| dc.description.abstract | Synopsis
I begin by considering the problem of priority between ought and the other normative forces, as these are distinguished by John Broome. Ought is the strongest normative force but what kind of priority can it have given our, shall we call it, subservience to the normative requirement?
Secondly I consider the subservience of ought to reasons. That the agglomerate of pro tanto reasons make an ought seems to imply that ought stands in a subservient relation to reasons. On one hand you can’t tell someone imperatively to do something without providing a reason. We are in some sense not moved by imperatives, at least we ought in some sense not to be. Generally we are moved by reasons. Sometimes we stand in relations to experts which both motivate and justify us in obeying imperatives, such as when we go to the doctor. This provides ground for thinking that ought is related to reasons in the way Broome claims. On the other hand the way from reasons to ought places quite a vaguer on the chances for oughts in praxis. Oughts thereby rely on our sensitivity to the reasons which explain it or perhaps constitute it. And this seems undoubtedly true of our practical reality that oughts do rely on our sensitivity to and implementation of them for their place in guiding our actions, but it does not however imply that their existence or truth depends upon our sensitivity towards them. In praxis oughts seem to be weaker than and subordinate to reasons. Our weighings of reasons are limited as to which reasons we see and how much we take them to weigh, and how we agglomerate them. Transference from slack to strict normativity would thereby in praxis imply relativism or subjectivism. However, Broome objects that the ought of the agglomerate of reasons is not strict, at least not in some cases. We therefore have grounds for defending the existence of a strict ought which is other than the ought which results from the agglomerate of reasons.
From introducing a distinction between this ought and different kinds of ‘ought’ we come to the problem of priority and distinction between different oughts. This problem involves not only that some oughts are more important than others but also that they are different. Theoreticians such as Philippa Foot, Susan Wolf, and Bernard Williams have all attempted to reduce the ‘moral’ ought or raise the other oughts to a level where any priority is lost, except perhaps the priority which is provided by us. Our subjective prioritizing replaces the detachable, normativity of an ought fact with a non-detachable ought along the lines of Williams’ practical ought, which “expresses the agent’s recognition of the course of action appropriate, all things considered, to the reasons, motives, and constraints that he sees as bearing on the situation.” Anscombe denies that the strict concept of moral obligation makes any sense without the pervasiveness of Hebrew-Christian ethics. I shall attempt to distinguish the strict and detachable ought from other uses of ought and I will try to say something in favour of its priority. I agree with Harman that ‘The USA ought to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki’ does not transfer to ‘Hiroshima and Nagasaki ought to be bombed by the USA’. The normativity and justification of that concluding ought is therefore relational to the deliberation of which it takes place, and is not applicable outside of the deliberation.
In the end I look further into the relations between can, must and limitations to ought in order to say something about freedom and determination. I conclude that the prospects of the strict and detachable ought rely on an unrestrained sensitivity to them, which again implies that we balance our subservience to established laws and conventions and our subservience to the normative requirement with a heightened use of our imagination or whatever will provide both unmediated responsiveness and empathy towards oughts and reasons. So as to facilitate the reception of concerns which are neither required by our mind states nor urged by conventional forces. We may confirm however that the prospects for the strict and detachable ought are bleak due to the pervasiveness of conventional morality, the authority of subjective weighings of reasons and our subservience to the normative requirement which often confuses us to believe that what we are required to do or believe is what we ought to. | nor |