Alastair Norcross.  Morality By Degrees: Reasons Without Demands (2020)

In a paragraph

At a fundamental level, consequentialist ethical theories just make judgements about the degree to which states of the world and actions are better than alternatives.  Yet on to consequentialism we graft deontological concepts such as ‘right’ and end up with weird views such as that it is wrong to give less than everything to charity.  Consequentialism should be seen as a radical approach, to be applied and judged on its own terms.

Key points

• Consequentialism starts from the view that states of the world are better when they have more intrinsic good. The consequentialist can judge that one state of the world is better than another, with the superiority being a matter of degree.  Derived from this, the consequentialist can judge that one action (or rule, character, institution etc) is by a degree better than another, in terms of its expected effects. Both judgements about states of the world and about actions are comparative and scalar.

• At a fundamental level, consequentialism does not support concepts such as right, absolute good, and harm. Instead, these concepts are grafted on to create a strange hybrid.  This leads consequentialism to be evaluated in deontological terms, where it can be found lacking.  Instead, consequentialism should be applied and evaluated on its own terms.  It should be seen as a radical alternative which instead of providing a rival account of the rightness and goodness of actions, simply judges actions as better or worse than possible alternatives.  And judging alternatives is what is  needed for practical reason, which is about choosing between available options.

• Utilitarianism has particularly been combined with the view that the right action is that which maximises utility. This makes utilitarianism absolutist rather than scalar, and makes it too demanding. Under Maximising Utilitarianism, it is immoral not to give virtually everything to charity: under Scalar Utilitarianism, there is no concept of the morally right action, but instead donating more is judged as progressively better.     

• Concepts such as “right,” “good” and “harm” are not absolute but are always comparative. On a contextualist analysis, these concepts can be used relative to a salient comparative.  For example, a donation is ‘good’ relative to no donation but ‘bad’ relative to a larger donation.  

Comments

‘Morality by Degrees’ is a short book that focuses narrowly on the author’s thesis.  In the main it is clear and well laid out and its conclusions are stated emphatically and elegantly.  Some of its argumentation is rather drawn out, but this can be skimmed.

I endorse Norcross’s view but would go further.   Norcross sees consequentialism as scalar and comparative and sees deontological concepts as only having a secondary role.  I would add that we can give an evolutionary explanation of why erroneous fundamentalist deontological thinking arose.  Further, I would broaden Norcross’s division between consequentialism and deontology to a division between practical reason and morality and  make a stronger contrast between the two sides. 

Consequentialist approaches tend to

• focus on improving the world
• apply reasoning
• cover all areas of practical reason
• recognise degrees
• make evaluations of consequences
• have as central word ‘better’

Deontological approaches tend to:

• be thought of as somewhat mind-independent and perhaps supernatural
• be instinctive for interpersonal morality
• deal narrowly with interpersonal morality
• be absolutist
• make rules and prescriptions
• have as central word ‘right’

My radical consequentialist approach is to dismiss fundamentalist deontology as a mistake.  We evolved to think of moral rules as mysterious, absolute, independently-existing things, as this aided survival in primitive societies.  But the reality is that moral rules are man-made, while what matters is states of the world, and we should guide our actions by evaluating which choices are better to achieve better states.  While deontology as a fundamental theory of value is mistaken, societal rules remain as a phenomenon, and are often justified by their good effects. Therefore, within an overarching consequentialist view of practical reason, some deontological and moralistic concepts have a subsidiary place.

Human instincts seem to be divided between a consequentialist, end-relational approach to most practical reason and a deontological approach to morality and societal rules.  It is a notable feature of philosophical ethics that it has concentrated on deontological morality rather than consequentialist practical reason, and I want to see this reversed.

I first came across Norcross in ‘The Point of View of the Universe’ by De Lazari-Radek and Singer, where they thought that ‘Norcross goes too far.’  By contrast, I think Norcross is right in his radical view that utilitarianism should be applied on its own terms, and indeed I think that we should go further to be confident in the primacy of consequentialism and practical reason over deontology and morality.

Links

De Lazari-Radek, Katarzyna and Singer, Peter.  The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics (2014).  (pages 333 – 335).  My notes on this book.

