Transcript Why “Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis”?

Pragmatic
Conceptual Analysis
and Our Reasons for
Following Norms
Justin C. Fisher
University of British Columbia
March 10, 2008
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~jcfisher
(Positive) Normative Concepts
When one recognizes that doing something
would be…
–
epistemically rational,
–
practically rational, or
–
morally right…
this often leads one to do that thing.
The primary use of positive normative
concepts is to mark things as being worth
doing.
Why Follow Norms?
What reasons do we have to let
(positive) normative concepts guide
what we do?
–
Why be rational?
–
Why be moral?
Presumptions about Benefits
I presume there are some ‘benefits’
that we clearly have reason to pursue:
–These may be for self or for loved ones.
–I stake no stance regarding whether
these involve pleasure, health, desire
satisfaction, and/or something else.
Our question ≈ “What’s so beneficial
about following norms?”
A Natural Strategy
Q1: What do our normative concepts
mean?
–
What criteria would be sufficient
to make something count as
being rational or as being
morally right ?
Q2: What general reasons would we
have for doing things that meet those
criteria?
Overview
I survey possible approaches to Q1.
– Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis
– Intuitive Conceptual Analysis
– Naturalized Conceptual Analysis
Of these, Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis,
alone, gives a plausible answer to Q2.
So, we should either…
– embrace Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis, or
– strongly consider being amoral.
Modest Goals
I’m aiming only to show some relations
between various views of conceptmeaning and questions about our reasons
to accept the guidance of normative
concepts.
I will not argue today that…
– We should embrace Pragmatic Conceptual
Analysis.
– We generally have reason to be moral.
– We should adopt any particular first-order
views about the nature of morality.
What I actually believe.
Approaches to Q1
Q1: What do our
normative concepts mean?
A theory of meaning says how various
parameters determine meaning – this suggests
the methodology of discovering values for those
parameters and plugging them into the theory.
Theories of
Meaning
Methodologies to
reveal Meaning
A methodology tells you to look at various
parameters to make conclusions about meaning –
but this presupposes a theory that those
parameters determine (or at least correlate
strongly with) meaning.
Methodologies and Meanings
• Intuitive Conceptual Analysis  Intuitive
Meaning (whatever best satisfies
intuitions surrounding our concept).
• Naturalized C.A.  Causal Meaning
(whatever best unifies the paradigm
cases, where these are usually taken to
be causes of usage of the concept)
• Pragmatic C.A.  Pragmatic Meaning
(whatever best sustains beneficial
patterns of usage).
Frank Jackson (1998, pg 31)
“[H]ow should we identify our ordinary
conception? The only possible answer, I think, is
by appeal to what seems to us to be most obvious
and central about free action, determinism,
belief, or whatever, as revealed by our intuitions
about possible cases.
Intuitions about how various cases, including
various merely possible cases, are correctly
described in terms of free action [etc…] are
precisely what reveal our ordinary conceptions
of free action [etc…]”
Different Versions of Intuitive
Conceptual Analysis…
• employ intuitions with different content
– intuitions about possible cases
– intuitions about generalizations
– intuitions about paradigm instances
• seek intuitions from different people
(ordinary folk vs. various sorts of experts)
• resolve conflicts between intuitions in
different ways
Application to Morality
Start pumping
the relevant
intuitions…
Then seek an
account of
morality that
best fits these
intuitions.
Messy Intuitions
• Our intuitions often disagree.
• Joshua Greene has interesting results
correlating different people’s intuitions
about various trolley problems with
whether they tend to use emotional or
calculating centers of their brains as
they intuit – this suggests that intuitive
conflicts are very deep-seated in our
psychology and will be perpetual…
• It’s not at all clear how we should resolve
these conflicts.
Morality’s Intuitive Meaning?
• Consequentialism?
• Deontology?
• Virtue Ethics?
• Divine Command Theory?
• Something so queer that it couldn’t have
any instances (ala Mackie)?
• Some weighted and contextualized
hybrid of all of these?
