The Many Faces of Normativity 9788378860037, 9788378860259

Table of contents :
Part One: Foundations of Normativity

Robert Audi
The Nature of Normativity and the Project of Naturalizing the Normative

Jan Woleński
Some Analogies Between Normative and Epistemic Discourse

Jaap Hage
The Deontic Furniture of the World. An Analysis of the Basic Concepts that Embody Normativity

Anna Brożek
The Naturalistic Fallacy From the Methodological Point of View

Jerzy Stelmach
The Naturalistic and Antinaturalistic Fallacies in Normative Discourse

Part Two: Key Debates

Bartosz Brożek
The Normativity of Meaning

Aeddan Shaw
The Perspectivist Account of the Normativity of Meaning Debate

Mateusz Hohol
The Normativity of Mathematics. A Neurocognitive Approach

Marcin Gorazda
Normativity According to Hayek

Marta Soniewicka
A Command Without a Commander – From the Paradigm of Normativity to the Paradigm of Responsibility

Part Three: Normativity and Natural Sciences

Edward Nęcka
Normativity: A Psychological Perspective

Marcin Siwek, Rafał Jaeschke, Dominika Dudek, Natalia Czyżowska
Moral Development, Normativity and Mental Disorders

Bartłomiej Kucharzyk
Is There a Normative Module? Some Remarks on the Wason Selection Task Experiments in the Field of Normative Reasoning

Wojciech Załuski
From Tit for Tat and Tribalism to the Golden Rule. Remarks on the Development of Moral Ideas

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Edited by JErzy StElmach BartoSz BrożEk matEuSz hohol

© Copyright by Copernicus Center Press, 2013 Cover image: Jerzy Panek, Ja sam jako List gończy XVII Editing & Proofreading Byfflo Books Cover design Mariusz Banachowicz Layout Mirosław Krzyszkowski Typesetting Wydawnictwo Profil-Archeo Magdalena Dzięgielewska Publication Supported by The John Templeton Foundation Grant "The Limits of Scientific Explanation" ISBN 978-83-7886-003-7 Kraków 2013 Publisher: Copernicus Center Press Sp. z o.o., pl. Szczepański 8, 31-011 Kraków, tel/fax (+48) 12 430 63 00 e-mail: [email protected] www.ccpress.pl

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Preface

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he various debates concerning normativity permeate contemporary philosophy. In the philosophy of language, proponents of the genuine normativity of linguistic rules oppose the claims of those who consider language to be only hypothetically normative, or even purely descriptive. In the philosophy of mind, discussion is centered around the problem of whether our beliefs are normative. In law and morality, the idea that rules of behaviour are in some sense normative has constituted a constant point of reference since the beginning of both disciplines, and today’s disagreements between constructivism, conventionalism and realism merely represent new incarnations of old controversies. One can even speak of the normativity of mathematics and logic, especially when the problem is raised against the backdrop of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Paradoxically, it is quite difficult to define normativity. The most common such definition is that some rule of conduct or other precept is normative if it constitutes an objective reason for action – a formulation which underpins an important aspect of normativity. What is normative is objective or independent of one’s individual beliefs, and thus it is not a mental phenomenon – reasons should not be mistaken for motives. Of course, not everyone agrees with this characterization: some claim that no objective reasons for action exist, only psychological motives; others claim that normativity is an elusive property, one which is indefinable by recourse to other, more familiar concepts. Be that as it may, the continuing debate over normativity remains a constant source of philosophical inspiration and controversy. It is not surprising, considering the issue at stake: the problem of normativity is

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closely linked with the most pressing questions in the history of philosophy, such as those pertaining to the relation between facts and norms, the character of moral duty, or the nature of law or language. The goal of the present collection is to examine the phenomenon of normativity from various perspectives. The essays are divided into three groups. Part I, Foundations of Normativity, addresses the most basic questions connected with the concept of normativity. Robert Audi in “The Nature of Normativity and the Project of Naturalizing the Normative” provides an analysis of the issues surrounding normativity, as well as the possibility of naturalizing normative concepts. In particular, he examines the reasons behind such a naturalization project, the various models of naturalization, as well as some issues connected with moral perception and moral reasoning. He defends the claim that only a part of the normative knowledge may be subject to naturalization, for although moral properties are ‘anchored’ in the physical world, they may not be fully reducible to it. Jan Woleński’s paper “Some Analogies Between Normative and Epistemic Discourse” is devoted to an examination of the formal properties of alethic, epistemic and normative notions. By utilizing some generalizations of the logical square, he uncovers striking formal similarities between normative and epistemic concepts, leading to the claim that epistemic modals are, in a certain sense, normative. Woleński suggests that the proper way to understand this conclusion is to admit that the normativity of knowledge arises as a result of the normativity of justification; he warns, however, that this stance may give rise to further theoretical problems. Jaap Hage in “The Deontic Furniture of the World. An Analysis of the Basic Concepts that Embody Normativity” analyzes various types of rules and the differences between rules and facts. He attempts to explain the nature of normativity by addressing the relations between motivating and guiding reasons. Furthermore, he examines such notions as duty, obligation, being obliged and ought-to-do, claiming that there is a clear difference between duties and obligations and neither one of them is an ought. Anna Brożek in her essay “The Naturalistic Fallacy From

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the Methodological Point of View” examines the two famous formulations of the naturalistic fallacy attributed to Hume and Moore. With recourse to various semiotic and formal tools, she attempts to show that both the Humean and Moorean arguments are inconclusive, having only historical value today. A counterpoint to her contribution is provided by Jerzy Stelmach’s “The Naturalistic and Antinaturalistic Fallacies in Normative Discourse”, where he observes that the acceptance of the dualism of Is-Ought leads to a theoretically hopeless situation, in which one is destined to commit either the naturalistic or the antinaturalistic fallacy. Stelmach claims further that the only way out of this impasse is to embrace a radically monistic and nominalistic ontology. Part II, Key Debates, is devoted to some of the most heated controversies surrounding the notion of normativity. Bartosz Brożek, in “The Normativity of Meaning”, examines the traditional approaches to the problem of the normativity in language and claims that they all assume a formal view of language, one that is not compatible with the findings of contemporary linguistics, psychology, evolutionary theory and neuroscience. He suggests that by replacing the formal view of language with the ‘embedded’ view, one is in a position to explain and reconcile seemingly contradictory stances towards the normativity of meaning. A similar line of argument is offered by Aeddan Shaw in “The Perspectivist Account of the Normativity of Meaning Debate”, where he claims – on the basis of recent findings in linguistics – that language can be reconstructed theoretically in many ways, giving rise to differing accounts of language’s normativity. Mateusz Hohol, in “The Normativity of Mathematics. A Neurocognitive Approach”, first examines the normative dimension of mathematics against the backdrop of the two traditional philosophies of mathematics, i.e., Platonism and formalism, indicating that they are not capable of accounting for the normative dimension of mathematical reasoning. He further claims that a satisfactory conception of mathematics can be constructed on the basis of the findings of cognitive neuroscience, where the normativity of mathematical thinking appears at the level

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of mathematical concepts which are embodied as well as embedded in social practices. Marcin Gorazda’s essay “Normativity According to Hayek” provides an overview of the conception of normativity developed by Friedrich August von Hayek. Gorazda compares Hayek’s account with the various theories of normativity represented in legal philosophy, such as positivism, realism or natural law theories, and attempts to establish the superiority of Hayek’s approach. Marta Soniewicka in “A Command Without a Commander – From the Paradigm of Normativity to the Paradigm of Responsibility”, analyzes the Kantian concept of normativity in detail, based on the notion of obligation, against the backdrop of rival, value-based theories of Scheler and Hartmann. She claims that the latter approach is free from some of the problems which haunt the Kantian conception. Furthermore, she identifies a common ground between both stances: the search for the source of moral obligation beyond divine authority. Part III of the collection, Normativity and Natural Sciences, puts together essays which examine the concept of normativity from the perspective of contemporary science, especially psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary theory. Edward Nęcka, in “Normativity: A Psychological Perspective”, observes that ‘normativity’ is not a psychological term of art. He attempts to ‘translate’ or define the concept in such a way that it fits into the psychological conceptual scheme, and then analyzes the resulting definition through the prism of the findings of psychological experiments pertaining to self-control and intercultural moral differences. Marcin Siwek, Rafał Jaeschke, Dominika Dudek and Natalia Czyżowska, in “Moral Development, Normativity and Mental Disorders”, examine the effects of brain damage and mental disorders in the sphere of moral and, more broadly, normative behaviour. They observe, on the one hand, that the conceptual scheme utilized by psychiatrists and psychologists is morally neutral; on the other, by analyzing several cases involving patients with bi-polar disorder, they collect interesting insights pertaining to abnormal behaviour in the moral context. Bartłomiej Kucharzyk’s essay, “Is There a Normative Module? Some Remarks on the Wason Selection Task

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Experiments in the Field of Normative Reasoning”, is devoted to various aspects of the claim of evolutionary psychology that a ‘normative module’ exists in the human mind, something which is a part of the ‘social exchange mechanism’. He analyzes the conclusions which Tooby and Cosmides draw from the Wason Selection Task and similar experiments, and claims that, although various versions of the task constitute a useful tool in examining rule-processing, the experimental results do not directly imply the existence of a separate ‘normative module’. Wojciech Załuski in “From Tit for Tat and Tribalism to the Golden Rule. Remarks on the Development of Moral Ideas” takes under consideration the so-called evolutionary ethics. He claims that the ethics in question cannot be considered an ethical system with a normative component, i.e. such that provides a morally mature person with adequate moral precepts. *** Some of the papers collected in this volume were presented at the international conference entitled “The Many Faces of Normativity”, held in Kraków in February 2012. The conference was organized, altogether with the contributions collected here, within the research project The Limits of Scientific Explanation, carried out at the Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Kraków and sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation.

Jerzy Stelmach Bartosz Brożek Mateusz Hohol

Table of contents

Part One: Foundations of Normativity........................................................13 Robert Audi The Nature of Normativity and the Project of Naturalizing the Normative....15 Jan Woleński Some Analogies Between Normative and Epistemic Discourse.....................51 Jaap Hage The Deontic Furniture of the World. An Analysis of the Basic Concepts that Embody Normativity.........................................................................73 Anna Brożek The Naturalistic Fallacy From the Methodological Point of View................115 Jerzy Stelmach The Naturalistic and Antinaturalistic Fallacies in Normative Discourse...............................................................................................137 Part Two: Key Debates................................................................................145 Bartosz Brożek The Normativity of Meaning.........................................................................147 Aeddan Shaw The Perspectivist Account of the Normativity of Meaning Debate..............177

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Mateusz Hohol The Normativity of Mathematics. A Neurocognitive Approach...................191 Marcin Gorazda Normativity According to Hayek..................................................................223 Marta Soniewicka A Command Without a Commander – From the Paradigm of Normativity to the Paradigm of Responsibility..........................................................257 Part Three: Normativity and Natural Sciences........................................289 Edward Nęcka Normativity: A Psychological Perspective....................................................291 Marcin Siwek, Rafał Jaeschke, Dominika Dudek, Natalia Czyżowska Moral Development, Normativity and Mental Disorders.............................309 Bartłomiej Kucharzyk Is There a Normative Module? Some Remarks on the Wason Selection Task Experiments in the Field of Normative Reasoning.......................335 Wojciech Załuski From Tit for Tat and Tribalism to the Golden Rule. Remarks on the Development of Moral Ideas.......................................................351

Part One

Foundations of Normativity

Robert Audi University of Notre Dame

The Nature of Normativity and the Project of Naturalizing the Normative1

D

uring the last quarter of the twentieth century, philosophy in the Western world entered an age of naturalization projects. Their prominence is perhaps now worldwide. There are self-described naturalization efforts in ethics, philosophy of mind, and even philosophy of mathematics and logic. Normative notions, however, have proved especially resistant to naturalization. This holds for both those basic in ethics, such as wrongness and obligation, and also for justification, whether viewed in ethics, epistemology, or elsewhere. If there were a generally accepted definition of “naturalism”, assessing the prospects for naturalizing such notions and the corresponding properties would be less difficult. What can be done to provide adequate focus to this assessment is to stress something on which philosophical naturalists agree, namely, that we should count as natural all the “descriptive” concepts and properties that must be countenanced to account for inquiry in the natural sciences. What are often called “observation concepts,” paradigmatically those like color and shape, whose application is by and large determinable through using the five senses, are   This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation.

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clear and basic cases of the descriptive. With all this in mind, I view naturalism, in its philosophical as opposed to methodological form, as roughly the view that nature is all there is and the only basic truths are truths of nature.2 For our purposes, it will suffice to say that normative phenomena may be considered naturalized only if all normative claims can be fully explicated and adequately appraised on the basis of the kinds of descriptive uses of language appropriate in natural science broadly conceived to include empirical psychology.

1. A Cross-Disciplinary Conception of Normativity The referents of ‘the normative’ are so various that unity is difficult to discern. Notions – which I here take to be equivalent to concepts – can be normative, but so can other kinds of things: reasons perhaps most notably, but also properties, propositions, attitudes – including both cognitive and conative attitudes such as belief and desire; even language, and certainly linguistic acts, such as evaluations. When G.E. Moore attacked naturalism in ethics in Principia Ethica (1903), he did not in general distinguish concepts from properties. But later writers, both in ethics and in philosophy of mind, have done so.3 It is now widely agreed that, just as we need not show that the concept of pain is a physicalistic concept to sustain naturalism in the philosophy of mind, so for naturalization in ethics we need only take certain moral terms to express natural properties. This does not require an analysis of the moral terms wholly in naturalistic terms. I shall here be assuming that the most important question for appraising philosophical   This conception leaves open what counts as natural and, correspondingly, as a natural science. In the text I include psychology because naturalization of the normative without dependence on psychological properties as key natural ones is apparently not possible; but strong versions of philosophical naturalism will take at least psychological properties to be at best epiphenomenal if they cannot be identified with non-psychological ones, such as neurophysiological properties. 3   See e.g., A. Gibbard, Reconciling our Aims: In Search of Bases for Ethics, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008. 2

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naturalism regarding normativity is whether normative properties are natural and not whether normative concepts are. Roughly speaking, the issue is metaphysical rather than conceptual or (though I do not assume this is strictly equivalent to the latter) semantic.

Normativity as the property of being normative In appraising naturalization projects in ethics, then, the relevant properties rather than their counterpart concepts will be my main concern. I assume that if normative properties are not naturalizable, then neither are the counterpart concepts, but the converse is not obviously true and I leave this difficult issue open. My question, then, is whether the property of being normative is natural. The question is difficult in part because this property belongs to so many kinds of things that presenting a unified account of it is a major philosophical challenge. Paradigms of it are conveyed by normative propositions to the effect that something ought (morally) to be done or that something has intrinsic, as opposed to instrumental, value. There are indeed many kinds of value: not just moral but aesthetic, intellectual, and spiritual value. Spiritual value is not limited to religious phenomena. A spiritual experience may be deeply rewarding whether or not it is religious. The spiritual may occur in the secular solitude of contemplating natural beauty, even if paradigms of spiritually rewarding experiences are also in some sense religious. The properties of justification and rationality are also paradigms of normative properties. Both are pluralistic in types of application, and both occur across all the categories and domains just noted. There is, for instance, justification (and rationality) of belief, of action, and of attitudes, whether propositional, as are beliefs, or evaluative, such as approval and disapproval; and there is moral justification, prudential justification, and aesthetic justification. One thing many philosophers are inclined to say of normative properties is that they are not descriptive. Descriptive properties of the most

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familiar sorts are observable. In more complex cases, “observable” is applied to properties that are at once causal, appropriate to figure in scientific investigation, and capable of being bases for predicting and explaining events. This claim is controversial, however, and I will rest no main contention on it.4 What is probably not controversial is that normative properties are not brute. No act is obligatory, full stop, no belief justified, full stop. Acts are obligatory, and beliefs are justified, on the basis of other properties. Indeed, things possess normative properties in virtue of possessing other properties – those constituting the base of the former properties – that seem descriptive in the sense sketched. The grounding of normative properties in descriptive ones leaves open whether normative properties are themselves ultimately descriptive. But the consequentiality (“in virtue of”) relation is not only common ground between non-naturalists and (cognitivistic) naturalists; it is also a basis for anchoring moral judgments in intersubjectively accessible “facts”. Whether the consequentiality relation is a priori, as rationalists commonly take it to be in normative cases (though not in all cases), or empirical, as empiricists in ethics would consider it to be, is a matter of continuing disagreement.

Normativity in content versus normativity in upshot Once the distinction between the normative and the descriptive is taken seriously and, even apart from that, once naturalization is tied to the kinds of properties crucial for scientific explanation and predic4   G.E. Moore, in Principia Ethica (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1903) is plausibly thought to have held this. It might be denied by, e.g., R. Boyd, How To Be a Moral Realist, [in:] Essays on Moral Realism, ed. G.S. McCord, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1988, pp. 181–228; N.P. Sturgeon, Moral Explanations, [in:] Morality, Reason, and Truth, eds. D. Copp, D. Zimmerman, Roman and Allanheld, Totowa, New Jersey 1985, pp. 49–78; and D.O. Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1989. These are “Cornell Realists” who, even if they might grant that normative concepts are not natural, hold that normative properties are.

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tion, we can make an important distinction that is too often ignored. It is essential to distinguish, for both properties and concepts, normativity in content or in constitution from what I call normativity in upshot. The property of being in pain exhibits the latter but not the former (for properties we may speak of constitution even if not of content). That someone is in pain is a bad thing, and thereby normatively important; but it is a natural fact, not a normative one. The distinction between normativity in content and normativity in upshot suggests something pertinent to many recent discussions in ethics: though traits like cruelty have been called morally thick, they are, arguably not unqualifiedly moral at all; they are moral in upshot but not content. Consider how, from the point of view of philosophical analysis, cruelty is like pain: no exercise of moral or even normative judgment need be made to explain (at the conceptual level) what either of them is or even to know a priori criteria for their possession. To know that someone is cruel, moreover, we need to know only such descriptive facts as that the person characteristically aims at causing pain for its own sake (hence non-instrumentally); and while knowing this gives us a reason to make a normative judgment about the person, we can know someone is cruel without making or even depending on a normative judgment.5 To treat cruelty as moral without qualification, then, is to conflate content with implications. It is different with (for instance) courage, which is normative (though not moral). To explain what courage is we must appeal to a proper balance between, say, steadfastness in the face of danger and avoidance of it, and knowing that someone has courage requires knowing that the person achieves a proper balance between undertaking and avoiding certain   Granted, ‘cruel’ is vague owing to the indefiniteness of the degree and scope of the relevant desire. But this kind of vagueness also characterizes many non-normative terms; we need not in general decide, e.g., how much nasty behavior is permissible in order to determine whether someone is cruel. Moreover, much can turn on whether a person is cruel or not – this is indeed implied in its being normative in upshot – and so whether to ascribe the trait to someone can be a partly normative question, even though the trait itself is normative only in upshot. But much can turn on whether a substance is explosive, and that does not make the notion of the explosive normative.

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challenges. Thus, both the explication of the trait and the a priori criteria for its application require making a clearly normative judgment. Another way to see the distinction is to note that someone who is utterly amoral in not even having the concepts of right and wrong, of the (intrinsically) good or bad, or any such deontic or axiological concepts can have the concept of pain, of cruelty, of a lie, and so forth for the kinds of things that ground normative ascriptions. The distinction between normativity in content or in constitution and normativity in upshot is important for this paper because, if naturalization is taken to be possible given an assumption that normative properties include those merely normative in upshot, the task will seem less difficult than it is. Cruelty and kindness are much more likely to seem fully naturalizable than wrongness or obligatoriness. The main methodological point here, however, is that properties should not be classified as natural or normative in terms of what they entail, even selfevidently, but rather in terms of an appropriate aspect of their intrinsic nature, which I take to include their conceptually constitutive properties. These, in turn, are often indicated by criteria for their ascription.

2. Philosophical Motivation for Naturalizing Normativity Many philosophers consider it obvious why naturalizing normative properties (and certain other properties) is desirable. But I doubt that this is obvious, and I suspect it is not uncontroversial. Let us briefly consider the desirability question.

The authority of perception Surely one reason for the philosophical attraction of naturalizing normativity is what I call the epistemological authority of perception. Perception is not just psychologically authoritative, in the sense that we cannot help forming beliefs given certain perceptions – and indeed

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cannot help trusting those beliefs unless there is strong reason for distrust. Perceptual beliefs typically present the perceiver with a cognitively irresistible appearance of truth. Perception is also normatively authoritative: sensory impressions, such as impressions or shape, size, and temperature, are at the core of perception and are a basic and pervasive kind of evidence. For philosophical naturalists, perception is often taken to be not only authoritative but to have epistemological sovereignty. On their view, perceptual knowledge is essential for any other kind and is also the ultimate test of claims to knowledge or justified belief. To be sure, testimony, which is a social source of knowledge and is also extremely important in human knowledge; but, depending as it does on perception for our receiving it, it is not a basic source of knowledge. We should also recognize the ontological authority of perception. We cannot perceive what does not exist, and sense experience provides a good ground for positing the existence of its objects. In my view, this ground is both normative – by evidencing (providing good reason for accepting) the existence of the object in question – and also psychological, in tending to produce recognition of the object or some belief about it. In general, apart from very special circumstances, we cannot help taking to be real what we apparently perceive. The reality of a perceived object, to be sure, does not obviously entail its naturalistic status; but the philosophy of perception is dominated by the importance and character of the five senses, and reflection on the kinds of objects knowable simply by the deliverances of the five senses makes clear that naturalistic status is quite readily taken as implied by perceivability. For understanding naturalism, the most important point about perception is that it is causal, in roughly the sense that perceiving something requires its causally impacting the perceiver. This causal character of perception is doubly significant. First, the most elementary paradigms of perception, or at any rate those most important for language learning, are physical: seeing properties of objects around one, feeling hard and soft things, tasting foods, and so forth. Sec-

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ond, it seems to be a constitutive element in naturalism to take what has causal power to be real and, for most naturalistic views, to presume that only the physical, and certainly just natural phenomena, are causally efficacious. A thoroughgoing naturalist may go further and hold (parodying W.V. Quine) that to be is to be the value of a causal variable.

Perceptual compulsion Some of my examples exhibit perceptual compulsion. It comes in at least two forms. First, perception necessarily yields information of some kind, such as what visible or tactile properties a perceived object has, even if the perceiver does not form beliefs ascribing the relevant properties. Much information is non-propositional. From an information-theoretic point of view, perception is unconditionally compelling. Second, given the conceptual capacity for believing the perceived object has properties that are “presented” to the perceiver in, say, seeing or touching, a perceiver who entertains propositions ascribing those properties tends to believe them automatically and non-voluntarily. I can glimpse a conical blue spruce without forming any belief about its shape; but if the thought that it is conical comes to mind at the time, I cannot help believing that it is conical. In addition to the doxastic compulsion of much sense experience, there may be (as some have thought) a dependence of thought on sense experience or imaginational experience derived from it: all ideas come from impressions, Hume famously maintained (prominently in the Enquiry). Add to all these points a taste for simplicity, understood in part as a preference for a world sculptured with Ockham’s Razor, and you have a physicalistic, even materialistic, worldview. What, then, of abstract entities such as numbers and universals? For a naturalist who does not tend toward nominalism, it may seem

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that we learn about abstracta through sense experience, as opposed to intellectual apprehension; and abstract entities appear to some philosophers to be explicable in terms of complicated relations to sense experience. As Hume put it, “All this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience.”6 If, beyond all the points made so far, a theorist is influenced, as philosophical naturalists generally are, by a paradigm of knowledge of the kind produced by scientific inquiry – or technological success, which is often felt to validate science as our best or only route to genuine knowledge of the world – there will be much motivation for naturalism as the view that nature is all there is and the only basic truths are truths of nature. These truths, of course, are appraisable using scientific method.7

3. Naturalization Projects in Ethics Naturalization projects occur in all major domains of inquiry: for instance, in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, even theology. Each raises special problems, but there are commonalities. This paper considers in detail only ethics, though I will briefly bring my results to bear in some other domains. In ethics there is a longstanding division of theories of moral normativity into realist and anti-realist. Realism divides into reductive and non-reductive kinds. Reduction can be of (among other things) concepts, properties, or facts. I am leaving aside the prospects for conceptual reduction or naturalization, since this seems the least plausible   See D. Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. E. Steinberg, Hackett, Indianapolis 1977, p. 11 (originally published in 1748). 7   I bypass here the point that this thesis itself does not seem to be a truth of nature; if naturalism is true, it is – or we might treat it as – higher order and try to square our account of philosophical justification for it with the thesis of naturalism. 6

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of the naturalistic reduction efforts. Moreover, if a reductive naturalistic account of normative properties succeeds, then, on the plausible assumption that facts are identical when they express identical property ascriptions to the same entities, normative facts can be naturalistically reduced as well.

Reductive naturalism in ethics: analytical and empirical For reductive naturalism in ethics,8 we can in principle show something denied by non-naturalists and noncognitivists alike: that moral terms express natural properties, in a sense implying that moral properties are reducible to (hence really are) natural ones. J.S. Mill (in Chapter 4 of Utilitarianism) appears to have held a realist ethical naturalism. To understand the kind of reductionism in question, we need a threefold distinction. First, naturalists might consider moral prop8   The literature exhibits terminological variability in characterizations of reductive naturalism. Like many other philosophers, I term a naturalistic view reductive if (and only if) it proposes an account of the target – say normativity or mental phenomena – on which the terms in question are at least strongly equivalent to certain naturalistic terms. The equivalence might be conceptual or, less stringent, ontic, as where property identity is claimed for the analysans and analysandum. By contrast, Sturgeon calls a naturalistic position non-reductive provided it does not entail “the truth of some property-identity statement that has ‘goodness’ (or some other transparently ethical term) paired with some clearly nonethical term (such as, in Moore’s own examples, ‘pleasure’ or ‘what we desire to desire’)... But an ethical naturalist can deny ... this implication.” See Ethical Naturalism, [in:] The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, ed. D. Copp, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006, pp. 91–121 (p. 98), since (to cite Sturgeon’s positive characterization), ethical naturalism is the view that moral value and obligation “are natural properties of the same general sort as properties investigated by the sciences... (p. 92)". Granted, this characterization does not entail the indicated claim. But without a substantive account of natural properties, Sturgeon’s view apparently leaves open that scientific investigation of, say, goodness, studies sufficient conditions for it, necessary conditions for it, and either no conditions that are (a) both necessary and sufficient or (b), even if (a), no property that is conceptually distinct from the ethical one under investigation but identical with it. Even a quite strong non-naturalist view of the kind indicated below can sustain this kind of cooperation between ethical and scientific inquiry.

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erties equivalent to certain natural ones. For instance, the property of being obligatory for an agent might be considered necessarily coextensive with the property of producing at least as favorable a contribution to the proportion of pleasure to pain (in some specified population) as any alternative the agent has. Second, they might consider moral properties identical with certain natural ones. The same example will serve: this intermediate naturalistic reductivism would simply interpret the equivalence as representing an identity rather than just a necessary correspondence such that every instance of the first property is an instance of the other, and conversely. An apparently stronger, identity claim is that it is a conceptual truth that to be a moral property is to be a causal-hedonic property. Mill held not only that moral properties are equivalent to certain natural ones but also embraced a strong reductive naturalism: “to think of an object as desirable (unless for the sake of its consequences), and to think of it as pleasant [where pleasantness is a natural, psychological property], are one and the same thing.”9 Mill did not make all the distinctions just presented; but this statement (in which ‘desirable’ is used to mean roughly ‘intrinsically good’) at least illustrates one thesis of analytical naturalism even if, for deontic terms (e.g. ‘ought’, ‘obligatory’, and ‘wrong’), he held only the intermediate view on which these express natural properties. This intermediate naturalism is held by some who reject strong naturalism (the kind that requires taking it to be a conceptual truth that normative properties are natural ones). On the theoretical reductivist view inspired by reductions in science (a view sometimes called Cornell Realism), moral properties are like certain theoretical properties of a kind important in scientific theories. They are not observable, as are colors and shapes; but they are natural, causally efficacious, and understandable in a complex network of explanatory and descriptive relations to other natural properties. 9   See J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, Indianapolis, Hackett 1979 (originally published in 1861), p. 38.

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Reductive realism is highly controversial, and a detailed assessment is not possible here.10 Such an assessment is especially difficult because we cannot simply presuppose any account of property identity. Let us instead consider a non-reductive realism that gives a major role to natural properties but is not itself naturalistic.

Non-reductive naturalism in ethics In my judgment, analytical reduction of the kind Mill hoped for – naturalism the quick way, by conceptual reduction – almost certainly fails. Cornell realism is more plausible, but is not supported by an adequate theory of property identity – also needed in the philosophy of mind. It is surely not clear that ontic reduction succeeds, and doubts about this doubtless partly underlie the appeal of trying to sustain naturalism without reduction of normative properties to natural properties. How, in the light of what has emerged so far, should we view non-reductive naturalism? This is the consequentiality view. I prefer ‘consequentiality’ to the more familiar term ‘supervenience’ since it both entails strong supervenience and indicates something supervenience does not entail: the appropriate grounding relation between 10   Space does not permit appraising the “analytical descriptivism” proposed by Frank Jackson, which he distinguishes from “Cornell Realism.” See his From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1998, pp. 144–145. But the problems this paper poses (below) for instrumentalism as a naturalistic reduction program pose apparently insuperable obstacles to his view that “what confers value on a property ultimately comes down to facts about desires: value supervenes on the total story, actual, hypothetical, first- and higher-order, or something of this general kind, about desire… Thus to believe that A is right is to believe that A has the property it is rational to desire” (p. 137). Even apart from the strong claim about the content of normative belief – involving a single desirable property, for instance – the proposed account will work only if at least practical rationality can be naturalized. For a recent appraisal of Jackson’s approach see J. Kingsbury, J. McKeown-Green, Jackson’s Armchair: The Only Chair in Town?, [in:] Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, eds. D. Braddon-Mitchell, R. Nola, MIT Press, Cambridge 2009, pp. 159–182.

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natural and normative properties.11 This view is not fully naturalistic, and some philosophers disapprove of calling it a kind of naturalism at all, since it allows that the consequential properties are metaphysically non-natural, hence is compatible with an ontological dualism. Twentieth-century intuitionists such as G.E. Moore and W.D. Ross make clear that normative terms apply to what they characterize because it has certain non-normative properties (the base properties). This is anchoring normative properties in the natural world; it is not reducing them to causal properties. Non-reductive naturalism in ethics is not only realistic but, as their views illustrate, also not fully naturalistic. In my judgment, it is best understood on intuitionist lines of the kind Ross sketched in his influential The Right in the Good (1930).

Anti-realism in ethical theory Naturalism in its most prominent forms is strongly associated with one or another kind of materialism and is commonly taken to be committed to realism regarding natural phenomena. Anti-realism about normativity, however, may sit quite comfortably with philosophical naturalism. Noncognitivism in ethical theory is a case in point. It is a kind of anti-realism partly motivated by the idea that we can account for normativity behaviorally – in terms of linguistic competences and accompanying motivation – and need not countenance it in the world that descriptive language is “about.” Thus, noncognitivism is eliminativist about moral properties and attitudinal about normativity: normativity is not, as many ethical theorists hold, expressed by non-descriptive cognitive terms, but is carried by a kind of motivational attitude. On this view, normativity is primar  Roughly, to say that normative properties strongly supervene on natural ones is to say that necessarily, if two phenomena (say actions) do not differ in their natural properties, they cannot differ in their normative properties.

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ily a property of attitudes in virtue of which people are pro or con, for or against, something, such as brutal conduct. Normative judgments are then accounted for in terms of such psychological properties as their expressing pro or con attitudes or their motivating the appropriate kind of action or reflecting such motivation. The view can even avoid subjectivism by developing a (naturalistic) theory of good and bad reasons for moral attitudes. It should not escape notice that this noncognitivist view supports naturalism in ethics only by giving up on the common-sense conception not only of moral properties but also of moral truths. If we say that it is true that A wronged B, we must reinterpret this in terms of expressing, say, an attitude or perhaps a prescription, such as being disapproving toward the type of act or implicitly condemning it. The common normative and truth-ascribing terms used in ethics are preserved, but not their apparently real referents.12 A different anti-realist approach is exhibited by constructivists in ethics. They are understandably unhappy with giving up cognitivity, and with it, truth in ethics, but they agree with noncognitivists that there are no moral facts or normative properties in the usual robust sense implying a place in our ontology. It is not clear that this project will succeed.13 A major challenge it faces is to provide a notion of construction for moral standards that is plausible enough to yield a viable ethical theory but does not collapse into taking moral properties to be natural properties, such as that of being endorsable, in one way or another, on the basis of a naturalistically describable procedure. Discussing this in detail is not possible here, but there is already published work that indicates difficulties for the view and in this paper I must be content simply to refer to critical work that

  For a recent critical discussion of noncognitivism, with careful attention to recently leading proponents, see M. Huemer, Ethical Intuitionism, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills 2005, ch 2. 13   For problems confronting a wide variety of constructivist positions, see C. Bagnoli, Constructivism, [in:] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2010). 12

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casts doubt on the possibility of naturalization of ethics along constructivist lines.14

4. The Naturalization of Practical Reason I take it as clear that if there are any normative truths, then there are normative reasons. If, for instance, it is true that there is something we ought to do, there is reason to do it. If, moreover, anything has intrinsic value, there is (prima facie) reason to preserve or enhance or perhaps honor it (or to bring it about if it does not exist, as in the case of good experiences). But (as stressed above) things are not brutely good, nor acts brutely obligatory. For instance, reading Joseph Conrad is good as enjoyable, and an act is obligatory as the keeping of a promise. Moreover, on my view, if there are genuinely normative reasons, then there are normative truths. Let us explore the possibility of reductively naturalizing reasons in the normative domain.

Reasons for action The examples just given indicate that there exist normative reasons as considerations that ground obligations and values. Reasons are basic for normativity. Arguably, the notion of a normative reason is the most basic normative notion. Normative reasons are, roughly, rationality-making reasons and include good-making and obligation-conferring instances of such reasons. Thus, being enjoyable is good-making and gives prima facie rational support to pursuing the thing in  My Moral Knowledge, [in:] The Routledge Companion to Ethics, ed. J. Scorupski, Routledge, London 2010, pp. 275–285, argues that constructivism fails to steer a stable course between realism and noncognitivism. Insofar as it is plausible, it seems realistic and – if it depends of such posits as the value of persons – indeed non-reductive regarding the normative. I would speculate that it represents an attempt to naturalize Kant, taking the categorical imperative framework to be a kind of constructive procedure for obligation, but it seems to take him too close to Hume. 14

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question; being promised is obligation-making prima facie supports doing the promised deed. In the theory of practical reason, the most common way to seek a naturalization of practical reasons is the Humean route. The basis of normative reasons, on the Humean view, is desire, specifically, non-instrumental desire. There are instrumental reasons, of course, but their authority depends on that of noninstrumental ones. I may have excellent reason to take a medicine as a means of relieving a headache, but if there were no reason to seek relief, then the medicine’s relieving properties would provide no reason for action. Reasons for action, then, are ultimately expressed by desires that are non-instrumental, in the wide sense in which desire (wanting) is simply a motivational state of the kind that impels one toward seeking its object. On the most straightforward desire-based theory, we get a maximizing account of reasons for action: an overriding reason for action is one that, relative to the agent’s alternatives, maximizes desire-satisfaction. A reason for action, then, is a consideration that counts toward such maximality. This account of a reason for action is apparently naturalistic, at least on the plausible assumption that the notion of desire-satisfaction is naturalistic.

Instrumentalism in the theory of practical reason Is the instrumentalist account of rational action sustainable? We should begin with a crucial point not always realized. Instrumentalism is content-neutral: it takes nothing to be intrinsically worth wanting. Reasons for action are naturalistically grounded in our psychology: in what we want (non-instrumentally). They do not require our wanting the right sorts of things, such as things that genuinely have intrinsic value. The content-neutrality of instrumentalism is apparently often missed or insufficiently appreciated. One possible explanation is that some virtual universals of human nature provide our motivational starting points – the instrumental-

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ists’ foundations of reasons for action. These are often provided by our strong natural desires constituted by our (non-instrumental) aversion to the painful and the unpleasant and our (non-instrumental) attraction to the pleasurable. The relevant hedonic desires are plainly natural. Add to this that frustration of desires for pleasure is unpleasant. Thus, human nature saves instrumentalism from extensional absurdities of the most obvious kind: much of what, by nature, we desire is enjoyable and wanted for its pleasure-making properties; much of what we naturally want to avoid, or “negatively desire,” is painful or unpleasant. These hedonic pursuits, however, are the kinds of things that quite different theories – including such non-naturalistic ones as Moore’s or Ross’s – can take to be supported by normative reasons. There are many variants of instrumentalism. Consider just the required instrumental beliefs that guide action. Some variants are subjectivist in appraising these, some objective. The simplest version is objective in the (limited) sense that it takes an action to be rational for an agent if and only if the action is truly believed to be at least as good as any alternative in achieving satisfaction of the agent’s intrinsic desires. There are various kinds of such optimal satisfaction of intrinsic desire. This may, for instance, be a matter of satisfying a single intrinsic desire whose strength is greater than the combined strength of any competing set of desires the agent has at the time, or of satisfying a set of intrinsic desires whose combined strength is greater than that of any set of such desires satisfiable by an alternative action open to the agent.15 It is more plausible, however, to be less objectivistic and to conceive what is rational for us as relative to what we simply believe will optimize our intrinsic desire satisfaction. Intuitively speaking, one   Two points of clarification will help. First, I assume for the sake of argument that we may speak of combined desire strengths at least in a way that enables us to make comparative determinations of strength. Second, my focus is the rationality of an action for S, not S’s acting rationally; I take the latter to be more complex, requiring that the action be based on the reason(s) that make it rational. 15

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might argue that if I act on my beliefs, then even if some are false, I am still being guided by the only map I have, and that is surely rational. This version of instrumentalism, like its objective cousin just stated, is also naturalistic. It construes the rationality of an action as simply a kind of fit between the action-type in question and the agent’s instrumental beliefs and basic desires. On reflection, however, the position seems both too permissive and excessively subjective. Suppose the beliefs in question are patently irrational and would be abandoned by the agent on a brief examination of their content. Here it is quite implausible to consider the action rational for the agent. The implausibility of this highly subjectivist view is confirmed by its failure to satisfy two reasonable constraints on a theory of rational action. First, such a theory should account for the sense in which a full-bloodedly rational action is a candidate for advisability, or at least minimal approvability, and, especially, for the inadvisability of certain non-rational actions, by someone who cares about the agent’s well-being.16 Second, it should enable us to explain why performing full-bloodedly rational actions counts toward – or at least never counts against – being a rational person. To illustrate, we would normally advise anyone we care about not to perform an action we take to be irrational. Moreover, if we take anyone to act on an irrational instrumental belief, we consider this prima facie evidence of some deficiency in the person’s rationality at the time. Thus, the highly subjectivist notion of rational action just stated will not enable instrumentalism to meet the suggested constraints.   For a naturalistic defense of a neo-Humean position on practical reason which takes advisability into account, see D. Hubin, The Groundless Normativity of Instrumental Rationality, “Journal of Philosophy” 2001, vol. XCVIII, no. 9, pp. 445–468. He says, e.g., that “there may be a fact of the matter about what action is rationally recommended for an agent... it is the agent’s values that play this role in determining what is rationally advisable for an agent... at bottom, there is a fact – a brute fact – about the agent’s subjective, contingent, conative states... the property of advisability just is the property of being properly related to these brute facts...” (pp. 466–467).

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Constrained instrumentalism It is not obvious how instrumentalists might best resolve the problem of what constraints to impose on the crucial instrumental beliefs, and the literature apparently contains no single leading proposal. A plausible tentative formulation might be this: an action is rational for you if and only if, given what you rationally believe on the basis of your total relevant evidence, the action optimizes your intrinsic desire satisfaction. Alternatively, one could speak here of what you would rationally believe on appropriately considering that evidence.17 If, as I suspect, such ideas must be restricted further by a plausible instrumentalism, that should in any case not affect what follows. My main concern is to assess the basic instrumentalist – and naturalistic – idea that practical reason is an instrument of desire. If that idea – call it the practical sovereignty of desire – is unsound, the question of rules for determining a good instrument – a producer of optimal action – is secondary. As against the simple objective formulation, the two formulations just stated rely on the normative notion of rational belief. Instrumentalism so conceived can thus yield a fully naturalistic account of rational action only if the notion of rational belief – or at least the property of rationally believing – is naturalizable. Reliabilist theories of justification in epistemology are perhaps the best candidates to fulfill that aim (assuming, plausibly, I think, that success in naturalizing justification can be extended to rationality). I believe it is far from clear that they can succeed. I cannot argue this in detail here but will indicate some of the central points indicat-

  Cf. R. Fumerton, Reason and Morality, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1990: S has most reason to X provided “The collective weight of S’s ends that might (relative to S’s evidence) be satisfied (frustrated) by X, when the value of each end is adjusted for the probability (relative to S’s evidence) of its occurring, is greater than the collective weight of ... any of the alternatives” (p. 101), where “an end for S ... [is] something that S wants or values for its own sake” (p. 94). 17

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ing why I favor an account of justification that is apparently nonnaturalistic.18 Consider first how we might explain what it is for a belief to be justified. We might best begin by pointing out examples illustrating how perception and intuition yield justification. If there is any doubt about the constitutive status of these two elements, consider someone who asks what justifies me in believing there is a watermelon on the table and rejects, as irrelevant, ‘I have a clear visual impression of one there’. It is one thing to say that visual experience does not provide proof; I grant that, but there is something conceptually wrong with calling it irrelevant to justification. A second important datum concerns the apparent impossibility of treating justifiedness as simply a matter of a reliable basis of the belief in question, where reliability is understood purely probabilistically (or causally or in any other wholly naturalistic way). It is conceivable that one could have a reliably produced belief and even knowledge, owing to the kind of abnormal ability that can be found in an idiot savant, such as someone who can instantly do correct multiplications of pairs of three-digit numbers. To see this, assume that the person never remembers being right – so has no inductive justification for believing the arithmetic answers that come to mind. Add that the person is not aware of any basis for the answers. It is now plausible to say there is no justification. These considerations do not show that knowledge cannot be naturalized, but if knowledge is possible without justification, as is suggested by this case (and as a number of epistemologists hold), then there is perhaps no reason, and certainly seems to be no compelling reason, to consider knowledge to be, as justification surely is, normative. If I am right about the richness of the raw materials instrumentalism requires in order to provide a plausible account of rational action,   My appraisal of the internalism-externalism controversy is given in (among other writings) An Internalist Theory of Normative Grounds, “Philosophical Topics” 2002, vol. 29, nos. 1 & 2, pp. 19–46. Also relevant is my critical notice of A.I. Goldman, Epistemology and Cognition, “Philosophy and Phenomenological Research” 1989, vol. XLIX, no. 4, pp. 733–738. 18

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then the project of instrumentalist naturalization of practical reason is not self-contained: its success is conditional on supplementation by a major epistemological theory.19 Suppose for the sake of argument, however, that epistemology – including the property of rationality for beliefs – is naturalizable, and let us sophisticate instrumentalism by adding rational beliefs to its resources. The resulting Humean account still has untoward consequences. One problem is the manipulability of desire. What if we had a predominant desire for a drug-induced state of merely physical stimulations alternating with dreamless sleep? For instrumentalism, rejecting this disturbing view is at best difficult to justify. It is at best unclear, however, what instrumentalist premises preclude artificially developed desires from having as much normative authority as natural ones. Still another problem is accounting for moral standards. Even if there happen to be necessary equivalences between moral practical reasons and desire-based reasons, the latter would not provide the right kinds of grounds for moral conduct. Some instrumentalists might of course deny that there are irreducible moral reasons, as opposed to desire-based reasons with content appropriate to yielding harmonious interpersonal behavior. But if, as will be proposed below, moral reasons have normative authority in their own right, this eliminativist view is unacceptable.

The problem of conative momentum Instrumentalist attempts to naturalize practical reason also face a quite different kind of problem. Let me provide some background for it. Consider the notion of intrinsic desire – the kind usually viewed as equivalent to Hume’s foundational “passions.” Intrinsic desire is commonly contrasted with instrumental desire, and the latter is often taken to exhaust the category of extrinsic desire. It does not. Intrinsic 19   For a plausible attempt to present a detailed naturalistic epistemology, see A.I. Goldman, Epistemology and Cognition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1986.

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desire (the kind Hume had in mind in speaking of passions), is desire for something for its own sake; this implies wanting it on account of something taken to be intrinsic to it, such as the refreshing qualities of water. But (as we shall see) a desire can be merely non-instrumental: neither intrinsic nor instrumental, as where a desire utterly isolated from one’s interests is induced by posthypnotic suggestion and one has no idea why one has it, such as a sense of the pleasantness of realizing it. If we keep in mind that there are two kinds of non-instrumental desire, we can see that at least for pure instrumentalism, it makes no difference whether a desire is intrinsic or merely non-instrumental. But there is in fact an important difference. Suppose one forgets why one wanted something, such as to go to the bookstore, but still does this. The action of going there is a response to the desire and may occur even when one has forgotten, but does not realize one has forgotten, why one is going there, yet also has no (intrinsic) desire to do it for its own sake. Since one has forgotten this, the action, although plainly desire-based, is not a candidate to be rational as a means to any further end. “Why on earth am I doing this?” one might ask oneself as, halfway to the store, one realizes one does not know why one is going there. Still, that one desires something other than as a means (non-instrumentally) is all that matters. Such a desire – call it a residual desire since it remains after its ground is forgotten – can have a clearly attainable object, and it defines a goal for action as clearly as does an intrinsic desire. We can act to realize a residual or other merely non-instrumental desire, get what we want in so acting, and do so efficiently or inefficiently in the same sense that applies to instrumental action in general. This apparent commitment of instrumentalism to the reasongiving power of merely non-instrumental desires is entirely consistent with the related psychological point that believing one does not know why one wants to go to the bookstore (or is heading there) can eliminate the desire to, especially if one realizes that one originally wanted to do it only as a means. Normatively, the desire is, for instrumentalism, still not irrational and indeed capable of pro-

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viding a perfectly good reason for action, say to park one’s car at the bookstore. A consequence of conceding reason-giving power to a merely non-instrumental desire is this. Even though this residual desire is not intrinsic and (typically) would be easily given up upon realizing that one has no idea why one has it, wanting to do something purely as a means to realizing such a desire would, from an instrumental perspective, provide a reason for this action derivatively from the “grounding” of this instrumental desire in the noninstrumental desire to which it is subordinate.20 Is there, however, any (normative) reason to perform the second action, say to ask someone to move a car so that one can drive to the bookstore? Doing this might be reasonable on the basis of wanting to recall what one wanted (one might think it would jog memory), but not in order to fulfill the residual, merely non-instrumental desire to drive to the store. A major challenge for instrumentalism as a naturalization project, then, is to solve the problem posed by the conative momentum that these residual desires may have: why is it that merely noninstrumental desires cannot provide reasons for action? It is not clear that there is any resolution that is not either ad hoc or ultimately dependent on a different, and objectivistic, theory of practical reason. A naturalistic reduction project may draw on points made in this section by abandoning instrumentalism as an account of practical reasons and seeking a kind of objective account that yields a quite ecumenical reductivism. For anyone who agrees that hedonic considerations, promises, avoiding lies, and other descriptively identifi The reason is, however, entirely derivative. Otherwise, even where one wants A purely as a means to B, one could be credited with two reasons to A – that one wants to A and that one wants to B – which could outweigh an intrinsic desire to C stronger than the desire to A. At that rate one could prefer swimming to boating, but since the strength of one’s desire for the latter, together with the strength of one’s desire to rent a boat, as a means to it, could be greater than the strength of one’s desire to swim, one could have better reason to go boating. 20

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able states of affairs can provide reasons for action, it may be natural to claim that such normative notions as obligatoriness and intrinsic goodness are reducible to disjunctive properties. Being obligatory, for example, might be the property (of an act) of either having been promised or being a reducing of suffering or an avoidance of lying or…, and so forth for all the types of basic normative grounds. But are there disjunctive properties, as opposed to disjunctive ascriptions of properties? And can we complete the list of partially reducing properties satisfactorily? Both prospects appear sufficiently dim to make it reasonable to place the burden of proof on those who attracted to the view.21

5. Moral Perception as a Natural Phenomenon I have stressed the epistemological and ontological authority of perception. Once these are seen to be a major incentive to naturalize normativity, it becomes important to consider whether moral perception can be naturalized and can also serve as a model for other kinds of normative perception (for instance aesthetic or even “evidential” perception, say seeing one proposition to support another). Moreover, any account of ethical objectivity – something ethical naturalists generally wish to preserve – should provide a major role for perception. Reductive naturalism does this in the most direct way. Non-reductive “naturalism,” and indeed traditional intuitionist ethics, do it indirectly by taking moral properties to be consequential on natural ones, where the latter – say violence in interpersonal acts – are the perceptible kind on the basis of which the former are possessed. Might we go further in accounting for objectivity and moral knowledge by countenancing perception that is itself moral but also has properties important for a naturalistic epistemology? If, as seems plain, moral perception is based on   This assessment is supported in my forthcoming Naturalism as a Philosophical and Scientific Framework: A Critical Perspective. 21

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ordinary perception of people and their behavior, it should be expected to have the causal element possessed by sensory perception and a similar kind of normative authority, but affirming this would entail no commitment to supernatural authority. Let me suggest how this seems possible and how, without commitment to naturalism, it may be taken to keep morality down to earth and, as naturalists and many non-naturalists alike would wish, free of supernatural dependence.22

A sketch of moral perception Moral perception is not an exact analogue of physical perception, at least of seeing everyday visible objects. Moral properties are not easily conceived as observable, in what seems (given our actual biological constitution) the most elementary way: no sensory representation is possible for them. Does one, then, in any sense see injustice or wrongdoing observationally? Or is such apparently moral perception just a seeing of a set of “base properties” for wrongness – that is, properties on which wrongness is consequential? One might think that the phenomenal elements in perception properly so called must be sensory in the representational way that goes with paradigms of seeing, touching, and so forth for the other senses. But might there be, for instance, a phenomenal sense of injustice that is not “pictorial” in the way the visual impression of the United Nations Headquarters is? Must perceptual experience be cartographic – embodying a “mapping” from phenomenal properties, such as visualizing the evenly spaced windows on a building’s face, to properties of the object perceived? I doubt that this is necessary. Why should cartographic representation of a property be necessary for perceiving it? Consider olfactory and gustatory perception. We cannot map or draw smells or tastes; and even if smells and sounds enable 22   The remainder of this section largely follows but also extends my Moral Perception, forthcoming from Princeton University Press in 2013.

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us to identify their sources, they typically provide far less informational detail than sight. Thus, although, for certain cases of injustice, we may find a mapping, for the concrete deed seen to be unjust, from a perceptual sense of injustice to certain of the base properties of injustice, there is no phenomenal property that has a cartographic representational relation to the property of injustice itself. We should distinguish between a phenomenal – and especially, a cartographic – representation of injustice and a phenomenal representation constituted by a kind of perceptual response to it. Thus, the experiential element in moral perception might be constituted by the sense of injustice provided that sense is based on, and phenomenally integrated with, a suitable ordinary perception of the properties on which injustice is consequential. This sense of injustice may, but need not be, combined with some emotional element. It is responsive to (and not merely caused by) the base properties, and it takes its character partly from them. A subtle slighting of a fellow conference participant produces a different kind of sense of injustice from the sight of police clubbing a peaceful protest marcher. In both cases, however, the injustice is seen by seeing the properties that ground it. An analogy will help here. We can see psychological properties such as grief and anger: think of the wailing of the marcher’s wife if he is killed by the clubbing. True, what impinges on the senses is only the wailing and the tears, the spattered blood, the body bent over the dead husband. But should we say that the grief is not perceptible because it is seen through what might be called constitutive manifestations of it? Granted, these can be mimicked by a good actor. But a lifesize photo of a motionless person may also mimic the real thing and deceive us. We should not conclude for that reason that we never see motionless people. Some injustices seem as perceptible as grief and perhaps as perceptible as persons themselves. This is significant for appraising the aspirations of moral naturalism. Perceptibility is a kind of natural status, even if it does not require that only natural properties are perceptible.

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The causal character of moral perception It should be apparent, then, that the notion of perception as I construe it can accommodate moral perception by incorporating a distinction between perceptual representations of an ordinary sensory kind and perceptual representations that integrate sensory information with a phenomenal response having a certain moral character, for instance elements of indignation, or of disapproval, and, on the positive side, a sense of obligation fulfilled, a sense not uncommonly felt when one keeps a promise. Can this broad view of perception, however, do justice to the causal character of perception? It can. It does not do so, however, by treating (moral) perceptual property instances like seeing injustice as causally produced or sustained by instances of moral properties. The proposed theory of moral perception is neutral regarding the possibility that moral properties are causal and, as that suggests, also neutral regarding the possibility of their turning out to be natural properties. It does, however, construe seeing a subset of base properties for injustice as – at least given appropriate understanding of their connections with moral properties – a kind of perception of a moral property; and this kind includes such ordinary perceptions as seeing a seizure of a woman’s purse, or hearing an abusive vulgarity screamed at a lecturer. Given the psychological constitution of normal adults, they may normally be unable to witness these things without a phenomenal sense of wrongdoing integrated with their perceptual representation of the wrong-making facts.23 Moreover, given how we see certain base properties that are sufficient for injustice, we are sometimes perceptually warranted in believing that, for instance, one person is doing an injustice to another. When we are thus perceptually warranted in believing this, we are of  The view outlined here is a sketch of one developed in detail in my Moral Perception, forthcoming from Princeton University Press in 2013. For related work developing a partial phenomenology of moral perception see T. Horgan, M. Timmons, What Does Phenomenology Tell us about Moral Objectivity?, “Social Theory and Policy” 2008, no. 25, pp. 267–300. They also explore phenomenological aspects of fittingness. 23

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ten properly describable as seeing that the first is doing an injustice to the second and, indeed, as knowing this. One might think that accounting for moral perception requires naturalizing moral properties so that they can figure in the causal order in the same way as observable natural properties. I am not seeking to naturalize moral properties, nor is doing so required for explaining the data regarding moral perception.24 First, the experiential responses to moral properties that entitle us to speak of moral perception are causally explainable in terms of a basis in the natural properties on which moral properties are consequential. Second, this is possible whether or not moral properties are themselves causal or otherwise natural.

A naturalistic view of moral perception If this account does not naturalize moral properties, might it still be considered a non-reductive naturalization of moral perception? Perhaps in a sense it might be, if one bears in mind that non-reductive naturalism does not fulfill the aims of philosophical naturalism. Granted, all the constituents in the account except moral properties, concepts, and relations are naturalistic entities, and even the former properties are not presupposed to be non-natural. But moral properties themselves are not naturalized. Still, I not only take moral perception to be a causal relation but also grant that the base properties for moral properties are natural and have causal power. The noncausal element, both in moral perception and in knowledge acquired through moral perception, belongs to aspects of conceptual capacities that go with an adequate understanding of moral concepts and with what I take to be the a priori character of the relation between   For critical discussion of Sturgeon’s “Cornell Realist” attempt to naturalize moral properties, see my Ethical Naturalism and the Explanatory Power of Moral Concepts, [in:] Naturalism: A Critical Appraisal, eds. S. Wagner, R. Warner, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame 1993, pp. 95–115. That paper argues in a somewhat parallel way that naturalizing moral explanations is possible without naturalizing moral properties.

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moral properties and the non-moral, natural ones on which they are consequential. The phenomenally distinctive kind of experience in virtue of which (in part) a moral perception counts as a perception is causally grounded in perception of natural properties, and it may be considered a causally grounded response to a moral property. In the light of all this, I suggest that although moral properties are apparently not natural properties, they are constitutively anchored in natural properties in an intimate way such that seeing or otherwise perceiving the natural properties or relations that are their base suffices, given an appropriate phenomenal response, to warrant describing certain experiences as perceptions of such moral properties as injustice or wrongdoing. When moral perceptions like these occur, the perceiver is in a position to see (though the person need not realize) that something, such as an action or person, has the property in question. Such propositional perception embodies a kind of moral knowledge. Its causal element, together with consequentiality, assures both realism and the possibility of perceptual objectivity. It may be noticed that the account says nothing about motivation. It is neutral on the issue of whether holding a moral judgment entails motivation to act on it. The account does, however, allow for both ethically relevant desires and moral emotions to play a motivational role; and in allowing that, in accommodating the causal character of perception, and in giving natural properties the crucial grounding role they have in moral perception, the view provides most of the elements – some would say the most important elements – sought by naturalism in ethics.

6. Outline of a General Account of Normativity Recall that normativity occurs in many realms, for instance the epistemic, the aesthetic, the religious, and of course the moral. Is it possible to construct a unified account of normativity? If not, then assessing the prospects for its naturalization is even more difficult than we have so far seen it to be. Insofar as normativity can be accounted for

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by a theory of theoretical and practical reasons, a unified account of it does seem possible.

The experiential grounds of normativity What I propose (and have developed elsewhere25) is an experientialist account on which the qualities of experience constitute the ultimate grounds of theoretical and practical reasons. Our reasons for action or belief rest on internally accessible grounds of a kind that are common in human experience, say sense experiences or memory impressions. Consider first “theoretical” grounds, such as those provided by perceptual experience – these grounds do not presuppose a theory but are “theoretical” in belonging to the realm of theoretical rather than practical reason. Theoretical grounds, for instance perceptual, memorial, or intuitive grounds, confer believability (roughly, credibility) on certain propositions or predications whose content the grounds in some way match. Parallel grounds, such as the pain of immersion in icewater, confer desirability on certain states of affairs. Such points suggest that the good and the true are the realms of the broad standards to which normative reasons are, as it were, responsible. Both sets of standards are objective and ubiquitously applicable. There is much truth in the analogy: Valuing is to the valuable as believing is to the true. The suggested (partial) account may seem to represent normativity as in some way passive. It does not. Normative properties figure in normative practices such as guiding and criticizing action. These are a kind of motivated behavior and often based on desires quite natural to us, such as the desire to educate our children. Such normative practices are pluralistic in their governing principles; they reflect many kinds of value and obligation.   In e.g., The Architecture of Reason: The Structure and Substance of Rationality, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001.

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The motivational aspects of normative judgments Does such a realist view lose the motivational element apparently possessed by self-addressed normative judgments (e.g. that one should answer objections to one’s view), an element heavily stressed by Humeans? It does not. It accounts for motivation in rational, integrated persons, which is the crucial thing. Such persons exhibit a high degree of coherence between their belief systems and their motivation; they thus tend to be motivated by their normative judgments. Noncognitivists, following Hume, may hold that, contrary to what moral realism apparently implies, self-addressed moral judgments are intrinsically motivating. But this has not been shown and seems mistaken.26 Once we restrict attention, as we must here, to integrated rational agents, motivation comes back in. The reality of moral and other normative properties does not prevent our responses to these properties – and to the “external” reasons they ground – perceptual or attitudinal, from motivating us to act in the ways those reasons support. Note too the motivational potentialities of representative experiential grounds of normativity. Painful experiences powerfully motivate action to reduce or avoid the pain. The prospect of pleasure is also characteristically a pervasive motive in human life. And it may be almost as natural for us to have an aversion to seeing such gross immorality as violence to defenseless innocent people. There may be an evolutionary explanation for the prominence of such motives. That is not of concern here. The point here is that the realist, experientialist account of normativity focuses not on otherworldly elements or elements whose power to motivate is in doubt, but on common experiences that play prominent roles in both our explanatory and our critical discourse.  My Moral Judgment and Reasons for Action, [in:] Ethics and Practical Reason, eds. G. Cullity, B. Gaut, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1997, pp. 125–159 argues in detail for a weaker view of the relation between moral judgment and motivation and connects both notions with weakness of will. 26

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So far, I have considered normativity and motivation mainly in the practical realm. Might something similar be said regarding the motivational aspect of the normativity of theoretical reason? To take just one relevant analogy, compare occurrently believing one is abundantly justified in believing that p (a proposition) with being abundantly justified in making the practical judgment that one ought all things considered to A (an action). First, the former belief produces a tendency to believe p, as the latter produces a tendency to A. Secondly, given abundant justification for p, believing some obviously contrary proposition instead manifests a kind of doxastic incontinence, much as, where one justifiedly judges that A-ing is obligatory, doing something obviously incompatible with A-ing manifests behavioral incontinence. Thirdly, believing that p tends to make it natural to infer (and believe) obvious consequences of p, much as judging that one ought to A tends to make it natural, regarding actions one considers means to A-ing, to make favorable judgments to the effect that one should perform them. Normative theoretical beliefs can motivate cognition in a way analogous to the way in which normative practical judgments and indeed justified desires, intentions, and valuations, may motivate action. One might wonder why the motivational aspects of normativity have been considered here mainly in relation to judgments ascribing the relevant normative status, say obligation. This is in part because it is judgments, rather than the experiential elements that are their basic grounds, which are properly considered normative. It is also in part because, in most philosophical literature on normativity and motivation, judgments have been connected with motivation in appraising normative realism and reductive naturalism. Here the distinction made earlier between what is normative in content and what is normative in upshot is highly pertinent. The experiential grounds of normativity are plainly normative in upshot; and they clearly tend to be motivating in a certain way. For instance, the sense of desirability, say of hearing an opera, is positively motivating and tends to yield action – an important point for the theory of practical rea-

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son. Similarly, the sense of plausibility – a kind of felt appearance of truth, such as perception yields – is cognitively motivating and tends to yield belief. This is an important point in the theory of theoretical reason and is related to recent epistemological literature on “phenomenal conservatism.”27 Here I would also stress a kind of appropriateness in this motivational phenomenon: if an experiential state that supports a normative judgment is motivating, then we should expect that (sincerely) making that judgment should, in a rational person, tend to be motivating. This is in part because the judgment itself commonly issues from a sense of the presence of the motivating ground; but even when it does not, comprehendingly making it presupposes the significance of such grounds. Judging that an act is desirable, for instance, presupposes its being supported by grounds of desirability, such as pleasure. These are grounds which, even in prospect, are commonly motivating; and judging that a view is justified presupposes its being supported by grounds of believability, such as evidences of memory, which are cognitively motivating. Motivationally, normative judgments can function as surrogates for grounds that support their content.

The epistemic autonomy of normative judgment One further point is important here. It concerns a kind of judgmental autonomy that seems best accounted for on the view that normative properties are not a kind of natural property and that, consonantly with this, are not analytically entailed by any finite disjunction of natural properties. If the judgment that a kind of act is (overall) wrong or a state of affairs is good in itself does not bear such close relations to an attribution of descriptive properties, then even what we view as a full (non-normative) description of acts and states of affairs of the kinds   For wide-ranging discussion of phenomenal conservatism, see Seemings and Justification, ed. Christopher Tucker, forthcoming from Oxford University Press in 2013. 27

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in question may be expected to leave open how it is to be evaluated. Take, for instance, the proposition that an act maximizes the proportion of pleasure to pain among persons. If this is equivalent to ascribing obligatoriness to it, then discovering that it obtains should commit us to performing it. To be sure, although normative properties are consequential on natural ones – which implies that there will be a truth of the matter as to the possession of a moral property given the possession of the base properties – nonetheless, knowledge of that truth may be unobtainable or impossible, even given knowledge of the base properties. This may be so even if normative properties are natural. This is a case of epistemic underdetermination. Let me illustrate. Recall cruelty as a property that, though normative in upshot, is not normative in content. Suppose, plausibly, that this is a natural property consequential on such properties as an intrinsic desire to cause suffering. The vagueness of this notion, as to at least the strength of the relevant desire relative to others the agent has, may prevent knowing whether a person is cruel even given the assumption that there is a truth to be known in such cases of vagueness. Cruelty is not an isolated case. A certain epistemic autonomy of judgment is present in many kinds of complex cases; my suggestion here is that where the judgment concerns a consequential property that is not even of the same ontic type as the base properties, there is stronger reason to expect such autonomy, and perhaps reason to expect a higher degree of it, than where the base properties are of the same ontic type as the property judged to be present. If we restrict the question to judgments of overall normative status – hence to cases in which a plurality of considerations must be weighed – the point gains further support. Granted, obligatoriness could be entailed in any case; but if there is no identity between normative and natural properties, such as the kind reduction would imply, then it is at best unclear how we would know that the entailment holds or even have sufficient justification for positing it to take it as a straightforwardly sufficient condition for obligatoriness. We would have to leave open the possibility that some other variable is relevant to obligatoriness and that our

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judgment should take account of it. There is, in this way, a kind of autonomy of moral judgment that applies where the relation between normative properties and their natural base properties has the kind of open-endedness and complexity I have indicated. The same holds in epistemology, where it is even clearer that (at least for empirical propositions), no one naturalistic criterion of justification for belief, such as visual representation of its truth, entails overall justification for believing it. More generally, for both practical and theoretical reason, even when a descriptive ground for a normative ascription is discerned, the judgment it supports is not indefeasibly justified, nor, in most cases is any overall normative status, such as justification on balance, entailed. This often requires agents to exercise judgment before forming a belief of one or another of the propositions left open by the evidence. Reasons for action may conflict, as may reasons for belief. Viewing a stabbing provides entailing grounds for ascribing only a prima facie wrong; unless self-defense (among other things) is ruled out, overall wrong is not entailed; and even the property of being a stabbing other than in self-defense is not equivalent to being wrong overall. The descriptive bases on which normative properties are properly ascribed epistemically underdetermine those ascriptions. Here, as with observational propositions in relation to theoretical ones in science, the descriptive facts leave room for the exercise of normative judgment.

