rather than a philosophical study. It is on this point that Hume differs most strikingly from his contemporaries. In short, they were moralists; he was not.
12.3 It might be suggested that this contrast between Hume and his contemporaries is too sharply drawn. In Essay V on the Active Powers, for example, Reid appears to articulate something like the same gap between philosophical theory and moral beliefs. By the theory of morals is meant a just account of the structure of our moral powers; that is, of those powers of mind by which we have our moral conceptions and distinguish right from wrong in human actions. This indeed is an intricate subject, and there have been various theories and much controversy about it in ancient times. But it has little connection with the knowledge of our duty; and those who differ most in the theory of our moral powers, agree in the practical rules of morals which they dictate. .... I mean not to depreciate this branch of knowledge. It is a very important part of the philosophy of the human mind, and ought to be considered as such, but not as any part of morals. (Reid, 1969b, pp. 376–377) In other words, the theory of morals is not any part of morals. Is Hume saying any more than this? The answer in my view is ‘yes’, and the difference between Hume and Reid in this respect can be brought out by contrasting Hume’s analogy of the painter and the anatomist with Reid’s distinction between a theory of morals and a system of morals. Hume’s distinction appears in the opening chapter of the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding entitled ‘Of the different Species of Philosophy’ where he says: Moral philosophy, or the science of human nature, may be treated after two different manners; each of which has its own peculiar merit, and may contribute to the entertainment, instruction and reformation of
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mankind. The one considers man chiefly as born for action; and as influenced in his measures by taste and sentiment; ... As virtue, of all objects, is allowed to be the most valuable, this species of philosophers paint her in the most amiable colours; borrowing all helps from poetry and eloquence, and treating their subject in an easy and obvious manner, and such is as best fitted to please the imagination and engage the affections ... alluring us into the paths of virtue by the views of glory and happiness ... They make us feel the difference between vice and virtue. The other species of philosophers consider man in the light of a reasonable rather than an active being, and endeavour to form his understanding more than cultivate his manners. They regard human nature as a subject of speculation; and with a narrow scrutiny examine it. (Hume, 1902, pp. 5–6) It is in illustration of this difference that he deploys the analogy of the anatomist and the painter. While the former ‘presents to the eye the most hideous and disagreeable objects’ the latter gives his figures ‘the most graceful and engaging airs’. At the same time, the two are connected, because the painter ‘must still carry his attention to the inward structure of the human body’. ‘Accuracy’, he concludes, ‘is in every case advantageous to beauty, and just reasoning to delicate sentiment. In vain would we exalt the one by depreciating the other’. Besides, we may observe, in every art or profession, even those which most concern life or action, . . a spirit of accuracy .. carries all of them nearer their perfection, and renders them more subservient to the interests of society. And though a philosopher may live remote from business, the genius of philosophy, if carefully cultivated by several, must gradually diffuse itself throughout the whole society and bestow a similar correctness on every art and calling. (Hume, 1902, p. 10) In this passage Hume does not appear to set painting and anatomy, moral instruction and scientific investigation so very far apart, and the contrast with Ferguson and Reid would seem to be simply a matter of emphasis. Yet the position Hume is seeking to occupy is an unstable one. It might be true that painters find some knowledge of anatomy helpful, but the connection between anatomical accuracy and visual attractiveness is a purely contingent one. When there is an element of competition, when, that is to say, graphic skills are employed in the service of anatomy, then painterly values must yield to anatomical accuracy. The instability emerges even more plainly in the concluding section of the Enquiry when Hume returns to consider the difference between styles of philosophy directly. Here he wants to defend ‘academical’ philosophy and so his question is ‘how far it is possible to push philosophical
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principles of doubt and uncertainty’ without degenerating into scepticism, because he acknowledges that scepticism is debilitating. In the Treatise he had expressly identified this as an unfortunate outcome of philosophizing, and there he declares reason to be incapable of dispelling the clouds with which philosophy has enveloped the mind. Instead, the only appeal is to nature’s ‘cure’ – ‘three or four hour’s amusement’ which will have the happy effect of making philosophical speculations appear ‘cold, strain’d and ridiculous’. The point is effectively repeated in this last section of the first Enquiry. The great subverter of ... excessive principles of scepticism, is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life. These principles may flourish and triumph in the schools; where it is indeed difficult, if not impossible to refute them. But as soon as they leave the shade ... they vanish like smoke’. (Hume, 1902, pp. 158–159) After dining, back-gammon and conversation, Hume finds himself ‘ready to throw all my books and papers into the fire, and resolve never more to renounce the pleasures of life for the sake of reasoning and philosophy’. This shows that for him, speculative reason is in the end incompatible with practical life. As we saw, in Essay V of the Active Powers Reid also draws a distinction between theoretical and practical philosophy and declares moral theory to be no part of morality. In Practical Ethics he allows nonetheless that conflict may arise. It arises, however, not because of incompatible philosophical styles, but from falsehood. Although it is true and ought to be understood that very different Theories of Morals do in most instances lead to the same practical Conclusion yet it must be owned that there have been Licentious Theories advanced on this subject that tend to overturn all good Morals and that even of those Theories that do not deserve the Name of Licentious some have a happier influence upon morals than others, and there is no false Theory whatsoever which may not in some cases at least mislead a man in Practice. (Reid, 2007, p. 12) If scepticism is at odds with practical life, then, it is because it is false, and what is called for is not the therapy of the games room, but refutation. To conclude from this, though, that philosophical theory is a source of moral knowledge is still to make the ‘gross mistake ... that in order to understand his duty, a man must needs be a philosopher and a metaphysician’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 377). The fact is that ‘a man may have a very clear and comprehensive knowledge of what is right and wrong in human conduct, who never studied the structure of our moral powers’ (ibid.). This sentence reveals the difference between a theory and a system of morals. The theory aims at
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explanation; the system aims at clarity and comprehensiveness. In the same essay Reid says: A system of morals is not like a system of geometry, where the subsequent parts derive their evidence from the preceding, and one chain of reasoning is carried on from the beginning. ... It resembles more a system of botany or mineralogy, where the subsequent parts depend not for their evidence upon the preceding, and the arrangement is made to facilitate apprehension and memory, and not to give evidence. (Reid, 1969b, pp. 375–376) Hume’s contrast between anatomy and painting invites us to locate the theory of morality in the sphere of the intellect and morality itself in the sphere of feeling or emotion. In so doing, he resurrects the distinction between philosophy and rhetoric that so exercised Plato and the Sophists. It was Plato’s constant complaint that while the Sophists set themselves up as teachers, they had no body of knowledge to teach, only some rhetorical tricks. Reid’s contrast between geometry and botany is probably not any more to Plato’s liking, but it avoids this charge. Morality, no less than moral theory, is a form of knowledge. The Inquiry and the Essays are investigations into the theory of morals; the Lectures on Practical Ethics are a systematic and comprehensive ordering of moral knowledge.
12.4 It is time to return to the central topic of this paper, namely Reid’s identity as a Scottish philosopher and its relation to his interest for contemporary philosophy. To summarize: Reid has often been regarded as the leading figure in something called the Scottish school of philosophy, and his Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense its seminal text. However, if his appeal to common sense is regarded as central, the so-called Scottish School is confined to a very small circle of relatively minor people and leaves him the only respectable philosopher within it. If, alternatively and following Bryson, we include in the school the important intellectual figures of Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, Kames and Ferguson, then the circle is both larger and more impressive, but the narrow psychological focus of Reid’s Inquiry makes him a somewhat peripheral member of it. By according due weight to Reid’s Practical Ethics this picture changes. These newly published lectures show Reid to be concerned with the same broad range of topics as these other major figures. The fact that they were lectures and remained unpublished in his lifetime does not diminish their significance. It serves simply to underline a further unifying factor – that by profession the Scottish philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries were teachers no less than scholars, with
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as much interest in educating citizens as in pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. From this point of view, however, it is Hume who emerges as the exception. Unquestionably a major contributor to the study of human nature, his strict separation of the scientific and the normative nevertheless creates an opposition that sits very uneasily with the idea of practical philosophy or moral education. When it comes to practical life, Hume’s philosophical questioning is indistinguishable from scepticism, and to use his own analogy it is the painter’s mastery of colour not the scientist’s mastery of anatomy to which we must turn for a remedy. By contrast, Reid can more successfully distinguish theoretical and practical philosophy while making both sources of knowledge. The difference is that practical philosophy is the science of setting out clearly and comprehensively the principles and judgements upon which our common moral life depends. The practical Part of Ethicks is for the most part easy and level to all capacities. There is hardly any moral Duty which when properly explained and delineated does not recommend itself to the heart of every candid and unbiased man. For every Man has within him a touchstone of Morals, the dictates of his own Conscience which approves of what is Right and condemns what is wrong. (Reid, 2007, p. 11) What stands in the way of acknowledging the reality of moral obligation is not ignorance of hitherto unknown facts which the careful scientific investigation characteristic of moral theory could be expected to make good, but private interests, passions, bias, conventional opinion and so on. These are to be dispelled, at least in part, by setting out our moral obligations systematically, clearly and comprehensively. There is therefore no branch of Science wherein Men would be more harmonious in their opinions than in Morals were they free from all Biass (sic) and Prejudice. But this is hardly the case with any Man. Men’s private interests, their Passions, and vicious inclinations & habits, do often blind their understandings, and biass their judgments. And as Men are much disposed to take the Rules of Conduct from fashion rather than from the Dictates of reason, so with Regard to Vices which are authorized by fashion the judgments of men are apt to be blinded by the Authority of the Multitude especially when Interest or Appetite leads the same Way. It is therefore of great consequence to those who would judge right in matters relating to their own Conduct or that of others, to have the Rules of Morals fixed & settled in their Minds, before they have occasion to apply them to cases wherein they may be interested. (ibid.)
