John Deigh

Confession; this is not really a book review but a review of papers published in the journal Ethics under the title: 'Symposium on Michael Smith's Moral Problem'. (I think the ANU Philosophy department was having a fire sale of old documents so I bought it for a song). It includes:
1. A paper by David Brink titled..."Moral motivation"
2. A paper by David Copp titled "Belief, reason and motivation: Michael Smith's 'The Moral Problem'.
3. A paper by Geoffrey Sayre-McCord titled "The meta ethical problem
4. And a response paper by Michael Smith, titled, In defence of 'The Moral Problem'.
Smith suggests that the central organising problem in metaphors can be brought out in the following three propositions.
1. Moral judgements of the form that it is right to X express a subject's beliefs about an objective matter of fact.
2. If someone judges it right that she do X then, other things being equal she has a motivation to X.
3. An agent is motivated to act in a certain way just in case she has an appropriate desire and a means-end belief, where belief and desire, are, in Hume's terms distinct existences.
Brink objects (more or less to the "other things being equal" in the second proposition.
There are good grounds for accepting each of the propositions but taken together they are in conflict. (At least any two taken together seem to be difficult to reconcile with the third). Copp argues that a rational agent may believe she is morally required to do something without being motivated to do it. That is, the practicality requirement is false.
I rather like Sayre-McCord's comment that Smith is really dealing with pure meta ethics and not really THE moral problem ..which might be something more like "systematic injustice".
Smith justifies his approach in terms of reason. that someone applying rationality to the propositions must hold to them all. So, for example, Smiths view allows that moral beliefs may not always motive appropriately. Still it leaves Smith committed to the view that it is irrational if one fails to be motivated to do what one believes to be morally right. Sayre-McCord says that "people who have a reason to do X in C may not have any beliefs at all concerning what they would desire if they had a maximally coherent desiderative profile." Personally, I think that Smith is wrong when he says that fully rational creatures would all converge in their desires. I think that cultural issues make it impossible for everybody to converge in their desires even if completely rational. The evolution of moral values seems to indicate that what is rational at one time may not be rational at a later time. (For example attitudes to slavery....or child sacrifice).Smith seems to rely too much on "possible worlds" where "her desires are beyond reproach". I'm also am concerned about conflicting reasons where an agent has reason to do something but other reasons not to do it. And it seems to me that Brink raises a valid argument that "moral facts might be simply behavioural norms or conventions".And reasons here are not normative reasons.
Smith concludes that despite the critics, the basic line of argument set out in his book is still valid. Though he is at pains to say that none of this constitutes any sort of proof for "moral facts" because he thinks that you can't supply compelling deductive arguments for their existence.
Overall, I think Smith has come up with a workable or semi workable system for moral decisions and he concludes "that if he is right moral requirements are just normative reasons accessible to any rational creature capable of rational reflection." (Normative means...more or less a reason for action...whereas a motivating reason is a reason for which someone does something, a reason that, in the agent’s eyes, counts in favour of her acting in a certain way).
I found the articles rather hard going, even though I am somewhat familiar with the terminology etc. And I think Michael Smith actually comes our of he critique rather well. Since writing the above review, I discovered that I actually have a copy of "The Moral Problem" on my bookshelves and I vaguely recall consulting it and writing to Michael Smith about my own thesis. (Never got a reply). Oh Well! Four stars from me.… (meer)