Morality by Degrees on Amazon UK

Alastair Norcross at University of Colorado

EXTRACTS

Preface

Idea started in Jonathan Bennett seminar.  First paper with Frances Howard-Snyder.  Encouraged by Derek Parfit.

Have been repeatedly pressed to “hurry up and finish the damn book.”

I decided that I wanted a short book, motivating and arguing for the approach I take.

1. Introduction

1.1 The Consequentialist Approach

The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle begins Book I, chapter 1 as follows: “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason, the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.”

“If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life?

Mill declares: From the dawn of philosophy, the question concerning the summum bonus, or what is the same thing, concerning the foundation of morality, has been accounted the main problem in speculative thought … All action is for the sake of some end, and rules of action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character and colour from the end to which they are subservient.

Value: There is such a thing as intrinsic value, and some things have it.  Philippa Foot’s notorious thesis in “Utilitarianism and the Virtues,” that the notion of a “good state of affairs” is incoherent.

Act Relevance: Intrinsic value provides intrinsic reasons for action. That one outcome contains more intrinsic goodness than another is, or at least provides, a reason to act in such a way that the former rather than the latter occurs.

Act Irrelevance: Nothing other than intrinsic value provides intrinsic reasons for action.

1.2 Core Consequentialism

Core Consequentialism (CC): An action is morally better or worse than available alternatives, and thus there is greater or lesser (moral) reason to opt for it, entirely to the extent that the world containing it is overall better or worse (contains more or less net intrinsic value) than the worlds containing the alternatives.

The strict interpretation will always be in terms of worlds containing the different actions.  The fundamental evaluation of actions, for a consequentialist, is always comparative. This is because the role of an ethical theory, when it comes to actions, is to guide choices, and it does this by providing reasons to act one way rather than another. Thus, reasons are also fundamentally comparative. Talk of “a reason to do A” should always be understood as shorthand for “a reason to do A rather than B.”

There is no mention in CC of an action being “right” or “wrong,” of morality “demanding” or “requiring ” or “ commanding ” that certain things be done or avoided, or even of morality telling agents what they “ought ” to do.

What makes consequentialism a distinctive kind of ethical theory is its approach to the general moral evaluation of actions, not to specific categories of evaluation, such as right and wrong, permissible, impermissible, demanded, required, etc. For a consequentialist, the only consideration of direct relevance to the moral evaluation of an action (as opposed to the character, blameworthiness, etc. of the agent) is the comparative value of its consequences.

In evaluating the consequentialist approach, as opposed to particular consequentialist theories (such as maximizing utilitarianism), it is important to see that no particular account of right and wrong, permissible, impermissible, and the like (including an account which ignores those notions) is essential to the approach itself. Although, as I will presently explain, many consequentialists, and other philosophers, seem to assume otherwise.

Here then, roughly, is the motivating idea behind consequentialist approaches to morality. We care, or at least we should care, about how good or bad the world is. It matters to us. Through our behaviour, we can make a difference, often small, but sometimes significant, to how good or bad the world is. To the extent that we can make a difference, it is better, morally better that is, for us to make the world a better place rather than a worse place, and the bigger the positive difference we can make, the better.

1.3 The Demandingness Objection

In introducing consequentialism, Derek Parfit gives as its “central claim”: (C1) There is one ultimate moral aim: that outcomes be as good as possible.  As applied to acts, Parfit says, this gives us: (C2) What each of us ought to do is whatever would make the outcome best.

Sidgwick.  By “utilitarianism” I mean the ethical theory according to which in any given circumstances the objectively right thing to do is what will produce the greatest amount of happiness on the whole.

Maximizing Utilitarianism tells us that only the best action in any given choice is right.

Neither Jeremy Bentham nor John Stuart Mill employed a maximizing account of rightness. Here is Bentham: “An action . . . may be said to be conformable to the principle of utility . . . when the tendency it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it.”  And here is Mill: The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.’  Mill’s talk of actions being “right in proportion” to their consequences suggests that he thinks that actions can be more or less right or wrong, without any suggestion that morality “demands” maximal rightness.

1.4 Brief Outline of the Book

The focus of this book is to argue that consequentialist ethical theories should not be interpreted as theories of either the rightness or goodness of actions, but instead as scalar theories that evaluate actions as better or worse than possible alternatives.

