Lezione 1
Normative Concepts
Different kinds of second-order moral theories, corresponding to the different kinds of basic moral concepts they recognize and employ.
Axiological and deontological theories, which respectively emphasize worthiness or rightness and duty or obligation. The two basic concepts, here, are those of value and of law. (There may be further options: virtue theories, where the basic concepts are those of personal perfection or virtue.) Utilitarianism and Kantianism are the paradigms of these two kinds of moral theory. But I am assuming, for now and for the purposes of the course, that all the participants to the debate share a position of robust non-naturalist moral realism.
It is important to grasp the different characters of these two kinds of theory. These difference can be fixed by looking at three parameters: the items which are the object of moral assessment (judgment, decision, action); the criteria of such assessment; the sort of objectivity they can aim to.
Items: deontological theories select primarily actions as the objects of moral assessment, the intentional doings of agents; states of affairs and persons are evaluated secondarily (according as they include or perform actions). Axiological theories focus on states of affairs or on states of the world, on the nature or essence of how it is with objects and events and their properties. Actions and persons are positive or negatively assessed secondarily, dependingly on the states of affairs in which they figure. (Virtue theories focus on persons.)
Criteria: deontological assessments apply to actions criteria or principles which are in a sense external to them. They assess actions in terms of their essential concordance or discordance with an independently individuated and grounded law. Concordance and discordance must be internally grounded: it must be not a chance but something essential whether an action is or is not conforming to law; but still the moral merit of the action springs from its relation to the law. Axiological theories assess in terms of their internal structure, of their constituents and of the way they are combined or related. Value springs in some way from the appropriateness or fittingness of such relation between such constituents; in this sense, it is internal to the state of affairs. (There are problems here; but they are best discussed later.)
Objectivity: the objectivity which can be achieved by deontological assessments reflects, that, tries to grasp and represent, the unconditional obligation which is imposed by the moral law. If such obligation is unconditional, then, when we specify correctly what such obligation is, thiswill apply independently of any viewpoint or opinion. “Apply”, here, has an immediate practical force: it expresses the universal and ultimate authority of the law. The objectivity which can be achieved in deontological theories therefore is a property or feature of moral obligation, its holding irrespectively of particular, subjective conditions: its paradigm is Kant’s categorical imperative. Axiological objectivity is different. Since the criterion – and the source – of moral merit is internal, consists in the nature of the constituents and of the structure of states of affairs, the objectivity of value is of the character of how it is with such state of affairs, of its reality or essence. In a way, it is of the character of what individuates and constitutes any state of affairs; only, it is not natural. Correspondingly, the objectivity of axiological assessment is epistemic rather than practical: it is the right, well grounded, understanding and recognition of the value of a state of affairs.
Notice that these differences do not bar deontology from talking of intrinsic moral merit: but this will be with reference to the law of assessment, rather than to the assessed action. Equally, this does not bar axiological theories from comparing states of affairs to some standard: but such standard will be some sort of concept or ideal, rather than a law. But certainly, the idea of a moral standard belongs more strictly to deontology; and the idea of moral intrinsicalness belongs more strictly to moral axiology. Because it is only in axiological theories that moral merit can be in a proper sense internal to its subject or bearer; and it can make sense at all to think of value as belonging to a state of affairs only because of its identity or nature. Thus, the possibility of something that has moral merit in itself must be primarily assessed in relation to axiological theories and to intrinsic value.
Abbiamoideecontrastanti riguardo al valore – al valore etico o estetico delle cose, delle persone, delle azioni, degli stati mentali. Da una parte siamo portati a cercare delle fonti da cui scaturisce il valore di oggetti di questo genere; a farlo dipendere da qualche cosa d'altro di diverso. In particolare, un'idea molto naturale e' che qualcuno, un soggetto capace di pensiero e di emozioni, un agente, sia la fonte dei valori; che avere valore dipenda da valutare; e che chi valuta sia un soggetto cosciente – finito o infinito. Il valore sembra qualcosa di così essenziale al pensare e all'agire da essere in qualche modo interno ad esso.
Dall'altra parte, possiamo dubitare – come ne dubita Platone in Eutifrone – che questa sia addirittura una visione coerente del valore. Se il valore dipende dalla valutazione e la valutazione a sua consiste in un qualche esercizio di un soggetto cosciente, in che cosa potrebbe consistere questo esercizio? Se avesse carattere cognitivo o emotivo, come potrebbe non rispecchiare qualcosa che abbia già valore? Se fosse pratico, un volere o un agire, come potrebbe non basarsi su un concetto di valore già dato o sulla corrispondenza ad un norma data?