Intuitive Meaning and Q2
• Why do what’s moral if what’s moral is just
what happens best to satisfy a jumble of mixedup intuitions?
• It’s not clear what intuitive meaning moral
concepts will have, nor even whether there will
be any instances matching this meaning.
• The intuitive meanings of most concepts have
no special connection to benefits… Why think
moral concepts will turn out to be any
different?
Do Our Intuitions Insist that
Being Moral is Beneficial?
If this were an intuition that Intuitive
Conceptual Analysis had to respect, then
we would expect a strong connection
between morality and benefits.
But, intuitively, it’s often hard to be moral,
precisely because there are so many
potential benefits tempting us to go astray.
If it turns out that morality is usually
beneficial, that will be surprising news.
Benefits Shape Intuitions?
Hume: We tend to feel
approbation for things that
benefit ourselves and/or our
comrades. So approbation is
bound to track benefit.
But, in local interactions, we often get poor
feedback about what is really beneficial.
And our intuitions are also shaped by many
other factors – e.g., television – and there is
no obvious reason to think that these
factors would track benefits.
Inductive Evidence?
• Why not take some instances that seem
pretty clear, and see whether doing these
things tends to be beneficial?
• But, do all or even most of the intuitively
clear cases really tend to be beneficial?
• What can this tell us about cases that are
less clear?
Methodologies and Meanings
• Intuitive Conceptual Analysis  Intuitive
Meaning (whatever best satisfies
intuitions surrounding our concept).
• Naturalized C.A.  Causal Meaning
(whatever best unifies the paradigm
cases, where these are usually taken to
be causes of usage of the concept)
• Pragmatic C.A.  Pragmatic Meaning
(whatever best sustains beneficial
patterns of usage).
Kornblith (2002, pg 10-11)
“We begin, often enough, with
obvious cases, even if we do not yet
understand what provides the
theoretical unity to the kind we wish
to examine. Understanding what
that theoretical unity is is the
object of our study, and it is to be
found by careful examination of
the phenomenon, that is,
something outside of us, not our
concept of the phenomenon,
something inside of us.”
Naturalized Analysis Pictorially
Which Paradigm Cases?
• Ones that intuitively strike us as central
to a concept? (Jackson, Chalmers)
• Ones present at the initial baptism of a
concept? (Kripke)
• Ones that are the source of information
we associate with the concept? (Evans,
Boyd)
• Ones that most commonly cause us to
token the concept? (Fodor?)
The Qua Problem
There will usually be any number of moreor-less natural groupings that the given
paradigm cases belong to. How can we
isolate “the right one”?
– Add a sortal
• Determined by intuitions or intentions?
• Externally determined?
– Add a large set of clear counter-cases
Naturalized Conceptual Analyses
• Putnam on many natural kinds.
• Kornblith on knowledge.
• Griffiths on emotions.
• Braddon-Mitchell on causation.
• Boyd (and other ‘Cornell Moral Realists’)
on moral goodness.
Boyd (1988) “How to be a Moral Realist”
Homeostatic Property Cluster
Kinds are kinds whose
characteristic properties tend
to co-occur for good reason.
A term refers to the kind that regularly
causes us to associate information about
that kind with that term.
Our term “good” is causally regulated by,
and hence refers to, a particular HPC-kind.
Boyd’s Analysis Pictorially
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Causal Meaning and Q2
• Why do what’s good, if goodness is just
some natural cluster of properties that
we regularly identify as ‘goodness’?
• Most natural clusters of properties bear
no special connection to human benefits
– why think this case is any different?
• Maybe we got lucky and latched onto a
natural cluster that happens to be a great
guide to benefits; but this would be a
fairly surprising stroke of luck.
Upshot
There’s a lot to like about Boyd’s picture:
– It gives moral kinds a plausible home in
the natural world.
– It offers a plausible moral epistemology
and a fairly plausible moral semantics.
But it seems to miss out on the strong links
between morality, motivation, and our
reasons for doing things.
