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What is the Question?: John Gay’s “Dissertation Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality”

April 3rd, 2021 by Matt
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In recent posts I have been looking at the rhetorical question: “if there is no God, why be good?” In my last post, I suggested one way to understand this question was in terms of Henry Sidgwick’s famous argument regarding the “dualism of practical reason. As I interpreted Sidgwick, his argument had three steps.

  • First, unless we assume that it is always in our long term self-interest to follow the demands of impartial benevolence, we will not always have decisive reasons to do our duty.
  • Second, secular accounts of sanctions and moral and accountability would, if true, undermine this assumption. They imply that it is not always in our long-term self-interest to follow impartial demands.
  • By contrast, a divine command theory, would if true, vindicate this assumption and provide a coherent account of our fundamental intuitions about the authority and content of moral requirements.

In my view, Sidgwick’s discussion of these issues is not idiosyncratic. While Sidgwick gives brings a particular level of rigour to the question. My reading of the utilitarian tradition, particularly early religious versions of utilitarianism, suggests that the challenge of a “dualism of practical reason” was a well-known problem when Sidgwick wrote. It had been a standard way 18th-century divine command theorists critiqued secular versions of utilitarianism. In, this post I will explore a different thinker who anticipates many of Sidgwick’s arguments by almost a hundred and fifty years: the philosopher/theologian John Gay.

Who is John Gay?

John Gay was a lecturer in Greek and ecclesiastical history at Cambridge from 1724-1732. Gay is not a figure you often hear about in textbooks on the history of philosophy. We know very little about his life or academic career. Today he is known only by a short essay he published in 1731 entitled “The Dissertation Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality” (Dissertation).  The Dissertation was, within England,[1]  the first systematic presentation and defence of a utilitarian moral theory. Gay’s work marks the beginning of English utilitarianism. 

Today utilitarianism is assumed to be a paradigmatically secular ethical theory. Gay’s Dissertation proposed an earlier version of the theory known as Theological utilitarianism. Theological utilitarianism is “a doctrine according to which we have a duty to promote the good of humanity because God, our universally benevolent creator, wants us to do so.”[2] As Gay articulated it, moral requirements are divine commands; hence, “the will of God is the immediate criterion of Virtue.”[3] Because God is impartial and benevolent, his purpose, in commanding, is to promote the happiness of his creatures;” Thus the will of God is the immediate criterion of Virtue, and the happiness of mankind the criterion of the wilt of God; and therefore the happiness of mankind may be said to be the criterion of virtue, but once removed.”[4]

Gay’s theological Utilitarianism became the common position of Cambridge Theologians for the next century.  Cambridge scholars such as  Thomas Rutherford (1744), John Brown(1751),  Some Jeynes (1757), and Edmund Law (1758) repeated  Gay’s essential theory and arguments. Gay’s work also had an evident influence on William Paley. Paley’s “On the Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy” (1785) became one of the most widely read defences of utilitarianism in the nineteenth century. Paley based The Principles on the lectures he delivered while teaching at Cambridge. The Principles was required text in moral philosophy at Cambridge till the 1830s and they were heavily indebted to Gay.  The Cambridge connection is interesting because Sidgwick was a moral philosophy professor at Cambridge from 1883 until his death in 1900. Sidgwick’s book “Method of Ethics” marked the high point in the tradition of English utilitarianism. Gay’s Dissertation marked the beginning of this tradition. Both were authored at the same institution within 143 years of each other.

What is noteworthy for our purposes is that all elements and basic argument found in Sidgwick’s “dualism of practical reason” can be found in the Dissertation. 

Why we have to assume harmony between impartial and prudential requirements?

Let’s look at the first step in Sidgwick’s argument; the claim that unless we assume that it is always in our long-term self-interest to follow the demands of impartial benevolence, we will not always have decisive reasons to do our duty. In my previous post, I suggested Sidgwick’s reasoning could be seen as an inference from three premises:

[1] We always have decisive reasons to do what is morally required.

[2] An action is morally required if it is required by rules justified from a perspective of impartial benevolence.[5]

[3] If there are cases where what is demanded by impartially justified rules conflicts with our long-term self-interest, we do not always have decisive reasons to do what is required by impartially justified rules.

Each of these premises was in Gay’s  Dissertation. Gay articulated virtue as follows:

Virtue is the conformity to a rule of life, directing the actions to all rational creatures with respect to each other’s happiness; to which conformity everyone in all cases is obliged: and every one that does so conform, is or ought to be approved of, esteemed and loved for so doing. What is here expressed, I believe most men put into their idea of virtue. For virtue generally does imply some relation to others: where self is only concerned, a man is called prudent, (not virtuous)[6]

Here Gay articulated [1]. Gay contended that it is part of the “common conception” that virtue is a rule of life “to which conformity everyone in all cases is obliged”. In the Dissertation, Gay used the word “obliged” and “obligatory”  term synonymously with the idea of decisive reason to act. Gay is saying that we always have decisive reasons to do what is morally required.