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Where Hume denies that reason can be one of the influencing motives of the will, Reid holds that it is reason which frees the will from all the influencing motives that would mislead and obstruct it. It is thanks to moral philosophy of the practical kind that human beings are able to do what ‘the brutes are incapable of’, namely ‘to prosecute one great End in Life & by this to reduce the whole of his Life to a connected System making every part of it subservient to [one] main End’ (Reid, 2007, p. 32). Hume and Reid both draw a distinction between speculative philosophy and practical ethics. If my interpretation is correct, Hume’s account of the difference collapses into the ancient distinction between philosophy and rhetoric, science versus art. Reid however has a conception of practical ethics in which unmistakeably intellectual merits play a central role – the pursuit of conceptual clarity, explanatory comprehensiveness and systematic order. Ethics thus becomes an exercise of reason and judgment, not feeling and desire. Contemporary philosophy, as I have already observed, has recovered an interest in Reid’s speculative philosophy, that is to say (in the main) his epistemology and philosophy of mind. In roughly the same period, philosophy has also found a renewed interest in first order ethics. But it has not succeeded in articulating a conception of ‘applied philosophy’ that can claim (as it needs to) both philosophical credentials, and rational authority beyond the academy. There is an argument to be made, I think, for holding that Reid’s distinction between theories and systems of morals can shed some light on this matter. Practitioners of applied philosophical ethics have to work within two constraints that are potentially in some tension. On the one hand, because first order ethics is easily and often downgraded (or even dismissed) as the ‘mere’ application of philosophical theses formulated and established by philosophers ‘proper’, the subject must establish its philosophical credentials. On the other hand, applied ethics must also establish the relevance of its reflections and conclusions to practitioners who are quite likely to regard philosophy as quintessentially unrealistic theorizing. Negotiating this tension has proved very difficult, because it has to be acknowledged that whatever the philosopher or ethicist may bring to practical questions, it is not expertise of the kind that medical scientists, lawyers or economists bring. Unlike people with expert knowledge of these kinds, ethicists are in some sense on a level playing field with those they advise, and generally seen by them to be so. Furthermore, the audience for the conclusions they reach is a public not a professional one. It is to people as human agents and not in their capacity as academic specialists that applied or first order ethics has to be addressed. However, despite these inescapable considerations, it must also be the case that the opinions ethicists advance on the questions at issue are not just new or different but in some way have greater rational warrant – by being better informed, better thought out, conceptually clearer and so on. Otherwise
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applied ethics is both deceptive and self-deceived, an exercise in advocacy masquerading as an exercise in reason, rhetoric aiming to persuade rather than philosophy aiming to demonstrate. But to offset this anxiety, applied ethics must exhibit some of the features of academic philosophy – complex arguments within a professional dialogue. Reid’s approach to practical ethics is shaped by precisely these constraints. He plainly thinks that there can be no moral experts in the way that there can be experts in psychology or anatomy. It is a ‘gross mistake which I wish to obviate’ he says ‘that in order to understand his duty, a man must needs be a philosopher and a metaphysician’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 377). Not everyone has what it takes to be a scientist or scholar, but ‘every Man has within him a touchstone of Morals, the dictates of his own Conscience’. This is why he says a few sentences earlier in the passage quoted previously that ‘there is hardly any moral Duty which when properly explained and delineated, does not recommend itself to the heart of every candid and unbiased Man.’ (Reid, 2007, pp. 10–11). At the same time, while practical ethics ‘requires no profound reasoning’ of the kind that mathematics or metaphysics does, ‘one who has given much attention to the duty of man in all the various relations and circumstances of life, will probably be more enlightened in his own duty and more able to enlighten others’. ‘Where the first writers in morals’ Reid tells us, ‘delivered their moral instructions not in systems but ... in aphorisms’, ‘subsequent writers, to improve the way of treating the subject, gave method and arrangement to moral truths ... as parts of one whole. By this means the whole is more easily comprehended ... and from this arrangement gets the name of a science’ (Reid, 1969b, p. 375). Its claim to be not just a science, but part of philosophy (a distinction Reid draws a little differently from modern usage) rests on its originating with Socrates who ‘called off mens Attention from vain Enquiries Into the Origin and Generation of the heavens and the Earth, to the study of their Duty as Men and as Citizens’, and thereby established a distinction between the role of inquiry with respect to ‘two capital powers or Faculties of the human mind ... to wit the contemplative and the active’. This is why Socrates ‘has always been reckoned the father of Moral Philosophy, as Hipocrates has been of Medicine’ (Reid, 2007, p. 10). It is plausible to hold that part of contemporary philosophy’s renewed interest in Reid’s Inquiry arises from the fact that the blend of conceptual, speculative and empirical material characteristic of the 18th century’s project of the ‘science of mind’ resonates well with contemporary cognitive science which places great hope in interdisciplinary advance. By contrast, while I have been arguing that Reid’s understanding of a ‘system of morals’ provides a conception that contemporary practical or applied philosophical ethics needs and lacks, it remains the case that there is little or no corresponding resonance. The relatively recent appearance of his Practical Ethics explains why, as a matter of fact, contemporary applied philosophy has not
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given any attention to this aspect of Reid’s philosophical work, but there are also two deep differences that stand in the way of its doing so. First, Reid founds his system on duties to God, from which all other duties flow, and second, as the passages quoted show, he fully expects philosophical systematizing to result in moral agreement. Contemporary moral philosophy of the applied kind makes no reference whatever to our duties to God, and acknowledges, if it does not entirely endorse, the inevitability of moral disagreement. In his book Thomas Reid’s Ethics, William C. Davis does not lay very much emphasis on the distinction between a theory and a system of morals, and he is primarily concerned with the former. But he does note these differences between Reid’s world and ours, and remarks: If Reid really did intend to produce a moral philosophy that was independent of the assumptions of his age, then I do not think it is possible to reconstruct his system in an attractive way. But in spite of some ambitious passages, I do not think that Reid intended to rise completely above his context. I find his system compelling, in part, I suspect, because I share so many of his theological convictions. ... Readers with theological and moral convictions different from mine (and from Reid) will probably not be convinced. (Davis, 2006, p. 15) This is one response – to record competing convictions and leave it there. But another is to take the existence of these deep differences as the starting point for a further stage of philosophical reflection. Because modus ponens is simply modus tollens in reverse, there is always scope to argue that it is precisely the rejection of Reid’s convictions (or something like them) that is preventing applied ethics in the contemporary world from arriving at a coherent self-conception, and that the pressing need to seek such a self-conception gives us reason to explore them with a more open mind. My surmise is that the vast majority of secular ethicists are unlikely to be persuaded of the merits of any theological providentialism, and it is not my purpose here to argue that only such a conceptual context can make a programme of applied philosophical ethics coherent. But precisely insofar as the deployment of a providentialist metaphysics is not a ‘live’ option (to use William James’s terminology), the problem is specially pressing it seems to me, because a large part of the contemporary agenda of first order ethics gets its interest from appearing to fill the lacuna left by the decline of Western Christianity. One way of putting this is to say that its concern is to secure and explore a realm of values that falls short of the (otiose) concept of sin, but continues to stand above, and in judgment on, the merely contingent provisions of systems of positive law. The crucial question, however, is what these values are, and how, confronted with
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a Nietzschean conception of aristocratic perfectionism, the key notions of the fundamental moral equality of all human beings and their corresponding equal basic rights can be given a convincing and authoritative foundation. Nietzsche, rightly, saw that they originated in popular Christian religion, which was fuelled, he argued, by the natural resentment of the weak against the strong. It was this basis in common psychology that forged the important connection between what Christian ethics taught and what most people thought. By contrast, Nietzsche’s perfectionist alternative does not need (or want) to secure popular motivation, but only to inspire the Übermensch. I surmise that this view is no more welcome to contemporary practical ethics than is theological providentialism. Yet as specialist journals in the various branches of ethics continue to proliferate and to be filled with debates that only people with advanced philosophical training can understand (or care about), it seems that contemporary philosophical ethics is indeed guilty of the gross error which Reid meant to obviate, the error of thinking that moral agents need to be philosophers, and that until some alternative understanding of its character and role can be found, it will continue to pursue intellectual rigor at the cost of practical irrelevance, and the tension which it must find some way of negotiating will continue to render it sterile.
13 Duty, Goodness, and God in Thomas Reid’s Moral Philosophy Terence Cuneo
What did Reid say about how considerations of moral duty and wellbeing should motivate an agent? And how did he think of the relationship between virtue and well-being? My purpose in this essay is to explore these questions, paying special attention to a pair of claims that Reid defends. The first is that considerations of duty should have motivational priority over those of well-being. The second is that virtue and well-being necessarily coincide. Reid’s defense of the first claim, I contend, consists in a multi-layered argument against rival eudaimonist views that builds upon Butler’s arguments against Hobbesian egoism. I further suggest that this anti-eudaimonist polemic provides important clues as to why Reid also found utilitarianism wholly unattractive. Reid’s defense of the second claim, which concerns the coincidence between virtue and well-being, also has several dimensions, including an appeal to the claim that one cannot achieve a significant degree of well-being apart from having the virtues. I suggest that its deepest component, however, is an appeal to a species of moral faith that emphasizes the moral importance of trust in divine benevolence.
