Brains, Persons, and Society *** ABSTRACTS    Cervelli, Persone e Società ***ABSTRACTS

In this paper, I argue that not only are we morally required to act in certain ways; we are also morally required to reason in certain ways.  I claim that morality requires that the harm that our actions may cause to others play a certain role in our practical deliberation.  I give a detailed account of the role morality requires considerations of potential harm to play.  I demonstrate that our intuitions support this requirement.  I consider certain objections and then put forward three possible justifications for the requirement.

I claim that agents are morally required to be appropriately responsive to potential harm to others in their practical deliberation.  Appropriate responsiveness to potential harm to others requires more than merely not harming others.  Responsiveness requires, in addition: (a) that if an agent’s conduct is likely to be harmful to others, he must be aware, or take appropriate means to become aware of this; (b) that the agent employs this awareness in his reasoning about how to act, so that if he is aware of a sufficiently grave potential harm to others, he will abandon his previous plans.  If an agent fails to live up to the requirement to be appropriately responsive, he has done something wrong on top of the wrongness of his physical actions. 

Responsiveness to reasons is contrasted with Joseph Raz’s notions of conformity with a reason and compliance with a reason.  Responsiveness requires more than mere conformity but does not generally demand compliance.  The agent need not explicitly use considerations of potential harm in his decision making, but must reason in such a way that he will take such reasons into account if they speak against the action under consideration.  

We are able to fulfil this requirement by using default reasoning.  Default reasoning is commonplace within both practical and theoretical reasoning.  When using default reasoning, we make certain steps without explicitly thinking that the step is correct, unless we think that there is something about this case that means the step might not be correct.  The quality of our default reasoning depends on our ability to recognise unusual cases.

The idea that we could be morally required to reason in a certain way may appear problematic.  It might seem that we do not have enough control over the quality of our reasoning to ground a moral commitment.  In addition, an agent who is unresponsive to reasons is unaware of those reasons and thus unaware that he should be taking them into account.  However, these objections do not pose a particular problem for the requirement to be responsive.  If these objections were successful, they would force us to abandon the idea that we can do wrong through negligent omissions.  They are not successful, for in cases of unresponsive reasoning neither lack of control nor ignorance of wrongdoing operates in a way that undercuts moral responsibility.   There is still the requisite connection between the object of moral assessment and the wrongful action.

Three potential justifications for the requirement to be responsive to potential harm to others are discussed.  The requirement is instrumentally justified because it makes us more likely to conform to our reasons to avoid harming others.  The instrumental justification warrants a requirement to be responsive in any case in which this makes conformity more likely from the agent’s point of view.

The requirement can also be justified by appeal to the idea that morality is addressed to us as rational agents.  We assess rational agent by how well they respond to reasons.  We should assess moral agents by how well they respond to moral reasons.  It cannot be enough if agent simply happen to do the right thing, he must also reason correctly.

The final justification calls upon the value of other persons.  The value of other agents gives us reason to care about their welfare.  If we reason in a way that is unresponsive to potential harm to others, we show ourselves to be blind to their value, demonstrating a morally reprehensible attitude to others.  This is objectionable independently of whether any harm is actually caused.