Possiamo formulare il dilemma in termini di relatività e assolutezza. Da una parte, tutto ciò che ha valore sembra dovere avere valore per qualcuno – dove 'dovere' significa: questa dipendenza e' una condizione costitutiva del valore stesso. Dall'altra parte, sembra che qualche cosa debba avere valore in séperché possa esserci affatto valore nel mondo – dove ‘in sé' significa: considerato indipendentemente da qualsiasi altra cosa; come 'oggetto solitario'.Quest'ultima e' la controversa idea di valore intrinseco.
FromEutyphro
Soc. Remember that I did not ask you to give me two or three examples of piety, but to explain the general idea which makes all pious things to be pious. Do you not recollect that there was one idea which made the impious impious, and the pious pious?
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Euth. Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them.
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Soc. But what differences are there which cannot be thus decided, and which therefore make us angry and set us at enmity with one another? I dare say the answer does not occur to you at the moment, and therefore I will suggest that these enmities arise when the matters of difference are the just and unjust, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable. Are not these the points about which men differ, and about which when we are unable satisfactorily to decide our differences, you and I and all of us quarrel, when we do quarrel?
Euth. Yes, Socrates, the nature of the differences about which we quarrel is such as you describe.
Soc. And the quarrels of the gods, noble Euthyphro, when they occur, are of a like nature?
Euth. Certainly they are.
Soc. They have differences of opinion, as you say, about good and evil, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable: there would have been no quarrels among them, if there had been no such differences-would there now?
Euth. You are quite right.
Soc. Does not every man love that which he deems noble and just and good, and hate the opposite of them?
Euth. Very true.
Soc. But, as you say, people regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust,-about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them.
Euth. Very true.
Soc. Then the same things are hated by the gods and loved by the gods, and are both hateful and dear to them?
Euth. True.
Soc. And upon this view the same things, Euthyphro, will be pious and also impious?
Euth. So I should suppose.
Soc. Then, my friend, I remark with surprise that you have not answered the question which I asked. For I certainly did not ask you to tell me what action is both pious and impious: but now it would seem that what is loved by the gods is also hated by them.
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Soc. We shall know better, my good friend, in a little while. The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.
Euth. I do not understand your meaning, Socrates.
Soc. I will endeavour to explain: we, speak of carrying and we speak of being carried, of leading and being led, seeing and being seen. You know that in all such cases there is a difference, and you know also in what the difference lies?
Euth. I think that I understand.
Soc. And is not that which is beloved distinct from that which loves?
Euth. Certainly.
Soc. Well; and now tell me, is that which is carried in this state of carrying because it is carried, or for some other reason?
Euth. No; that is the reason.
Soc. And the same is true of what is led and of what is seen?
Euth. True.
Soc. And a thing is not seen because it is visible, but conversely, visible because it is seen; nor is a thing led because it is in the state of being led, or carried because it is in the state of being carried, but the converse of this. And now I think, Euthyphro, that my meaning will be intelligible; and my meaning is, that any state of action or passion implies previous action or passion. It does not become because it is becoming, but it is in a state of becoming because it becomes; neither does it suffer because it is in a state of suffering, but it is in a state of suffering because it suffers. Do you not agree?
Euth. Yes.
Soc. Is not that which is loved in some state either of becoming or suffering?
Euth. Yes.
Soc. And the same holds as in the previous instances; the state of being loved follows the act of being loved, and not the act the state.
Euth. Certainly.
Soc. And what do you say of piety, Euthyphro: is not piety, according to your definition, loved by all the gods?
Euth. Yes.
Soc. Because it is pious or holy, or for some other reason?
Euth. No, that is the reason.
Soc. It is loved because it is holy, not holy because it is loved?
Euth. Yes.
Soc. And that which is dear to the gods is loved by them, and is in a state to be loved of them because it is loved of them?
Euth. Certainly.
Soc. Then that which is dear to the gods, Euthyphro, is not holy, nor is that which is holy loved of God, as you affirm; but they are two different things.
Euth. How do you mean, Socrates?
Soc. I mean to say that the holy has been acknowledge by us to be loved of God because it is holy, not to be holy because it is loved.
Euth. Yes.
Soc. But that which is dear to the gods is dear to them because it is loved by them, not loved by them because it is dear to them.
Euth. True.
Soc. But, friend Euthyphro, if that which is holy is the same with that which is dear to God, and is loved because it is holy, then that which is dear to God would have been loved as being dear to God; but if that which dear to God is dear to him because loved by him, then that which is holy would have been holy because loved by him. But now you see that the reverse is the case, and that they are quite different from one another. For one (theophiles) is of a kind to be loved cause it is loved, and the other (osion) is loved because it is of a kind to be loved. Thus you appear to me, Euthyphro, when I ask you what is the essence of holiness, to offer an attribute only, and not the essence-the attribute of being loved by all the gods. But you still refuse to explain to me the nature of holiness. And therefore, if you please, I will ask you not to hide your treasure, but to tell me once more what holiness or piety really is, whether dear to the gods or not (for that is a matter about which we will not quarrel) and what is impiety?