Upshot: Is There a Problem Left to Solve? The Subjectivizing Move

The two approaches to the Problem of Relevant Descriptions that I have discussed so far rely on the thought that O’Neill articulates in the passage cited in sect. 2.1 above, namely, that Kant himself offers a solution to the problem by pointing us to the agent’s maxim and to the description it contains. The challenges that remain, according to these approaches, stem from the obstacles encountered in trying to de-

224 _{This question, the question of whether the Categorical Imperative is primarily a decision tool or a}

norm that determines the deontic status of actions, already came up. We discussed it in ch. 2, sect. 3.2.

225 _{In any case, it is far from uncontroversial that the opacity thesis denies that agents can know their}

maxims. Some commentators argue that it is absurd to deny that we can know our specific intentions, and thus they conclude that Kant must have meant the fundamental maxim (or Gesinnung). See e.g. Allison 1990: 93.

226 _{The tendency to conflate these two ways of viewing the Formula of Universal Law stems, in part,}

from a confusion about constructivist approaches in ethics and metaethics. Constructivists argue that a practical judgment is correct insofar as it results from a certain “construction procedure”. This talk of a procedure should not be taken to refer to a decision procedure or tool that guarantees success, however. For constructivists, this is merely a metaphor, a way of illustrating fundamental principles of practical reason. In using this metaphor, they do not mean to say that any judgment an agent might arrive at when sincerely employing that procedure is correct. What they mean is rather that the fun- damental principles of practical reason, which their procedure illustrates, define what it is to properly exercise one’s capacity of practical reason – an ideal that any agent can fall short of, no matter how hard they try. We will come back to this in ch. 5.

termine what the agent’s maxim is, both generally speaking (first misconception) and in specific instances (second misconception). I have argued that these obstacles do not in fact threaten the discriminatory power of Kant’s universalisability requirement. Does that mean that there is no problem left to solve? I shall now argue that it does not.

First, however, an exegetical point. If we pay close attention to Anscombe’s phrasing, we can see that the two conceptions of the problem discussed above fail to make good sense of what she says. According to her, the Problem of Relevant De- scriptions arises “with a view to constructing a maxim”. This suggests, first, that she is well aware of what O’Neill presents as a solution to her problem: the fact that Kant was not interested in descriptions other than the one contained in the agent’s maxim. Second, and more importantly, her use of the phrase “constructing a maxim” indicates from which perspective she takes the problem to arise: the perspective of a morally deliberating agent trying to formulate a principle of action.227 The perspective

that she has in mind is neither the perspective of a commentator who is fiddling with Kant’s notion of a maxim, nor the perspective of a self-scrutinizing agent who is trying to get to the bottom of their “unfathomable heart”. It would be odd to de- scribe what the latter two are doing as “constructing maxims”. This indicates that Anscombe is not actually worried that Kant’s theory might lack the resources to de- termine which description it is that an agent’s maxim contains, but rather that the description that the maxim does in fact contain could be irrelevant and that Kant’s theory lacks the resources to rule out this possibility. Some Kant scholars deny this possibility.228 I will argue that they do so at too high a cost, but first let me illustrate

what it is that they are denying. Consider the following example.

Grandmother: You promised to help your grandmother on Sunday afternoon, but when the time arrives, you just stay on your favourite bench in the park, playing the guitar. “Why did you stay in the park?” your friend asks perplexedly. “I was practicing in order to develop my guitar skills,” you say. In saying this, you are

227 _{It must be admitted that the evidence cited here is not conclusive. The fact that Anscombe speaks}

of “constructing a maxim about it”, for example, might be taken to suggest that she is thinking of an observer describing an action that has already been performed from a third-person perspective. The point that I go on to make is not affected by this: the two approaches discussed thus far make even less sense of her choice of words.

228 _{Wood’s criticism of the Formula of Universal Law, for instance, rests on denying this possibility}

being honest, you are not keeping anything from your friend, and you are not deceived about your intentions.229

There is certainly a problem with your maxim, but it is not that it cannot be willed as a universal law. It can (or so it seems). The problem is that, given the cir- cumstances, the considerations from which you are acting are irrelevant, or at least they are not the only considerations that are relevant to what you are allowed or obli- gated to do in this case. The opponent I am envisaging would say that this intuition is misleading. If, in forming your maxim, you complied with an attentiveness clause akin to the above sincerity clause,230 then you simply “can do nothing more to deter-

mine that [your] maxim does not match [your] situation” (O’Neill 2013: 249). Ac- cording to my opponent, your action is right in the only sense that is available to Kantians: subjectively right.231 If you had acted under a different description, e.g. from a

maxim of promise-breaking, then your action would have been wrong. But you did not, and so it is right.232

Such a claim will strike many people as deeply un-Kantian, but this is the cost of denying the possibility that even an attentively formed maxim might contain an irrel- evant description: one must deny that Kant’s ethics can deliver on its promise of objectivity and must settle for subjective rightness instead. If this is indeed the cost of putting Anscombe’s objection to one side, it is surely a cost that Kantians should refuse to pay. Instead, it seems, they should admit not only that the intentions with which agents act may be morally unworthy (this possibility is already acknowledged in the very idea of a Categorical Imperative), but also that such shortcomings may be rooted in a mismatch between maxim and circumstances, and not necessarily in a failure to meet the universalisability requirement. In acknowledging the possibility of

229 _{This is an example that Stratton-Lake uses to illustrate his objection to what he labels the “justifica-}

tory conception of the moral law”. On this conception, the “lawlike nature of [one’s] maxim is suffi- cient to make [the] action morally right” (Stratton-Lake 2000: 58). I will say more about the justificato- ry conception and its flaws in sect. 3 below, but the fact that my behaviour in this example seems so oddly unmotivated (Have I forgotten? Do I properly understand what promising is? Am I weak- willed? Etc.) is part of what Stratton-Lake takes issue with. For current purposes, I want to leave it open why I ignore the promise and postpone the discussion of this question to sect. 2.5 and 3.

230 _{According to O’Neill, the deliberating agent must not only try to avoid self-deception, she must}

also do her best to avoid ignorance and bias (2013: 249). That’s what I mean by “attentiveness clause”.

231 _{Even though O’Neill endorses this subjectivizing move (2013: 251-3), her view is more nuanced}

than the view of the opponent I envisage in this section, because she does not deny that descriptions can be irrelevant.

232 _{For simplicity’s sake, I am here adopting O’Neill’s way of speaking, so I speak of “right” and}

“wrong” actions, rather than “permissible”, “impermissible”, and “obligatory” actions, as I have done so far. I will do the same in sect. 4.2, when I discuss Mark Timmons’ solution.

such mismatch-based shortcomings, we make room for a different approach to Anscombe’s challenge. According to this new approach, she is not asking for stipula- tions that would determine which description a maxim does contain (or what the agent’s maxim is), but rather which description it ought to contain, given the circum- stances.233 If such stipulations can be found, then there is hope that Kant can make

good on his promise of objectivity and that his ethics can overcome Anscombe’s challenge. However, even if it is accepted that this is the point of her challenge, there is still room for a further misconception.