Gerald K. Harrison

The divine psychologism defended in this work can be used to make a large number of predictions about the character of the normative aspect to reality. For instance—and without making any substantial normative assumptions—it is possible to predict the existence of epistemic, instrumental and moral reasons of approximately the kind there appear to be. Additionally, the existence of something answering to our concept of moral desert can also be anticipated, as can the existence of strong links between what we are motivated to do and what we have normative reason to do. Finally, though not exhaustively, we can predict that the content of the normative aspect to reality will vary to some degree over time. All of these predictions appear to be confirmed.

Our faculties of reason are not faculties of perception. They are best characterized as kinds of instruction manual on reality that provide us, via rational intuitions, with indirect information about what Reason favours us doing and being. As normative reasons exist indubitably, and as we are indubitably normatively aware, it follows that Reason exists and is the author of our instruction manuals. Given we are almost inescapably bound to consult our faculties of reason, Reason has considerable influence over us and thereby qualifies as some kind of a god or divine mind. To avoid the temptation to bloat my conclusion and attribute to Reason qualities that my arguments have not licensed, I adopt Samuel Johnson’s term and refer to her as a mente divina and the theory as divine psychologism.

The question is “what are normative reasons, in and of themselves?” The answer is going to be that they are the attitudes a single external mind—a god of sorts—is adopting towards us doing and believing things. However, it is emphasized that what follows is not an attempt to provide rational underpinnings to a religious worldview, but a disinterested attempt to follow arguments where they lead. The following are also clarified: (a) that the question is not about what we have reason to do and believe (a first-order question), but about what the reasons themselves are made of (a second order question); (b) that normative reasons should not be conflated with explanatory reasons and/or motivational reasons; and finally (c) that there are three main kinds of normative reason: epistemic, instrumental and moral.

There is no evidence that the favoring relations constitutive of normative reasons have oneself as their source. Indeed, the thesis is preposterous once the truth of the unity thesis is acknowledged. All of the evidence—and I provide four pieces (empirical evidence, phenomenological evidence; the categoricity of some normative reasons and the fact we acquire a priori information from our reason)—strongly implies that normative reasons have an external-to-any-of-us source. I also consider and reject some analyses of normative reasons—ideal observer theories and constitutivist views—that some may mistakenly believe are still in the running. I conclude at this point that Reason is a single external mind with normative reasons being what she favours us doing and being.

To judge that one has reason to do or believe something is not to judge that one is doing or believing it; nor is it to predict that one will do or believe it; nor is it to judge that one is motivated to do or believe it; nor is it to judge that one is subject to some kind of force or pressure; nor is it merely to make a judgement about what doing or believing it will achieve. Judging that one has reason to do or believe something is to judge that one is favoured doing or believing it. Normative reasons are thus favoring relations, whatever else they may be. The suggestion some might make, namely that talk of favoring relations should be interpreted metaphorically, is rejected on the grounds that it has no positive evidence in support of it, is of questionable coherence, and violates the principle of parsimony.

All favoring relations must have a mind as their bearer. The idea of a favoring attitude being borne by something non-mental is incoherent, as is the idea of a favoring attitude that lacks any bearer at all. As all normative reasons are favoring relations, then all normative reasons must have a mind to bear them. This means that all objectivist naturalist and non-naturalist analyses of normative reasons are false, indeed incoherent. They all, by definition, turn out either to be identifying normative reasons with something other than a favoring relation, or to be supposing that favoring relations can be borne by something other than a mind, be it either some objective natural or non-natural feature, or nothing whatsoever.

Euthyphro-style objections to divine analyses of normative concepts (and to date such analyses have been almost exclusively of moral concepts) are thought by most contemporary philosophers to refute them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Such objections—and I identify four distinct ones—fail to raise any reasonable doubt about the truth of the view defended in this work. They all either mistaken or else beg the question by interpreting relevant rational intuitions descriptively, when in fact it would be reasonable to interpret them expressively if they are communications from a god. Furthermore, all such objections apply to rival analyses, but in their case the relevant theories—unlike my theory—lack the resources to be able to deal with them. Far from refuting divine psychologism Euthyphro-style objections challenge rival analyses.

The favoring relations constitutive of normative reasons have a single, unifying source across us all. This is implied by at least five separate considerations. Both normative disagreement and normative conflict implies that our concept of a normative reason is of a favoring relation that has the same source as all other normative reasons. Rational appearances corroborate this, providing both direct evidence of single source—normative reasons are positively represented to have a unified source—and indirect evidence insofar as we are told to compare our rational intuitions with the rational intuitions of others (which would make no sense unless they were providing us insight into the same matter). Additionally, widespread convergence in the content of our rational intuitions, and the fact that the posit of a single mind is simpler than any multiple-bearer thesis, operates to make the unity thesis true beyond a reasonable doubt.

Non-reductionist moral realist views are supposed to have trouble explaining the truth of the moral supervenience thesis. In this paper I argue that the non-reductionist has nothing to worry about on this front. The positive case for the global moral supervenience thesis is flawed. I identify three considerations commonly cited in support of the thesis: the grounding concern, the horrendous deeds concern, and the normative authority concern. I argue that each one is based on mistakes, dubious assumptions and/or a question begging assumption of meta-ethical reductionism. I go on to argue that given reliable epistemic access to moral reality (something most moral realists will want to grant), the differential considered moral judgements of competent moral judges at different times and in different places is prima facie evidence that the moral landscape, like the physical landscape, is not uniform across time and space. This is incompatible with the local (non-trivial) moral supervenience thesis, according to which the subvening base excludes spatio-temporal location, thus fixing moral properties across time and space. I then argue that if the local (non-trivial) moral supervenience thesis is false there is no reason to think the global moral supervenience thesis is true. I conclude that short of a prior commitment to reductionism there is no good reason to think the global moral supervenience thesis is true.