We also clearly see [2]. Gay understood virtue as conformity to certain rules, rules which direct our conduct, and which we use to evaluate and praise or blame people’s actions. These rules have a particular kind of content. They direct us to promote the good, not just of ourselves, but also the good of others. They promote the happiness of all impartially. Gay, therefore, agreed with Sidgwick that our fundamental moral intuitions have a utilitarian basis. Moral requirements are demands justified from a perspective of impartial benevolence. He differs from Sidgwick only in developing this in a rule utilitarian instead of an act utilitarian way.

Gay, also like Sidgwick, thought this was implicit in our common-sense moral beliefs. That morality consists of rules justified from a perspective of impartial benevolence is “what most men put into their idea of Virtue”. Gay argued that the intuitive deontological rules, defended by other ethicists, such as Samuel Clarke, could be derived from the criteria of happiness to mankind as a more fundamental principle.

Gay also affirms [3], he writes

Thus those who either or don’t mention the will of God, making the immediate criterion of virtue to be the good of mankind; must either allow that virtue is not in all cases obligatory (contrary to the idea which all or most men have of it) or they must say that the good of mankind is a sufficient obligation. But how can the good of mankind by any obligation to me, when perhaps in particular cases, such as laying down my life, or the like, it is contrary to my happiness?[7]

Like Sidgwick, Gay here was concerned with a certain kind of dilemma. The possibility of “particular cases” where rules that enjoin “the good of mankind” are “contrary to my happiness”. For example, cases where I am required to  “lay down my life”. If such cases do occur, then the “good of mankind” can’t be a “sufficient obligation”; we must allow that virtue is “not in all cases obligatory”.  If such cases exist,  we do not always have decisive reasons to do what is required by those rules.

So, Gay agreed with the first step of Sidgwick’s argument. Unless one assumes that impartial and prudential requirements never clash, there will be a dualism of practical reason. This dualism means we cannot coherently claim we always have decisive reasons to do our duty.

Why Secular accounts undermine this assumption?

Gay also argued that secular accounts of sanctions and moral and accountability would, if true, undermine this assumption. The dilemma Gay was concerned about arises when people make “the happiness of mankind” the immediate criteria of virtue, without “mentioning the will of God”. Earlier, Gay discussed four “four different manners in which” an obligation [is induced” These are;

First, that obligation which ariseth from perceiving the natural consequences of things, i. e. the consequences of things acting according to the fix’d laws of nature, maybe call’d natural. Secondly, that arising from merit or demerit, as producing the esteem and favour of our fellow creatures, or the contrary, is usually styled virtuous. Thirdly, that arising from the authority of the civil magistrate, civil. Fourthly, that from the authority of God, religious.[8]

I noted that Gay used the word “obligation” to mean something like a practical reason or reason for acting. When we see this, it is evident that Gay was discussing what Sidgwick referred to as sanctions.  He was referring to negative or positive consequences annexed impartially justified rules, which provide us with prudential reasons to comply with them.

Many of these sanctions overlapped those discussed by Sidgwick. When Gay referred to consequences: “arising from merit or demerit, as producing the esteem and favour of our fellow creatures, ” he referred to what Sidgwick called social sanctions. Consequences “arising from the authority of the civil magistrate” was a reference to Sidgwick’s category of legal sanctions.  The reference to religious sanctions was a reference to what Sidgwick meant by the term. Like Sidgwick, Gay thought that when one brackets religious sanctions and relied on secular sanctions alone. These sanctions are insufficient to ensure a “full and complete obligation” that “will extend to all cases”. If secular sanctions are the only sanctions that exist, then the assumption: that it is always in our interests to follow impartial rules is probably false.

Why a divine command theory vindicates this assumption?

Gay also argued that a divine command theory would, if true, vindicate the assumption. We noted above what Gay takes to be our conception of “virtue”.

Virtue is the conformity to a rule of life, directing the actions of all rational creatures with respect to each other’s happiness; to which conformity every one in all cases is obliged: and every one that does so conform, is or ought to be approved of, esteemed and loved for so doing. What is here expressed, I believe most men put into their idea of virtue. For virtue generally does imply some relation to others: where self is only concerned.[9]

Here Gay, highlighted three features which he thinks are implicit in our intuitive common-sense understanding of morality.  First, moral requirements are requirements imposed by rules, norms or standards. Second, these requirements have a particular content; they direct us to seek the good of others impartially. Third, we always have decisive reasons to comply with them. Fourth, they have sanctions attached to them; people are subject to praise and blame for how well they conform to such rules.  A divine command theory, if true, accounts for all these features.

Notably, a divine command theory is true, accounts for [1]

Now it is evident from the nature of God, viz. his being infinitely happy in himself from all eternity, and from his goodness manifested in his works, that he could have no other design in creating mankind than their happiness; and therefore he wills their happiness; therefore the means of their happiness: therefore that my behaviour, as far as it may be a means of the happiness of mankind, should be such. Here then we are got one step farther, or to a new criterion: not to a new criterion of virtue immediately, but to a criterion of the will of God. For it is an answer to the enquiry, How shall I know what the Will of God in this particular is? Thus the will of God is the immediate criterion of virtue, and the happiness of mankind the criterion of the wilt of God; and therefore the happiness of mankind may be said to be the criterion of virtue, but once removed.[10]

Gay here cites an argument first proposed by Berkeley.  Because God is impartial, benevolent, and rational, his commands would lay down rules that are justified from an impartial benevolent perspective. Consequently, if moral requirements are divine commands, would expect them to express rules which promoted the happiness of all impartially.  Morality has the content one would expect it to have if a divine command theory is true.

