Revisiting Searle on Deriving "Ought" from "Is" PDF
Preview Revisiting Searle on Deriving "Ought" from "Is"
Revisiting Searle on Deriving “Ought” from “Is” Edited by Paolo Di Lucia · Edoardo Fittipaldi Revisiting Searle on Deriving “Ought” from “Is” · Paolo Di Lucia Edoardo Fittipaldi Editors Revisiting Searle on Deriving “Ought” from “Is” Editors Paolo Di Lucia Edoardo Fittipaldi University of Milan University of Milan Milan, Italy Milan, Italy ISBN 978-3-030-54115-6 ISBN 978-3-030-54116-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54116-3 ©The Editor(s) (if applicable) andThe Author(s) 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whetherthewholeorpartofthematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way,andtransmissionorinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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Cover credit: Ian Dagnall/Alamy Stock Photo ThisPalgraveMacmillanimprintispublishedbytheregisteredcompanySpringerNatureSwitzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland To Amedeo Giovanni Conte in memoriam John Searle: From an Institutions-Based Metaethics to a Language-Based Ethics Paolo Di Lucia and Edoardo Fittipaldi 1 Introduction1 This volume collects a number of contributions that, from different perspectives, comment on John Searle’s chapter, How to Derive “Ought” from “Is” Revisited (Chapter 1) and on an interview he gave us (Chapter 2). In Section 1 of Chapter 1, Searle reconstructs the philo- sophical context in which his famous How to Derive “Ought” from “Is” first appeared (1964), and in an exemplary fashion he summarizes and clarifies the reasons why he still believes that that derivation is valid: EverythingIhavesaid[inSection1],Icouldhavesaidinthemid-60sand I probably did say that in the various responses to debates. (Chapter 1, p. 10) In Section 2 and the Conclusion of his chapter Searle undertakes to “deepen the points” (ibid.) made in Section 1 by elaborating on them in light of some developments in his thinking, chiefly: (i) his twofold distinction between ontological/epistemic objectivity and onto- logical/epistemic subjectivity, (ii) his concept of desire-independent vii viii P. Di Lucia and E. Fittipaldi reasonsforaction,and(iii)hisconceptofdirectionoffit.Inthisway,he comestotheconclusionthatanobjectiveethics—or,tousehiswords,“a disciplinethatisepistemicallyobjective,butatthesametimenormative” (15)—is “to a certain extent” (ibid.) possible. InthisIntroduction,wewilltrytoclarifythemainargumentsoffered by Searle in Section 1, as well as in Section 2 and the Conclusion. In doing so, we will also draw on Chapter 2. Our goal will be to explain these arguments in a way accessible to those who may not be conversant with Searle’s philosophy, as well as to show why Searle’s new arguments are of the utmost importance for philosophers of normativity (and law) and social scientists alike. The two main sections of this Introduction map onto the two main sections into which Searle’s chapter is divided: thus Section 1 below is devoted to clarifying Searle’s 1964 argument, while Section 2 looks at thewaySearlereframesthatargumentwithinhissubsequentlydeveloped social ontology and philosophy of action. 2 Why the 1964 Derivation Is Correct as It Stands In 1964, Searle argued that an “Ought” can be derived from an “Is,” broadly understood to include descriptive verbs like “to utter.” The derivation was as follows: (1) Jones uttered the words “I hereby promise to pay you, Smith, five dollars.” (2) Jones promised to pay Smith five dollars. (3)Jonesplacedhimselfunder(undertook)anobligationtopaySmith five dollars. (4) Jones is under an obligation to pay Smith five dollars. (5) Jones ought to pay Smith five dollars. Thecontextwherethisderivationwaspresentedwasthatof1950sand ’60s Anglo philosophy, which was focused almost entirely on language, inwhathascometobeknownasthe“linguisticturn.”Asaresult,certain John Searle: From an Institutions-Based Metaethics to a … ix metaphysical distinctions were reframed as linguistic distinctions: in our case,thedistinctionbetweenfactandvaluewasreframedasadistinction between statements of fact and statements of value (the latter understood to also include ought-statements). Now,asSearleclarifiesinhischapter,his1964articlewasnotaboutfact and value but about statements of fact and statements of value. Thus, his goalwasnot toderivevaluesfromfacts,buttoderivestatementsofvalue from statements of fact; or, to be more precise, statements of value from statements of institutional fact. As for institutional facts, Searle under- stood them as made possible by “systems of constitutive rules” (1964, 55)—his obvious example being “the constitutive rule that to make a promise is to undertake an obligation” (1964, 56).2 This entails two corollaries: firstly, that words like promise refer to institutional facts, and, such that by using them—whether we like it or not—wenecessarilycommitourselvestotheirinstitutionalcomponents, understoodasoverallsystemsofconstitutiverules.Secondly—andthisis a corollary that we, the editors, draw—, it is a fallacy to assume that the impossibility of deriving values from facts ipso facto translates into the impossibility of deriving statements of value from statements of fact. As Searle describes his endeavor, he simply “demanded that we take language seriously,” and, since the meaning of many words has both a