*** We have seen incentives to naturalize the normative, and I have sketched some leading attempts to do so. These attempts apparently fail, but they do help us to see some of the reasons why a good normative theory should have what I call a naturalistic anchor. Normative properties are grounded on properties that it is plausible to call natural, and this relation provides the appropriate realistic anchoring

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for normative judgments. These grounding natural properties are not identical with the normative ones grounded on them, but that leaves open that the former may yet be a kind of natural property. I see no good reason to conclude this, though I cannot claim to have established its falsity. We may, however, account for the objectivity of ethics and meet other challenges, such as the motivational challenge noncognitivists pose for realists, without reduction or elimination of normative properties. On my view, a sufficiently ramified experientialist theory of reasons, both theoretical and practical, can provide the needed resources. It enables us to see normative truths on the basis of grasping descriptively accessible facts. It makes possible rational disagreement in normative matters but, in many cases, also provides a way to adjudicate such disagreements. It even accounts for the possibility of moral perception. That possibility may justify speaking of partially naturalizing one kind of moral knowledge. But it does not imply that there are no irreducibly normative properties, properties that do not simply describe the world as scientific theorizing may enable us to do. Nature provides facts that ground normative knowledge, but it does not follow that normative knowledge can be reduced to knowledge of natural properties; and normative properties, even though anchored in the natural world, may well not be a kind of natural property.28

  This paper reflects earlier work of mine but also contains much that has not appeared. Some of the references are in the notes, and material based on previous work has generally been revised or expanded or both, including my recent Can Normativity be Naturalized?, [in:] Ethical Naturalism: Current Debates, eds. S. Nuccetelli, G. Shea, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2012, pp. 169–193. The paper benefitted from discussion at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and its publication is made possible through a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation. 28

Jan Woleński Jagiellonian University University of Information, Technology and Management, Rzeszów

Some Analogies Between Normative and Epistemic Discourse1

K

ant divided sentences (I will use the terms “sentence” and “propositions” as referring to the same entities) into assertoric, problematic and apoidectic. This division was traditionally considered to be very closely related to modals, that is, linguistic words expressing modalities. In particular, problematic propositions express possibility, while apoidectic are concerned with necessity. Even if we consider assertoric force to be modal (which means that assertoric propositions are regarded as modal), Kant’s account was entirely restricted to so-called alethic modalities and, thereby, was very narrow. According to the contemporary view, modal sentences, not modal words, are the most basic unit of modal discourse. The variety of modal sentences is much wider than the necessities (utterances expressing necessity) and possibilities (utterances expressing possibility) and includes their various kinds (or species) except paradigmatic alethic modalities,2 for instance (the list is incomplete and, for example, neglects erotetic (related to acts of questioning) and temporal modalities (some additional illustrations will be   This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation. 2   See P. Porter, Modality, Clarendon Press, Oxford 2009 for a survey from the linguistic point of view but supplemented by many logical and philosophical observations. 1

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later noticed), deontic (it is obligatory, permitted, forbidden, etc.; I will also use the adjective “normative” as referring to equivalent to normative modalities), axiological–ethical (it is good, wrong, ethically neutral, etc.), axiological-aesthetic (it is beautiful, ugly, aesthetically neutral, etc.), epistemic (I know, I do not know, it is not the case, that I do not know, etc.; the same in the third person in singular or other personal denomination) or doxastic (I suppose, I do not suppose, it is not the case that I do not suppose, etc.; the same for other personal denominations). We have a lot of other doxastic modalities, for example, I guess, I think, I assert, I believe, I think, I maintain, I assess, I doubt, I expect, etc. Although the epistemic and doxastic modalities listed above have cognitive meaning, some of them express different attitudes. For example, “I believe” can also be used to refer to mental acts based on religious faith. A natural question is such: are there similarities between particular species of modalities? Although my main focus concerns deontic and epistemic modalities, comparisons with other kinds of modals will be taken into account as well. The main part of the paper investigates formal issues, but some substantial problems are touched upon at the end of this paper. Some further preliminary explanations are in order here. I will not distinguish between norms and normative propositions. All sentences considered in this paper are understood as indicative in the grammatical sense. This entails that they are true or false. Deontic modalities form a relatively homogenous class, even if we distinguish between categorical and hypothetical deontic modals. The situation is different in the case of epistemic and doxastic modalities. The division between these two species is related to the ancient distinction between episteme (knowledge) and doxa (opinion). However, a formal analysis of epistemic and doxastic modals does not depends on differences, if any, between episteme and doxa. As I will later argue, one logical feature of the modalities in question suggests grouping them into one general category. Thus, I will simply speak about epistemic modalities in the broad sense as covering “I know” (the epistemic or epistemological modality in the restricted sense) as well as the traditional doxastic modals. Epistemic modalities analysed

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in this paper express so-called propositional attitudes having a cognitive role. Thus, I disregard other sources of attitudes, for instance, religious or magical. I also neglect perceptual modalities (note that this qualification is used by psychologists), like I see, I hear, I touch, etc. They are epistemic in the broad sense, but provide some special problems which exceed the scope of this paper. In my further analysis I will use a very elementary logical machinery, namely logical square and its two generalizations. The present analysis follows my earlier.3 Historically speaking, it was Robert Blanché4 who proposed modal extensions of the logical square.5 The most popular version of logical square (or the square of oppositions) records various logical relations between so-called categorical sentences being the core of traditional logic. These sentences are as follows: every S is P (SaP), no S is P (SeP), some S are P (SiP), some S are not P (SoP). These relations are visualized by the diagram (D1): α

γ

β

δ

  See J. Woleński, Logical squares: generalizations and interpretations, [in:] Logica ‘95. Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium, eds. T. Childers, P. Kolár, O. Majer, Filosofia, Praha 1996, pp. 67–75; J. Woleński, Applications of Squares of Oppositions and Their Generalizations In Philosophical Analysis, “Logica Universalis” 2008, no. 2(1), pp. 13–29; reprinted in J. Woleński, Essays on Logic and Its Applications in Philosophy, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2011, pp. 255–269. 4   See R. Blanché, Sur le opposition des concepts, “Theoria” 1953, no. 19, pp. 89–130. 5   See also P. McNamara, Deontic Logic, [in:] Handbook of the History of Logic, vol. 7, Logic and the Modalities in the Twentieth Century, eds. D. Gabbay, J. Woods, Elsevier, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 197–288 for the deontic case; see Handbook of the History of Logic, vol. 7, Logic and the Modalities in the Twentieth Century, eds. D. Gabbay, J. Woods, Elsevier, Amsterdam 2006 and Handbook of Modal Logic, eds. P. Blackburn, J.  Van Benthem, F. Wolter, Elsevier, Amsterdam, and The Continuum Handbook of Philosophical Logic, eds. L. Horsten, R. Pettigrew, Continuum, London 2011 for advanced comprehensive surveys of contemporary modal logic, mostly alethic systems. 3

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The point a can be read as ∀xPx (for every x, x is P), the point β as ¬ $xPx (or ∀ x¬Px; there is no such x, that x is P), the point γ as ¬∀xPx (or $x¬Px; there is such x, that x is not P). The modal interpretation of (D1) is the main focus of this paper. Let as understand α as ■A, β as ■¬A, γ as $xPx (there is such x that x is P), and the point δ as ♦A and δ as ♦¬A, we have the following logical connections (the symbol ├ A means “it is provable in the logic generated by (D1) that A” or “A is a theorem in the logic generated by (D1)”: A is a formula of propositional calculus”) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

├ ¬(a ∧ b) ├ (a ⇒g) ├ (b ⇒d) ├ (a ⇔ ¬d) ├ (b ⇔ ¬g) ├ (g ∨ d) ├ (■A ⇔ ¬♦¬A) ├ (♦A ⇔ ¬■¬A) ├ (b ⇔ ■¬A)

(a and b are contrary); (a entails g; g is subordinated to a); (b entails d; d is subordinated to b); (a and d are contradictory); (b and g are contradictory); (g and d are complementary); (■ is definable as ¬♦¬A); (♦ is definable as ¬■¬) (b is definable as ■¬A;

Due to (7) – (9), negation standing before ■ or ♦ is always eliminable. The above treatment of the box (■) and the diamond (♦) is purely syntactic and does not provide too many semantic and pragmatic intuitions. However, it is not difficult to see that (1) – (9) agree with the colloquial meaning of modal words. Alethic modalities are perhaps the most instructive example, but it is easy to check that deontic and epistemic modalities also behave according to the principles generated by (D1). We can also note an interesting linguistic fact, namely that deontic and alethic interpretations have own linguistic labels at g (possibility, permission), but other not. In particular, we have no separate word for epistemic possibility (I do not know that ¬A). The diagram (D1) can be extended to the logical hexagon (D2):

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ν α

β

γ

δ μ

The point m defined as ♦A ∧ ♦ ¬A. This formula can be read alethically as ‘it is possible that A and it is possible that not-A’ (A is accidental), deontically as ‘it is permitted that A and it is permitted that not-A’ (A is indifferent) and epistemically ‘I do not know that A and do not know that not-A’. Further, we have n =df ■A ∨ ■¬A (I postpone comments about the meaning of this formula). We have (among other things): (12) ¬(n ⇔ m) (n and m are contradictory); (13) a ∨ b ∨ m (a, b, m are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive). Thus, the logic generated by (D2) is richer than to be obtained from (D1). Historically speaking, it was Robert Blanché6 who proposed modal extensions of the logical square.7 The extension of the square (D1) to (D2) increases the expressive power of our modal discourse and allows us to express some important facts. For instance, we can distinguish two senses of contingency, one understood as non-necessity (the point d) and another as expressed by m. The latter is sometimes conceived as two-sided possibility as con6 7

  See R. Blanché, Sur le opposition des concepts, op. cit.   See also P. McNamara, Deontic Logic, op. cit. for the deontic case.

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trasted with one-sided possibility (the point g). Exactly analogical principles hold for deontic and epistemic modalities. In particular, we can distinguish between permission and indifference in the case of deontic modals. Clearly, due to (2), obligation entails permission (if A is obligatory, it i also permitted) but this implication fails if permission is understood as indifference. In fact, most people consider permission rather as expressed by indifference than by the point (g). The formula (13) asserts, freely speaking, alethically that every fact is either necessary or impossible or accidental, but deontically, that every action is either obligatory or prohibited or indifferent. Similar facts can be stated for epistemic modals, although their formulation is less intuitive for the absence of special single words expressing epistemic “possibility”. Note that logic as such does not decide whether something is necessary, possible, accidental, obligatory, permitted, known, etc. Hence, for instance, deriving the existence of necessary beings or necessary duties from the fact that there are contingent (or accidental) entities or permitted (or indifferent) actions is implausible on purely logical grounds and requires additional extralogical premises. This fact is neglected by many proponents of demonstrations of God as a necessary being. In fact, ontology admitting contingent beings as the only furniture of the world (the realm of existence) is perfectly consistent. Note that I employed the predicative reading of modals in some of the preceding explanation, for example, “A is necessary” instead “it is necessary that A” or “A is obliged” instead “it is obligatory that A”. Using the traditional terminology, I switched from the de dicto interpretation of modal sentences (modals functions as propositional or sentential operators and occur before their arguments) to the de re reading (modal operators are replaced by corresponding predicates standing inside sentences). There are various important problems here. I mention two such questions. Firstly, the status of the letter A must be re-interpreted under the de re interpretation, because we cannot consider it as a sentential variable. For instance, the phrase “tomorrow will rain is possible” is grammatically incorrect and should be replaced by something like “tomorrow rain is possible” or “that to-

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morrow there will be rain is possible”. Freely speaking, the predicative reading of modals refer to nominal denomination of facts, situations or states of affairs. Secondly, it is controversial whether modal predicates refer to properties of objects, facts, etc. Let us only mention that traditional ontology considered alethic modalities as expressing modes of beings and not as words contributing to the content of nonmodal phrases. Thus, if I say “A is necessary”, the adjective “necessary” does not increase the semantic content of A; the situation is, of course, similar, in the case of the sentence “it is necessary that A”. We can additionally increase the expressive power of (D1) by adding quantifiers. It is particularly suitable for epistemic contexts. Consider the formula ∀A(♦A ∧ ♦ ¬A) under the epistemic interpretation with “I know”. It means for any A, do not know that ¬A and I do not know A. This statement expressed that I am completely ignorant, that is, I have no knowledge about any fact. Contrary, the formula “for any A, a knows that A or a knows that ¬A” qualifies that a is omniscient. Correspondingly, the formulas $A(a knows that A) and $A(a does not know that ¬A and a does not know that ¬A) expresses, respectively, that a know something, and a is ignorant with respect to something. Now, read the box as “A is determined”. Thus, the formula ∀A(■A ∨ ■¬A) means that everything is determined and perhaps can be considered as an adequate statement of radical determinism. Its denial, that is, the formula ∀ A(♦A ∧ ♦ ¬A) formulates radical indeterminism (everything is accidental). Clearly, the conjunction $A(■A ∨ ■¬A) ∧ $A(♦A ∧ ♦ ¬A) can be accepted by moderate determinists as well as moderate indeterminism. The deontic reading of the universal closure of n represent a dream of every bureaucrat that everything is obligatory or prohibited. On the other hand, the deontic reading of the formula ∀ A(♦A ∧ ♦ ¬A) expresses the situation of the completely anarchistic world in which everything is indifferent (there are no obligations or prohibitions). We can also consider an axiological (ethical, but aesthetic is parallel) interpretation. The point a means that a is good. If we apply the universal quantification, we obtain the statement that any object is good. The medieval theory of transcendentals accepted the axiom ens

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and goodness convertuntur (being and goodness are mutually interreducible, that is, extensionally equivalent). However, it is an extralogical statement, perhaps true under some additional philosophical premises, but certainly not evident in itself. A similar remark concerns moral pessimism (which claims that everything is wrong) and moral indifferentism (nothing is good or wrong) as well as the universal closure of n providing a formal principle of moral Manichaeism (everything is good or wrong; Goodness or Evil). On the base of logic, we can only say that everything is good, wrong or morally indifferent or something similar, for instance, everything is good or not-good. These simple facts should be recommended to everybody who discusses the question of whether axiological or normative predicates refer to objective properties of objects or subjective accounts of them. Finally, let me observe that the box can be also read metamathematically as “it is provable that A”. Assume that “provable” means “provable is a system S”. Then, the formula ∀ A(■A ∨ ■¬A means “S is deductively complete”, but the formula $A(♦A ∧ ♦ ¬A) that there is unprovable sentences in S. (D2) can be further extended to the octagon (D3) ν β

α κ

λ δ

γ μ

We put A and ¬A at k and l respectively. Using Tarski’s biconditionals, we have A ⇔ VA and A ⇔ V¬A, where V stand for “it is

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true”. This addition allows us to treat A and ¬A as hidden alethic modalities. Observe that these new formulas are not available in (D2), unless we define A as ■A or ♦A, but this would means that box and diamond collapse to assertoric modals. Moreover, if F stands for “it is false”, we cannot prove that FA is equivalent to V¬A. If we assume that the entire construction presented by (D2) construction is formally governed by classical logic, then the pairs {■A, ¬A}and {A, ¬A} are internally inconsistent. However, the situation changes if we take, for example, the Łukasiewicz or Kleene three-valued logic as the basic formalism, because if the variable A s valued by ½ (the neutral value) its negation possesses the value. Consequently, A and ¬A are not inconsistent. In order to fix the standpoint in this paper, I assume that classical logic is our framework. Thus, as far as the issue concerns truth and falsity we have the principle of bivalence (every sentence is either true or false) and, consequently, the equivalence FA ⇔ V¬A ⇔ ¬VA. The facts about truth and falsity are nor particularly important in my further considerations. The importance of (D3) consists in the fact that it allows us to account for logical differences between alethic modalities on one hand, and deontic and epistemic modalities on the other. In particular, the formulas, (#) ■A ⇒ A and (##) A ⇒ ♦A are valid in normal (that is, alethic) modal logic, but they fail in non-normal systems, like deontic and epistemic logic. In fact, if we read A as “A obtains”, we cannot accept that A obtains, when A is obligatory, because people violate their duties. The same holds for epistemic interpretation (with some problems discussed below). On the other hand, clearly, if A is necessary, A obtains. Similarly, there is not entailment from deontic or epistemic possibility of A to obtaining that A; the reverse dependencies do not hold as well. In order to capture these facts (plus concerning the points n and m) in a symbolic manner, we add: (14) ¬├ (■A ⇒A); (15) ¬├ (♦A ⇒ A); (16) ¬├ (A ⇒ ■A);

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(17) ¬├ (A ⇒ ♦A); (18) ¬├ (A ⇒ n); (19) ¬├ (n ⇒ A); (20) ¬├ (A ⇒ m); (21) ¬├ (m ⇒ A). Since we have ├ ♦t (t stands for a tautology) in deontic and ■A in epistemic logic (see comments below), we should assume that the formula A is not tautological in (15), (16) and (17). A similar restriction concerns (14), (19) and (21), because tautologies follow from arbitrary premises. I will collectively call (14)–(21) generalized Hume’s principles or theses.8 Why generalized Hume’s principles? Consider the famous fragment from Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature: I cannot forbear adding to those reasonings an observation, which may, perhaps, be found of some importance”. In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark’d that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpris’d to find, that instead of usual copulations of propositions, is, and not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ‘tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.9   See J. Woleński, A Generalization of Hume’s Thesis, “Philosophia Scientiae” 2006, no. 10, pp. 111–115; reprinted (with additions) in Logica Yearbook 2005, eds. M. Bílková, O. Tomala, Filosofia, Praha 2006, pp. 215–223; reprinted in Essays on Logic and Its Applications in Philosophy, op. cit., pp. 155–162. 9   D. Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1951, p. 469 (the original was published in 1739). 8

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The most important part of this quotation is a counterpart of (14) and denies that ought-sentences are derivable with is-sentences. More accurately we should say that the former are not entailed by statements without words indicating deontic modals. This principle can be immediately reversed and generalized to other deontic modals. The next generalization extends the related Humean principles to epistemic operators. That sentences with traditional epistemic and doxastic modals obey (14) – (21) is an important reason to group them into one general category. There is, however, a problem with (14) as far as the matter concerns its epistemic reading. Consider the classical definition of knowledge on which knowledge is true justified belief. More specifically we adopt the following equivalence: (*) I know that A if and only if (a) I believe that A, and (b) A is true, and (c) A is properly (sufficiently) justified. Clearly, (*)(b) justifies that ■A entails A, contrary to (14). The first observation is that logical compulsion suggested by (D3) prevails over (*) as a definition governed by our intuitions. However, there are more powerful arguments against (*), even if we disregard socalled Gettier’s counterexamples. Consider any past scientific theory, for instance, that of Copernicus. He calculated that planetary orbits are circular. Kepler demonstrated that planets move in ellipses. Thus, Copernicus believed in something false. Consequently, we should conclude that his heliocentric theory did not express knowledge. On the other hand, this conclusion seems absurd. Moreover, because most past scientific theories required corrections sooner or later, we should deny the fact that even the greatest scientists have achieved cognitive successes. We encounter here a serious clash between the fact that our cognitive activities are mistaken and full of errors, and our initial intuition that knowledge, as such, excludes cognitive mistakes. I think that the entire problem stems from the traditional concept of episteme as the ultimate knowledge. Plato, contrary to many opin-

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ions, did not accept (*) unconditionally. He proposed that (c) should be strengthen by adding that we properly use our cognitive capacities, that is, necessarily intuit forms by reason. He also observed that doxa can be justified in a manner which is better or worse. Yet Plato denied that even a “good” doxa provides pieces of knowledge. The ancient Skeptics and Academicians took another stance, when they argued that since episteme cannot be achieved, we must remain with doxa. In other words, they rejected (*)(b) and argued that truth is not accessible. Many later proponents of similar views suggested that we should weaken (*)(b) by saying that A is partially or relatively true. Yet there is some way to reconcile both views. In order to show that I will use a metamathematical example. What is the relation between truth and provability? The Löb theorem gives an answer for arithmetic of natural numbers (AR). The theorem says that AR ├ (├ A ⇒A. Informally speaking, if something is provable in arithmetic, it is true. Now, assume, using the Gödel incompleteness theorem, that A is an undecidable arithmetical statement, for example, “Arithmetic is consistent”. If we add A as a new axiom to AR, we obtain a consistent theory, let say AR’. Another consistent theory, let say AR’’, can be built by adding ¬A to AR. This new theory has the sentence “Arithmetic is inconsistent” as an axiom. AR’’ is consistent, although w-inconsistent. By the Gödel-Malcev completeness theorem (every consistent theory has a model), AR’’ has a model in which the assertion about inconsistency of AR is true. Since every axiom is logically provable, the same concerns the sentence in question. Thus, ¬A is provable and true. Thereby, it is not a counterexample for the Löb theorem. Yet A and ¬A cannot be true in the same model. In fact, A is true in the standard model, but is denied by non-standard models. The above consideration about truth and provability in arithmetic may be paraphrased in terms of knowledge in general. If we look at the history of science (I do not discuss humanities here), every epoch has generated something which can be regarded as the standard model or picture of the reality. It was formed by prevailing meanings of used words and related to justification procedures. If Th was a theory ac-

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cepted in a given moment, it suggested its standard model. Other models were considered as non-standard or could be so qualified by later historians of science. For instance, if someone were to say to Copernicus that planetary orbits were elliptical, his answer, phrased in terms of this paper, could be “well, but it is non-standard view, although possible”. On the other hand, a post-Keplerian historian of astronomy has reasons to say that Copernicus’ picture was non-standard when compared with Kepler’s theory, although consistent with data available for Copernicus. As a result we have the following statement: if Th justifies A, then A. Yet we should not say that A is true simpliciter, but that it is true in a standard model of Th. Now we can replace (*) by (it better to use an impersonal formulation: (**) It is known that A if and only if (a) A is believed, and (b) A is true in a standard model generated by the given state of knowledge (science) and (c) A is properly (sufficiently) justified. One can ask how standard models are related to the real world. The answer depends strongly on one’s view of scientific theories. In particular, the instrumentalist will say that this question appears as illegitimate, because theories or conceptual systems are our constructs, which are neither true or false. On the other hand, the realist maintains that standard models actually approximate our real world. I will now return to formal-logical matters. Although (D1) – (D3) help us in clarification of several concepts, the expressive power of the related logical machinery is limited. The reason is that ■ and ♦ are unary operators; additionally we exclude iterations of modals, for example, formulas like ■■A or ■♦A. Thus, we can neither formulate such principles as, for example, ■(A ⇒ B) ⇒(■A ⇒ ■B) (the law of monotonicity for ■) nor express characteristic axioms for the systems S4 (■A ⇒ ■■A) or S5 (♦A ⇒ ■♦A). Consequently, we should say that all considered diagrams display some unary modal logics without iterations of modalities. The diagrams (D1) and (D2) generate the socalled D-system, because the formula ■A ⇒ ♦A is its characteristic

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axiom, but the diagram (D3) is associated with M (or T) as it validates, that is, ■A ⇒ A). The formula ■t sometimes serves as a deontic axiom. It states (metalogically speaking) that something is obligatory. However, we should also admit the anarchistic world, that is, the world without obligations in which everything is permitted. The formula ♦t is more proper as a general axiom. It asserts that tautologies are permitted, that is, not prohibited. Assume that a tautology, for instance, A ∨ ¬A is not permitted. By (1), we have ■(A ∧ ¬A), which is a contradiction. The formula ■t holds for cases in which something is obligatory. To see this, suppose ¬■(A ∨ ¬A). By (4) and the definition of ♦ by ■, we obtain ♦(A ∧ ¬A), which is true in the case of the anarchistic world, because if nothing is obligatory or prohibited, everything is permitted. However, since the anarchistic deontic appears unrealistic, one can assume that there are duties created by normative orders. This assumption generates a class of possible worlds to which domains belong that can be treated as standard relatively to a system of norms or knowledge. If N is a given normative order, ■A is true in our world if and only if A is true in all deontic alternatives (standard deontic worlds) with respect to the real world, that is, worlds in which all obligations are satisfied. What about the epistemically anarchistic world, that is, the world of which we (no subject) have knowledge? In other words, we consider the state of complete ignorance (nothing is known). Similarly, we should treat such a situation as utopian and, thereby, non-standard. Consequently, (14) holds for deontic and epistemic sentences in a restricted form: for any standard world, ■A ⇒ A. Now, consider whether we should accept ♦t or ■t as an axiom of epistemic logic. Assume the first alternative. It entails that the formula ♦(A ∧ ¬A) (epistemically interpreted) holds in the anarchistic, because if it is not a case, that for any A, A is known or ¬A is known, everything is epistemically indifferent. However, if we take seriously (**) or even the traditional definition of knowledge, we must reject the formula ♦(A ∧ ¬A), because it means that we can know contradiction, that is, that they are true in some worlds, more precisely, in the anarchistic world.

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Thus, we should adopt ■t in epistemic logic, similarly as in the case of V and necessity. In general. assumptions that logical truth and necessity are merely possible is too weak, because it does not exclude that inconsistencies and impossibilities might happen. Incidentally, considerations about the epistemic situation throws some light on the problem of the epistemic status of logic. Adopting ■t means that we exclude the situation in which countertautologies are known, that is. believed, true and subjected to a justification (similar remarks concerns other epistemic states). Since the laws of logic hold universally, that is in all domains, we do not need to appeal to standard models. We can note other dissimilarities inside the variety of modals, which satisfy Hume’s principles. Deontic sentences are closed under replacement by logical equivalents. In other words, if ■A and B is logically equivalent to A, then ■A. This does not locates the deontic ■ in the same group as the necessity operator. The epistemic ■A does not satisfy this property. For example, if I know that A and A is logically equivalent to B, it can actually happen that I do not know that B. Thus, epistemic context are strongly intensional, but deontic and alethic sentences are weakly intensional. The context VA is extensional, because if VA and B is true, then VB is true as well, and if FA and B is false, then FB (it was Carnap who distinguished these three cases).10 Accordingly, there is no full correlation between extensionality and the principle. Although (#) is satisfied by V and the necessity box, the former is extensional, but latter lacks this property. On the other hand, the deontic box and the necessity box are both weakly intensional, but (#) is invalidated by the former. Finally, although epistemic sentences and deontic sentences satisfy Hume’s principles, the former are strongly intensional, but the latter are not (they are weakly intensional). This situation has affinities with the closure problem.11 10   See R. Carnap, Meaning and Necessity. A Study in Semantics and Modal Logic, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1947, pp. 46–68. 11   See A. Barke, The Closure of Knowledge in Context, Mentis, Paderborn 2002.

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The box interpreted as truth, necessity and obligations forms context which are closed under the consequence operation. Freely speaking, the logical consequence of truths are true, logical consequences of necessities are necessary and logical consequences of obligations are obligatory. In order to make the epistemic context closed by the consequence operations, we have to assume that cognitive subjects know everything. In order to block the conclusion that a might do not know that B, although he or she know that A and A is logically equivalent with B, one must assume that omniscience concerns logic. Fortunately, the mentioned dissimilarities do not prevent substantial comparisons of various modalities, similarly, as formal analogies are not enough to say that two items, let say I and I’, are substantially (that is, by their content) related in a way. If we want to establish the substantial similarity of I and I’, a formal analogy of both must be supplemented by their material characterization. I will compare deontic, axiological-moral (briefly, axiological) and epistemic modals. Susan Haack12 distinguished five possible solutions of the comparison problem for epistemic and axiological modals. I will generalize her approach slightly. Let us think about I and I’ as referring to qualifications in terms of deontic, axiological or epistemic modalities, for example, “x is obligatory (good, known)”. We have the following relations: (i) I is a kind of I’ (or reversely), (ii) I and I’ are entirely, that is, positively and negatively correlated; (iii) I and I’ are partially correlated (overlap); (iv) I and I’ are mutually not relevant; (v) I and I’ are analogical. We can neglect (v) for reasons given above. Thus, (i) – iv). In order to suggest a minimal substantiality, I will consider deontic modals as legal for a while, axiological modals as based on a substantial definition of goodness (it is not necessary to propose how to do that in the present context; one can think about the axiological qualifications of legal orders by natural law) and epistemic as de  See S. Haack, The Ethics of Belief Reconsidered, [in:] Konwledge, Truth and Duty. Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility, and Virtue, ed. M. Steup, Clarendon Press, Oxford 2002, pp. 21–33. 12

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fined by (**) or similar conditions for asserting, supposing, assuming, guessing, etc. The issue in question has clear links with the so-called virtue epistemology and the ethics of belief.13 This approach claims our that specific epistemic virtues regulate our cognitive acts, that is, make them deontically (in general sense) qualified. For instance, we ought to assert a proposition according to some available or accessible evidence or abstain from assertion, when we have no sufficient support. According to virtue epistemology, the phrases like “ought to assert”, “do not assert’ or “to abstain from assertion” express epistemic duties, which can be positive (ought to assert), negative (do not assert) or recommendations to be neutral (to abstain from assertions). Correspondingly, epistemic rights or possibilities may be also considered, because we can ask when guessing, assuming, supposing, claiming, etc. is permitted. Now, the problem of relation between epistemic qualifications and moral qualifications order appears; Haack uses the term “evaluation” and will follow her façon de parler. The view (i) subsumes epistemic evaluation under moral one (this is a typical standpoint of the ethics of belief in the strong sense), the position (ii) distinguishes both orders, but simultaneously correlates them (this idea can also be accepted by the ethics of belief), the standpoint (iii) sees both orders as partially overlapping (a weaker form of the ethics of belief can share this view), and the solution (iv) separates both orders. Since I have no business in solving the question whose solution is correct, I consider these possibilities merely as an illustration of various eventualities. The comparison of normative modals with the axiological is obvious. Let me only mention that natural law theorists propose (i)   See L. Code, Epistemic Responsibility, University Press of New England, Hannover 1987, E. Agazzi, Right, Wrong and Science. The Ethical Dimensions of the TechnoScientific Enterprise, Rodopi, Amsterdam 2004, Konwledge, Truth and Duty. Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility, and Virtue, ed. M. Steup, Clarendon Press, Oxford 2002, J. Greco, J. Turri, Virtue Epistemology, [in:] The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E. Zalta 2011, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/ epistemology-virtue/ for general surveys; the first book presents a panorama of relations between morality and science.

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(the strong version) and (iii) (the weak version). On the other hand, legal positivism defends (iv), but can also accept (iv) providing that parallelism of qualifications is only partial and does not influence the problem of validity of the legal norms. The naturalness of comparing deontic (legal) and moral qualification stems from the fact that an axiological order can be considered as a hidden normative system. It is tempting to compare deontic qualification and epistemic qualification with respect to their normativity. This problem is usually rendered by saying that the concept of knowledge is normative or, speaking more traditionally, that epistemology as such is normative, because it looks for conditions for the validity of knowledge. Of course, we must resign from the earlier assumption that deontic modals are equated with legal ones. Epistemic normativity must mean something different than legal normativity when we say that epistemology is normative. Yet it is also implausible to equate normative epistemic qualification with moral evaluation in the above sense. The mentioned phrases, namely “ought to assert”, “do not assert” or “to abstain from an assertion” are now understood as expressing epistemic duties, prohibitions or right. However, we encounter here serious problems. First of all, we have no general theory of normativity. Proposals aiming at such a theory14 are so different that considering the concept of normativity as generic with legal and epistemic (and perhaps other modals) as its species seems to be quite unrealistic as for their commitments to such general views as cognitivism, non-cognitivism, expressivism, realism, anti-realism, objectivism or subjectivism. On the other hand, there are some reasons to ascribe a kind of normativity to epistemic modals. A preliminary intuition is as follows. Alethic modalities are not normative. Hume’s principles, that is, assertions numbered as (14)–(21), do not hold for alethic modals, but they formally characterize normative modalities. Assume that   See S.O. Hansson, The Structure of Values and Norms, University of Cambridge Press, Cambridge 2001, R. Wedgwood, The Nature of Normativity, Clarendon Press, Oxford 2007, J.J. Thomson, Normativity, Open Court, LaSalle 2008. 14

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Hume’s principles constitute characteristic theses separating the normative from the non-normative. Since epistemic modalities fall under (14)–(21), we have here a motive to consider epistemic modals as normative in a sense. Clearly, the deontic phrases mentioned which attribute a normative status to epistemic attitudes appear as conceptually legitimate and do not necessarily refer to hidden axiological (moral) evaluations. Moreover, for instance, the statement “I ought to assert A” is not equivalent to “I assert that A”. What does it mean “ought to” in this context? There are at least two explanatory proposals in this respect. One is proposed by Ralph Wedgwood15 who argues that intentionality is normative. Hence, we can conclude (Wedgwood does not enter this question) that since epistemic states are intentional, they are normative as well. I consider his argument as doubly defective. Firstly, perception is an intentional epistemic (cognitive) state, but its normativity appears to be very problematic. Secondly, Wedgwood seems to confuse intentionality as aboutness with intending in a teleological sense. I see no reason to regard being about as normative but, if we consider intending as genuinely normative, it requires an additional explanation. The second popular account of the normativity of knowledge (or some other cognitive states) assumes that “I know” is a performative verb.16 Consequently, ascriptions of knowledge function as based on felicity conditions, but they do not appeal to truth–conditions. This suggestion is interesting, but it does not require the abandonment of regarding “I know that A” as neither true nor false (it is even more convincing in the case of third-person statements). If we inspect (**) as well as the traditional classical definition of knowledge, we easily find the point in which normativity is hidden. It is exactly the point (**)(c) that a known A should be (must be, ought to be) properly (sufficiently) justified. Thus, the normativ  See R. Wedgwood, The Nature of Normativity, op. cit., pp. 153–174.   See A. White, The Nature of Knowledge, Rowman & Littlefield, Totova 1982, pp. 104–107.

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ity of knowledge arises as a result of the normativity of justification. For example, we can say that I should assert A if and only if the support for A sufficiently prevails data supporting its denial or I can epistemically choose between A and ¬A, if their support is more or less equal, etc. In general, epistemic attitudes become as correct or incorrect with respect to sets of data confirming or disconfirming them. Their correctness is settled by some constraints which can be termed normative conditions. Such conditions are sometimes very weak. For example, if I have no data concerning A, I can guess or speculate that A (or whether A), providing that A is internally consistent. One warning should be made in this context. Although the normativity of epistemic states appears as obvious due to the normative treatment of justification, the details of (**)(c) and similar claims are far from being uncontroversial. Pure logic provides the only sufficiently clear example of the normativity of justification. Assume that A ├ B, that is, B is provable from the assumption B. By the deduction theorem, we obtain (##) A ├ B if and only if ├ A ⇒ B. In general, it A is a logical tautology of first-order logic, ├ A if and only if A is tautological. In other words, for any tautology, A and “A is tautological” are equivalent. This assertion directly follows from the completeness theorem for first-order logic. This property is nice, because it equates the correct assertivity of logical theorems with their tautologicity, that is, universal validity. Since the symbol├ is related to rules of inference, a kind of normativity is hidden in it. On the other hand, the predicate “is tautological” refers to the truth-conditions of logical theorems. Thus, (##) establishes the parity between the logical normativity and the logical indicativity, although “it is tautological” gives another interpretation of the box. Moreover, (##) is stronger than Tarski’s biconditionals, because it holds without any restrictions concerning logic, but the universality of V-equivalences assume the classical system. However, there is a high price for (##). In consists in the fact that logical theorems do not distinguish any extralogical content. On the contrary, the contents going beyond logic inevitably cause troubles in understanding what

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the phrase “is sufficiently justified” means. A fortiori, the issue of the normativity of justification is notoriously problematic.

Jaap Hage1 Universities of Maastricht Universities of Hasselt

The Deontic Furniture of the World An Analysis of the Basic Concepts that Embody Normativity2

1. Three Themes

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here are many discussions in ethical and legal theory which somehow involve the notion of normativity, but it is seldom explained what normativity is.3 Usually it is just assumed that the nature of normativity is sufficiently clear and the discussion then continues with more specific questions. Wedgwood, for instance, mentions the nature of normativity in the title of his book: The Nature of Normativity. However, when he turns to describing the central topic of his book, it turns out that this topic is the question what ought to be.4 As will become clear later, the step from ‘normative’ to ‘ought’ is not an   The author thanks Jerzy Stelmach and Bartosz Brożek for inviting him to the seminar The Many Faces of Normativity, where he could present a draft of this paper, and the participants in the seminar for the questions which made him rethink the issues addressed in this paper. 2   This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation. 3   Possibly such explanations should be skipped altogether. According to Stellmach there is no normativity, and therefore nothing to explain. (Jerzy Stellmach, And if There Is No ‘Ought’?, [in:] The Normativity of Law, eds. J. Stelmach, B. Brożek, Copernicus Center Press, Kraków 2011, pp. 15–20. Maybe that explains the relative lack of explanations. 4   R. Wedgwood, The Nature of Normativity, Clarendon Press, Oxford 2007, p. 1. 1

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obvious one. And yet it is taken by Wedgwood without paying much attention to it. Another illustration, this time from legal theory, is the volume New Essays on the Normativity of Law, edited by Bertea and Pavlakos. In their introduction, the editors emphasise the importance of the normative component of law, but they do not even begin to explain what this ‘normative component’ might be.5 Dancy, however, addresses the question after the nature of normativity head on.6 The problem is that he discusses two views which are not very satisfactory. According to the one view, normativity is a characteristic of speech acts. That would make that the fact that it is forbidden to steal non-normative because there is no speech act involved; not a very attractive result. The other view just assumes that the word ‘ought’ is normative, and that anything else that is only explicable in terms of it, is normative too. Dancy extensively argues that this view is wrong too, but in his arguments he ignores that this characterisation does not tell us much because we do not know what it means that ‘ought’ is normative. More satisfactory, even though it does not directly address the nature of normativity, is the work by Alan White. In his books Modal Thinking and Rights, White discusses a number of normative concepts in a very detailed way, thereby implicitly illuminating the nature of normativity.7 My purpose in this paper it to follow White’s example and to elucidate the nature of normativity by focusing on a number of concepts which are all somehow related to normativity. Normativity has to do with standards concerning what should be done or how things should be. These standards can be used prospectively to guide action. They can also be used retrospectively to evaluate behaviour or facts.8 Both aspects of normativity, the behaviour   The Normativity of Law, eds. S. Bertea, G. Pavlakos, Hart Publishing, Oxford 2011, pp. 1–2.   J. Dancy, Nonnaturalism, [in:] The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, ed. D. Copp, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006, pp. 122–145. 7   A.R. White, Modal Thinking, Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1975 and idem, Rights, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1984. 8   Cf. T. Spaak, Guidance and Constraint. The Action-Guiding Capacity of Theories of Legal Reasoning, Iustus Förlag, Uppsala 2007, p. 14. 5

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guiding aspect and the evaluative aspect, are equally important. In this paper, the emphasis will be on the behaviour guiding aspect of normativity; the evaluative aspect will mainly be ignored. The concepts that deal with the behaviour guiding aspect of normativity are often (in particular by logicians) called ‘deontic’.9 They include the concepts ‘shall’, ‘ought’, ‘obligated’, ‘obligation’ and ‘duty’. These concepts in a sense provide the ‘deontic furniture of the world’. My hope is that a better understanding of these concepts and their differences leads to a better insight in the nature of normativity. The discussion of this deontic furniture is, somewhat artificially, clustered in three themes. The first theme concerns the distinction between rules and facts, which is much more central than the overrated distinction between fact and norm. The second theme concerns the relation between normativity and human behaviour, and is focused on the similarities and differences between guiding and motivating reasons. The third theme, finally, concerns the distinctions between a number of deontic concepts including ‘ought’, ‘obligated’, ‘obligation’ and ‘duty’. The arguments in this paper aim to a large extent at giving precise meanings to words. In ordinary usage, these same words tend to be used in many different and often overlapping meanings, however. This means that the usage proposed in this paper will deviate from some ways in which the words are ordinarily used. Although the approach taken in this paper is that of conceptual analysis, which suggests that things that are already implicitly known are made explicit, the conclusions may be rather surprising for some. They will include that: • depending on the meaning assigned to ‘norm’ either there is no difference between norms and facts, or the difference is rather uninteresting;   The word ‘deontic’ suffers from the same lack of clarity as ‘normativity’: it is easier to give examples of what is ‘deontic’ than to define what it is. Cf. http://plato.stanford. edu/entries/logic-deontic/ and http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsDeonticModality.htm

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• the well-known distinction between constitutive and regulative rules is a dubitable one; • there is a real important difference between static and dynamic rules, and that there are at least two kinds of static rules; • there are two ‘families’ of guiding reasons, one based on the motivation of actors, and the other on reason; • not all guiding reasons are reasons why something ought to be done; • there is a clear difference between duties and obligations; • the fact that P should, or ought to, do A is not a reason for P to do A.

2. Facts, Rules and Norms The concept that is most related to normativity is that of a norm. Arguably, this concept is so ambiguous that it should be abandoned and replaced by less ambiguous concepts.10 The basis for these other concepts is to be found in the distinction between facts and rules. Since rules tend to have a linguistic expression and since facts are also closely related to language, language is a suitable starting point for making the necessary distinctions.

2.1 Facts and Individuals As Strawson has pointed out, facts depend on language.11 A fact is always the fact that …, where the dots stand for a phrase expressed in some language. It is for instance a fact that ‘it is not raining here and now’. However, facts also depend on the world, because it is   J. Hage, What is a Norm?, [in:] idem, Studies in Legal Logic, Springer, Dordrecht 2005, pp. 159–202. 11   P.F. Strawson, Truth, “Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society” 1950, Supplementary Volume. Also in: idem, Logico-Linguistic Papers, Methuen, London 1971, pp. 190–213. 10

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the world, not language, that determines which facts exist, whether it rains here and now. A language determines which facts can be expressed, the world determines which of the expressible facts actually exist. This insight can be used to define the world as the set of all actual facts. Since these facts are language-dependent, the world is then language-dependent too.12 It is useful to distinguish between expressible facts and actual facts. An expressible fact will be called a state of affairs. States of affairs are what is expressed by sentences with truth values.13 For instance, the sentence ‘It’s raining’ expresses the state of affairs that it is raining. Some states of affairs exist14 in the actual world; these are called facts. A sentence that expresses a fact is true. False sentences express non-facts, states of affairs that do not exist. In most declarative sentences it is possible to distinguish one or more terms which denote entities in the world. Next to these terms there will be predicate expressions by means of which something is said about the denoted entities. For instance, in the sentence ‘John walks’ the word ‘John’ denotes John, while the predicate term ‘walks’ is used to say something about John. Logicians call the entities in the world individuals, and the expressions used to denote them terms. Terms should be distinguished from full sentences. Declarative sentences are true or false; terms are not. So there is, from a logical point of view, a fundamental difference between sentences and terms. Sentences which are   Those who also want something like the world which is not language–dependent might use the word ‘reality’ to denote a language-independent world. The problem with such a reality is that it is not possible to say anything substantive about it, because saying something presupposes a language. Reality in this technical sense would be like a Kantian noumenal world. 13   The clause ‘with truth values’ is meant to exclude non-descriptive sentences, such as commands, but also descriptive sentences that have terms on referential positions that have no object of reference, such as ‘The king of France is bald’. For the rest of this paper, I will ignore declarative sentences which lack a truth value. 14   In earlier work, for instance J. Hage, Reasoning with Rules, Kluwer, Dordrecht 1997, p. 131, I used the word ‘obtain’ to stand for the existence of states of affairs, rather than ‘exist’. My purpose in doing so was to distinguish the mode of existence of states of affairs and of facts from the mode of existence of ‘ordinary’ things. This distinction turned out to be confusing, so here I decided to stick to ‘exist’. 12

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used to make statements have truth values; they do not denote.15 Terms, on the contrary, have no truth values, but denote.

2.2 Realism and Constructivism There is a simple relation between declarative sentences and the states of affairs expressed by them. A sentence is true, if and only if the state of affairs that this sentence expresses exists. This means exactly the same as that a sentence is true, if and only if it corresponds to a fact (not: ‘the facts’, as is often written). This correspondence theory of truth is easily interpreted as presupposing that somehow there are facts outside, given independently of language or human knowledge or recognition, and that a true sentence is true because it accurately describes one of these pre-given facts.16 Of course, that would be an interpretation of the correspondence theory of truth but it is not the only possible one. According to a different interpretation, it is only necessary that a true sentence corresponds to a fact, without making any assumption about what comes ontologically first, the truth of the sentence or the presence of the fact. On this interpretation the ‘direction of fit’17 may be word-to-world – the content of descriptive sentences aims to reflect the content of the world – in which case the underlying ontology

  Frege assumed that sentences denote truth values, but this was a logical-technical device that gives little insight into ontological matters. Cf. G. Frege, On Sense and Meaning, [in:] Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, eds. P. Geach, M. Black, 3rd ed., Basil Blackwell 1980, Oxford, pp. 56–78. 16   Cf. R.C.S. Walker, Theories of Truth, [in:] A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, eds. B. Hale, C. Wright, Blackwell, Oxford 1997, pp. 309–330, referring to the ‘picture theory’ of language of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. 17   Cf. G.E.M. Anscombe, Intention, 2nd ed., Blackwell, Oxford 1976, p. 56. See also J. Searle, Expression and Meaning. Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1979, pp. 3– 4 and idem, Making the social world, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, pp. 27–30. However, see also the proposed changes in terminology in my paper What is a Norm?. 15

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is a realist one.18 The direction of fit may also be world to word. On this interpretation a fact exists because the sentence that describes this fact is true. For instance it is a fact that John is obligated to repay the loan from Jane, because the sentence ‘John is obligated to repay the loan from Jane’ is true. In this case the truth of sentence is determined by something else than by its correspondence to a pre-given fact.19 An attractive version of this view is that the sentence is true because it is the conclusion of the best (possible or actual) argument.20 Such a constructivist view was defended for the law by Ronald Dworkin.21 It is compatible with a correspondence theory of truth by assuming that the facts correspond with true sentences.

2.3 Deontic Facts It has often been noticed that sentences that tell one what to do often take the form of declarations. For example, the sentence ‘You ought to go to the supermarket’ looks very much like the sentence ‘You will go to the supermarket’. Is this similarity misleading, covering up a kind of order as a description? Or does the former sentence stand for a state of affairs, and even – if it is true – for a fact? I will argue for the latter view, but in order to do so it will be necessary to get some possible misunderstandings out of the   Cf. M. Devitt, Realism and Truth, 2nd ed. Blackwell, Oxford 1991, pp. 13–17.   An example of this opposite direction of fit, world-to-mind to be precise, is to be found in Aquinas’ Summa Theologica Ia, q. 21 a.2: ‘Truth consists in the equation of mind and thing, as said above. Now the mind, that is the cause of the thing, is related to it as its rule and measure; whereas the converse is the case with the mind that receives its knowledge from things. When therefore things are the measure and rule of the mind, truth consists in the equation of the mind to the thing, as happens in ourselves. For according as a thing is, or is not, our thoughts or our words about it are true or false. But when the mind is the rule or measure of things, truth consists in the equation of the thing to the mind; just as the work of an artist is said to be true, when it is in accordance with his art.’ 20   Cf. J. Hage, Construction or Reconstruction? On the Function of Argumentation in the Law, [in:] Legal Argumentation Theory: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives, eds. C. Dahlman, E. Feteris, Springer, Dordrecht 2013, pp. 125-144. 21   R. Dworkin, Law’s Empire, Fontana, London 1986, p. 225. 18 19

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way.22 One misunderstanding is that a sentence such as ‘You ought to go to the supermarket’ is ‘really’ a kind of order or exhortation, rather than the description of a fact, because it is, or can be, used to make somebody do something. This line of argumentation has been attacked by Geach23 and Searle,24 basically because the speech act which can be performed with a sentence does not determine the meaning of the sentence. The sentence ‘That is what I ought to do’ means the same if it stands on its own as when it is used the conditional sentence ‘If that is what I ought to do, I will eat my hat’. A variant on the same misunderstanding is based on the assumption that facts cannot guide behaviour. The argument then runs that if somebody ought to do something, or – probably better – if somebody is aware that he ought to do something, this guides his behaviour. Because facts cannot guide behaviour, it cannot be a fact that somebody ought to do something. However, a similar argument can be used to argue that it cannot be a fact that your house is on fire, because that fact or the awareness of it will guide your behaviour. Clearly, facts, or the awareness thereof, can and do guide behaviour.25 Therefore it cannot be a reason against the existence of deontic facts that such facts would guide behaviour. Normative or deontic facts are typical cases of behaviour guiding facts. A second misunderstanding, which may have inspired the first one, is that a ‘real’ fact cannot depend on what we humans think, believe, project, accept or recognise. On the assumption that standards for goodness and for what should or ought to be done are mind dependent, this misunderstanding becomes that ‘real’ facts cannot depend on standards. Perhaps the clearest expression of this idea can be found in the work of Mackie, who claimed that facts involving an

  A more elaborate version of the present argument can be found in my paper What is a Norm?.   E.g. P.T. Geach, Good and Evil, “Analysis” 1956, vol. 17, pp. 33–42. Also in Ph. Foot, Theories of Ethics, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1967, pp. 64–73. 24   J.R. Searle, Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1986, pp. 136–140. 25   This theme is explored in more detail in J. Hage, Feiten en betekenis, PhD-thesis Leiden 1987, pp. 117–120. 22

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‘ought’ (and other ‘normative ‘facts’) are ontologically ‘queer’.26 This misunderstanding is essentially that of applying an ontological realist stance to domains in which such is less suitable. One such domain is that of social reality, because social reality depends to a large extent on what people accept or recognise about it.27Another domain is – at least in the eyes of non-Platonists – that of mathematics, because theorems must be provable from axioms adopted by human beings. If facts can be mind-dependent and therefore also dependent on standards, there is no good reason why there cannot be normative or deontic facts. Moreover, for the same reason there is no problem with ‘evaluative facts’ or ‘value- facts’ either. It may be a fact that the decoration of this wall is terrible, just as it may be a fact that one should visit the dentist in case of a tooth-ache. Both facts presuppose standards such as a standard for decent wall-decoration or a standard for prudence, but there is no good reason why the presupposition of a standard makes the existence of facts impossible. Because normative judgments can very well, and often are, expressed by means of declarative sentences, the appearance is that there are deontic facts which are expressed by these sentences. Two possible objections against the view that there can be deontic facts have been rebutted and apparently there is no reason to deny that there can be and actually are deontic facts. One question which remains to be answered is whether deontic facts, or the awareness thereof, actually motivate human behaviour. This question will be addressed in section 3.4. Another remaining question is precisely which facts count as ‘deontic’. Are they only ‘ought-facts’, or also ‘duty-facts’, ‘obligation-facts’, ‘obligated-facts’, ‘forbidden-facts’, or even ‘should-facts’ and ‘permitted-facts’? The answer to this question does not matter very much. What counts is that these are all facts, and not something different because they   J.L. Mackie, Ethics. Inventing Right and Wrong, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1977, pp. 38–42. 27   Cf. J.R. Searle, Making the Social World, op. cit., p. 8.

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might be ‘deontic’. A possible answer to the questions which kinds of facts are deontic would be that ‘ought-facts’ are deontic facts, just as other facts which exist on the basis of deontic reasons. As will be explained in section 3.4, deontic reasons are reasons which indirectly, namely through the intermediary of other deontic facts, constitute an ought.

2.4 Constitutive Rules Rules have much in common with ordinary individuals (in the logical sense): they exist in time, they can be created and derogated, they can have characteristics such as effectiveness, etc. They have also a lot in common with descriptive sentences: they have a propositional content and they can in some sense ‘correspond’ with facts. However, in this correspondence lies also a major difference with descriptive sentences. Descriptive sentences are ‘successful’ in the sense of ‘true’, if they match the facts. Rules are successful in the sense of ‘valid’, if the facts match the rule. With this match I do not mean that the rule is obeyed, but that the content of the rule is reflected in the world. So, the rule that thieves are punishable is reflected in the world if (because of this rule) thieves are punishable. Valid rules impose themselves on the world. They have the world to word direction of fit because they constrain the world in the sense that not all combinations of facts are possible. As a consequence, rules bring about facts; they are constitutive. Constitutive rules are usually opposed to regulative rules.28 As we will see shortly, it is questionable whether this is a proper distinction. Arguably, all rules are constitutive, and regulative rules only regulate by constituting deontic facts such as duties and obligations. To see why, it will be necessary to distinguish between two main kinds of constitutive rules, namely between dynamic and static rules.   The distinction between regulative and constitutive rules can be traced back to at least J. Rawls, Two Concepts of Rules, “Philosophical Review” 1955, vol. 64, pp. 3–32 (also in idem, Collected Papers, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1999, pp. 20–46), and to J.R. Searle, Speech Acts, op. cit., pp. 33–42. 28

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Dynamic rules Dynamic rules attach new facts, or modify or take away existing facts as the consequence of an event. An event is a chance in the set of all facts, any change in the world. Examples are that it starts to rain, that John promised Richard to give him €100, and that Eloise was appointed as chair of the French Parliament. At least the last two of these events have consequences attached to them by dynamic rules. John’s promise has the consequence that from the moment of the promise on John is under an obligation to pay Richard €100. The appointment has as its consequence that from the starting point of the chair’s new term on, Eloise will be the chair of the French Parliament. Dynamic rules may be conditional, in which case their consequence is only attached to the event under certain conditions. An example is the rule that if it is dark, the occurrence of a car accident obligates the drivers to place a light on the road next to the cars.

Fact-to-fact rules Where dynamic rules are a relatively simple category, because they all attach a change in the set of all states of affairs to the occurrence of an event, static rules come in two flavours. One kind of static rule attaches a fact to the presence of some other fact. I will call them fact-to-fact rules. An example is the rule which attaches to the fact that P owns O the fact that P is competent to alienate O. For example, if Smith owns Blackacre, she is competent to transfer her property right in this real estate to Jones. Another example is the rule which makes that if P is under an obligation towards Q to do A, then P is obligated to do A.29 Fact-to-fact rules may be conditional too. An example is the rule that the mayor of a city is competent to evoke the state of emergency   The distinction between being under an obligation and being obligated will be discussed more extensively in section 4.2. 29

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in case of emergencies. This rule attaches the fact that some person has a competence to the fact that this person is the mayor under the condition that there is a state of emergency.

Count as rules The second kind of static rules consists of the so-called counts-as rules. They have the following structure: Individuals of type 1 count as individuals of type 2. These ‘individuals’ may be human beings, such as in the rule that the parents of a minor count as the minor’s legal representatives. Often, however, the ‘individuals’ that count as another kind of individual are events. For instance, under particular circumstances, causing a car accident counts as committing a tort, or offering money to another person counts as attempting to bribe an official. Usually counts-as rules are conditional, meaning that individuals of type 1 only count as individuals of type 2 if certain conditions are satisfied. An example from Dutch law (art. 3:84 of the Civil Code) would be the rule that the delivery of a good counts as the transfer of that good if the person who made the delivery was competent to transfer and if there was a valid title for the transfer.

2.5 Regulative Rules Traditionally, constitutive rules are opposed to regulative rules. It is not at all clear that this opposition makes sense. Take for instance the rule ‘If it grows dark, car drivers must turn on their car lights’. This rule may very well be interpreted as a dynamic, and therefore constitutive, rule which attaches the deontic fact that car drivers must turn on their car lights to the occurrence of the event that it grows dark. All rules which attach a consequence to the occurrence of an event can be classified as dynamic rules, and for this purpose it does not matter whether the consequence is deontic or not.

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The rule ‘Every citizen must yearly make a tax declaration’ might very well be interpret as a fact-to-fact, and therefore constitutive, rule which attaches the deontic fact (a duty) that one must yearly make a tax declaration to the fact that one is a citizen. All rules which obligate persons who belong to a particular class can be analysed in this way. The only ‘problematic’ regulative rules are those which unconditionally obligate everybody. An example would be the rule that it is forbidden to commit a murder. However, it is very well possible to treat such rules as constitutive rules which create deontic states of affairs ‘out of nothing’. For instance the rule ‘It is forbidden to commit a murder’ unconditionally creates the fact that it is forbidden to commit a murder. If one is prepared to take this step, one can abandon the distinction between constitutive and regulative rules. All rules are constitutive, and some of them constitute deontic facts. Those are also called ‘regulative rules’.

2.6 Factual Counterparts of Rules Suppose that there exists a rule to the effect that skate boards count as vehicles in the sense of some traffic regulation. Because this rule exists, skate boards count as vehicles in the sense of this traffic regulation. To state it differently: because the rule exists, it is a fact that skate boards count as vehicles. This fact, the fact that skate boards count as vehicles, is not the same fact as the fact that the rule ‘Skate boards count as vehicles’ is valid. The former fact is about skate boards; the latter is about a rule. Apparently, a rule can constitute facts which can be described by re-using the rule formulation. ‘Skate boards count as vehicles’ is both a descriptive sentence which expresses a state of affairs, and the formulation of a rule. Moreover, the existence or validity of this rule tends to go hand in hand with the state of affairs being a fact. Because it is convenient to have a term which denotes this phenom-

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enon, I propose to use ‘factual counterpart of a rule’.30 The factual counterpart of a rule is a fact which corresponds to the formulation of a valid rule and this fact exists because of the validity of this rule. For example, car drives are obligated to turn on their car lights when it gets dark because the rule exists (is valid) that car drives are obligated to turn on their car lights when it gets dark. Often it is not easy to tell a factual counterpart of a rule from the rule itself. If somebody says that it is forbidden to lie, does she then make a statement expressing a factual counterpart of the rule that it is forbidden to lie, or does she formulate the rule? For many practical affairs it does not matter, but sometimes it is useful to be able to distinguish the two. Then the following test will do the trick. If it is an appropriate reaction to say ‘That is (not) true’ then what was said should be interpreted as the expression of a factual counterpart, and otherwise not.

2.7 Summary on Rules and Facts By way of intermediate summary it is possible to draw two main conclusions. The one is that there is a distinction between facts and rules. Facts are expressed by full declarative sentences which are true. Rules are denoted by terms; they are from a logical point of view individuals. The existence of so-called ‘factual counterparts of rules’ makes that it is easy to confuse rules and some kinds of facts, but the awareness that this category of facts exists may help avoiding this confusion. The other main conclusion is that the distinction deontic/nondeontic cuts across the distinction between facts and rules. There are both deontic and non-deontic facts and deontic and non-deontic rules.   In my paper What is a norm I used the term ‘descriptive counterpart’. That was less than happy, because the counterparts are facts and facts do not describe (but can be described). 30

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In schema: facts non-deontic

deontic

non-deontic facts, e.g. It rains, or This is a beautiful painting deontic facts, e.g. John is obligated to repay the money he borrowed from Jane, or Judge Judy has the duty to apply the law

rules

non-deontic rules, e.g. Skate boards count as vehicles, or A transfer of ownership makes the person to whom a good was transferred the new owner deontic rules, e.g. Persons who borrowed money are under an obligation to repay the money, or Judges have the duty to apply the law

A final observation in this connection about norms and their relation to facts: • If the word ‘norm’ stands for deontic facts, there is no gap between fact and norm. Norms would just be a kind of facts. • If ‘norm’ stands for rules in general, there is a difference between facts and norms, but norms do not have to be deontic. There would, for instance, be competence conferring norms and norms that specify the meanings of words. • If ‘norm’ stands for deontic rules (the most plausible interpretation if one wants to keep using the word ‘norm’) then there is a difference between facts and norms, but this difference is essentially that between facts and rules: it has everything to do with norms being rules, and nothing with norms being deontic.

3. Reasons for acting For a proper understanding of normativity it is necessary to see how normativity on the one hand has to do with setting standards which indicate what one should do, or ought to do, that is with standards underlying ‘should-facts’ and ‘ought-facts’. At the same time we should also

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be able to see how normativity aims at motivating people to act in a particular way. There are two types of discourse involved in normativity, one concerned with providing guidelines for behaviour, and the other with providing motives for behaviour. The one type of discourse is usually deontic, using concepts such as ‘duty’, ‘ought’ and ‘must’, and it deals with the existence of deontic facts. The other type of discourse is usually causal, mostly psychological, using concepts such ‘belief’, ‘motivation’, ‘desire’ etc., and it deals with explanation and prediction. One of the challenges in giving a good account of normativity is to show how the behaviour-guiding and the psychological aspect of normativity are related. In moral philosophy this topic is tackled in the internalism/externalism debate.31 This debate deals with the issue whether guiding reasons or the awareness thereof necessarily motivate. Is it, for instance possible to believe sincerely that one has reason to give money to the poor, while at the same not being motivated at all to do so.32 The account in the remainder of this section will focus on the differences and relations between guiding and motivating reasons. In the discussion a number of additional distinctions will play a role too, namely the distinctions between practical reason and normativity (should versus ought), between reasons for a person and reasons according to a social group, and between reasons from a psychological and from a rational perspective.

3.1 Reasons and Causes The word ‘reason’ functions both a in a behaviour guiding discourse and in a causal discourse. In the behaviour guiding discourse it concerns amongst others reasons for action, including both reasons why   Brożek describes how this topic was tackled by some legal theoreticians (notably Petrażycki and Kelsen), in idem, Outline of a Theory of Law’s Normativity, [in:] The Normativity of Law, op. cit., pp. 63–97. 32   For this example, see M. Smith, The Moral Problem, Blackwell, Oxford 1994, p. 6. More in general on the debate Arguing about Metaethics, eds. A. Fischer, S. Kirchin, Routledge, London 2006, pp. 521–614 and the literature mentioned there. 31

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something should or ought to be done, and reasons why something should or ought to be refrained from.33 In causal discourse, the word ‘reason’ is often used as a kind of synonym for ‘cause’. It is for example possible to say that the reason why the train was late is that there was a power failure. In relation to normativity, the use of ‘reason’ for causes of human behaviour is more interesting. However, even then it is possible to use ‘reason’ in a sense which apparently has little to do with guidance of behaviour. One can, for instance, say that the reason why a person attempted to commit suicide is that he lost control over his actions because of the use of Prozac.34 We are then talking about physical reasons on a level which is ‘underneath’ the level of conscious or mental states. In relation to normativity, the more interesting causes of behaviour are mental states such as – to use the terminology borrowed from Hume35 – beliefs and desires. Such mental states figure in explanations of behaviour in the past, in predictions of future behaviour, and in accounts of motivation, as is illustrated by the following examples, which all mention first the belief and then the corresponding desire: • The reason she took the train to Brussels was that she thought that the European Parliament is seated in Brussels / she wanted to visit the European Parliament. • The fact that John believes that there is a cool drink in the refrigerator / that John wants a cool drink, makes it likely that John will walk to the refrigerator soon. • Amalia is motivated to buy ‘Coherence in thought and action’ because she thinks this is a good introduction to coherentism   Normative discourse also deals with reasons why some act in the past was good or bad, and reasons why some state of affairs is or is not as it should or ought to be, but – as announced in the introduction – this evaluative aspect of normativity will be ignored here. 34   See for instance C. Cebuliak, Life as a Blonde: The Use of Prozac in the 90’s, “Alberta Law Review” 1994/1995, vol. 33, pp. 611–625. 35   The terms may be important in Hume’s work, but there is discussion whether the famous belief/desire model of human motivation was actually endorsed by Hume. See for instance J. Dancy, Moral Reasons, Blackwell, Oxford 1993, chapter 1, footnote 4. 33

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in epistemology and because she wants to have such an introduction.36 Mental states as causes of behaviour are more interesting from the perspective of normativity than other causes because these mental states often have a propositional content37 which reflects the presence of a guiding reason.38 It is the belief that a guiding reason is present which causes the behaviour for which the guiding reason is a reason. If there is a cool drink in the refrigerator, this fact is a reason for John to walk to the refrigerator. It is the belief that this guiding reason exists, the belief that there is a cool drink, that motivates John.39 Beliefs that have as propositional content a state of affairs which the believing person considers to be a guiding reason and which exercise at least some motivating force upon this person will be called motivating reasons.40 That there exists a conceptual relationship between guiding reasons and motivating reasons in the sense that the latter can be defined in terms of the former is well-known. It is less known that the relationship may also run the opposite way, that guiding reasons may be defined in terms of motivating reasons.41 It is this opposite direction of the relation which will be explored in the following subsections.

  Cf. P. Thagard, Coherence in Thought and Action, MIT Press, Cambridge 2000.   There are also mental states without a propositional content which cause behaviour. An example would be free-floating anxiety, which may cause restlessness. 38   The term ‘guiding reason’ stems from Joseph Raz (Practical Reason and Norms, Hutchinson, London 1975, pp. 15–19). Other terms are in use too. Michael Smith, for instance, writes about ‘normative reasons’ (The Moral Problem, Blackwell, Oxford 1994, p. 95). 39   The motivating reason is a belief in an ‘ordinary’ fact, not a belief that there is a reason, nor the belief that a particular fact is a reason. 40   This usage follows S. Darwall, Morality and Practical Reason, [in:] The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, ed. D. Copp, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006, pp. 282–320. 41   Darwall mentions in ‘Morality and Practical Reason’ a version which he calls ‘existence internalism’ and which has strong Kantian overtones. 36 37

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3.2 Personal Reasons A first step towards defining guiding reasons in terms of motivating ones is to consider reasons for a person, or personal reasons. Suppose that Jane is thirsty. Then this is reason for her to take a drink. That this is a reason for her follows from the fact that being thirsty normally motivates Jane to take a drink if there is one available. If this motivation were lacking, the fact that she is thirsty is not a reason for Jane to take a drink.

Several things should be noted about this example. First, the guiding reason is a fact, not a belief or any other mental state. If she were not thirsty, Jane has no reason to take a drink, although she may be motivated to do so if she is under the illusion that she is thirsty.42 In general it holds that guiding reasons are facts.43 Moreover, it is concrete facts that are reasons, not abstract facts or fact types. It is not ‘being thirsty’ that is a reason for Jane to drink, but the concrete fact that she is thirsty now and here. Second, the reason is a fact that is in the eyes of Jane relevant for a kind of behaviour, for the performance of a type of action. This relation of relevancy holds between a kind of fact (being thirsty) and an action type (taking a drink). Because of this general relation, concrete instantiations of the type ‘being thirsty’ are reasons for performing an act that belongs to the kind of behaviour. A guiding reason is therefore a concrete fact that is relevant for performing an act that belongs to an abstract action type and which derives its relevancy from the relation between the kind to which the fact belongs and the action type.44   I ignore the possibility that being under an illusion (the fact) may in special circumstances be a reason for acting too. 43   J. Raz, Practical Reason and Norms, op. cit., pp. 16–20. See also J. Hage, Reasoning with Rules, Kluwer, Dordrecht 1997, p. 12. 44  In Studies in Legal Logic, pp. 81–84, I distinguished between concrete and abstract reasons, with abstract reasons being a kind of fact the concrete instantiations of which counted as concrete reasons because they are instantiations of the abstract reason. 42

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Moreover, this relation of relevancy has as its main ingredient that the person for whom the reason holds tends to be motivated by the awareness of such a reason. In our example this would mean that being thirsty is relevant in the eyes of Jane for taking a drink, only if Jane tends to be motivated to take a drink by the awareness of being thirsty.45 It may be tempting to analyse this phenomenon in terms of the Hume-inspired belief-desire model of practical reasoning,46 but this temptation would be wrong. The analysis in our example would run approximately as follows: Jane has a desire to quench her thirst and she believes that taking a drink will quench her thirst. This explains why Jane takes a drink. Moreover, this same desire makes that it is rational for Jane (Jane has a guiding reason) to take a drink. On this analysis, the belief-desire model functions in the first place as an explanatory theory for human behaviour, as an analysis of motivating reasons. And then it is transformed into a theory about guiding reasons on the assumption that a motivating reason is a belief that there is a guiding reason. What is wrong with this belief-desire model is that it is too strong. A desire to do something explains the motivation to do it, but is not necessary to explain the motivation. Jane in our example may be motivated to take a drink without having the desire to quench her thirst. Most probably she does not even think about it and there is no desire in the sense of a conscious mental state. Of course it is possible to infer that there must have been a desire, because otherwise she would not have been motivated to take the drink, but that would amount to defining the desire in terms of the motivation which allegedly is caused by it (desire is what in combination with beliefs causes motivation),47 and that would be circular.   Cf. J. Rachel, Naturalism, [in:] The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, ed. H. LaFollette, Blackwell, Oxford 2000, pp. 74–91. 46   Railton seems to have succumbed to this temptation in P. Railton, Humean Theory of Practical Rationality, [in:] The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, op. cit., pp. 265–281. 47   This is essentially the approach taken by Smith (The Moral Problem, op. cit., p. 113). 45

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Our observations so far about guiding reasons for a person lead to the following preliminary definition: A fact F is a reason for a person P to perform an act that belongs to action type A, if and only if F belongs to a type of fact T such that the awareness of facts of type T tends to motivate P to perform an act of type A.

This definition is over-inclusive, however, as is illustrated by means of the following example about advertising. Let us assume that Jane has seen lots of commercials of the soft drink Splash. Influenced by these commercials, Jane is motivated by the awareness that she is thirsty to drink a Splash. Suppose moreover, that Jane is not aware that she has been influenced by these commercials. She knows that being thirsty motivates her to take a drink, but does not realise that she is in fact motivated to take a Splash. Then it can be said that Jane considers being thirsty as a reason to take a drink, but not as a reason to take a Splash.

The conclusion to be drawn from this example is that a fact can only be a guiding reason for a person to perform a particular kind of action if this person knows that awareness of this fact tends to motivate him or her to perform acts of this type. The knowledge does not have to be conscious; it suffices that if the person is asked about the causal connection, he or she will usually answer in the affirmative. Let us modify the example still a bit. Jane has come to realise how the commercials have influenced her motivation and she is unhappy about that. Maybe she is wrestling with what in her eyes has now become the temptation to take a Splash, but Jane certainly does not consider being thirsty as a reason to take a Splash. Under these circumstances it cannot be said that being thirsty is a reason for Jane to take a Splash.

