Cold Blood & Categoricity
The blameworthy immoralist and the categoricity thesis. | Shafer-Landau, Bengson and Cuneo on the existence of categorical moral reasons.
Enter the immoralist…
He’s disarmingly charismatic and disturbingly vicious. He breaks death bed promises, kills for sport, and kidnaps the innocent. He takes what he wants from those most vulnerable, and he refrains from easy rescues; all in cold blood.1 He is an unshakable paragon of immorality and he lacks all commitments to compassion, kindness, and peace. He is hell bent on committing the most heinous acts possible.
But is he blameworthy? If he isn’t, is anyone?
Introduction
I think there are objective moral standards that exist independently of our attitudes, beliefs and cultures. I believe in moral realism. An important component of this view that has especially animated me is the notion of normative authority. Essentially, not only do we want morality to be independent of our say so, we also want it to provide excellent reasons to comply with it, even if we don’t care about acting in the ways morality advises us to. Otherwise the moral facts would just be a collection of largely trivial facts that have no necessary bearing on how we should live our lives. These reasons are called categorical moral reasons–moral reasons to act that apply to us regardless of our desires and contingent commitments.
‘Categoricity’ is the thesis that there are categorical moral reasons, and it is the main subject of this article.
In what follows, I will present the ideas and arguments developed by the philosophers Russ Shafer-Landau, John Bengson, and Terence Cuneo in their newest book (and other works), that support the view that categorical moral reasons exist. I will discuss why these considerations are compelling, as well as offer some thoughts of my own.
But First, Reasons
So readers (or listeners) can fully appreciate the argument in favour of Categoricity, I thought it was pertinent to cover our bases by outlining what reasons are, what different sorts exist, and how to tell them apart. There can often be confusion about the link between reasons and motivations, and so I want to ensure we’re all on the same page when I introduce the argument in the next section.
Reasons are favourers, and/or explainers.2 Consider the following example:
A: For what reason did James run away?
B: He was scared.
Here it seems A is asking for an explanation for James’ action. This is an instance of a reason referring to an explanation. Now consider another example:
A: What reasons are there to believe you didn’t commit the crime? Why should I believe you’re innocent?
B: I have an air tight alibi, and there is video footage of the actual crime taking place, and I’m absent from it.
Here it seems that A isn’t asking for some explanation of an action, but rather asking for considerations that count in favour of them believing B is innocent. It’s these sort of action/belief favouring reasons that I will focus on in this article. Such reasons can also be referred to as normative reasons.3
Internalism and Externalism about Reasons
Now that I’ve clarified what sort of reasons I’ll be focusing on, I want to quickly discuss a semi-related topic for the sake of clarity–that of reasons internalism and reasons externalism. It’s important to remember that both views refer to reasons as favourers, not explainers.4
Internalists about reasons basically believe that reasons have some sort of necessary relationship with our motivations.5 Someone needn’t actually be motivated to have a reason to act under internalism–all that matters is that it bears a tight relation to motivation.6 For example, internalists would say that someone has a reason to avoid jumping into a hot tub filled with acid, even if the person doesn’t know of their grim fate as they jump into what they believe to be an ordinary hot tub–at least as long as they would be motivated to avoid the hot tub provided they knew all of the relevant facts.7
Externalism about reasons is essentially the antithesis of internalism, as it denies that reasons need to have this necessary relation to our motivations.8 It’s important to recall that we’re talking about reasons of the favouring sort, not the explanatory sort–externalists aren’t claiming something incoherent like: we can be motivated to do something without having any motivation to do it. A probative example of an external reason (for belief) is that if you’re presented with excellent evidence for some claim, then that counts in favour of believing it. As opposed to, say, only having reason to believe it if you want to have well supported beliefs, or want to believe it is true–even without excellent evidence.9
There is obviously much more to this topic, but I think this is all the information on this point that I wanted to share. I thought it was important to add this segment because it’s become apparent to me that talk about internal reasons and external reasons can be really confusing.10 With these clarifications now in place, I will move onto reason anatomy.