Satisficing and maximizing versions of consequentialism have both assumed that rightness is an all-or-nothing property. I argue, in Chapter 2, that this is inimical to the spirit of consequentialism, and that, from the point of view of the consequentialist, actions should be evaluated purely in terms that admit of degree.

I argue that consequentialist theories should be seen as providing a much more radical alternative to other moral theories than has previously been acknowledged. Instead of providing rival accounts of the rightness and goodness of actions, consequentialist theories, at the deepest level, do away with such terms of moral evaluation altogether, and judge actions as simply better or worse than possible alternatives.

Consequentialism, on my approach, still provides reasons for action. Such reasons are both scalar and essentially comparative.

This brings moral reasons into line with prudential reasons, which are clearly scalar.

Roughly, to say that an action is right, obligatory, morally required, etc. is to say that it is close enough to the best. What counts as close enough is determined by the context in which the judgment is made.

A contextualist approach to all these notions makes room for them in ordinary moral discourse, but it also illustrates why there is no room for them at the level of fundamental moral theory.

2. The Scalar Approach to Consequentialism

2.1 Introduction

The dominant consequentialist function from the good to the right, at least since Sidgwick, has been maximization: According to this maximizing function, rightness and wrongness are not matters of degree.

In typical deontological theories, properties that make an action right and wrong — e.g., being a keeping of a binding promise, a killing of an innocent person, or a telling of a lie — are not naturally thought of as matters of degree. So, one wouldn’t expect the rightness or wrongness of an act to be a matter of degree for deontology. But this is not the case with consequentialism. Goodness and badness, especially in the utilitarian value theory, are clearly matters of degree.

From the point of view of a consequentialist, actions should be evaluated purely in terms that admit of degrees.

Much of what I discuss in the book will clearly apply at least to this duty of beneficence.

2.2 The Demandingness Objection

Since, according to maximizing utilitarianism, any act that fails to maximize is wrong, there appears to be no place for actions that are morally admirable but not required, and agents will often be required to perform acts of great self-sacrifice.

Maximizing utilitarianism is too demanding.

If morality is demanding, in the way maximizing act utilitarianism says it is, the burdens of morality would fall mostly on those agents with the most resources, while the benefits (of agents complying with the demands of morality) would accrue mostly to those patients (both human and nonhuman) with the least resources.

2.3 Scalar Utilitarianism

A moral theory which says that there is a really significant moral difference between giving 9 percent and 10 percent, but not between giving 11 percent and 12 percent, looks misguided.  The choice of any point on the scale of possible options as a threshold for rightness will be arbitrary.

Armed with an account of the good, utilitarians have proceeded to give an account of the right by means of a simple algorithm from the good to the right. In addition to telling us what is good and bad, they have told us that morality requires us to produce a certain amount of good, usually as much as possible, that we have a moral obligation to produce a certain amount of good, that any act that produces that much good is right, and any act that produces less good is wrong. And in doing so they have played into the hands of their deontological opponents.

Why should a utilitarian be concerned with maximal utility, or any other specific amount?  Why not instead regard utilitarianism as a far more radical alternative to deontology, and simply reject the claim that duties or obligations constitute any part of fundamental morality, let alone the central part? My suggestion is that utilitarianism should be treated simply as a theory of the goodness of states of affairs and of the comparative value of actions (and, indeed, of anything appropriately related to states of affairs, such as character traits, political systems, pension schemes, etc.), which rates possible alternatives in comparison with each other. This system of evaluation yields information about which alternatives are better than which and by how much.

If a utilitarian has an account of goodness and badness, according to which they are scalar phenomena, why not say something similar about right and wrong: that they are scalar phenomena but that there is a point (perhaps a fuzzy point) at which wrong shades into right?

2.4 Wrongness as Blameworthiness

WA: An action is wrong if and only if it is appropriate to impose various sanctions on the agent.  I submit that there can be no conceptual connection, for the utilitarian, between wrongness and punish ability or blameworthiness.

2.5 Rightness and Reasons

If “right” simply means “supported by the strongest reasons,” supererogatory acts will be right (unless there are even better alternatives) and the morally inferior, but supposedly acceptable, alternative acts will be wrong .