13.1
The rational principles of action
Imagine yourself up late at night, entirely absorbed in a good book. As you glance at the clock, you remember that you must be up very early the next day to prepare for a presentation at work. You very much want to finish the chapter you’re reading, however. But you also have a responsibility to be ready for the day ahead – a responsibility, let it be added, that you desire to fulfill. What should you do? As a rational agent, you needn’t simply capitulate to the strongest desire you have at this time, for you have the ability to step back from your desires and critically assess them. To use Reid’s terminology, you have the ability to “manage” and “regulate” the various impulses that can move you to action by asking yourself whether you ought to act on one or another of them. All 238
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our actions, says Reid, are such that we can regulate them “according to a certain general rule, or law” (Reid, 1969b, p. 222). But in light of what, in this case, should you regulate your conduct? How should you rank the various desires that vie for your allegiance? In most cases, Reid says, by appealing to either of two “rational principles” – what he calls our “good on the whole” and “duty.” (I say “in most cases” because Reid allows for cases of unmotivated action in which an agent acts on a mere whim; see Reid, 1969b, IV.iv.) Concerning our good on the whole, Reid says the following: As we grow up to understanding, we extend our view both forward and backward. We reflect upon what is past, and, by the lamp of experience, discern what will probably happen in time to come. We find that many things which we eagerly desired, were too dearly purchased, and that things grievous for the present, like nauseous medicines, may be salutary in the issue. We learn to observe the connections of things, and the consequences of our actions; and, taking an extended view of our existence, past, present, and future, we correct our first notions of good and ill and form the conception of what is good or ill upon the whole. ... That which, taken with all its discoverable connections and consequences, brings more good than ill, I call good upon the whole. (Reid, 1969b, p. 205) As for duty, Reid says that the notion is “too simple to admit of a logical definition,” although he is happy to give various examples of duties, such as the duty to “to fortify our minds against every temptation ... by maintaining a lively sense of the beauty of right conduct” and “to prefer a great good, though distant, to a less” (Reid, 1969b, pp. 223, 362). Most important for present purposes, however, is not Reid’s particular characterization of what a duty is or what counts as a duty, but his claim that among the principles to which rational agents appeal when evaluating various motivational impulses and action plans are not simply prudential but moral ones. Reid’s view, then, is that when evaluating various courses of action, the practically rational agent asks himself two questions: Would acting in such-and-such a way be detrimental or conductive to my overall welfare? And would acting in that way be to conform with what is morally required or appropriate? By setting up the structure of rational agency in this fashion, Reid thereby accepts a version of the doctrine of dual affections, a view most prominently defended by Duns Scotus, according to which all acts of the will stem from an affection for either advantage or justice.1 As we’ll see in a moment, Reid believes that there are two important relations between the rational principles of which we should take note. Before we turn to that
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matter, however, let me offer several comments upon what Reid says about the rational principles. First, although welfare concepts play a fairly prominent role in Reid’s account of practical reasoning, he says relatively little about that in which an agent’s welfare consists, commenting only that it involves “a correct judgment of goods and evils, with respect to their intrinsic worth and dignity, their constancy and duration, and their attainableness” (Reid, 1969b, p. 215). While not terribly informative, this abstract characterization of an agent’s good on the whole suggests that, for Reid, an agent’s welfare consists not so much in a life that is enjoyable or satisfying as in a life that is well-lived – one that is appropriately sensitive to the goods and evils of this world. In this respect, Reid’s views regarding welfare are rather far removed from the utilitarians and Kant, falling more nearly in line with Stoics such as Cicero, from whom he quotes at some length when explicating his own view (cf. Reid, 1969b, p. 206). Second, like Bishop Butler, Reid maintains that an agent’s conception of her own welfare is general in character, having as its object a property that attaches to an agent’s life comprehensively considered. In this sense, an agent’s conception of her good upon the whole is distinguished from other “animal principles” of action, such as benevolent motives, which have particular things, such as persons, as their object. As we’ll see shortly, Reid’s claim that welfare concepts are both general and extremely complex does important work in his brief against eudaimonism. Third, it is important to see that Reid’s claim that mature human agents have a conception of their good on the whole is supposed to have polemical force. At the outset of his discussion of the rational principles of action, Reid announces that his aim is “to show, that, among the various ends of human actions, there are some, of which, without reason, we could not even form a conception” (Reid, 1969b, p. 202). According to Reid, however, to establish this is to make an important point against Hume. For, if Reid is correct, Hume radically instrumentalizes practical reason. According to Reid’s construal of it, the aim of Humean practical reason is not to determine the ends that we should have, but merely to ascertain how most effectively to satisfy our passions (Reid, 1969b, p. 202; cf. also Reid, 1969b, p. 68). Although the point is easy to miss in Reid’s discussion, by appealing to the doctrine of dual affections, Reid is making an anti-Humean point. In particular, he takes it to be evident that we can form a conception of our good on the whole and regulate our actions in accordance with it. But if we can do this, Reid contends, then Hume’s account of practical reason cannot be correct. We can reason not just about means but also ends. Moreover, if Reid is correct and it is the province of reason to form a conception of one’s good on the whole, then Hume’s more extravagant claims about reason also cannot be correct. For, if Reid is right, not only is it reason’s province to form a notion of one’s good upon the whole, it is also its role to guide action in
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such a way that it is conducive to one’s own good. It cannot be true, then, that it is not contrary to reason for an agent to prefer his lesser good to his greater, as Hume claimed. The two rational principles of action, then, for Reid, are principles that guide action. As I indicated earlier, however, Reid holds that they stand in a certain kind of relation to one another. We can better identify this relation, by having the notion of motivational primacy before us. Suppose we say that a state of affairs P has motivational primacy for an (ordinary adult) agent S just in case three conditions are met. First, in a wide range of ordinary cases, P is a type of consideration in light of which S would act. Accordingly, were S to deliberate about what to do, P is a type of state of affairs that S would, in a wide range of cases, not only use to “frame” his practical deliberations, but also endeavor to bring about. That my loved ones flourish is such a state of affairs for many of us. Second, P is a sufficient reason for S to act. Roughly put, P is a sufficient reason for S to act just in case S takes P to be a reason to act and would endeavor to bring about P even if he believed (or took it for granted) that his doing so would not bring about (or increase the likelihood of his bringing about) any further state of affairs that he values. Imagine, for example, S is like many of us inasmuch as he takes himself to have a reason to bring about the flourishing of his loved ones. This is a sufficient reason for S to act because he would endeavor to bring about the flourishing of his loved ones even if he believed that his doing so would not bring about any further state of affairs that he values, such as his gaining increased notoriety among his peers. Third, P has deliberative weight for S. For our purposes, we can think of this as the claim that P is a reason of such a type that, in a wide range of circumstances, S takes it to trump other types of reasons, even other sufficient reasons. Many of us, for example, hold that there is a beautiful sunset on the horizon is a sufficient reason to stop whatever we are doing and enjoy it. Still, for most of us, that an act would bring about or preserve the flourishing of our loved ones has greater deliberative weight than this. If a person had to choose between enjoying a beautiful sunset, on the one hand, or protecting her child from danger, on the other, then the latter reason trumps. At any rate, having introduced the notion of motivational primacy, I can now identify two claims that I take to be the centerpiece of Reid’s discussion of rational motivation. The first of Reid’s claims concerns which considerations should have motivational primacy for an agent. It is: The Hierarchy Thesis: In any case in which an agent must decide what to do, considerations of what is morally required should have motivational primacy. Specifically, what is morally required of an agent should have motivational primacy over what he takes to be his good on the whole.2
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Having established a hierarchy among the two rational principles of action, Reid also defends: The Coincidence Thesis: In worlds such as ours, virtue and well-being are necessarily coextensive. It is impossible for a virtuous agent to perform her duty and that not contribute to her overall well-being. There are several ways to defend this latter claim. One would be simply to identify well-being with virtue; this secures their coextensiveness rather neatly. Another is Reid’s preferred strategy, which is to claim that, in any world that is under the governance of a benevolent deity, virtue and wellbeing cannot come apart. In what follows, I shall consider Reid’s defense of these two claims.
