Peter Railton's Naturalistic Reductionism - Part 1 - Beliefs and Values

A member of the studio audience has asked for my opinion on Peter Railton's Naturalistic Reductionism.

The thesis that I defend in these posts is . . . exactly . . . naturalistic reductionism. I argue that all true value terms can be reduced to claims about relationships between states of affairs and desires. Technically, value terms have to do with reasons to act - whatever those reasons are. However, since only desires provide reasons to act, true value claims refer to desires, while all claims that refer to things other than desires (God, intrinsic value, social contracts, categorical imperatives, etc.) are false.

Since Peter Railton defends naturalistic reductionism, I have been asked to compare and contrast the views defended here and Railton's.

I haven't actually read Railton's views before the reader made me aware of them, so I do not actually have an idea, at the start of this project, what the answer will be. But, it sounds like an interesting adventure.

I will be referencing Railton's article, Moral Realism, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Apr., 1986), pp 163-207.

The first thing I would like to discuss is a statement that Railton makes about the relationship between belief and value. This is supposed to provide an argument against any type of reductive materialism.

Perhaps the most frequently heard argument for the fact/value distinction is epistemic: it is claimed that disputes over questions of value can persist even after all rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed, hence, value judgments cannot be cognitive in the sense that factual or logical judgments are. 

This argument, at best, seems to be begging the question. The only way that one can embrace the conclusion is if one already accepts it as true.

As a reductive materialist, naturally, I deny that disputes over questions of value can persist even after all rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed.

After all, value is a relationship between states of affairs and desires. Desires are propositional attitudes that take the form, "Agent desires that P". Whether or not a state of affairs S has value depends on whether or not P is true in S. If it is, then the agent has a motivating reason to realize that state of affairs.

Once all of the rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed, there is nothing else left. Once all of the rational and scientific means of adjudication have been deployed, we will know whether the agent desires that P, and whether P is true in S. Thus, we will know whether the agent has a motivating reason to realize S.

Now, one thing that is true is that, once all of the rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed, two agents can still desire different things. One of them can still prefer butterscotch to chocolate while the other still prefers chocolate to butterscotch. However, these are not matters of belief. They are matters of desire.

The fact that different desires can persist even after all rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed should be seen as no more surprising as the fact that differences in age, height, or handedness will persist as well. Nobody argues that, once all of the rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed, two agents will come to have the same age. Similarly, if we take two agents, one with an appendix and one without, and subject them to rational and scientific adjudication, one will still have an appendix and the other still will not.

Desires are like handedness or having an appendix. A statement that agent has a "desire that P" is a statement about the physical organization of the agent's body - just like the statement that the agent has an appendix. And, also like the appendix, it is not a structure that is under the influence of beliefs. Rational or scientific means of adjudication are irrelevant.

Yet, I suspect that those who believe that differences in value judgments persist even after all rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed are making precisely this mistake. They note that, after all rational scientific means of adjudication have been deployed, agents have different desires, and that consequently "value judgments" (which they equate with desires) cannot be cognitive. They fail to properly distinguish between a value judgment and a desire.

A value judgment - or, at least, a true value judgment - is a belief about the relationships that exist between an object of evaluation and a set of desires. (Actually, as I said above, it is a belief about relationships that exist between an object of evaluation and a set of reasons for action, but only desires provide reasons for action, so true value judgments relate objects of evaluation to desires.)

A desire is not a belief about a relationship between an object of evaluation and desires. Consequently, the fact that different desires persist in the face of all rational or scientific adjudication is not proof that different value judgments persist.

This is an account of the view that I have been defending on an issue that Railton brings up in his article. I guess I really should take a look at how Dr. Railton addresses this issue.