Moral Theory and the Ought--Can Principle

Mind Association

Moral Theory and the Ought--Can PrincipleAuthor(s): James BrownSource: Mind, New Series, Vol. 86, No. 342 (Apr., 1977), pp. 206-223Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2253713 .

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Moral Theory and the Ought-Can Principle*

JAMES BROWN

i. An antinomy and its resolution

Does 'ought' imply 'can'? Surely it does. For we do not hold a person to blame for not doing something he was unable to do.' On the other hand, surely it does not. For, if it did, the negation of a 'can'-statement would imply the negation of an 'ought'- statement. And thus descriptive statements of the form 'A cannot do x' would imply normative statements of the form 'It is not the case that A ought to do x', in violation of Hume's law that descriptive statements do not imply normative statements.2 It looks, then, as though neither a negative answer (for the former reason) nor an affirmative answer (for the latter one)- to our question is satisfactory. Let us try to find a way out of this antinomy.

I begin by considering the latter part of the antinomy. A key point here is that, since 'ought' implies 'can', it follows that 'not-can' implies 'not-ought'. Now it might be argued that the difficulty is an illusory one, on the ground that

(i) the negation of a normative judgment is not a normative judgment.3

For, if (i) is correct, then what is implied by a descriptive statement is not normative, since it is the negation of a normative judgment.

But it is a trivial task to construct counter-examples refuting * My thanks are due to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

for financial assistance during a io-week period in Germany in I974, and to the NUU for one semester's study leave in I975.

I Hintikka sets out the argument, in passing, in his elegant essay 'Deontic Logic and its Philosophical Morals': 'It is often said that "ought implies can" because a man cannot be blamed for not doing what he cannot do. And if he cannot be blamed for doing something, he cannot be under an obligation to do it. Hence his being under such an obligation presupposes that he can fulfil it' (Models for Modalities, Dordrecht: D. Reidel, I969 p. I97).

2 Cf. George I. Mavrodes, "'Is" and "Ought"', Analysis, xxv, pp. 42-44 K. E. Tran0y, "'Ought" Implies "Can"', Ratio, xiv, pp. II6-I30, esp. pp. II7-II8; G. H. von Wright, Norm and Action, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, I963, pp. I09-II0.

3 Cf. P. D. Shaw: 'Ought and Can', Analysis, xxv, pp. I96-I97.

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MORAL THEORY AND THE OUGHT-CAN PRINCIPLE 207

(I). (Example: 'p or not-q', whose negation is equivalent to 'not-p and q', where 'p' and 'q' are both normative.) The most obvious modified versions of (i), designed to avoid these counter- examples, are refuted in an equally trivial-if tedious-manner. And it soon becomes clear that a swift and obvious solution along these lines is not forthcoming.

Instead of examining ever more refined versions of (i), then, let us see whether such a solution is to be found in another direction. There may be other grounds for rejecting the claim that, if 'ought' implies 'can', then normative judgments can be logically derived from exclusively factual premises.

Von Wright has argued that the Ought-Can principle does not violate Hume's law since what it asserts is that a relation holds, not between facts and norms, but between facts and facts (sc. about the existence of norms).' But this is surely unsatisfactory. For whether a norm exists or not (or whether a normative judgment is correct or not) is not a straightforwardly factual matter. It is perhaps easier to see the point here, and to follow von Wright's argument, if we turn for a moment to what von Wright says about commands. In the same chapter of Norm and Action, he argues that uttering a command-formula does not amount to giving a command if the addressee cannot do what is asked.2 At a pinch we might agree to say that, in such a case, the supposed command does not exist. But this is not a purely factual matter: it reflects the decision not to count what the speaker does as commanding. Similarly, in the case of norms, the statement that if people cannot act in a certain way there exists no norm requiring them so to act does not record a fact; it expresses a stipulation. Of course, we might change our use of the word 'fact' in such a way that it can be said to be a fact that a norm exists. But then Hume's law would come up again, stating that facts of one sort do not imply facts of another sort. Thus von Wright's argument is not effective against the claim in question.

But let us look at this claim more closely. What is claimed is that, if 'ought' implies 'can', then the following pattern of argument is valid:

A cannot do x .,. It is not the case that A (morally) ought to do x

Now, if we want to explain how the premise here warrants the i Von Wright, ibid. p. IIo. 2 Von Wright, ibid. pp. 122-123.