The Anatomy of Reasons
Structure & The Favouring Relation
A reason is (roughly11) some fact that favours some agent performing some action. Thus, a ‘reason’, just is, a fact that favours, in this respect. A reason needn’t be a fact either, it could be a state of affairs/proposition/trope/etc, so long as it favours some action from an agent.12 To make this more concrete, consider these examples:
The fact that [the store has bread] favours you [walking to the store].
The fact that [the bottle contains poison13] favours me [keeping it away from children].
The text in bold, is the reason, and the text in italic is the proposed favoured action from an appropriately situated agent, i.e. an agent who wants bread and has access to the shops. It’s also important to note (especially in the first example) that I’m saying the fact favours the action in question, not that you favour it–even if that is an important part of the explanation (or ground) of the reason. More on that later.
At the heart of a reason, is what philosophers call, the favouring relation. The favouring relation is the normative glue tying certain facts together with certain actions of agents. Without the favouring relation, some fact that favours some action, would just be some fact–it couldn’t be a reason.
Two Sorts of Reasons
There are two main sorts of reasons I want to focus on: hypothetical reasons and categorical reasons.
Hypothetical reasons are considerations that favour you acting in certain ways DEPENDENT on your contingent commitments, desires, motivations, etc.14
The fact that [the store has bread] favours you [walking to the store].
The fact that [the store has bread] is a hypothetical reason just in case such a reason depends upon what you care about.
Why does this fact that [the store has bread] favour you going there? Because you want bread. If you ceased wanting bread or lost any other relevant desire, this fact would no longer favour this action, and lose it’s status as a hypothetical reason to you.
Categorical reasons on the other hand are considerations that favour you acting in certain ways INDEPENDENT of your contingent commitments, desires, motivations, etc.
The fact that [an innocent is in terrible agony] favours you [given them pain relief].
The fact that [an innocent is in terrible agony] is a categorical reason just in case such a reason depends on something outside of what you care about.
Why does this fact that [an innocent is in terrible agony] favour you giving them pain relief? Because (plausibly15) there is some moral requirement to help those who are innocent if they need your help. Such a reason may dissipate if, for instance, the innocent is no longer in terrible pain, or if, for instance, you cannot offer such assistance, and so forth.
Explaining, Favouring, and Moral Reasons
I’m going to stick to a minimalist approach concerning the grounding of reasons given that it’s quite complex, and doesn’t need to be for our purposes here. All that matters is that we can distinguish between moral and non-moral reasons.
Suppose [an innocent is in terrible pain] is a moral reason to help them. This means that the fact that “[an innocent is in terrible pain] favours [helping them]” is fully explained by the mere fact that this innocent is in terrible pain, and some moral requirement, i.e. one is morally required to help those in terrible pain.16
Put simply, when we want to know if some reason is a moral one (or not), we need to ask why some fact favours the action that it does.17 Why does the fact that the bottle contains poison favour me keeping it from children? I think the most natural answer is that we have a moral requirement/fact to keep the poison away from children. i.e. one ought to refrain from gross negligence.
It’s also the case that [the bottle contains poison] could make up more than one sort of reason, i.e. it could also be a prudential reason, instrumental reason, etc. Why does [the bottle contains poison] favour me [keeping it from children]? Because if the children drink the poison I’ll be arrested and receive the death penalty, or, because I deeply care about the wellbeing of children, etc.
With this groundwork under our belt, we can now continue to the argument for Categoricity.
From Blame to Categoricity
Shafer-Landau, Bengson and Cuneo (hence forth the philosophers) introduce and argue for the following thesis:
Categoricity: There are categorical moral reasons.
The following is a slightly altered version of a series of arguments put forward by the philosophers. I think it captures the essence of their ideas in a pithy form.
The Argument for Categoricity18
If the immoralist is blameworthy for his immoral actions, then they had reasons to refrain from such actions.
At least some of those reasons are categorical moral reasons.
The immoralist is blameworthy for their immoral actions–if anyone is.
So, there are categorical moral reasons.
Supporting the Premises
ONE: Blame implies reasons
If the immoralist is blameworthy for his immoral actions, then they had reasons to refrain from such actions.