A divine command theory also accounts for [1],

[I]t is evident that a full and complete obligation which will extend to all cases, can only be that arising from the authority of God; because God only can in all cases make a man happy or miserable: and therefore, since we are always obliged to that conformity called virtue, it is evident that the immediate rule or criterion of it, is the will of God.[11]

Suppose moral requirements are divine commands, and commands are demands backed by sanctions. In that case, it is always in one’s long-term self-interest to do what we are morally required to do. Hence, a divine command theory entails [1].  The same line of argument also vindicates the assumption that it is always in our interests to do what is impartially required. If a divine command theory is true, the kind of dilemmas that Gay believed undermine [1] cannot occur.

When we examine John Gay, we find him offering an argument for a theological version of utilitarianism that anticipates Sidgwick’s argument in almost every respect.

There is an interesting historical narrative here.  Gay taught at Cambridge from 1724 to 1732. He developed a religious version of utilitarianism; whereby moral requirements are divine commands. Gay argued his theory would if, true, coherently explain why we always have decisive reasons to do our duty. He warned that if the theological component of the theory were removed, there would be a problem: a dualism of practical reason. This problem would mean we cannot coherently explain why we always have reasons to do our duty. Gay’s position was adopted and defended by Cambridge theologians, eventually being part of Cambridge’s standard textbooks till 1830.

Forty years later, Sidgwick, writing in Cambridge, inherits this tradition. However, it is a secular version of utilitarianism mediated through Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Sidgwick ends The Method of Ethics, concluding there is a problematic dualism of practical reason that makes us unable to coherently explain why we always have reasons to do our duty. Sidgwick ended by suggesting that one way to solve this problem coherently is to return to the theological utilitarianism of John Gay.[12]

Sidgwick then was not formulating a new problem in the Method of Ethics. Instead, he was drawing attention to a problem that divine command theorists had raised for secular utilitarianism from the beginning and highlighted that Bentham and Mill had failed to solve it.


[1] The first  written exposition of  Utilitarianism is arguably George Berkeley’s  “Passive Obedience”, which was presented in Ireland in 1712

[2] Matti Häyry “Passive Obedience and Berkeley’s Moral Philosophy” Berkeley Studies 23 (2012) 3

[3] John Gay, “Dissertation Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality”, available at https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/wollaston-british-moralists-vol-2#lf1368-02_head_022 accessed 2/4/21

[4] John Gay, “Dissertation Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality”, available at https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/wollaston-british-moralists-vol-2#lf1368-02_head_022 accessed 2/4/21

[5] I have altered premise [2] slightly to reflect Gay’s rule utilitarianism.

[6] John Gay, “Dissertation Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality”, available at https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/wollaston-british-moralists-vol-2#lf1368-02_head_022 accessed 2/4/21

[7] John Gay, “Dissertation Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality”, available at https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/wollaston-british-moralists-vol-2#lf1368-02_head_022 accessed 2/4/21

[8] John Gay, “Dissertation Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality”, available at https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/wollaston-british-moralists-vol-2#lf1368-02_head_022 accessed 2/4/21

[9] Ibid

[10] Ibid

[11] Ibid

[12] In “Outline of The History of Ethics”, Sidgwick writes:

“But in fact a simple outline of Paley’s utilitarianism may be found more than a generation earlier in the following passages from Gay’s Dissertation…[Bentham] does not himself use the will of an omnipotent and benevolent being as a means of logically connecting individual and general happiness. He thus undoubtedly simplifies his system, and avoids the disputable inferences from nature and Scripture in which Paley’s position is involved, but this gain is dearly purchased. For the question immediately arises, How then are the sanctions of the moral rules which it will most conduce to the general happiness for men to observe shown to be always adequate in the case of all the individuals whose observance is required?”

 

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What is the Question?: Henry Sidgwick’s Dualism of Practical Reason

March 26th, 2021 by Matt
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In a previous post, I criticised Richard Dawkins’s discussion of the question: if there is no God, why be good? One criticism I raised was that Dawkins seemed to misunderstand the challenge this rhetorical question presents.  This raises the question as to how we should understand this rhetorical question. What exactly is the problem being alluded to when people ask, “if there is no God, why be good.”? I have been thinking a bit about this of late. In this post, I will begin an attempt to do this by looking at someone who developed an influential version of the problem, Henry Sidgwick.

Who was Henry Sidgwick?

Henry Sidgwick was a moral philosopher based at Cambridge University in the late nineteenth century. Outside of the world of Moral Philosophy, Henry Sidgwick is probably not a household name. However, within the world of moral philosophy, Sidgwick’s book “The Method of Ethics” (ME) is widely considered a classic of Moral Philosophy. Sidgwick represents the high point of the classical Utilitarian moral tradition tracing back to John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. His work has widely influenced leading utilitarian philosophers such as Roger Crisp, Peter Singer and Derek Parfit. 