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conclusion, there are two possibilities open to us. One possibility is to say that there is a suppressed premise, namely: 'If a person cannot do something, then it is not the case that he (morally) ought to do it'. But this is a normative judgment. For it contains an essential occurrence of '(morally) ought'. Hence one of the two premises is normative, and the argument does not go from exclusively factual premises to a normative conclusion. The other possibility is to say that the conclusion is obtained from the (sole) premise in virtue of a rule of inference, namely the rule that 'ought' implies 'can'. (We obtain the conclusion by a reductio ad absurdum: from the given premise and the further hypothesis that A ought to do x, we obtain a contradiction, namely that A can and cannot do x, on the strength of which we assert the negation of that hypothesis.) But again this rule of inference has the character of a moral norm: if our system of rules of inference were to be axiomatized, then the rule in question would appear as an extralogical axiom-in particular, as a moral one-or else as a theorem derived with the help of one or more such axioms.' Thus our antinomy is resolved. Its second part was based on an oversight. It involved either overlooking a suppressed premise or else overlooking the fact that the rule of inference employed is not a purely logical rule of inference.

That the Ought-Can principle has moral content is really only to be expected, in view of the first part of the antinomy. The reason given there, for accepting the principle, is that we do not accept that a person is blameworthy for failing to do what he is unable to do. Now suppose someone were to accept this. He would be challenged, by anyone who espouses the principle for the stated reason, not on logical or linguistic but on moral grounds, in terms of what is fair or just or right: of course we can blame the impotent agent for his failure; the point is that we should not.

Thus it seems plain that the most obvious and plausible reason for accepting the Ought-Can principle has moral content. In view of this, and the derivability of (the negations of) normative statements from otherwise factual premises with its help, the presumption must be that the principle has moral content too.

I Cf. Hintikka, ibid. where it is argued, from a model-theoretic standpoint, that Can is not a logical but a deontic consequence of Ought.




2. Arguments for the Ought-Can principle considered

Rejection of the Ought-Can principle is not forced upon us by Hume's law. Nevertheless, it is instructive to look again at the first part of our antinomy, and to consider whether we might want to reject the principle on other grounds.

I shall discuss two arguments for the principle. One argument, as already indicated, involves the claim that we do not consider a person blameworthy for failing to do something which he was unable to do. Let us call this the argument from blameworthiness (AB). It may be formulated as follows:

AB If a person is not able to do something, then he is not blameworthy for not doing it. If a person is not (would not be) blameworthy for not doing something, then it is not the case that he ought to do it. If a person is not able to do something, then it is not the case that he ought to do it.

The conclusion of this argument is an alternative formulation of the principle. Now consider for a moment the first premise. It says that a person is not blameworthy for not doing something which he could not do. But what if he could do it? In that case he might still not be blameworthy. How then are we to specify those actions which a person is to be blamed for omitting provided he is able to do them? The temptation is to say that they are the actions which he ought to do. But this in conjunction with the premises of AB would yield a contradiction every time a person was unable to do one of those actions which he would be blameworthy for omitting if he were able to do them. For we should have to allow that the person ought to do the action (since it is one of those actions which he is blameworthy for omitting provided he is able to do them) and that it is not the case that he ought to do it (since he is not actually blameworthy for not doing it). Of course, it is easy to see what has gone wrong here. The word 'ought' is being used in two different senses. In one sense, what a person ought to do can be determined (if at all) without reference to what he is able to do; and, in the other sense, what he ought to do cannot be so determined.1

I Cf. I. L. Humberstone, 'Two Sorts of "Oughts"', Analysis, xxxii, pp. 8-i i.



210 JAMES BROWN:

One way to deal with this difficulty, and to decide whether or not to accept the first premise of AB, might be to establish which is the correct sense of 'ought'. But no sense of 'ought' is simply given as correct. The moral philosopher has a choice between endorsing current usage, perhaps with minor improvements, and proposing substantially different usages. So it seems that our task is to decide, after due discussion, which possible sense would be the best sense of the word. And this amounts to deciding, among other things, whether to accept the Ought-Can principle. So far, then, AB has brought us no nearer to a decision on the acceptability of the principle.