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A fact can only be a reason for a person if this person does not object against being motivated by the awareness of this kind of fact. It may still be asked whether this last demand should not be stronger. Shouldn’t it be required that a person agrees with being motivated by the awareness of a guiding reason for this person? Suppose that Jane realises how she has been influenced by the commercials and thinks ‘Never mind’? Would being thirsty then count as a reason for her to take a Splash? The case seems to be a boundary one, but intuitively I would say that neutral awareness of being motivated suffices for the existence of a guiding reason. It is not necessary that the motivated person agrees with being motivated, if only he or she does not disagree. If these amendments are taken into account, the definition of a guiding reason for a person would become the following; A fact F is a reason for a person P to perform an act that belongs to action type A, if and only if: 1. F belongs to a type of fact T such that the awareness of facts of type T tends to motivate P to perform an act of type A; 2. P is aware of this tendency to be thus motivated; 3. P does not disagree with being thus motivated.

Under these circumstances it may be said that F is a personal reason for P to do A.

3.3 Social Reasons Diana does not trust weather forecasts. Therefore she is not motivated to believe that it will rain in the afternoon if the morning weather forecast predicts it. Diana is exceptional for the society in which she lives. Almost everybody in her society trusts weather forecasts, especially those which regard the same day.

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If the facts are as in this example, the fact that the weather forecast predicted rain for the afternoon is in Diana’s society a reason to believe that it will rain in the afternoon, but it is not such a reason for Diana.48 People may accuse Diana of being irrational, but from Diana’s point of view such an accusation does not have to be correct. It may be the case that Diana’s lack of trust is embedded in a comprehensive set of beliefs, attitudes etc., held by Diana, which is coherent. It may also be that all the other people are irrational, but that does not have to be the case either. It is very well possible that a person is motivated in a different way than other persons while neither this person nor the others are irrational. In such a situation, what is a guiding reason for one person does not have to be a guiding reason for the group, or – to state it in the terminology which will be used from now on – it does not have to be a social reason. A fact is a social reason in group G if and only if • this fact is a personal reason for sufficiently many members of G, and • sufficiently many members of G –– believe that this fact is a personal reason for sufficiently many members of G, –– believe that sufficiently many members of G believe the same, –– expect from other members of G that this kind of fact is a personal reason for them.49 If a social reason in a group is not a personal reason for some person, this person may be said not to take the internal point of view towards   The example deals with reasons to believe and is therefore epistemic. However, I do not think that reasons to believe are fundamentally different from other guiding reasons, and therefore this epistemic example can very well fulfil its function. 49   This definition is inspired by similar definitions of existence in social reality, which can be found in, for instance, Tuomela’s paper Shared we-attitudes, [in:] idem, The Philosophy of Sociality. The Shared Point of View, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, pp. 65–82. 48

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this reason. For facts of a particular kind to count as social reasons in a group, it is normally necessary that sufficiently many group members take this internal point of view towards these reasons.50 It is important to notice in this connection that on the one hand facts of a particular kind may count as social reasons within a social group, while a member of this group nevertheless tends not to be motivated by facts of this kind, and that, on the other hand, social reasons are still defined in terms of motivation to act on these reasons, be it indirectly.

3.4 Normative or Deontic Reasons Having the notion of social reasons available, it becomes possible to distinguish between guiding reasons in general and normative or deontic reasons in particular. Deontic reasons are those guiding reasons which obligate. Examples are moral reasons, such as the reason that closing a factory would make many people jobless, which is (under certain circumstances) a moral reason why the factory owners are under a duty not to close the factory, and legal reasons, such as the fact that Evelyn borrowed €500 from Jack, which is a reason why she is under an obligation to repay Jack the money which she borrowed from him. There are also guiding reasons which do not obligate, such as the fact that Jane is thirsty, which may guide her behaviour but does not obligate her to do anything. Apparently, not all guiding reasons are deontic ones. What precisely is the difference between deontic and non-deontic guiding reasons? The notion of second-personality that was introduced by Darwall into ethical theory,51 may come in useful here. The idea behind second-personality is that it involves a claim on a person’s behaviour. This claim may stem from a right-holder, such as the creditor who claims that the debtor pays what he is due.   Cf. H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford 1994, pp. 89–99. 51   S. Darwall, The Second-Person Standpoint, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2006, pp. 3–10. 50

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It may also be a claim from the community at large, as when ‘society’ demands that a plant stops polluting the environment. And, as a boundary case, the claim may even stem from the person on whom the claim is laid, such as when some researcher demands from himself that he will finally write this book which he planned already many years ago.52 In case of a claim its existence should not depend on the motivation of the person on whom the claim is laid. If this were different, Evelyn could take her obligation to pay Jack €500 away just by not being motivated to act upon Jack’s claim. Therefore deontic reasons, which involve a claim, do not depend for their existence on the motivation of the person for whom the reason holds. Since the existence of personal reasons does depend on the tendency of the personal for whom the reasons hold to be motivated, deontic reasons will not be merely personal reasons. Does this mean that one cannot be obligated to do something if there is no social group? Not necessarily, but the second-personality characteristic of deontic reasons does imply that there must be something which functions like a group. The minimal case would be a ‘group’ consisting of one person, when a person lays a claim on herself.53 That a deontic reason is not merely a personal reason does not imply that it cannot also be a personal reason. Evelyn is still under an obligation to pay Jack €500 if she is not motivated to do so, but Evelyn may be very law-abiding and motivated to comply with her legal obligations. In that case legal obligations will be personal reasons for Evelyn too. The step from personal reasons to social reasons is a step on the road from motivation to normativity. It allows the existence of deon  A nice illustration is the story of a famous Dutch soccer player who defended his transfer from Ajax to Barcelona with the reason that if he would not go, he would be ‘a thief from his own wallet’. Apparently it is possible to violate a duty towards oneself. 53  This theme takes a central place in R.A.V. van Haersolte, Monoloog met mijn schuldeiser (Monologue with my creditor), inaugural address Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, 31 januari 1975. Also in Arent van Haersolte, De mens en het zijne, Tjeenk Willink, Zwolle 1984, pp. 146–164. 52

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tic reasons, reasons for the existence of duties and obligations that allow other persons to make demands on an actor. Suppose that the members of a social group acknowledge the duty for inhabitants of houses to clear away the snow before their houses to keep the pavements passable. Even if some inhabitant does not see the presence of snow on the pavement before his house as a reason to clear it away, the group members still take it that he is under a duty to do so and may make appropriate claims on him. The existence of the duty does not depend on the motivation of the person under this duty to comply with it, and yet the existence of the duty is indirectly defined in terms of motivation, namely the motivation of the group members as a set. Social reasons can be reasons why somebody has a duty, e.g. the duty of house owners to clear the pavement, or is under an obligation, e.g. the obligation of the promisor to do what she promised.54 If this is the case, these reasons are constitutive; they make that a duty or obligation exists, and indirectly also that somebody ought to do something. Such reasons are normative reasons or deontic reasons.55 Normative or deontic reasons are indirectly – that is via intermediate deontic states of affairs such as the existence of duties and obligations – reasons why somebody ought to do, or to refrain from, some kind of action. A consequence of this is that it is possible that duties and obligations exist, and that somebody ought to do something, even if the concerned person who is aware of the presence of a duty or an obligation is not at all motivated to comply with it. Awareness of personal reasons by definition involves motivation of the rational person for whom these facts are personal reasons. For personal reasons internalism holds: the awareness of a personal reason guarantees in rational persons the motivation to act upon it. For social reasons, deontic social reasons included, internalism does not hold. Something may be a   The distinction between duties and obligations will be discussed in section 4.2.   This identification of normative and deontic reasons is only possible if, as happens in this paper, evaluative reasons are ignored. 54 55

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reason why P ought to do A, even though a fully rational P is not motivated to do A by the awareness of this reason. As far as deontic reasons are concerned, externalism is the correct view: the awareness of a deontic reason does not guarantee the motivation of the concerned person to act upon it.

3.5 The Demands of Reason The notion of a reason is etymologically and conceptually connected to reasoning. In this light it is not surprising that there is a demand that reasons are reasonable. Reasons must. so it may be argued, be good reasons; a bad ‘reason’ is not ‘really’ a reason, at least not a guiding one.56 The example about Jane and her disposition to take a Splash whenever she is thirsty may serve as an illustration again. Let us assume that Jane has acquiesced in the effects of the Splash commercials and has no problems with being motivated to take a Splash when she is thirsty. Then being thirsty is a personal reason for Jane to take a Splash. Now, suppose that Splash does not quench thirst. The belief that Splash does quench thirst was a factor that led to Jane’s tendency to be motivated. Given that Splash does not quench thirst, this motivation is misguided57, and arguably it may be said that being thirsty turns out not to be a reason for Jane to take a Splash after all. Anyway, it would not be a good reason, and if one assumes that reasons can only guide - rather than persuade - if they are good, it would not be a guiding reason either. 56   This theme is also explored in B. Williams, Internal and External Reasons, [in:] Moral Luck, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1981, pp. 101–113. Originally in Rational Action, ed. R. Harrison, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1980. 57   It is tempting to state that the motivation is irrational (cf. for instance Smith, The Moral Problem, op. cit., p. 156), but if Jane has good reasons to believe that Splash quenches thirst, there is nothing irrational in her tendency to be motivated. Nevertheless there is something ‘wrong’ in it, and by the use of the word ‘misguided’ I tried to express this kind of wrongness.

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More in general, there is a tendency to connect guiding reasons with reason in the sense of rationality. This may mean that some facts which would seem to be personal or social reasons58 turn out to lack that nature, or to be bad reasons. It may also mean that some facts the awareness of which does not tend to motivate would nevertheless count as guiding reasons. The following story may illustrate this. John is playing a betting game with dice. If the sum of the two dice he has thrown is bigger than 9, John has reason to raise the bet. John has thrown a 4 and a 6, but he cannot sum these numbers and is therefore not motivated by his knowledge that he has thrown a 4 and 6, and would normally not be motivated by this knowledge either. Nevertheless, rationally John should be motivated by this knowledge and therefore, arguably, John has a guiding reason to raise his bet.

Apparently the set of reasons can be extended on the basis of reason. Reason may make that some facts are guiding reasons, even if they are not personal reasons. This function of reason will be referred to as the extension function. ‘Opposed’ to the extension function stands the reconstruction function.59 This reconstruction function boils down to it that the original set of tendencies to be motivated is subjected to reconstruction in order to make it rational. Only those tendencies to be motivated are considered to lead to good guiding reasons which fit in this reconstructed set. An example to illustrate this step concerns the discrepancy between the ways in which the (ab)use of alcohol and the (ab)use of other drugs is dealt with. If there is a good moral reason to prohibit the use of drugs like marihuana or cocaine, there seems to be an equally good moral reason to prohibit the use of alcoholic drinks. Conversely, if   The type of argument why some personal ‘reasons’ are not real reasons can be applied analogously to social reasons. 59   Both the extension and the reconstruction function were already recognised by Bernard Williams, in his paper Internal and External Reasons be it under a different name. 58

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only the abuse of alcoholic drinks should be prohibited, why should this be different for the use of other drugs? Whatever the outcome of this discussion, there is either need for making the prohibition policies consistent, or to provide a theory that adequately explains the difference between alcohol and other drugs.

Rational reconstruction has been defended by Rawls as a kind of coherence theory of morality, under the name of ‘reflective equilibrium’.60 Coherence theories, both in epistemology and in ethics and law, are rationalist theories which assume some kind of uncritical input, which is then rationally reconstructed into a coherent whole. In connection with coherentism in the law, Raz denoted this uncritical input as the ‘base’.61 For Rawls, this ‘base’ consists of moral intuitions, which should be turned into ‘considered judgements’ in a coherence creating process of mutual adaptation with hypothetical moral principles. This phenomenon, that facts which at first sight would be guiding reasons turn out not be reasons after all, will be referred to as the reconstruction function of reason, because the initial set of reasons, the ‘base’, is reconstructed into a more reasonable set which does not necessarily include some of the original ‘reasons’. It should be noted that the extension function is also part of the reconstruction function, because the reconstruction of the base set of reasons into a more reasonable set can include extension of the original set. Therefore, properly speaking, the distinction between the extension and the reconstruction function of reason is not an opposition. Both in its extension and in its reconstruction function, reason takes its starting point in the facts which counted as reasons before 60   See J. Rawls, Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics, “Philosophical Review” 1951, no. 64, pp. 177–197, also in Collected Papers, pp. 1–19, and A Theory of Justice, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1972, pp. 48–51. See also N. Daniels, Reflective Equilibrium, [in:] The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Spring 2011 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/reflective-equilibrium. 61   See J. Raz, The Relevance of Coherence, [in:] idem, Ethics in the Public Domain, revised edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995, pp. 277–325. Originally in “Boston University Law Review” 1992, no. 72.

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reason played its role. This means that the input of reason’s work may be a-rational or even irrational. It is possible to do away with this base completely, and try to base reasons pure on reason. This is essentially the Kantian project, according to which, in the name of autonomy, all personal inclinations are discarded. There is much to say about the viability of this Kantian project. However, for the present purposes it suffices to note that this project cuts all links with actual, as opposed to rational, human motivation.

3.6 Institutional Reasons and Reasons From a Point of View Let us define institutional reasons as reasons which make that institutional facts exist. They include, for instance, the reason why Smith owns Blackacre (she inherited it), and the reason why Eloise is competent to open a session of the French Parliament (she is the chair). The main category of institutional reasons are legal reasons. Legal reasons derive their behaviour guiding nature from legal rules. For instance if there exists a valid legal rule that car drivers must carry a driver’s license, then this rule makes the fact that somebody is a car driver into a reason why this person has the duty to carry a driver’s license. Most valid legal rules are valid because they satisfy the conditions of counts-as rules which are recognised within a particular social group. For instance, in a particular social group the counts-as rule exists that rules created by means of legislation count as valid legal rules. Given this counts-as rule, reason requires that the rules created by means of legislation are recognised as valid legal rules and – which is a second step - that the reasons based of these rules are recognised as behaviour guiding reasons from the legal point of view. Whether they are actually (mentally) recognised as such is a different matter. For instance, in the Netherlands there are rules that govern traffic lights for pedestrians. These rules were made by the Dutch legislator

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and therefore count as valid legal rules These rules obligate pedestrians not to cross a road if such a traffic light is red. Going by the behaviour of Dutch pedestrians, these legal rules do not exist as social rules. Most Dutch pedestrians are not at all motivated by a red light for pedestrians. Nevertheless these rules count as valid Dutch law, and as a consequence, pedestrians are legally obligated to stop for red traffic lights for pedestrians. They have a guiding reason to stop, whether they are motivated or not. Moreover, this guiding reason is a deontic one. It guides pedestrians by obligating them, not – which is the crux of the example – by motivating them.

The argument chain that starts from personal reasons to some of the reasons defined by legal rules may be quite long. Suppose, for example, that P is committed to the law of Belgium. This means that he is normally motivated to have his behaviour guided by rules of Belgian law. This begins with being motivated to comply with the Belgian constitution. Then, rationally, P, who lives in Flanders, should also be motivated to comply with ordinary Flemish legislation. As a further consequence, P should rationally also be motivated by local rules from Flemish municipalities. This means that the abstract motivation to comply with Belgian law rationally requires compliance with guiding reasons based on by-laws from Flemish municipalities.

As the example about the traffic lights for pedestrian illustrates, it is far from obvious that reasons which should rationally be complied with are also reasons which actually motivate. This holds particularly if the chain of reasons is quite long, as in the example about the bylaws from Flemish municipalities. Nevertheless there still is a connection with motivation because institutional rules derive their guiding force from their belonging to a system of rules which by and large motivates. The basis for the existence of institutional reasons is still the motivation to act of individual persons, this time the general motivation to act on the rules that belong to the system. If this general

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motivation would not have existed, the system in question would not have counted as an existing legal system. The phenomenon of institutional reasons illustrates how rational extension of a set of reasons constitutes another step on the road from motivation towards normativity. It is also a step further on the road from personal to social reasons, because institutional reasons are a kind of social reasons which do not immediately depend on motivation anymore, but which nevertheless depend for their existence on human motivation with regard to the institution as a whole. Institutional reasons can exist thanks to the existence in a social group of rules62 which indirectly attach the presence of these reasons to events or other facts.63 The relation between personal reasons, social reasons, rational reasons, and institutional reasons can be pictured as follows: personal reasons

social reasons

'ordinary' social reasons

rational reasons

institutional reasons

In the end, all guiding reasons must either be, or be based upon, personal reasons, because otherwise there would be no link between   The existence of rules can be defined analogously to the existence of facts in social reality, or – n the case of institutional rules – it can be defined recursively in terms of the existence of other rules. Cf. D.W.P. Ruiter, Institutional Legal Facts, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht 1993, pp. 23–26. 63   Cf. the account of kinds of constitutive rules in section 2.4. 62

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guiding reasons and motivation. Social reasons are defined directly in terms of personal reasons. Rational reasons are those reasons which rationally should guide the behaviour of a person P, given the facts which would normally be personal reasons for P. Institutional reasons are those guiding reasons which count as reasons according to the rules which define a social institution. In the end these rules must be based on social rules and reasons. Most institutional reasons to act are reasons from the legal point of view. Points of view are perspectives under which a phenomenon can be considered. The points of view of morality, and law are the most important normative points of view. They both generate guiding reasons from that point of view. That these facts are guiding reasons from the point of view in question, for instance legal reasons, is because of the definitional rules that specify what this point of view amounts to. So it depends on the definition of law which reasons count as legal reasons, and on the definition of morality which reasons count as moral reasons.64 Institutional deontic reasons constitute duties, obligations etc. and in that way make that persons ought to do particular things. Institutional reasons have this in common with social deontic reasons, and they have also in common with them that awareness of their presence does not necessarily motivate the persons which they obligate. Externalism is correct with regard to institutional reasons, just like it is with regard to social reasons.

3.7 Summary on Reasons Any discussion about reasons in connection with behaviour should distinguish between guiding reasons, which tell people what to do, and reasons in the sense of causes, which explain, motivate and pre  Geoffrey Warnock’s The Object of Morality (Methuen, London 1971) is an attempt to derive conclusions about the contents of morality from the nature of this phenomenon.

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dict behaviour. Motivating reasons are reasons in the sense of causes. They are mental states with as propositional content that a guiding reason is present. So there is a conceptual link between guiding reasons and one particular kind of causal reasons, and this connection makes motivating reasons dependent on guiding reasons. In connection with normativity it is interesting to see whether the connection also goes the other direction, whether guiding reasons depend on motivating reasons. In order to obtain such a relation, it is necessary to define motivating reasons without mentioning guiding reasons. This can be done with regard to personal reasons, guiding reasons which are reasons for a particular person to act in a particular way. Such personal reasons can be defined as follows: A fact F is a reason for a person P to perform an act that belongs to action type A, if and only if: 1. F belongs to a type of fact T such that the awareness of facts of type T tends to motivate P to perform an act of type A; 2. P is aware of this tendency to be thus motivated; 3. P does not disagree with being thus motivated. Under these circumstances it may be said that F is a personal reason for P to do A. Personal reasons cannot be deontic reasons, because deontic reasons have an aspect of second-personality. From a person who is obligated to act in some way it can be claimed, normally by somebody else, that he or she in facts acts this way. Such a claim cannot depend on the motivation to act, and therefore deontic reasons are not personal reasons. Many deontic reasons are social reasons, reasons which are considered to be behaviour guiding by most members of a social group. A fact is a social reason in group G if and only 1. if this fact is a personal reason for sufficiently many members of G, and 2. if sufficiently many members of G

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–– believe that this fact is a personal reason for sufficiently many members of G, –– believe that sufficiently many members of G believe the same, –– expect from other members of G that this kind of fact is a personal reason for them. It is possible to distinguish between guiding reasons and good guiding reasons, but it is also possible to demand that all guiding reasons are good reasons. In the latter case, reason plays a role in determining what are guiding reasons. In this connection we can distinguish between the extension and the reconstruction role of reason. In its extension function, reason can make that facts the awareness of which by itself does not motivate, nevertheless count as guiding reasons. An important subset of these reasons required by elaboration of a more basic set are institutional reasons such as for instance legal reasons. In its reconstruction function, reason makes that only those facts count as guiding reasons which survive a process of rational reconstruction. Such a process would probably weed out reasons which derive their motivating force from false beliefs.

4. Deontic Furniture Many rules, principles and facts are expressed by means of terms which are somehow related to normativity. These terms include ‘ought’, ‘shall’, ‘duty’, obligation’, ‘obligated’, and ‘obliged’. The precise relations between the meanings of these terms, or between what these terms stand for is far from clear, and the use of the terms in common parlance is not without ambiguity. Still, for a proper understanding of the nature or normativity, some insight in the differences between, for instance, ‘shall’, ‘ought’, and ‘obligation’ is very useful. For that reason, this section will make an attempt to create some clarity. ‘Create’ because there are no obviously correct analyses in this

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field. The work must necessarily be somewhat stipulative in this ambiguous field of semantic, conceptual, or still other relations. As indicated in the introduction, the analyses presented here were inspired by the work of White, in particular the books Modal Thinking and Rights, but it does not follow White’s analyses uncritically.

4.1 Shall and Ought Practical reasoning from the first-person perspective tries to answer the question ‘What shall I do?’ This question is a different question than the question ‘What is it that I ought to do?’ with which it may be confused. The ought-issue is to be answered on the basis of deontic reasons, reasons which lay a second-personal claim upon the behaviour of the person who ought to do something. If a person ought to do something, even if he recognises that he ought to do something and is aware of it, this is no guarantee that he will be motivated to act accordingly. It depends on whether the deontic reasons which make that he ought to do something are also personal reasons, and as we have seen in section 3.4, this is not necessarily the case. With the shall-issue, things are completely different. What a person should do depends on her personal reasons. These reasons may, but need not, include deontic reasons. For example, if Alice would like to listen to some alternative country music, she has a reason to play a record of, for instance, Gillian Welch. Ceteris paribus, this is not something which she ought to do, but given her desire to hear that kind of music, she should play that record. Moreover, if she should play this record and is aware of it, Alice will normally be motivated to act accordingly. There may be circumstances that make that she does not play the record. There may be countervailing reasons (Alice’s husband, who is at home, hates alternative country) which make that Alice does not act on this motivating reason, or Alice may be irrational (too tired to do anything) with the

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effect that she is not motivated to act on what she herself considers to be a reason, but under normal circumstances there is a close link between what a person thinks she should do and her being motivated to act accordingly. Deontic reasons may be reasons why a person should act in a particular way, but that depends on whether these deontic reasons were internalised. For instance, the fact that the traffic light for pedestrians is red is a legal reason for a pedestrian not to cross the road. Ceteris paribus, this reason makes that the pedestrian ought not to cross the road. Whether she should cross the road, however, depends on what are her personal reasons. If our pedestrian has internalised (this part of) the law, meaning that she takes legal reasons as personal reasons, the red traffic light will also constitute a personal reason, a reason for what she should do. However, if she is not interested in the law at all, and not afraid of the law’s sanctions, there is no reason why she should not cross the road. If a person should do something, this does not imply that others can expect from her that she does it in fact, unless she also has a deontic reason for doing it. Nobody is in a position to urge Alice to put the Gillian Welch record on. Personal reasons can very well lack the aspect of second-personality which makes them normative. Finally, the fact that somebody ought to do something is never a reason for doing what she ought to do. The reasons why P ought to do A may be reasons why P should do A, but it is these reasons for the ought that can also be reasons for the should. The ought itself is not a reason. Neither is the should a reason, but this is easier to see: how can the fact why one should do A be a reason for doing A? Think for instance of the child who asks his mother ‘Why am I to eat my meal?’. ‘Because you should’ is not an acceptable answer. That neither a should-, nor an ought-fact can be a reason for acting, and that an ought cannot be a reason for a should, has to do with the special nature of the ought and the should. What one should do is the final conclusion of practical reasoning, and since practical reasoning ends in the intention to act there cannot be a step anymore ‘af-

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ter’ the should. The should-judgement is, barring exceptional circumstances (irrationality), necessarily connected with the intention to act. Somewhat analogously, the ought-judgement is the conclusion of deontic reasoning. An ought is not a reason, but the outflow of one or more reasons. All these reasons which lead to an ought-conclusion may also be reasons why person should do something or a reason for a person to do something, but the ought that follows from these reasons is not an additional reason why something should be done or to do something. The summary of a set of reasons is not a reason itself.

4.2 Duties, Obligations, Being Obligated and Being Obliged The distinction between what one has a reason to do and the summary of a set of reasons should warn us against identifying pieces of deontic furniture. Being under an duty or under an obligation to do something is not the same as owing to do that. Being under a duty and being under an obligation are both reasons why somebody ought to do something; they are not the ought itself. Moreover, duties and obligations are not the same thing either. A duty to do something is what one is obligated to do as a consequence of a particular position or role.65 Duties are connected to positions or roles by means of fact-to-fact rules (cf. section 2.4). It is for instance, the duty of a judge to apply the law, and the duty of a houseinhabitant to clear the snow from the pavement before the house. Then the fact that Judy is a judge is a reason why Judy has the duty to apply the law, and the fact that Gerald inhabits a house is the reason why Gerald has to clear the pavement. The same reasons are also reasons why Petra and Gerald are obligated to apply the law, respectively to clear the pavement. However, by saying that something is somebody’s duty, the relation to some65

  A.R. White, Rights, op. cit., pp. 21–26.

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body’s position or role is made explicit, while that is not the case if it is said that somebody is obligated. Being obligated is the normative implication of one particular deontic reason, which abstracts from the nature of the reason. It is somewhat similar to owing to do something, but there is a difference in that being obligated is the outflow of one deontic reason while an ought may be the outflow of a set of reasons. It is possible, however, that a set of deontic reasons only contains one reason, and then the ought is very similar to the being obligated. Suppose, for instance that Petra has precisely one reason why she ought to apply the law and this reason is that she is under a professional duty to do so (Petra is a judge). Then Petra is obligated to apply the law, and she ought to apply the law, both as the outflow of the single reason that she is under a professional duty to do so. Where a duty is connected to a position or role by means of a factto-fact rule, obligations are the consequences of events, to which they are connected by means of dynamic rules (cf. section 2.4). Some obligations are undertaken voluntarily, most notably by making promises. Then the event that P promised Q to do A leads to the effect that P is under an obligation towards Q to do A. Other obligations are not undertaken voluntarily. An example would be that P by accident causes damage to Q. This event results in the obligation to compensate the damage. As these two example illustrate, obligations are always directed. A person P is under an obligation towards person Q to do A. Normally this goes together with a claim of Q against P that the obligation is performed.66 If a person P is under an obligation to do A, P is obligated to do A. The event that brought about the obligation and which is therefore the reason why P is under an obligation, is also the reason why P is obligated. However, in saying that P is obligated to do A, one abstracts from the obligation, and therewith also from the claim which corresponds to the obligation.   The law knows some exceptional circumstances where such a claim is lacking, for instance in the case of obligationes naturales and stipulationes alteri. Cf. R. Zimmerman, The Law of Obligations. Roman Foundations of the Civilian Tradition, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1996, pp. 7–10 and 34–45. 66

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The issue what is to be done is to a large extent decided by what is possible. Suppose that John promised to post a letter and the only way to keep his promise is to walk to the letter box, John is obliged to walk to the letter box. He is not obligated to do so; the obligation only concerns the posting of the letter; that is what John is obligated to do. His behaviour is not only constrained by this obligation, however, but also by which behaviour alternatives are open to him, both physically and normatively. If these constraints only ‘allow’ one kind of behaviour, one is obliged to perform this behaviour. Being obliged is the outcome of all constraints, both the deontic and the non-deontic ones, on one’s behaviour, and is in that sense comparable with an ought. The difference between being obliged and owing to do something is that being obliged takes in all constraints, including the nondeontic ones, while the ought only takes in deontic constraints.

5. Conclusions In the sections above, a large number of distinctions has passed. Neither one of these distinctions properly defines what normativity is, but together they offer a neat picture. The first distinction is that between normativity as related to the guidance of behaviour (ex ante normativity) and normativity as related to the ex post evaluation of behaviour. This paper only deals with the ex ante variant. The primary function of ex ante normativity is to direct people to act in a particular way. If there were no connection at all with motivation, the very notions of duty, obligation and ought would not make much sense. However, normativity is not merely a way to motivate people; it is a particular way to do so, namely through the intermediary of normative or deontic facts, such as the existence of duties and obligations, and ‘ought-facts’. A major, if not the main challenge for an account of normativity is to connect these two aspects of normativity.

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In the section about reasons an attempt was made to counter this challenge by arguing that there is a close connection between guiding reasons and explanatory reasons. Explanatory reasons can be defined in terms of guiding reasons, but also the other way round. The definition of guiding reasons in terms of explanatory reasons works best in case of so-called ‘personal reasons’, facts the awareness of which tends to motivate a person to act in a particular way. If the step is taken from personal towards social reasons, or from personal reasons towards ‘good’ in the sense of rational reasons, the relation between explanatory and guiding reasons is still maintained indirectly, but becomes much looser. The introduction of social or rational reasons, reasons which do not depend for their existence on the motivation of the persons to whom they apply, made it possible to distinguish a special subset of guiding reasons, namely deontic reasons. Deontic reasons are reasons which make that (which constitute) deontic or normative facts exist. These facts presuppose the existence of a second-personal claim on the behaviour of the person who is obligated to do something. Many deontic facts, in particular institutional ones, depend for their existence on deontic rules. These deontic rules attach the existence of a deontic fact to the occurrence of an event or to some other fact. Therefore these rules are constitutive rules. However, in a sense, namely by creating deontic facts, they also regulate human behaviour. For that reason, deontic rules may also be called ‘regulative rules’. These regulative rules are then a subset of the set of constitutive rules. Usually rules are subdivided into constitutive and regulative ones. However, if regulative rules are a subset of constitutive rules, it appears that all rules are constitutive. It may seem that the central phenomenon in an account of normativity should be the norm. Regrettably it is not very clear what is meant by ‘norm’. Perhaps it is better to abandon the very notion of a norm and stick to deontic and non-deontic facts and deontic and nondeontic rules. If one nevertheless wants to keep the notion of a norm, it may be best to identify norms with deontic or regulative rules. In

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that case, the alleged ‘gap’ between facts and norms coincides with the gap between facts and rules, and has nothing to do with the deontic nature of norms.

Anna Brożek University of Warsaw

The Naturalistic Fallacy From the Methodological Point of View1

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n discussions concerning the so-called naturalistic fallacy in normative disciplines (or in moral systems), two philosophers are often mentioned: D. Hume and G.E. Moore. According to Hume, the naturalistic fallacy consists of inferring deontic sentences from non-deontic ones when no such passage is logically justified. According to Moore, the naturalistic fallacy consists of proposing definitions of the term “good” while this term is itself indefinable. In order to distinguish between these two types of naturalistic fallacy, I will use two terms – the “Humean fallacy” and the “Moorean fallacy” respectively – making the reservation that Hume and Moore did not commit these fallacies themselves but only pointed them out. Both fallacies are of a methodological type and they require methodological analysis.

1. The Humean Problem Hume was one of the first philosophers to raise the problem of the dependencies between – if I may use their traditional metaphorical terms – the sphere of being and the sphere of duty. This problem consists of   This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation. The article was prepared within the grant “Theory of Imperatives” supported by the Foundation for Polish Science (program Homing Plus).

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many components which will be analysed separately below. One may express these components in the following questions: H1: Are deontic sentences descriptive? H2: Are there any regularity-like dependencies between natural and deontic states of affairs? H3­: Are there infallible (logically correct) schemes of inferences from descriptive to deontic sentences? H4­: Can one infer deontic sentences from descriptive ones? Let us call the problems expressed in these questions “Humean problems”. Hume, as one of the most careful philosophers, does not give any negative answer to them, even if he felt like doing so.

H1: Are deontic sentences descriptive? A. The argumentation of Hume (and other critics of the Humean naturalistic fallacy) is based on the supposition that a certain gap exists between deontic and descriptive sentences. Hume notices this gap when speaking about two different relations stated in sentences: In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, “is”, and “is not”, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an “ought”, or an “ought not”. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this “ought”, or “ought not”, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use

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this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.2

Nowadays, it is usually claimed that descriptive sentences have logical value (are true or false) while deontic ones do not. Some philosophers try to cover over this being-duty gap by utilizing at least two strategies. B. Firstly, sentences like: (1) It ought to be the case that p. are interpreted as a shortage of the expression: (2) In such-and-such normative system it is obligatory that p. The sentence (2) is descriptive if we agree that it means: (3) Such-and-such text contains such-and-such expression. Of course, the unanswered question arises: what does it mean that something is obligatory? Let us observe that if Hume did not notice the gap between being and duty, then he would not have noticed any problems arising with deontic sentences. Being-obligatory could be interpreted as a standard property and the term “duty” could appear in syllogistic schemes as a major, minor or middle term, e.g.: (4) Every A is B. Every B is obligatory.

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Every A is obligatory. Inferences with deontic conclusions in which at least one premise is also deontic have of course the sanction of contemporary deontic logics.  D. Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature, Dover Publications, New York 2003 (1739–40), p. 304.

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C. However – as some commentators maintain – Hume probably did not make use of the concept of deontic sentences (viz. stating that some states of affairs or actions are obligatory according to somebody or within a given normative system). He probably had in mind deontic sentences sensu stricto. Some of the answers to the question “What is a deontic sentence sensu stricto?” may be interpreted as another way of bridging the being-duty gap – because, secondly, it happens that deontic sentences are interpreted as reducible by definition to some non-deontic sentences. Let me mention an interesting example of such a reduction. This approach it based on two assumptions: Firstly, the concepts of obligation and permission are analogues of the concepts of necessity and possibility. Secondly, necessity and possibility are qualities of states of affairs relativized to some laws, in particular, logical necessity and possibility are relativized to logical laws. For instance, on the basis of the law3: (5) ∀x (Px → Qx). taken in isolation, it is possible (absolutely) that: (6) Pa ∧ Qa. (7) ~Pa ∧ Qa. (8) ~Pa ∧ ~Qa. A state of affairs is possible on the basis of a given law when the sentence stating the occurrence of this state of affairs is not contradictory to the law and sentences (6)-(8) are not contradictory to (5). One normally utilises the concepts of possibility and necessity with respect to certain occurring states of affairs. Let us assume that: (9) Pa. In such cases, on the basis of (5) and with respect to the state of affairs stated in (9), it is necessary that: (10) Qa. 3   Usually, one considers the concept of possibility and necessity based not on a single law but on a whole theory. One may consider this law as a minimal theory.

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On the other hand, on the basis of (5) and with respect to (9), all states of affairs are possible with the exception of the state of affairs stated in ‘~ Qa’. D. Now, let us consider the following law: (11) ∀x (x sees to it that p → there is such a penalty k, that x is punished with k). The law (11) is not natural, but one may term it a supra-natural or a cultural law, since it concerns somebody’s action and punishment. However – let us agree – both the antecedent and consequent of (11) are descriptive. On the basis of (11): (12) A should not see to it that p (or should see to it that not-p). The formula (12) concerns an absolute obligation on the basis of (11). On the other hand the formula: (13) A should not see to it that p with respect to the punishment k. concerns the obligation related to the punishment. Laws such as (11) are usually not exceptionless (so the universal quantifier is a kind of idealization). The basis of the formula (12) may also be a weaker regularity in which the universal quantifier is substituted by the majority-quantifier such as “for the most of x-es”. According to the proposal presented, obligation and permission are qualifications not of simple states of affairs but of some actions with respect to some supranatural laws. It is worth remembering that the first systems of deontic logic (of von Wright and Kalinowski) were logics of sentence-creating operators of one name-argument (where this argument is the name of action) or sentence-creating operators of name arguments (where these arguments are: name of agent and name of action).

H2: Are there any regularity-like dependencies between natural and deontic states of affairs? A. Let us start from the observation that the question H2 may be analysed independently from what answer is given to question

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H1. Even if deontic facts are not natural and not reducible to them by definition, some non-semantic regularities may occur between them. Let us consider the simplest infallible (logically correct) scheme of inference: modus ponendo ponens: (1) If p, then q. p. _________ q. The following law of logic is its justification: (2) [(p → q) ∧ p] → q. Let us analyse an interesting asymmetry between the interpretation of the connectives ‘→’ in the formula (2) ,which is the rule of the inference (1). The counterpart of the second implication in the formula (2) is the “passage” from premises to the conclusion. The substitutions of the first implication, i.e. of the formula: (3) p → q. – in the formula (2) – are either (a) sentences stating the occurrence of a causal relation between two states of affairs, viz. that: (4) S1 is a cause of S2. where S1 is a state of affairs stated by ‘p’ and S2 is a state of affairs stated by ‘q’; or (b) the statement of the regular co-occurrence of some kinds of state of affairs, that: (5) Whenever S1 occurs, S2 occurs as well. where S1 and S2 are substitutions of ‘p’ and ‘q’ conceived as types. In this case, (4) is stating a certain regularity between two phenomena. The simplest form of such a regularity would be: (6) ∀x (Px → Qx).

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In brief, the matter is about a certain law. B. If the scheme modus ponendo ponens is to be applied to the inference from descriptive to deontic sentences, then Hume’s question may be reinterpreted as follows: Are there any laws in the form (3), in which ‘p’ is a descriptive sentence and ‘q’ a deontic one? Consider an approach which postulates the existence of such regularities. Let us analyse the following scheme (which is of course a version of Searle’s reasoning4): (7) (i) If x at the moment t0 says to y: “I order you to see to it that p”,5 then x at the moment t0 orders y to see to it that p. (ii) If x at the moment t0 orders y to see to it that p, then x at the moment t0 obliges y to see to it that p. (iii) If x at the moment t0 obliges y to see to it that p, then at the moment t1, y is obliged to see to it that p. (iv) A6 at the moment t­0­ says to B: “I order you to see to it that p”. _______________________________ (v) At t1, B should see to it that p. The premise (iv) is definitely descriptive, the conclusion (v) is definitely deontic. Premises (i)-(iii) state something about language and cultural conventions. So, we may not say that the obligation is hidden in premises. In order to evaluate the correctness of the mentioned scheme, one has to focus their attention on the premise (iii) which may be reconstructed as follows: (8) y obliges x to see to it that p → x should see to it that p. Obligation is considered here as an effect of the act of obliging.   Cf. J.R. Searle, How to Derive Ought from Is, “The Philosophical Review” 1964, vol. 73, no. 1, pp. 43–58. 5   It should be added “and x is a deontic authority with respect to y”. 6   It should be added “and A is a deontic authority with respect to B”. 4

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H3: Are there infallible (logically correct) schemes of inferences from descriptive to deontic sentences? The only logical system known by Hume was syllogistic. In his reasoning, reconstructed here, he could consider only the following schemes of reasoning (1) All/some A1 is (not) B1. All/some A2 is (not) B2. … ___________________ All/some Ak should (not) be Bk. A particular example of (1) is: (2) Every/some A is (not) B. _______ Every /some A should (not) be C. Thanks to these examples, one may more easily see what Hume had in mind when he spoke about two different “relations”: “be” and “should-be”. Hume’s methodological postulate may be generalized as follows. For every inference with the scheme (I omit quantifiers): (3) A is in a relation R to B. ____ A is in a relation S to B. the reason has to be given. Such a reason is of course the principle of reasoning, viz. the scheme: (4) R(A,B) → S(A,B). If the inference (3) is to be logically sound, such a scheme has to be tautological and Hume evidently considered it not to be. Generalizing, no two essentially different relations between two objects (hav-

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ing the same direction in order to exclude a relation and its converse) are (logically) dependent. It seems that Hume’s problem H3 comes from the fact that his conceptions of sentence structure and schemes of reasoning were too narrow. He could not imagine such schemes as, for instance, the Searlean one presented above. Nowadays, one knows more about these matters. Searle’s scheme analysed above: (5) A obliges B to see to it that p. _______________________ B should see to it that p. is an intuitively acceptable (at least for some theorists of obligation) scheme of reasoning such that its conclusion concerns thetic obligation. For other concepts of obligation one has other intuitively acceptable – at least partially – schemes: For teleological obligation: (6) A wants S1 to happen. S2 is a necessary condition of S1. ________________________________ A should see to it that S2. For axiological obligation: (7) The fact that p is a (vital) bad. ____________________ A should not see to it that p. It is clear that in order to decide whether (7) is a correct scheme of being-to-duty reasoning one has to propose an analysis of the concept of good (see below). It is worth stressing that for different types of obligation one should propose different axiomatic systems as their logical basis.

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H4: May one infer deontic sentences from descriptive ones? A. Consider the problem of whether the negative answer to H3 settles the negative answer to H4. In order to analyse this problem, let us recall the most important part of the theory of reasoning – in particular, the difference between the concept of inference and the concept of logical consequence. Let us agree that: A reasoning from the sentence ‘p’ (resp. the set of sentences S) to the sentence ‘q’ is a mental process in which: (a) the initial stage consists in asserting (or conditionally asserting) the sentence ‘p’ (resp. sentences belonging to S) and the final stage consists in asserting (resp. conditionally asserting) the sentence ‘q’; (b) asserting the sentence ‘q’ is motivated by asserting the sentence ‘p’.7 The sentences asserted in the process of reasoning are called “steps of reasoning”. From among all processes of reasoning, logicians are in particular interested in those in which a conviction that there exists a relation of logical consequence between the initial and the final step forms an additional motivation for accepting the final step; in short: that the final step follows from the initial one. Such a reasoning is called “an inference”.8 An inference from the sentence ‘p’ (resp. the set S) to the sentence ‘q’ is a reasoning such that asserting of ‘q’ is additionally motivated by the conviction that ‘q’ follows from ‘p’ (resp. from sentences belonging to S).   Elements of this definition are analysed in A. Brożek, J. Jadacki, On Imperative Reasoning, [in:] Theory of Imperatives from Different Points of View. Logic, Methodology & Philosophy of Science at Warsaw University (6), eds. A. Brożek, J. Jadacki, B. Žarnić, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper, Warszawa 2011, ss. 148–162. 8   I make use of Łukasiewicz’s terminological tradition. This concept of inference was extended by Ajdukiewicz. 7

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Inferences, i.e. certain mental processes, should be distinguished from schemes of reasoning. Schemes of processes of reasoning are usually defined as ordered pairs such that the first element of the pairs is a certain unempty set of sentences and the second element is a certain sentence. Inferences, of course, are not sequences of sentences and may only be represented by them. B. In order to estimate the correctness (validity) of reasoning – of an inference, in particular – one should decide whether the acceptance of the initial step is a sufficient motivation for accepting the final one. Such a decision may be of an intuitive or of a logical character. Intuitive estimations of a given reasoning are usually differentiated just because they are not based on objective, algorithmic criteria. A logical criterion of the correctness of reasoning is objective: it is a soundness of the scheme of the reasoning. The scheme is correct (sound) when the conclusion logically follows from the premises, viz. when the rule of the reasoning is a logical truth. It seems that Hume asks philosophers that commit the naturalistic fallacy to provide a logical reason for the appearance of “some new relation”.9 Let us now say clearly what it means to commit a formal fallacy in reasoning (since the naturalistic fallacy seems to be interpreted as a formal one). The concept of the correctness of reasoning is often mixed up with the concept of the soundness of its scheme. Generally speaking, persons that carry out a certain procedure make an error when they do something that is not accepted within this procedure. We commit a formal fallacy when we are convinced that the conclusion follows from our premises but in   The connection between the evaluation of reasoning with respect to propriety and evaluation with respect to validity is rather loose. Some of the valid processes of reasoning are intuitively incorrect and some invalid ones are psychologically acceptable. On the other hand, intuitions which are strong and confronted with reality are the point of departure of the theory of logical consequence and, even today, decide what formulas are taken as the axioms of a given logical system.

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fact it does not. An inferring person who is aware of the fact that the conclusion does not follow from the premises does not make any mistake. C. The defenders of the being-to-duty processes of reasoning may argue that being-to-duty mental moves are not processes of reasoning in the above defined sense. Let us turn our attention to the fact that we usually only guess what mental processes lie behind a given philosophical text. Hume says in the quoted passage that sentences appear in ethical treatises referring to new “relations”. It is only assumed that the authors infer these sentences from previous, descriptive ones. Of course, there are sometimes some signals which justify such an interpretation (the words such as “so”, therefore” or simply “it follows from it that…”). It is possible that the authors of ethical treatises, in making such a move from descriptive to deontic sentences, are not convinced that deontic sentences logically follow from descriptive ones. They may simply think that the acceptance of a certain sentence as a truth is a sufficient motive for accepting that certain deontic sentences are in force. Let us notice that by “deontic sentences sensu stricto” one understands not sentences which state what there should be but sentences which introduce or, as I prefer to say, generate the obligation. D. If it is so, then the problem of deontic inference should not be posed as it usually is. Let us once again recall the fact that reasoning is a process starting from assertion of a sentence and ending with the assertion of another sentence’s truth. But generating a given obligation is not an act of assertion; I would rather say that it is a volitional experience. Inferences which lead from descriptive to deontic sentences sensu stricto are processes in which the initial steps are assertion sentences and the final steps are acts of will in realizing a given state of affairs.

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2. The Moorean Problem The Moorean problem – as well as the Humean one – is de facto a set of few problems. This is the most important part of Moore’s argumentation: What, then, is good? [...] My business is solely with that object or idea, which I hold, rightly or wrongly, that the word is generally used to stand for. What I want to discover is the nature of that object [...]. If I am asked “How is good to be defined?” my answer is that it cannot be defined, and that is all I have to say about it. [...] Propositions about the good are all of them synthetic and never analytic; and that is plainly no trivial matter [...]. My point is that “good” is a simple notion, just as “yellow” is a simple notion; that, just as you cannot, by any manner of means, explain to anyone who does not already know it, what yellow is, so you cannot explain what good is. Definitions of the kind that I was asking for, definitions which describe the real nature of the object or notion denoted by a word, and which do not merely tell us what the word is used to mean, are only possible when the object or notion in question is something complex. [...] I do not mean to say that the good, that which is good, is thus indefinable. [...] I believe the good to be definable; and yet I still say that good itself is indefinable. “Good,” then, if we mean by it that quality which we assert to belong to a thing, when we say that the thing is good, is incapable of any definition, in the most important sense of that word. The most important sense of “definition” is that in which a definition states what are the parts which invariably compose a certain whole; and in this sense “good” has no definition because it is simple and has no parts. It is one of those innumerable objects of thought which are themselves incapable of definition, because they are the ultimate terms of reference to which whatever is capable of definition must be defined. [...] It may be true that all things which are good are also something else, just as it is true that all things which are yellow produce a certain

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kind of vibration in the light. And it is a fact, that Ethics aims at discovering what are those other properties belonging to all things which are good. But far too many philosophers have thought that when they named those other properties they were actually defining good; that these properties, in fact, were simply not “other”, but absolutely and entirely the same with goodness. This view I propose to call the naturalistic fallacy.10

Let us consider the following components of Moore’s problem: M1: Is the property of being-good simple? M2: Is the term “good” definable? M3: Is the property of being-good a natural one? In the next paragraphs, I analyse this question separately.

M1: Is the property of being-good simple? A. In order to answer this question, one has to know what it means for the property to be simple or composed. The answer to such a question is much more difficult than the answer to the question of whether a given concrete object (viz. a thing) is composed. Generally speaking, a given concrete object is composed when it has at least two different spatial parts (pieces), at least two time parts (phases), or at least two properties. It is, however, unclear what “a composed abstract” or “a composed property” means. Properties are ontologically dependent beings and saying that such a dependent being has parts-pieces or parts-phases, or part-properties, sounds suspicious. As an example of a compound property, Moore mentions being-ahorse, and as an example of a simple one – being-yellow. These examples testify to the fact that he understands the complexity of properties in the following way: 10

  G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica, Barnes & Noble, New York 2005 (1903), pp. 6–8.

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(1) The property C is a quasi-mereological sum of properties A and B ↔def the class of objects having the property C = product (or sum) of a class of objects having the property A and a class of objects having the property B. Let us agree that the property of being-a-square is a composed property and that: (2) Being a square =def being a rectangle + being equilateral. B. When Moore says that being-good is not a composed property, he probably means that there are no such properties which satisfy the scheme: (3) x is good ↔ x is A and x is B. or, if alternative properties are also compound, the scheme: (3) x is good ↔ x is A or x is B. This is said to imply that there are no such A and B that satisfy the scheme: (4) The class of good objects =def product (or sum?) of the class of objects having property A and the class of objects having property B. It is, however, not so simple as it initially seems to be. Moore defends the general thesis that there are no such two properties that their composition is the property of being-good. In order to show the falsity of this thesis, it is enough to indicate two such properties, the sum of which is good. The problem is that Moore determines that every such proposal is questionable. Let us suppose that: (5) There are such properties A and B that: x is good ↔ x is A and x is B, Even if it is so, it does not mean that the term “good” is definable. More generally: (6) The fact that every and all object being A and B is also C is not a sufficient condition for the fact that C is a composition of A and B. But, if not, what is a sufficient condition here? In particular, what is the source of our conviction that being-a-rectangle and being-equilateral make up being-a-square? It seems that the only possible answer must refer to meaning conventions. Maybe Moore

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simply says that similar meaning conventions decide that no composition of two properties make up being-good. Let us stress that such conventions are not ethical; they are Moore’s own postulates at best. The problem could also be put in yet another way: Moore turns his attention to the fact that there is a difference between simple and definitional equivalence. The problem is that this difference cannot be explicated without a set of suitable terminological conventions.

M2: Is the term “good” definable? A. Let us notice that – contrary to what Moore might have thought – the negative answer to M1 does not entail a negative answer to M2. Moore’s argumentation shows that he made use of a very strong – from the contemporary point of view – concept of definition. In particular, he was convinced that the definition (of good) should determine the full connotation of the defined term. Nowadays, one accepts many types of definitions which do not fulfil these conditions but play an important role in many scientific disciplines. Before presenting the analysis of the problem of the definability of the term “good”, let us make some distinctions which are not satisfactorily presented in Moore’s Principia. Let us distinguish the term “being-good” (“goodness11”), which refers to a property, from the term “a good” (“something being good”), referring to the substrate of this property, and let us distinguish a denotation of terms from their connotation and the essence of their designata defined as follows: (1) Denotation of the term T is the class of designata of the term T, viz. the class of objects which may be truthfully called “T”.   The term “goodness” is primarily used in English in the sense “moral excellence or admirableness”. Here, I use it in the second sense.

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(2) Connotation of the term T is the property which is ascribed by T to their designata. (3) Essence of designata of the term T is a minimal set of properties which are possessed by each and every designatum of T. Let us notice that one set of designata may have more than one essence. B. Before considering how the distinction between connotation and denotation works in the case of the term “being-good” and “a good”, let us analyse an easier example of the terms “[being-]red” (“redness”) and “a red [object]”. The denotation of the term “redness” is the set of all and only particular rednesses. (Let me mention that, without justification, I accept the thesis that particular properties, localized in space and time, viz. so-called tropes, exist and are “attached” to the concrete objects which are their substrates.) The connotation of the term “redness” is a property possessed by all and only (particular) rednesses. To the denotation of the term “a red object” belong all and only objects which may be truthfully called “red”, in short: all and only red objects. The connotation of the term “a red object” is redness. C. By analogy: The denotation of the term “goodness” is the set of all and only (particular) goodnesses. The connotation of the term “goodness” is a property possessed by all and only (particular) goodnesses. The denotation of the term “a good” is a set of all and only good objects which may be truthfully called “good”, viz. the set of all and only good objects. The connotation of the term “a good” is goodness. It seems that Moore did not fully realize these subtle distinctions. As a consequence, some formulations of Principia are awash with categorical mistakes:

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What is [...] indefinable is not “the good”, or the whole of that which always possesses the predicate “good”, but this predicate itself.

Let us skip these mistakes, however, and say clearly that Moore argues for the thesis that it is not possible to indicate a (correct) connotational definition of the term “goodness”. Let us add that sometimes it seems that Moore uses the term “good” in another sense, not defined above. It is important to distinguish two senses of this term: (4) “A good1” means “a good object”. (5) “A good2” means “the class of good objects”. It is obvious that: (6) “A good2” means “the class of goods1”. D. In contemporary methodology, one distinguishes between connotational and denotational definitions with respect to what sense is indicated in them. One also distinguishes full and partial definitions with respect to whether a given definition indicates the whole or only a part of the sense. The schemes of the definitions mentioned above, are the following: (7) All and only such properties belong to the connotation of the term T: ... (8) All and every such objects belong to the denotation of the term T: ... (9) The following properties belong to the connotation of the term T: ... (10) The following objects belong, among others, to the denotation of the term T: ... Making use of these distinctions, we may say that according to Moore: (a) the term “[a] good” may be equipped with a full connotational definition (simply because Moore accepts definitions (4) and (6)) and with partial denotational definition (since Moore declares that he is able to give some examples of goods);

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(b) the term “good[ness]” cannot be equipped with a connotational definition or with a full one in any case. If good[ness] is a simple property, then the term “good” cannot be defined by means of a full connotational definition. It does not mean that all terms referring to simple properties are indefinable. Moore mentions being-yellow (yellowness) as an example of a simple property. Let us notice that the term “yellow” may be defined by the formula: (11) x is yellow ↔def x is equal-coloured with ripe lemons. One may do the same with the predicate “good” and say (let us limit ourselves to good actions): (12) an action x is good ↔def an action x is morally equivalent with the action consisting with giving aid to the person in need. Formulas (11) and (12) are, as it is generally understood, the socalled definitions by abstraction.

M3: Is the property of being-good natural? Let us notice that M3 may be reasonably posed even if we accept the thesis that being-good is simple and the term “good” is indefinable: there could be some simple and, at the same time, natural properties. In order to answer the question M3, one needs to establish the sense of the term “natural property”. Moore’s argumentation is not sufficient to say how he understands it. I suppose that he would agree that a natural property is a connotation of an observational term of some natural science. Moore says that the naturalistic fallacy is committed by those who identify the property D of being-good with some natural essential property N of the class of good objects. His thesis may be put as follows: (1) ~ [∀x (Dx ↔ Nx) → (D = N)] However, (1) is not equivalent to: (2) ∀x (Dx ↔ Nx) → ~ (D = N).

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So, what is Moore’s justification of (1)? He writes: If it is not the case that “good” denotes something simple and indefinable, only two alternatives are possible: either it is a complex, a given whole, about the correct analysis of which there could be disagreement; or else it means nothing at all, and there is no such subject as ethics. […] The hypothesis that disagreement about the meaning of good is disagreement with regard to the correct analysis of a given whole, may be most plainly seen to be incorrect by consideration of the fact that, whatever definition may be offered, it may always, be asked, with significance, of the complex so defined, whether it is itself good.

How can one establish when a given question may be posed and when it cannot be posed? Consider the following definition: (3) A square is an equilateral rectangle. and the question: (4) Is an equilateral rectangle a square? What would Moore say about (4)? Can it be posed or not? What is the criterion of whether a given question can be posed? One may only say that if one may pose a given question, then, according to Moore, being an equilateral rectangle is not identical with being-rectangle and if one cannot pose such a question, then the identity holds. It seems that the only method for deciding whether a given question may be posed is – again – relying on linguistic intuitions. Let us say, in conclusion, that an impression that a given definition of the term T is incorrect is often caused by the fact that this term is simply ambiguous. I think that this is exactly the situation with the term “good”. One may distinguish at least two concepts of good: the vital and the moral good. It seems that Moore did not see the difference between these concepts clearly and this is one of the reasons for the confusion concerning the term “good” and its definability.

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3. Summary Let us combine all of the questions considered but supplement the axiological ones with their deontic counterparts and vice versa. A. GOOD

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Are axiological sentences descriptive? Are there any regularity-like dependencies between natural and axiological states of affairs? Are there sound (logically correct) schemes of inferences from descriptive to axiological sentences? May one infer axiological sentences from descriptive ones? Is the property of being-good simple? Is the term “good” definable? Is the property of being-good a natural one?

B. OBLIGATION Are deontic sentences descriptive? Are there any regularity-like dependencies between natural and deontic states of affairs? Are there sound (logically correct) schemes of inferences from descriptive to deontic sentences? May one infer deontic sentences from descriptive ones? Is the property of being-an-obligation simple? Is the term “obligation” definable? Is the property of being-an-obligation a natural one?

As it has been shown above, questions (1) – (4) are mutually independent, as well as questions (5) – (7). However, it seems that a negative answer to (7) settles the negative answer to (1), if we agree that all sentences which state that something has a natural property are descriptive. There is also the following dependency between the questions (6) and (3): If the term T is (fully) definable by the term S in a definition: x is T ↔def x is S. then the sentences “x is T” is deducible from the sentence “x is S” by virtue of this definition. Generally speaking, dependencies which are the basis of inferences do not have to be definitional. It is worth mentioning that, according to some authors, the concept of obligation is semantically dependent on the concept of good and evil. If it is so, then it seems that the type of answer to the question from the column (A) settles the type of answer from the column (B).

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*** In the interwar period, Petrażycki criticized a number of logical theories and categorised them as lame. A given theory is lame when it is, in fact, a theory of only some part of the subject-matter of a given discipline. Petrażycki considered the logic which concerns only descriptive sentences to be lame logic. The theories behind the argumentation of Hume and Moore are defective in this very way. They concerned only a part of a given domain and were incorrectly interpreted as theories of the whole domain. In the case of Hume, it was a syllogistic theory which was taken as the only theory of reasoning. For Moore, it was the primitive theory of parts and wholes together with a too naïve notion of what constitutes a definition. Nowadays, when we have much more adequate theories at our disposal, the analyses of Hume and Moore have only historical value and this is just one testimony to the cumulative character of philosophy.

Jerzy Stelmach Jagiellonian University Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies

The Naturalistic and Antinaturalistic Fallacies in Normative Discourse1

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he thesis which I present here is the following: Adopting the position that the dichotomy of is and ought exists means that, simultaneously, we are compelled to hold that normative discourse (in all of its known forms) leads us into one of two errors, either the “naturalistic fallacy” or the “anti-naturalistic fallacy”. This is why, in my opinion, the one solution which will free normative discourse from the aforementioned fallacies is the rejection of this dualism and, consequently, the adoption of ontological monism.

1. Why Do We Think in Terms of This Dualism? There are at least three reasons why considerations concerning the problem of normativity lead to the thesis of the existence of the dualism of is and ought. The first is the indefinability of the notion of ought. As Russell highlights, for many ethicists ought is a basic and unanalysable   This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation.

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notion which cannot be defined and is, perhaps, the only ethical term which is undefinable.2 If we wish to refine our notion of ought then, whether we like it or not, we are forced to oppose it with another, more discursive notion, namely the notion of is (of being). By adopting this position we do not avoid the obvious question of whether, in turn, the notion of is can be defined. Even if it is, can we use it to define (interpret) the opposing notion which, after all, belongs to a different ontological category of ought? The second reason which leads us to the dualism of is-ought are the problems associated with justifying normative deliberations. By adopting this dualism – and assuming a separate sphere for ought – we are trying to justify the inadequacies of this type of justification. Finally, the third reason is the somewhat widespread conviction that it is only when we posit this dualism that we gain a better understanding of and definition of the phenomenon of normativity, thus allowing us to simultaneously identify the errors which plague normative discourse (in particular those of the naturalistic and anti-naturalistic type). Here, however, one may find probably the greatest paradox of this “dualistic thinking”. By adopting the thesis that there exists a dualism of is-ought, we may then discern the type of error which we ourselves generate within our own normative discourse by that very adoption. Instead of tackling the key issue for everyone concerned with the “practice of ought”, that is the problem associated with taking correct normative deliberations, we are alternately debating either the naturalistic fallacy or the anti-naturalistic. We thus devote a considerable amount of our attention to the fallacies which, without a rejection of the thesis of the dichotomy of is-ought, we are not in a position to remove from normative discourse anyway.   See. B. Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics, George Allen and Unwin, London 1954, p. 72.

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2. The Naturalistic Fallacy Whether the naturalistic fallacy was first described by Moore, it has always plagued those concerned with the problem of normativity. It has bedevilled all ethical and legal conceptions which have permitted the possibility of generating statements about ought from statements about facts and, as a result, reducing statements about obligations to statements about facts. Presented by Moore in his work Principia Ethica, the open question argument allows the formulation of a conclusion in which every naturalistic analysis of (normative) ethical predicates must, at least in some way, be incorrect. The essence of Moore’s argumentation leads to the idea that, regardless of whichever empirical property we propose as a criterion for legitimising (accepting) certain moral values, the situation is always possible that something which possesses this property will be free from this moral value and that something which in turn possesses this moral value will be free from the empirical value. To conclude, the notion that the defined ethical trait is identical to the empirical on the basis of a premise, that the possession of one trait implies the possession of the other, is to commit the naturalistic fallacy.3 It is now time to turn to the crucial question in these considerations: on what does the naturalistic fallacy rest? In my opinion, it is above all “produced” by three ontological assumptions which are accepted a priori and, at least in the case of the first two, they do not have sufficient justification. Firstly, this concerns the postulate of the existence of a dualism of is-ought. This assumption, which is by no means a necessary one in terms of naturalism, can be dispensed with by ontological monism, in which case all of the related problems disappear. Second is the idea that this dualism can be overcome. This is a somewhat idiotic notion; we first unnecessarily adopt this dichotomy, only   See G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1922; A. Pap, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, The Free Press of Glencoe, New York 1962, p. 410; R. Sarkowicz, J. Stelmach, Teoria Prawa, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków 1996, p. 68. 3

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then to want to overcome it. Any attempts which try to overcome the naturalistic fallacy are doomed to failure. Any appeal to regularity, responsibility or harmony which swings constantly between the spheres of is and ought would seem to be mere speculation and not based on any convincing ontological arguments. Thirdly, and finally, there is the supposition which concerns the primacy of nature, in my opinion the only one which can be sensibly defended on ontological grounds.

3. The Antinaturalistic Fallacy The anti-naturalistic fallacy, for some unknown reason, tends to be written and spoken about rather less. What is interesting is that while this fallacy is entailed by the adoption of the exact opposite of the naturalistic conception, namely that the dichotomy is insurmountable, its negative effects on normative discourse are, in essence, similar. Indeed Kelsen, while agreeing with Russell that the notion of ought is an essential one and thus indefinable, goes somewhat further in his conclusions.4 He recognised that the world of ought is fully autonomous and that both “the worlds of is and ought are not connected by any road”.5 The essence of the “antinaturalistic fallacy” leads finally to an attempt to define the normative notions or judgements by appealing to other normative notions or judgements which are virtually identical in terms of their sense and meaning. In this instance we commit definitional errors of the idem per idem type. In addition, given the indefinability of the notion of ought and analogous notions, we are forced into committing ignotum per ignotius errors. We thus have

  After all, Kelsen also regarded the notion of is to be indefinable.   H. Kelsen, Die Rechtswissenschaft als Norm – oder als Kulturwissenschaft, [in:] Die Wiener rechtstheoretische Schule, eds. H. Klecatsky, R. Marcic, H. Schambeck, Europa Verlag, 1968, p. 38. It is also important to remember that Kelsen repeatedly altered his views with regards the relation between is-ought and the nature of ought in the development of his conception of Reine Rechtslehre (Heidenmann differentiated four separate phases: critical constructivism, the neo-Kantian, the realistic and the analytical). 4 5

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two distinct errors which, if the strong version of the dichotomy is accepted, we cannot with all certainty resolve. The fiction of the anti-naturalistic fallacy is, just like the naturalistic fallacy, also conditional on the adoption of three a priori ontological assumptions although, in this case, none of them have sufficient justification. The first is the acceptance of the existence of the dichotomy between is-ought (as in the case of the naturalistic fallacy). The second is through the adoption of the idea of the non-existence of a connection between is and ought. As with the case with naturalistic assumption of the existence of the possibility of overcoming the dualism of is and ought, this is also not supported by any convincing ontological arguments. This assumption, in addition, supplies us with “epistemological dualism”, a schizophrenic vision of knowledge which simultaneously advocates two different methodologies: the first designed to accommodate only knowledge pertaining to the sphere of is and the second purely to that of ought.6 The third, and final, is by adopting the autonomy of the world of ought (the weaker version) and, in certain cases, the supposition of a “certain primacy” of the existence of this world (the stronger version) and, in the latter case, I have in mind Kelsen.7

4. Integrated Discourse All that has been mentioned thus far indicates that if we adopt the dualism of is-ought then we must commit one of two resulting fallacies, either the naturalistic or the anti-naturalistic. These two different errors result, however, in the same consequences and particularly  According to Kelsen, research in the sphere of ought (in legal terms) should only concern itself with “pure legal science” (Reine Rechtslehre). See H. Kelsen, Reine Rechtslehre. Einleitung in die rechtswissenschaftliche Problematik, reprint of the first edition, Scientia Verlag, Aalen 1994. 7   Kelsen, at least in the early phase of the development of his conception (constructivist and neo-Kantian), regarded ought as “the initial is”, original and, from the perspective of Reine Rechtslehre, more important than the natural is. 6

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regress in the debate on the subject of normativity, a result caused above all by a lack of a clearly acceptable definition of the notion of ought and the inability to find a discursive justification for normative statements. There remains a second possibility, namely the rejection of this dualism and accepting the resulting ontological monism and, more exactly, the nominalist version of this monism. Accepting such a solution allows us to recognise the existence of only individual objects (concrete things). It is only these objects (things) which we can encounter through direct experience. As Wittgenstein says, these objects form the substance of the world and this is why they cannot be compound.8 This is why we should be able to interpret ought as a “simple object” or as a possible manifestation of such an object or as a relation between simple objects: in any case, as an integral element of being (is). Adopting the notion, however, that ought is a “compound object” (intentional) means accepting a certain ontological fiction.9 It is only by appealing to ontological monism that we are able to free normative discourse of the fallacies mentioned above (namely the naturalistic and the anti-naturalistic fallacies). By assuming such a standpoint, we are vulnerable to two charges: that in eliminating the errors which besets normative discourse we also do the same to the whole problem of normativity or that it returns us to the situation of being bedevilled by the fallacy of ethical naturalism (the open question argument). However, in my opinion, a better “third way” simply doesn’t exist. For the solution outlined here, there are also other supporting arguments. One such argument would be that, in reality, normative discourse (the practice of ought) ignores both fallacies by in essence appealing  L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, PWN, Warszawa 1997, p. 7 {2.021}. 9   See J. Stelmach, And if There is No “Ought”?, [in:] Studies in the Philosophy of Law, vol. 6 The Normativity of Law, eds. J. Stelmach, B. Brożek, Copernicus Center Press Kraków 2011, p. 15. 8

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to ontological monism. It is my conviction, and one which I have frequently written about, that when we interpret something, we also have a concrete case in mind. This is why for instance the topical model and the methods of its interpretation are particularly important to me. In other words, the manner of thinking which is based on a “bottom– up” inductive structure and which has a particularly nominalist character, is one which is close to my heart.10 Ought understood as certain whole, as a general notion, as a “compound object”, is something which simply does not exist in the practice of interpretation. Such notions only emerge in discussions concerning meta-ethics and legal philosophy, where the “practice of ought” ceases to be a point of reference (it ceases to be important) for those who are only concerned with theoretical speculation.11 A subsequent potential argument shows us that in the reality of normative discourse (the practice of ought) norms (normative statements) are treated as utterances to which one may ascribe a defined cognitive value, to some logical truth values and, to others, values which may be seen as analogical to truth values such as justice, efficiency, importance, verifiability, efficacy or effectiveness. For lawyers, for whom the practice of ought is an everyday occurrence (whereas, for ethicists, I am not quite so sure that it is), the idea that norms mean something and that it is even possible to ascribe a value of true or false to them, is one which is widely accepted, most often without any kind of philosophical justification. In spite of a lack of such a justification, one may not treat it lightly or ignore the fact that the whole standard system of legal thought (which is in essence positivistic) rests on the acceptance of the intuitive assumption that norms may be ascribed a value of truth or falsehood. Even relying on   See J. Stelmach, B. Brożek, Methods of Legal Reasoning, Springer, Dordrecht 2006, p. 130 ff, J. Stelmach, B. Brożek, Sztuka negocjacji prawniczych, Lex and Wolters Kluwer, Warszawa 2011, p. 85 ff, J. Stelmach, Die unbegrenzte Interpretation, [in:] Krakauer-Augsburger Rechtsstudien, vol. 5, Die Grenzen der rechtsdogmatischen Interpretation, eds. J. Stelmach, R. Schmidt, Lex and Wolters Kluwer, Warszawa 2011, p. 9. 11   See T.W. Adorno, Dialektyka negatywna, PWN, Warszawa 1986, p. 7. 10

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healthy common sense and elementary ethical intuitions, without exceptions, we regard as true concrete ethical or legal norms containing an obligation which concerns something good, and false every concrete norm (either ethical or legal) containing an obligation which concerns something which is either bad or, from the ethical perspective, at least ambiguous. Perhaps someone cannot see or, thanks to some non-cognitive reason cannot see, the conceptual difference between the norm “the Kowalski family should finally start working” (a true norm) and the norm “the Kowalski family should continue living as always on the hard work of others” (a false norm).12 A result of this is that a given norm (ethical or legal) is not, however, true (or the equivalent just, efficient, important, verifiable, efficacious or effective) or false (unjust, inefficient, unimportant, unverifiable, inefficacious or ineffective) within itself but rather thanks to a given empirical context. Ought abstracted from context and from objects becomes a “purely imagined entity”, an ontological myth around which a theoretical debate upon normativity has been built.