Interestingly, Sidgwick ended the book with a degree of pessimism about whether a coherent secular utilitarian moral theory was possible.  Sidgwick’s believed that secular versions of utilitarianism could not coherently answer the most fundamental question of ethics: why should I always do my duty? By contrast, Sidgwick thought Theism could coherently answer this question.

Sidgwick spells out the reasons he came to this conclusion in the final chapter of ME. As I interpret him, his argument contains three steps. 

  • First, he argued that unless we assume there is “harmony” between “rational benevolence” and “prudence”, morality cannot be entirely rational. Instead,  and our “fundamental intuitions” about morality will be “incoherent”. 
  • Second, he argues that secular accounts of sanctions and moral and accountability would, if true, undermine this assumption. They imply that “rational benevolence” and “prudence” are not in harmony. 
  • By contrast, a divine command theory, would if true, vindicate this assumption and provide a coherent account of our fundamental intuitions. 

The conclusion is those divine command theories can coherently answer the question: “why should I always do my duty?” whereas secular ethical theories cannot.  Because Sidgwick was both an agnostic and a utilitarian, this conclusion caused him considerable anxiety. He wrestled with it for much of his academic life.

Why do we need to assume harmony between benevolence and Prudence?

Let’s begin by looking at the first step in Sidgwick’s argument. Sidgwick begins the final chapter by (ME) arguing: “If morality is to be made completely rational, the harmony between the maxim of prudence and the maxim of rational benevolence must be somehow demonstrated.”[1]

Let me clarify the terminology here:

First, Sidgwick uses the term “rational benevolence”. In earlier chapters, Sidgwick had argued that analysis and systematisation of our common-sense moral beliefs suggest that moral requirements are requirements justified from a certain point of view. A point of view of impartial benevolence. It is a point of view which the welfare or the good of everyone, which does so impartiality; not considering anyone’s interest or welfare more important than anyone else’s. Sidgwick refers to this as “the point of view of the universe” or the “maxim of rational benevolence”. Because the phrase “moral requirements that are justified from the point of view of impartial benevolence” is unwieldy. I will use the phrase “impartial demands” as shorthand for this.

Second, Sidgwick says demonstrating the harmony between impartial demands and Prudence is necessary if morality is to be “completely rational”. What he means by “completely rational” is explicated later in the chapter. Failure to “completely” rationalise Morality” means: 

[P]ractical reason would still impel us decisively to the performance of duty in ordinary cases where what is recognised as duty is in harmony with self-interest properly understood. But in the rarer cases where we find a conflict between self-interest and duty, practical reason, being divided against itself, would cease to be a motive on either side. The conflict would have to be decided by which of two groups of non-rational impulses had more force.[2]

For morality to be “completely rational” means that we always have decisive reasons to do our duty. Someone has decisive reasons to act in a certain way when the reasons in favour of acting, taken together, are stronger than any set of reasons we may have to act in some other way.  

Sidgwick’s, claim then is this: unless it is in our long term self-interest to always comply with impartial demands, we will not always have decisive reasons to do our duty. Sometimes, the strongest reasons will favour doing our duty; on other occasions, they will not. Commitment to always doing what is right will at best be rationally optional and at worst irrational.

Why does Sidgwick think this? Sidgwick was concerned about a specific sort of practical dilemma which he thought irresolvable. Suppose it is not always in one’s long-term self-interest to act according to impartial demands. This will mean impartial demands sometimes come into conflict with prudential requirements. When they do, we face the question: What reason is there to act impartially, rather than in one’s self-interest. What reason do we have for assuming that impartial demands are always stronger or weightier than prudential requirements when the two clash?

Sidgwick raises this question repeatedly in the preface to the sixth edition. He asks what the  “rational ground.”[3] is for “subordinating self-interest…to “altruistic” impulses and sentiments” on “what ground?” do we make the “moral choice of the general happiness” or “acquiescence in self-interest.”[4]. What reasons other than “blind habit.”[5] were there in favour is making altruistic sacrifices of one’s self-interest in this way? Sidgwick concluded that no answer is forthcoming. Envisaging someone faced with such a dilemma, Sidgwick states: 

He might say, “I quite admit that when the painful necessity comes for another man to choose between his own happiness and the general happiness, he must as a reasonable being prefer his own, i.e. it is right for him to do this on my principle….It did not seem to me that this reasoning could be effectively confuted. No doubt it was, from the point of view of the universe, reasonable to prefer the greater good to the lesser, even though the lesser good was the private happiness of the agent. Still, it seemed to me also undeniably reasonable for the individual to prefer his own. The rationality of self-regard seemed to me as undeniable as the rationality of self-sacrifice.

Suppose Sidgwick is correct and there is no reason for giving impartial demands precedence over prudential requirements in a conflict. If a conflict occurs, the total reasons in favour of doing what is impartially demanded will not be stronger than the reasons against so acting. We can summarise Sidgwick’s conclusion here as an inference from three premises, which he takes to be intuitively plausible: 

[1] The strongest reasons always favour doing what is morally required.

[2] An action is morally required if and only if it is demanded from a perspective of impartial benevolence.