2.6 Morality and Publicity

Utilitarianism should not be seen as giving an account of right action, in the sense of an action demanded by morality, but only as giving an account of what states of affairs are good and which actions are better than which other possible alternatives and by how much. The fundamental moral fact about an action is how good it is relative to other available alternatives. Once a range of options has been evaluated in terms of goodness, all the morally relevant facts about those options have been discovered. There is no further fact of the form “x is right,” “x is to-be-done,” or “x is demanded by morality.”

Systems of punishment and blame which assume that there is a clear and significant line between right and wrong. It may well be that societies that believe in such a line are happier than societies that don’t.

2.7 Rightness and Goodness as Guides to Action

How can a theory that makes no demands fulfil the central function of morality, which is to guide our actions?

It may in fact be highly desirable that most people’s moral thinking is conducted in terms of right and wrong. On the other hand, it may be desirable that everyone abandon the notions of right and wrong. I do not wish to argue for either option here,

Sidgwick’s point rests on internalism, the view that moral beliefs are essentially motivating. Internalism is controversial.

Morality thus guides action in a scalar fashion. This should come as no surprise. Other action-guiding reasons also come in degrees. Prudential reasons certainly seem to function in this way. My judgement that pizza is better for me than cauliflower will guide my action differently depending on how much better I judge pizza to be than cauliflower.

2.8 Two More Pleas for a Theory of the Right

That utilitarians have felt the need to provide accounts of rightness is testimony to the pervasion of deontological approaches to ethics. Part of what makes utilitarianism such a radical alternative to deontology, in my view, is its claim that right and wrong are not fundamental ethical concepts.

2.9 Rightness as an Ideal

In this chapter, I have argued that utilitarianism is best conceived as a theory of the good, that judges’ actions to be better or worse than possible alternatives, and thus provides reasons for actions. I have argued that the traditional utilitarian account of rightness as an all-or-nothing property, whether the maximizing or satisficing version, should be abandoned. However, there may be an alternative account of rightness that is particularly congenial to a scalar utilitarian approach. If, instead of conceiving of rightness as a standard that must be met (perhaps to avoid censure), we conceive of it as an ideal to which we aspire, we may be able to accommodate it within a scalar framework. The suggestion is that the ideally right action is the maximizing action, and alternatives are more or less right.

The theory cannot be charged with being too demanding, since it doesn’t include the demand that one attains the ideal. Nonetheless, the ideal functions as a guide.

3. Good and Bad Actions

I will argue in this chapter that consequentialism cannot provide a satisfactory account of the goodness of actions, on the most natural approach to the question.

We compare states of affairs, not across times, but across worlds.

When we think of someone doing a good or a bad thing, I suggest that an underlying concept is that of making a difference to the world. It is natural to think of a good action as one that makes the world better than it would have been if the action hadn’t been performed.

Where does this leave a consequentialist account of the moral status of actions? If the arguments of the previous chapter were convincing, consequentialists should abandon (at least at the fundamental level) the notions of right and wrong actions. If the arguments of this chapter are convincing, consequentialists should also abandon the notions of good and bad actions. They can judge actions to be better or worse than alternatives, and better or worse by certain amounts, but not to be good or bad simpliciter.

in Chapter 5, I will explore a contextualist approach to “good” and “bad,” as applied to actions, “right” and “wrong” (and the related notions of permissibility, impermissibility, and supererogation), “harm,” and even “possibility.” I will argue that such an approach can explain the appropriateness of using such terms, and perhaps even render statements that use them (non-vacuously) true or false. It cannot, however, accommodate them at the fundamental, action-guiding level of moral theory.

I have argued in this chapter that a consequentialist cannot give a satisfactory account of the goodness of actions in terms of the goodness of their consequences. She can truly say of an action only how much better or worse it is than other possible alternatives.

It is true that “right action” and “good action” are concepts central to modern moral philosophy. But are they indispensable, or do they just appear to be so, because pretty much every competing theory, consequentialist and non-consequentialist alike, gives some account of them?

One approach to this question is to ask what is the central function of morality, and how do the concepts of “right action” and “good action” relate to it. I suggest, in common with many other moral theorists, that the central function of morality is to guide action, by supplying reasons that apply equally to all agents.