descriptiveandanevaluativecomponent,onceweusewordslikepromise (perhaps inducing others to rely on what was “promised”), we cannot wash our hands of that encumbrance or dismiss what we did simply by saying, “I never liked the institution of promising anyway.”3 Itisalsooftheutmostimportancetoobservethattheforegoingholds not only for special speech acts like promises but also for less apparent or noticeable ones, like statements.To be sure, it is not easy to imagine a situation in which somebody should solemnly utter, “I hereby state that it is raining” or even only, “I am stating that it is raining.” But as soon as one has performed such a speech act—and this can be done without expressly using the verb “to state”—one has already committed oneself to the “criteria for its evaluation, such as truth, consistency, evidence, and rationality”(Chapter1,p.7).Thisiswhy,ifitisnot rainingoutside,the utterer could be blamed, say, for having said a lie or something wrong. x P. Di Lucia and E. Fittipaldi As can be seen, as early as 1964, Searle had already taken significant stepstoovercometheanalyticself-confinementtometaethics,4 aswellas thetabooagainstdevelopingafull-blownethics,5anddidsobyoutlining sometightconnectionsbetweenconstitutiverules,institutionalfacts,and ought-statements (1964, 56).6 That Searle reinterprets his 1964 article from an ethical perspective, rather than from a metaethical one, is something that comes through fullyattheendofSection1ofhischapter,whereheobservesthatought- statements express reasons for action and that “[t]o say that somebody ought to do something implies that there is a valid, good reason for his doingit”(10,emphasesadded).Thus,atleastinlightofSearle’schapter, the “ought” he derived from “is” in 1964 could not be farther removed frombeingameremetaethicalconclusionconcerningthewaywordslike ought are being used. The opposite is true: according to Searle, such derivations play a major role in our everyday life. Thus,thequestionarises:Howcantherebeobjectivestatementsabout reasonsforactions,whereobjectivityisguaranteedbytheirbeingderived from straightforward statements of fact (10ff.)? And this is precisely one of the main questions Searle tackles in Section 2. 3 Toward an Objective Language-Based Ethics In order to cast further light on the 1964 derivation and argue for the possibility of an objective ethics, Searle in his chapter introduces a few concepts he developed after 1964. IfinSection1,Searleobservesthat“[t]hedistinctionbetweendescrip- tiveandevaluative[is]aspecialcaseof…thedistinctionbetweenobjec- tive and subjective” (Chapter 1, p. 7), in Section 2 he qualifies that observation by remarking that “the notions of objectivity and subjec- tivityaresomeofthemostconfusednotionsincontemporaryintellectual life” (ibid., p. 10). He thus goes on to sub-distinguish an ontological and epistemic objectivity from an ontological and epistemic subjectivity. Ontologically subjective are “those entities whose mode of existence requires being experienced” (ibid.); ontologically objective are those John Searle: From an Institutions-Based Metaethics to a … xi whose mode of existence does not. Pains, tickles, and itches—to use Searle’sexamples—existandceasetoexistonlyaslongastheyareexperi- enced by someone. Mountains, molecules, tectonic plates, by contrast, “do not give a damn about us” (ibid.): they exist no matter whether anybodyexperiencesthem.Thisdistinctionisusedtoexplaintherelation between values and (brute) facts: the former are ontologically subjective whereas the latter are ontologically objective. Ontological subjectivity and objectivity, though, should not be conflated with epistemic subjectivity and objectivity. This latter distinc- tion is one that Searle makes in terms of claims: epistemically objective claims are those “that can be established as ‘objective matters of fact’” (e.g., “Van Gogh died in France”), while epistemically subjective claims are those that “are matters of subjective opinion” (e.g., “Van Gogh is a much better painter than Gauguin”). With this in the background, Searle argues that “the ontological subjectivity of a domain does not preclude the epistemic objectivity about that domain” (ibid.). As far as pains, tickles, and itches are concerned, this may seem obvious.Adentistmaystatetheepistemicallyobjectivetruthoftheonto- logically subjective fact that his patient has a strong toothache (e.g., by observing a dental abscess on a radiograph). But among the chief developments of Searle’s philosophy since 1964 ishisreframingoftheconceptofaninstitutionalfact(alreadypresentin 1964), a concept he built into a general theory that in time gave rise to an entire field of studies: social ontology.7 Searle discovered (or claimed, depending on whether one shares his view) that institutional facts8 such as $20 bills are partly ontologically subjective(cf.Chapter1,p.11)—theontologicallyobjectivecomponent beingthepapersuchbillsaremadeof.9Whichistosaythatinorderfora pieceofpaperto“countas”a$20bill,therealsoneedstobea(shared)10 ontologically subjective attitude toward that piece of paper. Searle uses the expression “observer-relative phenomena” to refer to “phenomena thathaveatleastanelementofontologicalsubjectivity”(ibid.).AsSearle understands them, these are institutional phenomena. On his conceptu- alization, institutional phenomena always involve “deontic” powers (i.e.,
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