13.2
The hierarchy thesis
There is a long tradition in ethics that inverts the hierarchy of motivation that Reid wishes to defend. Eudaimonist positions, as I’ll understand them, maintain that when an agent deliberates about what to do she assumes, or ought to assume, that considerations concerning her own well-being or eudaimonia have motivational primacy in a very robust sense.3 Every act that an agent performs, say eudaimonists, either is or should be taken for the sake of his own happiness. Accordingly, if eudaimonism is true, an agent operates, or ought to operate, with the following principle of action selection: perform only those actions that, to the best of one’s knowledge, positively contribute to one’s own well-being or eudaimonia. Moreover, in so doing, an agent treats, or ought to treat, considerations concerning her own well-being as being both a sufficient reason to act and having deliberative weight. When asked: “Why did you do that?” an agent’s ultimate justification will, or ought to, appeal to the way in which acting in that fashion contributes to her own well-being. Reid, as I’ve indicated, rejects eudaimonism thus understood. The character of Reid’s rejection, I suggest, comes into sharper focus if we situate it between two trends in the history of British moral philosophy. On the one hand, it will be helpful to look backward to see Reid’s view as part of a broader anti-eudaimonistic movement in British moral philosophy. On the other hand, it will be useful to look forward to developments in the commonsense school to gain a better picture of why Reid resisted certain broadly utilitarian trends that would come to dominate ethical theory. Three tasks, then, will occupy me in this section. The first is to highlight the ways in which Reid’s anti-eudaimonism is an extension of Butler’s attack on eudaimonism. Having done this, I’ll then present Reid’s own anti- eudaimonistic arguments, which build upon Butler’s. And, finally, I’ll argue that, despite the subsequent utilitarian trajectory of the
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commonsense school, there is a principled rationale to be found within Reid’s anti- eudaimonism for resisting this trend. Reid’s arguments for The Hierarchy Thesis provide reasons not only for rejecting eudaimonism, but also any other view that attempts to ground moral duty in considerations of the well-being of all. The Butlerian background Consider what we might call the “standard Scholastic view” regarding rational agency, which is comprised of a trio of claims. In the first place, the Scholastic view tells us that every thing has a natural inclination to achieve its own perfection or eudaimonia. Second, in rational beings, this inclination is identified with “intellective appetite” or will. Third and, finally, the will is such that when something is presented to it as being constitutive of an agent’s eudaimonia or happiness, that agent cannot help but will it. In its totality, this view no longer had currency among philosophers in Reid’s day, as it had been supplanted by a variety of views concerning agency that rejected Scholastic faculty psychology. But elements of it survived. In particular, if Butler is correct, Hobbes accepted the Scholastic thesis that the will is necessarily oriented toward happiness (although Hobbes rejected the Scholastic account of that in which happiness consists). It was this claim about the will’s orientation toward happiness that Butler attacked in his sermons given at Rolls Chapel. Distinguish, said Butler, between the particular passions, on the one hand, and an agent’s orientation to secure his good on the whole, on the other. The particular passions, such as resentment or gratitude, Butler claimed, have as their object not general states of affairs but concrete, particular things. The object of an agent’s resentment, for example, is another person. One’s inclination to secure one’s good on the whole, by contrast, has as its object not particular things but something highly complex and general, viz., the property of what is good for an agent, comprehensively considered. Now consider, Butler asked, the character of actual human action. It would be bizarre, argued Butler, to claim that in every case in which an agent acts, he acts to bring about or otherwise realize his own well-being, as he understands it. Consider, for example, someone who is “abandoned” or entirely invested in securing his own pleasure. It would be, Butler claimed, “ridiculous to call such an abandoned course of pleasure interested [i.e., a case of self-love] when the person engaged in it knows beforehand ... that it will be as ruinous to himself as to those who depend on him” (Butler, 1841, p. 26; cf. pp. 193, 204). The abandoned agent is motivated not by a concern for his own well-being, but by particular passions. To think otherwise is to miss altogether the distinction between these two fundamentally different principles of action. I believe it is safe to assume that Reid took Butler’s attack on eudaimonism to be decisive: there is no plausibility to the idea that agents
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necessarily will their own happiness, as they understand it (cf. Reid, 1969b, pp. 122–123). Accordingly, the type of eudaimonism implicit in the standard Scholastic view was, for Reid, not a live option. But Butler’s attack left a different type of eudaimonism untouched, one according to which the practically rational agent takes her own well-being to have motivational primacy. According to this view, whatever may be the case about how agents actually act, they ought to view their own well-being as having motivational primacy. As we’ll see in a moment, Reid no more than Butler wished to recommend a picture of agency according to which agents should disregard or ignore their own well-being. “To serve God and be useful to mankind, without any concern about one’s own good and happiness,” Reid writes, is “beyond the pitch of human nature” (Reid, 1969b, p. 219). Furthermore, Reid holds that, when properly understood, a concern for one’s good on the whole “leads us to the practice of justice, humanity, and all the social virtues” (Reid, 1969b, p. 215). In this sense, Reid is no Stoic. He does not think we can fail to be invested to a significant degree in our own wellbeing in the broad sense in which he understands it. He also believes that a concern for one’s own welfare thus understood leads to the cultivation of virtue. Still, Reid insists that our good on the whole ought not to be the “only regulating principle of human conduct” (Reid, 1969b, p. 216). Why? For four reasons. First, Reid claims that “the greater part of mankind can never attain such extensive views of human life, and so correct a judgment of good and ill, as the right application of this principle requires” (Reid, 1969b, p. 216). Reid’s point here is that a principle of action should be action-guiding. It should be the sort of thing that, in a wide range of cases, an agent could consult when determining what to do and thereby come to understand what she ought to do. The principles of morality are actionguiding. “Every man of common understanding,” says Reid, “who wishes to know his duty, may know it” (Reid, 1969b, p. 370). But gaining a conception of one’s good on the whole, let alone an accurate one, and an understanding of what genuinely contributes to it, is something that is very difficult to do. It requires – to advert to a passage quoted earlier – that one “observe the connections of things, and the consequences of our actions,” thereby “taking an extended view of our existence, past, present, and future.” Many ordinary persons will have neither the time nor the ability to do this, let alone actually gain an accurate notion of that in which their good on the whole consists. If this is right, however, then one’s good on the whole is not sufficiently action-guiding to be the most general and fundamental principle of action, as eudaimonists claim. Second, because one’s good on the whole is concerned not only with present satisfaction, but also with the enjoyment of future goods, it proves not to be as motivationally charged as one might hope. We would like
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to have a clearer and more efficacious guide to conduct. Reid puts the point thus: Men stand in need of a sharper monitor to their duty than a dubious view of distant good. There is reason to believe, that a present sense of duty has, in many cases a stronger influence than the apprehension of distant good would have of itself. And it cannot be doubted, that a sense of guilt and demerit is a more pungent reprover than the bare apprehension of having mistaken our true interest. (Reid, 1969b, p. 217) Duty is, then, according to Reid, in many cases, a better guide to action than interest. Moreover, it is often motivationally more powerful than an appeal to interest, as it connects more intimately with powerful motivating considerations such as one’s own guilt. The third point that Reid makes is that, although “a steady pursuit of our own good may, in an enlightened mind, produce a kind of virtue which is entitled to some degree of approbation, yet it can never produce the noblest kind of virtue, which claims our highest love and esteem” (Reid, 1969b, p. 218). So, Reid’s view is not that a concern for one’s own well-being is crass egoism or self-centeredness. To the contrary, there is something admirable about it; to pursue one’s own well-being properly requires virtue. For example, if concern for one’s self is such that it helps one to discount temptations to a life of ease, leisure, or frivolity, then it is much to be admired (cf. Reid, 1969b, p. 218; but also cf. Reid, 1969b, p. 363).4 That said, to be genuinely dedicated to the moral life, one cannot grant motivational primacy to one’s good on the whole. For our esteem, Reid writes, “is due only to the man whose soul is not contracted within itself, but embraces a more extensive object: who loves virtue, not for her dowry only, but for her own sake: whose benevolence is not selfish, but generous and disinterested” (Reid, 1969b, p. 218). This is a point to which I will return later, but for now the point to emphasize is this: for Reid, virtue requires caring not only about particular persons (they are, according to Reid, the objects of benevolence), but also virtue itself. Being virtuous requires being committed to the idea that the moral life is, in and for itself, worth living. It is not to be made subordinate to considerations about one’s well-being. Reid’s fourth point echoes one of Butler’s most famous observations regarding the pursuit of happiness: if one primarily aims to secure one’s own happiness, in many cases, one increases the risk of not obtaining it. This is not only because directly aiming for one’s own happiness can “fill the mind with fear, and care, and anxiety” (Reid, 1969b, p. 219). It is also because a “concern for our own good is not a principle that, of itself, gives any enjoyment” (Reid, 1969b, p. 219). What does give enjoyment, however, are those particular activities and objects to which our affections are directed, such as friendship and the common good. To achieve one’s good on the whole,
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then, one must, at least part of the time, be focused on and motivated by considerations that are not identical with it. Earlier I said that a consideration has motivational primacy for an agent just in case the following three conditions are met: first, it is a type of consideration in light of which an ordinary adult agent would act in a wide array of cases; second, it is a sufficient reason for that agent; and, third it has deliberative weight for him. Eudaimonists believe that one’s good on the whole has motivational primacy. More precisely, they believe that one’s good on the whole has motivational primacy in a very robust sense. They hold that every act that an agent performs either is or should be taken for the sake of his own happiness and that there is, or should be, no deeper practical justification for so acting. Reid maintains that eudaimonism thus understood is false. In many cases, agents do not act for the sake of their good on the whole. Nor, in many cases, should they attempt to do so. For one thing, appealing to one’s good on the whole is insufficiently action-guiding, because many agents simply do not have an adequate understanding of that in which it consists. For another, to make happiness the final court of appeal when deliberating is to undermine the rightful primacy of virtue. Reid and utilitarianism Reid, then, rejects eudaimonism on the grounds that it cannot provide a reliable guide to action and subverts virtue. It is difficult, however, to appraise Reid’s rejection of eudaimonism without also having in mind the trajectory of post-Reidian commonsense philosophy. That trajectory is, in large part, shaped by figures such as Alexander Smith, Henry Sidgwick, and G. E. Moore, who accepted much of Reid’s broadly non-naturalist approach to ethics, but rejected his deontological approach in favor of one or another brand of consequentialism. Indeed, as J. B. Schneewind tells the story, the history of the Reidian school in ethics is broadly declinist in character: having initially exercised enormous influence, it was deeply shaken by challenges presented to it by those sympathetic with utilitarianism. When faced with these challenges, advocates of the Reidian school did little but “deny the force of objections and reiterate the old teachings” (Schneewind, 1977, p. 78). Whatever may be true of Reid’s followers, Reid himself was certainly familiar with the utilitarian tendencies in the work of both Hutcheson and Hume, and expressed no sympathy with them.5 Why not? The reasons are complicated, but two stand out in particular. In the first place, Reid believed that utilitarianism is vulnerable to criticisms similar to that which he raises against eudaimonism. Second, utilitarianism, Reid argues, yields an inadequate conception of justice. Let me close this section by considering both reasons in turn. Contemporary moral philosophers are apt to distinguish two different projects in ethical theory. One project is to construct an ethical theory that is action-guiding. Its aim is to identify substantive ethical principles that