On a clarifying note, what’s being referred to here is blame of the blameworthiness sort, as opposed to blame of the causal sort. For example we might blame the wind for blowing a rock over and crushing someone, as it caused it to happen. But we wouldn’t say the wind is blameworthy. The sort of blameworthiness this argument has in mind is the sort connected to things like moral agency, relevant free will,19 rational capacities, and so forth. This notion of blameworthiness is concerned with a kind of merited and deserved criticism for things like one’s actions–even if such criticism isn’t always appropriate to dish out, and even if there are no practical benefits in the blaming. For instance, if someone is blameworthy for some action, they would remain so, even if nobody gets around to criticising them, even if blaming them wouldn’t bring about guilt in the person and get them to change their ways, etc. However, blameworthiness isn’t just any sort of merited criticism–it’s instead a rather strong sort, that seems to entail various things. For instance, if someone is blameworthy for gross negligence (revolving around a particular poisoned bottle) we would say that they should have acted differently than they did. They failed to take into account something important that merited their attention, and favoured them acting in a certain way, different from what they did.
The crux of this premise is essentially that if some agent is blameworthy for some action–in this case, the immoralist–then they must have had a reason to refrain from said action. But why think this? In my mind, we should think this is true because of the notion that if someone is blameworthy for some action, we also think they should have acted differently. I don’t think it makes sense to say that “someone should have acted differently” if they didn’t have any reason to. A further support of this premise follows the implausibility of it’s falsity–that, ‘if it wasn’t true [that blameworthiness implies reasons] then you could be blameworthy for something even though there’s no consideration at all that opposed your action’.20
Essentially, if an agent is blameworthy, they have neglected something important that favoured them acting differently than they did. There is no basis for criticism of the blameworthy sort if we cannot point to anything that opposed them (i.e. disfavoured them) acting in the way they did.21 Consider an analogy to praiseworthiness. Is it plausible to say that someone is praiseworthy for some action even if nothing counted in favour of them performing it? It doesn’t seem so to me, since to be praiseworthy is to perform certain actions, have and/or develop certain dispositions, believe certain things, etc. that merit your status of being praiseworthy.
It’s important to distinguish between the immoralist having a reason22, and there being a reason–a reason that applies to an agent, and a reason that doesn’t apply to that agent. Some critics of this first premise have utilised the latter interpretation to undermine similar premises to this one.23 The idea here is that there can be reasons against the immoralist performing their immoral actions, even if such reasons don’t apply to the immoralist. For example, other people might have hypothetical reasons to refrain from the immoral actions committed by the immoralist. If this criticism is legitimate, then the validity of the argument for Categoricity is undermined.24
However, I think this criticism is deeply implausible. The issue is that reasons that don’t apply to you are just so. Such reasons cannot favour you acting in certain ways–the reasons don’t apply to you, nor need they concern you (absent further considerations). For instance, the fact that someone want to eat doesn’t favour me eating. Such a reason only applies to the hungry person, and they would have no basis for criticism in claiming that I should also be eating due to their desire to eat. I wouldn’t have suffered some failing due to my unresponsiveness to their reasons. Someone might claim that I may instead have a reason to–i.e.–get them food, but clearly this is framed as a reason that applies to me–otherwise I could just permissibly ignore it. Someone else’s reasons don’t merit my response per se.
TWO: What the immoralist lacks, and moral reasons
At least some of those reasons are categorical moral reasons.
Given the support and defence of the 1st premise, I think this premise is extremely plausible given that if the immoralist has no hypothetical reasons to toe the moral line25, the only reasons left are categorical.26 It’s then a small–and plausible–step to accepting that some would be moral.
