Knowledge & Moral Worth
How knowledge of morality could impact whether an action has moral worth.
This was originally submitted as a short essay for one of my philosophy units (now extended!)
Kant’s main insight into moral worth is simply that “someone performs an action with moral worth only if she is motivated to do the right thing by the very fact that it is right”.1 However, I think such an account of moral worth is at least too narrow (in that it’s at least not a necessary condition for an act to have moral worth). In what follows, I will argue for a view that I call the Informed Motivation View which expands upon a view criticised by the philosopher Zoe King in her paper on the subject (see references).
Moral worth is a sort of value that only morally right actions can have.2 A paradigm example of an act without moral worth is one in which an evildoer accidentally causes something good to happen–they attempt to poison someone, but it ends up curing their sicknesses instead. From such a case we can appreciate that moral worth is tied up with things like the motivations/intentions of an agent. Something else to take note of is the strong tie (I think necessary tie) between someone being praiseworthy for an action, and the moral worth of said action. I’ll have more to say in defence of a necessary tie later.
In response to Kant’s view on moral worth, some have adopted what King refers to as the New View, in which one only needs to be motivated by the right making features of a morally right act in order for one’s act to possess moral worth.3 One motivation of the New View is that of being able to say that someone like Huckleberry Finn–a character in one of Mark Twain’s works–performs an act of moral worth when he allows his slave friend to escape, even though he believes what he’s doing is morally wrong as in the story, Finn is motivated to help his friend evade capture by the right making features of this act.
King argues against such a view by pointing out that we aren’t praiseworthy for actions we accidentally perform.4 One could be motivated to perform an act by its right making features without knowing that they are right making features, thus they only accidentally do the right thing. Now the claim that Huckleberry Finn doesn’t perform an act of moral worth is not the same claim that he doesn’t do anything right, nor that he doesn’t perform an act with moral value: these are seperate things to moral worth.
I would like to offer a rendition of the New View, called the Informed Motivation View that I think avoids this concern. However, it’s important to keep in mind that it cannot permit saying that Huckleberry Finn performs an act of moral worth–for reasons that I’m sure will become apparent.
The Informed Motivation View:
Someone performs an action with moral worth if she is motivated to do the right thing by the features that make it right, and they know that they’re right making features and that the action is right.
Suppose someone (I’ll call them Simon) walks through a park and finds a bottle of poison. They know that if they don’t take it away, a child is likely to find it and drink it, causing intense suffering and death. Taking the bottle away is the morally right thing to do and saving children is a right making feature of this act–and Simon knows both of these things. But, suppose they’re not moved to act on the basis of the action being right (nor its features being right), instead, they’re only moved by the right making features, i.e. they’re moved to save children, and so they take the poison bottle away.
Notice that Simon doesn’t accidentally perform a right action as he knows that the feature in question is right making and that the action overall is right, so this gets around King’s concern with the New View.5 But why should we accept this rendition of the New View? Namely, because it seems that Simon performs an act worthy of praise.
The Argument from Praiseworthiness
Simon is praiseworthy for what he does.
If someone is praiseworthy for performing some action A, then their performing of that action A has moral worth.
So, Simon’s action has moral worth. (From 1–2).
If Simon’s action has moral worth, then the Informed Motivation View is true.
C. So, the Informed Motivation View is true. (From 3–4).
I will treat premise 4 as a given, so I will limit my discussion to the first two premises.
Premise One:
It strikes me that Simon is praiseworthy for acting as he does, even if we may want to say that he’s not as praiseworthy as he could be. To drive this point home, consider a case in which someone believes they ought to give most of their money to charity, but are only moved to do so because they care deeply about the lives of those in poverty. Surely it would stretch the bounds of reasonableness to say that this person is just as praiseworthy for their action as the evildoer who accidentally cures someone’s sickness when they tried to poison them. (So, not praiseworthy at all).6
Premise Two:
Essentially, I think there is a necessary tie between someone being praiseworthy and it is possessing moral worth. My defence of this premise will amount to addressing a supposed counterexample offered by King. She presents a case in which you only accidentally keep your promise to meet your friend for coffee because you’re motivated to buy coffee from the same shop at the same time because it donates 80% of its profits to charity.7 She remarks that you’re praiseworthy for wanting your money to go to charity, but that your action lacks moral worth regardless, as you only accidentally kept your promise.8 But this only seems to miss match the praiseworthiness of one action and the moral worth of another. After all, in the example provided, they are not praiseworthy for keeping their promise, and their keeping the promise possesses no moral worth. But they are praiseworthy for donating to charity, and (I would say) their act of donation possesses moral worth. So, King’s counterexample is anything but. The notion that there is no necessary tie between these features (moral worth and praiseworthiness) requires further argument.
This concludes my argument for my preferred view. If I’m right, then Kant’s view is too narrow as it would only capture some of the acts that have moral worth.
An Objection
Suppose we have an identical case to Simon’s, but they are unaware that it’s the right thing to do and of the right making features being right making. Is this lack of knowledge really sufficient to declare that he doesn’t perform an act of moral worth when the underlying motivation is identical?
Let’s flesh this out a bit more with some concrete examples: two different men see different bottles of poison in a children’s playground… and they both remove said bottle.
Simon is moved to remove the bottle because he is concerned with the lives and wellbeing of children. However, he knows that this action is right, and that he’s moved by the right making features of this act.
Daniel is moved to remove the bottle because he is also concerned with the lives and wellbeing of children. However, he doesn’t know that this action is right, nor does he know that he’s moved by the right making features of this act.
In both cases, they’re moved by the same thing. The only difference between the two is knowledge, and some may worry that Daniel is in fact just as praiseworthy as Simon. Recall King’s argument about how we cannot be praiseworthy for what we do accidentally. I think it’s fair to question whether we can only be praiseworthy for doing right things. Daniel surely only accidentally does the right thing, and Simon does not. That is decent grounds to identify a difference in moral worth I believe. But, why couldn’t Daniel still be praiseworthy for preventing the deaths of children? After all, this is not something he does accidentally. Perhaps the problem is simply in asking why he would be praiseworthy for doing as he does.
If he’s praiseworthy because it’s the right thing to do, then it seems that he wouldn’t be so praiseworthy given that he only does the right thing by accident.
REFERENCES:
King, Z. (2018). Accidentally Doing the Right Thing. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 100(1), pp. 186–206
King (2018) 187
King (2018) 189
King (2018) 187
King (2018) 200
Though it would be a mistake to think that this could be a revival of the New View insofar as it would not imply that the case of Huckleberry Finn contains moral worth.
If you take issue with this example in my argument, consider another case in which someone accidentally causes some things to happen which also happen to be good. Such an individual wouldn’t be blameworthy for what they’d have done (perhaps unlike the evildoer who happened to do good whilst intending to do harm).
King (2018) 190
King (2018) 191