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can help ordinary agents to decide how to act and live. Kant’s and Mill’s projects, for example, were of this variety; the categorical imperative and the principle of utility are, at the very least, supposed to be guides to action, which also justify ascriptions of praise, blame, and guilt. The other project in which ethical theorists engage is to identify the most basic moral norms that are capable of morally justifying action. Once more, both Kant and Mill were also involved in this enterprise; the fact that a maxim can pass the categorical imperative, according to Kant’s view, is supposed to be that which renders acting on that maxim morally permissible. As recent discussions of consequentialism make evident, however, these two projects needn’t run in tandem. One can engage in the second project, say, by offering a defense of the principle of utility; but in doing so one needn’t thereby have engaged in the first. For one might believe that, while the principle of utility morally justifies action, it is of little help in guiding action or justifying ascriptions of praise, blame, and guilt. Reid, however, believes that these two projects cannot be fruitfully split apart; they belong together. Like Kant and Mill, his aim is to identify substantive ethical principles that both can guide us in and morally justify action. Otherwise put, Reid assumes that a normative ethical theory should be “transparent.” The ends that actually motivate us should also be capable of justifying why we act and why we ascribe praise, blame, and guilt. Once we see that, for Reid, a moral theory should be transparent, we can identify the first reason that Reid resisted utilitarianism. Utilitarian views are, in Reid’s view, the philosophical progeny of the eudaimonistic positions that he rejected. In reply to the question “Why ought I to do this?” eudaimonists say: because it will contribute to your own welfare. To the same question utilitarians reply: because it will positively contribute to (indeed, maximize) everyone’s welfare impartially considered. While the differences between these answers are clear enough, so also is their common element. Both maintain that considerations about the welfare of agents are what ultimately justify moral action. Return now to Reid’s rejection of eudaimonism. Recall that the first point Reid makes is that most ordinary agents have neither the time nor the competence to form an accurate notion of their good on the whole (let alone derive the virtues from this conception). For most, the matter is simply too complex. Moreover, as Reid also notes, forming a conception of one’s own good is a social project; it requires good training and the development of powers of discernment and attention. These social conditions, as Reid also notes, are often not intact (cf. Reid, 1969b, p. 372). But if it is true that, for most agents, ordinary conditions do not favor the formation of an accurate conception of their own welfare, it follows that they also do not favor forming an accurate conception of the welfare of all rational agents comprehensively considered; the issue is overwhelmingly complex. However, if this is true, utilitarianism would give us insufficient practical guidance about how
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to act and live. It is no surprise, then, that Reid exhibits no sympathy for the view; it is subject to the very same type of concerns that drive him to reject eudaimonism. Let me approach the second reason that Reid rejected utilitarianism indirectly. Recall that, following Butler, Reid holds that to achieve one’s own welfare, one must attend to considerations other than one’s own welfare. The cultivation of what Reid calls the “benevolent affections,” in particular, has a central role to play in the achievement of our own good. All benevolent affections, Reid writes, are agreeable; “next to a good conscience, to which they are always friendly, and never can be adverse, they make the capital part of human happiness” (Reid, 1969b, p. 142). It is, however, an important feature of Reid’s treatment of the benevolent affections – and indeed, of his understanding of many of the so-called propositional attitudes – that he thinks of them in a de re/predicative style. The immediate object of the benevolent affections, says Reid, are “persons, and not things” (Reid, 1969b, p. 140; cf. also p. 410). To see how Reid is thinking, consider a case in which I form a benevolent affection toward you, thereby desiring that you perform well on an upcoming exam. If we are thinking of this attitude along de dicto lines, my attitude is directed toward a proposition or the state of affairs of your performing well on an upcoming exam. By contrast, if we think of the attitude along de re/predicative lines, the object of my affection is you; I desire, with respect to you, that you perform well on the exam. Why is this of any importance to assessing Reid’s resistance to utilitarianism? Because central to utilitarian approaches to ethics is the conviction that the proper response to value is to promote it. Any case in which we respond to value in some other way than promotion must be such that, in responding that way, one thereby indirectly promotes value. But suppose that we understand the benevolent affections as Reid does. If so, their objects are not states of affairs but persons. Moreover, the attitudes that Reid identifies as comprising the benevolent affections are ones such as gratitude, esteem, and affection (cf. Reid, 1969b, III.iii.iv). If we understand the objects of the benevolent affections as Reid does, however, it makes little sense to say that one ought to promote them. We can, as Reid maintains, esteem or express gratitude toward persons, but there is no evident sense in which we can promote them or maximize the values they bear, such as being worthy of appreciation or esteem. And if it be pointed out that this is compatible with the fact that by honoring a person one can thereby indirectly promote everyone’s welfare, Reid’s response, I take it, is this. The benevolent affections are responses that are, in large measure, due others. As such, they fall within the province of justice, for to exercise justice is, in Reid’s eyes, “to yield to every man what is his right” (Reid, 1969b, p. 416). Suppose, then, it were claimed by someone with utilitarian sympathies that
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what ultimately morally justifies the fact that an agent ought to esteem another is that doing so would promote the welfare of all. Reid’s reply is that such an approach fails to comport with an adequate account of justice for at least two reasons. In the first place, Reid contends, it cannot be that justice requires that an agent promote the good of all. Humanity or all the members thereof do not have the right against me to have its (or their) overall welfare promoted by my actions, for “when we employ our power to promote the good and happiness of others, this is a benefit,” not the recognition of a right (Reid, 1969b, p. 410). There is, after all, no way in which I or any other agent could know what their overall welfare is. And, so, on Reid’s assumption that one cannot have an obligation to perform an action that, through no fault of one’s own, one does not and cannot know how to perform, there is no obligation for me or any other agent to maximize the welfare of all. But if utilitarianism is true, it is presumably the case that what morally justifies an agent in, say, esteeming another is these two things: that doing so would maximize the aggregate well-being of all and that there is a moral obligation to promote the well-being of all. If Reid is correct, however, there is no such obligation and, hence, no such justification. In the second place, while it is an initially curious feature of Reid’s view that he does relatively little to identify the ways in which duty and one’s good on the whole are connected, he does identify what he calls the “branches of justice,” which are: “that an innocent man has a right to the safety of his person and family, a right to his liberty and reputation, a right to his goods, and to fidelity to engagements made with him” (Reid, 1969b, pp. 415–416). Presumably, Reid’s thought is that states and events such as enjoying one’s liberty and being such that one’s family is not harmed are life-goods to which we have rights. And for every such right, there is a correlative obligation to honor it, as “all right supposes a corresponding duty” (Reid, 1969b, p. 378). But, Reid maintains, it is not as if we have to cast about for reasons why these goods generate the rights and obligations in question. They are themselves sufficient to do that. If this is correct, though, then it is not the case that the rights and obligations in question are “derived solely from ... utility, either to ourselves or society” (Reid, 1969b, p. 414; see also p. 431). At most, the fact that respecting the life-goods contributes to the good of all gives us additional reason to honor them. But this is not the only or the deepest reason to honor them. Once again, the particular life-goods themselves generate reasons for us to act. To which Reid adds the following point: To perceive that justice tends to the good of mankind, would lay no moral obligation upon us to be just, unless we be conscious of a moral obligation to do what tends to the good of mankind. If such a moral obligation be admitted, why may we not admit a stronger obligation to do injury to
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no man? The last obligation is as easily conceived as the first, and there is as clear evidence of its existence in human nature. (Reid, 1969b, p. 433) Reid’s aim is not to deny that considerations of the public good have a role to play in grounding the rights and obligations that fall under the branches of justice. But even if we admit that we have an obligation to further the public good, there is, says Reid, little reason to hold that this obligation is more fundamental than the obligation “to do injury to no man.” To be sure, this doesn’t establish that this latter obligation is more fundamental to justice than the obligation to promote the good of all. But, says Reid, it goes some distance toward establishing that simply appealing to the putative obligation to promote the welfare of all is insufficient to secure the case for utilitarianism. What utilitarians take to be evident is not obviously so. Reid, I’ve argued, developed a considerably more sophisticated opposition to utilitarianism than was appreciated by his followers and commentators. This opposition, moreover, was formulated in the face of a powerful tendency among his contemporaries to “de-justicize” moral philosophy, which included downplaying the role of rights that had a more prominent place in the broadly natural law theorizing of figures such as Hugo Grotius and Gershom Carmichael. In Reid’s eyes, while philosophers such as Lord Shaftesbury, Adam Smith, David Hume, and Joseph Priestly were not eudaimonists, they tended to think of the moral realm primarily in terms of benevolence, devoting relatively little attention to the subject of rights and their relation to justice.6 It was Reid’s insight that the dispute with utilitarianism would hinge on how we think about justice and the role of rights. In that respect, he proved to be particularly prescient.
13.3
The coincidence thesis
What has emerged from our discussion is that Reid resists eudaimonism at every turn. According to Reid, our fundamental aim as moral agents is not to secure our own good on the whole. Nor is it to secure the most happiness for others. In the terminology I’ve employed, neither one’s own good on the whole nor that of others should have motivational primacy for an agent. And yet Reid did not wish entirely to divorce considerations regarding one’s good on the whole from duty. To the contrary, Reid thought it important to defend what I’ve called The Coincidence Thesis or the claim that, in worlds such as ours, reliably performing one’s duty and enjoying well-being coincide. Why did Reid believe this coincidence to hold? To fix our intuitions, Reid asks us to consider good moral pedagogy, broadly conceived. That a due regard to what is best for us upon the whole, in an enlightened mind, leads to the practice of every virtue, may be argued from
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considering what we think best for those for whom we have the strongest affection, and whose good we tender as our own. In judging for ourselves, our passions and appetites are apt to bias our judgment; but when we judge for others, this bias is removed, and we judge impartially. What is it then that a wise man would wish as the greatest good to a brother, a son, or a friend? Is it that he may spend his life in a constant round of the pleasures of sense, and fare sumptuously every day? No, surely; we wish him to be a man of real virtue and worth. We may wish for him an honorable station in life; but only with this condition, that he acquit himself honorably in it. ... Such would be the wish of every man of understanding for the friend whom he loves as his own soul. Such things, therefore, he judges to be best for him on the whole. ... (Reid, 1969b, pp. 213–214) Reid is sometimes portrayed as propounding a version of commonsense philosophy that appeals to the opinions of the masses to justify certain claims. Whatever truth this portrayal may have – and I don’t think it has much – in this passage, he is certainly not doing that. To understand what is in an agent’s own best interest, suggests Reid, we shouldn’t appeal to the first-person perspective; that perspective is limited and often distorted. But neither should we appeal to the third-person perspective, such as that occupied by a Smithian idealized spectator, for it is often too distant from the genuine interests of the agent. Best, Reid claims, to appeal to the secondperson perspective, such as that occupied by a “friend whom he loves as his own soul” (cf. Zagzebski 2004). The person who occupies this perspective provides both enough critical distance from and sympathetic engagement with an agent to render reliable advice. And were we to listen to such advice, Reid claims, we would find that it tells us not only that a concern for one’s good on the whole is “friendly” to virtue, but also that a life of virtue is the best type of life on the whole. Reid has his eye on something important here. When good people teach their children, they tell them that being virtuous is, or is apt to be, good for them on the whole. Indeed, morality appears to require that we encourage those we care most deeply about to be virtuous (cf. Adams 1999, pp. 377–378). If so, The Coincidence Thesis, or something like it, is not a philosopher’s artifact, but something deeply embedded in the moral life. Still, it is one thing to identify the moral importance of believing that virtue and well-being coincide; it is another matter altogether to identify specific reasons to believe this. The question, then, is whether there are additional considerations for believing that the coincidence holds. Reid marshals a two-pronged argument in favor of the coincidence. The first prong of the argument consists in furnishing various considerations for believing that virtue and an agent’s well-being are intimately intertwined.
