Moral Error Theory by Jonas Olson

Author:Jonas Olson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2014-10-20T16:00:00+00:00

6.3. Queerness and Companions in Guilt

One might attempt to resist the conclusion that moral facts are queer by denying premise (P4’) of the fourth queerness argument, i.e., the premise that if moral facts entail queer relations, moral facts are queer. But remember that we have said that moral facts are facts about what other facts (for example, the fact that performing some action would be conducive to the general happiness) favour certain courses of behaviour (for example, performing the action that would be conducive to the general happiness), where the favouring relation is irreducibly normative. It seems difficult to deny that if the irreducibly normative favouring relation, or instances of it, is queer, then the fact that it obtains is also queer,

Let us therefore consider the premise that irreducibly normative favouring relations are queer (P13). In what way are they queer? Well, recall that irreducibly normative reasons are facts that require, or count in favour of, certain ways of behaviour, where the requiring or favouring relation is irreducibly normative. For example, it is not reducible to facts about agents’ desires, roles, or engagement in rule-governed activities. As we have seen, it is no metaphysical mystery how there can be a fact that counts in favour of not splitting the infinitive. The fact that an act is a splitting of an infinitive counts in favour of not performing that act, and on a reductive understanding of ‘counting in favour’, for that fact to count in favour of not performing that act simply is for it to be the case that not performing that act accords with a grammatical rule according to which splitting the infinitive is inappropriate. It is likewise no metaphysical mystery how there can be a fact that counts in favour of male guests wearing a tie at formal dinners. The fact that an action is the wearing of a tie by a male guest at a formal dinner counts in favour of performing that action, and on a reductive understanding of ‘counting in favour’, for that fact to count in favour of performing that action simply is for that action to accord with the rule of etiquette that requires male guests at formal dinners to wear a tie.

Irreducibly normative reasons are very different. The irreducibly normative favouring relation is not reducible to an action’s property of being a means to the satisfaction of some desire, or an action’s property of being in accord with some rule or norm. When the irreducibly normative favouring relation obtains between some fact and some course of behaviour, that fact is an irreducibly normative reason to take this course of behaviour. Such irreducibly normative favouring relations appear metaphysically mysterious. How can there be such relations?

Non-naturalists can retort that it is not clear what kind of explanation we ask for here. They could maintain that it is a fundamental fact about reality that there are irreducibly normative reason relations, and they could refuse head-on to admit that there is anything queer about such relations.

This illustrates that the issue here is at a bedrock metaphysical level.

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