But, to the extent that the Ought-Can principle depends on AB for support, we learn from the argument something about the principle. As we saw, one thing the argument clearly suggests is that the principle has moral content, stemming from the (supposed) moral impropriety of blaming someone for something he could not help. Reflection on the second premise is also reveal- ing. In associating the idea of what one ought to do with that of blameworthiness, AB may actually awaken doubts as to the acceptability of the principle, doubts which might not have arisen had we never considered defending it.

The view is widely canvassed that the moral badness or blameworthiness of an action is a matter of the motive from which the agent acted or, more generally, of the agent's character. And clearly there are at least difficulties in the way of accepting that it is within an agent's power, on a particular occasion, to determine which motive will be the one which moves him to action or to determine what his character shall be. Thus, on presenting an account of blameworthiness in terms of character, R. B. Brandt observes that 'even if determinism is true, it is not yet a closed issue whether persons are blameworthy as that term is here analysed'.' And D. F. Pears has recently argued, in effect, that to improve on an explanation of action in terms of the agent's motives is to move towards an ideal of psychological determinism.2 It appears, then, that to offer support for the Ought-Can principle from considerations about moral blameworthiness is to do that

I Cf. Richard B. Brandt, 'Blameworthiness and Obligation' in A. I. Melden (ed.): Essays in Moral Philosophy, Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1958, pp. 3-39. The quotation is from p. 34.

2 Cf. D. F. Pears, 'Rational explanation of actions and psychological determinism' in Ted Honderich (ed.): Essays on Freedom of Action, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, I973, pp. 107-I38.




principle a doubtful service. It can 'be argued that the most blameworthy actions, those which are most clearly morally bad, are actions which issue from very deeply rooted aspects of the agent's character. And, in the case of such actions there is arguably at best only a negligible possibility of the agent's doing otherwise, of his doing what he ought. It might be suggested that it is only where we have reason to think this slender possibility is present that we judge the agent to be blameworthy rather than, say, mad. Alternatively, it might be held that he is blameworthy not for his deed but for getting into his present state. That I am not altogether unsympathetic to the latter move will appear in section 3. But in the present context, as ways of protecting the Ought-Can principle against- the results of moral reflection, both suggestions seem lame and ad hoc. They are attempts to save the slogan 'Ought implies Can' while allowing its content to be eaten away, where it might be better to abandon the slogan and acknowledge the modesty of the truth which it exaggerates.

A second argument for the Ought-Can principle is the argument from merit (AM):

AM If A ought to do x then A's doing x is meritorious If A's doing x is meritorious then A can refrain from doing x Hence, if A ought to do x then A can refrain from doing x But A can do x iff A can refrain from doing x If A ought to do x then A can do x

Inasmuch as merit (or praiseworthiness) and blameworthiness are related, AM is akin to AB. But the two arguments are distinct, not only in that one concerns praise and the 6ther blame, but also in that a proponent of AB need not commit himself to using 'can' in such a way that the last premise ('A can do x iff A can refrain from doing x') is true, whereas a proponent of AM does so commit himself. (Of course, a proponent of AB who rejects this premise is arguing for a somewhat different Ought-Can principle.)

I do not propose to discuss the last premise of AM.' For, granted that there are senses in which ability or inability to do things is relevant to moral questions, what I am trying to do in this paper is to show that there is a case for removing questions

But I did want to make it explicit. It is sometimes taken for granted in argument without being stated. Cf. for example, P. D. Shaw, ibid.; K. E. Tran0y, ibid. pp. I20-I2I; W. D. Ross, The Right and The Good, Oxford University Press, I930, reprinted I955, p. 5.



2I2 JAMES BROWN:

of obligation from the class of moral questions which are affected. With regard to the first premise, it is not at all clear that mere fulfilment of one's obligations is in itself meritorious; it is plausible to maintain that blameless behaviour is not yet meritorious behaviour. Further, the second premise of AM is questionable in view of considerations similar to those raised against AB. If we accept, with Ross, that moral goodness involves acting from certain motives' and that one cannot, by choice, produce in oneself or act from a certain motive,2 then we must withhold assent from the second premise. Again we see that considerations of praise and blame afford only doubtful support to the Ought-Can principle. Indeed, it is arguable that an ideally good person is one who cannot refrain from doing what he so meritoriously does.