The judgments that certain actions are right or good might seem to supply such reasons, but they are by no means the only sources of action-guiding reasons. Consequentialism, on my account, can tell an agent how her various options compare with each other.

At the very least, it is desirable for consequentialists to explain why it sometimes seems appropriate to make (and even express) the judgments, that I have argued are strictly unavailable to them. That is why I will also argue that a consequentialist can employ a contextualist approach to explain the appropriateness of making judgments, such as that the action was good, or better than a previous action.

When we contemplate a course of action, instead of asking whether we are doing better or worse than other people, we should ask whether there are better alternatives that we are willing to undertake.

Thus, if it is morally right to do x, all agents, for whom x is an option, have a reason to do x. The claim that morality provides reasons for action is different from the claim that particular moral codes, accepted by particular societies, provide reasons for action. Such codes may well provide reasons for action, but these reasons only apply to members of the relevant societies. The reasons provided by morality apply equally to all agents.

4. Harm

I argued in the previous chapter that consequentialism cannot provide a satisfactory account of the goodness of actions, on the most natural approach to the question, and that, strictly speaking, a consequentialist cannot judge one action to be better or worse than another action performed at a different time or by a different person. In this chapter, I will demonstrate that similar arguments apply to the standard consequentialist account of what it is for an action (or an agent) to harm someone.

The all-too-common confusion of judgments of actions with judgments of character.

I have argued that Parfitt’s account of group harms runs into some serious problems. Part of the reason for this is that he builds his account from the standard consequentialist approach.

It seems that none of the interpretations of HARM can provide the consequentialist (or anyone else) with a satisfactory account of what it is for an act to harm or benefit. The intuition on which they were based is that a harmful act makes someone worse off than they would otherwise have been. The difficulty lies in producing a general formula to identify the particular possible world (or worlds), with which to compare the world that results from a harmful act. Any unified theory requires a way of fixing the contrast point, but the contrast point varies from situation to situation.

The key to solving this puzzle is the realization that the fundamental consequentialist account of harm is an essentially comparative one. Harm is always relative to some alternative.

There is no fundamental non-comparative moral fact of the form “act A harms person X.” The fundamental moral facts, as regards harm, are of the form “act A results in a worse world for X than alternative act B, and a better world than alternative act C.  Our intuitive judgments about what acts really harm what people are explained by appeal to conversational context. The appropriateness of asserting various claims about harm may well depend, at least in part, on which counterfactuals are salient in a particular conversational context.

Appropriate, or True?

I have argued that, strictly speaking, a consequentialist should not judge acts to be right or wrong, permissible, obligatory, supererogatory, good or bad , harmful or beneficial . I have also claimed, however, that a consequentialist may be able to explain, and perhaps even justify, the appropriateness of the practice of making such judgments. So, what could it be for it to be appropriate to make a particular judgment, other than the judgment being true?

There is no fundamental fact of the form “my father’s act really harmed me, or really benefitted me.” There are just (many) different true counterfactuals, undergirding the appropriateness (in different contexts) of making seemingly contradictory claims (in different contexts) about harm.

5.  Contextualism: Good, Right, and Harm

I argued in the previous three chapters that consequentialism is not fundamentally concerned with such staples of moral theory as rightness, duty, permissibility, obligation, moral requirements, goodness (as applied to actions), and harm. In fact, I argued that the standard consequentialist accounts of these notions are either indeterminate (in the case of the latter two) or redundant. What is fundamental to a consequentialist ethical theory is a value theory, for example hedonism or some other form of welfarism, and the claim that the objects of moral evaluation, such as actions, characters, institutions, etc. are compared with possible alternatives in terms of their comparative contribution to the good.

Our (moral) reasons for choosing between alternative actions, institutions, etc. are essentially comparative and correspond to the comparative consequential value of the options. I might have a better reason for choosing to do A than to do B, and better by a certain amount, but neither reason is either good or bad simpliciter.

My claims are that a consequentialist (at least) has no room for the relevant notions at the fundamental level of her theory. It is nonetheless possible to give a reductivist account of these notions, from which it follows that it is possible, even quite common, to express substantively true or false propositions involving them.