Thus, by appealing to ontological monism and nominalism we not only avoid the errors which plague normative discourse (namely the naturalistic and anti-naturalistic fallacies) but we also create a good entry point for the creation of the concept of “integrated discourse”.13

  I write more on this topic in A Different Perspective on the Problem of the Truthfulness of Norms, [in:] Philosophy in Science, eds. B. Brożek, J. Mączka, W.P. Grygiel, Copernicus Center Press, Kraków 2011, p. 273 ff. 13   Integrated discourse is understood as a discourse in the sense of a homogenous concept. In light of the assumptions made in this article, the view accepted by the majority of those concerned with researching normativity (including, among others, Habermas and Alexy) of the division between the descriptive (theoretical) and the normative (practice) no longer has any right to exist. 12

Part Two

Key Debates

Bartosz Brożek Jagiellonian University Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies

The Normativity of Meaning1

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ne of the most heated debates in contemporary analytical philosophy pertains to the problem of the normativity of meaning. It revolves around the question of what is the status of the criteria for the application of words: are they descriptive or prescriptive? In this essay, I would like to shed some light on this issue. I begin by outlining the normativity of meaning debate and identifying its key problems, conclusions and controversial theses. Then, I present two views of language: the formal and the embedded, and show that they imply different conceptions of the normativity of language. As a result, I offer my own conception of the normativity of meaning, and argue that contemporary solutions to the problem are essentially flawed.

1. The Normativity of Meaning Debate Since Saul Kripke’s much celebrated book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language,2 a multifaceted discussion has commenced pertaining to the problem of the normativity of meaning. Kripke’s argu  This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation. 2   Cf. S. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1984. 1

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ment – in a nutshell – is that meaning is inherently or intrinsically normative, as there is no fact in virtue of which one can decide as to what is the correct application of words. The soundness of this claim notwithstanding, the debate initiated by Kripke led to painstaking analyses of the problem of whether meaning is normative. There is no need to review all the arguments in this debate, the following observations suffice. What does it mean that meaning is normative? The notion of the normativity of meaning is rendered in various ways. One can say, for example, that meaning is normative because there exist criteria for the correct use of linguistic expressions; or that there exist rules governing the application of those expressions; or that there exist right and wrong (correct and incorrect) ways of using language; or that there is a way in which one should use words; or that “what you mean by a word determines how you ought to use that word”.3 I do not want to suggest that all the above quoted formulations are equivalent. They rather serve to collect some intuitions as to what is at stake when one debates the normativity of meaning. Painting with a broad brush, there are three general stances in the discussion pertaining to the normativity of meaning: non-normativist, extrinsic-normativist and intrinsic-normativist. Let us have a closer look at them. (A) Meaning is non-normative. According to this view, meaning rules are just descriptions of what is the correct or incorrect use of language. This conception hangs together with the claim that such notions as ‘correct’, ‘right’ or ‘should’, may be understood in two distinct ways: prescriptively and descriptively (or non-normatively), and in the case of linguistic rules they should be interpreted in the latter way. Hattiangadi considers the following three statements:   A. Hattiangadi, Some More Thoughts on Semantic Oughts: a Reply to Daniel Whiting, “Analysis” 2009, vol. 69, no. 1, p. 54. 3

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(i) an application of ‘rich’ to a poor person is incorrect, (ii) an application of ‘rich’ to a poor person is wrong, and (iii) ‘rich’ should not be applied to a poor person.4 She claims that in all three cases the seemingly normative operators (‘incorrect’, ‘wrong’ and ‘should not’) are to be understood in a non-normative way. Firstly, “to say that you have applied ‘rich’ incorrectly is just to say that you have applied ‘rich’ to someone of whom ‘rich’ is not true.”5 Secondly, Hattiangadi observes that we often use the terms ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in a non-normative way, as when we say that there is a right answer to the question – we are not claiming in this case that it is the answer we ought to give.6 Similarly, “to say that your application of ‘rich’ was wrong can be just to say that you have applied ‘rich’ to someone of whom ‘rich’ is not true. And the fact that you have applied ‘rich’ to someone of whom ‘rich’ is not true does not imply that you have done something you ought not to have done”.7 Thirdly, and finally, Hattiangadi believes that statements such as “’Rich’ should not be applied to a poor person” do not express genuine obligations; at best, they are ‘ought to be’, and not ‘ought to do’ statements. In consequence, they do not establish someone’s personal obligation to do something. When we say that “There should be no suffering!”, we are not expressing anyone’s obligation. In other words, there is no transformation of such impersonal obligations as “There should be no suffering!” or “’Rich’ should not be applied to poor persons” into the corresponding personal obligations (“A person x should see to it that there is no suffering” or “A person x should not apply ‘rich’ to poor persons”). The major argument Hattiangadi cites in this context is the principle ‘ought implies can’; indeed, it is impossible to stop the suffering in the world, so it cannot be anyone’s obligation. Similarly   Ibidem, p. 60.   Ibidem. 6   Ibidem. 7   Ibidem. 4 5

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– says Hattiangadi – it is impossible to apply ‘rich’ to rich people only, under all circumstances imaginable, and so there is no obligation to do so.8 (B) Meaning is extrinsically or hypothetically normative. According to this stance, “the only imperatives that flow from attributions of linguistic meaning are hypothetical imperatives”.9 How to understand this claim? As Boghossian puts it, “even though I mean addition by ‘+’ and know therefore that it would only be correct to say that ‘68+57=125’, I might still not choose to say it because I might deliberately not choose to say what I know to be correct.”10 In other words, one may have an obligation to apply a word correctly only if the source of the obligation lies outside of language. For instance, I may embrace the moral obligation to tell the truth and be obliged to follow the rules of meaning. At the same time, there may be some extra-linguistic reasons not to tell the truth or not to follow the correctness criteria of language: they may result from moral, but also legal, prudential or conventional considerations. Thus, “it is misleading at best to use the label ‘the normativity of meaning’ (...) since (...) there is nothing obviously normative about the notion of a truth condition or a satisfaction condition.”11 The only possible way of attributing normativity to meaning is to use a weak notion thereof – meaning is normative only conditionally, or – to put it in a different way – the sources of meaning’s normativity lie outside of language. Such a hypothetical normativity, claims Boghossian, “is uninteresting: every fact is normative in that sense. (Compare: if it’s raining, and you don’t want to get wet, you should take your umbrella)”.12   Ibidem, p. 61.   P.A. Boghossian, Is Meaning Normative?, [in:] Philosophy-Science-Scientific Philosophy, eds. Ch. Nimtz, A. Beckermann, Mentis, Paderborn, p. 212. 10   Ibidem, p. 212. 11   Ibidem, p. 208. 12   Ibidem, p. 207. 8 9

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(C) Meaning is intrinsically normative. This final view is based on the claim that one ought to follow meaning rules “quite independently of moral, prudential, legal and other considerations, and independently of one’s desires or communicative intentions”.13 Of course, the proponents of the intrinsic normativity of meaning are not naive: they do not suggest that the obligation to apply meaning rules correctly is indefeasible or that it should be followed under any circumstances. The claim is that it is not merely hypothetical. Rather, the argument runs, meaning rules give rise to prima facie obligations. Under some particular circumstances such an obligation, say, to use the word ‘rich’ only in reference to rich persons, may be in conflict with some other obligations (say, a moral one) which dictates that a poor person should be described as ‘rich’. And, given such circumstances, the obligation based on meaning rules can be defeated by the moral one: the all-things-considered obligation is to follow the moral ought, not the meaning rule. It may even be the case that – when there is a conflict of two obligations – the moral one always defeats the linguistic one.14 However, it changes little as to the character of the semantic ‘ought’ – it remains a genuine obligation. In order to establish it, it suffices to show that semantic obligation may be defeated or overridden by some other obligation, but not by mere desire. Whiting believes that “I might not follow the norm for the use of an expression simply because I do not feel like doing so. But that alone does not show that there is no norm in force; my use of the expression should still be judged incorrect. Of course, the violation is not very serious (the mistake is semantic, not ethical) but that does not establish that it lacks a normative status altogether.”15 Moreover, semantic rules cannot give rise to hypothetical obligations. Such obligations are contingent upon one’s desire to achieve a certain goal; when the desire changes, the   A. Hattiangadi, Some more thoughts on semantic oughts…, op. cit., p. 54 –55.   Cf. D. Whiting, The Normativity of Meaning Defended, “Analysis” 2007, vol. 67, no. 2, pp. 133–140. 15   Ibidem, p. 139. 13 14

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obligation disappears. For instance, if I want to learn how to drive a car, I ought to take driving lessons. But when I change my mind and do not wish to drive a car anymore, it would be no sense to say that I am doing something incorrectly or am violating some obligation by not taking driving lessons. “In contrast, given what ‘rich’ means, that I ought to apply the term to a person only if she is rich does not seem contingent upon (say) my desire to speak truthfully. If that desire changes, and I apply the term to a poor person, it remains the case that I am not applying it as it should be applied, but rather incorrectly. Here, it seems one is properly entitled and it makes full sense to judge that, desire notwithstanding, I am using the expression wrongly. (Of course, I could excuse my behavior by citing the relevant desire, but that is not the same as overriding the norm).”16 How to sum up the discussion pertaining to the normativity of meaning? In literature there are three different answers to the question of whether meaning is normative which are represented: the nonnormative conception of meaning, the theory of extrinsic normativity of meaning and of intrinsic normativity of meaning. I submit that there are problems with all three stances. Firstly, the argument for the non-normative character of meaning hangs together with the thesis that such notions as ‘right’ or ‘should’ or ‘correct’ – in relation to meaning – are not to be understood prescriptively. This view is, in turn, connected to the claim that genuine obligations or prescriptions are always personal obligations; when we say that “There should be no suffering!” we are not expressing a genuine obligation as the norm implicates no person or persons as responsible for the fulfillment of what the norm prescribes. This view is flawed in an important way. Hattiangadi, who advocates it, conflates two different problems pertaining to obligations. On the one hand, one can distinguish between personal and impersonal obligations (which are not identical, as Hattiangadi 16

  Ibidem.

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seems to suggest, with the distinction between ‘ought-to-be’ and ‘ought-to-do’);17 on the other hand, there are two kinds of rules: those which are practically realizable, and those which set some maximal goals, but are never fully realizable. Now, given that a person x is obliged to follow a certain system of rules, their impersonal formulations (e.g., “The word ‘rich’ should be applied only to rich persons”) may easily be transformed into personal ones (“A person x should apply ‘rich’ only to rich persons”). This anyway is the case in many legal systems in which such provisions as “Tax returns should be filed by April 30 each year”, or “The speed limit should be observed”, are often enacted, and there seems to be no trouble in realizing that they express obligations which should be fulfilled by individuals. In addition, it is difficult to agree with Hattiangadi that it is impossible for a person x to follow the rule “person x should apply ‘rich’ only to rich persons” under all circumstances. This rule seems practically realizable, as practical realizability is not endangered by the fact that in some situations the rule is not followed because of a desire not to follow it or the existence of a conflicting obligation (again, the same holds for legal norms). A rule is practically realizable if it is in principle physically possible to fulfill it. It is not the case, however, with “There should be no suffering in the world!”. When we transform this rule into “A person x should see to it that there is no suffering in the world”, it is physically impossible for x to fulfill this obligation. The contemplated rule sets a maximal goal or an ideal obligation. In legal theory, such rules are called principles or optimization criteria, and are understood as expressing the following: a person x should do everything to reduce suffering in the world given the factual and normative limitations (e.g., the existence of a competing legal obligation). It seems, therefore, that Hattiangadi’s argument to the effect that meaning rules cannot be considered as expressing genuine obligation fails. 17   Cf. B. Brożek, Games, Trees and Deontic Logic, [in:] Studies in the Philosophy of Law 7, eds. J. Stelmach, W. Załuski, Copernicus Center Press, Kraków 2011, pp. 101–114.

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Second, Boghossian’s view that meaning rules express only hypothetical obligations is also troublesome. There are two problems worth considering here. The minor one is that – contra Boghossian – the fact that meaning rules may be ascribed hypothetical normativity is not “uninteresting”. The same may be said, for instance, of legal rules. One of the widely accepted paradigms of accounting for the law’s normativity is conventionalism. On this view, legal rules are similar to the rules of chess: they constitute a certain “game” and generate the “internal” normativity of law. However, the decision to “play the game of law” requires extrinsic considerations (moral or prudential). Thus, legal rules are ultimately hypothetically normative: if (for some moral or rational reasons) one decides to embrace law, one is obliged to follow legal rules.18 Observe that the same line of argument may be applied in the case of Boghossian’s analysis. One may distinguish between the “internal” normativity of language, and the external reasons that justify our playing by the meaning rules. Moreover, the same strategy may be used in relation to paradigmatically intrinsically normative rules, e.g., moral ones. In the case of morality one has two options: either to look for the source of moral normativity in the transcendent sphere (e.g., Kant’s moral subject is rooted in the noumenal reality), or claim that morality is ultimately justified by recourse to the rules of rationality. Thus, I posit that even in the case of morality one can argue that moral rules are hypothetically normative. Boghossian’s answer to this argument may be the following: one should distinguish between two types of conventionalism: global and local. A global conventionalist claims that the subject of conventional decision is to accept or reject an entire system of rules (legal, moral, chess, etc). When one makes such a global choice, one is at no liberty anymore to violate the rules of the accepted normative system: one has to follow them. Local conventionalism, on the other hand, holds 18   Cf. A. Marmor, The Conventional foundations of Law, [in:] New Essays on the Normativity of Law, eds. S. Bertea, G. Pavlakos, Hart Publishing, Oxford 2011, pp. 143–157.

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that each and every rule of some normative system is hypothetical, i.e. one may decide, in relation to each and every rule, under the given circumstances, whether to follow it or not. Now, Boghossian’s counterargument may be that while law or morality may be conceived of as conventional in the global sense only, language is locally conventional: under the given circumstances one is free to follow or not follow any particular meaning rule. Such a defense may be understood as positing a descriptive or a normative thesis. As a descriptive thesis it is true: one is usually at liberty to follow or to break a meaning rule. This holds, however, also for other kinds of rules, be they legal, moral or prudential. So, this line of defense is insufficient. Understood normatively, the argument boils down to saying that each and every application of a meaning rule may be subject to a decision, i.e. to the evaluation against some normative standard. In other words, one needs to decide, under any particular circumstances, whether the application of a rule “The expression ‘rich’ should be applied only to rich persons” is fair or instrumentally rational or economically advantageous, depending on the normative criterion one utilizes. The point is, however, that many ethical theories sketch an analogous process of following rules. For instance, according to Kant, any particular principle of behaviour is to be followed if it is universalizable, or complies with the Categorical Imperative. Hence, there is nothing trivial or ‘uninteresting’ in the hypothetical normativity of meaning rules, be it understood globally or locally. Still more importantly – and this is my major reservation regarding Boghossian’s analysis – I believe that the hypothetical account of the normativity of meaning is descriptively inadequate. Linguistic standards are irrelevant with regard to our desires and goals in exactly the same way legal rules are. I may not follow a legal rule because of some other considerations or even a desire, but this does not change the fact that by not following it I break it. Similarly, when I apply a word incorrectly (because I have a desire or even a reason to do so), I break a meaning rule. An example of a meaning rule is “A person x should apply ‘rich’ only to rich persons”, and not “If a per-

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son x has a reason to do so, or merely wishes so, x should apply ‘rich’ only to rich persons”. Third, the thesis that meaning is intrinsically normative is also questionable. The proponents of this view make use of the conception of prima facie obligations. However, it sounds ‘weird’ that a moral obligation can defeat a linguistic obligation (or vice versa). In other words, linguistic obligations – if they exist – are of a different kind than moral or legal ones. Usually, when one speaks of legal or moral rules as possessing normative force, one considers them reasons for action. More precisely, a rule of behavior is a reason for action if: (a) it is objective; (b) it is followed consciously; and (c) it may be used to justify a course of action.19 Within such a framework, it is understandable why a moral reason may defeat or outweigh a legal or instrumental reason. At the same time, rules of language seem not to constitute reasons for action (in the sense specified) as they cannot serve to justify action. The moral to be drawn from the above considerations is that the three enumerated stances towards the question of the normativity of meaning lead to troublesome theoretical consequences. At the same time, each of them seems to capture some important intuition pertaining to what language is. The non-normative theory puts emphasis on the fact that we often treat linguistic norms as descriptions of what is the correct use of language. The view that the normativity of meaning is hypothetical stresses the relative insignificance of the linguistic ‘ought’ vis a vis moral or legal obligations. Finally, the intrinsic normativity theory uncovers the objective, non-conventional dimension of language. In the face of those conflicting intuitions, there is a pressing question as to how to reconcile them, or how to explain why the analysis of semantic rules gives rise to such differentiated accounts for the normativity of meaning?   Cf. B. Brożek, Normatywność prawa, Wolters Kluwer Polska, Warszawa 2012, pp. 11–21. 19

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2. The Formal View of Language I believe that in order to properly address the problem of normativity in language, and – in particular – the normativity of meaning, it is necessary to answer a more general question: what is language? I submit that – from the most general perspective – one can distinguish between two views of language: the formal and the embedded. The formal conception of language – as instantiated (to various degrees) in the conceptions of Bertrand Russell, ‘early’ Wittgenstein, Rudolf Carnap or, in the area of linguistics, Noam Chomsky – is based on the following three theses: (The Isolation Thesis) Language is an isolated (or relatively isolated) system of rules. This thesis boils down to the claim that one can identify a system of the rules of language, which are separated from other rules (moral, legal, prudential). (The Distinction Thesis) It is possible to distinguish between form and content in language. The distinction thesis boils down to the claim that within language one can identify at least two distinct kinds of rules: formal (or syntactic) and semantic. An illustration may be found in The Logical Syntax of Language where Carnap declares: The rules of the calculus determine, in the first place, the conditions under which an expression can be said to belong to a certain category of expressions; and, in the second place, under what conditions the transformation of one or more expressions into another or others may be allowed. Thus the system of a language when only the formal structure (...) is considered, is a calculus. The two different kinds of rules are (...) the rules of formation and transformation - namely, the syntactical rules in the narrower sense (...) and the so-called logical laws of deduction. (...) When we maintain that logical syntax treats language as a calculus, we do not mean by that statement that language is nothing more than a calculus. (...) In addition any particular language

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has, apart from that aspect, others which may be investigated by other methods. For instance, its words have meaning; this is the object of investigation and study for semasiology.20

(The Primacy of Form Thesis) The formal aspect of language is its definitional aspect: language is what it is due to its formal structure. In Tractatus, where Wittgenstein embraces the famous ‘picture theory of meaning’, he claims that linguistic expressions are pictures or models of reality.21 Now, “in order to be a picture [they] must have something in common with what [they] picture” (2.16). And “what the picture must have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it after its manner – rightly or falsely – is its form of representation” (2.17). Thus Wittgenstein submits that language can perform its function – to picture the reality – only due to its formal aspect. In other words, the form of language – a thing that language shares with the pictured reality – is what makes languages what they are. A similar emphasis on the formal dimension of language is to be found in Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s theory of meaning.22 Ajdukiewicz attempted to construct a theory of language that would stay clear of the dangerous waters of semantic notions, which were known to give rise to various paradoxes. Ajdukiewicz avoided semantic problems by postulating that meaning is derived from three types of directives which constitute language: 1. Empirical directives, which prohibit the rejection of sentences in the face of certain empirical data (e.g., given the fact that person x feels pain she cannot reject the sentence “I feel pain”). 2. Axiomatic directives, which require one to unconditionally accept sentences because they are meaning postulates (e.g., “If   R. Carnap, The Logical Syntax of Language, Open Court, Peru, Ill. 2002, p. 4–5.   Cf. L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Routledge, New York 2005. Below, I will refer to Tractatus by citing the number of the quoted thesis only. 22   The below presentation of Ajdukiewicz’s theory is based on K. Ajdukiewicz, Sprache und Sinn, “Erkenntnis” 1934, vol. IV, pp. 100–138. 20 21

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today is Sunday, tomorrow will be Monday” or “A bachelor is an unmarried man”). 3. Deductive directives, which prescribe the acceptance of a sentence on the basis of the acceptance of some other sentences (e.g., when one accepts two sentences: “Today is Sunday or Monday” and “Today is not Sunday”, one must accept that “Today is Monday”). Interestingly, Ajdukiewicz claims that the three kinds of directives enumerated may serve to define synonymy, and hence – meaning. To do so, one needs to construct the language matrix, i.e. a matrix containing all the axiomatic, deductive and empirical theses of the given language. Now, two expressions A and B have the same meaning if replacing A with B and B with A in the entire matrix does not change the matrix itself. Hence meaning is a feature which is common to synonymous expressions, i.e. it is their place in the matrix. The possible critique of this conception notwithstanding, the important thing is that Ajdukiewicz claims it is possible to capture the notion of meaning by scrutinizing the formal aspect of language. Now, the question is how can one define normativity in the context of the formal theory of language? The answer is as follows. First, one can speak of the “internal” normativity of language. For obvious reasons, this problem is similar to the question of whether logic is normative. Robert Hanna suggests that the normativity of logic may be rendered either as categorical (X is categorically normative if and only if humans ought to believe or do Y because of X under all sets of circumstances) or hypothetical, and opts for the former view.23 This is in compliance with the traditional view of logic as a standard for reasoning in any context. Now, when the formal conception of language is embraced, together with the primacy of form thesis, the normativity of language rules must be understood as categorical.   Cf. R. Hanna, Rationality and Logic, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2006, pp. 203–204. 23

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However, the question remains of what contributes to one accepting a given language. There are two options: the choice of language is a conventional one, or it is rather a metaphysical necessity. The first of the views may be ascribed to Carnap and Ajdukiewicz. For instance, Carnap formulates his famous principle of tolerance: “it is not our business to set up prohibitions, but to arrive at conventions”.24 What he means is that “everyone is at liberty to build up his own logic, i.e. his own form of language, as he wishes. All that is required of him is that, if he wishes to discuss it, he must state his methods clearly, and give syntactical rules instead of philosophical arguments”.25 On the other hand, one can defend the thesis that the choice of language is not conventional, or more precisely: there is no real choice at all here. There is only one logic and hence one formal structure of language. Such an absolutist view may be ascribed to early Wittgenstein (as, e.g., Carnap does in The Logical Syntax of Language, § 52). There is considerable textual evidence to support this interpretation of Tractatus, such as: 1.13. The facts in logical space are the world. 5.61. Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also its limits. 6.124. The logical propositions describe the scaffolding of the world, or rather they present it. (...) In logic it is not we who express, by means of signs, what we want, but in logic the nature of the essentially necessary signs itself asserts.

Or consider what Wittgenstein adds in the Notebooks: And it keeps on forcing itself upon us that there is some simple indivisible, an element of being, in brief a thing … And it appears as if that were identical with the proposition that the world must be what it is, it must be definite.26

  R. Carnap, The Logical Syntax of Language, op. cit., p. 51.   Ibidem, p. 52. 26   L. Wittgenstein, Notebooks, 1914–1916, Blackwell, Oxford 1979, p. 62. 24

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Of course, it is not impossible to interpret Wittgenstein’s ideas in a different, more convention-friendly manner. The point is, however, not an exegetic one, but rather systematic: when one embraces the formal view of language, one ends up with the following conception of language’s normativity. Having accepted a language, one ought to follow the rules of that language unconditionally; if one does not, one is not speaking the language anymore. The prior decision as to the choice of language is either conventional or it ‘has been taken for us’ – the structure of the world determines the structure of language. The key observation is that even on the conventionalist reading, the normativity of language remains categorical in the sense that one either accepts a language tout court – and should follow all its rules – or rejects it entirely. In other words, the formal view of language allows two solutions to the problem of the normativity of meaning: either language rules are necessary, or hypothetically normative in the global sense. There is no place here for following some rules of language and disobeying others.

3. The Embedded View of Language The alternative view of language may be called the usage-based conception or the theory of ‘embedded language’. At the most general level, one can argue that the embedded theory rejects all three assumptions of the formal conception: language is not an isolated system of rules, one cannot distinguish between syntactic and semantic rules, and – what follows – the primacy of form thesis should also be rejected. Instead, the embedded approach may be characterized by the following theses: (The Embedded Thesis) Language is embedded in a larger system of rules governing social interactions. (The Abstraction Thesis) The formal reconstruction of language is an idealization or an abstraction from actual rules governing language use.

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There are various philosophical and linguistic conceptions that embrace – to some extent at least – the above formulated theses. The most important of those is the ‘theory’27 presented by Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations.28 Wittgenstein sets off by criticizing a view of language which he illustrates with the passages from St. Augustine. The view is based on the assumption that words in a language stand for, or refer to, things in the world, or – speaking figuratively – that language is a mirror of reality. This theory of meaning (embraced also by Wittgenstein himself in his earlier Tractatus) is mistaken. Words stand in no referential relation to things; rather, words are tools we use for various purposes, not only to describe or communicate something, but also to bring about changes in the world. Rules constitute what Wittgenstein calls language games. Here is how the concept is introduced: §23. But how many kinds of sentence are there? Say assertion, question, and command? – There are countless kinds: countless different kinds of use of what we call ‘symbols’, ‘words’, ‘sentences’. And this multiplicity is not something fixed, given once for all; but new types of language, new language-games, as we may say, come into existence, and others become obsolete and get forgotten. (We can get a rough picture of this from the changes in mathematics.) Here the term ‘language-game’ is meant to bring to prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life. One may review the multiplicity of language-games in the following examples, and in others: Giving orders, and obeying them – Describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements – Constructing an object from a description (a drawing) – Reporting an event – Speculating about an event – Forming and testing a hypothesis – Pre  I put the word ‚theory’ into quotation marks as Wittgenstein would never describe his remarks concerning language as providing any theory of language. 28   See L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Blackwell, Oxford 2009. Below I refer to Philosophical Investigations by indicating the paragraph from which the text is quoted. 27

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senting the results of an experiment in tables and diagrams – Making up a story; and reading it – Play-acting – Singing catches – Guessing riddles – Making a joke; telling it – Solving a problem in practical arithmetic – Translating from one language into another – Asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying. – It is interesting to compare the multiplicity of the tools in language and of the ways they are used, the multiplicity of kinds of word and sentence, with what logicians have said about the structure of language. (Including the author of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.)

Now, the crucial point is that – on an acceptable interpretation – Wittgenstein claims that the use of linguistic expressions is always a part of some social interaction. The rules that govern the use of words are not separate linguistic rules, but rather rules of how to do things in social settings. To see this, one must analyze in some detail Wittgenstein’s remarks concerning rule-following. I cannot go into the details of various possible interpretations of this problem. Instead, I shall offer the following outline of my own interpretation. In Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein probes into the phenomenon of rule-following. Let us consider, he says, the following example. Imagine that you ask someone to add 2, starting with 0. In reply, you get the following sequence of numbers: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, ... 1000. At this point, something surprising happens. After 1000 you hear 1004, then 1008, then 1012, etc. At your insistence that this sequence is incorrect – it should be 1002, 1004, 1006 – your interlocutor says that she is certain of her response. The question Wittgenstein poses in this context is: how do we know that ‘1002’ is the correct answer? He notes (§186): (…) How is it decided what is the right step to take at any particular stage? – “The right step is the one that accords with the order – as it was meant” – So when you gave the order ‘+2’ you meant that he was to write 1002 after 1000 – and did you also mean that he should write 1868 after 1866, and 100036 after 100034, and so on – an in-

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finite number of such propositions? – “No: what I meant was, that he should write the next but one number after every number that he wrote; and from this all those propositions follow in turn.” – But that is just what is in question: what, at any stage, does follow from that sentence (...).

Wittgenstein’s question may seem crazy. That – in adding 2 – 1002 follows 1000 is obvious. However, it is the task of a philosopher to question the obvious. It is relatively easy to show the difficulty involved in capturing why a rule contains ‘all those propositions’. From the point of view of mathematics, the rule ‘+ 2’ is a function, i.e. an infinite set of pairs of numbers, of which the antecedent is the one to which we add 2, and the consequent is the result of addition. To know such a rule means to be able to contemplate the actual infinity. This we can’t do, however. There must be a different way in which a rule enables us to ‘capture’ the potentially infinite number of cases of its application. Therefore, we can note here an important intuition concerning the concept of a rule: rules are patterns of behavior (or: contain patterns of behavior). Let us call it ‘the pattern condition’. The second Wittgensteinian insight concerning the concept of a rule is that they constitute reasons for action. Wittgenstein notes (§222): “The line intimates to me the way I am to go.” – But that is of course only a picture. And if I judged that it intimated this or that as it were irresponsibly, I should not say that I was obeying it like a rule.

Put differently: even if we understood how a rule contains ‘all those propositions’, it would not be sufficient to explain rule-following. Rules (at least some rules) must be objective reasons for action. Even if there are rules, how is it possible, that we should follow them? A complete theory of rules must reply to this question (let us deem it ‘the reason condition’).

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Against this background, Wittgenstein rejects some traditional conceptions of rules. The typical interpretation of Philosophical Investigations posits that Wittgenstein undermines three theories of rules: mechanicism, Platonism and mentalism. Firstly, rules are not dispositions to act in a given way (e.g., to answer ‘1002’). We do not follow rules ‘automatically’ as such an account is at odds with the reason condition. Secondly, rules are not mental states. Wittgenstein observes that one can imagine rules as some kind of picture. However, it is difficult to comprehend how such a picture can ‘contain’ all the cases of a rule’s application (e.g., for ‘+ 2’ this is an infinite number of cases). Thus, rules-as-pictures cannot account for the pattern condition. Thirdly, the same holds true for Platonism. Were rules platonic objects, we would be able to imagine them only as some kind of pictures. It is much more difficult to present Wittgenstein’s solution to the problem of rule-following in a coherent way. However, a number of aspects of the solution may be identified. Firstly, Wittgenstein claims that one cannot speak of rule-following outside of a community. As Saul Kripke observes, “if one person is considered in isolation, the notion of a rule as guiding the person who adopts it can have no substantive content.”29 The situation changes when we “widen our gaze from consideration of the rule follower alone and allow ourselves to consider him as interacting with a wider community. Others will then have justification conditions for attributing correct or incorrect rule following to the subject.”30 This observation is based on a number of Wittgenstein’s remarks in which he stresses the communal character of rule-following. For example, he says: The phenomenon of language rests on regularity, on agreement in acting. Here it is of the greatest importance that all of us, or the over29 30

  S. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, op. cit., p. 66.   Ibidem, p. 66.

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whelming number, agree on certain things. For example, I can be sure that the color of this object will be called ‘green’ by most people who see it.31

Thus, rules are neither mental states, nor platonic objects. One can speak of rule-following for we participate in a certain social practice; a practice based on common agreement. Secondly, the sole regularities of social behavior are insufficient to justify speaking of rule-following. As Susan Hurley observes: [I]t is not an adequate answer to say that the solution [to the problem of rule-following] practices provide is a skeptical one, that nothing underwrites content and we just, contingently, happen to agree in doing this rather than that. (…) [T]he full force of the skeptical view dissolves our capacities for intentional action, for trying and choice, however arbitrary, as much as for perception and thought. It takes the ground out from under the feet of pragmatism and conventionalism, as much as Platonism and psychologism. It rules out appeals by the skeptic to our intentional responses, our attributions, our constructions, our investigations, our procedures of verification or ratification, etc.32

In short: Hurley tries to say that in order to speak of rule-following one needs not only agreement in social reactions but also certain mental attitudes: that I believe that the given behavior is obligatory (complies with a rule). Thirdly, Wittgenstein claims that rule-following has a systematic character. Put differently, speaking of rule-following is possible only against a background of a complex system of behavior and mental attitudes. One can say that one followed a rule only because there are a   L. Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1967, p. 342. 32   S. Hurley, Consciousness in Action, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2002, p. 234. 31

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large number of cases in which one can speak of following different rules. Wittgenstein notes: We say that, in order to communicate, people must agree with one another about the meanings of words. But the criterion for this agreement is not just agreement with reference to definitions, e.g., ostensive definitions – but also an agreement in judgments. It is essential for communication that we agree in a large number of judgments.33

Fourthly, in light of the above, an important if not decisive role is played by very simple, basic rules. In §219 Wittgenstein observes: “All the steps are really already taken” means: I no longer have any choice. The rule, once stamped with a particular meaning, traces the lines along which it is to be followed through the whole of space. – But if something of this sort really were the case, how would it help? No; my description only made sense if it was to be understood symbolically. – I should have said: This is how it strikes me. When I obey a rule, I do not choose. I obey the rule blindly.

Crispin Wright claims that such basic cases of rule-following, in which one tends to speak of following a rule ‘blindly’, are the key to understanding the phenomenon of rule-following. These ‘reactions’ – although they are full-blooded rule-following, as “they are rational in the sense that they involve intentionality and a willingness to accept correction in the light of inadvertent breaches of the rule”34 – are to a great extent derived from our biological underpinning. Thus, it is no surprise that we agree when we determine colors: “[T]hat is no miracle: it is just what is to be expected of biologically and neuro  L. Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, op. cit., VI, 39.   C. Wright, What is Wittgenstein’s Point in the Rule-Following Considerations, http:// www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/rules/papers/Wright.pdf., p. 25. 33 34

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physiologically similar creatures, hardwired and trained in similar ways.”35 On the other hand, the agreement in the most basic cases constitutes the foundation for the phenomenon of rule-following in more complicated situations, when it is more proper to say that following a rule is not ‘blind’, that it requires a ‘decision’ (cf. §186 of Philosophical Investigations). Thus, Wittgenstein observes that ‘obeying a rule’ has many faces (§235): there are cases in which we are prone to say that we follow a rule ‘blindly’ or ‘unconsciously’; in other instances, however, obeying a rule is best described as a decision, when we consciously reflect upon the required course of action. Wittgenstein’s key point is that the ‘conscious’ or ‘complex’ rule-following is possible because there is regularity or ‘an agreement in action’ between us, which is a manifestation of obeying ‘simple’ rules in an ‘automatic’ way. Fifthly, at the basic, ‘unconscious’ level, the phenomenon of rule-following displays a feature that may be called ‘normative unity’. What I have in mind is that at the basic level one cannot distinguish between different kinds of rules. Some commentators claim that Wittgenstein speaks only of language rules yet this is a mistake. Nowhere does Wittgenstein limit – at least explicitly – his remarks to language. Moreover, his favorite example – of the rule ‘+2’ – is hardly an instance of a purely linguistic rule. If it were, the same would hold of any rule: ‘One should not kill other people’, ‘One should pay taxes’, or ‘One should maximize her utility function.’ Of course, Philosophical Investigations are centered around language but, as I stressed above, Wittgenstein offers a new conception of the relationship between language and reality. It is no longer understood in terms of the language as means for describing or depicting the world. For Wittgenstein, language is a tool for acting in the world. In this way, the dichotomy of ‘language – reality’ loses its importance. One cannot clearly distinguish between linguistic and other kinds of rules: each rule, be it mathematical, moral or legal, has its 35

  Ibidem, p. 31.

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linguistic dimension, is an element of a language-game, i.e. determines the uses of certain expressions. This is especially visible at the level of the most basic rules. Only through an ex post reflection, through the application of abstract categories of mathematics or linguistics, can we judge that the utterance of ‘1002’ after ‘1000’ was an instance of the application of a mathematical rule, while the utterance of ‘green’ was a result of applying a linguistic one. This analysis shows that Witgenstein’s view of language embraces both the Embedded Thesis and the Abstraction Thesis. ‘Language in action’, to borrow a term from American legal realists, is a part of social interactions in such a way, that it is impossible to unequivocally describe some situation as an application of a meaning rule or a moral or prudential one. Wittgensteinian basic rules are neither language rules, nor moral ones, nor instrumental ones; they are just simple patterns of behavior one learns to follow in particular social interactions. At the same time – and here we embrace the Abstraction Thesis – one can speak also of ‘language in books’. When one begins to reflect on one’s patterns of behavior, one may distill various aspects thereof, and in this way formulate language rules, moral rules, etc. This process consists in abstracting from other aspects of the contemplated behavioral patterns, and – in the case of language – leads to the development of the idea of language as an idealized system of rules governing the use of words. Importantly, Wittgenstein’s analysis of rule-following and language is not a philosophical extravagance – it finds solid justification in some recent findings of evolutionary theory and neuroscience: a conception of language advocated by such scholars as Merlin Donald, Michael Tomasello, Michael Arbib and others. Two central claims of their approach – which embraces the Embedded Thesis – are: (a) that language is not a stand-alone evolutionary adaptation, but an effect of communication-enabling and culture-creating adaptations; and (b) that the key role in the process of cultural evolution is played by the ability to imitate. More particularly, an evolutionary scenario sketched by Merlin Donald in relation to the emergence of language

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is as follows.36 Donald claims that the sources of human ability to use language are based on mimetic skills, which evolved some 2 million years ago. He distinguishes between mimicry, imitation and mimesis. Mimicry is a simple copying of some action, with no understanding of its goal. Imitation is more abstract and flexible, as it takes into account the goal of the action. Finally, mimesis is defined as “the reduplication of an event for communicative purposes. Mimesis requires that the audience be taken into account. It also demands taking a thirdperson perspective on the actor’s own behaviour. Some examples are children fantasy play, the iconic gestures used in a social context, and the simulation of a ‘heroic’ death during a theatrical performance.”37 Mimetic skills are thus founded on the ability to imitate, which in turn is conditioned by mimicry skills. Donald identifies four main types of mimetic representation, which are key to the transmission and propagation of culture: (1) reenactive mime, characteristic of role-playing; (2) precise means-end imitation (as in learning how to fry an egg); (3) the systematic rehearsal and refinement of skill (as in learning how to drive a car); and (4) nonlinguistic gesture (as in learning how to dance). He further claims that these mimetic skills were the foundation for the emergence of language and all the other forms of culture. He stresses that his proposal differs from the traditional scenarios which condition the emergence of culture on the prior emergence of language (the language first theory). According to Donald, some forms of culture, based on the mimetic skills, must have preceded language and enabled its evolution (the culture first theory). Donald’s theory leads to profound consequences. Firstly, he claims that the human mind is intimately linked to the society in which it flourishes. One can even say that it is co-created by the community. Communal practices are constitutive of the human mind, both   Cf. M. Donald, Imitation and Mimesis, [in:] Perspectives on Imitation, vol. 2: Imitation, Human Development, and Culture, eds. S. Hurley, N. Chater, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2005, pp. 283–300. 37   Ibidem, p. 286. 36

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in their phylogenetic and ontogenetic dimensions. Secondly, language is not an individual but a network-level phenomenon: its evolution resembles the evolution of an ecosystem rather than of a single organism. Thirdly, it follows that “cognitive neuroscientists are unlikely to find an innate language acquisition device, and should redirect their investigations toward the powerful analogue processing systems out of which language can emerge in group interactions.”38 A similar theory – but in the context of neuroscience – is advocated by Michael Arbib.39 He attempts to answer the question of what is the neuronal basis for a certain feature of language – parity – which manifests itself in our ability to recognize what our interlocutor wants to say. He observes that the Broca’s area – traditionally considered the region of the brain responsible for the production of speech – is one of the areas in which there is a complex system of mirror neurons. Thus, Broca’s area is implicated in the production of various multimodal linguistic actions (utilizing the hands, face and voice). In connection to this Arbib formulates the Neuron System Hypothesis: the parity condition is fulfilled due to the fact that Broca’s area has been evolutionarily built upon a perception system responsible for the recognition and execution of manual actions. Arbib believes that the hypothesis is backed by both the arguments resulting from neuroimaging experiments (execution and perception of manual gestures activate neurons located within or in the proximity of Broca’s area) and the anatomical facts (it is assumed that the F5 region in the brains of macaques, where the mirror neurons were discovered, is an analogue of the Broadmann 44 area in human brain, which is a part of Broca’s area) Arbib presents also an evolutionary hypothesis pertaining to the probable development of mirror neurons. The first stage consisted in the emergence of mirror systems dedicated to the perception and   Ibidem, p. 294.   Cf. M. Arbib, The Mirror System, Imitation, and the Evolution of Language, [in:] Imitation in Animals and Artifacts, eds. Ch. Nehavin, K. Dautenhahn, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2002, pp. 229–280.

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execution of manual actions. In the second stage, those mirror neurons served as the basis for the development of the ability to imitate manual gestures: simple forms of such imitation are found in apes, more complex forms are exclusively human. The third stage was the emergence of pantomimic skills, and the fourth stage led beyond simple reenactment of human behavior (some gestures were recognized as standing for something else, e.g. waving one’s hand was interpreted as imitating a flying bird). The fifth stage is the emergence of proto-signs, or conventional gestures which made pantomime more precise (e.g., they enabled to distinguish gestures representing birds and the process of flying). Finally, the sixth stage resulted in the development of proto-language, which emerged through the separation of conventionalized manual, mimic and vocal gestures from pantomime. Arbib claims further that if the above sketched evolutionary scenario is sound, then the human brain is language-ready, but does not ‘have’ language. Thus, we are forced to reject Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar and the conception of brains ‘having language’. This conclusion is further reinforced by the following two observations: firstly, the ability to learn and use language is not confined to spoken language, but embraces a combination of manual, vocal and mimetic skills. Secondly, proto-language was based on proto-phrases: proto-words functioned as our sentences, not our words.

4. Janus-Faced Normativity The above reported evolutionary and neuroscientific conceptions constitute – in my view – a powerful argument backing the Wittgensteinian stance towards rule-following and language. But where does it leave us philosophically regarding the problem of the normativity of language? I suggest the following ontological stance. There are two kinds of rules: the rudimentary and the abstract. Rudimentary rules emerge from the regularities of social behavior coupled with spe-

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cial mental attitudes. At this level, there are no individual, stand-alone rules. We must rather speak of a system of rules. Moreover, I also posit that rudimentary rules cannot be unequivocally individuated. In other words, one cannot provide a set of absolute criteria for rule-individuation. Speaking metaphorically, the same ‘amalgam’ of rudimentary rules may be divided in various ways, giving different sets of fully individuated rules. What follows, at the rudimentary level no absolute criterion exists for distinguishing kinds of rules. One is in no position to ascribe different rules to different categories (linguistic, legal, moral, mathematical). Rudimentary rules are (relatively) normatively unified. The second view is that of abstract rules. They are abstract entities, which can exist in isolation (i.e., apart from a system of rules). What follows is that such rules can be unequivocally individuated; one can also ascribe them to some rule-categories (legal, linguistic, etc.). I also claim that the emergence of abstract rules is the result of us reflecting upon our behavior. It is only through reflection that we can categorize different kinds of rules, ask what the criteria for distinguishing legal, moral, linguistic, mathematical and other types of rules are. Finally, in order to categorize abstract rules, one needs to express them in language. Thus, abstract rules are linguistic entities. Now, the crucial step is to recognize that both stances are compatible. In other words, the ontology of rules proposed here can be encapsulated in the thesis that regularities of social behavior and some mental attitudes give rise to the emergence of rudimentary rules, which, in turn, are the ‘scaffolding’ for the abstract rules. Against this background we may revisit the problem of normativity in language. I propose that there are two kinds of normativity corresponding to two kinds of rules: rudimentary and abstract. Rudimentary normativity is a feature of rudimentary rules. It can be analyzed into the following three aspects: a. rudimentary rules are objective; the objectivity in question is a direct consequence of the social character of rudimentary

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rules. They are patterns of behavior that are propagated within a community through the process of imitation; b. rudimentary rules may be applied correctly or incorrectly, and it is the reaction of the community that indicates which is the case. At the same time, rudimentary rules cannot be cited as reasons for acting in a certain way, i.e. they cannot justify a given course of action; c. rudimentary rules are followed ‘blindly’ or unconsciously. Such unconscious decisions to use a certain word in relation to the given object or to act in some way are not reasoned. One needs to keep in mind, however, that this mode of rule-following is not merely a biological adaptation – we learn most of rudimentary rules through social training. It is essential to notice that rudimentary normativity is not a normativity of language, or morality or rationality. At the rudimentary level one cannot distinguish between kinds of rules, and so – between kinds of normativity. Still, rudimentary normativity is an absolute or intrinsic feature of rudimentary rules; it is a characteristic of what those rules are. To put it in a different way: the normativity of the rudimentary rules is not conditional – it is generated by the regularities of social behaviour coupled with some mental attitudes, and we never decide whether to accept the system of rudimentary rules. The situation changes at the level of abstract rules. Abstract rules are linguistic expressions of obligatory (or necessary) patterns of acting, which result from our reflection over the rudimentary rules we follow. It is at this level that one may distinguish kinds of rules simply by formulating a theory of how to act morally, legally or in a linguistically correct way. Our ethical systems are systems of abstract (moral) rules; our legal acts are collections of abstract (legal) rules; our dictionaries and grammar books describe systems of abstract (syntactic and semantic) rules. Importantly, the abstract rules we formulate influence – through a feedback – our rule-following practices at the rudimentary level.

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Those abstract (legal, moral, language) rules may be formulated in different ways, and so different theories of morality, law or language may be developed. In morals, one can advocate utilitarianism, Kantianism, etc. In legal philosophy, one can be a positivist or a nonpositivist. In linguistics one may embrace various accounts of language. In other words, there are not – and cannot be – absolute or true definitions of morality, law or language as these normative systems are, in a sense, our constructions. However, it is important to realize that the very possibility of those constructions (e.g., various theories of morality) is conditioned on the existence of the system of rudimentary rules (which are not such a construction). Within such a setting one can defend various conceptions of abstract normativity. For instance, the normativity of moral rules can be described as being sui generis or as having its ultimate sanction in the standards of rationality. The normativity of law may be said to result from moral or instrumental considerations, or to be an intrinsic feature of ideally existing legal rules. The conception of normativity one embraces hangs together with the theory of morality or law one accepts. And again, abstract normativity depends on or is conditioned by the rudimentary normativity. In ethics and law it is often assumed that moral rules are normative as they constitute objective reasons for action. It means that moral rules are (a) objective; (b) may serve as justification for a course of action; and (c) are usually followed consciously. It seems clear that such a conception of the normativity of ethics is constructed upon the rudimentary form of normativity. The fact that one formulates moral rules in language makes it possible for moral rules to have justificatory force as well as to be followed consciously (in a ‘reasoned’ way). The above analysis leads to the following solution to the normativity of meaning puzzle. The fact that – at the level of abstract rules – one can ‘see’ language in various ways, makes it possible to defend various stances regarding the normativity of meaning. Firstly, proponents of the non-normative understanding of meaning may argue that what we call the rules of language are in fact only descrip-

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tions of (some aspects of) rudimentary rules. Secondly, defenders of the extrinsic normativity of meaning may construct language in such a way that meaning rules become conditional (e.g., they may embrace a purely formal view of language, but one in which language is chosen by a conventional decision). Similarly – thirdly – the supporters of the intrinsic normativity thesis may assume that language is metaphysically necessary, and hence both the internal and the external normativity of meaning is categorical. My crucial point is that none of these stances are true, despite the fact that the normativity of meaning debate is so phrased as to suggest that a true picture of the workings of language is at stake. On my account, the problem of the normativity of meaning is not the question of truth, but rather of purpose: one can develop diametrically different theories of the normativity of meaning, which are better or worse relative to the accepted cognitive and practical goals. Now, why has the contemporary debate pertaining to the normativity of meaning been led astray? I suspect that the reason for this is connected to the conception of language assumed by the disputants. It seems to me that the debate over the normativity question revolves around a formal view of language, or at least all its participants embrace the Isolation Thesis: that language is an isolated system of rules. Only on such an assumption does the discussion between non-normativists, extrinsic-normativists and intrinsic-normativists have any sense. The problem is that – as I believe – without a broader perspective, one that embeds language (in some way) into social interactions, the question of the normativity of meaning becomes an artificial or far-fetched one. No answer defended in such a debate has any theoretical or pragmatic value: it is pure and futile scholasticism (in the pejorative sense of the word), one based on false assumptions and leading to unsolvable and useless quibbles.

Aeddan Shaw The Pontifical University of John Paul II Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies

The Perspectivist Account of the Normativity of Meaning Debate1

I

t almost seems a truism to state that there are many faces to normativity and that each has a rich and chequered history. The debate over the normativity of meaning is one such aspect and can ultimately be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, with Plato’s theory of forms countered by Aristotle’s view of the social aspect of language. Whereas Plato saw language as something innate, Aristotle held that ‘every sentence has meaning, not as being the natural means by which a physical faculty is realized, but, as we have said, by convention.’2 For well over 2000 years, the debate has swung back and forth between the two poles of nativism and socially constructed meaning (to give them their somewhat more up to date labels), with the last 50 years belonging firmly to the nativist camp as championed by Noam Chomsky. Recent findings in linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience and philosophy, however, suggest that much of the nativist position rests on false premises and that it is time once again to rethink our view of language and its accompanying philosophy.   This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation. 2  Aristotle, On Interpretation, section 1, part 4. (taken from the MIT online edition.) 1

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This article will examine the following hypotheses concerning the debate over the normativity of meaning. The first hypothesis is that current paradigms for understanding the normativity of meaning have been undermined because the linguistic model upon which they are based (generally a version of the nativist view expounded by Chomsky) increasingly seems to be incomplete. Recent findings from linguists such as Tomasello, Everett and others3 challenge the nativist view that language is innate and, this paper will argue, have important consequences for the philosophical debate concerning the normativity of meaning. This is of particular importance, as the myriad contemporary debates concerning meaning, normativity and content still utilise an outdated, formal view of language which has lost much of its rationale. The second hypothesis is that the status of linguistic normativity can seem to vary depending on the way one perceives language. Traditionally, language has been ascribed an extrinsic or intrinsic source of normativity or even that it was non-normative. The picture that emerges from a usage based conception of language, however, indicates that depending on the perspective one adopts, one can see language from any of these three positions. This is something which I would tentatively term the perspectivist theory of the normativity of language – but hopefully without the metaphysical baggage that this Nietzschean term implies. Whilst the perspectivism inspired by Nietzsche generally precludes any ‘right’ or ‘ultimately true’ interpretations, the author does not do so in this case.4 The contemporary problem with the normativity debate is that, since all languages are subject to a ‘universal grammar’, they are therefore subject to one of these three positions only, the result depending on what one regards as the main elements of a formally understood language. However,   For more detail, see M. Tomasello, Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2003; D. Everett, Language. The Cultural Tool, Profile Books, New York 2012. 4   Increasingly, work by scholars such as Brożek (see especially his work Rule-following. From Imitation to the Normative Mind, Copernicus Center Press, Kraków 2013) seem to suggest that there is in fact an underlying normative structure. 3

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once one embraces the usage-based theory and rejects inborn grammar and fixed meanings, one can easily see that the three views are just different perspectives of the same phenomenon, one that escapes an easy conceptualization. By way of a methodological coda, normative is understood here as providing a reason for a particular action. Therefore, language is understood to be normative in the sense that it does more than simply provide a description of human actions: it drives and determines them. To quote Lance and Hawthorne, when one asserts a claim about meaning ‘one is simply asserting that a word or sentence should be used in a certain way’.5 There are currently three main positions in the normativity of meaning debate which will be explored before the paper turns to an examination of what the usage based approach can afford us.

1. The Non-Normative Perspective The non-normative view, simply put, is that there is no normativity of meaning in language since there . As advocated by Hattiangadi, it is rightly rejected by Brożek6 on the grounds that it conflates personal and impersonal obligations and, furthermore, on the basis of practical realizability. In the case of the latter, Hattiangadi believes that it is ‘impossible for a person x to follow the rule “person x should apply ‘rich’ only to rich persons” under all circumstances’, an idea which, on the contrary, seems eminently achievable. A linguistic system functions, at least partially, on the basis of shared conceptions of meaning. If someone were to use a word in a manner for which it is not intended then, logically, one uses it with a different meaning. One could, for example, envisage a situation in 5   M. Norris Lance, J. O’Leary-Hawthorne, The Grammar of Meaning: Normativity and Semantic Discourse, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997, p. 62 6   B. Brożek, The Normativity of Meaning, in this volume.

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which person x describes a man begging for money on the street as ‘rich’ but then the meaning of either the term ‘rich’ or the utterance as a whole is radically different – for example, ironic (‘oh yes, he is really rich’) or perhaps spiritual (‘he is poor in material terms but rich in spirit’). Either way, it is clear that we are considering a very different meaning and Hattiangadi could be seen to conflate the connotational (i.e. the ironic or spiritual examples given above) meaning with the denotational. As if this were not enough, Hattiangadi also seems to understand normative as making a given course of action somehow akin to a compulsion, that the speaker is forced to use a term in a given way. We can, of course, use words incorrectly but then there will be consequences – we have used it incorrectly and thus one can expect some kind of ‘linguistic punishment’. As Brożek puts it: I may not follow a legal rule because of some other considerations or even a desire, but this does not change the fact that by not following it I break it. Similarly, when I apply a word incorrectly (because I have a desire or even a reason to do so), I break a meaning rule. An example of a meaning rule is “A person x should apply ‘rich’ only to rich persons”, and not “If a person x has a reason to do so, or merely wishes so, x should apply ‘rich’ only to rich persons.7

However, there is a lingering sense that meaning could be non-normative and the key is to be found in the interplay between meaning and use, a situation which readers of Through the Looking Glass will be familiar with: “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t – till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ” “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.   Ibidem.

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“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”8

What Humpty Dumpty suggests is a kind of tyranny of use – there is no fixed meaning and use alone triumphs – which is actually partially borne out by the way in which languages changes and develop. Linguists can point to numerous examples where meanings have shifted, taking on new forms and associations. Whilst we are not interested here in the fascinating ability of languages to change, what is key is that, at a given moment, an interlocutor utilised a term in a way which was novel. There is clearly some kind of feedback loop between meaning and use – and the normativity of meaning is also affected by this process. If meaning becomes so mutable then considerable weight is given to the idea that the normativity of meaning is far from fixed and this effectively reduces normativity to a semantic issue – that I should apply ‘rich’ to a person of wealth is only a matter of semantics and it has no normative consequences or weight. One is, as is Humpty Dumpty, free to use a word in any way one may wish and, for a view of language which advocates fixed meaning, this is understandably problematic. This is an old intuition, dating back at least to Plato’s Cratylus where Hermogenes says that he cannot see ‘that there is any principle of correctness in names other than convention and agreement; any name which you give, in my opinion, is the right one, and if you change that and give another, the new name is as correct as the old’.9 To put it in a nutshell: while Hattiangadi does appreciate that meaning is not fixed once and for all, and hence meaning rules are best seen as rough generalization of the actual use, she fails to recognize the relative stability of language: the tyranny of use is significantly limited. Nevertheless, from the non-normative perspective, it would seem that there are issues which the Chomskyian view of lan  L. Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, Dover Thrift Editions, New York 1999, p. 57.  Plato, Cratylus. This version has been taken from the MIT Online archive, trans. B. Jowett.

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guage struggles with and that, arguably, the normativity of meaning can be seen to be an illusion. Let us now turn to the extrinsic position.

2. The Extrinsically Normative Perspective The extrinsically normative view posits that meaning acquires its normative element from an external source (such as morality, prudence or even someone’s desire). As advocated by Boghossian,10 language cannot supply this normativity as its rules are only hypothetical as opposed to, for example, moral ones which might be considered categorical. Brożek terms this ‘locally conventional’ and this means that ‘one is free to follow or not follow any particular meaning rule’11 whereas, for Boghossian, this is not the case with legal or ethical precepts. Upon examination, this does not bear closer scrutiny: whereas one can surely choose to follow the conventions of a language or not i.e. one can choose to play the game of a given language or not, if one wishes to be understood then one must abide by the rules. By analogy, if we play by the rules of society then we do not need to be punished by the law. Boghossian’s mistake lies in disregarding the fact that ‘playing the game of language’ is not an isolated episode, but rather an element of a communal life: meaning rules are intertwined with other kinds of rules in an inextricable way. Jacob notices: Meaning consists in a pattern of agreement between members of a community. This is what it takes to be part of a linguistic community: an individual belongs to a community if his or her uses of words coincide with the uses of others.12   P. Boghossian, Is Meaning Normative?, [in:] Philosophy-Science-Scientific Philosophy, eds. C. Nimtz, A. Beckermann, Mentis, Paderborn, pp. 205–218. 11   See, B. Brożek, Rule Following..., op. cit. 12  P. Jacob, Is Meaning Intrinsically Normative?, [in:] Argument & Analyse, eds. C.U. Moulines, K.G. Niebergall, Mentis, Paderborn 2002, p. 189. 10

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And, after Dretske, he adds: On many occasions, if x and y are human and if x kills y, then some normative consequences follow. If x killed y intentionally and with no mitigating circumstances, then x ought to be sanctioned. Notice the contrast between the relations expressed respectively by the verb ‘kill’ and by the verb ‘murder’. Whatever the circumstances, if x murdered y, then x ought to be sanctioned. Legal and moral norms are built into the very existence of murders. Legal and moral norms are constitutive of murders.13

The extrinsically normative perspective does offer, however, a valuable insight into the workings of language. As Everett notes, ‘Languages are structured by cultures and the limitations of human cognition and the pressures of finding solutions to the communication problems common to all humans’.14 This intuition, however, is one which the nativist position struggles to deal with: if all languages possess a universal grammar, then languages cannot have such a relationship. The language of Easter Island, Pascuense, has an evocative term which is ‘tingo’ – to borrow things from your neighbour one by one until he has nothing left. At some point in the island’s past, presumably someone did this very thing and another enterprising islander coined the term: here we have an apparent extrinsic source (a cultural more or norm) supplying a linguistic term and a meaning which is unique to the language and culture. A traditional, ‘universal’ account of language struggles to explain such differences but, in the words of Everett, from the perspective of culture, however, they make perfect sense. All meanings, literal, colloquial, figurative and so on, are produced by culture for its purposes… Each one has a history of gradual adaptation from the original functions of its parts to the new functions of the 13 14

  Ibidem, pp. 190–191.   D. Everett, Language. The Cultural Tool…, op. cit., p.47.

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whole. The idea that they are paradoxes seems to derive from a misunderstanding of Plato’s notion that there is a fixed, real, and true meaning of a word. But that is not how it works at all. Word and phrase meanings are based on historical accident and cultural preferences.15

Thus the extrinsic position underscores, therefore, the relative character of our ‘language games’, one that puts any universal pretences in doubt. At the same time, it struggles to realize that linguistic rules are elements of a larger network of the norms that structure our social interactions.

3. The intrinsically Normative Perspective. The notion that meaning is intrinsic and derived from grammar owes much to Russell and 20th century linguistic philosophy. Russell himself said that ‘the study of grammar, in my opinion, is capable of throwing far more light on philosophical questions than is commonly supposed by philosophers’16 and, arguably, the same could be said of the implications of the study of grammar on normativity. Its roots, however, go much deeper and follow the outline proposed by Socrates in Plato’s dialogue Cratylus: And will a man speak correctly who speaks as he pleases? Will not the successful speaker rather be he who speaks in the natural way of speaking, and as things ought to be spoken, and with the natural instrument? All other modes of speaking will result in error and failure.17

As advocated by Whiting, meaning is given by language itself, through its grammatical rules. This has traditionally been regarded   Ibidem, p. 130.   B. Russell, Principles of Mathematics, Routledge Classics, Oxford 2009, p. 42. 17  Plato, Cratylus, this version has been taken from the MIT Online archive, trans. B. Jowett. 15 16

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as constituting a part of a Universal Grammar, a logical underpinning of all natural languages. If we consider Hattiangadi’s example of the word ‘rich’ then, as Whiting puts it: ‘I ought to apply the term to a person only if she is rich does not seem contingent upon (say) my desire to speak truthfully. If that desire changes, and I apply the term to a poor person, it remains the case that I am not applying it as it should be applied, but rather incorrectly..18

This much seems clear – certain words have more ‘weight’ than others – and connotation cannot be overlooked in any considerations of meaning. This is supported by Lance and Hawthorne and their assertion that the very speech act of making a meaning claim is itself normative, that saying what something means is prescribing’.19 Yet the intrinsic argument, whilst sound, rests on a shaky foundation and a static conception of language which is outdated. Tomasello convincingly illustrates how our grammatical systems are the products of the process of grammaticalization and thus of a kind of post hoc construction of a normative grammatical system. He offers a useful example in the form of gonna which has emerged from the verb going to in English: The original use of going was as a verb for movement, often in combination with the preposition to to indicate the destination (I’m going to the store), but sometimes also to indicate an intended action that the going to enabled (Why are you going to London? I’m going to see my bride). This later became I’m gonna VERB, with gonna indicating not just the intention to do something in the future, but futurity only… Givón’s well-known characterization of this process is: today’s morphology is yesterday’s syntax.20   D. Whiting, The Normativity of Meaning Defended, “Analysis” 2007, vol. 67, no. 2, 2007. p. 135. 19   M. Lance, J. Hawthorne, The Grammar of Meaning. Normative and Semantic Discourse, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997, p. 2. 20   M. Tomasello, Constructing a Language…, op. cit., p. 14. 18

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This can (and does) supply reasons for action (if everyone ignores linguistic rules then they cease to function and if everyone ignores the ‘correct’ meanings for terms then they lose their power, their motivational force) i.e. if we say ‘rich’ signifies someone with a lot of money, we are obliged to assign the meaning rich to all people who have the property of being rich. However, if we consider Chomsky’s famous example of ‘Colorless green ideas sleep furiously’, we can ‘unpack’ a meaning from this nonsensical sentence not because of generative grammar but because we are used to such patterns. This post hoc linguistic pattern detection does not generate meaning in itself, in the way that use does, but rather seeks to lay a pattern of meaning over the top of a meaningless sentence. For generative grammar to work, I would argue, it should be able to supply meaning, to be truly generative. Thus there is a role which is played by language itself, but it is strongly limited and ultimately determined by the culture in which it is embedded. A culture which has a very literal sense of its language will arguably have a strong intrinsically normative relationship between meaning and use; one in which this connection has withered, will not. Thus all of the existing approaches have some difficulties in explaining both the source of linguistic normativity and, indeed, whether it exists at all. The adoption of a different view of language, however, can be fruitful in addressing all of these issues.

4. The Unified, Usage Based Perspective As we have seen, much of the fault of current paradigms lies in the conception of language which underpins them. To recap, this amounts to two main issues: firstly, a static, fixed conception of meaning and, secondly, the idea that a universal grammar somehow underpins all languages and, therefore, every language has an equivalent grammatical superstructure (i.e. that the modal verb might in English has a direct equivalent in other languages). Put simply, the nativist position

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seems to be essentially the wrong way round. As Tomasello forcefully argues: the Generative Grammar hypothesis focuses only on grammar and claims that the human species has evolved during its phylogeny a genetically based universal grammar. The theory is unconcerned with the symbolic dimensions of human linguistic communication. The usage-based view – or at least the version of it espoused here – is precisely the opposite. In this view, the human use of symbols is primary, with the most likely evolutionary scenario being that the human species evolved skills enabling the use of linguistic symbols phylogenetically. But the emergence of grammar is a cultural-historical affair – probably originating quite recently in human evolution – involving no additional genetic events concerning language per se.21

Grammar is thus in no sense ‘hard wired’ and, much in the same way that Darwin’s finches evolved different beaks to exploit different food sources, it would seem that we have developed different languages and means of communication to suit differing contexts: this analogy is a useful one – the end result is the same (to feed in the case of the finch, to communicate in the case of the human) but the means to do so is adapted to fit the environment in which it is to be used. Small wonder then that lexical differences exist, whether it be the famed and much disputed Inuit words for snow or the remarkable 27 different words for moustache used by Albanians. It is no surprise either, although rather more controversial, that different grammars have developed as well – the Pirahã people lack anything like a past or future tense since they regard anything which has not been experienced directly by the speaker to be without value. It would also seem that different languages have different normative structures at work and, indeed, that some have possessed differing sources of normativity in their histories. In the context of the normativity of meaning debate, 21

  Ibidem, p. 9.

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therefore, it is hardly surprising that differing sources of normativity may be theorized to function in a given language or, indeed, that the meaning of a given language may be theoretically considered nonnormative. Everett22 has a convincing metaphor of hunting with a bow and arrow. Most cultures in the world have developed some form of archery equipment, often independently. Does this mean that there is some kind of universal archery hardwiring in our brains? Or perhaps an archery instinct a la Pinker? Everett convincingly argues that it is rather a product of our problem solving apparatus and often the best solution to the problem of how to catch something which is faster than you – and thus, by analogy, our languages often have many similarities due to their applications and usage but this does not presuppose that they are either identical or derived from a particular gene. Language as a cultural tool possesses both explanatory and descriptive power: the idea that meaning is generated by use encompasses both positions and also helps to explain how a language may be considered intrinsically, extrinsically or non-normative. The normativity of meaning question, when seen through the prism of language as a cultural tool, would seem to dissolve. When one dispenses with the view that language is a system of well-defined rules which fits the framework provided by Universal Grammar, and opts instead for a view that it is a cultural tool, interconnected with other socially shared rules of conduct, the seemingly contradictory conclusions drawn by the proponents of the non-normative, intrinsic normative and extrinsic normative conceptions of the normativity of meaning turn out to be, in fact, compatible. The way one sees language’s normativity depends on the perspective one adopts: and the usage-based theory of language admits many such perspectives. The perspectivist theory of the normativity of meaning proposed here suggests a picture which is a complex and engaging one. When seen through the prism provided by the traditional, Chomskyian standpoint, the various perspectives   D. Everett, Language. The Cultural Tool…, op. cit., pp. 16–20.

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of intrinsically, extrinsically and non-normative meaning appear mutually exclusive and contradictory. When we adopt the usage based perspective, however, they become refractions of a commonly held normativity.

