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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 189 it is this structure, rather than simple attention to consequences or principles, that determines practical moral decision-making. We would thus do better to develop the richer vocabulary of causes and constituents, goals and effects, states and events (mental, social, or physical). When we do so, we see that all so-called consequentialist theories in fact presuppose the Humean conception of the self. So in the end, Anscombe's thesis is irrelevant at the normative level of actual moral reasoning, whereas at the metaethical level it crudely schematizes two opposing types of dummy theory, neither of which is of use to normative moral philosophers who seek in their work practicable solutions to actual moral, social, or political problems. Section 1 begins by distinguishing two uses to which the consequentialist/ deontological distinction can be put. First, it can be applied to the construction of a theory of what is morally valuable, i.e. good or right. Call this the value-theoretic part of a normative theory.3 Second, it can be applied to the construction of practical principles that guide deliberation. Call this the practical part of the normative theory. These two aspects of a moral theory are mutually independent, and normative theories need not be uniformly consequentialist or deontological with respect to both of these parts. I consider briefly the normative theories of Kant and Aristotle as examples of views that are mixed in different ways with respect to these two parts. Once we make this distinction between the value-theoretic and the practical parts of a normative theory, no such theory can be characterized as either uniquely consequentialist or uniquely deontological. Section 2 compares the practical parts of a purportedly consequentialist normative theory - namely Classical Utilitarianism - with the practical parts of a purportedly deontological one - namely Ross's Intuitionism. The comparison shows that we may submit the action any such theory prescribes to either characterization arbitrarily. Section 3 examines the value-theoretic part of a normative theory. It argues that the content of such a theory can, in turn, be distinguished from its structure; and that value-theoretic content is interchangeable between consequentialist and deontological theories, while there are no inherent structural differences between them. So the consequentialist/ deontological is as superficial to the value-theoretic part of a normative theory as it is to the practical part. Section 4 argues that the Thus I use the term "moral value" (or worth) to refer broadly to that which is morally evaluated. This includes both what William Frankena calls "moral value" (i.e. moral goodness and badness) and what he describes as "moral obligatoriness or rightness" (Ethics, Second Edition (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973), p. 62). It is not clear how to characterize our moral attitudes to that which we deem right, if we cannot say that we value it, just as we value that which is good. My distinction between the valuetheoretic and the practical parts of a normative theory resembles Holly Smith's distinction between moral theories as such and their uses as practical action-guides in "Making Moral Decisions," Nous XXII, 1 (March 1988), pp. 89-108. 3 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
