In a previous post, I observed that Walter Sinnott-Armstrong concedes that secular accounts of moral obligation cannot vindicate the thesis that agents always have decisive (all-things-considered) reasons to avoid wrongdoing. To mitigate this problem, he argues:

Is this limitation a problem for secular accounts of morality? I doubt that, too. If we demand this extreme kind of reason to be moral, then we are bound to be disappointed. The solution to our disappointment is to give up this demand, not to imagine a higher power that we want to fulfill an illegitimate demand. Besides, this limit on secular theories would be a problem only if the alternative religious account could provide a better reason to be moral. It can’t. That is what I will show in the next section.[1]

There are three ideas here. First is the claim that the failure to vindicate this assumption is a problem for secular theories only if religious theories can adequately vindicate it. Second is the claim that religious theories cannot vindicate this assumption. Third, he claims that the assumption itself cannot be adequately vindicated.

I want to focus on the last two of these claims.

Can religious theories adequately vindicate this assumption?

Sinnott-Armstrong argues that religious theories cannot adequately vindicate the thesis that agents always have decisive reasons to avoid wrongdoing. His argument involves two steps.

First, he argues that any adequate theory of moral requirements must not only vindicate the assumption that agents have reasons to do what is right, but that those reasons must be of the right kind—they cannot be arbitrary. He illustrates this point with two examples.

Imagine that “the King of Curls threatens to kill all of his subjects who do not shave their heads on May 21, though there is nothing special about that date.”[2] Do we have a reason to shave our heads? Yes—the threat of death gives us a reason to comply. However, this reason is arbitrary; it is based on naked force and bears no relation to the content of the command.

Similarly, a mother is trying to teach her son to stop hitting his sister. She can do this in two ways: she can convince him that harming his sister is wrong, or she can simply threaten him with punishment if he doesn’t comply. The second approach gives the son a reason not to hit his sister, but it is the wrong kind of reason—it is arbitrary, based on force, and doesn’t teach him to care about his sister.[3]

His second step is to argue that religious theories fail to provide the right kind of reasons for refraining from wrongdoing. They are arbitrary in the same way. His reasoning is as follows:

Divine threats of Hell or promises of Heaven operate in the same way. If our only reason to be moral is to avoid Hell or get to Heaven, then our motivation is far from ideal. Even a total psychopath, who cares about nobody else but believes in Hell, would have this reason to be moral. But this reason would not give the psychopath any reason for the content of the moral restrictions themselves. The psychopath would still see moral restrictions as just as arbitrary as a law requiring him to shave his head on May 21.[4]

The key premise here is that if God exists, the only reason we could have for following His commands would be to either get to Heaven or avoid Hell.

But why think this? Sinnott-Armstrong doesn’t say.

Earlier in the same chapter, he had rejected the idea that all interests are self-interested. He wrote: “Many reasons are not based on self-interest. That should be common ground between theists and [atheists].”[5] Later, he states:

The fact that an act prevents harm to another person can be a reason for me to do that act. The fact that an act causes harm to another person can be a reason for me not to do that act. These facts are reasons, even if the other people are strangers. Crucially, these reasons are not self-interesting. They are facts about the interests of other people, not me.[6]

So, Sinnott-Armstrong accepts that—even if theism is true—there can be non-selfish reasons for acting. But if that’s correct, why assume that the only reason an agent could have for obeying God is a selfish one? Why couldn’t agents also have non-selfish reasons to obey God?

Remember the theist whom Sinnott-Armstrong is criticising. This theist understands God to have certain attributes: God is all-powerful, all-knowing, essentially benevolent, and impartial. So what God commands is co-extensive with prescriptions that a benevolent, impartial person would endorse—if that person were fully informed and reasoning correctly. It is quite plausible that agents would have unselfish reasons to follow such prescriptions. In fact, it is hard to see how Armstrong can say that we have unselfish reasons to do acts that benefit others, but no unselfish reasons to obey prescriptions that are justified from a perspective that aims to benefit others.