What I propose is a form of contextualist analysis of the relevant moral terms, similar in form to some recent contextualist approaches to the epistemological notions of knowledge and justification.

To say that an action is good is to say that it resulted in a better world than would have resulted had the appropriate alternative been performed.

I say that one act can be correctly described in one conversational context as good and can be correctly described in a different conversational context as bad. Likewise, one act can be correctly described in one conversational context as a harming and can be correctly described in a different conversational context as a benefitting. The reason why no contradiction is involved is that a claim of the form “act A was good,” or “act A harmed person P,” can express different propositions in different contexts. On my suggested account of good actions, to claim that act A was good is to claim that A resulted in a better world than would have resulted if the appropriate alternative to A had been performed.

“Appropriate” functions as an indexical.  I mean by salience, roughly, the degree to which the participants in a conversational context consciously focus on an alternative.

Consider a contextualist analysis of “right”: R-con: An action is right if it is at least as good as the appropriate alternative.

The contextualism I am suggesting is a linguistic thesis. I am not suggesting that there is a property of rightness (or goodness, etc.) of a particular action, which can vary with the context in which it is discussed.

A context in which it is judged permissible not to press any button, supererogatory to press “0,” but impermissible to press “3.” A person who would choose to press “3” would probably have a worse character than one who would choose not to press any button. Given that judgments of character can come apart from judgments of action, the apparent puzzle disappears. It really is worse not to press any button than to press “3.”

According to the contextualist approach I am considering, the conversational context in which a judgment is made (e.g., of the goodness or permissibility of an action) can affect which of an agent’s options is the relevant one with which to compare her behaviour, but it can’t affect the ordering of the options themselves. Which of two possible options is better, and by how much, is determined by the value of the worlds containing the options, in terms of net goodness.

6. Contextualism: Determinism, Possibility, and the Non-Identity Problem

Given that Mary’s actual action of poking Joseph in the eye with a sharp stick is not at least as good as the alternative of issuing him a verbal reprimand, the judgment that Mary acted wrongly will express a true proposition, so long as the verbal reprimand is picked out as the appropriate alternative.

This even applies to many contexts, in which the participants accept causal determinism, but don’t consciously focus on it. Thus, the scalar approach to consequentialism, combined with a contextualist analysis of the relevant notions, diffuses the threat of determinism.

For a maximizing consequentialist, the question of whether an option is right turns on whether there are better available alternatives. What makes an alternative better is that it leads to a world with a greater net amount of good.  Even though Wilma neither harmed nor wronged Pebbles (or anyone else) by conceiving her, she acted wrongly, because she failed to pursue the better alternative of waiting and conceiving Rocks two months later.

We may simply bite the bullet on the implication that we do, in fact, have moral obligations in the reproductive realm, which most of us probably fail to fulfil.

The risky policy is bad, because it leads to a worse world than the safe policy, but not necessarily a world in which anyone is harmed by the policy.

I have been arguing that, at the level of fundamental moral theory, consequentialist theories such as utilitarianism should be understood as scalar, rather than maximizing or satisficing. But I have also argued that we should combine a contextualist semantics with the scalar approach, thus rendering claims such as “action X was wrong” both meaningful and truth-apt.

In this book I have argued that consequentialists in general, and utilitarians in particular, should embrace a scalar version of their theories, which leaves no room for notions of rightness and wrongness, goodness and badness (of actions), harm (as applied to actions), and the like at the level of fundamental moral theory. I have also explored a contextualist approach to the semantics of terms such as “right,” “permissible,” “good” (as applied to actions), “ harm , ” and “possible.” Such a contextualism can explain how the scalar approach to consequentialism may be the correct ethical theory, and yet ordinary sentences can express true propositions. A contextualist approach to all these notions makes room for them in ordinary moral discourse, but it also illustrates why there is no room for them at the level of fundamental moral theory.

Since “right” (and the other terms I have discussed) can be used to pick out different properties when used in different contexts, many actions will possess a property that can be legitimately picked out by “right” (or “good,” “ harmful,” etc.) and lack many other such properties. Which properties we are interested in will vary from context to context. But we are not mere passive observers of, and adherents to, conversational contexts. We can also play an active role in shaping those contexts. In fact, a fruitful avenue for promoting the good is the very activity of context shaping.