This last is not a new point. Kant's view that what an im- perfectly rational being ought to do is what a perfectly rational being cannot but do is well known.3 And this does not, in Kant's view, detract from the moral excellence of perfectly rational beings. It is worth noting that, granted that a morally perfect agent cannot refrain from doing what he does and that 'ought' implies 'can' and that the last premise of AM is true, the conclusion that there is nothing which such an agent ought to do follows immediately. This conclusion can be avoided by rejecting either the Ought-Can principle or that last premise. Indeed, to the extent that we want to express principles and rules of moral obligation as 'ought'-statements, we have good reason for rejecting the principle that 'ought' implies 'can refrain', in as much as the same moral principles and rules hold for both perfect and imperfect moral agents.

So neither AB nor AM gives good reason for accepting the Ought-Can principle. Neither inevitable failure nor inevitable success in meeting one's obligations is sufficient ground for denying that those obligations exist.

It may be objected that I have made this result rather easy to obtain by considering an extremely strong (version of the) Ought- Can principle, and that I should rather deal with a weaker principle where the 'can' refers, not to psychological ability, but to what the individual is physically able to do or what the average or typical human being is physically able to do. AB and AM, the I Ross says, 'it is in virtue of the motives that they proceed from that actions

are morally good.' (Ibid. p. I57.) 2 Ibid. p. 5. 3 Cf. H. J. Paton (trans.), The Moral Law, London: Hutchinson, I948,

reprinted I966, pp. 78, IO9-IIO.



MORAL THEORY AND THE OUGHT-CAN PRINCIPLE 2I3

objector may continue, are perfectly good arguments for such a weaker Ought-Can principle.

I have three comments to make on this objection. First, the Ought-Can principle is often attributed to Kant. But, as we have seen, the applicability of 'ought'-statements is, in Kant's view, dependent on psychological ability.' So the above objection is not available to anyone who interprets the Ought-Can principle in a Kantian way. Second, the principle is often, in particular discussions, appealed to in a quite unrestricted way. If the principle is acceptable only in a weak, watered-down version, then it is well that this should be said clearly and that it should be taken note of in discussions of particular ethical issues. Third, it may be that questions of obligation should be treated quite independently of questions of praise and blame. If so, then AB and AM have no force at all. I consider this further in section 3.

3. Moral theory without the Ought-Can principle We have already noted the distinction between two senses of 'ought': in one sense it implies 'can' and in another it does not. And we rejected the possibility of deciding between these senses by finding out which is the correct sense of the word. So how are we to decide?

It is a commonplace that ordinary language is theory-laden; so it is only to be expected that ordinary moral language is laden with moral theory (although not necessarily with a coherent moral theory). I now suggest that the theory-laden character of moral language be accepted as a fact of life and that decisions between different possible usages of moral vocabulary are to be reached by making (as far as possible) explicit the rival moral theories under- lying such usages. We may then be able to make comparative appraisals of these theories and go on to advocate such linguistic usages as are laden with a favoured theory. Accordingly I wish to consider what is to be said for preferring a moral theory not including the Ought-Can principle to one which does include it. I shall consider this in general terms rather than with reference to particular theories. Thus I shall refer only to those features of a moral theory which are rather directly related to its including or not including the principle. I try to show first that a theory

I This, although there is a problem about how it is to be reconciled with man's being part of a deterministic Nature, is Kant's view. And that is all I require for my present point.



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without the principle may be plausible, and then that it may be preferable.

We have seen that, from standard considerations about moral goodness and badness, the acceptability of a strong version of the principle-where the scope of the 'can' covers the agent's present psychological abilities-is highly questionable. So a moral theory lacking the principle in its strong version will have a correspond- ingly high measure of plausibility in that respect. What has now to be considered is whether a theory which also lacks weaker versions of the principle could have any plausibility.

Let us assume that a certain moral theory T is of this kind. I assume also that the word 'ought' occurs only in those statements of T which express obligations or in compound statements which have obligation-statements as parts. Clearly, the sense of the word 'ought' as it occurs in statements of T is such that neither an individual's peculiar abilities and disabilities nor the objectively possible courses of action in a given situation are in general relevant to what the individual ought to do.' But we cannot rule out the possibility that such abilities and possibilities are relevant to questions of praise- and blameworthiness. Accordingly, questions of the latter kind will, from the standpoint of T, also be irrelevant to questions of obligation.