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The second prong advances the stronger claim that they are necessarily coextensive, at least in worlds such as ours. Let’s begin with the first prong of the argument. As I’ve already indicated, Reid says relatively little about that in which an agent’s good on the whole consists, indicating that enjoying those life-goods to which we have rights are components of an agent’s well-being. Nonetheless, in certain places, Reid expands upon the theme of an agent’s good upon the whole, proposing that it includes at least these two elements: being harmoniously related to oneself and being harmoniously related to others. The first prong of Reid’s argument for The Coincidence Thesis consists in claiming that we can better see the intimate connections between virtue and well-being by reflecting on these two components of one’s good on the whole. Suppose we were to consider a morally decent person, one whose moral sense is working well, but who acts against virtue. Such an agent, according to Reid, experiences “dread” and “worthlessness” so acutely that “consciousness of ... [it] would make him detest himself, hate the light of the sun, and fly, if possible, out of existence” (Reid, 1969b, p. 244). By contrast, a person’s conforming to the dictates of virtue, “cannot fail a present reward” by giving “strength of heart” and making “his countenance to shine” in the “joy of good conscience” and the “confidence of divine approbation” (Reid, 1969b, p. 245). For, Reid claims, “the highest pleasure of all is, when we are conscious of good conduct in ourselves.” This is so, according to Reid, because of its “dignity, the intenseness of the happiness it affords, its stability and duration, its being in our power, and its being proof against all accidents of time and fortune” (Reid, 1969b, p. 242). Perhaps so. But why would this lead us to believe that what is good for us upon the whole “leads to the practice of every virtue”? Reid spells out his thought most explicitly in the following passage: This rational principle of a regard to our good upon the whole, gives us the conception of a right and a wrong in human conduct, at least of a wise and a foolish. It produces a kind of self-approbation, when the passions and appetites are kept in their due subjection to it; and a kind of remorse and compunction, when it yields to them. In these respects, this principle [i.e., one’s good on the whole] is so similar to the moral principle, or conscience, and so interwoven with it, that both are commonly comprehended under the name of reason. This similarity led many of the ancient philosophers, and some among the moderns, to resolve conscience, or a sense of duty, entirely into a regard to what is good for us upon the whole. (Reid, 1969b, p. 210) Take any agent, says Reid, who formulates or revises a conception of her good on the whole, thereby seeking to implement it. To engage in any of these activities with any degree of success requires exercising practical
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rationality.7 But, Reid continues, being practically rational is really a conceptual place-holder for a wide array of skills that are, if not themselves moral virtues, at least have moral dimensions. Consider, once again, what formulating a conception of and successfully pursuing one’s good on the whole involves: it requires that we “observe the connections of things, and the consequences of our actions ... taking an extended view of our existence, past, present, and future,” and correcting “our first notions of good and ill” (Reid, 1969b, p. 205). It also requires “a correct judgment of goods and evils, with respect to their intrinsic worth and dignity, their constancy and duration, and their attainableness” (Reid, 1969b, p. 215). It is easy, Reid suggests, to go wrong with respect to these matters, as many are “misled by their passions, by the authority of the multitude, and by other causes” (Reid, 1969b, p. 208). Acquiring an accurate conception of one’s good on the whole and pursuing it with success, then, requires that (in the ordinary case) one be attentive to detail, fair-minded and careful in considering evidence regarding it, open-minded to the testimony of qualified advisors, temperate, self-controlled, and so forth (cf. Reid, 1969b, pp. 363, 89). For someone who has an accurate conception of her good and is committed to pursuing it, failing to act in these ways – say, by acting negligently or intemperately – leads to feelings of “remorse” and “compunction,” which are similar to those experienced by one who suffers from an overtly moral failing. It is because of this, Reid suggests, that some philosophers have been led to conflate moral considerations with prudential ones. But while intimately related, these considerations are not identical. For, while considerations concerning one’s good on the whole and duty may “lead to the same conduct in life,” questions such as “Is this conducive to my good on the whole?” and “Is this my duty?” are not identical (cf. Reid, 1969b, pp. 210, 233). The first reason, then, that Reid offers for believing that virtue and welfare are intimately connected is that any good life is such that an agent must be harmoniously related to herself, not suffering from such maladies of the spirit as internal strife, discord, or the like. But any agent who is either morally decent or has an accurate conception of her own good on the whole, suggests Reid, will not be able to enjoy sufficient harmony of self were she to act contrary to virtue – or, at least, to act contrary to those virtues necessary for pursuing her good on the whole. For she will, perforce, be committed to acquiring and exercising these virtues. And acting against virtue results, in at least the properly functioning agent, in exactly the sort of internal discord that threatens to undercut a life well-lived. The second reason that Reid advances in favor of an intimate interconnection between virtue and well-being turns upon issues concerning relations not to oneself but to others. Striking a broadly Aristotelian theme common to Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Butler, and others, Reid writes that “the Author of our nature intended that we should live in society” (Reid,
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1969b, p. 159; cf. p. 137). More specifically, writes Reid, to love and esteem and be loved and esteemed, “are next to a good conscience ... the capital part of human happiness,” the very “balm of life” (Reid, 1969b, p. 142). In this case, Reid endeavors neither to over nor underplay the effects that the disapprobation of others can have on us. Reid’s claim is not that the disapprobation of others who are outside of our more immediate social ties is inimical to achieving our good on the whole. Rather, he repeatedly speaks of the importance of friendships, families, and society; when we are the object of the disapprobation of such people and social entities, we experience internal distress in the form of guilt, shame, and remorse (cf. Reid, 1969b, p. 161). In effect, then, Reid asks us to distinguish those persons and social entities with which we have special relations of intimacy and responsibility – what sociologists sometimes call a “reference class” – from those which we do not. It is primarily expressions of approbation or disapprobation from persons and social entities of the former sort that abet or impede our well-being. Having noted the importance of these special social relationships for happiness, Reid nonetheless resists resolving “our moral sentiments respecting the virtues of self-government, into a regard to the opinion of men.” Smith, in Reid’s view, comes perilously close to endorsing this view. But, says Reid, “this [view] is giving a great deal too much to the love of esteem.” To be sure, in most instances, “the opinion of others ... is a great inducement to good conduct.” And so it is that we gain the habits of “restraining ... appetites and passions within the bounds which common decency requires,” even when “a sense of duty has but a small influence” (Reid, 1969b, pp. 135, 134). But to restrain our appetites and passions for this reason is not the whole of virtue. For the “sense of honor,” which Reid takes to be present in every virtuous agent, “is nothing else, when rightly understood, but the disdain which a man of worth feels to do a dishonorable action, though it should never be known nor suspected” (Reid, 1969b, p. 240). Love of esteem and love of virtue, if Reid is correct, are clearly distinct. Reid’s overarching argument for The Coincidence Thesis, I claimed earlier, has two prongs. If I am right, the first prong is one in which Reid argues not that well-being and virtue are necessarily coextensive, but rather that they are bound together in various important ways. Because being harmoniously related to both self and others are important components of one’s good on the whole and, because acting contrary to both virtue and one’s good on the whole tends to disturb these relationships, the practically rational agent views a life of virtue as better than a morally misguided one. Still, it is important to see what Reid is not arguing. Unlike Butler, who, in at least some places, appears to think that happiness is purely a mental state, Reid denies that an agent’s good on the whole is internal in this sense (cf. Butler 1841, sermon XI.5). Indeed, he admits that we must recognize that, given everything we see, the coincidence between
