Does “Ought” Imply “Feasible”?

Abstract

Imagine a mercantile and materialistic polity, Pecunia, in which achieving a modest improvement in the economic position of the poor by progressive taxation is infeasible inasmuch as most members of the middle-class majority simply cannot bring themselves to work at the requisite level of intensity for less pecuniary gain (cf Cohen 2008, ch. 1). Now consider the claim that (1) The Pecunians ought to improve the economic position of the poor by progressive taxation. What should our reaction be to normative claims such as (1) that make infeasible demands? The reaction that many of us in fact have, I take it, is to feel deeply conflicted (see Nagel 1991, ch. 2). On the one hand, claims such as (1) seem to be evidently false in virtue of demanding the infeasible (Goodin and Pettit 1995; Brennan and Southwood 2007; Southwood and Wiens forthcoming; Gilabert 2012; Gilabert and Lawford-Smith 2012; Wiens 2015). While it would be nice to imagine a world where members of the middle-class were disposed to be less concerned with their own lot and more concerned with the lot of the less fortunate, this is not the world we live in. In the world such as it is, where most members of the middle-class cannot bring themselves to do what is required to improve the economic situation of the poor by progressive taxation, it is simply false that the Pecunians ought to improve the economic situation of the poor by progressive taxation. To insist otherwise would amount to objectionable unworldliness-to chasing "pies in the sky." On the other hand, claims such as (1) also seem to be evidently true in spite of making infeasible demands (Estlund 2011, pp. 219-21; Cohen 2008; Gheaus 2013). The case of the Pecunians seems to be aptly described as a case where objectionable character traits of the * For invaluable comments on and discussion about previous versions of this article I would like to thank

Ability and Volitional Incapacity

“…That is, it must be a volitional attitude or response that, while required for bringing oneself to perform an act, is not required for performing an act as such. This is strongly suggested by Vihvelin' (Vihvelin (2004: 443, italics added); see also Southwood (2016)). The idea seems to be that bringing oneself to perform an act involves acting on the basis of what we might call a deliberative choice: a choice that is the product of deliberation or reasoning.…”

The feasibility issue

“…A different version holds that the salient uses are deliberative and hypological uses (Southwood, ). According to this version, feasibility is indeed a constraint on normative claims insofar as they are supposed to be fit to be used deliberatively: that is, in practical deliberation.…”

“…Plausibly, this question simply is the question of whether some particular interpretation of the principle that “ought” implies “can” is valid (Brennan & Southwood, ; Gilabert, ; cf. Southwood, ).…”

“…Dispositional accounts understand feasibility in terms of certain dispositions. For example, Southwood and Gilabert ms suggest that it is feasible for an agent or set of agents A to realise a state of affairs x if A is disposed to be reasonably likely to succeed in realising x insofar as A tries to x (see also Southwood, ). (There are also non‐probability‐based conditional or dispositional accounts but I shall set these aside in what follows.)…”

The Relevance of Human Nature

“…This is because unwillingness to turn up naked to the office is (largely) due to existing social norms. While such social norms undoubtedly exert powerful motivational effects (see Southwood 2011;Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin and Southwood 2013), their grip on us is plausibly something that we can alter by concerted effort. Thus, for example, we could have made a concerted effort to become sufficiently comfortable with the idea of appearing naked in public by consorting with naturists, or to become relatively indifferent to the disapproval of others or whatever.…”