E VALUATION AND A RBITRARINESS

Although the problem of conflicts might at first seem to arise only for specific subsets of values, it in fact arises anytime an agent has more than one value. Street thinks that “talk of truth and falsity with respect to” one of my values only “starts to get a foothold” when I have at least two values because only then is there a “standard in place to determine its correctness—in particular ... the standard set by [the] other

value” (Street [2008] 223). Presuming that I can only ask whether to use a value in evaluation in some way if I am in position to ask whether it is correct to do so, with the possibility of correctness with respect to values comes the actuality of conflicts. What is vivid in the case of overt conflicts is in fact always present. I shall argue that this issue shows that instrumentalism is incompatible with the possibility of a standard of correctness for practical thought. It is thereby incompatible with us taking ourselves seriously in our exercises of our capacity to act. Let me explain.

Although she does not recognize the extent of the issue, Street allows for certain irresolvable practical questions. She claims that “the notion of radical choice [has] an important” role to play when “there is not a single [value] available in one’s set of [values] to settle whether some other [value] is correct or not” (Street [2008] 237). A radical choice cannot be correct or incorrect—that is, after all, what makes it radical rather than simply choice. Still, she thinks that it sets up a subsequent standard of correctness for further practical thought. In effect, in trumping for one thing rather than another, I establish it as the criterion for subsequent practical thought, at least if all goes well. Can a radical choice play this role in general, grounding the authority of whichever subset of values I use in order to answer any practical question?

No. For one thing, according to instrumentalism, a radical choice, by definition, lacks intrinsic normative significance. After all, normative relevance derives from values, and radical choice has a role to play only when values cannot answer a practical question because of conflict. However, a radical choice then cannot establish a normative standard for subsequent practical thought. Just try it. Say I have two values that conflict over which one should govern my practical thought. I make a radical choice in favor of the one. That value will say to follow the radical choice in subsequent thought, in effect saying of itself that it should govern practical thought. The other value will say to go against the radical choice in subsequent thought, in effect saying of itself that it should govern practical thought. Invoking other values, like the value of always following my radical choices, does not change anything. It just adds more values to the conflict. Adding a radical choice to the situation amounts to the same thing as adding any other fact that lacks intrinsic normative significance. It does not resolve the conflict. It just provides another occasion for it.

For another thing, and more importantly, the appeal to a radical choice shows the deepest problem with instrumentalism. A radical choice cannot be correct or incorrect. It is beyond normative evaluation, not in the sense that it is the kind of thing that can be so evaluated but for some reason in this case is not but in the sense that it is not the kind of thing that can be subject to normative appraisal at all. It is arbitrary. Moreover, if I make a radical choice, I know that it is in this sense arbitrary. After all, I make a radical choice because I cannot settle the issue on normative grounds. Understanding myself as making a radical choice thereby undermines my own sense of the normative standing of my practical thought that follows from it.

In order to bring out the force of this issue, let me distinguish it from something that might seem similar. Any account of practical thought needs a place for arbitrary determination because any well- formed practical thought includes one among many equally good sets of sufficient means. Take even a simple case of crossing the street. I can start off with either foot and start off at any of a number of moments. I generally do not think consciously about these things since they do not matter, but all the same I set off with one foot at one moment. In doing so, I exercise practical reason. Thus, no view of our agency can do entirely without arbitrariness in our self-determination. Unlike instrumentalism, though, this undeniable feature of our agency has a place of arbitrariness within a generic practical representation that itself is subject to a normative standard. It is a choice between two equally good ways of performing an action that I already represent as a good thing to do. Similarly, on most views of practical reason, an arbitrary choice between two alternative actions is a choice between two actions subject to a normative standard. It is a choice between two good actions. In constrast, instrumentalism must posit an arbitrary choice about everything. It is not just about the way to pull off the means to an end, or the means to the

end, or the end. It is also about the values that determine whether anything is good or bad.

Try it this way. I ask myself whether one value or another should govern. I cannot find any normative basis to answer this question or, what is the same thing, I find parallel normative bases running in both directions. Moreover, I know that this deadlock is not even in principle the result of an epistemic limit on my part. Nor is it an isolated case. According to instrumentalism, every answer to a practical question presupposes some set of values that constitutes the criterion that determines whether an answer is good or bad. In every practical question, multiple values with competing verdicts are relevant, if only because these values will speak to practical questions about which practical questions to even consider. I always have the question of which value to use, and nothing can settle it but an arbitrary choice. This arbitrary choice might set me off along a specific path, but I know that this path lacks any kind of normative standing. After all, I am on it because of my arbitrary choice, which I recognize as not subject to a standard of correctness and which I thereby recognize could have gone the other way. Every value will say of itself that it should govern practical thought and hence will count following my arbitrary choice as good or bad depending on whether the arbitrary choice is in its favor. To follow the arbitrary choice is, of course, to answer a practical question, done according to a subset of values. Which subset? The same issue arises, and the only way to answer it is with an arbitrary choice. At every point, then, I determine whether to go in one way rather than another by making an arbitrary choice. I thereby cannot regard any of my practical thought and action as subject to a standard of correctness.

There is then no role for values to play because whether they are to play a role is a normative question. According to the instrumentalist, I must use values in order to answer this question, but which values to use and in what way is itself a normative question. The only way to settle any of these questions

is with a descending series of arbitrary choices, about what to use, in what way, and whether to stick with it. The only kind of practical thought is then a kind of arbitrary choice. It is not subject to normative standards, and I thereby cannot regard any of my practical thought and action as subject to such standards. The capacity for arbitrary choice is in the end the sole determining force of our agency. To revert to Blackburn’s analogy, instrumentalism posits the empty captain who randomly determines the heading for the ship.

If at bottom every answer to every practical question is a radical choice, though, exercises of practical reason are not subject to a standard of correctness. Think about instrumental thought. Importantly, this thought is not merely thought about causal relations, nor is it merely thought about various things that I can do. Instrumental thought is about how to achieve what I have set as my end. Thought about how to pull off an action in my circumstances is likewise about about how to perform what is in fact my means in order to achieve what is in fact my end. Moving in the other direction, according to instrumentalism, thought about ends is about why I should act given what are in fact the values governing my practical thought. In the end, according to instrumentalism, the order of explanation runs from the question about what values are to govern evaluation to the question about ends to the question about means to the question about ways. However, if the only way to answer a practical question is through a radical choice, none of those projects are possible in the relevant sense. If I determine which value governs by a radical choice, its governing lacks normative standing. If I formulate an end on that basis, this act is from something that I recognize as lacking normative standing to something that thereby lacks normative standing. The end can no more be correct or incorrect than the value that governs because whether that value governs and hence what constitutes the only criterion

against which the end could be evaluated is arbitrary. If the end cannot be correct or incorrect, neither can the means nor the ways, and for the same reason. To place radical choice at the foundation of practical thought is thus to undermine the possibility of a standard of correctness for practical thought.

Sophisticated instrumentalism seems to explain the unique self-determination that differentiates exercises of practical reason from exercises of theoretical reason. Whereas theoretical reason must get its content from elsewhere, practical reason can generate its own content because my values constitute the criterion by which answer practical questions. They determine what is relevant to answering practical questions. In fact, they determine which practical questions are worth asking. So it seems. Yet placing a radical choice at the basis of every act of practical reason undermines this role for values. In the end, they do not determine anything since they play that role only given a different, non-rational, non-normative act. The promise of instrumentalism is a false hope.