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Show Chapter V. A Refutation of Anscombe's Thesis 188 debate that, by generalizing and arguing about what consequentialist-type and deontological-type theories require or do not require or imply or presuppose, enables one to steer clear both of overwhelmingly complex casuistical issues and also of the deeper metaphysical value commitments these issues presuppose. My aim in this chapter is not to dampen this debate,2 but merely to establish a rationale for those who might prefer not to join it. Briefly stated, my rationale is that Anscombe's thesis is false, and that the distinction between Humean and Kantian metaethical views is the philosophically fundamental one for the twenty-first century. Anscombe contrasts "consequentialist" theories in general with a Kantian theory in particular as an example of what she calls a "deontological" theory. Whereas a Kantian theory is a certain kind of normative view, Anscombe's consequentialist/ deontological distinction sorts normative theories into those which assign primary value to the effects of actions - Utilitarianism, Aristotelianism, Marxism, and Perfectionism would all be putative examples; and those which purport not to, such as Kantianism, Intuitionism, or Moral Sentiment Theory. I do not think Anscombe's thesis is defensible. But it is important to say why, in order to clear the ground for the more appropriate metaethical distinctions I go on to defend. I argue here that given the content and structure of any normative theory we are likely to find palatable, there is no way of uniquely breaking down that theory into either consequentialist or deontological elements. In fact, once we examine the actual structure of any such theory more closely, we see that it can be classified in either way arbitrarily. So if we ignore the metaethical pronouncements often made by Anscombeans, we find that the consequentialist/ deontological distinction contributes nothing of consequence to an understanding of moral philosophy. There are basically two reasons for this. First, what we mean by the terms endemic to the consequentialist/ deontological distinction have no unique references to particular states of affairs in actual cases of moral decisionmaking. Hence we may justify any such concrete moral decision by reference to typically consequentialist or deontological reasoning indifferently. Second, scrutiny of actual and viable normative theories reveals a much finer-grained structure than the cosequentialist/deontological taxonomy can capture. And As one prominent moral philosopher put it, the nice thing about Anscombe's thesis is that it keeps a lot of people busy so that the rest of us can get on with the hard tasks of figuring out how to behave and how to make the world a better place. And when this chapter was first excerpted for publication in article form, one up-and-coming Anscombean commented about it that my analysis was very likely right but had no relevance for his work, since he had no interest in actual normative theories, whether past or future, and moreover thought it presumptuous to compete with the Great Thinkers by proposing one. I asked him what he thought the consequentialist/ deontological distinction purported to refer to, if not actual normative theories. Idealized possible normative theories, he replied. 2 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