[3] If there are cases where, what is impartially demanded of a person, is an action that is contrary to their long-term self-interest, then the strongest reasons do not always favour doing the action that is demanded from a perspective of impartial benevolence. 

Suppose [1] [2] and [3] are correct. In that case, we must either embrace the thesis that impartial demands and prudential demands never conflict or embrace a contradiction.  To see this, suppose we assume these demands do conflict:

[3a] there are cases where an action is demanded from a perspective of impartial benevolence is contrary to one’s own long term self-interest 

It follows from [3] that, 

[3b] the strongest reasons do not always favour doing what is demanded from a perspective of impartial benevolence. 

And [3b] conjoined with [2] entails that;

[3c] The strongest reasons do not always favour doing what is morally required.

However, [1] states.

[1] The strongest reasons always favour doing what is morally required.

[1] and [3] are obviously in contradiction. Sidgwick concludes that the hypothesis of “harmony of duty and self-interest “is required” to avoid a basic contradiction in one chief part of our thought”. Denying this hypothesis results in “practical reason being divided against itself” and forces us “to abandon the idea of rationalising [morality] it completely.”[6] Sidgwick referred to this problem as “the dualism of practical reason”. “‘self-love’ and ‘Conscience’ claim to rule, and neither will yield to the other.”[7]

Why do Secular Moral Theories Undermines this assumption?

This brings me to the second step of Sidgwick’s argument. Sidgwick argues that secular accounts of sanctions and moral and accountability would, if true, undermine this assumption. In ME., Sidgwick examines what sanctions are attached to impartial rules. Sidgwick defines a sanction as “the pleasures that come from conforming to moral rules, and the pains that come from violating them”[8]. Importantly, he initially confines himself to sanctions we might call “secular” or naturalistic. “[T]he coincidence of duty and happiness considered as something that we know about from experience and can expect to show up in our present earthly life.”[9]. Sidgwick identifies several different kinds of secular sanctions which might attach to impartial rules Legal sanctions: “penalties inflicted by the authority of the state”. Social sanctions: “the pleasures to be expected from the approval and goodwill of our fellowmen” and internal sanctions: “the pleasurable emotion, or absence of remorse that accompanies virtuous action”. Linked with internal sanctions is also “sympathy”, where the suffering of others causes us to feel pain and suffering ourselves.

 Sidgwick examines whether the existence of these types of sanctions gives us any reason to think that it is always in our self-interest to comply with impartial demands. His discussion is subtle and detailed, and space prevents me from elaborating it in detail. However, his conclusion is pessimistic.: “when we carefully analyse and estimate the consequences of virtue to the virtuous agent, it appears improbable that this alignment is complete and universal.”[10] He concludes. “the more carefully we examine how the different sanctions—legal, social, and conscientious—operate in the actual conditions of human life, the harder it is to believe that they can always produce this coincidence ·of happiness with social virtue.”[11]. 

If the only sanctions annexed to impartial rules are secular sanctions, the assumption that it is always in our interests to act according to impartial demands is probably false. 

Why Divine command theories vindicate this assumption.

Sidgwick next turns to what he calls religious sanctions.

This [the failure of secular sanctions] has led other utilitarian writers to prefer to throw the weight of duty on the religious sanction;. From this point of view, the utilitarian code is conceived as the law of God, who is to be regarded as having commanded men to promote general happiness, and announced that he will reward those who obey his commands and punish those who don’t. It’s clear that if we feel convinced that an omnipotent being has somehow signified such commands and announcements, a rational egoist can’t need any further inducement to shape his life on utilitarian principles.[12]

The other utilitarians” Sidgwick is referring to here are advocates of the theological utilitarianism that was proposed by writers, such as Paley, Berkeley, John Gay, John Brown, John Austin. Theological Utilitarian’s had combined normative rule utilitarianism with a divine command theory of meta-ethics.[13]  These writers had argued that moral requirements are divine commands.  And this assumption enables them to coherently affirm [1] and [2] and [3] without contradiction.

Because God is both benevolent and impartial, omniscient and rational, he issues those commands that are justified from a perspective of impartial benevolence in light of all relevant facts.  Hence, a divine command theory, if true, entails the truth of [2].

Similarly, because commands were understood as prescriptions or rules, which God holds people accountable, one always had decisive reasons to comply with impartial demands. So, it is always in one’s long-term self-interest to act in accord with impartial demands. 

Consequently, If moral requirements are divine commands, then the assumption of harmony between impartial demands and prudential requirements is vindicated.  Note the issue here is not just that the coincidence is consistent with divine command meta-ethics. The claim is that would if true, entail or predict this coincidence.

Sidgwick then argues three things; (a) unless we assume that it is in our long-term self-interest always to follow impartial demands, we don’t have decisive reasons to do what is right;  (b) Secular accounts of morality, if true, undermine this assumption, and; (c) divine command theories, if true, vindicate it. 