Methodologies and Meanings
• Intuitive Conceptual Analysis  Intuitive
Meaning (whatever best satisfies
intuitions surrounding our concept).
• Naturalized C.A.  Causal Meaning
(whatever best unifies the paradigm
cases, where these are usually taken to
be causes of usage of the concept)
• Pragmatic C.A.  Pragmatic Meaning
(whatever best sustains beneficial
patterns of usage).
Conceptual Reverse-Engineering
(0) Start with a conceptual system that
works pretty well
(1) Analyze how it works as well as it does
(2) Figure out which explications would
allow it to do this good stuff more
consistently.
Sally Haslanger in “What
Knowledge is and Ought to Be”:
“[T]he best way of going about a project of
normative epistemology is
first to consider what the point is in having a
concept of knowledge: what work does it, or
(better) could it, do for us? And
second, to consider what concept would best
accomplish this work.”
Why “Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis”?
Why “Pragmatic”?
– PCA focuses on pragmatic benefits.
– PCA is itself pragmatically useful.
Why “Conceptual Analysis”?
– PCA employs an empirical analysis of how
our pre-existing concepts have been
beneficially used.
– PCA aims to specify in a formal way
what those concepts mean.
Example: Hurons and Scurvy
Huron Indians were fairly
good at recognizing and
treating scurvy – e.g., they
are credited with curing
Cartier’s crew.
This attribution of conceptmeaning is based upon what
actually worked about their
practice, and not upon the
various false categorizations
or mistaken intuitions they
surely had.
Pragmatic CA Pictorially
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Comparison of PCA and Boyd
Boyd effectively looked for a natural cluster
among the set of things that have caused us to
associate information with a concept.
Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis effectively looks
for a natural cluster among the set of things
that have enabled beneficial usage of the
concept.
Usually, this set will correspond roughly to a
subset of Boyd’s set of causes.
But it is an interesting subset, one that bears a
special relation to benefits.
So what is Moral Goodness?
–Depends on what counts as a benefit (i.e., upon
what we have basic reasons to pursue).
–Depends upon how our moral concepts have
delivered benefits (an empirical question).
My guess:
–Our moral concepts have primarily yielded
benefits by sustaining stable, cooperative
circles of friends.
–They have done this by recommending actions
that are ‘pro-social’ (=‘virtuous’?) and/or
involve certain elements of social regulation.
Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis and Q2
–PCA looks for a cluster that underlies regular
patterns in the beneficial use of a concept.
–By defn, the primary use of positive normative
concepts is to recommend things to do.
–So a PCA of such a concept will find a cluster
of things that it tends to be beneficial to do.
Q2 : Why do what’s good?
PCA: Because we know goodness is a
natural cluster of things that it tends to be
beneficial to do.
Caveats
1. We need to be working with a notion of
benefits that we have reason to pursue.
2. We need to apply the concept in accord
with its pragmatic meaning.
3. The world must continue to cooperate in
delivering the same old benefits.
4. We may miss out on novel ways of
getting even better benefits.
5. We may face novel sorts of harm.
A defeasible reason to follow
positive normative concepts
It is a reasonable default presumption that
these caveats are not triggered, and hence
that our positive normative concepts will
be a beneficial guide.
But when we get evidence that our
situation is significantly different from the
situations in which a normative concept
has proven worthwhile, then
this reason may be defeated.
PCA Brag Sheet
PCA preserves the benefits of Boyd’s view:
– A perfectly naturalistic Moral Realism.
– Plausible epistemology and semantics.
And it gives us more:
– PCA respects the central importance of the
motivational role of moral concepts.
– PCA captures the normativity of morality – it
shows why it is reasonable for us to be
guided by moral considerations.
Options
(1) Defend some form of (a) Intuitive or
(b) Naturalized Conceptual Analysis:
(i) Give up on the thought that we generally
have reason to be moral.
(ii) Find other arguments for the general
beneficialness of morality, so construed.
(2) Seek a new semantics for moral concepts.
(3) Accept Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis,
naturalistic moral realism, and a general
defeasible reason for being moral.