Here we need to recall the challenge to secular ethics and how theism is purported to solve it. The challenge is this: Suppose we are not accountable to God. In that case, certain kinds of practical dilemmas will occur. Requirements that are justified from an impartial point of view—ones that promote the interests of others—will sometimes conflict with an agent’s long-term self-interest. Unselfish reasons will point one way, prudential reasons the other. If such dilemmas occur, we face a question: What reason is there to act unselfishly rather than in one’s self-interest? What reason do we have for always giving precedence to impartial demands in such cases?

It is the inability of secular ethics to address this question that is the alleged problem.

If we are accountable to God, this problem is avoided because such dilemmas never occur. Rewards and punishments change the balance of reasons for and against the act. However, they do so not by changing or negating the strength of the unselfish reasons against the act—they change the balance of prudential reasons in favour of the act. Because God is impartial and benevolent, we will still have the same kind of unselfish reasons—of the sort Sinnott-Armstrong refers to—to obey God’s commands. However, these reasons will never be matched or overridden by prudential demands to the contrary. Instead, prudential reasons will support and reinforce them.

Can the assumption be adequately vindicated?

Let’s turn to Sinnott-Armstrong’s second claim: that the thesis that agents always have decisive (all-things-considered) reasons to avoid wrongdoing cannot be adequately vindicated. He proposes the following dilemma:

Different audiences react to this point in different ways. Some people really want a reason to be moral that will motivate psychopaths, even if it is not connected to any reason why certain acts are immoral. They are rightly scared of psychopaths, so they want a reason that will convince psychopaths to be moral. Other people want a reason to be moral that does not leave morality arbitrary, because the reason to be moral shows why those moral acts are moral. They want a moral reason rather than a selfish reason. I share the latter goal, but I can appreciate the former wish. Unfortunately, I doubt that the former wish can be fulfilled. No reason will succeed in convincing everyone to be moral. This is another obvious but hard fact of life that we need to learn to live with.[7]

The proposed dilemma appears to be this: no meta-ethical theory can both vindicate the assumption that agents always have decisive reasons to refrain from wrongdoing and identify reasons of the correct type. If a meta-ethical theory entails that agents always have decisive reasons to be moral, the reasons it cites will be arbitrary or of the wrong kind. If we are to identify a fact that provides reasons for all people—including egoists and amoral individuals—it will need to appeal to something like self-interest; and self-interested reasons are the wrong kind of reason. By contrast, if a theory provides reasons of the right kind, it will fail to provide a reason strong enough or universal enough to ensure agents always have decisive reasons to be moral. The right kind of reasons are unselfish reasons, but these will not provide everyone—including egoists and psychopaths—with reasons to be moral, nor will they always be strong enough to override prudential or instrumental reasons to the contrary.

Here, I think Sinnott-Armstrong relies on a false dichotomy. He assumes a meta-ethical theory must either appeal to selfish reasons to be moral or to unselfish reasons. However, his interlocutor’s point is that this is a false choice. If a divine command theory is correct, then what is in our long-term interest and what is justified from an impartial point of view coincide. So we have both types of reason at the same time. They are never in conflict.

It is always in our interest to obey God and never in our interest to disobey—things such as eternal life are at stake. For this reason, there are strong self-interested reasons to be moral that are never overridden. These reasons provide even an egoist or a psychopath with reasons to comply.

Because God is impartial and benevolent, we also have very strong unselfish reasons to be moral. What God commands us to do is what a fully informed, rational, impartial, benevolent person would command. The commands He gives are prescriptions justified from a perspective that equally considers the interests of all. These are reasons of the right kind.

[1] Walter Sinnott Armstrong, Morality Without God 118

[2] Walter Sinnott Armstrong, Morality Without God 95 (ebook)

[3] Ibid, 96

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid, 93

[6] Ibid, 94

[7] Ibid, 96

Tags:   Divine Command Theory · Dualism of Practical Reason · God and Morality · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong · Why be Moral?1 Comment