So T's sub-theory of obligation will be highly independent of its sub-theory of praise and blame in the sense that, apart from some clearly specifiable exceptions, no statement of the former sub-theory will have been included on the strength of other statements already occurring in the latter sub-theory. Thus the part of T dealing with moral obligation can be developed with almost no reference to the part dealing with praise and blame. The converse cannot be expected to hold. For, unless T is to be a very revolutionary moral theory, its sub-theory of praise and blame will be to a high degree dependent on the sub-theory of obligation, in as much as the extent to which an agent's actions are or are not in accordance with his obligations is at least a major factor in the determination of his praise- and blameworthiness. There may of course be other factors, such as whether he was able to carry out his obligations and the extent to which he tried to carry them out.

We obviously have to allow for some restrictions on the in- I The qualification 'in general' is inserted here because I do not rule out the

possibility of such a moral theory involving duties to acquire certain abilities.



MORAL THEORY AND THE OUGHT-CAN PRINCIPLE 2I5

dependence of obligation-statements from statements of praiseworthiness or blameworthiness. For the sub-theory of obligation may include rules concerning the propriety of censorious behaviour in situations where evidence of blameworthiness is present or lacking. And what singular obligation-statements are implied by such rules will depend on the content of the sub-theory of praise- and blameworthiness.

Further, although questions in the sub-theory of obligation are in the first instance to be dealt with without reference to questions belonging to other parts of T, there might be reason to add refine- ments or ramifications to it with the prompting of problems which arise elsewhere. This can be seen by considering the question of the moral appraisal of an agent who is unable to do what he ought. Clearly, this question falls within the scope of the sub-theory of praise and blame. A plausible theory would presumably yield an appraisal which was not extremely harsh. In addition, the appraisal would be more or less favourable according as what the agent actually did came more or less near to what he ought to have done. But this raises the question of what it is for an action to be more or less near to being the fulfilment of an obligation. And this question may be answered by refining the sub-theory of obligation in the following way. Whereas, in the first instance, all the sub- theory did was to classify some specified types of action in specified types of situation as obligatory and others as non-obligatory, the refined sub-theory will put at least some of the non-obligatory courses of action in order as being more or less near to obligatoriness. Then, according to the sub-theory of praise and blame, one factor counting towards a more or less favourable appraisal of an agent who could not do what he ought would be the position in this ordering of the course of action which he in fact took. In this way, a problem arising in the sub-theory of praise and blame may be soluble by making further developments in the sub-theory of obligation. However, although the motivation for the refinement comes from the sub-theory of praise and blame, the way it is carried out will not be determined by this sub-theory.

Now, it is clear that a theory with the features indicated above has, in respect of those features, some measure of plausibility (although whether its specific rules of obligation are plausible ones is a different question). For it is at least as plausible to make prior obligatoriness a factor relevant to determining blameworthiness as it would be to make blameworthiness of omission a criterion



2I6 JAMES BROWN:

of obligatoriness. Moreover, a theory like T could easily accommodate the intuition which originally seemed to force acceptance of the Ought-Can principle upon us: we may set up a conceptual connection between blameworthiness and ability, expressible in the statement 'If A cannot do x then it is not the case that A is blameworthy for not doing x'. (On the other hand, such a theory need not accommodate that intuition, which is just as well since the intuition may turn out to be a casualty of a satisfactory theory of blameworthiness.)

In general, the treatment of questions of obligation as entirely .separate from questions of praise and blame does not run counter to all widely accepted intuitive judgments about such matters. Suppose, to borrow an example from W. D. Ross,' A has an obligation to bring about B's possession of a book. If A scrupu- lously takes appropriate steps but the book goes astray in the post, then he is blameless although his obligation remains un- fulfilled. (In order to remain blameless, he will have to take further action on learning of the loss, but that is not our present concern.) If, on the other hand, A makes only a very half-hearted attempt to return the book to B and the attempt is, against all reasonable expectations, successful, then the obligation is fulfilled but A is blameworthy for not making a serious attempt to fulfil it. I think these judgments of blamelessness and blameworthiness would be echoed by many people, at least in our culture. Now, if it is argued that the kind of theory here envisaged is hopelessly counterintuitive, then we can reply that not all the evidence of moral intuition counts against such a theory. For it is an intuitively acceptable possibility that blameworthiness can occur in conjunction with fulfilment of obligation; and it is equally a possibility that blamelessness can occur in conjunction with non-fulfilment of obligation. If other intuitions conflict with this, it may be they which require revision. Thus, despite a general tendency to accept the Ought-Can principle without question, a theory lacking it may be entertained as plausible. But is there not perhaps more than this to be said for such a theory?

