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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 201 and if it did, it was right. As Ross argues, in discussing the example of keeping a promise by returning a book through the mail, nonattainment of the result proves the insufficiency of the means - however carelessly I pack or dispatch the book, if it comes to hand I have done my duty, and ... if the book does not come to hand I have not done my duty. Success and failure are the only text, and a sufficient test, of the performance of duty (45).18 Again this is as it should be. A deontological theory that practically enjoined us only to attempt to keep promises and repay our debts to others could be followed successfully even though moral duties were never fulfilled. Indeed, such a theory would not even require us to adopt as a goal of action the fulfillment of these duties. We would be obligated only to try. But mere moral tryings cannot be the subject of moral prescription, for they need never enter into the description of any actual actions we perform. My trying to mail the book may consist in little more than a rebellious stirring of will that makes my actual act of throwing the book into the fireplace less than effortless or conflict-free. Here I could honestly say that I tried to mail the book and failed (because my effort of will was not strong enough). Thus such a theory would not prescribe moral actions at all, but rather moral motivation. And because good intentions are not the sort of thing we can immediately will ourselves to have, we would then be morally obligated to undertake the actions that would effect this change in character, rather than to fulfill the duties that the theory prescribes.19 So the practical prescriptions of a purportedly "pure" deontological theory are consequentialist in structure because they bid the performance of only those actions the actual outcome of which is the morally right action as specified by the theory. That this holds equally true for any deontological theory that practically prescribes certain kinds of action as morally right is easily seen. 2.3. Consequences, Intrinsic Value and Moral Beliefs But consider the following objection to this argument.20 Making the actual fulfillment of a moral duty an end to which particular actions are means does not suffice to transform practical deontological prescriptions into consequentialist ones, for the end in question is not defined in the way a consequentialist theory requires. A consequentialist theory, it might be said, does not evaluate an action merely by the positive character of its In general the discussion of pages 30-36 support this point, Ross's intentions notwithstanding. 19 Ross recognizes this. See ibid., p. 405. 20 I owe this objection to Richard Brandt and Allan Gibbard. 18 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
