Aesthetic and Moral Syllogisms
Aesthetic and Moral Syllogisms
Consider the proposition “x is aesthetically better than y”: does this entail the proposition “I should engage with xin preference to y”? One might suppose so, but in fact it doesn’t, unless we add something like “other things being equal”. If x is more intellectual demanding than y and I am tired from mental exertions, I am under no aesthetic obligation to engage with x; it might give me a headache. Or I might simply not be in the mood for x and would be happier engaging with y. Or I might have engaged a lot with things like x recently and would welcome something different in y. Thus there is no valid deduction here—though if we add “other things being equal” we get closer to that (but what things exactly?). Aesthetic value does not immediately translate into a categorical imperative.
Compare “x is morally better than y”: does this entail “I should do x in preference to y”? Can I decline the invitation to do x by pointing out that I am tired or not in the mood or am bored with doing x-like things? Certainly not: I must do x instead of y, no matter what my personal circumstances (though of course I must be able to do it). This is the familiar point that moral reasons entail categorical imperatives: if x is morally better than y, I am under a strict obligation to do x not y. I can’t plead tiredness, my mood, or boredom to avoid the obligation. There is thus a sharp distinction between the aesthetic ought and the moral ought, as exemplified in these syllogisms.
I’m not sure that the moral syllogism holds. It depends I suppose how one conceives of morality. Suppose you can save the lives of a group of people if and only if you sacrifice your own. The number of people in the group, and certain facts about the individuals (like their average virtue and the average amount of happiness one might reasonably expect them to attain should they survive), are such that the value of their survival exceeds the value of your own. Morally, the decision is therefore better. But it might be thought that the sacrifice to your own interests is so great that you’re not duty-bound to sacrifice your life. It would be admirable and not unreasonable to do so, but it’s not required. According to one conception of morality at least.
You are raising a question about different conceptions of duty. The syllogism I am discussing is not concerned with that but only with the kinds of considerations I mentioned. If it is you duty to do such and such, you cannot escape it by appeal to your state of mind.
Thanks for the clarification.
Of course plenty of people do treat moral value as if it were just like any other type of value. They act as if the obligation generated by certain morally superior acts can be circumvented by appeal to subjective factors. If they become conscious and troubled by the conflict between their desires and moral duty, they may even an experience moral duty as an infringement on their inner freedom and bristle against it. Some do this until they come finally to deny the concept of moral duty as having any validity beyond the appearance of such it has gained by force of tradition. It does puzzle me how this view can be taken by minds even of a high degree of intellectual cultivation if the concept of moral duty is inherently graspable through reason. This needs to be explained somehow. We can say that these people are victims of self-deception–blinded from seeing the truth by their unwillingness to curb their desires. But they will answer that we believers in morality are the ones who are deluded.
I’m on your side completely: this is one of the major underlying issues of the current age–desire versus duty.