Consensualism in Principle

On the Foundations of Non-Consequentialist Moral Reasoning

Rahul Kumar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135724856
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This book presents and argues for a suitably articulated version of consensualism as a form of Kantian moral theory with an ability to powerfully illuminate the moral intuitions to which Kantian and utilitarian theories have traditionally appealed.

Chapter One

Unanimity and Impartiality

§I

(a) Any form of rational deliberation, or inquiry, is constituted by certain practical norms which must be respected if the arguments for conclusions, reached through deliberation or inquiry, are to be even prima facie valid. This is as true of scientific inquiry as it is in specifically moral deliberation, where what is considered are questions of how one is required to conduct oneself in one’s relations with others. The norms governing impartial moral deliberation, as in other areas of inquiry, set standards for both what sorts of considerations may or may not be taken into account in deliberation, as well as how different relevant considerations are to be taken account of, or combined, to reach practical conclusions.

What the appropriate norms are for governing impartial moral deliberation is a matter of contention between different moral theories. Any theory that is to count as a theory of impartial moral deliberation will, of course, assert that a norm of ‘formal impartiality’ must be respected. But compliance with this norm only demands that all the constituents of the moral domain must be taken into account, and taken into account in the same way, if one’s deliberations are to be truly impartial. What forms of life are included in the moral domain, and how exactly these constituents are to be taken into account, are but two of the issues over which substantive characterizations of moral reasoning disagree. These disagreements cannot be resolved by appealing to a norm of formal impartiality, but are a matter of detailed philosophical argument.

There are different levels of abstraction at which this argument can be conducted. One may, for instance, appeal to intuitions about the normative consequences of different characterizations of impartiality. This method, which I will call case implication critique, has considerable force. But it lacks the resources to meet the challenge posed by its critics: that in rejecting any theory that does not fit our pre-theoretical intuitions, all we end up with is a theory that offers a clear articulation of the basis of the dogmas of common sense morality. This is not to say that we can’t appeal to intuitions in making judgments about the plausibility of different moral theories. All that is being claimed is that we can’t simply rely on our intuitions about the acceptability of the normative consequences of a theory as the basis of an indictment of that theory. For one of the things we need to be open to in arguments about the best characterization of impartiality is that the intuitively most plausible characterization may have quite radical revisionist implications for common sense morality.

To be intuitively plausible, a characterization cannot have normative implications that are completely counter-intuitive. But its plausibility may rest principally on the intuitive plausibility of the specific commitments that account for the differences between it and other characterizations of impartiality which are not judged to be quite as plausible. These commitments concern, amongst other things, what the best normative characterization of those included within the moral domain is supposed to be, a normative characterization of society, particular views about the purpose of morality in human life, claims about the “point of view” from which moral judgments are made, and an account of moral motivation (perhaps better thought of as an account of the kinds of consideration(s) or values that move those who care about morality to care about morality in the way that they do, giving it a special importance in structuring their deliberations).^{1, 2} The plausibility of the commitments a theory of impartial deliberation makes on these issues constitute part of the argument for the plausibility of that theory.³

This should be no surprise. For it is a reasonable demand to make of any theory that it go some way towards helping us make sense of the importance we attach to the demands of morality in our practical lives. Showing how morality’s demands are connected with valuable and appealing ideals of the person and society is a critical part of this process of demystification. As Strawson puts the point, “our practices do not merely exploit our natures, they express them” (Strawson, 80; italics added)⁴

A theory’s specific commitments may also be used as part of an argument for the plausibility of that theory in a way not yet considered. Aside from being plausible in themselves, a theory’s commitments may allow it to account for various features of morality that we intuitively believe a convincing characterization of moral deliberation should be able to account for, but that other theories, with different specific commitments, cannot account for. One of the strengths of the consensualist characterization of impartiality, as will be shown, is that it is able to do precisely this in building its case against utilitarianism.