Of course, I have not in a short post defended these claims. Advocates of secular forms of utilitarianism will contest each of these steps. But the point is there is a serious line of thought here that needs to be addressed. Just as a divine command theorist cannot just assert that God provides the best account of morality and has to address sceptical challenges to their position, such as the Euthyphro dilemma. Opponents of religious morality have to address concerns raised by Sidgwick’s dualism of practical reason. It is not enough to caricature it as the crude claim that “the only motive I have to be good is fear” and dismissing this claim as obviously ridiculous.

 

[1] Henry Sidgwick, The Method of Ethics, 242 available at https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/sidgwick1874.pdf accessed 20/3/21

[2] Ibid 284

[3] Preface to the Sixth Edition” Methods of Ethics, Henry Sidgwick available at https://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/sidgwick/me/me.preface.s06.html accessed 20/30/21

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] Henry Sidgwick, The Method of Ethics, 248 available at https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/sidgwick1874.pdf accessed 20/3/21.

[7] This quote is from Barton Schultz “Henry Sidgwick” in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sidgwick/ accessed 26/3/21.

[8] Ibid 76

[9] Ibid, 75

[10] Ibid, 82

[11] Ibid 243

[12] Ibid 246

[13] See my posts  http://www.mandm.org.nz/2018/01/divine-command-theory-and-utilitarianism-forgotten-bedfellows-paleys-principles-of-moral-and-political-philosophy-part-one.html and http://www.mandm.org.nz/2018/01/divine-command-theory-and-utilitarianism-forgotten-bedfellows-paleys-principles-of-moral-and-political-philosophy-part-two.html accessed 26/3/21

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Published in Sophia “Why the Horrendous deeds objection is still a bad argument”

February 12th, 2021 by Matt
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My paper, “Why the Horrendous deeds objection is still a bad argument” has now been published by Sophia here.  The abstract is as follows:

A common objection to divine command meta-ethics (‘DCM’) is the horrendous deeds objection. Critics object that if DCM is true, anything at all could be right, no matter how abhorrent or horrendous. Defenders of DCM have responded by contending that God is essentially good: God has certain character traits essentially, such as being loving and just. A person with these character traits cannot command just anything. In recent discussions of DCM, this ‘essential goodness response’ has come under fire. Critics of DCM have offered various objections to the essential goodness response. This paper responds to these critics. I examine and refute six such objections: (a) the objection from counterpossibles, (b) the objection from omnipotence, (c) the objection from requirements of justice, (d) the objection from God’s moral grounding power, (e) the objection from evil and indifferent deities, and (f) the epistemological objection. I will maintain that despite all that has been said about the horrendous deeds objection in recent analytic philosophy, the horrendous deeds argument is still a bad argument.

A pre-published copy is available on my academia.edu page. 

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Dawkin’s dilemma: How not to answer the question “Why Be Moral?”

January 21st, 2021 by Matt
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In his bestselling book, the God Delusion, Richard Dawkin’s responds to the question: “If there is no God, Why be good?”Richard Dawkins

Posed like that, the question sounds positively ignoble. When a religious person puts it to me in this way (and many of them do), my immediate temptation is to issue the following challenge: ‘Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God’s approval and reward or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? …If you agree that, in the absence of God, you would ‘commit robbery, rape, and murder’, you reveal yourself as an immoral person, ‘and we would be well advised to steer a wide course around you’. If, on the other hand, you admit that you would continue to be a good person even when not under divine surveillance, you have fatally undermined your claim that God is necessary for us to be good.[1]

Dawkin’s thinks someone who asks “if there is no God, why be moral?” is assuming that the Gods approval is the only reason they to do good. He attacks this assumption with a dilemma. Either this assumption is true, or it is not true. If it is true, the questioner reveals themself to be an immoral person. He is someone who refrains from theft, murder and rape only because God will punish him. We should shun and avoid someone like this. If the questioner’s assumption is not true, then the claim that there is no reason to do good without God is undermined. The fact he would continue to do what is right, even if God did not exist shows that he does have reason to do good even if God does not exist. 

I think each step of this response is mistaken. 

First, is it true that this question presupposes that threat of divine punishment is the only reason anyone has to refrain from immoral behaviour? I think the answer is clearly no.

The question “why be good?” or “why be moral?” This question has a long history in western thought question going back at least as far as Plato’s republic. John Tilly explains that according to the standard interpretation of the question, it involves: 

A request for a justification for giving precedence to moral reasons for action when such reasons conflict with other reasons (e.g., those of self-interest). Whenever moral reasons recommend one course of action and nonmoral reasons recommend another, why should I favor the first set of reasons? What argument could persuade me to do[2]

This simple question has proved difficult to answer. So much so that, the 19th-century Philosopher Henry Sidgwick declared it to be “The profoundest problem in ethics”. During the 17th-19th[3] centuries, several philosophers argued this recalcitrant problem posed difficultly for any purely secular understanding of morality. Thomas Reid’s (1710–1796) summary is typical.

