Rational Rules: Towards a Theory of Moral Learning

by Shaun Nichols

Moral systems, like normative systems more broadly, involve complex mental representations. Rational Rules proposes that moral learning can be understood in terms of general-purpose rational learning procedures. Nichols argues that statistical learning can help answer a wide range of questions about moral Why do people think that rules apply to actions rather than consequences? Why do people expect new rules to be focused on actions rather thanconsequences? How do people come to believe a principle of liberty, according to which whatever is not expressly prohibited is permitted? How do people decide that some normative claims hold universally while others hold only relative to some group? The resulting account has both empiricist and since the learning procedures are domain-general, the result is an empiricist theory of a key part of moral development, and since the learning procedures are forms of rational inference, the account entails that crucial parts of our moral system enjoy rational credentials. Moral rules can also be rational in the sense that they can be effective for achieving our ends, given our ecological settings. Rational Rules argues that at least some central components of our moralsystems are indeed ecologically they are good at helping us attain common goals. Nichols argues that the account might be extended to capture moral motivation as a special case of a much more general phenomenon of normative motivation. On this view, a basic form of rule representation brings motivationalong automatically, and so part of the explanation for why we follow moral rules is that we are built to follow rules quite generally.

264 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 11, 2021

Reviews

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really interesting and thought provoking book.

All of the studies and arguments in this book definitely show something, but it's not clear to me exactly what. Nichols has tried to set himself from authors like Greene and Singer, but to me it ultimately seems quite conducive to their views, if a fair bit more nuanced. He gives many reasons to think it's perfectly rational to internalise deontological views, but as he points out himself, most consequentialists wouldn't disagree with this. It seems to me quite open to the utilitarian to argue that it may be more pragmatic in the short term to encourage a range of moral principles, but the utilitarian will argue that it's their ultimate goal that's important, and if we can see ways in which our ends will be better reached by breaking these rules or going beyond them then we should do that.

It seems plausible to me that there are instances in which the rules we have don't achieve their ends very well. The problem with deontological rules is that they tend to be only generated in cases where they're pressed upon us (I here mean everyday deontological rules that are enshrined in common-sense morality, admittedly a thoroughgoing Kantian or contractualist may come to recognise norms that are not already in play by thinking through what follows from their premises). One of the major successes of utilitarianism is to bring to our attention various issues in global welfare, and I don't think this is a coincidence. Utilitarianism asks us to consider everyone's well-being and then generates norms on the basis of this, whereas there's a kind of conservativism built into common-sense deontology. We know what the norms are on deontological grounds, because there they are. There is no question of generating new rules or norms, because the theory is in a sense complete. It tends to only be when people with minority interests forcefully press upon the rest of us that new common-sense norms are clumsily and gradually established (for example, the rapidly changing norms of identity politics).

Without having more of a conversation about exactly what purpose these rules serve, or why the particular moral rules have come about, can we establish more clearly whether their aims are good ones, and whether they can be achieved more effectively in other ways.

Essentially the book seems to hint at a way we might be able to get an ought from an is, whilst acknowledging that strictly speaking it's unable to do so.