(b) Consensualism offers a distinctive conception of impartial moral deliberation:

An act is wrong if its performance under the circumstances would be disallowed by any system of rules for the general regulation of behavior which no one could reasonably reject as a basis for informed, unforced general agreement (Scanlon 1982, 110)

Moral deliberation, on this view, is best characterized by the paradigm of a hypothetical consensus, in which all of those within the moral domain gather together and seek a consensus on principles, for the general regulation of behavior, that no one can reasonably reject. These principles are to form part of the basis of each of person’s practical deliberations, principles “which each us could be expected to employ as a basis for deliberation and to accept as a basis for criticism” (Scanlon 1988b,166). The validity of any principle depends on its being justified by reasons which it would be unreasonable for anyone, assessing the principle from her own point of view, to reject as constituting a sound justification of that principle. Unreasonable, that is, provided her assessment of the principle is conducted in light of the goal, common to all parties to the hypothetical consensus, of being able to justify her actions to others by appeal to principles that others, similarly motivated, would be unreasonable in rejecting.⁵

As a characterization of impartiality, consensualism has a great deal of plausibility. Its announced ambition, however, goes beyond being just another plausible characterization of impartiality, as it is presented as a successful alternative to utilitarianism (or meta-ethical utilitarianism), one that is able to sap the sources of its strength (Scanlon 1982,103).⁶ It isn’t clear, though, what the reasons might be for believing consensualism to offer a better characterization of impartial moral deliberation than utilitarianism. In particular, two problems need to be addressed. First, it isn’t clear why the consensualist claim that what is sought in moral deliberation is unanimity should be thought to be more plausible than the utilitarian’s claim that what is relevant is the promotion of well-being. Second, why would someone concerned to conduct herself, in her relations with others, in the way morality requires her to conduct herself, be moved to be guided in her conduct by principles for the general regulation of behavior that no one can reasonably reject?

To clarify what the puzzle is here, compare a utilitarian account of the correct procedure for evaluating the moral validity of a principle for the general regulation of behavior, with what a consensualist would claim. What the utilitarian claims is that, in evaluating the moral justifiability of this principle, what we should appeal to is the consequences of its general acceptance, in the world as we know it, for the promotion of aggregate well-being. We should do so because, according to the utilitarian conception of impartiality, the aim of morality is to promote well-being. In moral reasoning, our concern is to work out how our institutions should be structured, and how we should live our lives, if we are to advance this goal.

There are different routes by which one may be led to view this way of understanding moral justification as plausible. One way is characteristic of direct and act-utilitarian theories, which hold that the standard of rightness is the promotion of well-being.⁷ Such views are most plausible if one is led to believe that the promotion of well-being is the aim of morality by two thoughts: first, when we are morally moved to help a person who is suffering, it is just the fact of their suffering, or that suffering is going on, that appears to move us to try and end it, or at least reduce it. Second, because no one counts more than anyone else in moral deliberation, no one’s suffering has a greater or lesser claim on us than anyone else’s just because of who they are. This thought, which might be characterized as the pressure of reason making us extend our concern for the suffering of others, lends support to the idea that what we should aim at, in moral deliberation, is the determination of what must be done to minimize suffering.⁸ Most direct and act utilitarian theories speak of the promotion of well-being, as the range of interests that are thought to be the valid bases of moral claims includes much more than just suffering. But the intuitions at work that make these views plausible are the same as those that motivate the negative utilitarian view of morality as being concerned with the minimization of suffering.

One reason that act and direct utilitarians tend to dismiss rule-utilitarian views, which claim that the justified rules, and not the promotion of well-being, constitute the standard of right conduct, has to do with the fact that they reach the view that the promotion of well-being is the aim of morality in this way. Rule-utilitarians have tended to reach this conclusion by quite a different route, the best example of this being Mill’s discussion of the connection between our common sense notions of duty and obligation (what Mill labels considerations of ‘justice’) and the general good (the doctrine that Utility is the criterion of right and wrong).⁹ Mill’s starting point for reflection is not with anything like suffering, but with the special importance we attach, in common sense morality, to notions of duty and obligation. His phenomenological description of what he has in mind by duty makes it reasonably clear that what he has in mind is just that sphere of morality that consensualism is concerned with, where the notion of accountability to one another plays such an important role (cf. Utilitarianism V, para. 14). Considering the basis of the authority of this sphere of morality, what he refers to as the special strength of feeling that surrounds it, Mill concludes that its importance can only be accounted for in terms of general utility (though it is important for his view that the relevant aspects of utility concern vital interests).