For the purposes of this argument, the immoralist, just is someone who lacks all contingent commitments and all hypothetical reasons to act in line with morality. He’s only interested in furthering his own immoral goals, and he isn’t concerned by various consequences either.27 For example he doesn’t care about going to prison, and/or he’s powerful enough to feel unthreatened by any possible risk of going to prison, and so forth.28 Even though such an individual may be a fantasy, that needn’t undermine the immoralist as a probative philosophical instrument.29 The immoralist is just supposed to be somebody who is the epitome of wrongdoing, as well as lacking any hypothetical reason we may want to accuse them of thwarting by way of their immoral actions. Though, it’s not clear that referring to such hypothetical reasons (even if they had any) would actually ground legitimate blameworthiness in the first place. It strikes me as misguided to claim somebody is blameworthy just because they’re thwarting some of their important contingent commitments. There may be room for criticism of a kind, but not the strong sense we’re concerned with in suggesting that someone is blameworthy. Compare the immoralist with a great wrongdoer who is afraid of prison, being punished, being ostracised by his community, and so forth. Let’s call them the moral-villain. Suppose the moral-villain commits the same acts as the immoralist. It seems the immoralist is just as blameworthy as the moral-villain, even though the immoralist lacks the concerns the moral-villain has. Why? Because they’re both guilty of the same wrongdoing. Furthermore, it would also seem misguided to claim that the moral-villain was blameworthy and refer only to their thwarting of their own hypothetical reasons, i.e. you’re blameworthy because you acted in such a way as to risk yourself being captured and sent to jail.30 Surely that’s not the whole story–if it’s a part at all–as we also want to talk about the treatment of his victims and his viciousness as explanations of his blameworthiness too! So, at the very least, we should accept that if the immoralist is blameworthy for their immoral actions, they must have had a categorical reason to refrain from such actions.
The next step is concluding that some of these reasons–if not all of them–are moral. I think we can demonstrate as such given the grounds of these reasons. Referring back to the first section on reasons and their grounds, we can figure out if some reason is moral by asking why some fact favours some action of an agent. Imagine the immoralist were to engage in gross negligence by allowing children to play with and drink from a poisoned bottle. But, why does the fact that the bottle contains poison favour the immoralist keeping it from children? Plausibly, he’s thwarting some moral requirement, such as–ceteris paribus–don’t engage in gross negligence, and/or if you can easily prevent the poisoning of children you should do so, and so forth.
There may still be one further concern, and that is of question begging. The thought might be that this premise is just a restating of the conclusion. However this is mistaken, and this can be appreciated by the fact that we can accept both premise 1 and 2, yet still reject the conclusion. This would be impossible if this premise was the same as the conclusion as it would entail a contradiction. What the 2nd premise is referring to is merely a factor about the conditional being painted by the first premise: what would have to be, and is plausibly, the case given the truth of premise 1. This is why this premise is not a re-stating of the conclusion as it’s not asserting that there are categorical moral reasons, just that there would be, if the immoralist was blameworthy for their immoral actions.
THREE: If anyone is blameworthy, the immoralist is
The immoralist is blameworthy for their immoral actions–if anyone is.
We now arrive at the final stage of the argument–the doubling down, if you will. The move away from conditionals and their entailments, to cold hard reality. A common sense reality mind you. The immoralist is blameworthy for their immoral actions–if anyone is. That clause at the end is crucial to the strength of this premise as it puts much more on the chopping block for those who wish to reject the conclusion, but accept both premises 1 and 2 (as they should31). In rejecting premise 3, this individual is saddled with the view that nobody is blameworthy for anything–as opposed to, say, the view that only the immoralist isn’t blameworthy. The latter view is still problematic, but the former is clearly more difficult to swallow–both strike me as bullets to bite. Let’s consider why we should believe this premise.
If anyone is blameworthy for their immoral actions, then those who are bent on committing the most heinous acts are among them.32
The immoralist is bent on committing such acts. They’re as bad as they come!
Thus, the immoralist is blameworthy for their immoral actions–if anyone is.
Those sympathetic with the view that the immoralist isn’t blameworthy, but still wants to retain the view that other non-immoralist-agents are, may reject the first premise in place of another:
If anyone is blameworthy for their immoral actions, then those who are bent on committing the most heinous acts–yet have hypothetical reasons to refrain–are among them.
This caveat avoids involving the immoralist as amongst those possibly liable for blame, thus invalidating the argument I’ve sketched here. It attempts to allow for the view that those with hypothetical reasons to refrain can still be blameworthy, even if the immoralist isn’t.