Mateusz Hohol The Pontifical University of John Paul II Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies

The Normativity of Mathematics. A Neurocognitive Approach1

Logic – it is an ethics of speech and thought Jan Łukaszewicz

1. Mathematics As a Normative Science

T

he term normativity is usually associated with ethics, law and language. In the case of ethics and law, this problem appears in many ways, most commonly in the context of the so-called naturalistic fallacy (the is-ought problem),2 and in the case of language – in discussions concerning the normativity of me-

  This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation. 2   Cf. D. Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature, Dover Publications, New York 2003 (1739–40), p. 304; G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1903, chapter 1, §10; J. Stelmach, And if There is No ‘Ought’?, [in:] Studies in the Philosophy of Law 6. The Normativity of Law, eds. J. Stelmach, B. Brożek, Copernicus Center Press, Kraków 2011, pp. 15–20; J. Stelmach, Naturalistic Fallacy and Antinaturalistic Fallacy in Normative Discourse, this volume; A. Brożek, Methodological Status of Naturalistic Fallacy, this volume. 1

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aning.3 Much less frequently – although by no means never – we do speak about normativity in the context of the formal sciences, such as logic and mathematics. This essay is about the problem of the normativity of the latter disciplines, with particular emphasis on mathematics. One of the theses which I intend to defend is the statement that, despite the fact that in many domains such as language, morality and mathematics the term takes different semantic nuances, there is a common base for them, which I will call a proto-normativity or proto-rules. The main instrument which I intend to use is the embodied-embedded mind, one of the interpretative paradigms of cognitive neuroscience. After an approximation of the problem in the first “negative” part of this paper, I will review the normativity in the context of the classical views in the philosophy of mathematics, such as Platonism and formalism. I will try to show, that Platonism and formalism do not provide an adequate solution to the problem of normativity. In the second “positive” part of the paper I will review the problem of normativity through the prism of the embodied-embedded mind paradigm. In this part I will give arguments supporting the thesis according to which, although we are just taking our first steps in the neurocognitive approach to mathematics, our hopes for a solution to the riddle of normativity should be associated with this approach. What exactly is the normativity of mathematics? I will try to approximate this problem in two steps – firstly referring to the famous “Wittgenstein paradox” and, secondly, by showing, after Robert Hanna, three features of the intrinsic normativity of formal sciences. The famous part of paragraph 201 of the “Philosophical Investigations” reads as follows:   Cf. S. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1982; K. Glüer, P. Pagin, Rules of Meaning and Practical Reasoning, “Synthese” 1999, no. 117, pp. 207–227; K. Glüer, Å. Wikforss, Against Content Normativity, “Mind” 2009, no. 118, pp. 31–70; B. Brożek, The Normativity of Language, this volume; A. Shaw, The Perspectivist Account of the Normativity of Meaning Debate, this volume. 3

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This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule. The answer was: if everything can be made out to accord with the rule, then it can also be made out to conflict with it. And so there would be neither accord nor conflict here.4

The above paradox is one of the most important parts of Wittgenstein’s work concerning rule-following. On of the most oft cited examples illustrating the problem of rule-following is the rule in mathematics which orders us to add 2 to any number (“+2”). Wittgenstein encourages us to imagine a young student of mathematics who, starting from zero, iteratively adds the number 2. As a result he gets the following numbers: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 etc. Addition proceeds – from our perspective – properly, until reaching 1000. Because the next following numbers are: 1004, 1008, 1012. Wittgenstein writes: We say to him: “Look what you’ve done!” – Pie doesn’t understand. We say: “You were meant to add 2 look how you began the series!” – He answers: “Yes, isn’t it right? I thought that was how I was meant to do it.” – Or suppose he pointed to the series and said: “But I went on in the same way.” – It would now be no use to say: “But can’t you see....?” – and repeat the old examples and explanations. – In such a case we might say, perhaps: It comes natural to this person to understand our order with our explanations as we should understand the order: “Add 2 up to 1000, 4 up to 2000, 6 up to 3000 and so on.”5

The example showed by Wittgenstein leads to a question – what exactly gives us certainty or correctness of the results achieved with the rule “+2”? How can we know whether we have followed this 4   L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, Blackwell, Oxford 1986, §201. 5   Ibidem, §185.

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rule properly? How can we know whether this rule also applies in the case of great numbers, such as e.g. 20628344453451134534598? The problem becomes nontrivial when, instead of the rule “+2”, we consider any different mathematical operation. How can we know whether the results achieved in advanced branches of mathematics, such as e.g. noncommutative geometry, are not only correct from the subjective point of view, but objective and necessary? Or, in other words, how can we know whether any rules applies in them? Robert Hanna said that formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, have an internal feature, which means that they are intrinsically categorically normative.6 By his statement he meant that their rules are binding in any situation, in any time and for any user. Hanna distinguishes three features of the normativity of formal sciences.7 The First of them says, that every formal system has two aspects: factual, which describes inter alia the relation of consequences and the normative aspect, which is corresponding with it. It is clearly visible e.g. in the natural deduction system, in whom inference rules are directly given, and in whom the logic truth is deducted from conditions. What’s more, in his opinion: this can be seen in the fact that the protologic, as a set of logical principles and concepts for constructing logical systems, is inherently normative precisely insofar as it is a set of schematic per-missions to construct logical systems in just these ways and no others.8

Protologic doesn’t say how, in practice, to construct formal systems. Hanna compares it to the Universal Grammar of Noam Chomsky, which is prescriptive, but not descriptive. Protologic sets the field of possibility, based on cognitive accessories, in which natural languages may be constructed. But it doesn’t describe how those lan  Cf. R. Hanna, Rationality of Logic, The MIT Press, Cambridge-London 2006, p. 214.   Cf. ibidem, p. 209. 8   Ibidem. 6 7

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guages are constructed in the real world. The second feature which Hanna distinguishes assumes that normative and innormative aspects of the formal systems are mutually complementary and are not reductive to each other. It can be said that, they are in state of ‘nonlinear entanglement’. Finally, the third feature noticed by him consists in that proctologic is definitely normative in relation to human reasoning. In such an approach, the rules of protologic would be same as the basic rules of rationality that guide the subject.

2. The Normativity of Mathematics. Classical Philosophical Approaches The normativity of Platonism We may say that, statistically, the most common philosophical approach among the mathematicians is the Platonism.9 When we are speaking about mathematical Platonism, we first think about it’s supporters, such as Kurt Gödel, Roger Penrose or Michael Heller. Individual supporters of this philosophical approach, however, differ in case of particular resolutions, so it is difficult to formulate an unambiguous description of Platonism.10 Instead of trying to construct an essential definition of this approach, it is better to review it on the basis of ‘family similarities’. For example, Kurt Gödel – one of the representative Platonists – understood mathematics in the following way: Classes and concepts may, however, also be conceived as real objects namely classes as “pluralities of things” or as structures consisting of a plurality of things and concepts as the properties and relations of things existing independently of our definitions and constructions. It   Cf. R. Hersh, On Platonism, “European Mathematical Society Newsletter” 2007, vol. 64, pp. 24–25. 10   Cf. M. Balaguer, Platonism and Anti-Platonism in Mathematics, Oxford University Press, New York-Oxford 1998. 9

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seems to me that the assumption of such objects is quite as legitimate as the assumption of physical bodies and there is quite as much reason to believe in their existence.11

Many mathematicians who admit to Platonism see in it, above all, the guarantee of stability and certainty of mathematical results. In this context, it is worth quoting words of Alain Connes – Fields medal winner and one of the creators of the noncommutative geometries, mentioned before: I think I’m fairly close to the realist point of view. The prime numbers, for example , which, as far as I’m concerned, constitute a more stable reality then the material reality that surrounds us. The working mathematician can be likened to an explorer who sets out to discover the world.12

In contrast to this stability is the variability of the physical world. That is the reason for tendency to call mathematical objects abstractive, which we should understand as beyond time and independent from the physical world. It should be noted that not all of the mathematicians who consider themselves as Platonists believe in the existence of the ‘platonic universe of abstract objects. What may be considered strange is that the problem of the ontological status of the mathematical objects most often becomes of secondary importance compared to the conviction of necessity and immutability of the mathematical truth. In the times of active dispute about the foundations of mathematics, the Platonism was often (but obviously not always) connected by logicism – the view that sought the basis of the whole of mathematics in logic (the first-order logic). In such a case, the nature of the   K. Gödel, Russell’s Mathematical Logic, [in:] Philosophy of Mathematics. Selected Readings, eds. P. Benacerraf, H. Putnam, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1983, p. 456. 12   J.-P. Changeux, A. Connes, Conversations on Mind, Matter and Mathematics, trans. M.B. DeBovoise, Princeton University Press, Princeton-New Jersey 1995, p. 12. 11

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normativity of mathematics and logics would be not only similar, but actually identical. Alain Cannes, cited above, emphasizes one more relevant feature of the mathematics which is accepted by most of the Platonists: The truth of Euclid’s theorem about prime numbers doesn’t depend on such-and-such a mode of perception. While it’s true that mathematicians is used as a language by the other sciences, reducing it to a mere language would be a serious mistake.13

What is more, according to most Platonists, mathematics does not only become reduced to the language, but is independent from human linguistic abilities. Interestingly, in this context, mathematical Platonists willingly refer to empirical data, such as described by Alison Gopnik and collaborators, on the genetic impairments of speech which are connected with the occurrence of above-avarage mathematical abilities of the affected people.14 An example often shown in this context is Albert Einstein, diagnosed with dislalia in childhood, a disorder in acquiring the proper articulation of speech. Mathematical Platonism is not only an ontological approach. It also affects the methodology of mathematics in a significant way. The most meaningful feature which distinguish mathematiciansPlatonists from mathematicians-intuitionists is an acceptance of unconstructive evidence. It happens to be so because, according to the Platonists, in order to prove the existence of an object in the mathematical universe, it is enough to show it’s consistency. Another important issue which most Platonists – but definitely not all of them – are interested in is The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, something to which Eugene Wigner paid   Ibidem, p. 22.   Cf. A. Gopnik, A.N. Meltzoff, P.K. Kuhl, The Scientist in the Crib. What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind, Harper Paperbacks, New York 2000, chapter 4. 13 14

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considerable attention.15 The precise applicability of mathematics in science is explained by the Platonists by reference do the abstract universe of mathematical objects which determines existence of the physical world,16 just like it is in case of Roger Penrose or the existence of a property, which Michael Heller describes as the mathematicity of world.17 Does mathematical Platonism satisfactorily explain the internal normativity of formal sciences? Due to the lack of an unambiguous definition of Platonism, the answer to this question is not explicite binary, but implicite it is reduced to such one. In my opinion the answer is negative. If we assume the strong version of Platonism, that is, one in which the normativity of mathematics is guaranteed by the existence of platonic universe of mathematical truths and objects, and the work of the mathematician is to discover them, the problem of access to this mysterious universe arises. This access is provided by the intellectual intuition, postulated by the Platonists, which can be described as a mathematical insight. The problem is that this ability is at least as mysterious as the universe of mathematical objects itself, so it is difficult to defend it from the neuroscience point of view. On the plus side, intuition understood as an automatic ability to do make judgments and decisions, is being studied by psychologists.18 Moreover, mathematicians undoubtedly use many kinds of heuristics but there is a significant difference between them and the insight postulated by Platonists. Difficulties with mathematical intuition are one of the sources of serious argument against the strong version of mathematical Pla  Cf. E.P. Wigner, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, “Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics” 1960, vol. 13, pp. 1–14. 16   Cf. R. Penrose, The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind, The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge 1997, chapter 1. 17   Cf. M. Heller, Czy Wszechświat jest matematyczny?, [in:] idem, Filozofia i Wszechświat, Universitas, Kraków 2006, pp. 48–57. 18   Cf. J. Haidt, The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail. Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment, “Psychological Review” 2001, vol. 108, no. 4, pp. 814–834. 15

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tonism formulated by Paul Benacerraf.19 Assuming the theory of knowledge posited by Alvin Goldman,20 the necessary condition for the existence of the knowledge of a person X about the event (or fact) Y is the existence of the casual relationship between belief X and the event (or fact) Y. Benacerraf noticed that the existence of such a causal relationship between objects from the abstractive Platonic universe and the tangible, i.e. embodied, mathematicians, is impossible. Generally speaking, according to Bencerraf, in mathematical Platonism it is impossible to reconcile cognitive abilities and the subject of knowledge. In such an approach, even if the mathematics exists beyond time and the universe, due to a lack of a relationship with those ‘living’ mathematicians, it is not an excuse for normativity. Of course, we can try to undermine this argument in different ways.21 One way is to reject such a strong version of Platonism – which many mathematicians and philosophers of mathematics do, assuming a lighter approach such as the physicalistic Platonism presented by Penelope Maddy according to set theory.22 She eliminates the troublesome intellectual intuition for enhancing the status of ordinary sensory perception. According to Maddy, we can empirically perceive only the elements of finite – and a few – collections, and more complicate collections we treat them like theoretical entities. It is not known for sure whether this approach is still Platonism or rather should be regarded as a form of Aristotelianism, combined with conventionalism. Taxonomic issues are not a major problem either since Maddy’s proposition certainly belongs to mathematical realism. More important is that Maddy doesn’t deliver an explanation of the normative nature of mathematics. While small collections of sensory per-

  Cf. P. Benacerraf, Mathematical Truth, [in:] Philosophy of Mathematics. Selected Readings, eds. P. Benacerraf, H. Putnam, op. cit., pp. 403–420. 20   Cf. A. Goldman, A Causal Theory of Knowing, “Journal of Philosophy” 1967, no. 64, pp. 357–372. 21   Cf. M. Balaguer, Platonism and Anti-Platonism in Mathematics, op. cit., pp. 24–47. 22   Cf. P. Maddy, Physicalistic Platonism, [in:] Physicalism in Mathematics, ed. A.D. Irvine, Kluwer, Dordrecht 1990, pp. 259–289. 19

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ceived elements are not a problem, her theory cannot adequately account for normativity related to more complex set-theoretic entities.

The normativity of formalism If Platonism does not deliver an adequate explanation for the normativity of mathematics, it is worth considering whether this explanation can be derived from a conception from the other side of ‘the philosophical barricade’, which is – in some ways – formalism. It is commonly assumed that the creator of this approach was David Hilbert. It is hard to regard formalism as a ‘philosophical doctrine’ as Platonism is. Formalism was rather a research program, annonced in 1900 by Hilbert, whose objective was to strengthen mathematics but we cannot deny that formalism refers to clear philosophical decisions.23 In the matter of the ontology of mathematics, it is commonly considered that it refers to nominalism while in the matter of epistemology and the conception of mathematical subject, to Kantianism. Hilbert writes: Kant taught (…) that mathematics treats a subject matter which is given independently of logic. Mathematics, therefore, can never be grounded solely on logic. Consequently, Frege’s and Dedekind’s attempts to so ground it were doomed to failure. As a further precondition for using logical deduction and carrying out logical operations, something must be given in conceptualization, viz., certain extralogical concerete objects which are intuited as directly experienced prior to all thinking. For logical deduction to be certain, we must be able to see every aspect of these objects, and their properties, differences, sequences, and contiguities must be given, together with the objects themselves, as something which cannot be reduced to something else   Cf. R. Murawski, Filozofia matematyki. Zarys dziejów, PWN, Warszawa 2001, pp. 124–136; 173–203; J.R. Brown, Philosophy of Mathematics. A Contemporary Introduction to the World of Proofs and Pictures, 2nd ed., Routledge, New York-London 2008, pp. 67–76. 23

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and which requires no reduction. This is the basic philosophy which I find necessary, not just for mathematics, but for all scientific thinking, understanding, and communicating. The subject matter of mathematics is, in accordance with this theory, the concrete symbols themselves whose structure is immediately clear and recognizable.24

While such an approach raises less controversy in the case of symbols and representing natural numbers, in mathematics there occurs the much more problematic term of infinity. Due to the problems involved in defining what is infinity, two strategies are possible. Firstly, we may reject troublesome parts of mathematics (as the intuitionists did, with Brouver at the forefront). But we need to remember that by doing so we throw the baby out with the bathwater – we get rid of the really crucial parts of mathematics. The second option is to look for the method which will let us strengthen mathematics along with the problematic term of infinity. In the writing of his famous sentence “No one shall drive us out of the paradise which Cantor has created for us”,25 Hilbert has chosen the second option. Yet, he was convinced that only the application of finite methods would guarantee certainty in mathematics. He made the distinction between finitistic mathematics, whose sentences refer only to objects which have specific content (these sentences can be defined as real sentences) and infinitistic mathematics, whose sentences are Kant’s ideas of pure reason, but they are not implemented in the real world (we can define these as ideal sentences). It is extremely important, Hilbert said, that for any finite mathematical sentence it is possible to provide finitistic proof. On the other hand, the appeal to infinitistic methods may perform only an auxiliary role in mathematics, e.g. in the construction of elegant proofs. As a rule, any infinistic proof may be – according to Hilbert – changed into a finit  Cf. D. Hilbert, On the Infinite, [in:] Philosophy of Mathematics. Selected Readings, eds. P. Benacerraf, H. Putnam, op. cit., p. 192. 25   Ibidem, p. 191. 24

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istic proof. To this purpose he created the proof theory, which is a branch of metamathematics. The program of formalism, also known as a Hilbert program, may be divided into two, seperate parts. The first part was about the reconstructing of mathematics as a formalized system. This involved the construction of an artifical symbolic language, setting the rules of building proper formulas in it and the choice of axioms and rules of inference. The essence of formalism lies in the fact that evidence had strictly syntactic features that mean, they were related to the shape of the signs only, not to their meaning. In such an approach, the taking of proof has algorithmic, in other words, strictly machine features (compatible with a Turing machine). An important feature of the formal system is that it should be consistent. It should be understood by the fact that. on the basis of an axiomatic system, an evidence of any correctly constructed (in terms of system language) sentence, or negation of this sentence, can be presented. In other words, if the sentence A is a correctly constructed sentence (in the language of that system), it can be proved that either sentence A or sentence ~A. The second part of the Hilbert program was to prove the consistency and conservativeness of infinitistic mathematics. Consistency means that in the system no pair of contradictory sentences exists. On the other hand, by proving the conservativeness, the idea was to show that any sentence that has an infinitistic proof can also be proved by means of finitistic methods. Hilbert and his students – mainly Ackermann – managed to achieve some of the program’s objectives. An important, and indeed final blow to Hilbert’s program was given in 1930, when Kurt Gödel (as we remember – the supporter of mathematical Platonism) proved his famous first incompleteness theorem26 and announced the second incompleteness theorem.   “Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory”, S.C. Kleene, Mathematical Logic, Wiley, New York 1967, p. 250. 26

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There is a commonly held perception that Hilbert’s program transformed mathematics into a game of meaningless symbols. But we need to remember that, in the original version, the formalistic view of mathematics was a methodology, not ontology.27 Although the discussed problem is still an object of active dispute, it seems that, contrary to the commonly held perception, from Hilbert’s view it is impossible to completely eliminate the semantic element (which is an otologically important issue). Moreover, as Platonists would probably say – we also can’t eliminate the intuitive element (epistemology). In order to explain this issue I will cite the reconstruction of Hilbert’s program, as proposed by Bartosz Brożek and Adam Olszewski: (STAGE1) Identification of the beyond any doubts, the finitistic part of the real mathematics (with content) (STAGE2) The formalization of this part of mathematics (but it has no difference whether this formal part will be termed real mathematics or already ideal mathematics) (STAGE3) The construction of the relevant formal system (axioms and inference rules), from which it is possible to reconstruct the finistic part of the mathematics. Formalized semantic mathematics in this process a heuristic function, it can be said, that on this stage axioms are treated as if they are semantic. (STAGE4) Treatment of the constructed formal system as a set of finite signs. (STAGE5) Proof of consistency (and if need be other mathematical proofs) of the formal system. Those proofs are proved in metamathematics, which is finitistic and semantic (we operates on finite symbols) (STAGE6) Mathematical (semantic) evaluation (“interpretation”) of the theorems generated by the formal system. The consistency, which

  However, it should be noted, that there exist versions of formalism with strong ontological commitments, see H.B. Curry, Outlines of a Formalist Philosophy of Mathematics, North-Holland, Amsterdam 1951. 27

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was proven before, of the system guarantees the truth of outcome theorems (…).28

Assuming, for the purposes of this paper, a certain idealization, it can be said that the practice of the formalism is three-tier: • First level: ‘encoding’ of relevant part of the mathematics, setting axioms and inference rules. The nature of this level is semantic. • Second level: when conducting mechanic computations and proving evidences under an axiom system. All symbols are treated as without content (formal). On this level, in order to authenticate the results of computations, consistency, completeness and decidability of the formal system are checked. The nature of this level is syntactic (formal). • Third level: The results of computation are subject of interpretation. The nature of this level is semantic. The formalized mathematics is treated as a game of meaningless symbols only on the second level. It should be emphasized once more that formalism is a methodological and heuristic resolution but it is not ontological. Returning to the normativity of mathematics, the formal approach doesn’t solve this problem for at least two reasons. Firstly, considering the remarks formulated above, formalism as a whole contains semantic elements. Therefore, most of the problems in which the mathematical Platonism is involved return. Above all, it is yet unknown what is the nature of rules which guide the mathematician during operations mentioned on the first and the third level. A paradoxical sounding statement can be risked in that nothing stands in the way of a declared Platonist (in the strong meaning of this word) to protect the thesis about the contact of a ‘formalistic’ 28

  B. Brożek, A. Olszewski, Podmiot matematyczny Hilberta (draft).

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mathematician with the ‘Platonic universe of mathematical ideas’. But then we come back to the problem of intellectual intuition (insight). Yet this is not all. Formalism does not formulate a satisfactory solution to normativity also in the case of operations on meaningless symbols which are conducted on the second level. As I mentioned before, on the second level computations are mechanical. More precisely, mathematician proving theorems under the axiom system behave like the Turing Machine. In this context, Wittgenstein’s argument against a mechanistic interpretation of rule-following can be cited. In A Wittgenstein Dictionary Hans-Johann Glock writes, that in mechanism: “Understanding a rule is a disposition, and statements about dispositions are ultimately statements about a mechanism”.29 In a mechanistic approach every rule, e.g. “+2” is the same as (identical) with the disposition to answer a specific question. The Turing Machine runs in a deterministic way – the actual state of machine determines its future states. Following the rule (e.g. “+2”) is completely automatic. In such an approach, it is impossible to act against the rule. Of course, we may try to identify actions against the rule with the machine mistake but, based on the definition, a Turing Machine doesn’t make mistakes and doesn’t break down. Furthermore, it means that a cause–effect, approach of rule-following is far from what we commonly understand as normativity.30 In view of my previous analysis, two representative philosophies of mathematics (if it may be said so about formalism) are unable to cope with the explanation of the phenomena of the normativity of mathematics. If two representative conceptions concerning philosophy and the foundations of mathematic do not deliver a satisfactory solution of the problem that we are interested in, it needs to be referred to other hypotheses.   H.J. Glock, A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Blackwell, MA-Oxford 1996, p. 325.   Cf. B. Brożek, R. Zyzik, Wittgenstein o regułach, “Logos i Ethos” 2008, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 27–57.

29 30

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3. Where Does the Normativity of Mathematics Come From? Anti-foundationalism In his famous essay with the meaningful title of “Against Foundationalism” Michael Heller describes the position which is the object of his attack: Philosophers very often (not to say: notoriously) share two great ambitions: firstly; to build the philosophical system, which will be based on irrefutable grounds and secondly; that this system will be an irrefutable grounds for other branches for knowledge. Both of those ambitions, although essentially distinct, usually go together.31

Both Platonism and formalism may certainly be considered as foundationalist positions. This is because they refer to immutable and universal rules (strong Platonism) and they claim to deliver the foundations for mathematics (formalism). In my opinion, much better approach to explaining the riddle of normativity of mathematics is anti-foundationalism. In such an approach, philosophical conceptions should be treated not as dogmas, but analogical to scientific hypotheses and theories, which are vulnerable to revision. As Michael Heller writes: Obviously, we can deal without formulating of the initial hypotheses (...). But they should be the hypotheses, not the “irrefutable” or “obvious” axioms. These hypotheses should be formulated on the basis of the current knowledge from particular branch and on the base of knowledge about history of particular problems, but (…) they always   Cf. M. Heller, Przeciw fundacjonizmowi, [in:] idem, Filozofia i Wszechświat, Universitas, Kraków 2006, p. 83.

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will be assisted by some kind of visionary element. We do not need to pretend that it does not exist, we should try to control it instead (…). From the accepted initial hypotheses we derive our conclusions (…). But it is worth to go a step further and to derive some kind of feedback between our initial hypothesis and the conclusions, that were derived from them (…). A proper built system says something about its hypotheses. Due to this process the initial hypotheses become enhanced (become less “hypothetic”), that leads to “enhancing” of conclusions deducted from them. Multiple repetition of this process may give us something close to certainty.32

It is worth adding that hypotheses formulated by philosophers should take into account the best and the most current knowledge. Nowadays, perhaps, most developed branches of knowledge are the sciences about the brain and mind: neuroscience and cognitive science. I believe that referring to them may lead us to interesting outcomes also in the matter of the riddle of the normativity of mathematics.

Proto-normativity and full-blooded-normativity To shed better light on the normativity of mathematics it is necessary to make some distinctions. By adapting the theory of normativity constructed by Bartosz Brożek,33 I will distinguish two types of rules: proto-rules and full-blooded-rules bounded-up with protonormativity and full-blooded-normativity.34 One of the justifications of this distinction is the hypothesis that it corresponds both to the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of the disposition of Homo sapiens to follow rules.   Ibidem, pp. 96–97.   Cf. B. Brożek, Normatywność prawa, Wolter Kluwers, Kraków 2012, passim. 34   Bartosz Brożek (cf. ibidem) talks about rudimentary-normativity (rudimentaryrules) and abstract-nornativity (abstract-rules). 32 33

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Now let us define, along with Bartosz Brożek and Radosław Zyzik, what are those proto-rules. They say, that proto-rules “(…) are some kind of emergent creations of mental states and social behaviors – or they supervenes on them”.35 This conception is one of the possible interpretations of rules in the Wittgenstein approach. In the following part of this paper I will try to explain this definition using tools derived from the embodied-embedded mind paradigm. At the current stage I would like to distinguish two essential features of proto-rules. The first of them is evolutionary – both phylogenetic and ontogenetic – anteriority in language. The second is the ‘nonlinear entanglement’ of different types of rules. By this I understand that on the level of proto-normativity it is impossible to distinguish rules which we will describe as moral, linguistic or mathematical. When it comes to full-blooded-rules (and full-blooded-normativity) they are involved in the language practices of Homo sapiens. What more can be said is that those rules are strictly dependent on language. On this level the specific types of rules – due to language and social behaviors – become individualized. By this I mean that we are able distinguish moral, mathematical, linguistic (and other) rules. The reason for rules also becomes individualized. Moral and ethical rules are reasons for human actions (in this context we most often call them duties); linguistic rules are reasons for the proper use of language, while mathematical and logical rules are reasonsfor accuracy, stability, intersubiectivity or the necessity in the formal sciences. So, the normativity of mathematics is specific in nature. Although, as I said, full-blooded-rules are vulnerable to individualization, it doesn’t mean that they cannot influence each other or even overlap. Both the proto-rules and the full-blooded-rules satisfy two conditions. The first may be described as condition of reason – the rule may be the reason for action. The second may be described as condi35

  B. Brożek, R. Zyzik, Wittgenstein o regułach, op. cit., p. 30.

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tion of pattern – the rule is the pattern of proceeding (ethical, linguistic or mathematic).36 Thanks to these conditions, the breaking of the rule may be connected with relevant sanction.

Figure show the development of proto-normativity into the full-blooded-normativity of particular domains

Proto-rules and embodied mind As we remember, proto – rules “(…) are some kind of emergent creations of mental states and social behaviors – or they supervenes on them”.37 Because in this definition the emphasis falls on the mind and social behaviors, in my opinion, an appropriate instrument to highlight the problem of normativity is second generation cognitive science, defined as embodied-embedded mind. While the first generation cognitive science, popular in the 1980s, treated mind as a computer program (software) installed on biological hardware, the embodied-embedded paradigm mind is a result of the interaction between the body (that is why we call it embodied) and its environment. It is also said that mind is embedded in a physical, social and cultural environment. Since the embod36 37

  Cf. B. Brożek, Normatywność prawa, op. cit., passim.   B. Brożek, R. Zyzik, Wittgenstein o regułach, op. cit., p. 30.

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ied mind was constructed in the 1980s in the context of linguistic works of George Lakoff and Ronald Langcaker, it nowadays has a biological basis. Lakoff and Vittorio Gallese, in the paper they wrote together, describe the assumptions of the embodied mind paradigm in the following way: 1. Information structure. (…) The information structure needed to characterize the conceptual structure of grasp is available at the neural level in the sensory-motor system (…). 2. Multimodality. Mirror neurons and other classes of premotor and parietal neurons are inherently “multimodal” in that they respond to more than one modality. Thus, the firing of a single neuron may correlate with both seeing and performing grasping. Such multimodality (…), meets the condition that an action-concept must fit both the performance and perception of the action. 3. Functional clusters. Multimodality is realized in the brain through functional clusters, that is, among others, parallel parietal-premotor networks. These functional clusters form high-level units – characterising the discreteness, high-level structure, and internal relational structure required by concepts. 4. Simulation. To understand the meaning of the concept grasp, one must at least be able to imagine oneself or someone else grasping an object. Imagination is mental simulation (…), carried out by the same functional clusters used in acting and perceiving (…). 5. Parameters. All actions, perceptions, and simulations make use of neural parameters and their values. For example (…) the action of grasping an object makes use of the neural parameter of force (…). The same parameter values that characterise the internal structure of actions and simulations of actions also characterize the internal structure of action concepts.

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6. Structured neural computation. The neural theory of language (…) provides a theory of neural computation in which the same neural structures that allow for movement and perception in real time and in real sensory-motor contexts also permit real-time context-based inferences in reasoning (…).38 As we can see, in the embodied mind a key role is played by the sensorimotor system. One of the justifications of such an approach was the discovery of motor-control programs by Srini Narayanan.39 During the modeling of the motor system he discovered that all of its structures have the same control structure, which include: ‘getting into a state of readiness’, ‘the initial state’, ‘the starting process’, ‘the main process (either instantaneous or prolonged)’, ‘an option to stop’, ‘an option to resume’, ‘an option to iterate or continue the main process’, ‘a check to see if a goal has been met’, ‘the finishing process’, ‘the final state’. Every physical activeness conducted by our body, e.g. drinking from a cup, owes a stable structure and is using above schemes. Moreover, it shows that the same schemes are functioning also in the language and describe a conceptual structure of events. Linguists call it an aspect40 and, if it’s true, our cognitive abilities are indeed embodied. As evidenced by George Lakoff and Rafael Núñez, the motor-control program plays a key role in case of our mathematical abilities.41 Let us first take a look at basic mathematical abilities.   V. Gallese, G. Lakoff, The Brain’s Concepts: the Role of the Sensory-Motor System in Conceptual Knowledge, “Cognitive Neuropsychology” 2005, vol. 21, pp. 3–4. 39   Cf. S. Narayanan, Embodiment in Language Understanding. Sensory-Motor Representations for Metaphoric Reasoning About Event Descriptions, Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley 1997; idem, Talking the Talk Is Like Walking the Walk. A Computational Model of Verbal Aspect, [in:] Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, eds. M.G. Shafto, P. Langley, Erlbaum, New Jersey 1997. 40   Cf. G. Lakoff, M. Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh. The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought, Basic Books, New York 1999, p. 41. 41   Cf. G. Lakoff, R. Núñez, Where Mathematics Comes From. How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being, Basic Books, New York 2000, pp. 34–37. 38

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From proto-mathematics to embodied mathematics For a long time it has been known that some mathematical abilities have an inborn nature or show themselves in the early months of life. Moreover, some of those abilities are shared with non-human primates. In this context, developmental psychologists observed the following facts. Within three or four days after birth, children are able to visually distinguish collections of two and three elements. A little later this ability extends to four element collections. At four months, children have proto-arithmetical abilities. They understand that 1 + 1 = 2 and 2 – 1 = 1. A little later they are able to see that 1 + 2 = 3 and 3 – 1 = 2. As we can see, children understand that those operations are commutative. At about seventh months of life, children begin to notice the equivalence between the amount of visual and auditory stimuluses.42 There is a need to add that, at the age of four, children learn to add bigger numbers using their fingers. Neural corellates of the simple numeric abilities are located in the structures of the inferior parietal cortex, with particular emphasis on the agular gyrus, which is located in the Brodmann area 39. Basic mathematical abilities can be defined, after Bartosz Brożek, as embrained.43 Generally, it can be said that little children are equipped with elementary ‘intuition of sets’ and ‘the number sense.’44 But there is need to remember that those abilities are still very limited. The huge problem which developmental psychologists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers of mathematics face is the ‘crossing of Rubicon’, which separates the above mentioned proto-mathematical abilities from mathematics in its best – this means all mathematical theories – those we learn about in school and those which professional mathematicians use.   Cf. ibidem, pp. 15–16.   Cf. Brożek, Neuroscience and Mathematics: From Inborn Skills to Cantor's Paradise, [in:] Between Philosophy and Science, eds. M. Heller, B. Brożek, Ł. Kurek, Copernicus Center Press, Kraków 2013. 44   Cf. S. Dehaene, The Number Sense. How the Mind Created Mathematics, Revisted and Expanded Edition Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York 2011. 42 43

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One of the propositions for the ‘crossing of the Rubicon’ is illustrated by Elizabeth Spelke. She claims that the transition to more complicated mathematical abilities occurs due to language. According to Spelke, by absorbing language children learn to connect numeric with geometric representations, leading to the creation of abstract terms which are necessary in mathematics.45 Contrary to the data emphasised by Platonists, language – or, more generally, human conceptual systems – plays a very important role in human mathematical abilities. One of the most sophisticated proposals for explaining the phenomena of mathematics is the embodied cognitive science of mathematics proposed by George Lakoff and Rafael Núñez in the book Where Mathematics Comes From.46 In their opinion, mathematical abilities aren’t separated from other cognitive abilities of humans. On the contrary, they are strictly connected with our ordinary experiences and interactions in which our bodies meet with the environment. In particular, they emphasise the role of spatial relation concepts such as: up – down, inside – outside, or image-schemas, such as: ‘the above schema’, ‘the contact schema’, ‘the support schema’ or ‘the source-path-goal schema.’47 An essential role for mathematical abilities is also played, as mentioned above, Narayanan’s motor-control programs. However, the basic instrument used by Lakoff and Núñez is the cognitive theory of metaphor. Metaphor is not understood as a poetic mean (as in Aristotelian tradition), but as an ‘instrument of thinking and acting’: Conceptual metaphor is a cognitive mechanism for allowing us to reason about one kind as if it were another. This means that metaphor is not simply a linguistic phenomenon, a mere figure of speech. Rather it is a cognitive mechanism that belongs to the realm of thought (…).   Cf. E. Spelke, Natural Number and Natural Geometry, [in:] Space, Time and Number in the Brain. Searching for the Foundations of Mathematical Thought, eds. S. Dehaene, E. Brannon, Elsevier, London 2011, pp. 287–317. 46   Cf. G. Lakoff, R. Núñez, Where Mathematics Comes From, op. cit. 47   Cf. ibidem, pp. 27–49. 45

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“Conceptual metaphor” has a technical meaning: It is a grounded, inference-preserving cross-domain mapping – a neural mechanism that allows us to use the inferential structure of one conceptual domain (say, geometry) to reason about another (say, arithmetic). Such conceptual metaphors allow us to apply what we know one branch of mathematics in order to reason about another branch.48

Metaphorization, understood as a cognitive ability, consists of transferring the significant structures from the physical world into the domain of concepts. Thanks to metaphors, it is possible to create abstract concepts such as mathematical concepts.49 According to Lakoff and Núñez, arithmetic is created through the dispositions described above, such as the number sense, and conceptual metaphors, which includes: ‘Arithmetic As Object Collection’, ‘Arithmetic As Object Construction’, ‘the Measuring Stick Metaphor’ or ‘Arithmetic As Motion Along a Path’. For example ‘Arithmetic Is Object Collection’ works as following (on the left side of arrow is the Source Domain (Object Collection) and on the right Target Domain (Arithmetic)):50 • Collection of objects of the same size • The size of the collection • Bigger • Smaller • The smallest collection • Putting collections together • Taking a smaller collection from a larger collection

→ → → → → →

Numbers The size of the number Greater Less The unit (One) Addition

→

Subtraction

  Ibidem, p. 6.   Cf. ibidem, passim; W.P. Grygiel, M.L. Hohol, R. Piechowicz, Zmetaforyzowana matematyka i zmatematyzowana metafora, “Logos i Ethos” 2011, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 147–168; M.L. Hohol, Matematyczność ucieleśniona, [in:] Oblicza racjonalności. Wokół myśli Michała Hellera, eds. B. Brożek, J. Mączka, W.P Grygiel, M.L. Hohol, Copernicus Center Press, Kraków 2011, pp. 143–166. 50   Cf. G. Lakoff, R. Núñez, Where Mathematics Comes From, op. cit., p. 55. 48 49

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Under the embodied cognitive science of mathematics, Lakoff and Núñez, apart from arithmetic, also explain such branches as Boolean algebra (‘Boole’s Metaphor’), set-theory (‘Classes are Containers’), or mathematical analysis (e.g. ‘Dedekind’s Metaphors’, ‘Weierstrass’s Continuity Metaphor’). Moreover, they propose explanations of even such concepts as infinity (‘The Basic Metaphor of Infinity’, ‘Cantor’s Metaphor’) or the formal reduction (‘The Formal Reduction Metaphor’). As a case study, which authenticates their research, they conduct detailed cognitive analysis of the famous Euler equation eπi+1=0. The program of the embodied cognitive science of mathematics described briefly above is undoubtedly an interesting theory. Despite the preliminary nature and some inaccuracies, the theory of Lakoff and Núñez is, perhaps, the only proposal of the systematic explanation of mathematics which refers to human cognitive abilities. The theory of metaphors constructed by Lakoff and his co-workers is indeed the theory of concepts. To a lesser extent, it talks about the language practices that operate within society. In my opinion, although reference to the proposal described in Where Mathematics Comes From is very valuable, it doesn’t completely solve the problem of the normativity of mathematics, because it only concerns the origins of proto-rules and proto-normativity. In order to understand the adoption to rules an full-blooded-normativity, it needs to be explain exactly how proto-rules and proto-normativity are enhanced by social practices and, therefore, how mathematics can enjoy the resulting stability. In my view, it is possible with reference to the second part of the embodied-embedded mind paradigm, i.e. by embedding the mind in the social and linguistic practices of Homo sapiens.

Embedded mind: culture through imitation In his book The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition, Michael Tomasello reflects upon the riddle of the rapid evolution of Homo sapiens, from sophisticated tools and symbols, advanced communication techniques to complex public institutions. In his opinion,

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the 6 million years that separate the evolution of humans from the evolution of other humanoids is definitely too short a period of time for natural selection to have made such spectacular achievements. Those achievements cannot be explained either by genetic specifity – because the genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees is 99%. Tomasello looks for the uniqueness of human creations in the one feature which distinguishes humans from other humanoids: My particular claim is that in the cognitive realm the biological inheritance of humans is very much like that of other primates. There is just one major difference, and that is the fact that human beings “identify” with con specifics more deeply than do other primate.51

Based on the studies from such disciplines as evolutionary biology, anthropology, primatology and developmental psychology, he formulated a hypothesis according to which in the progress of biological evolution, humans have created a unique form of social cognition, which has enabled cumulative cultural evolution. He calls this process ‘the ratchet effect’. Tomasello writes: The process of cumulative cultural evolution requires not only creative invention but also, and just as importantly, faithful social transmission that can work as a ratchet to prevent slippage backward-so that the newly invented artifact or practice preserves its new and improved form at least somewhat faithfully until a further modification or improvement comes along. Perhaps surprisingly, for many animal species it is not the creative component, but rather the stabilizing ratchet component, that is the difficult feat. Thus, many nonhuman primate individuals regularly produce intelligent behavioral innovations and novelties, but then their group mates do not engage in the 51   M. Tomasello, The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1999, p. 14.

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kinds of social learning that would enable, over time, the cultural ratchet to do its work (…).52

To be more precise, the Tomasello hypothesis has three dimensions. In the first, phylogenetic dimension, he emphasizes that Homo sapiens have achieved an unparalleled ability to identify with other individuals of their own species, which has led to the perception of other people as aware, intentional and endowed with minds. This unusual ability, not found in other species, is possible due to the ability of imitation. In the second, historical dimension, the ‘cultural ratchet’ has led to the creation of new forms of learning, means of communication and unique cultural creations. In the third, ontogenetic dimension, Tomasello emphasizes that children are born and grow up in a formed and stable cultural and social reality. Thanks to this, they don’t need to rediscover all of their cultural creations.53 The research conducted by Tomasello and his co-workers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and several field observations shows that, among non-human primates, intentional teaching doesn’t exist. Although it was observed that among non-human primates that emulation is frequent – a situation when an observer is interested not in the behavior itself, i.e. not in the exact sequence of movements but in its purpose, or changes in the enviroment caused by this behavior. However, imitation wasn’t observed. Imitation is when the attention of the observer is focused on the behaviour itself, on a fixed sequence of movements. This hypothesis may seem to be counter-intuitive until we realize that, because of the details of behaviour, strict imitation require the involvement of many more cognitive resources than emulation. According to Tomasello, the specifically human ability to imitate promotes the process of intentionally and purposeful teaching, which results in the creation of the world of culture. This is why Tomasello speaks 52 53

  Ibidem, p. 5.   Ibidem, p. 10.

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of people as ‘imitation machines’. The role of imitation in creating a culture is appreciated by other scientists also, such as Merlin Donald.54 The key role in the process of imitation is played by the mirror neurons system. In Giacomo Rizolatti’s view, mirror neurons may resonate in two ways, namely: recognition of purpose (high level resonance) and recognition of method (low level resonance). He claims that only Homo sapiens can fully use those both ways, which results in a ‘combinatoric explosion’. It is based on the fact that humans are able to use the same method for the realization of different purposes and to realise the same purpose by different methods.55 Research conducted by Marco Iacobni shows that the frontal area is responsible for purpose recognition and the parietal area of the mirror neuron system is responsible for the recognition of methods. Systems of mirror neurons play a key role in the process of the simulation of the mental states of other people.56 Thanks to mirror neurons, people aren’t ‘solipsists’, who are certain about only their own mental states, but they are able to read the feelings or intentions of other people. This ability is called the Theory of Mind. In the ontogenetic view – according to Tomasello –two breakthroughs in the life of a child are important for the formation of the Theory of Mind. Until nine months, children do not differ from other primates in the case of cognitive abilities. The first breakthrough comes exactly in the ninth month, when children learn to perceive other people as intentional beings.57 It is not surprising then that this breakthrough is called The Nine-Month Revolution. In this breakthrough, a very important role is played by the   Cf. M. Donald, Imitation and Mimesis, [in:] Perspectives on Imitation vol. 2: Imitation, Human Development, and Culture, eds. S. Hurley, N. Chater, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2005, pp. 283–300. 55   Cf. G. Rizolatti, The Mirror Neuron System and Imitation, [in:] Perspectives on Imitation vol. 1: Mechanisms of Imitation and Imitation in Animals, eds. S. Hurley, N. Chater, MIT Press, Cambridge-Mass. 2005, pp. 55–76. 56   Cf. S. Baron-Cohen, Mindblindness, The MIT Press, Boston 1997, pp. 31–58. 57   Cf. M. Tomasello, The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition, op. cit., pp. 61ff. 54

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ability to imitate. The second breakthrough comes at about the age of four, when among children the Theory of Mind is fully developed. Then children start to treat other people as owners of minds and learn to predict their mental states. What is crucial from the riddle of normativity point of view is that treating other people as intentional beings starts before the mastery of language. According to Tomasello, gaining abilities such as: creating of analogies, metaphorization or taking a perspective of other people is earlier than language. Language – which is above all the system of effective communication and whose important part is stability – must be embedded on the biologically based stability of actions. This conception was called a ‘Culture First’ conception by Merlin Donald, who is convinced that language was formed on the basis of gesture communication. The ‘Culture First’ conception is contrary to the ‘Language First’ conception. As I have already mentioned, Theory of Mind allows us to identify with other members of our species and is very important for the creation of social intersubjectivity. Moreover, Tomasello is convinced that this cognitive ability also made possible the creation of scientific ideas, such as, for example, the relationship of cause and effect: (…) Human beings built directly on the uniquely primate cognitive adaptation for understanding external relational categories, they just added a small but important twist in terms of mediating forces such as causes and intentions. (…) Moreover, my hypothesis is that, just as primate understanding of relational categories evolved first in the social domain to comprehend third-party social relationships, human causal understanding also evolved first in the social domain to comprehend others as intentional agents.58

The Theory of Mind and the ability to imitate plays – according to Tomasello – a significant role for the sociogenesis of mathematical abilities: 58

  Ibidem, pp. 23–24.

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The history of mathematics is an area of study in which detailed examination has revealed myriad complex ways in which individuals, and groups of individuals, take what is passed on to them by previous generations and then make modifications as needed to deal with new practical and scientific problems more efficiently (…). My hypothesis (…) is that building on the basic primate sense of quantity, human beings also use their formidable skills of perspective-taking and alternative construals of concrete objects and collections of objects (which have a social basis in skills of perspective-taking and linguistic communication) to construct complex mathematics.59

From the proto-normativity to the full-blooded-normativity of mathematics According to the conception I have described above, the ‘cultural ratchet’ is the factor that sustains the stability of such domains as language or mathematics. I think that, due to imitation and based on the human-specific form of social cognition, in the course of social interactions, the rules of full-blooded-normativity emerges. This conception also applies – in my opinion –to mathematics. To the creation of the normativity of mathematics it is not enough the similar biological construction of the mathematicians and, based on it sense of number and the intuitiveness of plural, neither the strict similarity of conceptual structures in embodied minds of the mathematicians. Those conditions are necessary but not sufficient. Only the stable social interactions among mathematicians causes the emergence of the normativity of mathematics. Thanks to this, it is possible to follow common rules which provides the ability to say if somebody has made a mistake: “you have done this incorrectly, check it”. What is important is that the conception described above supports the idea of distinguishing between proto-rules (proto-normativity), which are earlier than language and the mathematical full-blooded-rules (full-blooded59

  Ibidem, p. 46.

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normativity), which emerge and are enhanced on the basis of the language practices of Homo sapiens. To sum up, we can distinguish three basic stages of this theory, which explains where mathematics and its normativity comes from: • Embrained mathematics: inborn or gained at the early childhood proto-mathematical abilities, such as the intuitiveness of sets or the number sense (Daheane); at this stage we can only talk about proto-normativity only. • Embodied mathematics: the conceptual system based on the functioning of the sensorimotor system; an essential part of the human conceptual system are mathematical metaphors (Lakoff and Núñez), on this stage proto-normativity still occurs. • Embedded mathematics: the ‘cultural ratchet’, based on the specific human ability to imitate, which provides the ability to follow rules (Tomasello, Donald); only at this stage does the full-blooded normativity of mathematics emerge.

*** The conception of the normativity of mathematics presented above is of a highly speculative nature yet I do not see anything wrong in the speculative nature of philosophical conceptions if they meet criteria of disputability. According to Michael Heller, this criterion is the equivalent of Popper’s falsifiability in the empirical sciences. I am convinced that some elements of the conception I proposed are falsifiable (in the Popper sense), but the whole conception is disputable (in the sense of Heller). The three most controversial matters which need to be discussed are: (1) the transition from embrained to embodied-embedded mathematics, (2) the nature of Lakoff and Núñez’ embodied cognitive science of mathematics proposal and (3) the problem of

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the applicability of mathematics in sciences. So far as embodied and embedded mathematics are strictly connected to each other, we may see the gap between them and embrained mathematics. The proposal of Elizabeth Spelke concerning the linguistic nature of the transition from proto-mathematics to more advanced mathematical abilities is compatible with my conception, but it raises a lot of controversy among developmental psychologists and cognitive scientists. In the case of Lakoff’s and Núñez’ proposal, it raises ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, it is the only conception which tries to explain where the whole of mathematics comes from in a systematic way (without omitting even such terms as infinity). On the other hand, many decisions made by the authors are of an aprioristic nature. Finally, on the basis of my conception, there remains the riddle of the matter of the applicability of mathematics in science. In my opinion, we can approach this problem in two ways. The first is afforded by interpretation: the concepts (including mathematical concepts), that are shaped by our embodied minds in some way fit reality. Based on this principle, scientists are sometimes able to adjust mathematical theories to the empirical world. It is an approach represented by Lakoff and his co-workers.60 The second interpretation is, in my opinion, closer to the conception of the mathematicity of the world by Michael Heller.61 If, on the basic level, proto-rules do not have a linguistic nature, and mathematical concepts arise due to the interaction between the organism and the real world, nothing stands in the way of saying that embrained-embodied-embedded mathematics, is mathematics spelt with a lowercase ‘m’, resonating with the greater whole which is mathematics spelt with a capital ‘M’.

60   Cf. G. Lakoff, R. Núñez, Where Mathematics Comes From, op. cit., pp. 337–382; G. Lakoff, M. Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh, op. cit., pp. 74–129. 61   M. Heller, Czy Wszechświat jest matematyczny?, op. cit.

Marcin Gorazda Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies

Normativity According to Hayek1

Friedrich August von Hayek, the famous economist and social philosopher, was not a philosopher of law and one can hardly find any references to his texts, articles or monographs in classical philosophy of law. It was most probably not his intention to study this branch of social science in particular since, judging from his intellectual legacy, he envisaged law as only a part of the much more complex normative order of society. The part which is understood as legislation is by no means the most important one. Nevertheless, in many essays devoted to the thoughts of Hayek, the issue of law plays a remarkable role and, needless to say, one of his most important works was the monumental, three volume work entitled “Law, Legislation and Liberty” The purpose of this text is not to once again conduct a review of Hayek’s concept of legal norms and its significance to the normative order in order to make the reader more familiar with this part of Hayek’s ideas, but rather to reconstruct his concept of normativity in general, in light of the modern dispute on the ontological status of rules and especially, but not exclusively, legal rules. The essay consists of two parts. In the first, the so called “puzzle of normativity” is presented. The general question of rules is frequently divided into the set of specific questions which, in the view of the philoso  This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation.

1

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pher, should constitute the subject of the philosophy of law (or rather the philosophy of rules). The set of specific questions shall be discussed and finally proposed and, furthermore, the basic assumptions of the three main streams in theoretical legal studies shall be critically reviewed i.e. natural law ideas, legal positivism and legal realism. In the second part, the Hayekian philosophy of law shall be commented upon in terms of legal realism. The main thesis of the text is that Hayek and his understanding of legal norms should be envisaged as a part of legal realism, something which is strongly biologically grounded. Moreover, I will try to cope with some of the critical arguments against realism, most of them formulated by Brożek in his recent studies on the ontology of law.

1. The Puzzle of Normativity Normativity is a puzzle. We intuitively perceive rules as objective, independent of ourselves entities/beings which make us do the things we usually do. The image of the rules acting in the world may be compared with our picture of how the laws of nature act in the universe. The latter are perceived as the natural causes of any changes. If we observe any phenomenon, we automatically assume that there must be a law of nature which governs it. The same assumption seems to exist in the case of any observed human behaviour. The intuition that there should be an instruction behind any action undertaken by an agent seems to be intuitively very plausible. What kind of beings are these rules whose causal (or causal – like) mechanisms so strongly affect human decisions? The analogy with laws of nature is not a coincidence. When one looks back into the history of philosophical concepts of law, one may discover that the ancient and medieval image was very monistic, i.e. that the difference between laws of nature and moral or legal laws was not very remarkable. Both belonged to the same order – logos – and, in principle, had been designed from the very beginning and were stable. However, in modern philosophy this

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picture is no longer valid. Mainly due to the progress of natural science and our better understanding of the rules which govern the universe, the laws of nature are no longer considered to have the same ontological status as rules applicable to human societies. Moreover those “social” rules are at present divided into separate sets, and each set has its own philosophy (both in terms of ontology and epistemology) or even its own science which deals with it – for example, we distinguish the rules of mathematics and logics. The philosophy of formal sciences tries to cope with the problem of its existence and origin. Grammar and semantics deal with rules of language. Mores and moral rules are the domain of ethics as well as sociology. Sociology tackles religious rules too, although traditionally those are the subject of religious studies and theology. Last but not least, we have political studies and the theory of law. Legal rules had never been distinguished clearly before legal positivism emerged. Until the 18th and 19th century, the dominant theory of law was encapsulated in Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas, wherein it was envisaged only as a not very important part of a much wider system of rules which originated from God’s eternal law. It was the legal positivists who ripped up the system, and introduced the concept of law being an unrestricted expression of the sovereign will. Thus legislation was specially favoured and put on a pedestal, a fact reflected in the growing significance of lawyers in societies who soon became contemporary shamans, those who know the reasons and can predict future results. This concept is an eternal burden in philosophy, and one may have the impression that some contemporary thinkers are desperately trying to put a patch over the flaw and put law back into its place as the part of normative order of the society. The author of this essay is one of those desperados, in the spirit of Friedrich August von Hayek. So what is normativity? In tackling the problem, one may ask a set of questions. There have been a number of proposals in the literature of the subject, including that formulated by Finnis (who quotes Green):

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In short: a natural law theory of (the nature of) law seeks both to give an account of the facticity of law and to answer questions that remain central to understanding law. As listed by Green (having observed that “No legal philosopher can be only a legal positivist”), these further questions (which “legal positivism does not aspire to answer”) are: What kinds of things could possibly count as merits of law? What role should law play in adjudication? What claim has law on our obedience? What laws should we have? And should we have law at all?2

Those questions however, while they are doubtless interesting, do not touch directly the problem of the ontological and epistemological status of legal rules. The presentation of the problem is done in a much more inquiring way by Brożek, who formulates the following set of problems to be dealt with:3 1. The ontological question. What are norms or rules of human behaviour? 2. The epistemological question: How do we recognize norms/rules of human behaviour? 3. The question of normativity sensu stricto. How can norms be objective reasons for action? 4. The psychological question. How can norms motivate humans for actions? Those problems require further elucidation but, before this is done, they should be complemented with one more issue which seems to play a crucial role in the philosophical and political debate – What laws should we have? This was reformulated by Załuski and respectively named:   J. Finnis, Natural Law Theories [Online], available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/natural-law-theories/ [Accessed 27 February 2012]. 3   B. Brożek, Normatywność prawa, Wolters Kluwer Polska, Warszawa 2012. 2

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5. “The teleological-axiological question: what are the main goals of law and how those goals should be realized?”4 The ontological question seems to be the most obvious for philosophers. Whilst tackling the philosophical problem we need to recognize the ontological status of the subject of our interest. There are numerous potential answers. Norms can exist independently from humans, just as the laws of nature do or, on the contrary, norms can be exclusively the subject of human construction, the expression of sovereign will. They can also be psychological emotions of special kinds. They could be an extension of a human biological skeleton. Last, but not least, they could be conventions agreed upon between humans, or more broadly, the product of more or less conscious human social interactions. The epistemological question is generally dependent on the ontological answer. If we place norms in the world of Platonic forms, they can be recognized only if we presume the existence of a special faculty of our mind, designed for such sophisticated cognition. If norms are social or psychological facts, the respective sociological or psychological methods of research should apply. The most enigmatic issues are those of the normativity and psychological question. It is worth mentioning that Załuski does not distinguish between them entirely and is of an opinion that both questions are only aspects of the same normativity problem. In fact, this distinction makes sense only in a few theories of norms, especially those which ontologically place the existence of norms (or at least some norms) somewhere beyond humans, or more specifically, beyond an agent. If we refer to the “objective reasons for action”, we have to presuppose that there is something objective (independent from an agent), which is different from our internal, psychological motives for action, which can be referred to. If law is reduced to the special category of emotions, there is no room for objective reasons   W. Załuski, Evolutionary Theory and Legal Philosophy, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham 2009.

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for action thus normativity sensu stricto.5 The same applies to most of the realistic theories of norms. If we accept the social and not the psychological status of rules, the only difference is that we look for the validity of certain regulations with the use of statistical methods. The reasons for action, however, are not objective, but are rooted in the minds of agents. The only “objectivity” which can be traced is that some actions of agents look similar (seem to reveal the same patterns) as well as the reasons for those actions are given by agents in the inter-subjective discourse. The psychological motives are of no relevance. The evolutionary approach (at least in terms of Załuski’s theory) makes the question even more problematic. Asking for objective reasons for action sounds senseless if the question is set against the objective reason for example procreation.6 Certain revealed features of our behaviour are envisaged strictly in terms of an extension of our biological constructions, which developed because of evolutionary pressure. The same applies to sexual appetite as well as to the propensity to obey the social rules. The only objectivity that may be pointed out is probably the universal, biological pattern of evolutionary mechanisms. Nevertheless, even if the distinction between the objective reasons for action and internal motives can be meaningful only with reference to a few theories, for the sake of clarity, it is still worth asking about it.

  Unless we, after Brożek, claim that this objectivity is hidden in theory and can be eventually exposed. In the case of Petrażycki’s psychological theory, Brożek disclosed the objectivity in the directives formulated towards the legislator, which seems to be far from the emotional status of rules and come from nowhere so, they have no grounds in the theory itself, although they seem to be rules too. 6   Let us for instance compare two rules: 1. Man should not kill other man and 2. Man should eat. In terms of normativity the former sounds reasonably whilst the latter does not. Eating is the necessary condition of human survival. The adverse rule (“man should not eat”), if followed, would quickly lead to the extinction of the whole species. Do such rules constitute the reason for action? If we agree that the rule constitutes the reason for action if it meets at least three conditions: 1) is independent from an agent’s views; 2) may be used for justifying our decisions; 3) is usually applied consciously, the obvious answer will be – yes. The rule: “man should eat” constitutes objective reason for action. 5

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The teleological-axiological question is especially interesting for all representatives of realistic approaches in legal philosophy. As those approaches seem to originate from two streams of philosophy: pragmatism (William James) and utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill), all aspects of social engineering, the objectivity of the normative order and its possible modifications by legislation, is of great relevance. The legal theory which lacks any insights on these problems is seen as incomplete and therefore this question will be tackled too.

2. Some of the Most Distinguished Concepts of Normativity. A Short Reminiscence Natural law theories The classical, natural concept of law refers to Aristotelian essentialism. The universe is perceived as the orderly logos governed by the efficient and final cause and rules are necessarily bound to the latter. Their ontological status is similar to laws of nature and both are the constituent elements of the orderly logos. Essentially they are stable and stationary and the variability experienced by man is rather a result of a process of adjusting the non-perfect rules to its ideal primary patterns (forms) placed in the transcendent reality. Variability is thus a function of our flawed cognition of the universe, in the same way that the image of the world is a function of our still better cognition of the laws of nature. Norms are cognizable. To understand our duties, we deploy the special faculty of our mind – reason. In the most eminent versions of natural law theory, developed by St. Thomas Aquinas, which is still supported by some philosophers, it is with the use of reason that humans are capable of discovering the natural law which, in turn, reflects the law established by God – the eternal law. In this ontology, the epistemological subject looks for the source of order in God’s de-

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sign which, from one hand, can be cognized by reason itself but, on the other, searches for the support in revelation. It need not always be so since reasoning may be conducted on the basis of non-religious assumptions e.g. on the universal and stable human nature. The answer to the normativity question seems obvious. Natural law and the rules that can be reasonably derived from it constitute objective reasons for action. The positive law which contradicts natural law should be considered unjust and non-binding and therefore it lacks normativity. Such a law can nonetheless be motivating for an agent, especially by the deployment of a system of sanctions. It is one of the ways in which the psychological question may be coped with. However, the motivation should be the strongest if the norm is recognized by an agent as part of natural law with the use of reason and is eventually internalized. The answer to the teleological question is the least obvious and is dependent on the specific theory from within the natural law circle. In the system of St. Thomas Aquinas, the purpose of the positive law is to reflect the natural law, previously recognized by human reason. What the objective of natural law is, however, is not the direct subject of human cognition. The trust that the natural law derives from the stationary and divinely designed eternal law, should suffice. Although trust should be strong, there is also the belief that the natural law is aimed towards the common good. Therefore, identifying the fact that good is helpful in defining the law, in some conceptions, is even decisive. Natural law theories which answer teleological questions by highlighting a common good, come in the field of utilitarian ethics, and necessarily entangle themselves in disputes, wherein the practical consequences of certain regulations must be thoroughly considered. According to Brożek, natural law theory did not survive the destruction of the classical picture of the world,7 with Descartes serving as a symbolic destroyer. Severing the reality between res extensa and res cogitans he placed the rules in a different ontic category. The   B. Brożek, Normatywność prawa, op. cit.

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destruction was completed by Hume and Kant with the introduction of the distinction on is / sein and ought / soll. Accepting in principle this opinion, we have to remember that it applies only to the hardest version of naturalism – the one which is very close to the genuine thoughts of St. Thomas Aquinas. Later variations, which are doctrinally associated with the branch of jurisprudence discussed are more “ontologically resistant”. Theories based on the idea of social agreements (Lock, Hobbes) or on the idea of procedural justice (Rawls) are still vivid. Some of the evolutionary theories of law, which presuppose a static human nature are also, to a certain extent, naturalistic8. What they propose is the frame of acceptable norms which can be successfully introduced and internalized by humans, which are compatible with the biological structure. Norms which are not within the frame will never be binding and have no chance of being sustained in society.

Legal positivism and Kelsen’s normativism This current restricts its interest to legal norms. The source of normativity is seen in some form of sovereign will expression.9 In the case of Kelsen’s normativism, this source is seen in the unidentified basic norm (die Grundnorm). The expression should be readable for the addressee and thus become the subject of his interpretation. The main interest is focused on that expression and therefore on positive law (statutory law). Statutes constitute the foundations upon which legal reasoning is to be conducted. For positivists, there is nothing before the statutory law and after it, there is nothing more than an interpretation which is in compliance with the prescribed rules of exegesis.   W. Załuski, Evolutionary Theory and Legal Philosophy, op. cit.   I refer mainly to the early positivists like John Austin or Georg Jelinek. Some of the remarks in this section do not refer to the contemporary positivists like H.L.A Hart (see The Concept of Law, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1997).

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Ontologically, the norm is reduced to the will of the sovereign and this reduction reflects the normativity too. The same will seem to be the source of the objective reason for action. The law is objectively binding because it was declared binding by the sovereign and thus there is no need for any further quest for the justification of its normative power. The epistemological question is reduced to the principles of law interpretation. To recognize the law in force means to read the text of law declared by the sovereign as binding with understanding and to interpret it according to commonly accepted logic before the proper application to the factual state. The psychological question most often points out the fear of sanctions, which are also a part of a legal statutory order. The legal positivism usually retreats from the teleological question. It is not the subject of jurisprudence to ask about the aims of statutory law. However, some think we may eventually find the reference to the political conceptions, which exceeds the legal theory and thus introduce some extra-legal directives regarding the process or content of legislation.10 Unfortunately, positivism became the main theory in jurisprudence, which, at least in the continental tradition, is still commonly accepted among lawyers. This is probably the main source of many misunderstandings. After Brożek, whose critique of positivism is wholeheartedly advocated, I specify the three myths of this trend in legal thinking that should be tackled11: 1. The myth of foundation: The statutory law constitutes the foundation of legal norms and it exists before interpretation. 2. The myth of method: The application of law should follow the strictly specified syllogism (which is still present in many student handbooks for an introduction to jurisprudence) i.e. an abstract norm reconstructed on the basis of a legal text – factual state – subsumption – concrete norm. The prescribed method should also   H. Kelsen, Verteitigung der Demokratie, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2006.   B. Brożek, Normatywność prawa, op. cit.

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apply to the interpretation itself – the reconstruction of the norm. Positivists seem to be convinced that there exists the commonly accepted set of exegesis rules like modal and deontological logic. Both myths mentioned above clearly contradict daily legal practice (interpretation prevails and never follows one previously prescribed pattern), set of court experiments conducted mainly in the common law tradition and, last but not least, the current knowledge on normative language and the formal possibility to construct a consistent and coherent normative logic. 1. The myth of metaphysical neutrality: Statutory law is independent of ontological assumptions and the way law should be interpreted or applied does not interfere with the ontological beliefs of the interpreter. Our contemporary knowledge of the biological implications of our normative judgments argues in favour of the contrary. Both at the stage of drafting and the introduction of the law, as well as on the stage of its application, the axiology and metaphysical assumptions of a designer or a judge strongly influence the results. Moreover, positivism, and especially normativism, is not metaphysically neutral. Brożek notices two facts: If the source of normativity lies in a merely thought-of hypothetical Basic Norm, Kelsen’s theory pays a high price for its ‘purity’. While formulating the Basic Norm, Kelsen only puts a label on what he does not know and cannot explain.12

And after Stanley Paulson:   B. Brożek, The Ontology of Law from a Biological Perspective, [w:] Studies in the Philosophy of Law 6. The Normativity of Law, eds. J. Stelmach, B. Brożek, Copernicus Center Press, Kraków 2011.

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Kelsen’s Ought can be considered a de dicto or a de re modality. In the former case, our utterances about legal obligations are just ‘a way of speaking’. In a sense, they are fiction (they do not refer to any reality). On the latter reading (de re), Kelsen’s thesis is a strong metaphysical claim: he posits the existence the two, mutually independent ontological spheres, that of Is and that of Ought.

