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Show Chapter IX. The Problem of Moral Justification 378 there is no reason on the face of it why this mental event cannot have the same conative power as any other occurrent mental event such as desiring or craving. If it is not, however, we await some explanation of how an abstract object such as a reason can function as though it were a material cause even though it in fact is not one. 3.3. Voluntariness Gewirth's strategy is to attempt to derive the PGC from two of what he calls the generic features of action, namely its voluntariness and its purposiveness. His claim is that these features are morally neutral in that they "fi[t] all moralities rather than reflecting or deriving from any one normative moral position as against any other" (25). They are also invariant in that they "pertain generically to all actions" (25). Moreover, they demonstrate that action has a normative structure, i.e. that certain normative judgments are "logically implicit in all action" (26). Finally, Gewirth claims, these normative judgments themselves rationally imply the PGC. So actions themselves, on this account - not the concept of action, imply certain judgments; and these judgments, in turn, imply the PGC. Therefore actions themselves imply the PGC. I will want to call attention to each of these claims for the two generic features of action: their moral neutrality, their invariance across all actions, and, in Section 5 below, their capacity to generate normative judgments. First consider voluntariness. Gewirth equates voluntariness with freedom by defining it as the control of behavior through unforced choice. So he wants to say that all actions have the property of being behavior controlled through unforced choice. But in the section following the above quotes, he says not that action is in fact behavior controlled through unforced choice, but rather that action as envisaged by moral precepts is behavior controlled by unforced choice: [T]he sense [of the word 'action'] relevant here is that which is the common object of all moral precepts as well as of many other practical precepts that set requirements for action. ... they have in common that the intention of the persons who set them forth is to guide, advise, or urge the persons to whom they are directed .... [I]t is assumed that the hearers can control their behavior through their unforced choice so as to try to achieve the prescribed ends or contents ... (26-27; also see 28, 30, 35). Since there are many actions that fall outside the scope of moral and other practical precepts, this provision represents a significant restriction on the range of actions from which the PGC can be said to follow. Assume for the sake of argument that individuals who issue moral and other precepts envisage the actions they prescribe to others as behavior controlled by unforced choice; and that this is what it means to act freely. Then individuals who issue moral and other precepts assume that those to whom these precepts are addressed can freely carry them out. But whether © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