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virtue and well-being does not hold, for there are life-goods necessary to well-being, such as the well-being of one’s family, that even the virtuous can lack. While he has little patience for passionate speeches about the gloominess of human life, such as one finds in Bayle (cf. Reid 1769, pp. 84, 94–95), Reid recognizes that there is powerful reason for believing that the necessary coincidence between virtue and well-being does not hold in this life. In his lectures on the Nature and Duration of the Soul, for example, Reid says that “it cannot be denied that there are instances {both} of successful Villanies which are not punished as they deserve in this World & of virtuous Actions for which men Suffer {or are not rewarded}” (Reid 2002b, p. 622). And exercising more rhetorical liberty, Reid raises the issue of what becomes of those who have struggled for justice and suffered: “Will death put them upon a level with the Tyrant that wallowed in human blood, and spread desolation ... to gratify his ambition and lust of power? Is there no Ear to hear the groans of those whom his sword hath made Widows and fatherless?” (Reid 2002b, p. 623). Certain features of Reid’s position have strong affinities with Stoicism – the elevation of the importance of good conscience comes to mind. Nonetheless, Reid does not accept the claim that the well-being of friends and loved ones is not constitutive of an agent’s good on the whole, belonging only to what the Stoics called the “preferables” (cf. Reid, 1990, p. 121).8Instead, Reid finds himself impelled to develop what I’ve referred to as the second prong of his argument for The Coincidence Thesis. According to this prong of the argument, Reid contends that the only way to secure the coincidence of welfare and virtue is by positing the existence of a benevolent deity. If such a deity exists, then it is reasonable to expect that, in a future life, virtue will be rewarded, rendering a life of virtue coincident with one’s good on the whole: While the world is under a wise and benevolent administration, it is impossible, that any man should, in the issue, be a loser by doing his duty. Every man, therefore, who believes in God, while he is careful to do his duty, may safely leave the care of his happiness to Him who made him. (Reid, 1969b, p. 256) No doubt it was Reid’s conviction that our happiness ought, in the final analysis, to be placed in the care of not human beings but God that contributed to Reid’s anti-utilitarian tendencies. (Although, it should be added that Reid strenuously denied that God is best thought of as operating according to utilitarian principles; see (Reid, 1969b, p. xi)). Be that as it may, what I should like to emphasize in closing are the following pair of points regarding Reid’s position. Reid, I suggested earlier, holds that something like a commitment to The Coincidence Thesis lies deep in the moral life. Good people, Reid believes,
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are committed to the conviction that the moral life is, or is at least likely to be, good on the whole for the virtuous agent. But Reid also recognizes that there are experiences of evil that can shake this conviction. And, so, as I’ve indicated, Reid sees no way to defend the coincidence of virtue and wellbeing apart from supposing that the world is under benevolent administration. There is an important sense, then, in which Reid’s ethical views are ineliminably theistic. To be sure, at no point does Reid attempt to spell out a moral ontology in terms of God’s willings or nature. His views, moreover are not imbued with the type of Calvinistic Christianity that characterized the moderate branch of the Church of Scotland with which Reid identified himself. Unlike the Calvinists, Reid believes that reflection on human nature is a reliable guide to what is good for us. That said, Reid found himself convinced that genuine virtue requires being committed to the moral life for its own sake, not for some reward. But he saw no way to make sense of that commitment apart from holding that there is a God who is just and benevolent in his administration of the world, ensuring that an agent’s virtue and good on the whole coincide if not in this life, then in the next. “Virtue,” Reid writes in his lectures on ethics, “is his [i.e., God’s] care. Its votaries are under his protection & guardianship” (Reid, 1990, p. 120). In Kant’s hands, considerations of this sort provided the material for an argument for God’s existence. While not averse to theistic arguments, this is not Reid’s approach. Reid is clear that one’s commitment to the moral life should be unconditional. Unlike prudential considerations, morality requires a commitment that, strictly speaking, goes beyond the evidence we have that virtue is ultimately conducive to our good on the whole. This, I think, explains why Reid’s view breaks from Butler’s, which endeavors to convince even the moral skeptic that virtue and happiness coincide (cf. Wedgwood, 2007 and Butler, 1841, preface). Although eager to engage the skeptic on other topics, Reid does not take much interest in the moral skeptic – at least the type of moral skeptic who queries why he ought to be moral. For Reid is aware that if The Coincidence Thesis is to be defended, certain claims about God and the afterlife must also be defended. But when it comes to this latter topic, Reid writes that “it must be acknowledged that [all] the Arguments that Philosophy suggests upon this head are not of such Strength but that they may leave some doubt even in the Minds of wise and thinking Men” (Reid, 2002b, p. 629). In short, Reid believes that The Coincidence Thesis is true. He believes, moreover, that there is evidence in favor of it. He also believes good people are practically committed to it. But its truth is ultimately for him an article of moral faith. No doubt we should like to have a well-grounded explanation for the apparent exceptions to the coincidence of virtue and well-being. However, the explanation, says Reid, is not forthcoming. On this issue, as with so many others, Reid is willing to acknowledge that there is darkness with which we must live.9
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Notes 1. Broadie (2000) draws attention to other features of Reid’s position that mirror Scotus’s. By claiming that both Scotus and Reid defend the doctrine of dual affections, I don’t wish to suggest that Reid read Scotus or was sympathetic with Scotus’ views on the whole – although I believe the parallels between Reid’s views and Scotus’s are extensive, indeed, more extensive than either Broadie or I indicate. Nor do I intend to claim that Scotus is the only other important figure to defend the doctrine of dual affections. The position has a distinguished pedigree that runs from Ockham through Sidgwick. On a different note, when Reid speaks of our ability to regulate our behavior “according to a certain general rule, or law,” I interpret him as referring, in a shorthand way, to either of the rational principles that govern action: our good on the whole or duty. 2. I assume that a consideration P has motivational primacy over some other consideration P’ for S just in case P has motivational primacy for him and he takes it to have greater deliberate weight than P’. 3. In what follows, I shall use the terms “well-being,” “happiness,” and “eudaimonia” more or less interchangeably. I won’t assume, however, that the ancients’ use of the term “eudaimonia” or the scholastics’ own use of its Latin cognate, “beatitude,” maps neatly onto the moderns’ understanding of “happiness.” 4. Reid thinks of virtue itself as a “fixed purpose of acting according to a certain rule” (Reid, 1969b, p. 8; cf. p. 404). The virtue of benevolence, for example, “is a fixed purpose or resolution to do good when we have opportunity, from a conviction that it is right, and is our duty” (Reid, 1969b, p. 86). Given their close connection, Reid himself sometimes slides between speaking of duty having motivational primacy and virtue having motivational primacy. I will follow him in this usage. 5. Rawls (2007), “Lectures on Hume,” highlights the utilitarian tendencies in Hume’s thought. 6. As Reid interprets Hume, for instance, justice is a relative late-comer to the moral life. Justice emerges because of the need to solve various social coordination problems generated by the advent of private property. Reid, by contrast, thinks that justice lies at the foundation of the moral life, permeating our most basic moral notions. See Reid, 1969b, V.v–vi. 7. “To judge what is true or false in speculative points, is the office of speculative reason; and to judge of what is good or ill for us upon the whole, is the office of practical reason” (Reid, 1969b, p. 208). 8. Wolterstorff (2008), Ch. 7 offers an account of the Stoic notion of the preferables. Roughly, the preferables are goods that do not concern an agent’s own character but the enjoyment of which she would prefer to have as a part of her life. Having robust health is an example of such a good. 9. Here I pick up on a theme in Wolterstorff (2001), Ch. X, which explores what he terms Reid’s “epistemological piety.” I thank Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Lee Hardy, James Harris, Sabine Roeser, Lori Wilson, and Nick Wolterstorff for their comments on an earlier draft of this essay.
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Index acquired rights, 196 action(s) animal principles of, 188–9, 240 mechanical principles of, 187–8 moral qualities of, 62–5, 209–10 principles of, 187–90, 192–3, 238–42 rational principles of, 188–9, 190, 192–3, 238–42 virtuous, 206–7, 208–9 aesthetic perception, 54–60 affect, 107 affections, 32–3, 34, 105–9, 112–13 benevolent, 248–9 dual, 240 agapism, 193 agents, 208–9 as causes, 145–6 moral, 250 moral qualities of, 209–10 rational, 238–9 Allan, David, 227 animal principles of action, 188–9, 240 animal resentment, 116 antirealism, 8 Aquinas, Thomas, 72, 79 aristocratic perfectionism, 237 axioms, 150 basic beliefs, 3–4, 8 basic emotions, 114–15 beauty, 55–60, 62 beliefs basic, 3–4, 8 derived, 4–5, 8 moral, 6, 69, 229 self-evident, 4 benevolence, 207–8, 211 benevolent affections, 112–13, 248–9 Ben-Ze’ev, Aaron, 18, 104, 113–14, 117 Berkeley, George, 164–5 blame, 154