Legal realism Legal realism has nothing in common with realism in philosophy. In this latter case, realism refers to those metaphysical conceptions which claim that certain abstract beings, which are transcendent, truly exist. Platonism is realistic in this meaning and is in opposition to nominalism. Legal realism refers philosophically to pragmatism and utilitarianism in ethics. The puzzle of normativity should be investigated in “law in action” and not in purely theoretical conceptions. Law is a phenomenon which really exists and acts in societies and in agents’ minds and its merits should be analyzed therein. The term “real” refers not to the norms but rather to the perceived effects of its ‘causal’ power: What courts of law do (Holmes’s realism)13, how are legal duties and rights experienced by an agent (the psychologism of Petrażycki)14 or how can the effects of law be observed in society (Scandinavian realism).15 The solution of the normativity puzzle proposed by legal realism can vary significantly depending on the particular school. Holmes proposed focusing on the real activity of legal institutions like courts, and respectively to reduce law to the predictions made   O.W. Holmes jr., The Path of Law, NuVision Publications, LLC 2007.   L. Petrażycki, O nauce, prawie i moralności: pisma wybrane, PWN, Warszawa 1985; J. Górecki, Sociology and Jurisprudence of Leon Petrażycki, University of Illinois Press, Michigan 1975. 15   J. Stelmach, R. Sarkowicz, Filozofia prawa XIX i XX wieku, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków 1998. 13 14

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by an agent regarding the future court’s ruling. Ontologically, the law detaches itself from the sovereign will expressed in legislation and even from the abstract instructions that can be somehow interpreted from the legal texts, and means exclusively the “predictions”. Although Holmes did not put it clearly, it seems that law is thus perceived as one of the numerous phenomena which constitute the social order. The legal norm is not in any way distinct. In the same way as the predictions regarding the natural environment must have been constructed in humans’ minds to let them survive in the natural state, the predictions regarding the behaviour of other humans allowed them to survive in society, and let the social order survive, which itself is a tool of our evolutionary fitness. This is an important ontological shift. Rules are a part of the same reality as the prudential instructions regarding our health or scientific theories. When one says “take a scarf otherwise you’ll get a cold”, the ontic status of that instruction is the same as: “don’t steal this necklace if you don’t want to be punished”. Scandinavian realism should be envisaged as the further development of this approach, mainly from the epistemological point of view. If we agree that the law is a strictly social phenomenon, the social, statistical methods seem to be the most appropriate for its cognition. Things look different in the case of psychologism. Petrażycki, one of the most famous Polish theorists of law, focused on the emotions and internal experience, neglecting the significance of social interactions. According to his proposal, law has a different ontological status, and distinguishes itself clearly from other rules (emotions which constitutes law are of attributive character).16 Moreover, I share Brożek’s critique entirely that one of the reasons that the theory failed is its deployment of anachronistic psychology. Perhaps contemporary research which tries to identify the parts of the human brain which are active while moral and legal judgments are conveyed could be the development of that theory thanks to the use of comprehensive, 16

  B. Brożek, Normatywność prawa, op. cit.

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updated knowledge on our neural order and its relation to revealed behaviour. What constitutes an objective reason for action in realistic accounts? The lack of distinct objectivity in those theories is one of the most important and most often indicated weakness. There seems to be no reality, no space for discourse, which can be referred to in order to trace this crucial feature of normativity, crucial at least according to Wittgenstein and Brożek. I will try to tackle this alleged fault at the end of the essay and to defend the realistic account against some weighty arguments. It should suffice to say for now that there are a couple of possible fields where normativity sensu stricto can be searched for. Firstly, Brożek rightly claims that at least some of the attempts to eliminate normativity have been ineffective. Instead of a pure theory, free from metaphysical flaws, the proponents of legal realism try to hide, more or less consciously, normativity within a kind of presupposed rationality. This is quite often divulged while coping with the teleological question. Any postulates and directives constructed for legislators by default have to refer to the objectives which are beyond the realistic account. Psychological and sociological theories are necessarily entangled in social engineering and thus they cannot avoid the following problem: Even if we humans have sufficient knowledge which allows us to draft and introduce the law effectively, whereby the presumed aims can be achieved, who should be responsible for pointing the aims and what directives should be deployed in the determination of those aims? If the problem is directly dealt with by the proposed theory, the answer is most often assumed on the higher level, and that rule (as the answer is a kind of rule) seems to be of a different ontological status than all of the other rules in the realistic account. Secondly, if the theory is biologically grounded, they may claim that at least some of the most basic rules are determined by the biological construction of our organism and, especially, our cognitive system. Although we may have the impression that we

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may construct any law as a matter of fact we are strongly attached to our physical basis and are never able to transcendent it. This physical basis is a direct product of evolution itself and, as a result, the most foundational rules are subordinated to species survival. The issue which remains still unsolved however is thus the teleological question. Thirdly, one of the most significant and counterintuitive consequence of the realistic account is the vague concept of rule bindingness. It is gradable and a rule understood as internal experience or predicted consequences can be less or more binding, depending on the strength of the feeling. In social accounts the strength of rule bindingness depends on the level of its acceptance in the society. The motivational aspect of normativity can also vary between the realistic theories. Holmes seems to point to the expected negative reaction (punishment) and, respectively, the fear of an agent as the most decisive factor. In Petrażycki’s proposal, one may notice that normativity itself is reduced to the motivational aspect. We have almost no objective reasons for action, we have only emotions of certain kinds. Epistemologically rules shall be investigated by methods related to the particular account, either psychological, sociological or, last but not least, biological. On the level of an individual agent, he recognizes rules, more or less in the same way, however much more imperfectly. Scientific methods are not available for an average member of society. But an average member during his lifetime is educated, listens to or reads real or fictitious stories and watches the behaviour of other members of society. It is worth mentioning that realistic theories gave rise to the development of court psychology, mainly in the USA. There has been considerable research conducted according to the methods applied in experimental and behavioural psychology, which are aimed at identifying the most important features of the “law in action”. The significance of this research should not be undervalued.

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3. Normativity According to Hayek In a traditional approach to the theories of law, Hayek’s account has never been placed within any established school. His concept of law, legislation and normative order was so original that it exceeded any known proposals. It is only due to the recent emergence of the evolutionary theories of law that he has been noticed and commented upon. Undoubtedly his thoughts on law can be included within the evolutionary current and, from this point of view, he should be seen as its absolute precursor. It is my purpose to also argue for his realistic approach, at least in terms of legal realism, as presented above. Hayek is a legal evolutionist, since for him rules and law are the product of biological and subsequently cultural evolution and should be analyzed and interpreted solely as such. Evolutionary mechanisms can tell us much more about the ontology and sources of rules and their meaning for the society than any other philosophical account. Mechanisms of biological evolution are commonly known but cultural evolution, however, remains at least partially a puzzle. According to Hayek, we may highlight at least one difference between them. Whilst biological successions are due to the relative stability of genes which are the carrier of information and biological changes and fitness are due to the process of random mutations which occurs in genes, no such carrier has been discovered in culture.17 Hayek would say that cultural evolution is of a Lamarckian character and not Darwinian. As there is no identifiable carrier of cultural information, the inheritance is an effect of the mimetic propensity of humans. This mimesis plays a significant role in legal theory too. The important distinction in Hayek’s theory of norms is that their sources of normativity are exactly the same regardless of what sorts of norms are being considered. Legal rules are thus in no way peculiar. They participate in the construction of social order in a manner equal 17   This is a very controversial proposal of Dawkins’. See The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1976.

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to that of the grammatical rules of language, mores, moral rules or to the rules of conduct derived from scientific theories. They can only be formally distinguished and only in that part which originates from the so called “rules of organization”, or “purpose dependent rules” and can at present be named “legislations”. Rules in ancestral societies were placed in the same category as factual knowledge. Knowledge for Hayek, at least at the very early stages of its development, is not about facts (know what) but mainly hypothetical knowledge of the expected consequences of an agent’s undertaken actions (know how), and expressed in conditional terms. If you want to achieve the state X, proceed according to the instruction Y because usually when a man follows the instruction Y, he achieves the state X. Such a way of grasping the notion of knowledge applies equally to methods of how to start a fire, how to plant crops, how to protect themselves against cold as well as communication or co-operation with community members. There is in the beginning no distinction between the practices one must observe in order to achieve a particular result and the practices one ought to observe. There is only one established manner of doing things, and knowledge of cause and effect and knowledge of the appropriate or permissible form of action are not distinct. Knowledge of the world is knowledge of what one must do or not do in certain kinds of circumstances. And in avoiding danger it is as important to know what one must never do as to know what one must do to achieve a particular result.18

If factual knowledge is understood in such a way, one could hardly distinguish between two non-overlapping ontological spheres: the one of facts (is) and the second of duties (ought). It simply does not make any sense. However, on the contrary, for some naturalists this account 18   F.A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume I: Rules and Order, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1983, p. 18.

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of reduction is possible because everything is, at least by its origin, an ought. If we find such a reduction troublesome, it is merely a problem of our language and the way we express the propositions referred to facts and duties. It seems that the specific character usually ascribed to ‘norms’ which make them belong to a different realm of discourse from statements of facts belongs only to articulated rules, and even there only once the question is raised as to whether we ought to obey them or not. So long as such rules are merely obeyed in fact (either always or at least in most instances), and their observance is ascertainable only from actual behaviour, they do not differ from descriptive rules.(…) This off course does not alter the circumstance that our language is so made that no valid inference can lead from a statement containing only a description of facts to a statement of what ought to be.19

If we relate the quotation above to the problem raised for the first time by Hume, developed by Kant and strengthened by Moore i.e. inability of the reduction the ought-statements to is-statements, and if we compare it with the naturalistic counter-argument raised by Pigden,20 it seems clear that Hayek, without addressing the problem directly, supports Pigden’s idea, according to which, the seeming ban on reduction is sustainable only as a logical or semantic ban, but not as an ontological one. Instructions which come from factual knowledge are created on the basis of numerous trials and errors. Some of them happen to support biological survival, some of them do not. Although in case of instructions referring to the natural environment is seems intuitionally obvious, in the case of social rules it is not so easy. The principle is,   Ibidem, p. 79.   C. Pigden, Naturlism, [in:] Companion to Ethics, ed. P. Singer, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford 1991, pp. 421–431.

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however, the same. Tribes in which various normative orders have evolved have various abilities to survive in given conditions. Hayek describes it in the following way: (…) rules have evolved because it led to the formation of an order of the activities of a group as a whole which, although they are the results of the regularities of the actions of the individuals, must be clearly distinguished from them, since it is the efficiency of the resulting order of actions which will determine whether groups whose members observe certain rules of conduct will prevail.21

Unfortunately what we read here seems to be based on the theory of group selection which, despite recently having enjoyed a limited comeback, is still a bone of contention for evolutionary biologists.22 Assuming such a picture of the origin of rules and norms, what is a rule according to Hayek? One quotation is frequently referred to: Rule in this context means simply a propensity or disposition to act or not to act in a certain manner, which will manifest itself in what we call a practice or custom. As such it will be one of the determinants of action, which however, need not show itself in every single action but may only prevail in most instances. Any such rule will always operate in combination and often in competition with other rules or dispositions and with particular impulses; and whether the rule will prevail in a particular case will depend on the strength of the propensity it describes and of the of the other dispositions or impulses operating at the same time.23   F.A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty…, op. cit. p. 74   M. Price, The Controversy of Group Selection Theory [Online], available at: http:// www.scq.ubc.ca/the-controversy-of-group-selection-theory/ [accessed 27 Ferbruary 2012]; N.S. Thompson, Shifting the Natural Selection Metaphor to the Group Level, “Behavior and Philosophy” 2000, Issue 28, pp. 83–101. 23   F.A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty…, op. cit. p. 76. 21 22

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The given definition reveals certain important features of Hayek’s view on norms, which lets us answer the ontological question. As one can see, a rule has been reduced to a psycho-social phenomenon. There is no reference to any statutory or natural law, which is obvious in light of previous remarks. The said propensity to act is an agent’s individual trait. The trait is biologically determined and is an effect of species evolution. This would be too simple and too close to Petrażycki’s psychologism. To understand Hayek’s account, one has to thoroughly study not only his political philosophy but, first and foremost, his philosophy of mind where the sources of his ideas lie. If something is biologically determined it does not mean that the patterns are entirely encoded in genes and that an agent’s behaviour is predefined in advance. It is not so. One of the important factors is our neural order, which constitutes the basis for our cognition system. The sensitivity of neurons to external impulses are, to a certain extent, predefined. But because neurons and their system as a whole is flexible and susceptible to change, this sensitivity fluctuates during an individual’s existence respectively to the impulses coming from an outer environment and thus the system constantly adapts. The evolutionary credo, “the survival of the fittest’ acts not only on the level of species or individuals but also on the level of the individual organism.24 On the basis of neuronal order (which is strictly biological) the sensory order is created. One may say generally that the latter constitutes a model of the external environment in which an agent is to act. This model reflects our ‘knowledge’ but if knowledge is presented as the imperfect model of the world, and if one reminds oneself what the model in mathematics or logic is it becomes clear that it is ‘knowledge in action’ – ‘know how’ or, to put it in other words, knowledge which is reduced exclusively to rules. The biological correlate of the rules lies in the network of neurons. Each neuron, from the cognitive point of view is nothing more than a ‘rule’ or an ‘instruction’. On the basis of those instructions, the incoming impulses are   Idem, The Sensory Order. An Inquiry into the Foundation of Theoretical Psychology, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1992.

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discriminated with some of them causing a neural reaction and some remain ‘unnoticed’. However the reduction of rules to the neural order would be a misconception. As it has been hinted at above, the system is flexible and susceptible to change. The basic changes are evoked by the natural environment but, as the formation of societies gave humans such an evolutionary prevalence over other species, it seems justified that the most important adjustments in the system of agent’s neural rules are subordinated to social life. As the sensory order formed in an agent’s mind during his life cannot be carried forward by genes, the societies overtook this burden and started to be an abstract carrier. Therefore, the species propensity to mimic other individuals became one of the decisive biological traits enhancing the development of social order, and that is why the cultural evolution is of a Lamarckian character. This is also why Hayek says that the rule ‘manifest itself in what we call a practice or custom’ and provides an answer for the epistemological question. It doesn’t make any sense to investigate norms by inspecting one’s mind, as could be proposed by Petrażycki, at least for two reasons. Firstly, according to Hayek’s theory, mind, or more precisely the model which is formed on the basis of neural order, is incognizable.25 Secondly, even if it were cognizable, the individual system of rules would be of no relevance. Norms acquire a certain level of their ‘validity’ only in societies, wherein we can identify them in action and eventually judge whether the particular ‘practice or custom’ prevailed. Rules compete with each other, and the temporary result of that competition gives us some knowledge about the system of norms in force in a particular tribe. Therefore the only appropriate epistemological methods are the historical and social studies, and although Hayek used to be very sceptical and suspicious towards the application of statistics in sociology and economics, this seems to be the most useful. As it has been stated several times above, rules form an order by which their merits are analogous to the sensory order formed in agent’s mind. 25

  Ibidem.

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By ‘order’ we shall throughout describe the state of affairs in which multiplicity of elements of various kinds are so related to each other that we may learn from our acquaintance with some spatial or temporal part of the whole to form correct expectation concerning the rest, or at least expectations which have a good chance of proving correct.26

The thorough reader shall immediately notice how similar this definition is to the concept of law presented by Holmes. A legal norm is reducible to the prediction of what a court of law will do. The same can be referred to Hayek’s normative order. Although by its ontic status the norm is reduced to the ‘propensity’ of an individual, the norm which is ‘binding’ in a society can be grasped by the notion of prediction, as predictions or ‘expectations’ are one of the most characteristic features of an order. In my opinion, this part of Hayek’s account settles the realistic approach and allows us to attribute this current of jurisprudence to him. The order reveals two more qualities. Firstly, one may observe that the bindingness of orderly rules is gradable. We can never say that a certain norm is in force or not. The justified statement should be that the norm ‘prevails’ or not in a certain society. Secondly, the order is not of a human purposeful design but is spontaneous. Potential, effective human intervention in the order is highly limited. The grown order which we have already referred to as a self generating or endogenous order, is in English most conveniently described as spontaneous order. (…) It would be no exaggeration to say that social theory begins with – and has an object only because of – the discovery that there exists orderly structures which are the product of the action of many men but are not the result of human design.27 26 27

  Idem, Law, Legislation and Liberty…, op. cit., p. 36.   Ibidem, p. 37.

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If we agree that the system of spontaneously formed rules can be identified by the historical and sociological methods, we should also agree that the purpose of the ‘legislator’ should be put differently. It should be responsible not for the establishment of law (understood as creation of new rules) but rather for their proper recognition, identification and eventually codification. This last undertaking is not even necessary. In orderly societies, the custody of the identification of rules and their application has been entrusted to judges and lawyers. Nevertheless, it has to be noted that in the history of law, the first and the most eminent statutes were not the unrestricted expression of the sovereign’s will but, on the contrary, the sovereign used their power to codify the mores and practices already observed in the society, in order to strengthen their observance and thus strengthen the existing normative order and not to introduce a new order which would have demolished the old one. The said tradition refers, however, only to spontaneous order. Hayek terms it simply ‘law’ or ‘nomos’ or ‘kosmos’ and clearly distinguishes it from the designed order which is referred to as ‘legislation’, ‘thesis’ or ‘taxis’.28 This signifies that he noticed designed order in societies too but that the sources of it were different. From the very beginning, groups of people appeared in societies who intended to collectively serve certain predefined aims. To achieve those aims, their members had to agree that certain instructions had to be followed or had to subordinate themselves to the instructions or commands of a man whose aims had to be achieved. Those social and hierarchical organizations gave rise to a different type of rules which did not emerge spontaneously, but were in fact of human design. Those rules effectively mimic nomos and are often formulated in an abstract way. They always serve certain purposes and therefore are called ‘purpose dependent rules’ by Hayek. They play a minor role in the formation and sustaining of the social order. Moreover, whenever the sovereign tried to replace, even partially, the established, spontaneous order by a ‘purpose dependent’ order, it led rather 28

  Ibidem.

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to social disorder. This is, and used to be, due to the human inability for entire recognition of all of the possible implications of an order or of its possible reconstruction. The order itself is ‘wiser’ than any man and much more complex than any man could be able to cognize. Although the system of rules forms a kind of a model similar to that which exists in the mind of man, neither the former nor the latter are complete and consistent. Therefore both require special ‘guardians’ which would permanently test the system for its completeness and consistency, and eventually ‘patch’ it if found flawed or even restructure it. In a contemporary social normative order this is the function mainly entrusted to lawyers and, especially, judges. Although their main task is to identify regular patterns of human behaviour and formulate them in abstract terms, they are also responsible for revealing loopholes and, if revealed, to propose appropriate modifications of a rule. In more biological terms we might say that lawyers and judges introduce the necessary ‘mutations’ to the system. Whether they survive or not are a matter of whether they are accepted by the society and whether they occur to be more or less adaptive for the society as a whole. In light of what has been said above, lawyers and judges will never be ‘a mouth of a statutory law’. Their role is creative and they are important co-creators of a system, albeit equally unaware of its aims and consequences.

4. A Critique of Realistic Conceptions and an Attempt at Their Defence The realistic approach to jurisprudence is not very popular among lawyers and philosophers, at least among those rooted in the continental tradition. The former clearly prefer legal positivism and normativism, even if they do not entirely reflect their own ontological prejudgments. Some of the realistic consequences are so counterintuitive and contradict daily legal practice to such an extent that they are more or less consciously denied. The myths of normativism highlighted above are still often lectured at law faculties as established knowledge

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especially and are thus strongly represented in lawyers’ societies. On the other hand, philosophers seem to be entangled in a seemingly unsolvable dispute on the ontological status of norms and their possible distinction from facts. The discussion around Moore’s anti-reduction argument is still vivid. In such a scholarly environment, advocating legal realism requires an advocate to tackle the critique and this is, in fact, an intention of the last part of this paper. From among the many thinkers and their arguments against legal realism, I again choose to refer to Brożek’s account. His monograph on the ontology of law seems to be one of the most comprehensive nowadays, collecting and presenting the most eminent opinions deriving from different schools. What are those opinions which could possibly undermine Hayek’s account? 1. Following the conception of Wittgenstein, Brożek claims that one of the constituting elements of a rule is its ability to be ‘projected to future’. Although we don’t realize all of the possible factual states to which a rule can be applied in future, it is nevertheless applicable. Brożek writes: Rules of action have certain specific features: they do not refer only to past and present actions. One may say that they ‘project themselves’ to the future. In other words, any norm divides a range of possible past, present and future actions in two subsets – actions which are compliant and non-compliant with a norm. It is hard to imagine how regularities in hitherto social actions could fulfil this condition; On this basis one may predict at most, how people will have behaved.29 29   B. Brożek, Normatywność prawa, op. cit., pp. 15–16: “(...) reguły postępowania mają pewną swoistą cechę: Nie odnoszą się jedynie do zachowań przeszłych i aktualnych. Można powiedzieć, że ‘rzutują się’ w przyszłość. Innymi słowy każda norma dzieli spektrum możliwych przeszłych, teraźniejszych i przyszłych zachowań na dwie podklasy – zachowań zgodnych i niezgodnych z normą. Trudno wyobrazić sobie jak regularności w dotychczasowych zachowaniach społecznych mogłyby spełnić ten warunek; na ich podstawie można co najwyżej prognozować jak ludzie będą się zachowywać.”

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The objection is not sound. This ‘projection to the future’ should be understood as the functioning of a rule that can have an impact on future agents’ behaviour. If we reduce the rule to observable patterns of behaviour, we seemingly give up this condition. How could it be possible that facts occurring at present may have the special power of regulating the future facts? However, if one replaces the word ‘regulating’ with the word ‘causing’, it would not sound so strange. If we, moreover, realize that those presently observed patterns are the results of an agent’s sensory order activity, the order which stores our ‘knowledge’, this knowledge which is, in principle, understood as a system of rules, we may conclude that the condition is met. The repeated patterns of behaviour perceived by an agent constitute the basis for its predictions about the future expected behaviour of other agents, allowing them to adapt their own system of rules respectively. The most stable adaptation, although not necessarily the only one possible, is to mimic those patterns. 2. The realistic account leads us to one more counterintuitive judgment. If the rule (which is intuitively perceived as a rule) is not observed commonly or at least in prevailing occurrences, it should not be called a rule. Brożek states clearly: A norm which is not observed does not deserve to be called a norm. The ethical or legal system, with which no one agrees, and which no one accepts, is certainly fictitious.30

This remark is accurate. The argument seems to support a realistic account. However, between the non-observed, fictitious systems of rules and systems of rules which are commonly respected, lies a wide range of rules whose observance cannot be unambiguously determined. Do we call them rules? Let us take for example the ban on means of con30   Ibidem, s. 16: “Norma, która jest nieprzestrzegana nie zasługuje na miano normy. System etyczny i prawny, z którym nikt się nie zgadza i którego nikt nie akceptuje, stanowi co najwyżej pewną fikcję.”

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traception which at least theoretically should be binding among Roman Catholic Christians but, according to surveys, it is almost universally disrespected. What about a law which has already been resolved and promulgated but not yet introduced? This law is not observed but probably will be in the future. Are they still rules? They are perceived as rules intuitively. They are rules pursuant to the positivistic or naturalistic account. Holmes and the realists who follow his idea would say that they are rules, as long as they can be the basis for the accurate prediction of other agents’ behaviour. It seems that in the examples mentioned above, we have two different problems. The first is connected with the so called “bindingness” of the rule. Realists would say that a rule is a rule if it constitutes the regular pattern of behaviour at least within the very small group of people. Private rules do not exist. The smaller the group is, the less binding are the rules. “Bindingness” is thus gradable. The second is connected with rules, which has not become the observed patterns of behaviour yet. If we shared the realistic understanding of a norm, we should consequently accept that we would have to deal with at least two levels of discourse: The level of observable regularities which allows to formulate some empirical conclusions as regards the binding patterns in society and thus the accurate prediction for future, and the level of postulates as regards what new patterns should be introduced and become binding. This ‘fictitious’ legal or ethical system may constitute a postulate or a set of postulates and the same refers to the statutory law. According to the realistic account we have to definitely reject the idea that the statutory law becomes binding once being resolved (or otherwise decided) and properly promulgated. Bindingness is the social and not legal category. The statutory law may, at most, be understood as such a ‘postulate’, albeit a very strong one. The postulate is strong, because behind it stands the oppressive power of a sovereign which can possibly be used against those reluctant to adopt newly proposed patterns. It does not automatically mean that the proposed patterns shall be adopted. The practitioners of law know very well that there are a lot of resolved and formally promulgated statutes which have never

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been accepted or adopted and thus have never led to the creation of expected patterns of citizen behaviour. Moreover, as those governmental officers who have experienced the subsequent reforms know very well, a new law which is intended to reform certain branches of the administration is practically applied long after it is formally announced as being in force. 3. Another objection which is often raised states that the realistic account needs to be completed by normativity sui generis. The proponents of this kind of conception may pretend that they are self-sufficient, but proper and thorough inspection leads to contradictory conclusions. Realistic accounts which aim to reduce the normative sphere to what is factual, cannot avoid the reference to at least one rule, which constitutes an objective reason for action. This is the case of both Holmes and Petrażycki. It seems that this remark – by coincidence discovered by both thinkers – is their important, although not intended input in the analysis of normativity problem.31

What is this rule which has to be referred to? In Petrażycki’s account it is the rule which governs the actions of the legislator. The legislator is not bound by its attributive emotions. Lawgiving seems to be subordinated to the special reasons – reasons which are beyond the realistic account. In Holmes’ theory, the same problem refers to the decisions of judges. They are not determined by their predictions. The duties of judges are sui generis. This objection is one of the most significant. To be properly addressed it requires few preliminary remarks. First and foremost, as it   Ibidem, s. 101: “(…) koncepcje realistyczne, które stawiają sobie za cel redukcję sfery normatywnej do tego, co faktyczne, nie mogą obyć się bez co najmniej jednej reguły, która stanowi obiektywną rację działania. Tak jest zarówno w przypadku Holmesa, jak i Petrażyckiego. Wydaje się, że ta obserwacja – przypadkowo wydobyta przez obu myślicieli – stanowi ich istotny, choć niezamierzony wkład w analizę problemu normatywności.”

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has been noted above, one cannot confuse a rule which is already prevailing in society, and thus is perceived as binding, with a rule which is in the state of being postulated, or in other words, being introduced. The so called ‘super-lawgiver’ may appear only as a ‘super-postulator’. No law can be given by anyone. The fact that certain rules are accepted in major occurrences and respectively observed, is a social fact and not directly dependent on anyone giving law. The same refers to judges applying the law. In most occurrences their duties are reduced to the proper recognition of rules already obeyed by members of the society. If recognized, the rule is applied to the case at hand. It may, however, happen that the case is so peculiar, that there is no rule to be recognized or the rules already obeyed seem “improper” or “unjust” for the case. In the ‘common law’ tradition, we would say that the judge is to deal with the precedent and thus he would have to become the said “law-postulator”, by ruling the verdict not grounded in any rule observed in society. On the other hand, a ‘super-postulator” or simply a postulator can be anyone. Anyone may propose new patterns of behaviour. The only difference is that some society members have a stronger impact while others are weaker. This can partially depend upon political power, but not necessarily. The so called ‘style of life’ which doubtless has a tremendous influence on the development of society cannot be resolved by the legislator. Another problem may occur if we look for the rationality of the postulated patterns, or, in other words, for its proper justification. This is an apparent place for sui generis normativity. Once we start to formulate postulates like: ‘a legislator should resolve upon the law which would make the society wealthier’ or ‘a judge should rule verdicts which serve common good’, according to Brożek we exceed the reduction schema and fall again under sui generis normativity. For Brożek, there are only two possible solutions. Either we claim that the whole process is entirely automatic, and consequently we deny any normativity, any free will and any space for unrestricted, rational decisions or we admit, at least in some occurrences, that we are able to steer this process. In the latter case, we are condemned to normativ-

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ity and this requires elucidation. The argument is sound in the case of Holmes and Petrażycki. Both would have been far from denying our free will. It looks a bit different in case of Hayek. If the problem were presented as above, he would say that the process is automatic, but this automation is much more complex and allows us to not deny directly the so called ‘free will’.32 To understand this account we have to again address the Hayekian view on the functioning of our neural and sensory order. If a system functions in a way, which may be called ‘automatic’ we understand that we deal with the set of instructions which predetermines the ‘outcomes’ at the given ‘inputs’. It is not the case of the human mind. The instructions themselves are the subject of constant adjustments and thus evolve. The conscious reasoning and ‘free will’ are useful technical terms which reflect our introspective experience and refer to this activity of human sensory order which is necessary to conduct that permanent self-adjustment. It leads us inevitably to the teleological-axiological question. Whether such an approach lets us formulate an original (non trivial) answer to such a question seems to be another issue. According to Załuski and Hayek, it does. The Hayekian proposal will be presented below.

5. The Puzzle of Normativity – a Solution Proposed by Hayekian Realism As a kind of summary, let us check again if the Hayekian proposal replies soundly to all of the questions proposed by Brożek and Załuski, and what kind of response can it offer.   As an aside, it is worth mentioning that automation does not solve the problem of ‘normativity’. At the very bottom we still have some instructions which govern the automaton, and it is still possible to ask about the normativity of those instructions, unless we realize that it does not make sense any longer as we are below the level of the so called ‘human conscious activity’. Either we then accept that patterns and instructions emerge from a chaotic biological environment during the process of its evolutionary adjustment or we attribute to them the special ontic purpose. Thus the normativity question converts into an ontological question. 32

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As regards the ontological question, rules are reduced to the certain propensities or dispositions of society members which reveal themselves by the prevailing regular patterns of behaviour. In a wider sense, they are elements of biological construction but in Hayekian terms, however, the flexible and susceptible sensory order is also an element of the biological construction, although it can cause our picture of an outer world to be changed during our lifetime and thus significantly affect the said propensities to behave in a given way. Evolutionary biologists are much more cautious in their judgments about cultural evolution and its possible impact on the revealed patterns of behaviour. They tend to envisage the biological foundation of human mental states to be much more stable and less malleable for any external and especially social leverage. This seems to also be the position of Załuski.33 The answer to the epistemological question is derived from the ontic status of rules. Rules are cognizable with the use of all the scientific methods usually applied in psychology, sociology, cultural studies and history. The investigator should look mainly for the repeating patterns of behaviour in a given society. The issue of sensu stricto normativity, and thus the question about the objective reason for action, is the most troublesome. Hayek’s realism does not give a straightforward answer. In the section devoted to the general review of the realist accounts, three possible fields have been proposed where normativity can be pursued. Those are: a. Social engineering i.e. the question of whether in realistic accounts we have any reasons to formulate any postulates for the creation of a new law. If the answer were positive, we would have to cope with the ontological status of those postulates, as they must have been rules sui generis, which 33   W. Załuski, Evolutionary Theory and Legal Philosophy, op. cit.; N.S. Shifting the Natural Selection Metaphor to the Group Level, op. cit.; M. Price, The Controversy of Group Selection Theory, op. cit.

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avoid the realistic definition of the rules. This problem has already been addressed above. The problem of social engineering shall be addressed below at the teleological question. b. The biological foundation of certain (if not all) human propensities and dispositions to behave in a particular way. Such an approach, however, provides an answer for the question of why we behave in a specific way, but cannot provide us with the correct objective reasons for action in terms of Wittgenstein and Brożek. c. The concept of bindingness in realistic accounts, which has already been addressed above. It is my opinion that objective normativity can be found in none of those fields. We have to conclude that in Hayekian realism this concept is useless. Any quest for objective reasons for action will be in vain. It does not mean that, metaphysically, there are none, but it simply means that it is beyond the scope of the theory and within the terms of the theory this idea is incognizable. Similarly, we could formulate the question about the ‘objective reason for survival’ or ‘objective reason for procreation’ or more broadly for the ontological sense of biological evolution or its telos. If there is any, it lies beyond the theory of rules. The psychological question is the most obvious. Internal motivation becomes a defining element of a rule. Human propensities and dispositions to certain behaviours inevitably refer to internal, psychological mechanisms. All of them are the effects of biological and cultural evolution and are subordinated to the survival of an agent, group or species. The most interesting, however, seems to be the teleological-axiological question. As stated above, according to Brożek (who by the way does not deal at all with the teleological issue), in order to formulate any postulates regarding the possible directions in the development of law, one needs a super-rule, which determines the rationality of the lawgiver. This super-rule cannot be defined in terms

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of realistic accounts. It cannot be the observed regularity in agent behaviour or a revealed propensity to the certain actions. It is also not derived from the predictability of peoples’ behaviour. In order to introduce it to the system, one needs to refer to a different concept of normativity which differs from the realistic. If that super-rule is based on the general postulate for the maximization of societal well-being, we have the straightforward reference to the utilitarian axiology. This remark is generally correct. Analyzing the psychological theory of Petrażycki, one does in fact notice that inconsistency. However, what is accurately identified as a flaw of some realistic theories does not need to be a general feature. I would argue that, in the case of Hayek’s account, it does need to be so, there is no need to grasp for that super-norm. The main task for the legislator is not to ponder the new law and its eventual ‘introduction’ but merely the proper identification of the rules already observed in society and their eventual codification. I do not exclude the instrumental intervention of the sovereign. In cases where it wishes to achieve certain aims, which it determines due to its role in a social order, it is relatively free to pick any tools which seem adequate to him for the given aims. It is relatively free, at least within the constraints which its biological construction and background social order impose on him. The same refers to an agent. In order to pursue the given aims it is relatively free to pick an adequate tool. What kind of purposes will be indicated and what tools will be picked out, depends mainly on the constraints of the level of societal development and the natural environment. Both the aims and tools will be subordinated to natural selection and whether the intended tools / rules eventually transform themselves into the observed practices and whether the intended aims are achieved and survive, depends entirely on whether they are adaptive for the group or not. No legislator can, however, control the whole process as neither can posses complete knowledge which would let them postulate and introduce the rules which were both effective in achieving the intended purposes and making them adaptive for the society.

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What about the axiology? Even if the proposed account were correct, would it let us formulate some practical indications for contemporary sovereigns? According to Hayek, who was foremost a political thinker, it would and did. If the system of the natural selection of behavioural patterns is to act effectively (so that it would be the most efficient in terms of society survival), the minimum requirement is to protect as much freedom for the agents in relation to the other agents as is practicably possible. If agents are free to postulate new behavioural patterns (in a public discourse or by straightforward practice), the society will have a huge number of patterns to choose from and, eventually, the chances increase that among them the most adaptive will occur too. It is possible to construct a relatively stable society exclusively by the gradually introduction of the new behavioural patterns, which originate from the constant adjustment of the various expectations of the societal members. The Hayekian postulate of political freedom is the expression of his distrust in human knowledge and a general trust in evolutionary mechanisms.

Marta Soniewicka Jagiellonian University

A Command Without a Commander – From the Paradigm of Normativity to the Paradigm of Responsibility1

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n the paper, I shall analyze the Kantian duty-based concept of normativity and its alternative – a value-based approach to ethics offered by Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann, which transforms normativity into responsibility. Both approaches have one thing in common, namely that they base universal morality on an assumption of the absence of God, who is not seen by them as the source or the arbiter of morality anymore. One of the short novels entitled “An Imperial Message”, written by Franz Kafka, deftly grasps the problem. The novel tells us the moving story of a herald who bears a message from a dead emperor: The Emperor – so they say – has sent a message, directly from his death bed, to you alone, his pathetic subject, a tiny shadow which has taken refuge at the furthest distance from the imperial sun. He ordered the her  This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation. I owe thanks to Prof. Jacek Filek who inspired me to work on Hartmann and Scheler. I want to thank Dr. Jan Wawrzyniak for his insightful remarks. I want to also thank Prof. Robert Audi for his for his useful opinion which contributed to both my thinking on the topic and the final version of the paper; as well as for his particularly helpful discussion from which I have benefited.

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ald to kneel down beside his bed and whispered the message in his ear. (…) And in front of the entire crowd of those witnessing his death (…) he dispatched his herald. The messenger started off at once, a powerful, tireless man… (F. Kafka, An Imperial Message, trans. by I. Johnston)2

In reading this novel one may wonder what makes the messenger obliged to bear the message if the one who sent the message is no more?; or whether anybody owes respect to the message if the source of its respect is no more? Both questions concern the same thing which is the main issue discussed in the paper – the mystery of obligation and the problem of a normative authority. Although Kafka’s hero is faced with enormous difficulties and obstacles, like the death of the emperor, the resistance of the huge crowd, the never-ending rooms and courtyards of the palaces, which make his task unachievable and his efforts futile, he keeps running. And therefore hope remains. Kafka, like many other existential writers, is obsessed with absurdity of life and like many of them (Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Shestov, Camus) replies to it with a strong protest, rather than despair. The imperial order is like “A tireless messenger” in the poem by Czesław Miłosz, “who runs and runs, Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies, And calls out, protests, screams.”3 The imperial message from Kafka’s novel may be a metaphor for the contemporary western morality which is rooted in Judeo-Christian thought. While the latter is founded by God, the former rejects any divine source and legitimacy. Morality – a set of precepts concerning judgments about good and evil – is not able to justify itself. Where the commander is eliminated, but his commands remain, a question arises as to why we are obliged to obey them. Thus, the problem of the justification of morals became the central one in the modern moral philosophy, and there are many who pose such questions like: “why ought

  Available online: http://www.kafka-online.info/an-imperial-message.html.   Cz. Miłosz, Meaning, trans. Cz. Miłosz and R. Hasa, Berkeley 1988, available online.

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Ought exist?” or the question of “moral necessity of morality”, as Günther Anders writes.4

1. The Imperative Ethics of Immanuel Kant Morality based on the Ought Immanuel Kant famously summarizes the enquiries of philosophy in three fundamental questions: “1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?”5 It is more difficult to answer the second question, which lies in the domain of ethics (practical reason), than to answer the first one, which lies in the domain of knowledge (pure theoretical reason). Ethics, as Kant argues, is not based on experience, a moral judgment is aprioristic, the ought precedes a deed. Moral insights comes from reason, not our senses. This way of reasoning only seems to follow the moral intellectualism of Plato, who distinguishes between a reasonable and a sensual part of human soul. For Plato, moral phenomena exist in a dimension of ideal objects. One can grasp the idea of good, just as the idea of a triangle – by its exemplifications, i.e. in good deeds. The meaning of good is comprehensible, according to Plato, through reason (like the meaning of a triangle), not through sensations. Kant says that the essence of things, “things per se” (“Dinge an sich”) is not comprehensible in the apparent world of phenomena. For Kant, however, the noumenal world of things per se, which is an equivalent of the ideal world, remains unattainable. Therefore, he gives up a cognition of the content of morality (an essence of good and evil) and offers instead cognition of a purely formal categorical imperative which is comprehensible through practical reason. And since the categorical imperative is deprived of any   G. Anders, Kafka pro i kontra, [in:] Nienasycenie. Filozofowie o Kafce, eds. Ł. Musiał, A. Żychliński, Ha!art, Kraków 2011, p. 105. 5   I. Kant, Critique of pure reason, trans. J.M.D. Meiklejohn, available online: http:// www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4280/pg4280.txt 4

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content, it is rather a postulate of a norm than a norm itself, as Karol Wojtyła argues.6 The cognition of moral duty differs from obtaining any knowledge (in geometry and so), like practical reason differs from pure reason. The former one is a self-legislator, it gives and executes the law which one ought to obey. What is morally good is commanded by practical reason. Thus, obeying the moral law (the commandment of practical reason) results in realization of the good in the world, according to the Kantian ethics. Evil for Kant means acting against the moral law and is a result of someone’s weakness of the will and her inclinations.7 The Kantian concept of evil and its origins is reduced to the analysis of its symptoms (manifested in people’s deeds); and it does not offer an analysis of its deep structure or its essence.8 The moral law commanded by practical reason (the imperative) precedes good and evil, and one may identify good or evil only through the moral law; cognition of the good is not the grounds for duty but the result of obeying the duty in the Kantian thought.9 In the Kantian ethics, judgments of what is good or evil are replaced with principles what ought to be done and what ought not to be done. It should be pointed out here that, although Judeo-Christian religion includes commandments of God, it does not produce an imperative ethics similar to the Kantian ethics of duty. “Good” is not reduced to the will of God, as St Thomas Aquinas notices, but belongs to the

  K. Wojtyła, Wykłady lubelskie, Wydaw. Towarzystwa Naukowego KUL, Lublin 2006, p. 256. 7   See I. Kant, Religia w obrębie samego rozumu, trans. A. Bobko, Znak, Kraków 1993, pp. 21 ff; B. Skarga, Kwintet metafizyczny, Universitas, Kraków 2005, pp. 95 ff; C. Wodziński, Światłocienie zła, Wydaw. Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego-FNP, Wrocław 1998, R. Safranski, Zło. Dramat wolności, trans. I. Kania, Czytelnik, Warszawa 1999. 8   See J. Tischner, Spór o istnienie człowieka, Znak, Kraków 1998, p. 29; A. Bobko, Myślenie wobec zła. Polityczny i religijny wymiar myślenia w filozofii I. Kanta i J. Tischnera, Instytut Myśli Józefa Tischnera, Kraków-Rzeszów 2007. 9   However, one may also interpret Kant differently, as one who assumes intrinsic value of a human being (dignity) and of humanity in the second version of his imperative (according to which persons are to be treated as ends and never merely as means); cf. R. Audi, The Good in the Right. A Theory of Intuition and Intrinsic Value, Princeton University Press, Princeton-Oxford 2004, pp. 99 ff. 6

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essence of God.10 What is more, in the Aristotelian as well as in the Christian ethics, moral good belongs to the nature of the being and is a foundation for any moral norm and it determines the aim (telos) of the human being. There is no division between “ought” and “is” in the Aristotelian thought or in the Christian tradition, the-ought-ethics is the product of modern secular philosophy. Kantian deontological ethics which is focused on the question “What ought we to do?” differs from ancient Greek or Christian ethics which were concerned more with the question “Who ought we to be?”. This illustrates the significant tendency in the modern moral philosophy which shifts from the integral ethics based on a concept of an ideal of life and an ideal of a person to the ethics based on duties which are about to govern deeds. Thus, in the philosophy of Kant, the moral subject is reduced to an agent (an X) which obeys or does not obey the law. Since there is plurality of values, there can be plurality of ideals of life, but the Ought is one and the same for everybody who is endowed with practical reason. Thus, the only requirement of universal morality is that everybody, while pursuing his or her personal aims, ought to obey the moral law.

Ethical rigorism and rejection of happiness In Aristotelian and Christian philosophy happiness was defined in moral terms, as a fulfillment of life, a moral integrity and harmony of a person, the final excellence of a being.11 In the modern philosophy, happiness is usually defined in psychological terms, as a state of mind created by emotions giving us a feeling of some sort of satisfaction. Happiness in this meaning is independent of good and evil.12 The happi  See M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, trans. M.S. Frings, R. Funk, Evanston, Northwestern University 1985, p. 212. 11   See K. Wojtyła, Wykłady lubelskie, op. cit., p. 182–213. 12   See N. Hartmann, Ethics. Moral Phenomena, Vol. I, trans. S. Coit, London, Routledge 2007, p. 147. 10

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est person in the world does not have to be the most virtuous person in the world. There are some who put this psychological term of happiness into the center of ethics, the best example is utilitarianism, which in its classical version reduced happiness to the purely sensual feeling pleasure and lack of pain, as Jeremy Bentham claimed. Kant assumes the utilitarian, sensual concept of happiness but strictly rejects utilitarianism as ethics. He rejects the idea that a sensual feeling could be a measure for moral judgment, claiming for an aprioristic purely formal norm of practical reason. Therefore his ethics is rigorously detached from the notion of happiness. Since every person is instinctively striving for her happiness, writes Kant, it cannot be a moral principle or a purpose of morality.13 It is rather a natural inclination and if we were only concerned with satisfying our natural inclinations, morality would be redundant. Like among other animals, nature would sufficiently govern our conduct and there would be no need to overcome nature. But this is not so among human beings who are equipped with autonomous practical reason and free will. According to the Kantian ethics, moral worth of an action is derived not from a purpose, which is to be attained by it, but from the principle which determines it.14 Only a deed from duty, not merely a deed consistent with a duty, is morally valuable.15 That is, as Scheler points out, that “only what is ‘commendable’ as good has moral value”.16 Love or faith cannot be commanded, so neither love, nor faith, nor acts of love or of faith are morally valuable in the Kantian philosophy. Love is an inclination which may determine our actions, and just as nobody can be ordered to love or not to love, nobody can be ordered to act from love either.17 Yet Kant distinguishes “love as affection”, which he calls pathological (referring to the meaning of the ancient Greek notion “pathos” – a mean of expression used in tragedies   I. Kant, Uzasadnienie metafizyki moralności, trans. M. Wartenberg, PWN, Warszawa 1981, p. 19. 14   Ibidem, p. 20. 15   Ibidem, p 16. 16   M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 214. 17   I. Kant, Uzasadnienie metafizyki moralności, op. cit., p. 20. 13

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to appeal to the audience’s emotions, deep feelings and sympathies) from the “love your neighbor”, commanded by the Scriptures, which he calls the practical. The latter is determined not by emotions (inclinations), but by practical reason (obedience to a duty) and this very often requires one to overcome an aversion (like in the case of a duty to love thy enemy). “This is practical love and not pathological” – writes Kant “ a love which is seated in the will, and not in the propensions of sense – in principles of action and not of tender sympathy; and it is this love alone which can be commanded.”18 The Kantian deontological ethics stays in opposition to any teleological ethics, including the Aristotelian and Christian ethics. For both Aristotle and St Thomas, a human being is naturally aimed at its happiness, however this happiness is understood much deeper than in utilitarianism, and not reduced to sensual feeling only. Quite the contrary, sensual pleasure may obscure the real happiness of a human being, giving only its illusion. The idea of happiness is here rooted in the objective truth and good, found in each human being aimed at its good and moral excellence. Morality and happiness are synchronized here, while in Kantian thinking they belong to the opposite realms and may often conflict with each other.19

Autonomy and freedom under the law According to Kant, morally valuable acts must be free from inclinations, and thus acting from duty means overcoming inclinations. The notion of autonomy has a pivotal meaning here. The practical reason is autonomous which means that it is self-regulated, free from coercion   Ibidem; I quote from the English version: I. Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. T.K. Abbot, available online: http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/kant_groundwork_metaphysics_morals01.htm About duty to love see also: S. Kierkegaard, Works of Love. Some Christian Reflections in the Form of Discourses, trans. H. and E. Hong, Harper & Row, New York 1964, pp. 34–196. 19   K. Wojtyła, Wykłady lubelskie, op. cit., p. 213. 18

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and any external interference in giving the moral law which determines the will. Therefore, besides this negative meaning of freedom, we also have a positive one where freedom is understood as obeying the moral law. In other words, it is freedom under the law, which is not derived from experience but belongs to the aprioristic order. Autonomy of the will is expressed in morality. Kant notices that practical reason cannot push us into action, that there is no causal necessity in the dimension of moral law like there is in the dimension of natural laws. The moral law has the practical necessity, determining the will. When the will is not only determined to obey the law but also likely to obey the law, it is named the good will and, to act morally as Kant argues, one needs the good will which is a construct out of good intentions.20 Although Kant rejected experience and feelings in ethics, he accepts one kind of ethical experience – the experience of the Ought and the feeling of respect to the law in itself. This sort of feeling is approved by Kant since it is not produced by self-love and inclinations, but by pure practical reason, thus the respect has a practical character and not a pathological one which determines the emotions of a sensual human being. “Thus the respect for the law is not a motive to morality, but is morality itself subjectively considered as a motive”,21 writes Kant. The respect imposed by the reason affects feeling and sensibility of a rational being, not the other way round. Thus, Kant reduced the moral experience to the peculiar experience of the Ought, which is a purely formal moral feeling: “This feeling (which we call the moral feeling) is therefore produced simply by reason. It does not serve for the estimation of actions nor for the foundation of the objective moral law itself, but merely as a motive to make this of itself a maxim.”22   Cf. R. Audi, Practical Reasoning and Ethical Decision, Routledge, London-New York 2006, pp. 45 ff. 21   I quote the English version: I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. T.K. Abbott, available online: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5683/pg5683.txt 22   Ibidem. 20

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God is not completely absent in the philosophy of Immanuel23 Kant, but remains unattainable. And because of the God’s unattainability Kant founds morality not in the Haven, but in one’s own (practical) reason (“the starry heavens above and the moral law within”24). The fundamental moral norms are not given by God, but they are to be set before the tribunal of self-legislating reason. Normative ethics satisfies its need for authority in the authority of practical reason. In Kant’s philosophy, a concept of God is not used as the justification for morality, but the other way round, morality proves the idea of God.25

2. The Critique of the Imperative Ethics From the Perspective of the Value Ethics of Nicolai Hartmann and Max Scheler Even though the Ought was set in the centre of Kantian ethics, the concept of ought was not the subject of an analysis in any Kant’s works. Probably the most insightful and most scrupulous analysis of the Ought comes from the phenomenological enquiries presented by Nicolai Hartmann. Both Scheler and Hartmann criticize the imperative formal ethics of Kant, just to offer the value-based ethics in the place of Kant’s duty-based ethics. Let me now summarize the objections raised by both authors against the Kantian imperative ethics which reveal the most important point of their own approach to ethics: (1) ethical formalism and negativism of the normative Ought; (2) ethical rigorism and the problem of happiness; (3) the inner necessity of a duty and the problem of authority.

  Ironically, Kant’s first name – Immanuel – comes from Hebrew, meaning “God is with us”. 24   I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, op. cit. 25   Ibidem. 23

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Ethical formalism vs. ethical emotionalism In the ethics of Kant, it is assumed that one cannot grasp morality in phenomena. Moral facts are unknowable, thus the moral experience is understood as the purely formal experience of the Ought, the obedience to the moral law set by the pure practical reason, as it was said above. In contemporary moral philosophy, which goes one step further, moral facts are usually rejected or reduced to mental constructions. Ethical nominalism,26 started by Thomas Hobbes and continued in a most radical way by Friedrich Nietzsche, rejects the existence of autonomous value-facts.27 According to ethical nominalism, there are no moral facts and our moral judgments result from social conventions, or so the argument goes. The concepts “good” and “evil” are human inventions which only exist in language and express feelings or instincts to act in a certain way. Since they are comprehensible only through meanings, (never-ending) interpretation replaces eternal ideas, as Nietzsche claims.28 Thus, “meaning” may be understood as “a rule of applying”. In other words, to understand what good or evil means, one has to analyze how these words are applied (to which situations, in which contexts). There is no autonomous idea of good or evil to which these notions could relate and, therefore, there is no place for an objective moral experience. In this way of thinking, commanding “You shall do so and so”, is an enunciation of the will to determine somebody’s action. Scheler objects to both Kantian formalism and ethical nominalism. Both Scheler and Hartmann assume, in contrast to Nietzsche, that there are moral facts – objective and universal values. They both   M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 166.   F. Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse (JGB)-IV-108, die Digitale Kritische Gesamtausgabe Werke und Briefe (eKGWB) von Friedrich Nietzsche auf der Grundlage der Kritischen Gesamtausgabe Werke, herausgegeben von Giorgio Colli und Mazzino Montinari, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York 1967 und Nietzsche Briefwechsel Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York 1975, herausgegeben von Paolo D‘Iorio, http://www.nietzschesource.org/texts/eKGWB. 28   F. Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (FW)-V [374]; eKGWB. 26 27

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assume, in contrast to Kant, that one may attain the ideal world of values. They claim that phenomena reveals the essence of things (things per se). Scheler argues that moral facts are true and independent of our mental processes and perception. They are in the sphere of ideal objects, like concepts in geometry, yet they are different from them. Neither Scheler nor Hartmann falls into Platonism. They reject the statement, that values are only ideal objects as objects denotated by mathematical concept-words, that is they reject to assume that a value is an ideal which one can only approximate and never meet (they reject the unattainability of ideal values not their ideal status as such). What is more, they reject that moral facts are grasped by reason. Scheler argues that moral facts are, in contrast to the sphere of knowledge, facts of non-formal intuition.29 For instance, a child can recognize good acts without having the concept of good. A “sense of value” is also different from consciousness of principles.30 Value feeling is “a clearer or obscurer acquaintance with the worth or worthlessness” of something (a conduct, an object, a quality etc.).31 A moral experience of goodness and evil seems psychologically different from an experience of following the rules of a game or conforming to the principles of etiquette in social life. Psychology or biology cannot explain the content of norms, but only the process of the norm-giving of some contents. As Hartmann puts it: “there is something else real in persons, which is not constructed out of laws of existence; namely the accompanying feeling of value, which rejects and accepts, condemns and justifies.”32 Feeling values, not the experience of the Ought, is the primary moral act for Scheler and Hartamnn. Scheler distinguishes between feeling positive values (beauty, utility etc.) and feeling moral values (good and evil). The former has an intentional character, while the latter is experienced unintentionally, as Scheler argues. The intentional element of feeling positive values is included in the will. When   M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 166.   N. Hartmann, Ethics…, op. cit., p. 100. 31   Ibidem. 32   Ibidem, p. 100. 29 30

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one feels positive values, one wants to realize them. There is a difference between an automatic reaction to pain expressed in crying: “Ouch” and the statement: “I feel pain”.33 The former neither means nor signifies anything, it is a mere expression of what one feels. Yet the statement “I feel pain” means and signifies something, it includes an intention to communicate something. Evaluating something as beautiful is not like crying “Ouch”, as Scheler points out. When I am confronted with a stunning piece by Caravaggio and sigh “Wow” or when I start crying when listening to one of the arias in La Traviata, it is merely an emotional reaction. But I may also be forced to cry when I hit my leg and I may sigh “Wow” upon seeing how fast a car is going. Although the emotional reactions seem to be the same, my opinion about these experiences may be significantly different. By saying “It is a beautiful painting” I relate to the value-content, as Scheler writes, of the admired work, not to a painting, but to “its beauty which flashes out” through the painting.34 Our states of feelings may be different and changeable, yet values remain constant, as Scheler argues. Even if there were nobody sensitive enough to feel and to appreciate the beauty of the Appassionata written by Beethoven, it would not deprive the music of its beauty. Yet with moral values it is different. Scheler argues that the value of good and evil cannot be the purpose of a moral act.35 Moral value cannot be realized, but only sensed in realizing other positive values. One cannot be aimed at good itself, but only at feeling good in acts realizing values. Scheler assumes that values have their own order (an objective hierarchy), there are higher and lower values, and one may experience moral good when higher values are realized over lower ones. To put it differently, one may want beauty (and by wanting it to experience good), but one may not want goodness itself, which can be only sensed, not realized. If one is aimed at experiencing one’s own goodness (if one wants to feel   M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., pp. 168–169.   Ibidem, p. 173. 35   K. Wojtyła, Wykłady lubelskie, op. cit., p. 29. 33 34

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that she is good), it is a sort of pharisaism, not a real moral attitude, as Scheler claims.36 Thus, to feel goodness, one has not to be aimed at goodness. It means that in the Scheler’s value-ethics, a normative character of moral values disappears, they have a descriptive character, being reduced to the purely emotional level.37 In this ethics, it is not said what is good or evil to direct our actions, but goodness and evil are sensed while we act in accordance or in discordance the objective order of values. Thus, there is assumed a sort of “correctness” of value feeling, this is not a norm yet. The system of values exist beyond norms and Scheler’s value-ethics is an anormative ethics. Scheler strongly objects to the normative Ought which stays in opposition to his ethics of substantive values (materiale Wertethik) because of at least three reasons: (a) arbitrariness; (b) negativity; (c) restrictiveness of a normative Ought. Firstly, if one claims that the origins of ethical values are in assessments according to a norm (a measure) or a purpose, attributed to value-free psychic processes, it remains unclear where these measures come from. Are they arbitrary, like a metre in physics, asks Scheler.38 Arguing so would bring us to a paradox, that a world with morals and a world without them would be identical apart from assessments and laws following them, says Scheler.39 Secondly, everything rooted in a command (imperative, norm, even an advice) has a negative character. If we say that something ought to be done, we assume that there is something which is not as it ought to be. Thus, moral values remain “an eternal Not-Being, an Ought-to-Be”.40 There are “unfulfilled values” which have a claim (command) to be fulfilled.41 This approach excludes the moral sensitivity to existing values, to everything what is valuable and present   Ibidem.   Ibidem, pp. 264–265. 38   M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 197. 39   Ibidem, p. 201. 40   N. Hartmann, Ethics…, op. cit., p. 36. 41   Ibidem, p. 99. 36 37

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in our life, it excludes the affirmation of life. “An ethics exclusively of the Ought is a moral delusion”,42 as Hartmann states, since it’s blind to the reach and enriching realm of values. Scheler and Hartmann distinguish between the ought of duty (Ought-to-Do) and the ideal ought (Ought-to-Be).43 The Ought-to-Do is directed to a subject and concerns a good which is not present and which depends on somebody’s action; it concerns non-existing values. The Ought-toBe concerns, on the other hand, the relation between values and reality; the ideal sphere of Ought is not directed to anybody and is not dependent on somebody’s action. To the ideal sphere of Ought belongs the statement: “There ought to be justice in the world”, while to the actual sphere of Ought (the ought of duty) belongs the statement: “You ought to act justly” (which is a specification of the ideal Ought). Hartmann explains the difference between these two kinds of ought by saying: “I ought to do what ought to be, in so far as it ‘is’ not, and in so far as to make it actual is in my power”.44 A negative aspect of the Ought refers only to the ought of duty, not to the ideal ought. Scheler accepts only the ideal ought, which is founded on values, according to Hartmann. Values cannot be exhausted in any moral deeds, they may be only confirmed in action.45 Nevertheless values, with their ideal Ought, are indifferent with regards existence, they do not depend on human action. Scheler rejected the normative Ought as a significant element of a moral life since a fully-fledged moral experience is free from any urging of a norm, duty, command. A fully-grown moral person is sensitive to values and responsive to them without any sense of duty, she lets values arise and to be realized in and through her. Duties are not based on moral insights, as Scheler argues, people need to follow norms only when the moral insights weaken or when feeling values are obscured. An imperative   Ibidem, p. 36.   M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 185; N. Hartmann, Ethics…, op. cit., pp. 247 ff. 44   N. Hartmann, Ethics…, op. cit., p. 248. 45   J. Filek, Z badań nad istotą wartości etycznych, Platan, Kraków 1996, p. 78. 42 43

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ethics is based on a distrust in human nature and on a distrust of the moral abilities of man to sense good.46 Thirdly, the imperative ethics has a restrictive character since it is focused mainly on what is forbidden, what one ought not to do; it mainly concerns rather proscriptions than prescriptions.47 Duty, even if positively expressed, says that the opposite to what you ought to do is forbidden. Having value insights is, by contrast to following a duty, positive. Saying that somebody is a virtuous man is not excluding other ways of life which can be virtuous too. Experiencing the beauty of a particular work of art does not mean that everything which does not belong to the object is deprived of beauty.

Ethical rigorism vs. the fullness of life based on values Staying in opposition to utilitarian thinknig, Kant also rejected happiness and emotions as a part of moral experience which lead him to the above analyzed ethical rigorism. Both Hartmann and Scheler also reject utilitarianism, but in a different way. They object to both the utilitarian and the Kantian argumentation (with regard to relation between desires or inclinations and values), as well as the utilitarian concept of happiness followed and rejected by Kant. Firstly, classical utilitarianism inverted the relation between values and desires. Instead of striving for something what is valuable for us, in utilitarian ethics something becomes valuable when one is striving for it.48 This brings about a counterintuitive situation in which the more desirable good, the more valuable it is (watching Eurovision would be more valuable than watching The International Fryderyk   Cf. R. Audi, The Good The Good in the Right, op. cit., chapter 4, pp. 121–160 (where the Author argues for deontology which takes intrinsic value of good seriously on the ground of the “marriage” of Kant with Ross). 47   M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 193. 48   Cf. J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London 1871, p. 53. 46

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Chopin Piano Competition; of course for many people this is true but in a utilitarian approach value of music would be measured by desires instead of measuring desires according to values). We fall into an absurd paradox where if people have great pleasure in watching people being tortured, the act of torture becomes less objectionable (which is also counterintuitive since we usually object more to the pleasure derived from torturing to the torturing itself). Kantian ethics, though in opposition to utilitarianism, follows this sort of radical inversion. In the Kantian doctrine, values are only expressions of that, towards which the Ought is directed; they do not determine the will, but the will determines the values. Something is not ordered because it is valuable, but it is valuable because it is ordered. Obeying the law in itself has the highest value in the Kantian ethics, and following the law for any other purpose than the law itself is deprived of moral value just as acting from any sort of inclinations. This may lead to the absurdity, pointed out by Scheler, of where moral value is weighed according to the effort put into obeying the law, i.e. the more inclination one has to overcome, the more her action is morally worthy49. This seems, however, counterintuitive. People used to praise more the deeds of a virtuous person, who has a good character and strong empathy and who is emotionally involved in doing good than the deeds of a person who has a bad character and weak empathy but overcomes it and acts with repulsion to meet her duty in doing good. The admiration for a person’s excellence is present in many spheres of human life. Values cannot be measured by how much (sacrifice, effort) they cost. It seems obvious that a long-lasting marriage is more valuable when it is based on love and friendship then a long-lasting marriage   Scheler writes: “…Kant falls victim to an error (…). He makes the moral value of an action dependent on its cost, on the sacrifices made by the one who acts.” (M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 228). This is the Scheler’s interpretation of Kant’s words: “Yet virtue is here worth so much only because it costs so much, not because it brings any profit.” (I quote the English version: I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. T.K. Abbott, Part II, Methodology, paragraph 10, available online: http:// www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5683/pg5683.txt). Cf. R. Audi, The Good…, chapter 3, p. 80–120. 49

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based on an obligation to keep promises and a sense of duty to stay together against all strong inclinations. Loyalty, trust and respect to each other is more valuable than loyalty, trust and respect to the law. Only moral impotence and resentment, as Scheler argues, may bring about the devaluing of good inclinations in favour of sacrifice and inner struggle to conform a moral duty.50 Ordering something towards which we are determined by love is not only redundant, but also offensive to our love. A duty (or a norm) is a very poor foundation for ethics, as Scheler concludes.51 It would be easy to answer a question, writes Scheler, why I ought to conform the norm, when I recognize that by following that norm I realize the positive values.52 The Ought is dependent on values, but not vice-versa. As Hartman writes: “The Ought signifies direction towards something, the value signifies the something itself to which the direction points”.53 Values are the “energy” behind the ideal Ought (Ought-to-Be), they are the “first movers” in Aristotelian meaning, as Hartmann suggests.54 They give the power and the direction to the Ought-to-Be. The Ought-to-Be foresees and anticipates the final point (the value). The ideal Ought may determine the reality only indirectly, through the subject. The Ought confronts the subject as a positive claim of values. One may pose here the question of how we can put moral value to anything which results from who we are and not what we chose. In Kantian ethics, the Ought presupposes ability to conform it (“you can, for you ought”). Scheler and Hartmann both agree that sensitivity to values is an ability which is not developed to the same extent in everybody. Just like there are some brilliant mathematicians who are able to make deep mathematical insights, there are some who have a much greater moral ability to feel values and to respond to them than the average person. There are at least two solutions, given by Sche  M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 231.   Ibidem, p. 191. 52   Ibidem. 53   N. Hartmann, Ethics…, op. cit., p. 248–249. 54   Ibidem, p. 272. 50 51

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ler: (a) following authorities; (b) practice (education of the will). People who are unable to feeling values deeply should learn from and follow those who can (moral authorities, saints, heroes, great artists etc.), even if it requires some sort of belief or trust. Following norms may help in creating moral habits which are needed for development of moral virtues. Yet it is much more helpful to follow somebody’s example in developing habits. Thus, it is more important for a moral education to have moral authorities than a set of principles. Sensitivity to values is something that everybody can, and should, practice and develop, it is a matter of the individual development of each person. Moral education requires in the value-based approach the shaping of one’s own character, “the education of the will”.55 This sort of education is concerned with opening new faculties and possibilities in a person and the activation of her ability to sense values. Following norms can be helpful in shaping moral character, but it is definitely not enough since it does not gives us any positive insights and cannot help us to feel values. For instance, instead of saying to a child that one ought to read books and study hard, parents can try to open up the child’s eyes to the value of reading books and studying (showing the child how fascinating and beautiful it may be). The ethos based on values is understood as the best possible means for sensing values and their hierarchical relations. Values do not change, but our feeling of values and sensitivity to them change. Thus, the value-based ethos is changeable and varies from age to age, from community to community, from person to person. Secondly, happiness is understood differently by Scheler and Hartmann. It is not reduced to a purely sensual state based of pleasure and lack of pain (hedonistic happiness).56 Reducing the emotional life of a person to the sensual aspect is misleading. Thus, Sche  M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 236.   Cf. J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, op. cit., chapter 2, p. 8–38. Mill understands happiness as pleasure and absence of pain, but he extends the meaning of pleasure in his work, distinguishing higher and lower pleasures; he rejects Bentham’s quantitative hedonism to replace it with his own qualitative hedonism instead. 55 56

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ler argues for a reconsideration of happiness which he refers to feeling values. He distinguishes different levels of feelings, such as “bliss” (“Seligkeit”), “blisfullness” (“Glückseligkeit”), “happiness” (“Glücklichsein”), “serenity” (“Heiterkeit”), “joy” (“Fröhlichkeit”), “feelgood” (“Wohlgefühl”) etc.57 Happiness is founded in feeling values and the deepest happiness depends on “a consciousness of one’s own moral goodness.”58 But as one cannot be aimed at one’s own goodness, as it was said above, one cannot be aimed at happiness. In contrast to eudaemonism, Scheler and Hartmann reject the idea that happiness may be a goal towards which one is striving or a purpose of willing and acting.59 As Scheler insightfully points out, “happiness is the root and source of virtue”, not the goal of a virtuous person. “Only the happy person acts in a morally good way”,60 not a person who seeks happiness and satisfaction in her acts. To sum up, one may quote Hartmann who writes, “Every ethics of duty and of the Ought alone, all purely imperative morals, commits this blunder – the blunder of overlooking the fullness of life.”61 For many centuries, the main question of moral philosophy and philosophy itself was the question of the meaning of life. The ethics which neglects that question, focusing on what ought to be done, is not only impoverished but unjustifiable. It is more important to know what do we live for, than to know how should we act, as Jacek Filek points out.62 One cannot talk about the fullness of life without a full   M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 330.   Ibidem, p. 359. 59   Hartmann writes: „Happiness does not depend solely upon the attainable goods of life to which it seems to be attached. It depends at the same time, or rather primarily, upon an inner predisposition, a sensitiveness of the individual himself, his capacity for happiness. But this capacity suffers under the effort to attain happiness. It is greatest where the good involved was least sought for, where it falls unexpectedly into one’s lap. And it is smallest, where it is passionately yearned for and striven after. (…) Real happiness always approaches from another side than one expects. It always lies where one is not seeking it. It always comes as a gift…” (N. Hartmann, Ethics…, op. cit., p. 149–150). Equally doubtful would be striving for love. 60   M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 359. 61   N. Hartmann, Ethics…, op. cit., p. 36. 62   J. Filek, Z badań nad istotą wartości etycznych, op. cit., p. 107. 57 58

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conception of a moral personality. Therefore, Scheler claims the necessity of developing philosophical anthropology which considers the concept of a moral person.63 Particular deeds should not be detached from the life and personality of a subject and should not be judged in separation since all deeds are embedded in the process of life. The Kantian notion of the self, detached from the context of life and personal identity seems to be an inappropriate point of departure for ethics. The moral person is significantly different from an agent, “an X of possible doings that ought to be done”.64 There are two elements of moral personality: freedom and the power to carry moral values, as Hartmann argues.65 This will be further analyzed in the following section.