However, this ties into the previous criticism that simply not caring about rescuing others, or refraining from gross negligence, etc. doesn’t get someone off the hook. We can imagine somebody much like the immoralist, but with an aversion to jail, who commits a crime and is sent to prison. First of all, it strikes me as misguided to utilise this as the explanation as to why he would be blameworthy for his actions. Instead it seems proper to refer to the wrongdoing involved in the crime, which leads to another point. If this person is blameworthy for acting as he did–due to his aversion to jail–then somebody with an aversion to jail but who commits highly moral acts (but is also sent to prison) is just as blameworthy.33 But surely this is false!
The immoralist is the worst of the worst, the most callous and most cruel. If they aren’t blameworthy for their actions, how could any of us be? Or does not caring get them off the hook? In my mind, their uncaring about their victims isn’t reason to think they’re blameless, but rather, reason to think they’re even more deplorable.
A further concern might be that, in fact, nobody is blameworthy because free will doesn’t exist. This is actually compatible with accepting this argument, provided that we assume that the immoralist just is someone with the relevant sort of free will to allow for moral responsibility. The takeaway would just be that, although these categorical moral reasons exist, they just don’t apply to us–since we lack the relevant freedom. Though I don’t know how seriously we should take free will error theory. Personally I think we do have free will provided that I think compatibilism can allow for culpability.
There is a final concern that relates to a technicality of sorts given the argument for categoricity, and how morality and contingent commitments are thought to be related, which I will address in this footnote.34 TL;DR I don’t think it’s an issue.
FOUR: Categoricity
So, there are categorical moral reasons.
There you have it–categorical moral reasons exist. It’s important to note that such reasons don’t just apply to the immoralist, but to we non-immoralist agents as well. After all, we’d be just as blameworthy for committing the same heinous acts the immoralist is guilty of too.35
Conclusion
The Argument for Categoricity36
If the immoralist is blameworthy for his immoral actions, then they had reasons to refrain from such actions.
At least some of those reasons are categorical moral reasons.
The immoralist is blameworthy for their immoral actions–if anyone is.
So, there are categorical moral reasons.
I think this argument has a lot going for it. It retains the view that blame implies reasons, and that the immoralist is blameworthy–if anyone is. Put together (with some clarifications), they plausibly imply that categorical moral reasons exist. As agents, such reasons are relevant in our deliberations in every day life. In choosing to act, believe, develop, and so forth, we should pay mind to what categorical moral reasons apply to us. They’re important to take into account in our daily deliberations.
Thank you very much for reading, and make sure to check out the work of Russ Shafer-Landau, John Bengson, and Terence Cuneo.
Appendix 1. Concerns of Practical Relevance
I want to address a possible concern as to how morality–if objective and normative–could have practical relevance in our everyday lives. If acting morally won’t get me anything I care about, why should I be moral? But is such a person asking for reasons as to why they should be moral? If so, then I’d just point to the Categoricity thesis. There are categorical moral reasons that apply to you. That’s why you should act morally. To make this more concrete, this is just essentially saying, you should act morally, because various things matter independent of whether you care about them, including the well-being of others, what others are owed, and so forth.
Perhaps instead they’re asking what hypothetical reasons they would they have. I don’t think there is any necessary connection between one’s hypothetical reasons and the requirements of objective morality, so sometimes, there won’t be any hypothetical reason at all to do your duty. But this is far from any sort of knock down of moral objectivity and it’s practical relevance. Even hypothetical reasons cannot motivate you into action, we can fail to abide by them, and we can fail to compel someone to act by giving them advice that applies to them. This wouldn’t determine that such advice didn’t apply to them, nor that such advice was completely trivial to what they should be doing–it might be practically irrelevant insofar as having some specific goal in trying them to convince them of something. But this is a very particular understanding of ‘practical relevance’ that applies to everything we say, for instance they can ignore us and/or not care about what we have to say. It’s looking at practical relevance through the lens of results. Perhaps that is the only ‘practical relevance’ you care about. But if categorical reasons exist, that’s not the only sort of practical relevance you should concern yourself with.
