Preproceedings 2006 - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Did you do something wrong if you couldn’t have done otherwise?
– Deontic act evaluation and some doubts concerning “ought
implies can”
Michael Kühler, University of Konstanz, Germany
1. Introduction
It seems to be plausible that if you can’t do otherwise than
what you actually do, it would be unfair to charge you with
wrongdoing. Despite the familiar ringing of the “Frankfurttype-examples”-bell,
wrongdoing should not be confused
with blameworthiness. In this paper I will solely be
concerned with the question whether the ability to do
otherwise, in conjunction with the principle “ought implies
can” (OIC), might function as a necessary condition for
deontic act evaluation, i.e. judging acts as wrong.
Firstly, I will present some short examples along
with contradictory intuitions concerning the deontic
evaluation of the acts involved. To solve this contradiction,
bringing in next OIC (including “can refrain”) will, however,
lead to some general doubts concerning the validity of the
principle itself. A concluding example eventually gives rise
to an alternative view, resting on normative standards as
the basis of deontic act evaluations, while abandoning
OIC.
Some further remarks concerning the restrictions of
my question might be helpful: I will not be dealing with the
intriguing question whether freedom of the will requires
alternatives. The “can do” here only refers to freedom of
action. A little example might help: Assume you stand at a
crossroads and two ways seem to be open to you. After a
little deliberating, given you have no choice but to move on
in some direction, you choose the second way and go
ahead. Unknown to you, however, the first way is blocked.
As it seems, you couldn’t have acted otherwise.
Unfortunately for you, it turns out that the second way is
the wrong way for you at all, given your goal to reach a
certain spot in the landscape. It seems to be clear,
however, that you indeed acted in choosing to take the
second way, for you freely made that choice. But can your
action be judged as wrong? One might hesitate to admit
this, given the harmless situation. So let’s make things
more grim. Assume acting freely in the only possible way
means killing somebody. The question whether you did
something wrong now seems to be more urgent. John
Kekes (1984, 459f.) formulated a provoking example: A
mentally ill sadist entraps people and tortures them to
death. He is fully aware of what he’s doing and that people
think of it as evil. However, it is also not in his power to
refrain from doing it. Given the same inability to act
otherwise as in the crossroads-example, might the sadist’s
actions now be judged as wrong? One might be inclined to
admit it, provoking a contradiction to one’s evaluation of
the former action. Furthermore, if you have doubts over the
ability of the sadist to act rationally at all, here is third
example – less dramatic but maybe as deadly: The act of
smoking might seemingly be a wrong act, given your goal
of staying healthy, despite the fact that you assumingly
cannot give up smoking. So the contradiction remains.
What do we make of it?
162
2. “Ought implies can” and the ability to do
otherwise
Another familiar statement now might come to mind in order
to solve the contradiction: OIC. You can only be required to
do something if you are able to do it. If you are not able to do
it, it can’t be required of you and, therefore, it can’t be wrong
not to do it. It should be noted that Kekes formulated his
example precisely in order to undermine OIC. Hence it is far
from being accepted in general – indeed one of my central
aims in this paper is to shed even more doubt on it.
However, I will not go into every detail concerning the exact
understanding and scope of OIC. For all my purposes here,
it might be understood as semantic entailment or substantial
moral principle. The “ought” of OIC will be taken primarily as
the basis for deontic act evaluations. The question, then, is
whether the ability to act otherwise, or at least refrain from
doing something, is included in the “can”. The thesis would
be: “wrong implies can and can refrain”.
Ishtiyaque Haji (2002, 32f.) and Michael Zimmerman
(1996, 88f.) explicitly argue in favour of this position. They
take the following steps: First, they accept OIC. Second,
some action can only be required if it is wrong not to perform
it. This springs from the notion of “required” as “morally or
prudentially necessary”. Third, conversely, if an action is
wrong than its performance is forbidden which in turn means
that agents are required to omit them. Fourth, given OIC, it
follows that if agents are required not to perform an action
then they can refrain from doing so. Therefore, the “can” in
OIC includes “can refrain”. This, at last, also leads to the
conclusion that an act cannot be wrong if the agent cannot
refrain from doing it because it can’t be required of him to
omit it. If one accepts OIC then the steps of the argument
seem to be straightforward enough to count as valid. In the
following I will refer to this position simply by OIC because,
obviously, this is the core idea of it. Hence abandoning this
position would also mean to abandon OIC.
However, the presented conclusion seems to be
clearly at odds with our intuitions concerning the mentioned
examples. Surely, at least something is wrong with the
actions of the sadist and the smoker. How could we
reasonably abandon the claim that the sadist is required not
to torture and kill and, therefore, acts wrongly in doing so?
Analogously, should we see the act of smoking as allowed
even in non-smoking areas just because a smoker can’t
refrain from smoking? Furthermore, if I make myself unable
not to carry out a required action it would follow that I no
longer can act rightly. Michael Stocker (1971, 304f.)
presents such an example – this time totally harmless again:
I am required not to be at home in the evening in order to
avoid disturbing party preparations. For this reason, I go into
town and, thereby, make myself unable to be at home at the
time in question. It follows that I can’t refrain from doing what
is allegedly required of me. But that, in fact, would mean that
it no longer can be required of me and I’m not doing
something right in not being at home. However, normally we
would say just the opposite. Being unable not to act as
required would rather be regarded as fulfilment of my