The inner necessity of a duty vs. responsibility The idea of the subjective origin of the Ought in Kantian philosophy is objected to by Hartmann, who argues that the concept of free will and autonomous practical reason as a legislator contradict each other.66 The problem, pointed out by Hartmann, is that free will cannot be a legislator of the law and an executor of the law in the same time. To put it differently, the free will which legislates itself cannot remain free to act (to follow or not to follow the own legislation).67 If I am free to govern myself, can I be also fully free to accept or reject this governance? This seems to be a schizophrenic situation in which   M. Scheler, Człowiek i historia, [in:] Pisma z antropologii filozoficznej i teorii wiedzy, trans. A. Węgrzecki, PWN, Warszawa 1987, p. 150. 64   Idem, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 184. 65   N. Hartmann, Ethics…, op. cit., p. 268. 66   Ibidem, pp. 155–160. 67   Hartmann writes: “Can the will, in so far as it is supposed to be free to follow the principle or not, be at the same time itself the originator of the principle? Is it conceivable that it should first give the law and then transgress it? For it must be able to transgress it, since otherwise it would not be free will but would be subjected to the principle as to a natural law. But if the principle be already contained in its essence, how can the will deviate from it?” (Ibidem, p. 159). 63

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the will plays both the role of a commander and the role of the commanded subject. To assume that there are any commands that one ought to obey, one needs an external source of commands, concludes Hartmann. But in Kantian philosophy, the moral law does not come from beyond. Duty is an inner necessitation directed against our inclinations (everything that “wells up” in me, like thirst, lust etc.) and against or independent of individual aims. “Duty is an authority from within”, says Scheler, “a command that comes from us and resounds in us”.68 Yet saying “you ought to do so-and-so” is based on a relation, requires the one who commands and the one who follows the commands, it creates a sort of obligation. “Every idea of duty is based on the obligation of an order”, Scheler writes, “It makes no sense to speak, as Kant does, of a duty that is floating in the air, as it were, a duty vis-à-vis no one, and which is not imposed by the order of an authority”.69 The idea of “the inner command of a knowing-oneself-to-be-obliged”70 is troubling since one cannot give orders to oneself and cannot be obliged to oneself in the strict meaning of this term.71 Of course, one may follow one’s own rules, just as one pursues her aims. Yet making vow to oneself requires a second party since one swears vows before another one (for instance, before God), as Scheler points out.72 Being obliged means to owe something to somebody. Owing something to oneself, for instance I owe myself to cultivate my talents, is understandable only when I assume that I do not belong fully to myself (but to God, for instance) and that my talents are goods entrusted to me (by God, for instance). Thus, the Kantian idea of liberating man from external morality and subjecting him to a morality rooted in himself requires abandoning the ought, otherwise it seems to be misleading. Instead of Kantian transcendental subjectivism, which remains in opposition to the freedom of the will, they argue for the objectivity of   M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 193.   Ibidem, p. 211. 70   Ibidem, p. 203. 71   Ibidem, p. 211. 72   Ibidem. 68 69

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an a priori self-existent ideal sphere of values.73 Self-existence of values means that their ideal existence is independent of a subject and its consciousness. Values are “relative” to the subject but not determined by the subject. The realm of values is external to the subject. Therefore, the subject, a moral being without the internal determination of the will, remains fully free to respond to the values or not to respond. In other words, the subject is free and able to respond to values, i.e., responsible. Values do not coerce one to action, they determine consciousness and transform a subject by passing through him and by setting up an end. Values are like goods entrusted to the subject which can be preserved, enhanced or lost. The subject plays a significant role in value ethics. The subject is situated between the ideal world of values and the reality in which the values can be realized.74 The subject is the only connection between these two worlds since the subject is the only conscious being sensitive to values who can introduce them into reality. One cannot create values, the values create and determine the moral personality of a subject. Values give dignity to a human being by transforming a subject into a moral person with ends. Sensing values constructs the moral consciousness of a person, which is never complete, but always open to further developments. Values have an ideal nature of a priori insight.75 To sum up, the significant difference between the metaphysics of normativity (based on impersonal duties) and the metaphysics of personality (based on values) is that the value-based ethos is, in contrast to the duty-based ethos, an individual ethos realized only in a particular moral being of a particular person. The Ought imposes the same duties on everybody, yet values are experienced differently by different people and in different contexts of their life; what is good for one person may be not good for another one. The metaphysics of personality in Hartmann’s philosophy is also an alternative to the Christian metaphysics of the image of God in man (imago Dei). “The metaphysical heritage of   N. Hartmann, Ethics…, op. cit., pp. 158–165.   Ibidem, p. 257. 75   Ibidem, p. 222. 73 74

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God falls to man” as Hartmann claims.76 By restoring to values the ideal self-existence, Hartmann wants to restore to man what is man’s. Ethics which attributed foresight, predetermination, providence and predestination to Divinity, now give to man the attribute of Divinity, creating a “human providence” according to values, not to a duty.77 This metaphysics is termed by Scheler the “postulating atheism of solemnity and responsibility” in contrast and as a reply to the theism postulated by Kant.78 This is not mere atheism, as Scheler argues with approval, since Hartmann does not say that there is no God, but that one has to behave as if there were no God. In Hartmann’s opinion, the concept of a divine teleology brings about the nullification of man as a moral person.79 To become a moral person, i.e. fully responsible for one’s own life, one has to reject the idea of any divine predestination and reject the idea of God who is responsible for the world and for man.

3. Controversies Concerning Value Ethics and the Paradigm of Responsibility The problem of moral agency Scheler rejected the normative Ought (the Ought of duty), as it was already said, making feeling value the central part of moral experience. The only Ought he accepts is the ideal Ought (the Ought-to-Be of values, as Hartmann writes). Although the structure of the Ought was deeply analyzed by Hartmann in his major work entitled Ethics, the concept disappeared in his later works. The concept of the Ought has been replaced by merely descriptive concepts such as “demanding”, “commanding” and “claiming”, as Filek stresses.80 Values have   Ibidem, p. 282.   Ibidem, p. 281-282. 78   M. Scheler, Człowiek i Historia…, op. cit., p. 150. 79   N. Hartmann, Ethics…, op. cit., pp. 287 ff. 80   J. Filek, Z badań nad istotą wartości etycznych, op. cit., pp. 63 ff. 76 77

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an element of demanding, they claim to be realized (claim of their execution), to be materialized, as Hartmann assumes. The anormative ethics of Scheler and Hartmann seems, however, incomplete. The normative Ought and the realm of values exclude each other on the grounds of both Kantian ethics and the value ethics of Scheler and Hartmann. Yet, in general experience, norms and values do not exclude each other, as Wojtyła points out, but rather coexist to complement each other.81 Neither a pure norm, nor a pure value give the full picture of moral life. Both Kant and Scheler (or Hartmann) present an incomplete vision of a moral experience because they only pick up one of its elements –norms (Kant) or values (Scheler and Hartmann) – and reduce the full moral experience to it. The upshot is that the reductionist value ethics of Scheler and Hartmann obscures the problem of human agency, as Wojtyła writes.82 There is a gap between feeling and acting; feeling values is not enough to answer the question, why they are realized by the subject. Values exist independently of human consciousness and action, they transmit through the subject transforming her. Thus, it seems that values are “using” a human being to be realized. A person is only feeling values, not acting herself but rather letting the values to go through her. It means that a moral person is the subject of moral feelings in Scheler’s ethics, but not a moral agent anymore.83 Kant reduced moral life to the respect to the law created by the pure practical reason, Scheler, on the other hand, reduces moral life to the purely emotional level (to feelings). People recognize themselves as moral persons, as Wojtyła argues, by acting and being aware of the fact that they are acting in a good or wrong way, and that is why they have a feeling of desert or of guilt.84 In other words, people feel that they are good-doers or evil-doers, i.e. that they are perpetrators of values. In Scheler’s ethics, however, the subject may be aimed only at the realization of positive values; moral values happen to her while she is realizing other values.   K. Wojtyła, Wykłady lubelskie, op. cit., p. 58.   Ibidem, p. 32, p. 50. 83   Ibidem, p. 32. 84   Ibidem, p. 34. 81 82

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As it was already said, one may want positive values (feeling of positive values has an intentional character, directed to something) and realize them, but one may not want moral values (goodness or evil). Therefore, Scheler excludes a reasonable, active and creative participation of a person in the shaping of her moral deeds, as Wojtyła concludes.85 The very important point, which is lacking here, is the will, as Wojtyła claims.86 The will, i.e. wanting to do good or evil, has a special determining character and moves people to actions. The will also has a significant meaning in moral experience as the foundation for feelings of guilt and desert. The will unifies norms (the Ought) and values (feeling values) in a moral act.87 Normativity gives a direction for moral acting (the feeling of normativity does not have a negative character only – a norm can give a positive example), and acting is the source of values. Moral feeling should not, as Wojtyła argues, be detached from moral agency.88

The concept of responsibility given instead of normativity As discussed in the previous section, by rejecting normativity Scheler also rejected moral agency, reducing morality to the emotional sphere of feelings. Although Scheler and Hartmann lose moral agency somehow by rejecting normativity, they introduce the notion of responsibility to their value ethics. One may pose the question of how responsibility may be possible without the will and agency that seems to be her source. To answer this question, I shall analyze the concept of responsibility in their approach. The notion of responsibility is usually understood negatively, particularly in jurisprudence and this means that if one fails to meet her   Ibidem, p. 171.   Ibidem, p. 35. The idea of the will is the core idea of human freedom to choose discovered by Christianity, as Hannah Arendt argues (H. Arendt, Wola, Czytelnik, Warszawa 1996, pp. 38 ff.). 87   K. Wojtyła, Wykłady lubelskie, op. cit., pp. 61–62. 88   Ibidem, p. 58. 85 86

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promises or duties with a sort of action (or refraining from action), one has to pay for all of the consequences of her failure. Responsibility in this meaning is concerned with satisfying previous wrongs and harms and is tightly connected with acting, freedom and norms. Yet the responsibility postulated by Scheler and Hartmann is different, it is future oriented, positive and more similar to the notion of care. Hartmann distinguishes future-oriented responsibility from past-oriented guilt. Only the future depends on us since we cannot change the past. Thus, only future-oriented responsibility can be a constructive and positive (creative) point of departure for ethics in his opinion. Scheler, on the other hand, provides a sharp distinction between accountability (imputability) and responsibility, where the former one means the “ability of a person to be the subject of imputable actions”.89 Both concepts should not be confused. Responsibility has, according to Scheler, much broader meaning, one is not only responsible for one’s previous deeds, but for one’s whole life, for the lives of those who are dependent on her; one is also co-responsible for all of the persons in the world (the principle of solidarity), as Scheler claims.90 Hartmann also increases the scope of responsibility of a person to maximum, arguing that the limits of responsibility are specified by the limits of our power. We are responsible for everything which is in our powers. Such a very broad concept of responsibility is asymmetric (one is responsible for future generations but the future generation is not responsible for the previous ones, for instance) and impartial. This concept of responsibility is tightly connected with values. As it was already said, people differ in their sensitivity to values. The more sensitive to positive values you are, the more responsible for them (for their realization) you become. By feeling values a subject is transformed into a moral person who feels responsible for the realisation of the values. Scheler and Hatmann argue for the rejection of the Kantian idea of internal duty and claim that duty must be external to the subject, as M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, op. cit., p. 486.   Ibidem, p. xxiv.

89  90

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mentioned above. They also argue for rejecting external duty in favor of an internal tendency to do good. Within their approach, instead of posing norms to guide our moral behavior, we should shape our character and ability to respond to values. This brings us to the notion of responsibility which is understood as being able to respond to values which are entrusted to us. The internal feeling of responsibility seems more adequate for Scheler to address the phenomena of internal moral experience (i.e., the relation of a moral person to values which are to be realized in the world). An order of a duty can never be fully ours, as Scheler argues, it always comes from outside, imposes an obligation and requires a commander. Yet claims of values become our own claims when we feel values, i.e. when we feel responsible. Responsibility is not an element which is lacking between moral feeling and moral acting, since the entire moral experience remain on the level of feeling, responsibility in this peculiar meaning does not change the picture. The point of departure in their ethics is feeling value, by which one feels responsible. Just as for Socrates to know good means to do good, for Scheler to feel values (and to feel responsible) means to follow them.91 However, responsibility is here not a descriptive category, but an ontological one.92 Being a person is understood here as being responsible; responsibility becomes a real definition of a moral being. By the notion of responsibility, Scheler and Hartmann want to overcome the distinction between the “Ought” and the “Is”, to reunite a person as a moral. They do it at the cost of moral agency, which is lost in their picture of moral experience. It also seems that by such an extension of the range of responsibility, it loses its meaning. Responsibility belongs to these concepts which weaken with their extension. Scheler, who did not reject fully the idea of God,93 claims that man is also responsible for God, who is, just as man and the world, in the process   J. Filek, Z badań nad istotą wartości etycznych, op. cit., p. 82.   Idem, Ontologizacja odpowiedzialności, Baran i Suszczyński, Kraków 1996, p. 9. 93   Scheler rejected theism, claiming for a sort of “Non-Theism” in his last works (J. Filek, Filozofia odpowiedzialności XX wieku, Znak, Kraków 2003, p. 62). 91 92

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of becoming. The idea of the becoming God and the responsibility for God was many years later continued by Hans Jonas in his book entitled “The Idea of God after Auschwitz”.94 However, being responsible for everybody and everything, including God, brings about the nullification of responsibility.

The question of the tribunal of responsibility As it was already said, Hartmann and Scheler object to the idea of inner duty as it is inconsistent with freedom. They claim that the Ought must be external, that it needs a commander.95 But just as for Kant being free was to be free under the law, in the paradigm of responsibility, being free means being responsible. One may pose the question of how inner responsibility is possible if the inner normativity is not. The etymology of the world “responsibility” suggests that the notion has a relational character:96 One is responsible for something or somebody and one is also responsible before something or someone. It means that considering responsibility, we have always to take into account three main dimensions of the term: subjects of responsibility (who is responsible), a range of responsibility (for what is responsible) and a tribunal of responsibility (before what or whom). Scheler rejects the tribunal of responsibility, denying “that there is a necessary related  H. Jonas, Idea Boga po Auschwitz, trans. G. Sowiński, Znak, Kraków 2003, p. 88.   One may undermine this argument by providing a distinction between authority as power and authority as normative force. In the former meaning, authority means to be in power to (do something or to be in power of something), which means that one can be an authority for herself. In the latter meaning, authority means to force to (do something, or to force something). The former meaning is connected with freedom, when the latter one with coercion. The objections of Scheler and Hartmann to the Kantian ethics of duty refer to the latter meaning of authority. This confusion may result from the ambiguity of the German notion “Gewalt” which means both power and force in the same time. This idea, which I owe to Robert Audi, requires further considerations and analysis. 96   W. Weischedel, Istota odpowiedzialności, [in:] Filozofia odpowiedzialności XX wieku. Teksty źródłowe, ed. J. Filek, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków 2004, pp. 80 ff. 94 95

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ness ‘to someone’ in the experience of responsibility.”97 Yet his rejection seems arbitrary and it remains unclear how responsibility may be detached from obligation. Hartmann, on the other hand, accepts that a tribunal is a necessary element of responsibility, and argues for an internal tribunal of the self. The internal responsibility of a moral person for the values entrusted to her is a part of her own being, i.e. it has no tribunal to which one has to respond. And this seems to be exactly the same way as that used by Kant and criticised by both Scheler and Hartmann. “Ought” is replaced with “respond”, yet the problem of the source and legitimacy remains the same. Either one has to respond, even though nobody is calling (Scheler), or one has to respond to the call of oneself (Hartmann). Wilhelm Weischedel distinguishes three kinds of tribunals of responsibility: (a) religious (God), (b) social (society); internal (I am responsible for my life before myself only).98 Just as Hartmann, he claims for the internal tribunal of the self, concluding that responsibility becomes independent of a tribunal, as far as it becomes internalized; the tribunal vanishes and is not needed anymore. This way of reasoning seems to follow the way of Kantian thinking of internal morality. It seems that in both kinds of ethics we have to assume that there was a tribunal (a commander, an executor) before but that it is not needed anymore. Accepting this, we find ourselves exactly in Kafka’s novel, bearing (or waiting for) an imperial message of a dead emperor.

5. Concluding Remarks In the paper I presented different approaches to normativity in moral philosophy, comparing Kantian imperative ethics with the value ethics of Scheler and Hartmann which was developed in opposition to   M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, footnote, p. 117.   W. Weischedel, Istota odpowiedzialności…, op. cit., p. 85; J. Filek, Ontologizacja odpowiedzialności, op. cit., p. 38. 97 98

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the former. Scheler and Hartmann believed that replacing the ethos of duty with the ethos of value-based responsibility would herald a new age of ethics. But value ethics is not free from controversies and, instead of avoiding the criticized mistakes, it seems to follow them, albeit in a different way. First of all, their value ethics reduces morality to the level of feelings and therefore transforms ethics into a peculiar psychology of value. Secondly, it does not grasp the full experience of morals, losing its most significant aspect – moral agency. Thirdly, replacing inner normativity with inner responsibility does not solve the problem of freedom and moral action. Fourthly, the extended to maximum notion of responsibility becomes an empty one. Finally, inner responsibility falls into the same trap in which the Kantian Ought was found by Scheler and Hartmann. The authors stress the necessity of an external source of the Ought and place it in values, just to transform the inner duty into the inner responsibility. However, the problem of obligation seems equally troublesome in value ethics as in imperative ethics. How can values make anybody obliged if there is nobody to whom one is obliged and how can values be entrusted to anybody if there is nobody to entrust them to? The ontological status of values also remains very unclear and controversial. Both Kantian ethics and value ethics attempt to answer the question of moral obligation without invoking any divine authority. In Kantian imperative ethics, everyone’s own reason is her own commander in morality. One’s own deeds are judged before the universal tribunal of reason which was about to make morality possible without granting the idea of God (morality justifies the concept of God). In Scheler’s and Hartmann’s ethics, the commanding reason is replaced with commanding values, and obeying duty with responding to the claim of values (i.e., by responsibility). A moral person is created and judged by objective and universal values, and morality becomes impossible when the idea of God is granted (morality replaces and excludes the concept of God). In conclusion, it is worth stressing that atheism, just as theism, is a sort of belief. While the latter is the belief that God exists, the for-

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mer is the belief that God does not exist. Yet, the philosophy of Scheler and Hartmann presented in this paper is different from atheism, it is rather a sort of anti-theism, using the notion of Henri de Lubac (or non-theism, invoking the notion of Scheler). De Lubac distinguishes three kinds of anti-theism in modern philosophy, based on three different ideals: (1) the ideal of Man-God; (2) the ideal of the Crystal Palace; (3) the ideal of the Tower of Babel.99 In the first kind of antitheism, one believes in human beings instead of God (Nietzsche); in the second, one beliefs in humanity (Marx); and in the third one, one beliefs in science (scientism). Although both Scheler and Hartmann believed in values, their anti-theism follows the path of Nietzsche, which affirms man with his responsibility. As de Lubac writes, all of these “inverted beliefs” became bankrupt in the 20th century. All of them were desperate or conceited efforts to challenge the problem of the lack of belief in God and yet all of them ended up in the embrace of other beliefs which turned out to be delusive.

  H. De Lubac, Dramat ateizmu humanistycznego, trans. A. Ziernicki, WAM, Kraków 2005, pp. 329–367. 99

Part Three

Normativity and Natural Sciences

Edward Nęcka Jagiellonian University Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies

Normativity: A Psychological Perspective1

N

ormativity is not a psychological term, so my first goal would be to translate the term “normativity” into the conceptual repertoire of contemporary psychology. In general, terms such as “norms” and “normativity” pertain to the situations in which people ought to do something, or are obliged to behave or think in a specific way.2 These obligations are supported by sanctions, meaning that if a person violates the norm, he or she should expect “penalties”, that is, negative consequences of not conforming to the norm. Alternatively, if a norm is respected, various kinds of “reward” are likely to be applied. Penalties and rewards are sometimes understood literally, as in the case of law enforcement, but sometimes they take purely psychological forms, like feelings of guilt or self-approval.   This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation. 2   “A statement is said to be ‘normative’ if it bears about what an individual ought to, about what it is right or wrong, correct or incorrect to do or to feel. Normative statements often express prescriptions, directions, permissions or interdictions. They can also express evaluations, to the effect that some actions or feelings are good or bad, valuable or not. Such a normative vocabulary is obviously most appropriate to actions, to emotions, feelings, and to various psychological attitudes, such as desires and wants” (P. Engel, unpublished material: www.unige.ch/lettres/philo/enseignants/ pe/Engel (2000)). 1

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The above-sketched definition of normativity requires some refinement. Firstly, an obligation can exist objectively, being expressed in the explicit way, or it may take the implicit form, which needs the processes of inference or deduction. On the one hand, a person is supposed to follow many explicit rules, such as the obligation to respect the elderly people. On the other hand, a person is expected to infer the implicit rules of social life, such as the obligation to reciprocate if invited for a birthday party. The complexity of human social life results in the existence of a large amount of unwritten rules of behaviour, or tacit norms, which must be acquired through individual development and implemented on one’s own in many different social situations.3 According to the evolutionary standpoint, the human brain evolved into such a powerful organ because of the necessity of dealing with the increasing complexity of the social life of our ancestors.4 And social life always implies dealing with norms, both spoken and unspoken, written and unwritten. Secondly, the norms may exist objectively, as elements of the social structure, or they may reflect one’s subjective conviction that retains only a loose association with reality, if at all. For instance, a person may be convinced that he or she is expected to be obedient to parents and older relatives, regardless of anything, e.g., no matter how these people behave, what are their intentions, and what is the general context of the given situation. Such an attitude easily results in overwhelming guilt or the feeling of inadequacy, because over obedience to the elderly is neither achievable nor desirable. In fact, people must learn on their own which rules of behaviour, if any, are absolute and which of them can be, or should be, applied flexibly, depending on the context and the general appraisal of the situation. Here, we are approaching an invisible border between the wisdom of moral permissiveness. Whereas some people   R.J. Sternberg, R.K. Wagner, L. Okagaki, Practical Intelligence: The Nature and Role of Tacit Knowledge in Work and at School, [in:] Mechanisms of Everyday Cognition, eds. J.M. Puckett, H.W. Reese, Erlbaum, New Jersey 1993, pp. 205–227. 4   B. Wojciszke, Psychologia społeczna, Scholar, Warszawa 2011. 3

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often tend to show inflexible moral attitudes that seem to them to be necessary conditions of moral behaviour, others can acquire a more adaptive, contextually determined approach to moral norms and moral behaviour. Thirdly, the norms refer both to overt behaviour and to internal states of mind. In the first case, norms regulate what we really do, whereas in the second case they regulate what we think or feel. In both instances, norms influence us according to their contents or meaning. However, the sanctions of violating the norms are usually stronger and more serious if applied to overt behaviour, whereas they may be quite weak in reference to the inner mental states of the person. In other words, it is much easier to violate a norm referring to our thoughts, attitudes, and feelings, than a norm pertaining to our actual, overt, observable behaviour. The society may tolerate “improper” modes of thinking, at the same time being quite intolerant concerning modes of behaving. Several reasons, it seems, account for this difference. First of all, “improper” thinking may be threatening but also advantageous as a means of creativity and progressive social change. Rebellious thinkers may be annoying or irritating, but at the same time there is always a social demand for such individuals. Next, “improper” thinking is just less harmful for others than “improper” behaviour. Mind is simply a means to simulate various alternatives, differing in the degree of reality and the extent to which they violate important norms. As long as such alternatives remain our inner mental representations, they do not need to result in harmful sanctions. Finally, a person usually has the opportunity not to reveal his or her convictions or attitudes in order to avoid sanctions. Altogether, the society is usually much more tolerant to inner mental states of its members than to overt actions undertaken by them, although various means to control states of mind as well as overt actions are quite commonly applied even in the case of otherwise liberal societies. The above stated definition of normativity is quite narrow because it refers to obligations, sanctions, and societal control over in-

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dividuals. Apart from this stance, psychology often refers to norms and normativity in a much broader sense. In the broader definition, the term “rules” may be more adequate than “norms”. There are many rules that govern human behaviour without pertaining to morality, law, social norms, and the question of punishment or reward. For instance, there are rules of deduction that govern our reasoning, or rules of learning that show how fast, and according to which principles, we acquire new knowledge or skills. As such, rules do not involve any deontic element, they will not be discussed in this chapter. Having defined normativity from the psychological perspective, we can now discuss specific areas of psychological research that pertain to the question of norms and normativity. Three aspects of this problem seem worthy of consideration: the problem of self-control, the question of morality and moral behaviour, and the phenomenon of conformism to the norms created by a group.

1. Self-Control Humans are able to control themselves. For instance, they are able to inhibit an impulsive action, or at least to postpone it, if such an action is improper, irrelevant, or harmful from the long-distance perspective. People may vary in their ability to keep a tight rein on their impulses but, undoubtedly, this is a unique ability, almost nonexistent amongst other species. A dog cannot control its anger or sexual desire, therefore, it is a human responsibility to educate and control domestic animals. Apart from “don’t situations”, self-control also takes place in “do” situations.5 For instance, a person may decide to get up early in the morning in order to be on time for a lecture, or she may conceive a plan to obtain an academic degree in spite of many obsta N. Meiran, Task Switching: Mechanisms Underlying Rigid vs Flexible Self-Control, [in:] Self-Control in Society, Mind, and Brain, eds. R.R. Hassin, K.N. Ochsner, Y. Trope, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, pp. 202–220. 5

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cles and impediments. Interestingly, the “don’t” situations seem more important for humans, both psychologically and socially. For example, the negative self-control (i.e., the one that pertains to inhibition of unwanted actions) develops quite early in ontogenesis, since the beginnings of this ability can be observed in children as young as 2 years old. Positive self-control (“do” situations) develops a bit later and it is fully visible only at the age of six.6 Analogically, it may be speculated that negative self-control develops before the positive in the process of anthropogenesis. For our ancestors, the ability to inhibit impulses was surely as important as the capability to conceive and execute long distance goals. However, the former was probably much more critical for their social lives than the latter, being an important instrument of anger control and within-group conflict resolution. The primacy of negative self-control over the positive is also visible in legal systems. Legal norms mostly focus on restrictions (i.e., what should not be done), whereas norms pertaining to obligations (i.e., what should be done) are less frequent and more liberal. For instance, it is more consequential from the legal point of view to cause a car accident than not to take care of the accident’s victims, although in both cases one’s behaviour would be qualified as a crime. In moral systems, this asymmetry is less salient, although the negative norms (“Thou shall not!”) prevail over the positive ones (“Thou shall!”) even in the Decalogue. Self-control is the phenomenon often referred to as “will”. In contemporary psychology, this term is slowly returning to our studies after many decades of abandonment. It was removed from the psychological vocabulary due to the dominance of behaviourists, who aimed at the elimination of many terms that seemed to them unnecessary and overly “mentalist”. Still, the return of the problem of will to psychology is not at all triumphant. Many psychologists, even without the influence of the behaviouristic doctrine, cannot fully assimilate 6   G. Kochanska, K.C. Coy, K.T. Murray, The Development of Self Regulation in the First Four Years of Life, “Child Development” 2001, no. 72, pp. 1091–1111.

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this term, preferring synonyms like “self-organization” or “self-regulation”. Indeed, there are many natural instances of self-regulation which do not require any freedom of choice or conscious realization of possible options. Ecosystems can regulate themselves through numerous and complicated but entirely natural mechanisms of negative feedback loops. If there are too many predators in the system, the population of “victims” is bound to decrease or even vanish; in such cases, the population of predators is also threatened because of a lack of food; in consequence, the population of “victims” may develop again, and so on. If we can describe and understand natural instances of self-regulation, we possess the intellectual tools to understand human instances as well, including the phenomena earlier referred to as will. In other words, self-regulation, or self-organization, seems less mysterious to psychologists, who prefer an empirical approach instead of theoretical considerations. The processes of self-regulation are possible to measure and investigate empirically, which is the core of empirical science. The term “will” does not provide such a comfort. Moreover, it is rooted in philosophical and theological debates on freedom, its nature, origins, and limitations, which are the fascinating topics but difficult to grasp with psychological methodology. From the evolutionary perspective, the ability to control oneself is a great achievement of human beings. However, this ability is sometimes deficient and, even if it is not, its exertion is usually costly. Let us discuss these points in brief. The deficiency of self-control may take many different forms. The most severe dysfunctions of self-control can be found in clinical cases of people suffering from brain injury. Accidents, strokes, and unintended lesions of brain tissue,7 usually result in negative behavioural consequences, such as the loss of important cognitive functions. The prefrontal cortex of the brain (PFC) is particularly impor  For example, surgery aimed at removing the brain tumor may result in accidental destruction of healthy tissue. 7

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tant from our point of view, since it is regarded as being responsible for planned and contextually relevant behaviour. The so-called anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is responsible for conflict monitoring, thanks to which our brain “knows” about one’s own errors, especially if the cognitive task at hand is ambiguous or incoherent. For instance, ACC “switches on” just after an error has been committed, as well as in the instances when the erroneous response could be avoided; however, both cases differ significantly in terms of the brain activation patterns.8 Moreover, there are specialized brain areas that allow response inhibition and emotional control. The brain does not rebuild its structure after injury, or the loss of neurons in general, but it is able to compensate for deficiencies thanks to the ability of the healthy brain cortex to take over the lost functions. Anyway, the consequences of brain damage to self-control may be serious and difficult to compensate for. Less severe dysfunctions of self-control may be found in the case of people who have not suffered from brain damage but have been unable to develop efficient systems of behavioural control. Prisons are full of people who have committed crimes because of their inability to inhibit impulses or to postpone gratification. Alcohol and drugs quickly and powerfully switch off self-control, but the inability to abstain from drinking or taking drugs results from lack of self-control, either. In general, lapses of self-control usually have many direct or indirect consequences concerning legal responsibility. This is neither to say that all crimes come from deficiencies of self-control nor to claim that such deficiencies must result in criminal acts. Milder instances of deficient self-control are quite common and they bring about consequences that may be socially awkward or even devastating for one’s status but are far from being categorized as crimes. For example, a person may just violate the rules of reciprocity, or behave in an eccentric, queer, or socially inaccept  M.K. Krug, C.S. Carter, Anterior Cingulate Cortex Contributions to Cognitive and Emotional Processing: A General Purpose Mechanism for Cognitive Control and SelfControl, [in:] Self-Control in Society, Mind, and Brain, eds. R.R. Hassin, K.N. Ochsner, Y. Trope, op. cit., pp. 3–26. 8

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able manner while still being able to avoid serious problems with law enforcement institutions. The cost of self-control is another interesting aspect of this phenomenon. It happens quite commonly that a person is able to behave according to the legal, moral, or conventional rules, but the cost of such control is remarkably high. It has been found that the effort needed to abstain from eating a cake during a one-hour session results in impaired performance in numerous cognitive tasks, including IQ tests.9 It seems like self-control needs some kind of cognitive “resources” that are consumed during a person’s effort not to do something that is forbidden or inadvisable. There have even been attempts to demonstrate that selfcontrol needs the energy resources of the organism: different tasks requiring self-control, such as the command not to read subtitles while watching a movie, or the necessity to withhold possible racial remarks, resulted in remarkably decreased levels of glucose in the blood. Comparative groups of participants, who were not asked to control themselves, showed a significantly smaller drop in glucose over time.10 If self-control is costly in terms of mental and physical energy, it must be particularly appreciated, as something very difficult, in the case of individuals whose ability to control themselves has not developed properly (e.g., children, impulsive adults, etc.).

2. Morality Although, traditionally, the study of morality belongs to philosophers, it is an important area of psychological research as well. However, psychologists do not focus on building and analyzing different   M. Muraven, D.M. Tice, R.F. Baumeister, Self-Control as a Limited Resource: Regulatory Depletion Patterns, “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology” 1998, no. 74, pp. 774–789. 10   M.T. Gailliot, R.F. Baumeister, C.N. DeWall et al., Self-Control Relies on Glucose as a Limited Energy Source: Willpower is More Than a Metaphor, “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology” 2007, no. 92, pp. 325–336. 9

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ethical systems. Rather, they investigate actual human behaviour in various situations that pertain to ethical norms. In this way, psychologists are rather descriptive than normative in their approach to morality. The most basic level of morality studies in psychology refers to human cognition, including knowledge and reasoning. If there is a moral standard, also known as a norm, various people may possess quite different knowledge of it. For instance, some people may be ignorant concerning moral norms, especially if such norms are not basic in nature. Everybody knows that murder is morally (and legally) unacceptable, although not everybody is knowledgeable enough to differentiate between various kinds of killing, such as premeditated killing motivated by greed, impulsive killing, or killing in self-defense. Jean Piaget11 and Lawrence Kohlberg12 were the widely known psychologists who launched the investigation of the development of moral knowledge and moral reasoning. Kohlberg was particularly influential as an author of the sequential theory of moral development. According to this stance, children develop from understanding morality in terms of reciprocity (e.g., “do not spit at others because they may treat you the same way”) or a fear of the consequences (e.g., “do not steal because you will be caught and punished”) to a more mature morality based on abstract rules (e.g., “stealing is bad because it ruins the foundations of the social contract”). These abstract rules are called “conventions”, so Kohlberg’s theory describes human moral development as a progression from a pre-conventional understanding of the norms to a mature, conventional morality. There is also the higher level of development, called the post-conventional, which is characterized by the appreciation of values rather than abstract norms. At the post-conventional stage, a person is able to make a moral choice that is inconsistent with ab J. Piaget, Rozwój ocen moralnych, PWN, Warszawa 1967. The English edition: idem, The Moral Judgment of the Child, The Free Press, New York 1965. 12   L. Kohlberg, The Psychology of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice, Harper Row, San Francisco 1984. 11

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stract norms but takes into account an important, fundamental value, such as the value of human life. For instance, stealing is bad as a rule but stealing a pharmacy to save one’s life may be good, depending on circumstances. Moral reasoning at the post-conventional stage depends on the understanding of context and motivation rather than abstract rules or conventions. Kohlberg found that the majority of the adult population do not reach the post-conventional stage of moral development, although progress can be observed even in the case of elderly people. Piaget, Kohlberg, and their followers were interested not in moral behaviour but in moral judgment. Obviously, such judgment may be in loose connection with the actual choices that people make in order to solve real-life moral dilemmas. Unfortunately, the study of actual moral behaviour is methodologically quite difficult. We know that people sometimes conform to moral norms and sometimes they do not. An interesting question arises, as to when and why people do not sometimes follow moral norms, although they know and accept them. In order to understand the discrepancy between norms and behaviour, we must realize that norms are kept in so-called long-term memory (LTM), which – by and large – is not activated. Moral norms just do not differ from the remaining part of our knowledge, which remains in a dormant state and needs some effort, or some retrieving cues, in order to be activated. A person who is about to make a moral choice must first realize that the problem is ethical in nature. If the situation is perceived as “morally indifferent” (such as the choice between different brands of toothpaste), moral norms are not activated. They are not activated even if the problem is objectively ethical but a person does not perceive it as such. Out of the sudden, the choice between different brands of toothpaste becomes an ethical issue as soon as one realizes that the available options differ in the extent to which they comply with ecological standards. Too much paper used, and wasted, for a single package of toothpaste is a sufficient reason for ecologically conscious customers to choose another brand, which is perceived as

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more acceptable from the ecological point of view. However, in order to make a moral choice concerning toothpaste, a customer must first define the problem as an ethical issue and then activate a relevant moral norm from his or her LTM store. If these conditions are not met, the human behaviour remains under the influence of situational factors, e.g., external stimuli, opportunities, and temptations, and therefore it is very unlikely to meet ethical standards. Once the norm is activated, it must be compared with other, potentially conflicting norms. The discrepancy between moral judgment and moral behaviour often results from an inconsistency between various norms. Moral development and maturation leads to the construction of a hierarchy of norms, usually based on the hierarchy of values. Having constructed such a hierarchy, a person is able to resolve moral dilemmas of the utmost complexity. However, well-done and consciously realized hierarchies of moral norms are not often found within the minds of human beings. The above-stated mechanisms aim at an explanation of the gap between moral judgment and the understanding of moral norms, on the one hand, and (im)moral behaviour, on the other. Interestingly, people do not always realize this gap, which is a phenomenon revealed through studying how people perceive themselves concerning morality. It appears that this perception is heavily biased: when asked to judge one’s own intelligence and morality on the 1–7 scale (1 = not intelligent at all or entirely immoral, 7 = highly intelligent or totally moral) most people chose the value 6 or 7 in reference to morality, whereas intelligence was judged in the more balanced manner.13 The question arises as to whether people tend to fool themselves or those responsible for data collection. Since such studies are entirely anonymous, we can draw the conclusion that most people fool themselves concerning their alleged moral virtues, and this tendency is much weaker, though still observable, concerning intelligence. For some   B. Wojciszke, W. Baryła, Perspektywa sprawcy i odbiorcy w spostrzeganiu siebie i innych, “Psychologia Społeczna” 2006, no. 1, pp. 9–32.

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reasons that need to be unfolded, it is easier for us to admit cognitive impairment than moral inadequacy. The evolutionary framework brought about quite new insights into the sources of human moral behaviour. According to Jonathan Haidt,14 morality evolved on the basis of affective processes rather than intellectual considerations of goodness or evil. The emotional “building blocks” of morality are, for example, sympathy for those who suffer or anger against those who do not reciprocate. Our emotional brain “knows” what is good or bad, not only for us but also for other people, for the group, or for the society as a whole. Abstract rules do not rule our moral behaviour, although they may motivate our reasoning and argumentation. Such rules are just a post-hoc rationalization of the basic principles dictated by the emotional brain. Imaging studies provide evidence that a specialized network in the human brain activates during the process of taking moral decisions. This network, sometimes called as “the moral brain”, consists of parts of the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC).15 It seems responsible for our “moral sense” because patients with damages involving this region of the brain not only tend to exhibit anti-social behaviour but also seem emotionally indifferent to the possibility of harming others. If intuition, rooted in inherited emotional reactions, comes before reason in the regulation of moral behaviour, such findings can shed light on the classic debate concerning the extent to which moral norms are arbitrary. It seems obvious that, if morality is rooted in the evolution of the mankind, moral norms cannot be arbitrary. One can imagine societies whose moral standards are entirely different than ours but – according to the evolutionary stance – it would be just science fiction. As far as basic moral principles are regarded, human cultures and societies are rather similar than different.   J. Haidt, The New Synthesis of Moral Psychology, “Science” 2007, no. 316, pp. 998–1002. See also: idem, The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment, “Psychological Review” 2001, no. 108, pp. 814–834. 15   M.F. Mendez, The Neurobiology of Moral Behavior: Review and Neuropsychiatric Implications, “CNS Spectr.” 2009, no. 14, pp. 608–620. 14

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3. Conformity and group influence Small groups and communities16 are abundant in our social life. We tend to form new groups, and join existing ones, in order to facilitate the attainment of our important goals. It would be rather impossible to survive and develop without close cooperation with others. The “social animal”17 does not need to realize his dependence on other members of the society; he just forms small groups automatically. Affiliation, or the need to belong, is regarded as one of the basic drives of humans and other social species. However, every group member must pay a “membership fee”, even though some members can pay less than others. For instance, fraternities and sororities in colleges require new applicants to perform an absurd act, such as singing an operatic aria while standing upside down on one’s head, or cleaning up the corridor with a toothbrush. Similar, albeit less absurd tasks, may be expected from newcomers at the place of work. So-called rites de passage tend to be particularly demanding if the group is perceived as highly cohesive and prestigious. But the “membership fee” must be paid not only in order to be admitted but also for the privilege of not being excluded. In the latter case, the “fee” amounts to conformity to the common rules and norms. According to the classic model of team development,18 there are four stages necessary for efficient group functioning. First, there is a stage of forming, in which participants either join the group or are deliberately selected. In the second stage of storming, participants enter into multiple conflicts concerning the group’s structure, rules of functioning, and mission. Many such conflicts are implicit, that is,   What it means to be a “small” group is a question difficult to answer. The minimal number of group members is three but usually teams consist of about 10 people. Small communities are much bigger but usually do not exceed the number of 200, which – by the way – is the typical size of traditional villages. 17   E. Aronson, The Social Animal, 10th revised edition, Palgrave Macmillan 2007. 18   B. Tuckman, Developmental Sequence in Small Groups, “Psychological Bulletin” 1965, no. 63, pp. 384–399. 16

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they are not revealed in the form of open contradiction. Psychologically, the implicit conflicts are as real as the open ones but they may be much more difficult to deal with. After the turmoil of storming, the group enters the next step of norming. Numerous official and unofficial, spoken and unspoken rules govern the group’s functioning, including the rules of leadership and the rules of punishment for not complying with the norms. In general, norms are defined as “standardized patterns of belief, attitude, communication and behaviour within groups”.19 Only after the norms are established and respected, can the final stage of efficient performing take place, which is the obvious goal for any team leader or facilitator be it at school, at work, or in the military. There are many examples of conformity and obedience to the group norms. Some of them are trivial, such as the study in which investigators were deliberately gazing at a window, whereas accidental passersby were observed concerning their possible tendency to gaze as well. It appeared that just one person gazing at the window made 40% of passersby gaze in the same direction, and if the group of gazing people increased to five, as many as 80% of passersby started to imitate this pattern of behaviour.20 Our drive to imitate and conform must be incredibly strong if it takes place automatically, with no deliberation and pressure. It has been demonstrated that imitation in humans and other social species plays important developmental functions. Thanks to the imitative instincts, we learn quickly and efficiently without being condemned to pay the direct consequences of failure. In other words, thanks to imitation and so-called “observational learning”21 we are able to learn not only from our own mistakes but also from the mistakes of the models observed. We can   J. Wood, G. Phillips, D. Pedersen, Group Discussion: A Practical Guide to Participation and Leadership, Harper & Row Publishers, New York 1986. 20   S. Milgram, L. Bickman, L. Berkowitz, Note on the Drawing Power of Crowds of Different Size, “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology” 1969, no. 13, pp. 79–82. 21   A. Bandura, Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey 1986. 19

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also learn through the observation of beneficial consequences of other persons’ behaviour. Observational learning allows the acquisition of complex cognitive and social skills, including linguistic competence and rules of dealing with others. There are also many examples of conformity caused by direct or indirect external pressure, and many of them are not at all trivial. In the classic study by Salomon Asch,22 people were asked to judge the length of lines. Their task was to select one line out of three that would be equal in length with the template line. The situation was arranged as a small group activity; however, only one member of the group was actually investigated, the remaining persons were collaborators of the investigator. These collaborators were instructed to make ostensibly wrong decisions concerning the length of lines, whereas the only “real”, or naïve, participant was under observation concerning his or her own choices. It appeared that only 25% of participants were able to not conform to the group pressure. These people remained independent in their judgment, although they demonstrated various symptoms of stress, uneasiness, or anxiety. Others behaved according to the pattern suggested by the group at least once during the series of expositions, although the post-hoc interviews revealed that many of them knew the truth but decided not to disclose their convictions. Interestingly, there was a fraction of participants who really perceived the length of lines according to the group suggestion rather than in accordance with reality. It seems that conformity can affect inner mental states as well as overt behaviour. Sometimes the strength with which groups can enforce various forms of conformism is remarkable. In his famous experiment, Stanley Milgram23 showed that accidental participants in a psycho  S.E. Asch, Studies of Independence and Conformity: A Minority of one Against a Unanimous Majority, “Psychological Monographs” 1956, vol. 70, no. 9, whole no. 416. 23   S. Milgram, Behavioral Study of Obedience, “Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology” 1963, no. 67, pp. 371–378. See also: idem, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, Harper and Row, New York 1974. 22

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logical experiment are ready to apply strong electric shocks to people whose only “crime” was a slow pace of learning. The electric shocks were of course simulated but the participants did not know about it. They applied the “shocks” just because they were told to so that by the authority, that is, the person in charge for the whole experiment who made them responsible for the “teaching” another person. Needless to say, the authority of the institution (university, laboratory, science) added to the authority of the lab supervisor, resulting in huge effect of obedience and conformity. In spite of obvious ethical reservations, this experiment has been replicated recently, with almost identical results. Although the majority of people conform to norms and show obedience to the authority, there are always individuals whose conformism is a bit weaker. Such persons are able to resist social influence and remain independent, both in thought and in behaviour. Unfortunately, we cannot predict who is likely to resist, particularly in the case of real-life situations of the utmost importance (e.g., war, imprisonment, etc.). Recent studies conducted by Philip Zimbardo24 show that independent people may otherwise be quite “usual” in terms of social status and personality characteristics. Optimistically, even if we cannot predict who will resist social pressure, we usually can hope that such a person will appear.

4. Conclusions Although psychology does not use the term “normativity”, it investigates phenomena that remain in a close relationship with social norms. However, one should bear in mind that there are many psychological faces of normativity. We have described and discussed just three domains of psychological research that seem highly rele Ph. Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, Rider & co., London 2007.

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vant to the problem of normativity. Other interesting domains were skipped for the sake of conciseness. For instance, it would be fascinating to analyze cultural differences and similarities pertaining to social norms, including morality. Furthermore, it would be interesting to look at the individual qualities of people who are particularly apt to follow rules, as well as people who usually violate them. These are the topics investigated by the psychology of personality. In general, our short review suggests that the problem of normativity has the potential to unify scholars from such disciplines as philosophy, law, neuroscience, and psychology.

Marcin Siwek, Rafał Jaeschke, Dominika Dudek, Natalia Czyżowska Jagiellonian University, Medical College Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies

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very time an attempt to discuss the relationship between morality (or, in broader terms, normativity) and mental disorders is made, a troublesome inheritance must be faced. Since linking the notions of morality and virtue to those of health and reason has been a prominent topos of the Western culture,2 each contemporary effort to address the issue of disease-specific alterations in moral behaviour is likely to be at risk of provoking stigma-fuelled associations of people with mental disorders as those prone to immoral activities ‘by nature’. However, in spite of the apparent reluctance against including the issue of morality in psychiatric discourse, it would be unwise to downplay this problem, as the definitions of mental disorders provided in the officially recognized classifications can be regarded as implicitly moral evaluations.3 In a commentary on this problem, Judith Andre has noted:   This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation. 2   See P. Byrne, Psychiatric Stigma, “Br. J. Psychiatry” 2001, no. 178, pp. 281–284. 3   See J. Andre’s review of M.W. Martin’s From Morality to Mental Health: Virtue and Vice in Therapeutic Culture; Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews – An Electronic Journal; http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23208-from-morality-to-mental-health-virtueand-vice-in-a-therapeutic-culture/. 1

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What makes a pattern of behavior “excessive,” “inappropriate,” or “maladaptive” is often a failure to respect what makes lives good; which is to say, a moral failure. Furthermore, criteria of mental health contain components like self-respect, integrity, authenticity, and responsibility; these are moral terms.4

While a highly hypothetical attempt to propose a new psychiatric vocabulary (containing only morally-neutral terms) would definitely be overambitious and lies well beyond the scope of this essay, the background (neurobiological, psychological, etc.) of some psychiatric syndromes related to activities regarded as ‘immoral’ seems to be a very interesting field of research. Yet, to our knowledge, all the available maps of this area are largely incomplete. Thus, since we are wandering in terra incognita, only the relatively modest goals of our work seem to be adequate. In this contribution, we present an overview of the opinions concerning the relationship between ‘madness and morality’, the most important stages of moral development (as distortions in this process may be related to some psychiatric disorders), a variety of the most prominent ‘morally-indifferent’ phenomena in clinical psychiatry, and – finally – an overview of possible future research directions.

1. Morality at the Core of Contemporary Psychiatric Discourse In a comprehensive work entitled ‘From Morality to Mental Health: Virtue and Vice in a Therapeutic Culture’ Mike W. Martin5 has analysed the contents of the cornerstone of contemporary psychiatric practice, namely the 4th Edition of American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). Accord  Ibidem.   See M.W. Martin, From Morality to Mental Health: Virtue and Vice in a Therapeutic Culture, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006. 4 5

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ingly, he has pointed out at the fact that the basic definition of mental disorder (i.e. behavioural or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual and that is associated with present distress [e.g., a painful symptom] or disability [i.e., impairment in one or more important areas of functioning] or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom6) encompasses so many conditions regarded as non-pathological (virtually all undesirable habits and personality traits that significantly disrupt lives by causing distress, difficulty in functioning, or danger7) that its clinical usefulness is rather dubious, unless some significant stipulations are made. At first: the symptom or syndrome must not be an ‘expectable and culturally sanctioned response to a particular event, for example, the death of a loved one.’ Thus, psychiatric diagnoses are (to some extent, at least) relative to cultural values.8 The second reservation made by the authors of DSM-IV creates a distinction between symptoms of ‘disorders’ and all other sorts of perplexing activities: ‘Neither deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or sexual) nor conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are mental disorders unless the deviance or conflict is a symptom of a dysfunction in the individual.’ In this context, the term ‘dysfunction’ seems to be a vague one, yet – as pointed out by Martin – it is routinely understood as socially unacceptable behaviour (e.g. in cases of antisocial personality disorder, pyromania or paedophilia). Going further: as DSM describes such kinds of unacceptable conduct by using the adjectives: ‘excessive’, ‘inappropriate’, ‘maladaptive’, etc. – directly or indirectly, moral values shape the definitions of most mental disorders.9 Perhaps the toughest (both theoretically and practically) challenge related to the contemporary accepted definitions of mental disorders is due to the fact that their descriptions are not in line with the biomedi  Cf. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, p. 31. 7   See M.W. Martin, From Morality to Mental Health, op. cit., p. 20. 8   Ibidem, p. 21. 9   Ibidem. 6

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cal model (i.e. the paradigm linking mental disorders to neurochemical alterations, brain damage, etc.). Instead, DSM defines mental disorders descriptively, in terms of how people actually behave, feel, desire, and intend.10 Obviously, all of these categories are susceptible to moral judgement. What makes these issues so sensitive is the (presence or absence of) balance of power between a psychiatrist and a patient. While psychiatrists have the authority to define and treat disorders, the ‘moral load’ of nosological definitions creates the risk of a social bias coming from considering particular physician’s values as a universal reference point.11 Unfortunately, most mental health professionals are unaware of this sort of cultural background to the rules of their occupation. As summarized by Martin: The abuse of psychiatric power ultimately derives from the illusion that mental disorders can be defined by value-neutral science.12 The fact that DSM definitions combine scientific understanding with moral judgments about harm and ‘social dysfunction’13 does not make the task any easier. However, what makes contemporary classifications of psychiatric disorders still valuable is that they operate on both justified and virtually universal [categories]: significant distress, mental dysfunction, and increased risk of death and loss of freedom are [regarded as] bad.14 Nevertheless, the process of establishing psychiatric diagnosis must be performed with great care and self-consciousness.

2. The Outline of Moral Development In this part of our paper we will focus on data suggesting that the ‘moral level’ of an individual is not given ‘once and for all’, but that it evolves over time.   Ibidem.   Ibidem, p. 22. 12   Ibidem, pp. 23-24. 13   Ibidem, p. 24. 14   Ibidem. 10 11

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In psychology there is a diversity of theoretical approaches to morality and moral development. Researchers have tried to find the roots of morality and to explain the process of moral development by consolidating knowledge derived from various areas of psychology, such as social or cognitive psychology, as well as from other intellectual disciplines, like philosophy, biology, and neuroscience.15 Regardless of the significant effort made by a large body of researchers over the recent decades, it seems that the most influential theory of moral development has been that proposed in the 1960s by the American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg was the prominent advocate of so-called ‘cognitive-developmental approach’ – the paradigm introduced by Jean Piaget. In 1932 Piaget published a book entitled “The Moral Judgment of the Child” but his ideas were not widely known until Kohlberg turned his attention to Piaget’s notion of moral development and developed some of Piaget’s hypotheses further. In Kohlberg’s theory, moral development is strongly connected with the development of the logical reasoning that was examined and described by Piaget.16 Accordingly, each person passes through stages of reasoning and intelligence ranging from the intuitive, through the concrete to the formal operations. Those who have obtained the stage of formal operational thinking are able to consider all possibilities, form abstract hypotheses and test them. Moral reasoning is the type of mental processing which implies that moral development depends on the development of logical reasoning. There is a strong connection between an individual’s stage of logical thinking and his or her moral stage.17 There is a possibility that some people are at higher stage of logical thinking compared to the analogous moral stage, but no one could be at higher stage of moral development than his or her stage of log  See M. Killen, J. Smetana, Handbook of Moral Development, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, London 2006. 16   See J. Piaget, Rozwój ocen moralnych dziecka, PWN, Warszawa 1967. 17   See L. Kohlberg, Essays in Moral Development, vol. II: The Psychology of Moral Development, Harper and Row, New York, 1984. 15

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ical development.18 Although the development of logical reasoning is among the most important factors that influences moral development, Kohlberg also put forward another construct underlying (in his opinion, at least) moral judgment, namely the sociomoral perspective. By sociomoral perspective Kohlberg understood the individual’s mental position from which social facts and sociomoral values are defined. In Kohlberg’s theory there are three levels of moral judgment referring to three major levels of social perspective. The first level of moral development (known as the preconventional one) is connected with a specific individual perspective. The second level – the conventional one – is characterized by the member-of-society perspective, and on the last level – postconventional one – prior-to-society perspective is dominant. On every level there are two moral stages. Individuals at the first stage present an egocentric point of view, as well as following rules to avoid a punishment. Subjects exemplifying the second stage concentrate on their own interests, so they obey rules when it is profitable for them and they find it right if others do the same. The third stage is marked by the belief that fulfilling the expectations of loved ones is the right thing to do. At this stage ‘being good’ also means: ‘do what is socially expected in your role as a father, husband, brother, etc.’ Individuals at the fourth stage try to support both the society and their own group. They obey the rules because they understand that it helps the whole system work. People who reach the fifth stage comprehend that most rules are relative to their own group but these relative rules are still very important because they are part of the social contract. However, individuals at this stage also realize that there are some nonrelative values (such as life or liberty) that should be regarded as vital in every society. Being at the sixth stage implies following universal ethical principles, e.g. respect for every human being. An individual has the sense of honour – bound to protect these principles even if it is against the law. Kohlberg assumed   See L.J. Walker, Cognitive and Perspective – Taking Prerequisites for Moral Development, “Child Development” 1980, no. 51, pp. 131–140. 18

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that moral development always proceeds in the same sequence and the stages are universal and independent of culture19. Research conducted in several dozen different cultures has shown that, with increasing age, people pass through the stages of moral development in the sequence described by Kohlberg.20 On the other hand, the results indicated that moral development is more closely connected with education and experience than with the age of individuals.21 It turns out that experiences related to the taking on of new social roles, forming new relationships and working in political or social institutions are of particular importance.22 There has also been some Polish research within the framework of Kohlberg’s theory. 291 people from 15 to 80 years old took part in the research by Dorota Czyżowska and Adam Niemczyński. The data collected showed that the stages of moral development identified in the participants correspond with the stages 1 to 5 distinguished by Kohlberg, but most people obtained the conventional level of moral judgment.23 Although there is no empirical evidence that could question the sequence of moral stages, it seems that only stages 1 to 4 are universal. Kohlberg also analysed the connection between moral judgment and moral behaviour. By moral behaviour, Kohlberg understood activities based on the choices congruent with ethical rules. Particularly, he concentrated on the two philosophical rules – the principle of the categorical imperative formulated by Immanuel Kant and the principle of utility created by John Stuart Mill. In Kohlberg’s theory, moral judgments and moral actions are coherent, however the coherency is greater   See L. Kohlberg, Essays in Moral Development…, op. cit.   See J. Snarey, Cross-Cultural Universality of Socio-Moral Development. A Critical Review of Kohlbergian Research, “Psychological Bulletin” 1985, no. 97, pp. 202–232. 21   See J.R. Rest, S.J. Thoma, Relation of Moral Judgment Development to Formal Education, “Developmental Psychology” 1985, no. 21, pp. 709–714. 22   See D. Parikh, Moral Judgment Development and its Relation to Family Factors in Indian and American Families, “Child development” 1980, no. 51, pp. 1030–1039. 23   See D. Czyżowska, A. Niemczyński, Universality of Socio-Moral Development; Cross-Sectional Study in Poland, “Journal of Moral Education” 1996, no. 4, pp. 441–453. 19 20

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at the higher levels of moral development. Kohlberg identified 5 components that, in his opinion, were important in understanding the relationship between moral judgment and moral action: the stage of moral development, the moral judgment type, deontic judgment, responsibility judgment, and ego controls. Each component has a specific function, however the two main components are the stage of moral development and the moral judgment type. There are two types of moral judgment – type A (heteronomous) and type B (autonomous). Type B compared to type A is related to more prescriptive, general and universal judgments. Individuals who represent type B make choices which are more similar to moral decisions characteristic for the postconventional level of moral development (stage 5 and 6).24 In Kohlberg’s opinion, moral judgment is a sine qua non condition of moral behaviour. Other researchers also agreed with this statement: Blasi claimed that any action made without judgment could not be recognized as moral, even if it was advantageous.25 In an attempt to verify the influence of moral reasoning on an individual’s behaviour, Kohlberg prepared research similar to the famous Milgram experiment. Stanley Milgram designed a special procedure to find out how people behave on the strength of authority.26 The participants were informed that they were taking part in an experiment which would show how punishment influences learning. The participants always acted as teachers and their task consisted of reading to a student a list of pairs of words and checking how well he remembered it. When the student gave the wrong answer, the ‘teacher’ had to use an electric shock (from 15 to 450 volts in 15-volts increments) to punish him or her. The experimenter accompanied the ‘teacher’ all the time and encouraged him or her to continue the experiment and use stronger electric impulses. In fact ‘students’ were the experimenter’s helpers and did not get any electric shocks, but   See L. Kohlberg, Essays in Moral Development…, op. cit.   See A. Blasi, Bridging Moral Cognition and Moral Action: A Critical Review of Literature, “Psychological Bulletin” 1980, vol. 88, no. 1, pp. 1–45. 26   See S. Milgram, Behavioral Study of Obedience, “Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology” 1963, vol. 67, no. 4, pp. 371–378. 24 25

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the results of Milgram’s experiment were staggering. 65% of participants continued punishing up to 450 volts.27 In the past few years Milgram’s experiment was replicated and the results were quite the same.28 Kohlberg created a situation in his research which was similar to Milgram’s experiment, but he was interested in how fast teachers would refuse to continue punishing ‘students’ and if that would be relevant to their stage of moral development. The results showed that 87% of participants who were at stage 4 and 50% of participants at stage 3 resigned from taking part in the experiment. Furthermore, 85% of participants who represented autonomous moral judgment type (type B) resigned before the end, while all the people with type A were obedient to authority to the end of the experiment.29 Although the results seemed to confirm Kohlberg’s model of the thought – moral behaviour relation, his idea was strongly criticized by social psychologists who presented the data providing with evidence suggesting that behaviour in specific situations depended on many other factors.30 For example, they mentioned that the bystander effect demonstrated by Latane and Darley31 or the strength of group consensus examined by Asch.32 On the other hand, there is also some convincing evidence in the field of social psychology supporting Kohlberg’s model. McNamee performed an experiment where the participants observed a psychologist who refused to help a young person who was addicted to drugs. The subject had to decide if he wanted to aid that person or to remain an observer. The results showed that most people thought that they should help but only the subjects at higher stages of moral development actually did.33   See S. Milgram, Obedience to Authority: Experimental View, Harper and Row, New York 1974. 28   See J. M. Burger, Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?, “American Psychologist” 2009, vol. 64, no. 1, pp. 1–11. 29   See L. Kohlberg, Essays in Moral Development…, op. cit. 30   See R. Brown, R.J. Herstein, Psychology, Methuen, London 1975. 31   See B. Latane, J. Darley, Group Inhibition of Bystander Intervention, “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology” 1968, no. 10, pp. 215–221. 32   See S.E. Asch, Social Psychology, Prentice-Hall, Engelwood Cliffs, New Jersey 1952. 33   See S. McNamee, Moral Behavior, Moral Development and Motivation, “Journal of Moral Education” 1977, no. 7, pp. 27–31. 27

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Overall, the relationship between moral judgment and moral action is still very much being vividly discussed. James Rest, Lawrence Kohlberg’s student, was quite dissatisfied with his supervisor’s idea. He claimed that Kohlberg’s model concentrated on moral judgments only and thus should actually be treated as just one of the components of morality. In Rest’s opinion, morality, just like economy, should be divided into macromorality and micromorality. Macromorality, also known as society-wide morality, focuses on the formal structures of society which enable the whole social system work, like laws and rights. The term of micromorality is related to caring relationships with particular persons and being virtuous in everyday life, and that is why sometimes it is named ‘everyday morality’.34 Rest also formulated the Four Component Model to describe the whole psychological process of morality and moral behaviour. The model was created following the review of literature on morality and finding that various researchers analysed moral development from different starting points.35 Component I – moral sensitivity - includes the interpretation of the situation and the individual’s concern as to what he or she can do in a given situation and what consequences this behaviour would have for the subject and for other people. Hoffman claimed that sensitivity to other people, their rights and well-being is fundamental for morality.36 Then the individual has to decide which of possible action is right and moral, exemplifying the second component of Rest’s model, i.e. the moral judgment precisely described and examined by Kohlberg. Rest highlighted the importance of justice to moral judgment, suggesting that reflections on justice could be the affective element of 34   See J.R. Rest, D. Narvaez, M. Bebeau, S.J. Thoma, Postconventional Moral Thinking: A Neo-Kohlbergian Approach, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey 1999. 35   See J.R. Rest, Morality, [in:] Handbook of Child Psychology, vol. III: Cognitive development, 4th edition, eds. J.H. Flavel, E.M Markman, J. Wiley, New York 1983, pp. 556–629. 36   M.L. Hoffman, Empathy, its Limitations, and its Role in a Comprehensive Moral Theory, [in:] Morality, Moral Behavior and Moral Development, eds. W.M. Kurtines, J.L. Gerwitz, J. Willey, New York, 1984, pp. 283–302.