I may not be able to convince my friend to refrain from jumping into a hot tub filled with acid. Just like how I might not be able to convince a racist person from seeing the error of their ways. That doesn’t make me wrong in suggesting that various considerations favour them acting differently–even if they remain unconvinced or don’t care. Categorical moral reasons are practically relevant insofar as they determine what we should be concerned with in our everyday lives. That is to say, it’s concerned with how we are to live our lives. What’s more practically relevant than that?
References
Cuneo, T. (2007). ‘Defending the Parallel’. In: The Normative Web. Oxford University Press, pp. 63-76
Huemer, M. (2005). Practical Reasons. In: Ethical Intuitionism. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 155–198
Shafer-Landau, R. Bengson, J. Cuneo, T. (2024). ‘Strong Moral Reasons’. In: The Moral Universe. Oxford University Press, pp. 205-235
Shafer-Landau, R. (2009). ‘A Defence of Categorical Reasons’. The Aristotelian Society, 109(2), pp. 189-206
Shafer-Landau, R. (2021). ‘13. Russ Shafer-Landau | Ethics’. Youtube. Friction.
Stephen, F. Schroeder, M. (2017). ‘Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
Roojen, M. (2015). ‘The Practicality of Morality and the Humean Conception of Reason and Motivation’. In: Metaethics: A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge, pp. 54-73
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024) 220
Huemer (2005) 155
Stephen, Shroeder (2017)
Stephen, Shroeder (2017)
Stephen, Shroeder (2017); Roojen (2015) 56
Stephen, Shroeder (2017)
Stephen, Shroeder (2017)
Stephen, Shroeder (2017)
I know this won’t convince everyone, but personally I find it very compelling.
Some folks may still claim to not understand what an external reason is. Fair enough. However, I think it’s important to clarify whether it’s external reasons specifically you’re having trouble understanding, or just reasons as favourers in general, which will include internal reasons.
We could get more specific, i.e. A reason is a fact that favours some agent to perform some action in some certain circumstance (Cuneo, 2007, 65).
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024)
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024) 206
I liked this example and so I will use it throughout this article.
Something important to take note of is that if someone lacks the prerequisite contingent commitments, desires, etc. then they lack such hypothetical reasons–even if you have such reasons.
I’m just using a moral requirement as an example. In truth a categorical reason could be grounded in various other things, i.e. prudential concerns, epistemic concerns, etc. But I thought a categorical moral reason was a good fit here.
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024) 209
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024) 208
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024) 216, 221, 223
By which I mean a state that someone can be in for them to be liable for blame if they act wrongfully.
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024)
I will understand this to refer to a reason that a person has, applies to that person, etc.
Shafer-Landau (2009) 195, 197-198
Shafer-Landau (2009)
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024) 220
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024) 222
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024) 221-222
For example, maybe the immoralist is an evil übermensch, or supremely powerful deity.
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024) 220-221
It’s questionable if hypothetical reasons can ground blameworthiness at all–at least in various cases. For instance, someone isn’t blameworthy for refraining from going for a walk they really want to go on.
😉
Shafer-Landau (2009) 198; Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024) 223
For example, suppose they lived in a country where it was illegal to help certain people escape from the country that is incredibly discriminatory towards them. Supposing such an act is morally admirable (as I think we should), we can appreciate how such a person isn’t blameworthy for their actions, despite their going to prison and their aversion to jail. Interestingly, it’s not uncommon nor incoherent to praise somebody even more if we discover that they had an aversion to prison and yet helped those in need–supposing this act had them sent to prison.
This concern centres around the view that, all it means to say something is ‘moral’ to someone, is just to say it’s in line with their contingent commitments and hypothetical reasons. I disagree with this view, but I don’t think it bars us from appreciating a different version of the argument:
If the immoralist is blameworthy for kicking puppies, then he had reasons to refrain from doing so.
At least some of those reasons are categorical moral reasons
The immoralist is blameworthy for kicking puppies–if anyone is.
So, there are categorical moral reasons (not to kick puppies)
I’ve just swapped out the term, “their immoral actions” with an example of terrible wrong doing. Though, I think they’d have to abandon their view about what morality refers to if they accept the conclusion (i.e. not their contingent commitments).
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024) 225-226
Shafer-Landau, Bengson, Cuneo (2024) 216, 221, 223