Philosophy and Ideas
Can we reason about ends? Of course we can, we do it all the time. Only philosophical confusions have made us think otherwise.
Look at how we decide what to do. When we are not acting from instinct or convention, we may deliberate about how to act. Deliberation may include ends-means reasoning when we think about our objectives and how to achieve them. But this thinking is fluid, the ends as well as the means are considered and revised.[i]A shopping trip illustrates this: if I find better alternatives, I don’t return with what I set out to get. In practical reasoning, initially vague ends are refined, and alternatives are considered, as part of a flexible process of reasoning towards better judgements.
It may be agreed that we reason about the immediate ends used in individual judgements. But an immediate end may be instrumental to a final end. When I go shopping for a shirt and come back with a coat, perhaps I regard both items as instrumental to a final end of my happiness.
Can we reason about final ends? The obvious answer is, yes, we can and we do. Systematic final ends that have been proposed include[ii] (1) my lifetime happiness, (2) the happiness of all sentient beings, (3) compliance with common sense morality and (4) obedience to God. With all of these we can and do argue about definitions, and about strengths and weaknesses, as evidenced by philosophical papers. Final ends are not an exclusion zone for reasoning.
Where did the view that we cannot reason about final ends come from? I believe it arose mainly from the mistaken assumption that an end needs to motivate. On this approach, associated with Hume,[iii] an end is a desire, a matter of taste rather than something to be reasoned about.
But this is not how we should conceive of final ends. The normative question of what is valuable should be kept separate from the psychological question of what motivates. I can judge normatively that I should visit the dentist even if I do not want to go.[iv] Similarly, I may reason that the final end should be the happiness of all sentient beings or should be obedience to God, even if these ends do not motivate me. A theory of final ends is a reasoned view of what is of value, not an expression of taste.
In our judgments about how to act we can and do use reason all the way down – about means, about intermediate ends and about final ends. Yes, we can reason about ends.
[i] Richardson, Henry S. (1994) Practical Reasoning About Final Ends. Pages 58-62.
[ii] The first three relate to Sidgwick, Henry (1901) The Methods of Ethics. Page 11.
[iii] Hume, David (1751) An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Page 293.
[iv] Singer, Peter. (1981, 2011) The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution and Moral Progress. Afterword to 2011 edition.