One advantage of a theory like T concerns the kind of situation where (according to the plain man's moral intuitions) a person escapes blameworthiness only because there was some action which he was unable to do. A theory like T enables us to say what

I Cf. W. D. Ross, ibid. p. 45, and Foundations of Ethics, Oxford University Press, 1939, reprinted I968, p. 147.




is morally unsatisfactory about such a situation without reference to considerations other than those involved in characterizing the situation: what is unsatisfactory is that a person did not do what he ought to have done (even though he is perhaps not to be blamed for the omission). A theory including the Ought-Can principle would allow for the agent's being exempted from blame, but would ipso facto deprive us of the obvious way of accounting for the moral unsatisfactoriness of the situation. To account for this within the framework of such a theory, we must bring forward considerations other than those involved in characterizing the situation. We have to explain why a situation (or a possible world) in which it was the case that a person ought to do the action, and in which he did it, would have been better from a moral point of view than the actual situation. And this would involve going beyond the moral rules incorporated in our theory to the grounds for having a theory with these rules rather than different ones. In short, one reason for preferring a theory which lacks the Ought-Can principle is that there is a class of situations which can be discussed with greater simplicity within the framework of such a theory.

A second advantage of a theory without the Ought-Can principle is that the non-acceptance of that principle provides a clear (non-blame-theoretic) motivation for a moral rule to the effect that one ought to prevent the kind of situation from arising in which one cannot meet one's obligations. If it was wrong for A not to do x (even though he could not do it), it was also wrong for A to permit the situation to arise in which he ought to do x and could not. By contrast, in the context of a theory incorporating the Ought-Can principle according to which A's not doing x was not wrong (because he could not do it), it is more difficult to say what is wrong in A's deliberately engineering the situation in which he could not do x. Moreover, it is doubtful whether a moral theory which is adequate, in the sense that its rules of obligation apply to a great proportion of those situations to which morality is supposed to be relevant,' can at the same time be such as never to yield conflicting obligations in particular situations. (A person is under conflicting obligations when he has obligations respectively requiring him to do xl, x2, . . ., xn and it is I I neglect here, with some uneasiness, the question of what it is that

characterizes such situations. The problem is that the demarcation between situations to which morality is relevant and situations to which morality is not relevant, is itself dependent on moral theory.



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not possible-or not possible for him-to do all of them.) Since, according to our kind of theory, the impossibility of fulfilling all of a set of obligations does not eliminate any member of the set, a situation in which a person has conflicting obligations is a situation in which-in respect of at least one of them-he does not do what he ought. Thus there is no trace of ad hoc-ness in the introduction, into such a theory, of a rule making it obligatory to avoid the occurrence of situations of this kind,

A third and more general advantage is the following. There are difficult problems and complications which arise in connection with questions of praise and blame. For example, account has to be taken not only of what a person does but also of what he tries to do; and it is not at all easy to say what exculpatory force should be allowed to ignorance or cognitive error. In as much as praiseworthiness and blameworthiness are linked with ability (in some sense) to act otherwise, the Ought-Can principle is, in effect, a bridge between questions of praise and blame and questions of obligation; and problems and complications can get transported across that bridge. A theory like T has the advantage of relieving its sub-theory of obligation of the burden of problems which it does not have to be laden with. It is at least worth trying to work out an account of what is obligatory and what is not without bringing in any more complications than one has to.