What about cases where concern for our happiness on the whole conflicts with a concern for duty? This is a merely imaginary conflict; there can’t actually be any such opposition between the two leading principles. While the world is under a wise and benevolent administration, it’s impossible that any man should be a loser by doing his duty. So every man who believes in God, while he is careful to do his duty, can safely leave the care of his happiness to his Maker. He realizes that his most effective way of attending to his long-run happiness is by attending to his duty. But consider the case of an atheist who wrongly thinks his virtue is contrary to his happiness on the whole. … this man’s dilemma is without remedy. It will be impossible for him to act so as not to ·seem to himself to· contradict a leading principle of his nature. He must either sacrifice his happiness to virtue, or his virtue to happiness, and he has to decide whether it is better to be a fool or to be a knave! [4]

Reid points out that the “why be moral?” challenge presupposes the existence of a dilemma: what duty requires contradicts what my long-term happiness requires. Because the “the world is under a wise and benevolent administration” Reid thinks such dilemmas are “imaginary”. They never, in fact, occur. However, they would occur if, contrary to fact, God did not exist. So, if atheism is true, some answer to this dilemma is needed if morality’s rational authority is to be vindicated.

Nothing in this line of argument assumes that the only reason Reid has to do good is divine reward or punishment. Reid speaks of a dilemma between “two rational governing principles in the constitution of man.” [5]. A dilemma occurs when one has two options, both of which are problematic. We do have powerful moral reasons independent of our self-interest demanding us to do what is right. But we also have powerful prudential reasons pointing the other way. For Reid, Divine sanctions mean that prudential reasons never really point the other way. But they are not the only reasons in the equation. Reid is not atypical in this. Someone who asks, “if there is no God, why be good?” need not assume the only reason he or anyone else has for doing good is divine reward or punishment.

However, let’s suppose for the sake of argument they did assume this. Dawkin’s attempted rebuttal of this assumption fails. Consider Dawkin’s discussion of the dilemmas first horn.

“If you agree that, in the absence of God, you would ‘commit robbery, rape, and murder’, you reveal yourself as an immoral person, ‘and we would be well advised to steer a wide course around you’.[6]

Dawkin objects that anyone who answers “yes” reveals themselves to be an immoral person. That may be true. But it is also irrelevant in this context. Remember what the question is: Dawkin’s interlocutor asks the question “Why we should always do what is morally right when it contradicts our self-interest?”. To answer, “because if you don’t, you are acting immorality” misses the point. Dawkin’s interlocutor knows it is immoral to act contrary to immorality. He is instead asking why he should side with morality and not self-interest in the first place.

An illustration might help here. Imagine that a religious sceptic was asking “If God exists, why should I do what he says”? I doubt Dawkin’s would consider the response “because God tells you to and if you don’t, you aren’t following God” to be a satisfactory answer. The question is “why to obey God?”, answering “because God tells you to”  begs the very question at issue.

The same thing is true when the question is “if there is no God, why be good”. Dawkin’s interlocutor is asking “if God does not exist, why always do what is required by morality”? The response “if you don’t you are immoral” begs the question in the same way. Just as the theist cannot cite God’s commands as a reason for obeying God’s commands, the atheist cannot cite moral requirements as a reason for obeying moral requirements.

So Dawkin’s treatment of the first horn misses the point. What about the second horn? Dawkin’s writes.

If, on the other hand, you admit that you would continue to be a good person even when not under divine surveillance, you have fatally undermined your claim that God is necessary for us to be good.[7]

This confuses two separate questions. The original question was “why should you be good, without God”. The questioner doubts we always have reasons to do always what is right. However, this doubt is compatible with admitting that one would continue to do what is right without God. What you should do and what you would do are not the same thing. Dawkin’s argument here was anticipated and responded to by Henry Sidgwick :

It was no use to say that if I was a moral hero, I should have formed a habit of willing actions beneficial to others which would remain in force, even with my own pleasure in the other scale. I knew that at any rate, I was not the kind of moral hero who does this without reason; from blind habit. Nor did I ever wish to be that kind of hero: for it seemed to me that that kind of hero, however admirable, was certainly not a philosopher. I must somehow see that it was right for me to sacrifice my happiness for the good of the whole of which I am a part.[8]

Sidgwick accepts that if I am a highly moral person, I will have formed a habit of doing good actions. These habits will mean I will have a strong disposition to continue doing good when I believe it is not in my self-interest. But, this does not show that I really do have a reason for doing this. I could be just acting out of blind habit and prior commitment to morality. One possible response to the question, “why be good?” is to admit there is no reason and affirm we “must simply decide between the moral life and its alternatives.” [9] People can sometimes make arbitrary non-rational leaps of faith where they commit to some form of life without reason or rational grounds. If people never did this, the whole raison d’être for writing The God Delusion is undermined. The fact that morally upright people admit that they would always do what is right in the absence of God. Doesn’t show they have reasons to do so.

Lets recap: Someone asks a serious sceptical question about Dawkin’s beliefs. His response is first to express outrage at an “ignoble.” [10] question and claim it is a “conversation stopper.” [11]. Then he paints a very uncharitable and inaccurate picture of the person who dares ask this ignoble question. Suggesting that religious believers who raise this sceptical challenge reveal themselves to be selfish egoists, amoral people we should consider shunning. When the believer objects that he isnt, in fact, an amoralist, Dawkin’s takes that as evidence the believer doesn’t really accept the sceptical challenge. The subtext is that anyone who really harboured this doubt about secular morality is a dangerous psychopath we are well-advised to keep away from. 