Many now accept that Frankfurt-style cases refute the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP). But, in this paper I argue that even if Frankfurt-style cases refute PAP they do not refute a related principle: the principle of avoidable blame (PAB). My argument develops from the observation that an agent in a Frankfurt-style case can be aware of the nature of their situation without this undermining their moral responsibility. I then argue that PAB captures all that is important about PAP such that the refutation of PAP is of no concern as long as PAB survives.

Normative error theory is thought by some to be unbelievable because they suppose the incompatibility of believing a proposition at the same time as believing that one has no normative reason to believe it—which believing in normative error theory would seem to involve. In this article, I argue that normative holism is believable and that a normative holist will believe that the truth of a proposition does not invariably generate a normative reason to believe it. I outline five different scenarios in which this is believably the case. I then show how each example can be used to generate a counterexample to the incompatibility claim. I conclude that believing a proposition is compatible with believing there is no reason to believe it and that as such normative error theory has not yet been shown to be unbelievable.

I believe most acts of human procreation are immoral, and I believe this despite also believing in the truth of moral particularism. In this paper I explain why. I argue that procreative acts possess numerous features that, in other contexts, seem typically to operate with negative moral valences. Other things being equal this gives us reason to believe they will operate negatively in the context of procreative acts as well. However, most people’s intuitions represent procreative acts to be morally permissible in most circumstances. Given moral particularism, this would normally be good evidence that procreative acts are indeed morally permissible and that the features that operate negatively elsewhere, simply do not do so in the context of procreative acts in particular. But I argue that we have no good reason to think our intuitions about the ethics of human procreation are accurate. Our most reliable source of insight into the ethics human procreative acts are not our intuitions those acts themselves, but our intuitions about the typical moral valences of the features such acts possess. If that is correct, then acts of human procreation are most likely wrong.

Normative reasons are reasons to do and believe things. Intellectual inquiry seems to presuppose their existence, for we cannot justifiably conclude that we exist; that there is an external world; and that there are better and worse ways of investigating it and behaving in it, unless there are reasons to do and believe such things. But just what in the world are normative reasons? In this book a case is made for believing normative reasons are favouring relations that have a single, external source, filling this significant gap in the literature in an area within contemporary philosophy that has quickly grown in prominence. Providing a divine command metanormative analysis of normative reasons on entirely non-religious grounds, its arguments will be relevant to both secular and non-secular audiences alike and will address key issues in meta-ethics, evolutionary theory - especially evolutionary debunking threats to moral reasons and the normative more generally - and epistemology.

It is a supposed conceptual truth about moral norms that we have reason to comply with them even if we desire not to. This combination of rational authority and inescapability is thought to be incompatible with instrumentalism about practical reason. This essay argues that there are ways in which norms with inescapable rational authority can exist alongside instrumentalism about practical reason. One way involves positing an afterlife and a powerful supernatural agency—so, a kind of god—who has total control over our welfare in that afterlife. I go on to argue that the attitudes of this god would also provide something answering to our impressions of moral desert

The claim that moral responsibility requires relevant alternative possibilities is encapsulated by the following principle: PAP: A person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. In 1969 Harry Frankfurt devised what purported to be a counterexample to PAP: Suppose someone, Black, let us say, wants Jones to perform a certain action. Black is prepared to go to considerable lengths to get his way, but he prefers to avoid showing his hand unnecessarily. So he waits until Jones is about to make up his mind what to do, and he does nothing unless it is clear to him that Jones is going to decide to do something other than what he, Black, wants him to do. If it does become clear that Jones is going to decide to do something else, Black takes effective steps to ensure that Jones decides to do, and that he does do, what he, Black, wants him to do. Whatever Jones's initial preferences and inclinations, then, Black will have his way. . . . Now suppose that Black never has to show his hand because Jones, for reasons of his own, decides to perform and does perform the very action Black wants him to perform. In that case, it seems clear, Jones will bear precisely the same moral responsibility for what he does as he would have borne if Black had not been ready to take steps to ensure that he do it

The problem of evil is widely recognised to be the most serious challenge to the reasonableness of believing this world to be God’s creation. In this paper, I offer a novel way of responding. I argue that given a certain sort of divine command metaethics our moral intuitions and beliefs about what moral goodness substantially involves cannot reasonably be expected to provide reliable insight into what God’s moral goodness substantially involves. As such, even if it is unreasonable to believe this universe to be the creation of an intuitively morally good, omnipotent, omniscient being, this does not entail that it is unreasonable to suppose it to be the creation of God.

Cases involving clandestine manipulation pose a significant challenge to compatibilist conceptions of free will. But compatibilists often argue that they are not alone and that modest libertarian conceptions of free will are also susceptible to the problem. I take issue with this claim. I argue that agent-causal libertarian views are not susceptible to the problem. I then argue that the compatibilist cannot cite a relevant difference between agent-causal libertarian views and modest libertarian views. Therefore from a compatibilist's perspective modest libertarian views are impervious to the problem of clandestine manipulation.

Benatar’s central argument for antinatalism develops an asymmetry between the pain and pleasure in a potential life. I am going to present an alternative route to the antinatalist conclusion. I argue that duties require victims and that as a result there is no duty to create the pleasures contained within a prospective life but a duty not to create any of its sufferings. My argument can supplement Benatar’s, but it also enjoys some advantages: it achieves a better fit with our intuitions; it does not require us to acknowledge that life is a harm, or that a world devoid of life is a good thing; and it is easy to see why it does not have any pro-mortalist implications.