Before this section is closed, one or two possible objections should be considered. We need spend no time on objections stemming from variants of the arguments AB and AM. For, from the standpoint of a theory like T, these arguments will be rejected, not because it has already been decided to reject their conclusion, but on the ground that the premises of both arguments put the cart before the horse by allowing questions of praise and blame to enter into the discussion of questions of obligation. But it may be objected that such a theory allows for a whole class of obligation-statements (namely, those statements of the form 'A ought to do x' where the agent referred to cannot do x) which, while perfectly meaningful according to the theory, are apparently altogether pointless. The reply to this objection is that such statements need not, after all, be pointless. Indeed, part of our answer to this objection is already available. We have seen that a situation in which a person has not done what he ought (even though this is because he could not do it) is to some extent unsatisfactory. Part of the point in saying that he ought to have done it is just to




indicate that the situation is unsatisfactory, and perhaps that the agent should not feel too content with the situation. Moreover, one may wish to draw attention to the unsatisfactoriness of the situation with a view to allocating blame, not indeed to the agent himself, but elsewhere, e.g. to his parents or to the architects of his physical or social environment.

And we can go further than this. One might also address the obligation-statement to the unsuccessful agent with a view to giving him a reason for avoiding similar situations in the future. Or one may wish to bring home the sobering realization that the rather narrow limitations of what a particular individual or mankind in general can do, do not constitute the measure of the morally excellent or of the morally tolerable. (Thus, in morality as in science, we strive to get beyond a narrow parochialism: Kant thinks of moral rules as holding for all rational beings and not merely for the particular kind of rational beings with which we happen to be familiar and to which we happen to belong; scientists are not content to describe the world in terms of those medium- sized objects and medium-scale processes which are most readily perceptible to beings with the sensory equipment we happen to have.') Finally, one may wish to bring home the ennobling realization that man measures himself against high standards and does not tailor his standards to make himself look good against them despite his diminutive stature.

A further objection is this. Suppose wide acceptance were secured for a moral theory which was such that there frequently arose situations in which a person was unable to do what, according to the theory, he ought to do. Would not the frequent occurrence of such situations tend to undermine confidence in, and respect for, the moral law? I think that such undermining of confidence would indeed occur if we encountered nothing but unavoidable failure on all sides. But I surmise that, for any moral theory whose rules of obligation appear otherwise plausible (apart from the likelihood of people actually behaving in accordance with them), it will be found that there is a considerable amount of exemplary success to counter the demoralizing effect of widespread failure. And much of the failure would not be obviously unavoidable; much of the time it seems clear that man fails, not because he cannot, but because he will not, do what he ought.

I Cf. N. Maxwell, 'The Rationality of Scientific Discovery'? Part II? Philosophy of Science, xli, September 974, p. 270t



220 JAMES BROWN:

Apparently, then, there is a good deal to be said for rejecting the Ought-Can principle in view of the acceptability in principle of a theory lacking it.

4. The metatheoretical Ought-Can principle We saw in section 3 that a possible objection to theories of type T is that they may make excessive demands on moral agents. This suggests that the Ought-Can principle may be given a role which we have not yet considered: it may function as a metatheoretical principle appealed to in the appraisal of first-order normative theories or of the statements included in them. Thus Hans Albert proposes the maxim 'Ought implies Can' as 'a bridge principle-a maxim for bridging the gap between "ought"-propositions and factual statements and thus also between ethics and science- whose function consists in making possible the scientific criticism of normative statements'.'

The thesis of the autonomy of ethics seems to have the consequence that moral theories cannot be criticized by reference to facts. Indeed, Moore's introduction of the term 'naturalistic fallacy' is closely associated with his rejection of the classical utilitarian version of such criticism. According to at least some utilitarians, a proposed rule of behaviour is to be rejected if its acceptance would not in fact be conducive to greater human happiness. That this procedure is not logically compelling, even given correct factual information, has been maintained-with or without reference to the naturalistic fallacy-by a succession of proponents of the autonomy of ethics. It is in order to reinstate the possibility of criticizing normative statements by reference to empirical knowledge that Albert proposes the introduction of bridge principles, linking facts and norms, of which the Ought- Can principle is one.