For the reasons spelt out above, none of this count as a good answer to the question: why be moral without God” There may, or may not, be a good answer to this question. But if there is Dawkin’s doesn’t provide it. This seems to be more a case of passive-aggressive rhetorical bullying than substance. He responds to a sceptical question, not by answering it. But with sarcastic outrage, an insinuation the questioner is dangerous, evil, and should be shunned for asking the question. These are the kind of tactics one expects from cult leaders or so-called religious fundamentalists. One doesn’t expect it from someone who is supposed to be a proponent of rational scientific free inquiry. 

[1] Richard Dawkin’s, The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006) 226-227

[2] John Tilley, “Two (Faulty) Responses to the Challenge of Amoralism” available at https://www.pdcnet.org/wcp20-paideia/content/wcp20-paideia_1998_0044_0248_0253 accessed 26/1/21 

[3] Examples include Rene Descartes, John Locke, George Berkeley, John Gay, John Brown, Edmund Law William Paley, Thomas Reid, and Immanuel Kant, perhaps most famous for pressing this difficulty is Henry’s Sidgwick.

[4] Thomas Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of Man, III iii. viii, 4 see http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/reid1788essay3part3.pdf accessed 12 January 2020

[5] See, Thomas Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of Man, III iii. viii, 4 seehttp://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/reid1788essay3part3.pdf accessed 12 January 2020

[6] Dawkins, God Delusion, 227

[7] Dawkins, God Delusion, 227

[8] See, Henry Sidgwick “Method of Ethics” Preface to the sixth edition.

[9] See Tilley, Two (Faulty) Responses to the Challenge of Amoralism” available at https://www.pdcnet.org/wcp20-paideia/content/wcp20-paideia_1998_0044_0248_0253 accessed 26/1/21

[10] Dawkins, God Delusion, 226

[11] Dawkins, God Delusion, he has no answer to the question and hence nothing to say. 

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Abortion Hard Cases and Self Defence: Presentation

January 14th, 2021 by Matt
Respond

This is the paper I presented to the Bioethics section of the  Evangelical Theological Society, annual meeting. In November last year.

Abstract:Op ponents of abortion often agonise over two difficult cases. (a) Cases where the pregnancy originates in rape and (b) cases the pregnancy or threatens the life of the mother. This paper will explore one attempt to deal with such cases; that proposed by Alan Donagan. According to Donagan, abortion is usually the unlawful killing of an innocent human being. However, when the pregnancy is either the result of rape or threatens the mother’s life, the fetus is a material aggressor and can be lawfully killed in self-defence.

My argument will proceed in three stages. Part I explains and defends Donagan’s critique of Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous ‘violinist argument’ for abortion rights. Part II looks at an implication of Donagan’s critique: when pregnancy threatens the mother’s life or originates in rape, abortion is justified as a form of self-defence. I defend this implication against three objections. (i) The innocence of the fetus (ii) the passivity of the fetus (iii) the problem of proportionality. In part III, I argue that Donagan’s approach has advantages over rival approaches to these questions such as the “lesser evils” approach  suggested by Beckwith and appeals to the doctrine of double effect. 

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The question “Why Be Moral?” and the book of Proverbs.

January 12th, 2021 by Matt
Respond

I gave a brief talk at Orewa Community Church on 10 January 2020. The talk was part of a short series OCC are doing on the book of proverbs. It is available here. 

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The Psychopath Objection to Divine Command Theory: Presentation

December 15th, 2020 by Matt
Respond

Last year, I presented a talk entitled “The Psychopath Objection to Divine Command Theory: Another Reply to Erik Wielenberg” to the New Zealand Association of Philosophers conference in Auckland. This was a follow up to interaction I have had with the work of Erik Wielenberg.

In 2017 I wrote a critical response to Wielenberg’s book Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism. Some, of my criticisms, were discussed in the dialogue between William Lane Craig and Erik Wielenberg at  North Carolina State University in 2018 which was subsequently published by Routledge . Wielenberg has since responded to these criticisms. The talk at the NZAP was my thoughts on his latest paper.

Over 2020, I have revised the substance of this talk substantially, and a version of the paper will be published in The European Journal for Philosophy of Religion next year. In November has the opportunity to present the revised paper at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, which was held online in November. Below is a video of that paper.

Abstract: Recently, Erik Wielenberg has developed a novel objection to divine command metaethics (DCM). The objection is that DCM “has the implausible implication that psychopaths have no moral obligations and hence their evil acts, no matter how evil, are morally permissible”. This article criticizes Wielenberg’s argument. Section 1 expounds Wielenberg’s new “psychopath argument” in the context of the recent debate over the Reasonable Nonbelievers Objection. Section 2 discusses two ambiguities in the argument: in particular, Wielenberg’s formulation is ambiguous as to whether Wielenberg uses the word “obligation” in an objective or subjective sense. Section 3 argues that this ambiguity undercuts the argument. If Wielenberg is using the word obligation in a subjective sense, his arguments do not show that psychopaths “have no moral obligations”. By contrast, if Wielenberg is using the word obligation in an objective sense, his arguments do not show that divine command theorists are committed to denying that psychopaths have obligations.

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