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moral judgment. When people do not obey the rule of justice, the others experience feelings of unfairness.37 Component III is moral motivation, which encourages an individual to choose moral values and make decisions that he or she cares more about his or her moral ideals than about personal benefits.38 The last component (the fourth one) is moral character, which includes having enough courage and skills to behave consistently with chosen moral values, even if the individual is under pressure to do the opposite. In Rest’s opinion, persistence, firmness and character are the features that help the individual to succeed in Component IV. Rest emphasized that the sequence of the components in his model is rather logical than chronological. He also assumed that while consecutive components describe different psychological processes, they operate together and could interact with each other.39 Rest’s Four Component Model trys to fill the gap between moral judgment and moral behaviour but there is hardly any empirical evidence that could confirm the accuracy of this theory. Apart from Kohlbergian approach to moral development (often called the ethics of justice) there is also the theory of the ethic of care, formulated by Carol Gilligan. Gilligan has claimed that the theory created by Kohlberg favours men, being a source of bias leading to the research conclusion that men generally reach higher stages of moral development than women do. In her opinion, this is caused by the fact that in the process of solving moral dilemmas women (unlike men) pay more attention to other people and relationships than to abstract principles of justice. Gilligan concluded that there must be yet another type of morality (different from the ethics of justice), called the ethics of care and responsibility. In Gilligan’s theory there are two possible ways of experiencing and un  See J. R. Rest, Moral Development: Advances at Research and Theory, Preager, New York 1986. 38   See R. Bergman, Why Be Moral? A Conceptual Model form Developmental Psychology, “Human Development” 2002, no. 45, pp. 104–124. 39   See J.R. Rest, Moral Development…, op. cit. 37

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derstanding the social world that are related to different moral orientations. Individuals whose moral orientation is characterized by justice (that is, typical for men) concentrate on reciprocity, equality and respect, whereas women (who tend to represent the care moral orientation) rather focus on concrete people and their needs. Moral development, in Gilligan’s approach, means changing from an egocentric perspective, which encourages people to only care about their own interests, to a balanced perspective, which lets the individual take into consideration his or her point of view, as well as the needs and expectations of other subjects. Gilligan distinguished between the three main and two transient levels of moral development. Level 1 is typical for individuals who concentrate only on personal happiness and avoiding being harmed. People do not see the difference between what they want and what they should do in a particular situation. On this level, morality is understood as the set of social rules. Level 2 is connected to commitment and responsibility for other people. The subject accepts the social values and conventional definition of kindness. Being good means being ready to sacrifice for others. People at this level of development are convinced that questioning the social consensus is dangerous because it can lead to rejection. Individuals who reach the highest point, i.e. the third level are autonomous and aware of their rights, but they are able to make moral decisions with regard to the interests of all of the people involved in a particular situation. Furthermore, they care about the well-being of each subject.40 Research has shown that there are no significant differences between men and women in terms of moral orientation. Women and men are equally able to use both types of moral orientations, and their choice in a particular situation depends on the context.41 The ethic of care and the ethic of justice should not be treated as opposites. Being caring does not mean that the person   See C. Gilligan, In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA-London 1982. 41   See S. Jaffe, J.S. Hyde, Gender Differences in Moral Orientation: a Meta-Analysis, “Psychological Bulletin” 2000, no. 126, pp. 703–726. 40

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is unjust, and justice does not have to be devoid of care.42 Hoffman proposed to treat care and justice as ‘ideal types’, i.e. they both can play some role (in the varying extent) in each social situation.43 While analysing the problem of moral development it seems to be important to think about some possible abnormalities which can appear during this process. Blair claimed, for example, that psychopathy is a result of disturbed moral development, caused by a lack of some of the specific cognitive mechanisms responsible for controlling aggression.44 Defining psychopathy is particularly challenging, because there are many different approaches to this disorder, but traditionally the psychopathy was characterized by aberrations of individual functioning in emotional and interpersonal sphere and by violent, aggressive antisocial behaviour.45 People with psychopathy are not able to control their aggressive impulses because their violence inhibitor mechanism (VIM) is handicapped. VIM is a mechanism responsible for controlling aggressive behaviour. It is a set of cognitive representations that develop from early childhood, and it is activated by signals sent by other people suggesting that they are suffering or are in danger (e.g. the cry of a child).46 Moral socialization means learning the connections between those signals and particular situations when other subjects experience pain. Individuals with psychopathic traits do not notice this relation, so they have significant difficulties related to their actions in hurting other people. Blair thought that VIM is crucial for developing the following three aspects of morality: moral emotions (e.g. empathy, guilt and remorse), a mecha  See C. Gilligan, Moral Orientation and Moral Development, [in:] Woman and Moral Theory, eds. E.F. Kittay, D.T. Meyers, Rowman and Littlefield, New Jersey 1987. 43   See M. Hoffman, Empatia i rozwój moralny, GWP, Gdańsk, 2006. 44   See J.R. Blair, L. Jones, F. Clark, M. Smith, Is the Psychopath “Morally Insane”?, “Personality and Individual Differences” 1995, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 741–752. 45   See, Ł. Barwiński, J.K. Gierowski, Controversies Around the Concept of Psychopathy and its Usefulness in Forensic Psychological Reporting Concerning Adolescents, “Problems of Forensic Sciences” 2008, vol. LXXVI, pp. 382–402. 46   See Ł. Barwiński, J.K. Gierowski, Psychopathy Against Risk Factors of Violence in Juvenile Boys and Girls, “Problems of Forensic Sciences” 2009, vol. LXXVIII, pp. 184–207. 42

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nism of controlling aggressive behaviour, and the ability to differentiate between moral and conventional rules.47 Studies have shown that psychopaths have difficulties guiding their judgment by others’ wellbeing and seeing the difference between activities implied by moral principles and those derived from conventional rules.48

3. Are There any ‘Specific Moral Alterations’ in Subjects with Mental Disorders? Unfortunately, disturbances in the moral judgment and behaviour of subjects with mental disorders have not been systematically analysed thus far. All we have access to is an ‘archipelago’ of outwardly unrelated data, while the presumed common basis remains hidden beneath the surface. Addressing questions regarding the issue of normativity in psychiatric disorders is even more difficult, as the notion of normativity goes beyond mere descriptions of moral behaviours; it refers to more profound layers of ethical phenomena. Namely: the fact that ethical standards are normative means that – as grasped by Christine M. Korsgaard – they make claims on us: they command, oblige, recommend, or guide. Or at least, when we invoke them, we make claims on one another. When I say that an action is right I am saying that you ought to do it; when I say that something is good I am recommending it as worthy of your choice. The same is true of the other concepts for which we seek philosophical foundations. Concepts like knowledge, beauty, and meaning, as well as virtue and justice, all have a normative dimension, for they tell us what to think, what to like, what to say, what to do, and what to be.49 Accordingly, the force of the nor  See J.R. Blair, A Cognitive Developmental Approach to Morality: Investigating the Psychopath, “Cognition” 1995, no. 57, pp. 1–29. 48   See W. Janikowski, Amoralizm i psychopatia, “Analiza i Egzystencja” 2008, no. 8, pp. 35–47. 49   See C.M. Korsgaard, Lecture I: The Normative Question, [in:] idem, The Sources of Normativity. The Tanner Lectures of Human Values, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City 1994, p. 22. 47

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mative claims on moral obligations, entailing the ‘rightness’ of those concepts, is apparently the source of ethical ‘laws’. As such, a subtle interplay between moral urges and social norms probably cannot be adequately and solely described within the paradigm of contemporary neuroscience, a reductionist approach (by treating morality as a ‘proxy measure’ of normativity) seems to be the only one worth taking while discussing the problem of mental disorders accompanied by ‘immoral’ behaviour. We present the most important areas of research regarding this issue, with some notable findings, below. To our knowledge some valuable conclusions on the phenomena existing at the borders between psychiatry and ethics can be drawn from the studies regarding to the disturbances of theory of mind (ToM) observed among individuals with some mental disorders. ToM, alongside empathy, is the most intensively studied element of social cognition (i.e. the entirety of processes that enable a person to lead an effective life in a society).50 While ToM is commonly described as the ability to understand people’s mental states, which allows one to explain and predict other individuals’ behaviour,51 it is rather a multidimensional phenomenon. On one hand, a social-cognitive ToM (SC-ToM) can be distinguished; this subtype of ToM would be responsible for the ability to infer the mental state of the others based on observation of their behaviour. On the other, social-perceptual ToM (SP-ToM) has been described, amounting to the ability to perceive the mental state of the other subjects based on information derived from direct observation. The main difference between those two types relies on the fact that while the process of SP-ToM depends on emotion recognition skills only, in the SC-ToM further cognitive abilities are involved as well.52 In broader terms, a division of ToM   See D. Wiener, J. Rybakowski, Zaburzenia poznania społecznego w schizofrenii, “Psychiatr. Pol.” 2006, no. 40, pp. 205–218. 51   See C.M. Eddy, I.J. Mitchell, S.R. Beck, A.E. Cavanna, H.E. Rickards, Altered Attribution of Intention in Tourette’s Syndrome, “J. Neuropsychiatry Clin. Neurosci.” 2010, no. 22, pp. 348–351. 52   See E. Bora, Theory of Mind in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders, “Turk. Psikiyatri. Derg.” 2009, no. 20, pp. 269–281. 50

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into the cognitive and affective subtypes has also been postulated. Accordingly, the ‘cognitive’ ToM would be responsible for inferring other subjects’ thoughts, beliefs and intentions, while the ‘affective’ ToM would mark the one’s ability of understanding other people’s emotions.53 Such a description of ToM makes it very close to the notion of empathy, which can also be divided into the cognitive (i.e. derived from the ability to understand somebody else’s state of mind) and affective (i.e. the capability of experiencing emotional responses to other subjects’ afflictions) kinds.54 Yet, the question as to whether empathy is a ‘subset’ of ToM remains wide open. There is evidence suggesting that an impaired ToM may be characteristic of subjects with some of the major psychiatric disorders. Accordingly, on the basis of a literature review, Emre Bora concluded that people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders suffer because of ToM abnormalities, and the status quo is a trait-like, rather than a state-like feature of the condition (although patients with acute psychosis had higher level of ToM disorders compared to those in remission).55 There is also data implying abnormalities of empathy in this population, as facial emotion recognition difficulties were observed in a cohort of schizophrenia patients (regardless of their symptomatic status).56 A group of Israeli researchers has demonstrated a favourable correlation between negative symp  See R.J. Blair, L. Cipolotti, Impaired Social Response Reversal: A Case of ‘Acquired Sociopathy’, “Brain” 2000, no. 123, pp. 1122–1141; See S.G. Shamay-Tsoory, R. Tomer, B.D. Berger, D. Goldsher, J. Aharon-Peretz, Impair Affective Theory of Mind is Associated with Right Ventromedial Prefrontal Damage, “Cogn. Behav. Neurol.” 2005, no. 18, pp. 55–67. 54   See R.J. Blair, Responding to the Emotions of Others: Dissociating Froms of Empathy Through the Study of Typical and Psychiatric Populations, “Conscious Cogn.” 2005, no. 14, pp. 698–718; See S. Shur, S.G. Shamay-Tsoory, Y. Levkovitz, Integration of Emotional and Cognitive Aspects of Theory of Mind in Schizophrenia and its Relations to Prefrontal Neurocognitive Performance, “Cogn. Neuropsychiatry” 2008, no. 13, pp. 472–490. 55   See E. Bora, Theory of Mind in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders, op. cit. 56   See C.G. Kohler, T.H. Turner, W.B. Bilker, C.M. Brensinger, S.J. Siegel, S.J. Kanes, R.E. Gur, R.C. Gur, Facial Emotion Recognition in Schizophrenia: Intensity Effects and Error Pattern, “Am. J. Psychiatry” 2003, no. 160, pp. 1768–1774. 53

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toms57 severity and deficits in both cognitive and affective aspects of empathy.58 Some similar findings have been obtained in a Polish study, comparing ToM and empathy in subjects with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (BD), and healthy controls. The authors noticed that schizophrenia subjects are burdened with disturbances of ToM, as well as an impairment of cognitive and affective empathy which is more severe compared to corresponding changes observed in individuals with BD (while both groups were more profoundly challenged in terms of the outcomes discussed, compared to the cohort of healthy individuals).59 Yet, very little can be said about the impact of those phenomena on the schizophrenic patients’ tendency towards following ethical norms. Perhaps the most striking examples of the influence of mental disorder on moral behaviour and emotions (and perhaps on the perception of ethical rules as well) can be observed among patients with BD. In the course of the classic presentation of the condition, namely BD type I (historically known as ‘manic-depressive illness’), subjects affected by this disorder experience extreme changes in mood and level of activity, with corresponding changes is moral behaviour. When depressed, they often suffer because of an overwhelming, yet inadequate, sense of guilt. But when manic, they commonly engage themselves in moral transgressions (e.g. through aggressive activities or sexual indiscretions). At first glance, these totally different ‘styles of being in the world’ should differ significantly also in terms of ToM and empathy. However, the research data does not confirm this intuition. Persons with BD (regardless of the phase of the illness) tend to exhibit ToM deficits, as well as with cognitive   Clinically, signs of schizophrenia are often divided into positive and negative ones. The category of positive signs consists of hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorders, while negative signs embrace flat affect, alogia, abulia, and apathy. 58   See S. Shur et al., Integration of Emotional and Cognitive Aspects of Theory of Mind…, op. cit. 59   See D. Wiener, M. Andrzejewska, A. Bodnar, J. Rybakowski, Zaburzenia teorii umysłu oraz empatii w schizofrenii i chorobie afektywnej dwubiegunowej, “Neuropsychiatr. Neuropsychol” 2011, no. 6, pp. 85–92. 57

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deficits.60 Furthermore, impairment on personal moral dilemmas has been noticed.61 Further in-depth studies on ToM alterations in subjects with manic or depressive symptoms are definitely required. While the issue of impaired ToM in subjects with affective disorders still requires a lot of research effort, some preliminary conclusions can already be drawn. According to Andrée M. Cusi and colleagues, one of the common features of both BD and major depressive disorder (MDD; i.e. unipolar depression) is that the subjects affected exhibit with impairments on ToM tasks that involve decoding mental states from available information, such as facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures and reasoning and tasks that involve reasoning about mental states by combining contextual information and prior knowledge about an individual or situation to understand behaviour. In keeping with the studies cited above, they also found those features to be characteristic both of patients at syndromal or subsyndromal stages of disease, as well as for those in remission.62 This may contribute to poor clinical and functional outcomes in patients with affective disorders.63 Leaving ToM behind, it is worth mentioning that some studies on the genetic background of moral behaviour in certain populations of psychiatric patients have also been performed. The vast majority of the research base on this field is devoted to the issue of MDD, and particularly to the role of the polymorphism of the 5-HTTLPR gene. 5-HTTLPR is the 5’ promoter of the SCL6A4 gene, encoding the serotonin transporter (SERT; the protein that is responsible   Ibidem.   See M. Signorelli, A. Geraci, E. Aguglia, Theory of Mind, Moral Judgments and Neuropsychological Functioning in Patients with Bipolar Disorders, “Eur. Psychiatry” 2011, no. 26 (Suppl 1), pp. 201–248. 62   See A.M. Cusi, A. Nazarov, K. Holshausen, G.M. MacQueen, M.C. McKinnon, Systematic Review of the Neural Basis of Social Cognition in Patients with Mood Disorders, “J. Psychiatry Neurosci.” 2012, no. 37, pp. 154–169. 63   See Y. Inoue, K. Yamada, S. Kanba, Deficits in Theory of Mind is a Risk for Relapse of Major Depression, “J. Affect Disord.” 2006, no. 95, pp. 125–127. 60 61

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for reuptake of serotonin from the synaptic cleft to the presynaptic neuron).64 There are two different forms of the promoter: long (L) and short (S). The short 5-HTTLPR variant of the SLC6A4 gene produces significantly less SERT mRNA and protein than the long variant, leading to higher concentrations of serotonin in the synaptic cleft.65 As presented in the classical study performed by Ahmad Hariri et al., the diversity of the forms of this gene influences some of the basic mechanisms involved in the processing of negative emotion.66 The functional polymorphism of 5-HTTLPR seems to exert the strongest influence on the amygdala (one of the elements of the limbic system, playing the role of the vital gate through which internal and external stimuli are integrated; it might also mediate learned fear responses, and may direct the expression of certain emotions by producing a particular affect67). According to the metaanalysis published by Marcus R. Munafó and colleagues, a type of 5-HTTLPR allele carried by a given individual may account for up to 10% of phenotypic variance of amygdala activation.68 When ‘translated’ into the clinical realm, this finding implies differences in susceptibility to stress: subjects with the SS or LS genotype exhibit greater amygdala neural activity in response to fear inducing stimuli.69 In the long run, patients with the SS combination of alleles 64   See SLC6A4 solute carrier family 6 (neurotransmitter transporter, serotonin), member 4 [Homo sapiens]; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/6532 65   See T. Canli, K.P. Lesch, Long Story Short: the Serotonin Transporter in Emotion Regulation and Social Cognition, “Nat. Neurosci.” 2007, no. 10, pp. 1103–1109. 66   See A.R. Hariri, V.S. Mattay, A. Tessitore, B. Kolachana, F. Fera, D. Goldman, M.F. Egan, D.R. Weinberger, Serotonin Transporter Genetic Variation and the Response of Human Amygdala, “Science” 2002, no. 297, pp. 400–403. 67   See A.J. Calder, A.D. Lawrence, A.W. Young, Neuropsychology of Fear and Loathing, “Nat. Rev. Neurosci.” 2001, vol. 2, pp. 352–363. 68   See M.R. Munafó, S.M. Brown, A.R. Hariri, Serotonin Transporter (5-HTTLPR) Genotype and Amygdala Activation: A Meta-Analysis, “Biol. Psychiatry” 2008, no. 63, pp. 852–857. 69   See A. Caspi, K. Sugden, T.E. Moffitt, A. Taylor, I.W. Craig, H. Harrington, J. McClay, J. Mill, J. Martin, A. Braithwaite, R. Poulton, Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene, “Science” 2003; no. 301, pp. 386­–389.

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are at a much higher risk of developing depression following stressful events, compared to people with the LL genotype (in the 30 year follow-up the difference observed was 17% vs 43%, respectively70), as well as suicidal behaviour. Of note, some recent studies found that the influence of 5-HTTLPR polymorphism goes well beyond the triad of stress, anxiety and depression, and it also might guide (to some extent, at least) moral decision-making. Accordingly, Abigail A. Marsh et al. have found that the S-carriers (compared to the subjects with L allele) are less likely to endorse utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas (e.g. they were generally against saving many lives if one person would be unintentionally harmed as a result). This can be explained by the fact that the short variant of the gene discussed determines the heightened emotional reactivity and reduced regulation of emotions (mediated by the prefrontal cortex), while the presence of the long allele makes subjects more prone to solving moral dilemmas with adjustment to the assessment of intentionality.71 It might be the reason why depressed patients (who are more likely to belong to the group of the S-carriers) are more ‘morally tender’. Although the role of the 5-HTTLPR gene in moral decisionmaking is very intriguing, one might put forward a more fundamental question: ‘Why serotonin’? What is so special in this neurotransmitter that makes it involved in a process of such sophistication? Surprisingly enough, serotonin seems to play a vital role in the regulation of social behaviour across species, not only in Homo sapiens. Inter alia, it is the major transmitter in the brain structures taking part in the processes of moral judgment and behaviour, such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, insula, and amygdala. The level of serotonergic activity seems to determine morally valent behaviours. As demonstrated in the works of Molly   Ibidem.   See A.A. Marsh, S.L. Crowe, H.H. Yu, E.K. Gorodetsky, D. Goldman, R.J. Blair, Serotonin Transporter Genotype (5-HTTLPR) Predicts Utilitarian Moral Judgments, “PLoS One” 2011, no. 6 (10): e25148 Epub 2011 Oct 5. 70 71

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J. Crockett72 and the group led by Klaus A. Miczek,73 antisocial and aggressive behaviours are typical for the ‘hyposerotonergic’ states, whereas for the emergence of prosocial behaviours an intact (or even enhanced) activity of serotonergic system is a sine qua non condition. In a recent study, M.J. Crockett and colleagues have provided evidence suggesting that the neurotransmitter discussed makes prosocial activities more likely by reinforcing harm aversion (including aversion towards social harms): Enhancing serotonin function with citalopram [a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor] selectively influenced moral judgment in the emotionally salient personal scenarios; relative to placebo and the positive control atomoxetine [selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor], citalopram made subjects less likely to judge personal harms as permissible, without affecting judgments of impersonal harms. As the prosocial effects of citalopram on moral judgment and behaviour were stronger in individuals high in trait empathy (linked to the activity of ‘serotonin-driven’ insula, and related to performance in serotonin-dependent ability to detect emotion in other subjects’ faces), the authors have suggested that serotonin modulates empathic responses to harm – i.e., by boosting an alreadypresent neural signal – rather than being the source of empathic responses.74 Finally, it should be emphasized that serotonin also enhances the release of oxytocin and vasopressin – the hormones involved into the neurobiological background of empathy and prosocial behaviours.75   See M.J. Crockett, The Neurochemistry of Fairness: Clarifying the Link Between Serotonin and Prosocial Behavior, “Ann. New York Acad. Sci.” 2009, no. 1167, pp. 76–86. 73   See K.A. Miczek, R.M. de Almeida, E.A. Kravitz, E.F. Rissman, S.F. de Boer, A. Raine, Neurobiology of Escalated Aggression and Violence, “J. Neurosci” 2007, no. 27, pp. 11803–11806. 74   See M.J. Crockett, L. Clark, M.D. Hauser, T.W. Robbins, Serotonin Selectively Influences Moral Judgment and Behavior Through Effects on Harm Aversion, “Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA” 2010, no. 107, pp. 17433–17438. 75   See T.R. Insel, The Challgenge of Translation in Social Neuroscience: a Review of Oxytocin, Vasopressin, and Affiliative Behavior, “Neuron” 2010, no. 65, pp. 768–779. 72

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There is also data suggesting that the experience of childhood trauma increases the likelihood of developing some of the mental disorders that are linked to alternations in moral behaviours. Interestingly enough, this sort of a biographical feature is bound to the development of polarly different disorders (in terms of fragility towards moral cues), namely: depression and psychopathy. Although very little is known about the common pathophysiological background of those conditions, in our opinion at least one preliminary hypothesis can be formulated. The history of childhood trauma is known to increase susceptibility to stress in adults (mediated by chronic sensitization of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and autonomic nervous system), thus multiplying (approximately four-fold) the risk of development of depressive and anxiety disorders.76 Furthermore, the decreased oxytocin activity observed in subjects with a history of childhood abuse also seems to be an important contributor in the development of depressive and anxiety disorders.77 In parallel, some early data indicates that specific kinds of abuse (sexual and physical ones) experienced in childhood years cause particular risk of developing antisocial personality disorder.78 The interplay between genetic and environmental factors should also be emphasized, as the likelihood of the emergence of this type of personality disorder seems to be particularly high in abused children with specific variations of the MAOA gene.79 As low concentrations of the cerebrospinal fluid   See R. Jaeschke, M. Siwek. B. Grabski, D. Dudek, Lęk w zaburzeniach psychicznych, Polskie Towarzystwo Psychiatryczne, Kraków 2011, pp. 28–31. 77   See C. Heim, L.J. Young, T. Mletzko, A.H. Miller, C.B. Nemeroff, Lower CSF Oxytocin Concentrations in Women with a History of Childhood Abuse, “Mol. Psychiatry” 2009, no. 14, pp. 954–958. 78   See E. Nederlof, J.M. Van der Ham, P.M. Dingemans, T.I. Oei, The Relation Between Dimensions of Normal and Pathological Personality and Childhood Maltreatment in Incancerated boys, “J. Pers. Disord.” 2010, no. 24, pp. 746–762. 79   See A. Taylor, J. Kim-Cohen, Meta-Analysis of Gene-Environment Interactions in Developmental Psychopathology, “Dev. Psychopathol.” 2007, no. 19, pp. 1029–1037. 76

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oxytocin are correlated with a life history of aggression,80 we might hypothesize that the influence exerted by childhood traumatic experiences on the oxytonergic system is the ‘common denominator’ of pathogenetic traces of both depression and psychopathy.

4. Instead of a Summary The relationship between mental disorders and morality or normativity remains vague, and researchers in this field meet with multiple obstacles. One of the main methodological problems derives from the fact that since contemporary classifications of mental disorders fail to meet the criteria of the biomedical model, it is difficult to match specific biological features of given mental disorders with the biological phenomena related to moral behaviour. Testing hypotheses related to the notion of normativity in psychiatry is not any easier, as the term itself refers to the social valence of moral behaviours. Addressing this issue would require the integration of the available data on the neural background of social interactions into the (largely, to date, separated) field of research on morality and mental disorders. To our knowledge, no such attempt has been made thus far. On a more general level, our understanding of the ties between morality and psychiatric disorders is further biased by difficulties with defining mental health itself. As we cannot draw a clear line between ‘insanity’ and ‘sanity’, we are still likely to judge some perplexing behaviour exhibited by apparently ‘healthy’ people to be ‘immoral’, while those who are considered to be ‘ill’ are largely exempt from this sort of conviction. Such a distinction might easily lead to unfair attitudes towards subjects with undiagnosed forms of some mental or neuropsychiatric disorders (as exemplified by the preclinical stages   See R. Lee, C. Ferris, L.D. Van de Kar, E.F. Coccaro, Cerebrospinal Fluid Oxytocin, Life History of Aggression, and Personality Disorder, “Psychoneuroendocrinology” 2009, no. 34, pp. 1567–1573.

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of frontotemporal dementia), while people with ‘real’ psychiatric disorders can be inadequately liberated from liability. Furthermore, it is almost entirely unclear whether the disturbances in moral behaviour observed in the course of some mental diseases are likely to be more pronounced in ‘bad’ people compared to the ‘good’ ones, and – above all – what is the nature of the difference between the ‘goodness’ and the ‘badness’. While the link between serotonergic activity and the trait of empathy81 suggests a fruitful path of discovery, more research on this issue is urgently needed. There are also apparently less challenging yet undiscovered areas of scientific study. While most of the analyses dedicated to moral development have been performed among healthy adults and adolescents, there is hardly any data on this issue in the population of subjects with mental disorders. Our research team has already made an attempt to address this problem, by initiating a study on the stages of moral development among patients with BD, with regards to the phase of the illness (mania, depression, or remission). We will strive to examine if and how it influences their moral reasoning, as well as to find out whether there are any differences in moral development between bipolar patients and healthy volunteers. In the course of the study both types of moral orientation (ethics of justice and ethics of care) will be examined to obtain a larger view of the issue. Still, there are more questions to be asked about moral emotions in the various phases of BD, as well as about the differences in terms of those emotions between subjects with BD and MDD. If bipolar patients, in general, present with abnormalities of ToM,82 then what are the core differences between the ‘unipolar’ and ‘bipolar’ depressive senses of guilt? Is the ‘bipolar’ sense of guilt easier to overcome, possibly facilitating moral transgressions when in mania or hypomania? And if so, what is the source of this ease?   See M.J. Crockett et al., Serotonin Selectively Influences Moral Judgment and Behavior Through Effects on Harm Aversion, op. cit. 82   See M. Signorelli et al., Theory of Mind, Moral Judgments and Neuropsychological Functioning in Patients with Bipolar Disorders, op. cit. 81

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These are just a handful of remarks. As we have been discussing a highly interdisciplinary field, it would be premature to make an attempt towards a comprehensive summary. Clearly, there are many more questions arising here than compelling answers to them. It casts very little doubt on the fact that in years to come we will witness the arrival of lots of interesting and important (both theoretically and practically) data on the issue of the relationship between normativity and mental disorders.

Bartłomiej Kucharzyk Jagiellonian University Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies

Is There a Normative Module? Some Remarks on the Wason Selection Task Experiments in the Field of Normative Reasoning1

I

t seems uncontroversial to state that when living in societies people constantly encounter various types of rules.2 To function properly we must at least know (remember) some of them as well as probably understanding them and sometimes obeying the instructions which they contain (rule-following). The processing of information about rules (for example, the interpretation of their meaning) is therefore a matter of interest both for cognitive psychology and social psychology. Research in this area includes such diverse topics as moral reasoning,3 language acquisition,4 and implicit learning.5   This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation. 2   By the term ‘rule’ I mean a pattern of behavior proper (according to some kind of authority) in given circumstances, which an individual should comply with to accomplish his/her objective or to avoid some kind of unfavourable consequences. In most of my analysis, the definition of a rule as an expression (i.e. a sentence stating) of someone’s obligation or entitlement shall be sufficient. 3   See for instance: J. Haidt, The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment, “Psychological Review” 2001, vol. 108, pp. 814–834 or J. Haidt, S. Koller, M. Dias, Affect, Culture, and Morality, or is it Wrong to Eat Your Dog?, “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology” 1993, vol. 65, pp. 613–628. 4   See S. Pinker, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, William Moro, New York 1994. 5   Often investigated within the Artificial Grammar Learning paradigm; see A. Reber, 1

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One of the most interesting issues in the field concerns whether the information about rules is somehow processed differently than other kinds of information (e.g. about facts). More specific questions appear as well: if such a difference exists, how does it manifest itself and what is its function? Does it concern all rules or just some of their kinds and, if so, which and why? Are there some specific mental (or even neuronal) mechanisms devoted to the processing of given types of rules? A positive answer to the last question has been given by Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, and their collaborators, in particular within the social contract theory they developed.6 On the basis of the results of research conducted mainly with the use of so called Wason selection task (supplemented by other kinds of data, e.g. neuroscientific), they claim that our minds developed an adaptive system of social contract algorithms (including a subroutine specialized for cheater detection), which is devoted to the processing (interpretation and reasoning) of rules that define the conditions of any social exchange, i.e. a situation in which, in order to receive some kind of benefit, someone is obliged to satisfy given requirements.7 The present article deals with the question of whether the position represented by Cosmides and Tooby may be identified with the postulate of the existence within human minds so called normative (deontic) module,8 that is an encapsulated set of mental mechanisms Implicit Learning of Artificial Grammars, “Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior” 1967, vol. 6, pp. 855–863 or A. Reber, Implicit Learning of Sythetic Languages: The Role of Instructional Set, “Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory” 1976, vol. 2, pp. 88–94. 6   L. Cosmides, The Logic of Social Exchange: Has Natural Selection Shaped How Humans Reason? Studies with the Wason Selection Task, “Cognition” 1989, vol. 31, pp. 187–276; L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange, [in:] The Adapted Mind, eds. J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, Oxford University Press, New York 1992, pp. 163–228. 7   L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, Part II. Case Study: a Computational Theory of Social Exchange, “Ethology and Sociobiology” 1989, vol. 10, pp. 51–97. 8   See B. Brożek, Normatywność prawa, Wolters Kluwer Polska, Warszawa 2012, p. 240.

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which are quick and accurate in the processing of any given normative rules.9 Another issue important to this text is whether the experimental results support the abovementioned postulate. However, with regards the use of the Wason selection task in most of the experiments devoted to this issue, it is advisable to consider in the first place the reasonableness of applying this experimental tool within research on reasoning about normative rules, something which is contested by some scholars.10 The Wason selection task11 (henceforth WST) was initially applied in the experiments concerning conditional reasoning (i.e. reasoning on descriptive, abstract, implication-patterned rules). These experiments were focused on the human ability to logical infer and devoted to the question of whether the rules of logic are implemented in our minds (which remains open).12 Subjects solving the classic (abstract) version of WST are given the following (or similar) rule: ‘If a card has a vowel on the front, it has an even number on the back’. Subsequently they are asked to decide which of four presented cards (for example: A, D, 6, and 7) must be reversed to find out if the rule has been violated (in the example above: A and 7). The results of numerous experiments show that people perform this task very poorly and the most common answer is ‘A and 6’.13 Wason himself explained the observed lack of conformity with the rules of logic and the common confirmation bias, which governs the process of testing the hypothesis.   I.e. rules as defined by Footnote 2. I use the terms ‘normative’ and ‘deontic’ interchangeably to denote conditionals including obligations and entitlements (or commands, prohibitions, and permissions). 10   D. Sperber, F. Cara, V. Girotto, Relevance Theory Explains the Selection Task, “Cognition” 1995, vol. 57, pp. 31–95. 11   P. Wason, Reasoning About a Rule, “Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology” 1968, vol. 20, pp. 273–281. 12   P. Johnson-Laird, R. Byrne, Deduction, Erlbaum, Hillsdale 1991; L. Bonatti, Why Should We Abandon the Mental Logic Hypothesis?, “Cognition” 1994, vol. 50, pp. 17–39. 13   See M. Oaksford, N. Chater, A Rational Analysis of the Selection Task as Optimal Data Selection, “Psychological Review” 1994, vol. 101, pp. 608–631. 9

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In the 1980’s WST was applied to investigate reasoning on the rules with specific content.14 However, the deep structure of classic WST was preserved (abstract and content-specific tasks may be considered isomorphic). Let us notice, therefore, that the rule stated in the previous paragraph may be presented as an implication ‘If P then Q’ (where P means that there is a vowel on the front of the card and Q means that there is an even number on the back), whereas the four cards given to the subjects as P, Q, not-P, and not-Q (respectively: A, 6, D, and 7).15 P and Q may be considered as variables which are replaced with specific sentences in order to create various rules. For instance, Griggs and Cox16 asked their subjects to impersonate policeman with a duty to see if the bartender follow the rule ‘If a person drinks beer, he/she must be of age’ (P – drinks beer, Q – is of age). The particular guests in the pub were represented by following cards: ‘drinks beer’ (P), ‘drinks coke’ (not-P), ‘is 23 years old’ (Q), ‘is 17 years old’ (not-Q). This (and similar) type of WST (we may call it ‘specific version’ as opposed to the abstract one) elicits a high percentage of logically correct answers. Most of the subjects properly choose to check ‘drinks beer’ (P) and ‘is 17 years old’ (not-Q) cards. This regularity has been confirmed in further experiments and has been named ‘thematic-materials effect’.17 People solving WST perform much better if they reason on rules with specific, social content than if they are given isomorphic but abstract logical problems. The explanation for the thematic effects observed in many WST experiments was proposed by Leda Cosmides in her social contract   See K. Manktelow, D. Over, Deontic Reasoning, [in:] Perspectives on Thinking and Reasoning: Essays in Honour of Peter Wason, eds. S. Newstead, J. Evans, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hove 1995, pp. 91–114. 15   The logically correct answer is to reverse the P and not-Q cards, because the implication is false (violated) only if P is not followed by Q (true antecendent and false consequent). There is no need to check Q and not-P cards (the rule is not biconditional). 16   R. Griggs, J. Cox, The Elusive Thematic-Materials Effect in Wason’s Selection Task, “British Journal of Psychology” 1982, vol. 73, pp. 407–420. 17   Ibidem. 14

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theory.18 She claims that the human mind is equipped with a computational system designed by evolution for reasoning within the field of social exchange (the so called social contract algorithms), which includes inter alia a mechanism responsible for cheater detection. Cosmides defines social exchange as a situation, in which an individual’s entitlement to receive some benefits from another individual or from a group depends on his/her fulfilment of the given requirements (which are beneficial for the other party of the exchange).19 This dependence may be presented in the form of a social contract rule: ‘If you accept the benefit, then you must satisfy the requirement’ (or: ‘If you satisfy the requirement, then you are entitled to the benefit’).20 If the situation experienced by an individual allows him/her to apply such a rule, in this individual’s mind (according to Cosmides) a complex, system of interpretations and inferences which is independent of formal logic is automatically launched.21 It improves the processing of specific information and, in particular, it increases our efficiency in detecting cheaters, i.e. the individuals who receive the benefits without fulfilling the requirements (violating the social contract rule). WST seems to be a proper tool for testing social contract theory predictions concerning cheater detection. The social contract rule is formulated as an implication (“If P then Q”), and four cards may represent four persons following or violating the rule (e.g. P – accepts the benefit, Q – satisfies the requirement). If Cosmides is right, people will correctly indicate which cards have to be checked (and in fact, as has been already stated, they do). Significantly, as mentioned before, the social contract algorithms include as well some inferences which are inconsistent with the rules   L. Cosmides, The Logic of Social Exchange: Has Natural Selection Shaped How Humans Reason…, op. cit. 19   This definition seems very broad. It is satisfied (among others) by beings such remote as trades and certain social laws. 20   These rules are not logically equivalent but they seem to be psychologically interchangeable on the grounds of social contract algorithms (see below). 21   This computational system consists of social contract algorithms, described in detail in L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, Evolutionary Psychlogy and the Generation of Culture…, op. cit. 18

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of logic but evolutionary sensible.22 If the subjects are given a social contract rule in the form ‘If you satisfy the requirement, then you are entitled to the benefit’ (for instance: ‘If you are adult, you are allowed to drink alcohol’) they tend to check ‘did not satisfy the requirement’ (‘not adult’, not-P) and ‘received the benefit’ (‘drinks alcohol’, Q) cards,23 which is logically incorrect (the rule works one way only) but easily comprehensible solution (after all, the cheater is an individual who undeservedly, i.e. without fulfilling the requirements, receives the benefits). Another possible cause of logically incorrect but socially functional answers are perspective shifts (manipulations). Gigerenzer and Hug confronted the subjects with following rule: ‘If a person works on Saturday, he/she gets Monday off’ and four cards to check: ‘worked on Saturday’, ‘did not work on Saturday’, ‘has Monday off’, and ‘does not have Monday off’.24 Half of the subjects were asked to take the perspective of an employee, and the other half were asked to take the standpoint of an employer. Subjects who impersonated employees reversed the cards that could represent cheated workers: ‘worked on Saturday’ and ‘does not have Monday off’, which (because of the form of the rule) happened to cover the proper solution of the task (P and not-Q). The other half of subjects checked ‘did not work on Saturday’ and ‘has Monday off’ cards, against the logic but in accordance with the interests of an employer. The hypothesis developed by Cosmides properly accounted for the results of prior research with the specific version of WST and the experiments conducted by her team. However, the usefulness of the data obtained within WST studies for the evaluation of the social contract theory was negated by Sperber, Cara, and Girotto (henceforth   Ecologically rational, see G. Gigerenzer, P. Todd of the ABC Research Group, Simple Heuristics That Make us Smart, Oxford University Press, New York 1999. 23   See L. Cosmides, The Logic of Social Exchange…, op. cit. or R. Platt, R. Griggs, Facilitation in the Abstract Selection Task: the Effects of Attentional and Instructional Factors, “Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology” 1993, vol. 46A, pp. 591–613. 24   G. Gigerenzer, K. Hug, Domain Specific Reasoning: Social Contracts, Cheating, and Perspective Change, “Cognition” 1992, vol. 43, pp. 127–171. 22

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SCG) in their article entitled symptomatically ‘Relevance theory explains the selection task’.25 The abovementioned researchers claim that what does matter in solving WST is the context of the task, not the content of the applied rules. According to SCG, the effects observed in the WST experiments may be fully attributed to a mechanism of discourse comprehension which is responsible for inferring the communicative intentions of the speaker. This mechanism is governed by a principle of maximizing relevance (defined as a proportion of cognitive effects that the utterance causes in the listener’s mind and the cognitive effort necessary to process this utterance). We interpret a statement in a way that allows us to draw many useful inferences without spending too many of our cognitive resources. Furthermore, in the interpretation of WST from the perspective of the relevance theory, SCG emphasize the importance of logic, or actually the mental mechanisms which they call spontaneous inferential abilities, and which allow us to draw (automatically) logically correct inferences from various kinds of utterances. They argue that the rules used in the WST experiments are (as utterances) encrypted in an abstract form (‘If P then Q’) and the spontaneous inferential abilities in subject mind infer two kinds of equivalences: ‘There are cases of P-and-Q’26 and ‘There are no cases of P-and-(not-Q)’. The choice of cards for checking depends on the equivalence chosen as an interpretation of ‘If P then Q’ rule, whereas that which of the two equivalences is used depends mostly on the relevance computed for these equivalences. If “There are cases of P-and-Q” interpretation is chosen, subject checks P and Q cards (confirmation strategy). According to SCG this scenario is highly probable since the existence of actual instances (designations) increases the relevance of an utterance. On   D. Sperber, F. Cara, V. Girotto, Relevance Theory Explains the Selection Task, op. cit.   Which is a valid inference according to scholastic logic. SCG claims in addition that the relevance principle favours the interpretation of rules as having actual instances (this claim seems controversial – potential instances may matter as well, see L. Fiddick, L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, No Interpretation Without Representation: the Role of Domainspecific Representations and Inferences in the Wason Selection Task, “Cognition” 2000, vol. 77, pp. 1–79). 25

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the other hand, ‘There are no cases of P-and-(not-Q)’ interpretation is much less likely to be chosen (double negation processing intensifies the cognitive effort so the relevance, by its definition, decreases27) but it leads to logically correct solution of WST – P and not-Q cards are selected (falsification strategy). SCG suggest that the second interpretation may be elicited by a proper pragmatic context of the task, for example by stating that cases of P-and-(not-Q) are possible and an immediate denial in the form of the target rule (‘If P then Q’). For instance, most of the subjects performed properly when the task included the rule (very similar to the one used by Wason) ‘If a card has a 6 on the front, it has an E on the back’ and they were told that this rule governed the functioning of a machine printing such cards. The subjects were informed that the machine had been broken (did not follow the rule) and were asked to check if the repairman had managed to fix it.28 SCG argued that the spontaneous inferential abilities and the relevance maximizing principle may explain all of the thematic effects obtained in WST research. With regards to that, the WST experiments cannot be claimed to support the social contract theory developed by Cosmides (the mechanisms postulated by the relevance theory as more general override the possible influence of social contract algorithms) or any other hypothesis concerning specific mechanisms devoted to the processing of normative rules.29 SCG’s objections were contradicted by Fiddick, Cosmides, and Tooby30 (henceforth FCT). FCT argue that the relevance theory, even if correct in principle (i.e. if the relevance principle and the spontaneous inferential abilities work), does not explain some effects observed within WST research, in particular with the use of normative rules. To   SCG also claim that this interpretation has a weak cognitive effect.   The rule used in that experiment seems to be descriptive i.e. it contains a description of a certain regularity and does not entail any obligation or entitlement. 29   In other words, SCG do not claim that the social contract theory is wrong, but they suggest to stop using WST at least in that field. 30   L. Fiddick, L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, No Interpretation Without Representation…, op. cit. 27 28

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explain these effects one has to invoke content-specific mechanisms such as social contract algorithms (FCT suppose that there are more kinds of such mechanisms, see below). In order to confront relevance theory (as the explanation of WST results) and specific mechanisms theory (particularly the social contract theory), FCT suggest an evaluative research strategy consisting of experiments in which the predictions of the competing theories would vary. According to FCT, in the case of a conflict more specialized mental mechanisms take precedence over general ones (the principle of pre-emptive specificity), therefore if the given content of the task launches (for example) social contract algorithms, they shall work instead of the discourse comprehension mechanism and for that reason the results of the task will be consistent with the social contract theory, while not with the relevance theory (whenever their predictions vary). A series of experiments conducted by FCT revealed that applying the relevance theory to WST performance31 may lead to erroneous predictions. Experiment one32 indicated that the logical inferences (connectives) postulated by SCG are not necessary to obtain correct WST solutions. Subjects given the complete rule ‘If you give me some potatoes, I will give you some corn’ do not perform significantly better than those presented with the simplified description of a trade (social exchange): ‘I want potatoes’ – ‘I want corn’.33 It seems worth mentioning here that the relevance theory hardly explains the influence of the perspective shifts on WST results (see above), nor does it account for the fact that WSTs including a trade contract (e.g. potatoes for corn) and those concerning social laws (e.g. beer drinking task) are solved with equal correctness.34

  FCT did not test the relevance theory as a whole.   L. Fiddick, L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, No Interpretation Without Representation…, op. cit. 33   One may suggest that the subjects managed to infer a complete rule from that description. If this was so, such an inference would require an interpretative mechanism strikingly similar to social contract algorithms. 34   FCT think that both trades and social laws (although not all of them) form social contract rules. 31 32

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Another FCT experiment35 reveals that the elimination of the possibility to interpret the rule used in WST as a denial (or a prohibition), i.e. a significant impairment of the pragmatic context which plays a crucial role in SCG theory (by causing ‘There are no cases of P-and-(not-Q)’ equivalence more difficult to infer), does not lead to decrease of correctness. The subjects were given the rule ‘If someone goes hunting, he wears an orange jacket to avoid being shot’ and were asked to impersonate people trying to learn about the application of the orange jackets. Subsequently, half of them were asked to indicate which cards (from among: ‘goes hunting’, ‘doesn’t go hunting’, ‘wears an orange jacket’, and ‘doesn’t wear an orange jacket’) have to be checked to find out if the rule is true, and the other half were asked to choose cards representing people that may be endangered. As FCT had predicted, the subjects in the second group perform better. This result may be explained by the hazard management theory.36 FCT claim that mechanisms analogous to social contract algorithms may be found in our minds but that they are independent from them, and one of their kinds allows us to process effectively so called precaution rules (i.e. rules of the form ‘If a valued entity is subjected to a hazard, then taking an appropriate precaution lowers the risk of harm’) and for fast detection of hazardous situations, i.e. those in which no precautions have been taken in spite of the risk. The relevance theory provides no explanation for the observed between-groups difference. The third experiment37 was devoted to the issue of the mental scheme of rule violation. According to relevance theory, such a scheme is of a logical nature (the implication is false if and only if the antecedent is true and the consequent is false) and is activated when a   L. Fiddick, L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, No Interpretation Without Representation…, op. cit.   L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, Dissecting the Computational Architecture of Social Inference Mechanisms, [in:] Characterizing Human Psychological Adaptations (Ciba Foundation Symposium #208), Wiley, Chichester 1997, pp. 132–156; L. Fiddick, The Deal and the Danger: an Evolutionary Analysis of Deontic Reasoning, Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara 1998. 37   L. Fiddick, L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, No Interpretation Without Representation…, op. cit. 35

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subject adopts the falsification strategy (interprets the rule as ‘There are no cases of P-and-(not-Q)’). In opposition, FCT claim that various strictly specialized mechanisms (e.g. social contract algorithms or mechanism for processing precaution rules) utilize distinct notions of violation depending on the specific content of the rules processed (moreover, these notions entail varied strategies for testing the rules). The third experiment materials included the rule ‘If you make poison darts, then you may use the rubber gloves’ and following cards: ‘used rubber gloves’, ‘did not use rubber gloves’, ‘made poison darts’, and ‘did not make poison darts’. Half of the subjects were instructed to determine if the persons represented by the cards were risking their health or their lives. According to the hazard management theory, this instruction should lead to the selection of ‘made poison darts’ and ‘did not use rubber gloves’ cards. The other subjects were asked to check if the privilege of using the rubber gloves (the amount of which was limited) was being abused. The social contract theory predicts that those subjects were encouraged to select ‘used rubber gloves’ and ‘did not make poison darts’ cards. The pattern of results obtained by FCT demonstrated full conformity with the hypothesis stated above, whereas it is problematic to explain it on the basis of the pure (i.e. unaided by any additional rule violation schemes) relevance theory. In discussing the outcomes of the experiments described above, FCT admittedly do not negate the relevance theory, however they claim that relevance mechanisms (e.g. spontaneous inferential abilities) are often overridden by more specialized (content-specific) mental processes such as the social contract algorithms. This phenomenon may be effectively investigated with the use of WST, so SCG’s call to abandon WST experiments is unjustified. Following those methodological remarks it is possible to consider the question of what we have actually learnt about reasoning on rules from the WST experiments and the theories developed by Cosmides and her collaborators. This issue is obviously very broad yet two more detailed questions seem to be particularly interesting:

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1. Is it justified to identify the social contract theory (or the hazard management theory) with the postulate of a normative (deontic) module implemented in human mind? 2. Do the results of WST research support that postulate (suggest that such module exists)? A normative module shall be understood here as a mental mechanism (or a set of strictly interconnected mechanisms) adapted to the processing (e.g. reasoning on) of all normative (and only normative) rules i.e. expressions of duty or entitlement (utterances stating how given individuals are supposed to behave; see: Footnote 2). The effects of content on the performance of WST described at the beginning of this article were obtained with the use of normative rules (deontic conditionals), while the low rates of correct solutions appeared when the tasks included descriptive rules (regularities). Numerous researchers38 claim that these results may be accounted for by a mental mechanism common to all normative rules.39 However, the theories developed by Cosmides do not support their view. FCT and many other scholars40 argue that reasoning on rules employs a number of highly specialized mechanisms. One of the examples are social contract algorithms which process rules concerning social exchange (the notions of benefits and requirements are crucial here, see above). Those rules constitute only a subset of all normative rules. Moreover, FCT claim that empirical data ac  For example P. Cheng, K. Holyoak, Pragmatic Reasoning Schemas, “Cognitive Psychology” 1985, vol. 17, pp. 391–416 or K. Manktelow, D. Over, Social Roles and Utilities in Reasoning with Deontic Conditionals, “Cognition” 1992, vol. 39, pp. 85–105. 39   Simply put, we could call such a mechanism a ‘normative module’, although those researchers use other terms. 40   For example: D. Cummings, Social Norms and Other Minds: the Evolutionary Roots of Higher Cognition, [in:] The Evolution of Mind, eds. D. Cummings, C. Allen, Oxford University Press, New York 1998; R. Platt, R. Griggs, Facilitation in the Abstract Selection Task: the Effects of Attentional and Instructional Factors, “Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology” 1993, vol. 46A, pp. 591–613; G. Gigerenzer, K. Hug, Domain Specific Reasoning…, op. cit. 38

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count for the existence of a separate mechanism dedicated to the precaution rules and they predict that many more instances of such mechanisms shall be found (also that some of them may process descriptive rules). Their explanation for this diversity is functional – specialized mechanisms with specific, distinctive features are better adapted to fundamental evolutionary challenges.41 Therefore identifying their position with the postulate of normative module would be an unwarranted oversimplification. However, the question as to which view is supported by the experimental results seems to be much more important. A strong argument against the theories of normative module is afforded by the research proving that the application of a normative rule to WST does not necessarily lead to high rate of correct answers. For instance, Cosmides and Tooby revealed that people are quite inefficient in detecting violations of at least some normative rules which are neither social contracts, nor precautions.42 An indirect, and thus weaker, argument is the diversity of results concerning descriptive rules. Despite primary assumptions, some of them (presented in a proper context) may evoke high rates of correct solutions of WST (see the printing machine experiment conducted by SCG and described above43). This fact does not disqualify the possibility that all normative rules are processed equally ably and in the same way certainly (actually, it says nothing about normative rules at all). However, this initially clear division (WST solved correctly for normative rules and incorrectly for descriptive rules) has been questioned and we have to consider the quality of the justifi41   J. Tooby, L. Cosmides, Ecological Rationality in a Multimodular Mind, [in:] Evolutionary Psychology: Foundational Papers, MIT Press, Cambridge 2000; J. Tooby, L.  Cosmides, The Psychological Foundations of Culture, [in:] The Adapted Mind, eds. J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, Oxford University Press, New York 1992, pp. 19–136. 42   L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange…, op. cit. 43   Utilizing a descriptive rule i.e. a regularity describing a certain connection of facts. The subjects were asked to check if the regularity was true (i.e. whether the machine had been properly repaired).

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cation for the postulate of the normative module and a possible alternative hypothesis.44 The second kind of data against the normative module hypothesis (and the similar hypothesis of a homogenous mechanism processing all normative rules) comes from the research on functional differences between the mechanisms postulated in social contract theory and those from hazard management theory. If all of the normative rules launched the same mental process (or processes), we would not observe any differences in the processing of social contracts and precaution rules. Yet, for example, Rutherford, Cosmides, and Tooby45 reported that the hazard management algorithms work poorly if the processed precaution rule is regarded by the subjects as inefficient, whereas the social contract algorithms are activated even if the subjects consider the rule of exchange unprofitable. According to those researchers, the mechanisms related to the risk assessment evolved to allow people to avoid objective dangers, while the mechanisms from the social contract theory operate, inter alia, with the notion of benefits, which should be interpreted subjectively. If an agent within a WST scenario thinks that a given contract is beneficial for him, subjects are willing to accept his premises. Thus, particular mechanisms responsible for rules processing fulfil distinct functions and display different features. Furthermore, it appears that the neuronal correlates of the social contract algorithms and of the hazard management mechanisms vary as well. Stone and her team described a patient with focal brain damage who performed well in WST related to the precaution rules but did not manage to solve cheater detection tasks.46 Fiddick and his col44   Although one of them – relevance theory as a general explanation of WST results for all kinds of rules – has probably been falsified. 45   See: L. Fiddick, L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, No Interpretation without Representation…, op. cit., p. 18. 46   V. Stone, L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, N. Kroll, R. Knight, Selective Impairment of Reasoning About Social Exchange in a Patient with Bilateral Limbic System Damage, “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America” 2002, vol. 99.

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laborators procured an analogous dissociation with the use of priming procedures.47 These phenomena would be difficult to explain if we assumed that all normative rules are processed by a common mechanism (in such case all impairments should apply to both kinds of rules investigated). Besides, the functional MRI experiments show that reasoning on social contracts and on precaution rules employ distinct brain areas.48 The experiments analysed in this article seem to support two claims: 1. WST is a useful tool for research on the processing of rules, in particular it may contribute to the search for highly specialized mechanisms involved in that activity. 2. The theories postulating the existence of a common, homogenous mechanism for the processing all normative rules (so called normative module) are apparently false. The mental mechanisms for the processing of rules are most likely strictly specialized and highly independent from each other (although not necessarily absolutely isolated). Besides, they only function for some kinds of normative rules (not all of them), e.g. precaution rules. Therefore those who speak about the normative module use a confusing and unacceptable approximation (oversimplification). It seems anyway that with regards the mechanisms such as social contract algorithms and alike, using the term ‘module’ is inadvisable49 since it entails many problematic philosophical associations.50 However, we should remember that the efficiency of the human mind in processing many types of normative rules is impressive. Ap  See L. Fiddick, L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, No Interpretation without Representation..., op. cit., p. 21. 48   E. Ermer, S. Guerin, L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, M. Miller, Theory of Mind Broad and Narrow: Reasoning about Social Exchange Engages ToM Areas, Precautionary Reasoning Does Not, “Social Neuroscience” 2006, vol. 1, pp. 196–219. 49   Cosmides uses it very rarely anyway. 50   See B. Brożek, Normatywność prawa, op. cit., passim. 47

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parently, evolution and our intensely social lives have shaped our minds to become normative i.e. successful in dealing with the countless rules that govern our world.51 The research by Cosmides and her collaborators devoted to the social contract theory and the hazard management theory, but also Haidt’s experiments on moral judgements, Pinker’s work on language acquisition, or the seemingly remote to this text results in the Artificial Grammar Learning paradigm developed by Reber, probably allow us to use (instead of the inflated and discredited notion of module) the expression ‘normative (deontic) intuition’ when we want to collectively designate all adaptations of the human mind helpful in struggling with norms (rules). This term should obviously be understood as a convenient theoretical construct, a name for the set of heterogeneous heuristics that allow us to process some rules quickly and accurately. The question as to which rules (and why) we process with the use of these heuristics remains open to theoretical investigations and new experiments.

  It seems significant that recent WST research indicates that psychopaths perform much worse than nonpsychopaths when the task contains social contract or precautionary rule but they show no impairment in reasoning about descriptive rules (see E. Ermer, K. Kiehl, Psychopaths Are Impaired in Social Exchange and Precautionary Reasoning, “Psychological Science” 2010, Vol. 21, pp. 1399–1405). 51

Wojciech Załuski Jagiellonian University Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies

From Tit for Tat and Tribalism to the Golden Rule. Remarks on the Development of Moral Ideas1

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n this essay we aim to provide a scheme of the development of moral ideas by drawing on the results of biological sciences (especially, evolutionary theory) and Karl Jaspers’s insight regarding the significance of the period 800–300 BCE (which he called ‘the Axial Age’) in the history of human spirituality. We shall distinguish between an evolutionary ethic, i.e., a set of moral rules built upon, or expressive of, our predispositions shaped by natural selection, and a genuine ethic, i.e., a set of moral rules which impose much stronger requirements of impartiality than an evolutionary ethic. We shall argue that the evolutionary ethic is not a homogenous notion, as it contains two different ethics, rooted in our two different sets of biological dispositions: the ethic of reciprocal altruism (which can also be dubbed the ethic of Tit for Tat (TFTE)) and the tribal ethic (TE). We shall defend the claim that there is a certain continuity between TFTE and the genuine ethic and a discontinuity between the tribal ethic and the genuine ethic. In other words: the genuine ethic builds upon one part of our “ethical nature” and oppo  This contribution was made possible through the support of a grant “The Limits of Scientific Explanation” from the John Templeton Foundation.

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ses another part of our “ethical nature”. Thus, the transition from TFTE to the genuine ethic can be interpreted as an evolution, and a transition from the tribal ethic to the genuine ethic can be regarded as a revolution. We shall argue that such a transition took place in the Axial Age, so that the genuine ethic can be called the Axial Age ethic (AAE).

1. The Double Ambivalence of Human Nature There is a serious controversy among scholars as to whether there are any moral tendencies embedded in our biological nature, and – if there are such tendencies – what content they possess exactly. It seems, though, that there is wide agreement that, if there are moral tendencies embedded in our nature, the central among them are the tendency to engage in reciprocally altruistic behaviour by acting in accordance with the TFT strategy and tribalism. In other words: the evolutionary ethic is twofold – it is composed of TFTE and TE. We assume that it is justifiable to consider the tendency to act in accordance with TFT and the tendency to manifest tribal behaviour as moral tendencies (and thereby to treat sets of rules built upon these tendencies as forms of ethic) because they fall under a broad notion of ethical behaviour: there seems to be no contradiction or patent conflict with our linguistic habits in saying that the prescription to play TFT and the prescription to manifest tribal behaviour are moral prescriptions (even if we do not accept these prescriptions). This twofold character of evolutionary ethic testifies to one ambivalence of human nature: on the one hand, this ethic is rooted in our cooperative tendencies, on the other – it is based upon the opposition ‘we-they’. The second ambivalence of human nature stems from the fact that, from an evolutionary perspective, human beings are endowed with patently immoral or amoral tendencies, e.g., the desire for domination, the desire to occupy a high place in social hierarchy, lust, greed, excessive ambition, physical and emotional self-indulgence. Thus, evolutionary theory appears to justify the claim that human nature manifests double ambivalence, which consists in that our nature comprises moral and immoral

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or amoral tendencies (the first ambivalence), and among its moral tendencies one can find those which underlie a controversial type of ethic, namely the tribal ethic (the second ambivalence). The claim that human nature is doubly ambivalent underlies our interpretation AAE according to which this ethic is opposed not only to immoral behaviours that – historically – directly preceded it (a traditional interpretation of AAE) but also to two other types of ethic (especially to TE, as we also show that there is a certain continuity between TFTE and AAE). Let us now analyze the two above components of the evolutionary ethic at greater length.

2. The Evolutionary Ethic: an Ethic of Tit for Tat We owe an exact characterization of human tendency to engage in reciprocal altruism to the game-theorists who have described precisely what kind of behaviour is most effective for the user in generating beneficial outcomes in relations of reciprocal altruism, and thereby is likely to have been preserved by natural selection: human beings are neither universal cooperators – “suckers”, nor universal defectors – “cheaters” but they are Tit for Tat (TFT) players.2 TFT is strikingly simple, as it starts with a cooperative move and then imitates an opponent’s last move. This strategy is therefore nice, reciprocating, forgiving, not envious, and clear, i.e., is never first to defect, punishes defectors and therefore cannot be exploited by them, forgives after an opponent’s one period of cooperation, does not want to gain more than her opponent, and – being easily recognizable – it is efficient in generating cooperation. The insight that in a series of Prisoner’s Dilemmas (modelling the relations of reciprocal altruism) TFT is the strategy that fares best and thereby has the highest chance of reproductive success in reciprocal relationships is a very intuitive one it is in accordance with the commonsense observation thatrepeated interactions create the possibility for punishing defectors and 2

  Cf. R. Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation, Basic Books, New York 1984.

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thereby for discouraging them from defecting. Many common sense observations support this insight. For instance, we give higher tips in restaurants to which we are more likely to return, taxi-drivers are more honest towards their clients in small towns than in large towns, since in the small towns the probability of meeting the same taxi-driver is higher than is large ones; people are more polite to each other in small towns than in large ones often for the same reason; neighbours often help each other knowing that they are involved in repeated interactions. Two additional remarks on this strategy are in order. First, TFT can be seen as embodying certain moral rules of a specific character – conditional and prudential. These rules can be presented in two equivalent ways. One can say that TFT embodies the rule “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you only if others do unto you as they would have you do unto them”; or that it embraces the following rules: (1) Start by cooperating; (2) Do good to those who do good to you and do harm to those who do harm to you; (3) Be forgiving; (4) Do not be envious.3 Thus, since TFT does not prescribe unconditional moral action, it cannot be regarded as embodying a moral rule sensu stricto; it is a prudential rule, i.e. one aimed at serving our own long-term interests. Second, an especially interesting problem connected with the research on the TFT strategy is the problem of the role of emotions in shaping behaviour of agents involved in the Prisoner’s Dilemma-like interactions. One way emotions may affect the agent’s behaviour is by supporting the mechanism of reciprocal altruism: certain clusters of emotions (anger, guilt, forgiveness) may mimic the behaviour of the TFT players. Evolutionary biologists (e.g., Robert Trivers) have argued that these emotions were preserved by natural selection precisely for this purpose: they are supposed to “move” the agents to take actions that would have taken were they able to carry out rather complicated calculations that a fully rational player is expected to make.4 Furthermore, emotions can affect the agent’s utility function in   Cf. ibidem, pp. 27–53; P. Singer, How Are We to Live? Ethics in an Age of SelfInterest, Prometheus Books, New York 1995, pp. 129–153. 4   Cf. Trivers, The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism, “The Quarterly Review of Biology” 1971, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 35–57. 3

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such a way that it changes the game that the agent was initially involved in:, for instance, the game that was initially the Prisoner’s Dilemma may become (say, under the influence of the emotion of compassion which makes the agent derive disutility from her opponent misfortune) a game in which a rational choice is cooperation rather than defection; thus, emotions may induce agents to act cooperatively even in the one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma (by transforming this game into a different one).

3. The Evolutionary Ethic: the Tribal Ethic TE is typical for a primitive communal mentality and is aimed at ensuring the survival and prosperity of the group. It is based on the assumption that members of one’s own group and the members of other groups are different in essential aspects, which justifies taking sacrificial actions for the sake of the former and manifesting hostility towards the latter. The distinct feature of tribal ethic is therefore exclusivity – a narrow definition of the circle of people who deserve moral respect. As mentioned, there is a wide agreement among scholars that TFT is an element of our biologically embedded morality. It is less clear, however, whether TE is also an element of our biological equipment or, rather, a product of cultural evolution. If it were such an element, as we are inclined to maintain, then it would mean that our biologically embedded morality – what we have called evolutionary ethic – is strongly heterogeneous because it embraces two very different components: TFTE and TE. This heterogeneity merits the name ‘ambivalence’, since, in the light of contemporary moral standards, while TFTE is an intuitively acceptable moral system, TE does not satisfy these standards. It should be added, though, that TFTE and TE are similar in two important respects: they are prudential in that they are aimed at serving the interests of an individuals or groups practicing it; they involve a low level of impartiality. To return to TE: there seem to be two main arguments that TE is embedded in our biological predispositions, i.e., that there exist biological predispositions whose

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correlates are the rules that constitute TE (e.g., such rules as: “Treat your own group as better than the other groups”, “Be ready to sacrifice your own individual good for the sake of the good of the group to which you belong”; “Do not trust the members of other groups”). The first argument states that these predispositions are the product of the mechanism of genetic group selection. The theory of genetic group selection asserts that group selection may favour the emergence of the propensity to sacrifice oneself for the sake of the group, because groups consisting of individuals endowed with this propensity are likely to fare better than and prevail over groups consisting of individuals without such propensity. This explanation assumes, then, that the propensity to take sacrificial acts for the sake of the group (let us call this propensity “group altruism”) may have evolved, because fitness losses incurred by individuals endowed with such a propensity are compensated by the superior performance of the group to which they belong. However, this explanation is very controversial. The basic argument advanced against it is that if an egoist appears within a group of group-altruists, she will have higher chance of survival and reproduction than group-altruists, so that after a few generations the initially altruistic group will become dominated by egoists. This is the so-called “subversion from within argument” against the idea of group selection, raised by proponents of the view that the basic unit of selection is gene, not group.5 It should be noted, however, that in recent times the idea of genetic group selection has been rehabilitated   The term “subversion from within” was coined by Richard Dawkins (idem, The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1976). For a critical analysis of the idea of genetic group selection see G.C. Williams, Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought, Princeton University Press 1966. Incidentally, it is worth mentioning that some fragments from Charles Darwin’s writings suggest that he was inclined to accept the ideal of group selection as an explanation for the evolution of human faculties or psychological features; compare, e.g., the following quotation: “A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes” (Ch. Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Encyclopedia Britannica, London 1988 [1871], p. 322)”. 5

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to some extent (especially in the context of the dynamic of gene-culture co-evolution, which facilitates group selection6). As Elliott Sober and David S. Wilson have demonstrated, should some conditions be met (and, as they argue, the satisfaction of these conditions is facilitated by cultural evolution), it is possible that between-group selection for group-altruism (i.e., for the propensity to sacrifice oneself for the group) will prevail over within-group selection for egoism (i.e., for the propensity to exploit group-altruists).7 The conditions are as follows: genetic variation between groups must be greater than genetic variation within groups; the speed of between-group selection must be relatively higher than the speed of within-group selection; in order to hinder the process of within-group selection for egoism, the groups must grow, disperse, fission, and integrate in optimal times. The problem with the idea of genetic group selection is that these conditions are difficult to satisfy. For instance, the processes that uphold genetic variation between the groups and select between the groups are usually weaker than the processes that disrupt this variation and select within groups (e.g., the processes of migrations among groups). The second argument says that the emergence of predispositions underlying TE can be explained by means of theory of kin selection. According to this argument, therefore, TE would in fact be a result of an extension of the circle of the objects of ethical concern from a very narrow circle of closest kin to a still narrow though slightly broader circle of the members of one’s group. The extension may be interpreted in terms of mistake or side-effect: we treat members of our groups as our kin because the mechanisms of distinguishing between kin and non-kin are imprecise and fallible. These two evolutionary explanations of the emergence of predispositions underlying   See e.g., H. Gintis, S. Bowles, R. Boyd, E. Fehr, Explaining Altruistic Behaviour in Humans, “Evolution and Human Behaviour” 2003, no. 24, pp. 153–172. 7   Cf. E. Sober, D.S. Wilson, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, Harvard University Press, Cambridge-MA 1998. The idea of group selection is defended also by, e.g., Christopher Boehm (Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, Harvard University Press, Cambridge-MA 2001). 6

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TE need not be viewed as mutually exclusive: they can be regarded as complementary. The next stage in the development of moral ideas (following the stage of evolutionary ethic) took place in the so-called Axial Age: at this stage there appeared a genuine ethic, i.e., AAE.8 In the next point we shall discuss AAE in detail.

4. The Axial Age Ethic Karl Jaspers argued that there were two main revolutions in the history of human thought: the ethical revolution in the Axial Age (800– 300 BC), and the scientific revolution in the 17th century.9 The first was a time of spiritual revolution (the more or less simultaneous activity of such spiritual geniuses as Zoroaster, Confucius, Lao-Tse, Buddha, the Jewish prophets, Socrates), which led to the emergence of a mature form of ethics; the second was the time of scientific genius which led to the emergence of mathematical natural sciences. AAE developed in India, China, Israel, Greece at the time of violence and as a reaction against this violence. As Karen Armstrong put it: The Axial sages developed their compassionate ethics in horrible and terrifying circumstances. They were not meditating in ivory towers but were living in frightening, war-torn societies, where the

  One may, however, argue that there is an “intermediate” stage between these two types of ethic, namely, the “Warrior” or “Homeric” ethic. This ethic is neither tribal (quite the contrary: it is individualistic) nor opposed to egotism (quite the contrary: it is a version of egocentric ethics, as it extols such virtues as pride, valour, ruthlessness; though the last scenes of the Iliad – the meeting of Achilles and Priam – can be interpreted as attesting Homer’s dissatisfaction with the warrior ethics and a desire for transition to ethic of empathy; for an in-depth interpretation of these poignant last scenes of the Iliad see Z. Kubiak, Półmrok ludzkiego świata, Znak, Kraków 2001). 9   Cf. K. Jaspers, O źródle i celu historii, trans. J. Marzęcki, Wydawnictwo Marek Derewiecki, Kęty 2006, pp.34–36. 8

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old values were disappearing…For instance, in Israel the Axial Age began after the destruction of Jerusalem and the enforced deportation of the exiles to Babylonia, where the priestly rulers started to explore an ideal of renunciation and ahimsa. In China the Axial Age developed during the Warring States period, when the Confucians, Mohists and Daoists all found ways to counteract widespread lawlessness and lethal aggression. In Greece it developed in the era of fighting poleis.10

Now, our claim is that there is a continuity (notwithstanding serious differences) between TFTE and AAE and discontinuity between TE and AAE. In other words, the Axial sages appealed in fact to natural human capacities, though with the view of refining it, in order to oppose aggression, hatred and violence present in the societies in which they lived. As mentioned before, we therefore interpret the Axial Age ethic as opposed not only to the immoral behaviours that directly preceded it (a traditional interpretation of AAE) but also to two components of evolutionary ethic, though we also argue that there is a certain continuity between one of this components (TFTE) and AAE. Our interpretation can be schematically presented as follows: at the historical level AAE arose in direct reaction to the amorality (egotism) of the time of violence: it was directed against the ‘ego principle’ (the principle recommending the pursuit of one’s self-interest, the promotion of one’s ego) as a motive of human actions; at the conceptual level AAE can be opposed not only to amorality of the time in which it arose but also to certain types of ethics which are arguably embedded in human nature and thereby can be regarded as preceding it, namely: TFTE and TE. We shall develop this interpretation by presenting the distinct features of AAE at greater length.11   K. Armstrong, Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions, Alfred A. Knopf-Random House, Toronto 2006, p. 26. 11   We draw especially on K. Armstrong, Buddha, Phoenix, London 2002 and idem, The Great Transformation, op. cit. 10

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Wojciech Załuski

First, the Axial Age sages manifested a lack of concern for theoretical metaphysics: they stressed that what is important is not so much what you believe but what you do. Nonetheless, AAE assumed what can be called practical metaphysics. The central tenet of this metaphysics was that life is essentially tragic, that life is suffering (dukkha, as emphasized by Buddha) but that this tragic character of life can be to a certain extent transcended if human beings abandon the ego principle and start to pursue a self-effacing, compassionate, lifestyle. This tenet was connected with the discovery by the Axial Age sages of the inner self and of the inner transcendence.12 This inner transcendence (called variously in different religions: Nibbana, Dao, Atman, Brahman, God) is believed to be achievable when one overcomes one’s natural egoism and steps outside one’s ego. Secondly, AAE contained the requirement of universal concern for everybody without limits. Its purpose was not only to transcend human egotism, but also TE with its limited concern for a narrow circle of people. Thirdly, an essential component of AAE was the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule has a positive and negative form: in the former it says “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” – it therefore requires that we look into ourselves to know what we desire and then do it to others; in the latter form it says: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” – it therefore requires that we look into ourselves to know what we do not desire and then do not do it to others. The Golden Rule was based on the assumption that other people do not differ from us in essential points (i.e., that we do not form a special category of human beings who deserve a special treatment and consideration), and therefore was a means of overcoming the ego principle and thereby achieving self-forgetful  Jaspers claimed that the Axial Age sages fully realized, and bravely faced, the existence of the “border situations (Grenzsituationen)”, which led them to the discovery of the tragic character of the human condition and of transcendence (cf. K. Jaspers, O  źródle i celu historii…, op. cit., p. 65). According to Jaspers, the Axial Age is characterized by “severe greatness creative clarity, and the depth of sense (ibidem, p. 34)”. 12

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ness and self-abasement (kenosis).13 Fourthly, the spirit of AAE was the spirit of compassion, the spirit of empathy. It should be noted here that the Golden Rule become fully plausible only if it is accompanied by empathy by which it can be corrected. The Golden Rule teaches us to treat our feelings and preferences as guides for treating other people; it therefore assumes that other human beings are uniform in terms of their reactions of pain and pleasure to various stimuli. But our feelings and preferences may be different from those of others. This is especially true regarding the positive version of the Golden Rule: while human beings avoid more or less similar things (e.g., they want to avoid pain), they are often substantially different in their desires. And it is precisely empathy that enables an agent to discern a situation when his preferences differ from the other person’s preferences. Empathy is therefore a necessary supplement of the Golden Rule: without empathy the Golden Rule may lead to acting bona fide in a way which brings results which are not beneficial for other persons. In the remainder of this point we shall compare AAE with TFTE; we shall see that there are interesting similarities between these two types of ethic, which justifies our claim about the existence of a certain continuity between them (while AAE is both in direct opposition to egotism and to TE; in particular: AAE preaches universal concern for everyone, whereas TE excludes members of other groups from ethical concern.). The Golden Rule (which is a proto-version of the Categorical Imperative) says “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. TFT, in turn, prescribes behaviour in accordance with a conditional version of Golden Rule, as it is a special version of the rule “Do   This rule (in its negative version) was promulgated for the first time by Confucius (who called it shu). His disciples asked him: What is the single thread that runs through all your teaching and pulls it all together?”; and Confucius replied: “Look into your own heart. Discover what it is that give you pain. And then refuse to inflict that pain on anybody else”; his disciples also asked: “Master, which one of your teachings can we put into practice every day?”; and Confucius said: “Do not do to others as you would not have them do to you”. Also Buddha preached the Golden Rule. It was also taught by Jesus (cf. Matthew. VIII, 12) Rabbi Hillel the Elder, in turn, maintained that the Golden Rule was the essence of Judaism. 13

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unto others as you would have them do unto you only if others do unto you as they would have you do unto them”. The difference between, the Golden Rule and TFT can be described also in the following way. TFT (as mentioned before) embraces the following rules: (1) Start by cooperating; (2) Do good to those who do good to you and do harm to those who do harm to you; (3) Be forgiving; (4) Do not be envious. Now, the Golden Rule can be interpreted as assuming the rules (1), (2), (4) and the rule (3’): Do good unconditionally. Now, it is clear that the difference between TFTE and AAE is a not a superficial one: while the former type is prudential ethic, based on a conditional imperative of cooperation, and with a low level of impartiality, the latter ethic is non-prudential ethic, based on a conditional imperative of cooperation, with a high level of impartiality. Nonetheless: there is a distinct continuity between TFTE and AAE: a substantial part of the rules constituting TFTE is accepted also within AAE.

5. Final remarks In the preceding points we have interpreted our scheme of the development of moral ideas in a historical manner. Yet a historical interpretation is not the only one that can be given to this scheme: one can also construe it as describing the stages of moral development of a given individual – an individual can be said to be morally mature if she or he has overcome the “evolutionary stages” of morality and has internalized the principles of AAE. TFTE can hardly be regarded as a mature form of ethics, as it is prudential (aimed at promoting self-interest of the person practising it) and conditional. TE is even more obviously than TFTE an immature form of ethics, because its level of impartiality is disturbingly low: it relies on an arbitrary moral distinction between the members of one’s group and the members of other groups. For all these reasons, the evolutionary ethic cannot be regarded as genuine ethic – as a moral guide for a morally mature person.