Philosophy and Ideas
‘What Should We Do?’ is my central question. The technical term for ‘What Should We Do?’ is ‘Practical Reason’ – making good decisions about how to act. It is helpful to contrast practical reason – reasoning about how to act – with theoretical reason – reasoning about what is. Practical reason is normative, about what it is good to do, while theoretical reason is factual.
What is the nature of practical reason? This is the subject of metaethics, which is about the nature of practical reason and morality, and about the concepts we use.
So, what is the nature of practical reason? In my view, practical reason is human judgements about achieving human ends. Practical reason is not magical, practical judgements don’t have an independent existence, there isn’t a natural law out there, it does not come from gods and it is not revealed by conscience. Practical reason has a simple nature, it is just our judgements. But judgements relate to facts about the world, they can be true. And we can know whether they are true by considering how our actions may achieve our ends. What about ends? They can also be reasoned about and some ends are better than others.
On my metaethical view, practical reason and morality are man-made but grounded in the reality of the world and our ends. I contrast this with, on one side, unwordly views that think values and rules have an independent existence and, on the other side, with the various non-cognitivist views that see ethics as an expression of taste.
The grounded view seems obvious to me but is far from a majority opinion. Historically, most views have been unwordly, as reflected in religiosity, reliance on conscience and language that speaks as if moral requirements have an independent existence. In the 20th Century moral philosophy recognised that the unwordly view was impossible, but reacted too far to reach views that can see ethics as meaningless expression of taste. Hence, when I was first studying moral philosophy, the dominant views were of ethics as either unwordly or meaningless, rather than as being grounded, important and worth pursuing.
My purpose in studying metaethics is to support the grounded view so that we can straightforwardly use reason in our actions without being distracted by thinking that practical reason is either unwordly or meaningless.
An argument I have developed in support of the grounded view is that we should think of practical reason broadly rather than starting from morality. Practical reason is a broad domain, an essential aspect of human life, ranging from small personal actions to substantial government decisions. By contrast, morality is an element within practical reason that is hard-to-define, variable, contingent, optional and often confused. Moral philosophy has started from trying to understand morality, where unwordly or meaningless views may be tempting. If instead we look at practical reason broadly, it becomes clearer that our practical judgements, including our moral judgements, are grounded in trying to achieve ends.
Another key argument for the grounded view is that our practical and moral judgements have an underlying end-relational semantics. The normative words like ‘good’ and ‘ought’ work relative to assumed ends. Practical judgements have a binary nature that involves evaluating both ends and means.
Appreciating the binary nature of practical judgements makes their simple nature apparent. They are just human judgements about effective means to achieving ends that matter.
Practical Reason First. An essay arguing that we should start from practical reason rather than morality to better understand ethics.
The End-Relational Nature of Practical Reason and Morality Full Paper My MA Dissertation developing the view that practical reason and morality are end-relational.
The End-Relational Nature of Practical Reason and Morality Abridged Paper A shorter version of my dissertation.
Do Value Judgements Have A Simple Nature? An essay arguing that value judgments are best understood as end-relational.
Normative and Motivating Reasons to Be Good. Script from a presentation distinguishing normative and motivating reasons.
Bullet Points on Metaethics, Utilitarianism and Effective Altruism. A brief summary of my views.
Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer. The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics. (2014) Includes discussions of metaethics from a perspective close to mine.
Sam Harris. The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. (2010) Argues that morality needs to be grounded rather than objectivist or emotivist.
Jonathan Haidt. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. (2012). An evolutionary psychology explanation of morality in its varieties.
Stephen Finlay. Confusion of Tongues: A Theory of Normative Language (2014) Argues that normative language is end-relational, the subject of my MA dissertation.
Page updated 2 May 2023