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Show Chapter V. A Refutation of Anscombe's Thesis 208 participant would explicitly agree upon careful reflection, or which would be chosen under certain intuitively acceptable ideal conditions. Again the valueconferring properties are not further, independent ends or conditions that fulfilling moral duties or democratic political institutions are intended to effect. Other, more efficient ways of expressing rational human nature would not displace the moral importance of fulfilling one's duties nor would other matters on which people would rationally agree displace the moral importance of fair democratic political institutions. To cite these properties is not to confer moral worth on right action or just institutions only instrumentally, any more than to cite the fact that all human beings strive for happiness is to make the worth of happiness instrumental to the further end of having all human beings strive for it. To cite these properties is rather to explicate what it is about these actions and institutions themselves that make them valuable. Thus deontological value theories have CPVs just as do consequentialist value theories. Once again the plausibility of the deontologist's claim depends largely on what is value-theoretically asserted to be morally right. Fulfilling certain duties is a plausible candidate; as might be experiencing emotions such as guilt, remorse, shame, or resentment under certain appropriate circumstances; as might be, as well, social and political institutions that respect the privacy and freedom of its citizens. Less persuasive as CPVs might be, for example, consistently altruistic behavior; or feeling repentance for one's sins, or continuing political and social disequilibrium. Again the important point is that deontological prescriptions to bring about states of affairs perceived as inherently and self-evidently valuable need not be confined to morally obligatory actions. Once again that which is prescribed as right may as well be an activity as an emotion, an event as a state. What ought to be the case is neutral between these possibilities, and again it seems that CPVs must be distinguished by the their content and not their metaphysical structures. But this then implies that any activity, mental or physical state, or event that can be a valued end relative to a consequentialist value theory can be, with respect to its metaphysical structure, the subject of a deontological value theory and vice versa. To experience happiness under the appropriate circumstances and to experience resentment under the appropriate circumstances are both states we can strive to experience as an end as well as states of which it makes sense to say we ought to experience. Hence both are states that can be constitutive of the consequentialist's final end as well as morally right on independent grounds. To express fully our human talents and to fulfill our obligations are equally activities that it might be good to perform as well as activities of which it makes sense to say we ought to perform them. Hence both are activities that can be constitutive of the final end as well as morally right. The achievement of universal suffrage and political reform are both events it might be a good thing to have occur as well © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