Mill’s view, then, is that moral justification of common sense moral principles must ultimately end in an appeal to how those rules promote well-being. This differs from the direct and act-utilitarian views, which make the additional claim that moral motivation attaches directly to a concern with the promotion of well-being. It is the tension between these two views that explains why the direct and act-utilitarian have difficulty with the idea that, if well-being is what morally matters, one should be guided by general rules, when doing other than what the rule prescribes would better promote well-being.

For purposes of this discussion, what matters is that the utilitarian is able to provide a plausible account of the source of morality (a concern with the well-being of others), one which implies the utilitarian characterization of impartial moral deliberation. Of the two different routes to reaching the conclusion that the promotion of well-being is what ultimately morally matters, the Millian (rule-utilitarian) route is the more important for this discussion, as that theory, amongst the family of utilitarian views, has the greatest structural resemblance to consensualism.

In contrast to utilitarian views, consensualism tells us, in evaluating the principle, to consider whether or not that principle, as a basis for the general regulation of a certain kind of behavior, is one that no one could reasonably reject. That is, the reasons that are supposed to justify the principle as valid must constitute a justification for that principle from the point of view of any person within the moral domain, assuming she is motivated to be able to justify herself to others on grounds they cannot reasonably reject. Notice that this form of moral deliberation invokes a special kind of unanimity. For what is sought, in justifying a principle, are reasons for the justification of that principle that all can agree on, each from her own point of view, rather than reasons that most can agree on. Unanimity is more than something that valid justifications aim for, but is a constitutive condition for a principle’s validity.

What is supposed to make this conception of impartiality a superior one to that offered by the utilitarian? One feature that Scanlon mentions is that it is non-aggregative (Scanlon 1982,123). But this is not an argument in favour of consensualism, as what needs to be explained is why we should believe that the best characterization of impartiality will be non-aggregative. Our intuitions about cases where aggregating wellbeing gives wildly counter-intuitive results may, after all, be unsound. What is required here is a consensualist account of the source of morality, one that will suggest an explanation for why it is that moral deliberation is appropriately characterized as a search for principles, for the general regulation of behavior, that no one can reasonably reject as the basis for unforced, informed, general agreement.

§II

(a) The place to look for such an account is in the consensualist account of moral motivation, which states that the parties to the consensualist hypothetical consensus are motivated to be able to justify themselves to others on the basis of principles for the general regulation of behavior that no one could reasonably reject (given the desire to find principles that others similarly concerned with mutual justification could not reasonably reject) (cf. Scanlon 1982, 116–17). Here the notion of wanting to be able to justify one’s actions to another is central, as it is importantly different from the looser idea of being concerned to act in a way that is morally justifiable, where the justification is one that anyone, provided they take up the right point of view, has access to. Utilitarian justifications are, for example, compatible with the looser idea, but at least not obviously compatible with the notion of justifying oneself to another.

Nagel offers a helpful characterization of what the difference between the looser and the more specific notions consists in:

[utilitarian justifications] are really justifications to the world at large, which the victim, as a reasonable man, would be expected to appreciate…[but this] ignores the possibility that to treat someone horribly puts you in a special relation to him, which may have to be defended in terms of other features of your relation to him….If the justification for what one did to another person had to be such that it could be offered to him specifically, rather than just to the world at large, that would be a significant source of restraint (Nagel 1979,68; text in brackets added; italics added).¹⁰

In desiring to be able to justify oneself to another, what one is concerned about is that one’s behavior in relation to another be such as to express an attitude of respect for, and towards, that person.¹¹ One knows that one is justified in believing that one’s actions express such an attitude towards another by considering the kinds of reasons one would cite in explaining one’s actions to another, where the “other” could be a person who believes that, in acting as one did, one failed to ta...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter I. Unanimity and Impartiality
• Chapter II. Relevant Reasons in Moral Argument
• Chapter III. Consensualism and Non-Consequentialism
• Chapter IV. Unanimity and Aggregation
• Appendix: Reasonableness in Consensualism
• Bibliography
• Subject Index
• Name Index