Blum, Lawrence, 39 bodily feelings, 111 Boswell, J., 161 Brave Officer, 164–5, 166, 179–82 Broad, C. D., 3 Bryson, Gladys, 224, 225, 227 Butler, Bishop, 207, 240, 243–6, 254 Calvinism, 70, 76–7, 79, 86, 256 Campbell, George, 165 Cartesian idealism, 1 causal influence, 133 causation, 136–7 certainty, 138 Christianity, 237 Cicero, 212 claim-rights, 197 cognitive emotions, 114–15 coincidence thesis, 242, 250–6 common sense, 9–11, 30, 101, 103–4, 109, 143–4, 149, 161–2, 223 Common Sense School, 225 community-specific education, 85 conception, 95, 101–2 conscience, 2, 4–5, 7, 177–8, 208, 210–11, 213–15, 218, 220–1 consciousness, 29, 40, 182 continuous existence, 166–76, 179–80 contra-causal freedom, 155 cross-cultural moral disputes, 72 cultural relativism, 72, 78 Davis, William C., 236 deep moral disagreement, 71–2 see also moral disagreement deliberation, 71, 154 DeMoor, Michael, 56 derived beauty, 56, 57, 59, 62 derived beliefs, 4–5, 8 derived identity, 166–76 Descartes, Rene, 157 desert, 215 de Sousa, Ronald, 116–17 267
268 Index determination of the will, 123–4 determinative principle, 71 determinism, 123–41 arguments for, 125–41 causation and, 136–7 defined, 123–5 divine foreknowledge and, 137–41 freedom vs., 124 incompatibility of free will and, 131–4 inconceivability of free will and, 125–31 influence of motives and, 131–4 principle of sufficient reason and, 134–6 dialogue, 83–4 disagreement moral, see moral disagreement moral faculty and, 35–41 disapprobation, 254 divine foreknowledge, 137–41 divinity, 146 doctor’s duty, 68, 82–6 doubt, 157 dual affections, 240 duty, 43, 191–3, 196–201, 202n5, 201, 207–8, 210–11, 213, 239, 245 education community-specific, 85 moral, 7, 70, 78–9, 84–5, 227–8 egoism, 4, 245 emotions affection, 104–9 basic, 114–15 cognitive, 114–15 common sense theory of, 103–4 vs. feelings, 119–20 function of, 115–19 judgments and, 111–15 memories and, 119 modern theories of, 103–20 objects of, 109–11 passion, 105–9 see also feelings encyclopaedist principles, 67, 72, 74 Epicureanism, 208, 212, 220, 222 epistemic duties, 9 eschatology, 201
esteem, 254 ethical intuitionism, 3–4 see also intuitionism ethical theory, 246–7 ethics normative, 14–16 practical, 201–5, 206, 223–37 Euclid, 37 eudaimonism, 190–1, 193, 199, 200, 201, 242–6, 247 evidence, 35 Ewing, A. C., 3 externalism, 34 external perception, 59–60 external sense, 91–6, 101–2 facial expressions, 51, 55, 61 favours, 43, 215 feelings, 2, 31–5 bodily, 111 vs. emotions, 119–20 moral judgments and, 39–40, 44–5, 97–100, 111–15 see also emotions Ferguson, Adam, 224, 227 First First Principle, 25–7, 29, 30, 35 first principles, 4, 25, 41, 75, 147–56 of faculties, 26 see also basic beliefs Forbes, Duncan, 221 foreknowledge, divine, 137–41 free agents, 145–6 freedom arguments pro determinism and contra, 125–41 causation and, 136–7 contra-causal, 155 vs. determinism, 124 see also liberty free will, 143 incompatibility of, and influence of motives, 131–4 inconceivability of, 125–31 sufficient reason and, 134–6 Gap Argument, 169–70, 179 generalism, 34 God, 56, 125, 137–41, 146–7, 157, 200–1, 213, 221, 255, 256 government, 203n10
Index 269 Haakonssen, Knud, 202n7, 201, 217 happiness, 190–1, 243, 245, 254, 255 hierarchy thesis, 241–50 Hobbes, Thomas, 125, 126, 129–30, 218–19 Hohfeld, W. H., 197 human nature, 227 Hume, David, 1, 2, 10, 28, 37, 98, 228–9, 233 on justice, 194, 196, 201–22 on moral philosophy, 229–31 on passions, 106–7 on practical ethics, 234 on reason, 240–1 Scottish philosophy and, 224 humility, 75–6, 77, 82–6 Hutcheson, 208 identity awareness of one’s own, 177 derived, 166–76 personal, 165–76, 179, 179–80 strict, 166–76, 177, 182 transitivity of, 166 individualism, 79 infallibility, 86 injuries, 43, 194, 215–16 injustice, 195, 215 innate rights, 195–6 input conceptions, 81–2 intellectual powers, 45 intuitionism, 3–4, 6–7, 69, 70 intuitive capacity, 5 James, William, 236 Johnson, Dr., 161 judgment, 2, 94–5 of beauty, 57 emotions and, 111–15 errors in, 27–8 external sense and, 95–6 jurisprudence, 205 justice, 61, 194–201, 201–22 Kant, Immanuel, 256 Law of the Prophets, 41–4, 45 laws, 196
Lehrer, Keith, 5, 74 libertarianism, 144–7 liberty, 36, 44, 125, 127–31 defined, 144 divinity and, 146 first principles and, 147–56 free agents and, 145–6 limits of, 146–7 moral, 143–62 natural conviction of, 147–51 necessity and, 146 reality of, 144–5 responsibility and, 146 see also freedom life-evils, 193 life-goods, 193, 195, 199, 252, 254–5 Locke, John, 144 theory of personal identity, 165–76, 179, 179–80 Lockean idealism, 1 love, 103–4, 254 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 70–1, 72–3, 77–80 maturation, 62–3 McCosh, James, 223, 224 mechanical principles of action, 187–8 memories, 119 mental states, 175, 179 Metaprinciple, 25 mind, unity of, 165–6, 182 Moore, G. E., 3, 246 moral actions, 62–5 moral agents, 250 moral approbation, 33–4 moral beliefs, 6, 69, 229 moral cognitivism, 1–3 moral conceptions, 37 moral disagreement, 7–9, 67–86 about doctor’s duty, 68 data and sources of, 73–7 deep, 71–2 moral faculty and, 35–41 moral sense and, 68–70 problems of, 70–3 rational resolution, 71–2, 80–3 Reidean responses to, 73–86 versions of, 72–3
270
Index
moral education, 7, 70, 78–9, 84–5, 227–8 moral epistemology, 1–14 common sense, 9–11 epistemic duties, 9 ethical intuitionism, 3–4 moral cognitivism, 1–3 moral disagreement, 7–9 moral properties, 12–14 reason, 4–5 moral error, 74 moral facts, 69 moral faculty, 2–3, 25 development of, 6–7 disagreement and, 35–41 moral judgments and, 31–5, 43 trustworthiness of, 25–31 moral failings, 77 moral intuitionism, 69 see also intuitionism morality, 232 moral judgments, 1–2, 4, 6, 27, 28–9 capacity for, 7 conscience and, 177–8 differences in, 35–41 errors in, 27–8, 45, 74 examining, 8–9 existence of, 30 feelings and, 39–40, 44–5, 97–100, 111–15 moral faculty and, 31–5, 43 moral sense and, 96–102 moral knowledge, 9, 69 acquisition of, 2–3 perception and, 6 moral liberty, 143–62 belief in, 156–7, 159–60 defined, 144 divinity and, 146 first principles and, 147–56 reality of, 144–5 responsibility and, 146 moral life, 255–6 morally good, 13, 203n15 moral maturity, 74 moral obligation, 233 moral perception, 2, 46, 60–6 moral philosophy common sense, 9–11
Hume on, 229–31 justice and, 198–9 of Reid, 187–94 moral principles, 14–16 moral properties, 12–14 moral qualities, 61 original vs. derived, 62 moral realism, 74, 79 moral resolutions, 61 moral responsibility, 154 morals, 228–9 comprehensive principle of, 41–4 system of, 5 moral sense, 67, 68–70, 80–1, 91–102, 176–9 moral system, 201–5 moral values, 101 moral virtues, 60–1 motivational primacy, 241–2 hierarchy thesis, 242–50 motives, influence of, 131–4 music, 59 natural conviction, 147–51, 157, 161 natural faculties, 27 natural language, 48, 51 natural rights, 195–6, 202n9 natural signs, 46–54 aesthetic perception and, 54–60 nature, 98–9, 160, 218–19 necessitarianism, 157, 160 necessity, 146, 157 necessity in premise, 138–9 Nichols, Ryan, 49, 50 Nietzsche, 237 non-contradiction, 197 normative ethics, 14–16 Nussbaum, M. C., 114 obligation, 31, 33 obscure conception, 37 opinions, 112 Paradise Lost (Milton), 143 particularism, 34 partless persons, 176–9 passion, 105–9, 110–11
Index 271 perception, 6, 27, 33, 34, 78, 93–4, 158–9 aesthetic, 54–60 external, 59–60 moral, 2, 46, 60–6 of reality, 54 sensory, 165 signs and, 47 theory of, 46–7 perfectionism, 237 personal identity, 165–76, 179, 179–80 Pesce, Richard, 68 practical ethics, 201–5, 206, 223–37 Price, Richard, 100, 207 Prichard, H. A., 3 pride, 77, 79 principles of action, 187–90, 192–3, 238–42 promising, 154 proof, 171–2 property rights, 216–17 public good, 217, 249–50 rational agency, 243 rational impasse, 71, 72, 79 rational principles of action, 188–9, 190, 192–3, 238–42 rational resolution by reorientation, 82–6 without reorientation, 80–2 rational resolvability, 71–2 realism, 34 moral, 74, 79 tradition-dependent, 72–3, 77–80 reason, 27–8, 30, 158–9, 189 capacities of, 4–5 principle of sufficient, 134–6 virtue and, 6 reasoning capacity, 5, 9 reasons, 116 reference class, 254 relativism, 1, 72 cultural, 78 responses to, 77–80 subjective, 78 religion, 237 resentment, 215, 216
resolution, 154 responsibility, 146, 154 Ricoeur, P., 107–9 rights, 199, 200 acquired, 196 duties and, 196–8 natural, 195–6, 202n9 property, 216–17 subjective, 195 Roeser, Sabine, 39–40, 203n12 Rolls, E. T., 118 Ross, W. D., 3 scepticism, 1, 10, 11, 158–9, 231 Schneewind, J. B., 246 Scholastic view, 243–6 Scottish philosophy, 223–6, 232–3 Scotus, Duns, 192, 239 secondary qualities, 37, 38 self-approbation, 45 self-esteem, 45, 118 self-evident beliefs, 4 self-interest, 81 self-love, 77, 221 sensations, 37, 48, 52, 53–4, 57, 92–3, 96, 101 sense defined, 91 external, 91–6, 101–2 moral, 91–102 sense perception, 2, 4–5 sensory perception, 165 Sidgwick, Henry, 246 signs, natural, 46–54 slavery, 71, 72–3 Smith, Adam, 224 Smith, Alexander, 246 social bonding, 118–19 social relationships, 254 society, 220 Solomon, Robert, 107–8 spiritual blindness, 77 spiritual perversity, 77 state of nature, 218–19 statutes, 196 Stoicism, 255 strict identity, 166–76, 177, 182 subjective relativism, 72, 78
272 Index subjective rights, 195 successive existence, 166–76 sufficient reason, 134–6 theological providentialism, 236–7 Tinbergen, Nikolaas, 103 tradition-dependent realism, 72–3, 77–80 transitivity principle, 179–80 trustworthiness, of moral faculty, 25–31 truth, 30–1 unity of mind, 165–6, 182 universal skepticism, 159
utilitarianism, 192–3, 217, 246–50 virtue, 6, 200, 207–8, 213, 238, 252, 253–4, 256 virtuous action, 206–7, 208–9 volition, 154 welfare, 240 well-being, 193, 238, 242, 244, 245, 252–5 will determination of the, 123–4 see also free will Yaffe, Gideon, 50