It might be thought that, in order to fulfil its bridge function, such a principle should be neither factual nor normative in character. And this would present the difficulty of saying what kind of character is left for it to have. However, the difficulty does not arise. For the fact-norm demarcation is not between purely factual and purely normative statements; it is between purely factual statements, i.e. ones with no normative or evaluative content, and statements which do have normative content. Thus I Cf. Hans Albert, Traktat ilber kritische Vernunft, Tuibingen: J. C. B. Mohr,

1969, p. 76.




bridge principles are unproblematically normative since they have normative, and not only descriptive, content. They are not alone among normative statements in this respect (although they do differ from ordinary normative statements in another way, namely that they are metaethical-but no less normative for-that). Normative statements involving reference to descriptively specifiable states of affairs are the usual case; statements like 'One should do no evil', which arguably involve no such reference, are comparatively rare.

The particular bridge principle at present under consideration is the Ought-Can principle. If we adopt it, as a metatheoretical principle, with a view to increasing the criticizability of moral theories, then we have a further reason for not including the first- order Ought-Can principle in those moral theories. This is so because the first-order principle can be deployed in such a way as to protect theories including it from criticism. If a moral theory yields conflicting obligation-statements then there is a prima facie case for seeking a better moral theory or trying to improve the one in question. But if all the rules of a given theory are in effect subject to the condition 'provided the (sc. first-order) Ought-Can principle is not infringed', then the need for improvement will tend to be concealed. For, since a person cannot fulfil conflicting obligations, the conflict will automatically disappear and, with it, the reason for seeking an improved theory. Thus a moral theory which would yield conflicting obligation-statements but for the presence in it of the Ought-Can principle is shielded from criticism by its inclusion of that principle. A theory which, but for its inclusion of the principle, would yield no conflicting obligation- statements but would require people to do things they could not do, would similarly be protected from the criticism that it makes excessive demands. So accepting the metatheoretical Ought-Can principle, with the aim of increasing the criticizability of moral theories, requires us to omit the first-order principle from those theories.

But we may still ask whether the Ougbt-Can principle is to be accepted at the metatheoretical level. Here I suggest that whether a theory makes demands in excess of people's abilities is one factor which may be relevant in comparatively appraising two moral theories. There are other factors, such as degree of non- parochialness, or the non-moral consequences (e.g. unintended economic ones) of one theory or another actually gaining



222 JAMES BROWN:

widespread acceptance. That a moral theory makes extremely high demands may be a point against it but need not be decisive. Moreover, the weight of the negative point may vary. If a very few individuals happen, because of being rather unusual in respect of their skills, capacities or circumstances, to be unable to fulfil obligations laid down by a moral theory, this counts against the theory hardly at all. If large numbers of people are unable to fulfil such obligations, this counts more seriously against the theory. The same holds if the typical or average human being is unable to meet the theory's obligations. And if no one is able to meet them-if it is impossible to do so-this counts rather heavily against the theory.

The metatheoretical Ought-Can principle is, I suggest, a sloganized exaggeration of these observations. It is reasonable to offer, as a criticism of a proposed moral rule or theory, the statement that compliance with it would not always-or ever-be possible. But this line of criticism must take its place alongside other lines of criticism. And, if all the alternatives to a proposed rule R, which is open to criticism of this kind, are vulnerable to more telling criticisms, then it may be reasonable to accept R.

It may be that such a situation is one which could never occur, or that its occurrence would render pointless the whole attempt to develop a clear moral theory. But it is up to the proponent of 'ought implies can' as a fundamental principle-i.e. the proponent of the view that such criticism is always decisive-to show that one of these possibilities is actually the case.

5. Conclusion

It will be noticed that I have nowhere mentioned W. D. Ross's doctrine of primafacie duties. Lest this discussion be mistaken for a ponderous rediscovery of the non-applicability of the Ought-Can principle to prima facie duties, it is perhaps appropriate to allude to them here. While acknowledging the desirability of practical guidance even when an imperfect moral theory fails to provide it, I am inclined to withhold assent from the doctrine of prima facie and actual duties for the following reasons: it tends to obscure our fallibility about fundamental moral principles, and to conceal the possibility that our accepted theory might be improved; and it lends credence to the very suspect assumption that, in every morally pressing situation, there is some possible course of action




which is right. But this is really another story which cannot be told here.

What now remains of the Ought-Can principle? As far as isolated cases of individuals failing, through inability, to do what they ought, nothing remains of it at all-at least if we are to accept a moral theory of the kind described in section 3. In such cases we shall not say that, because of the individual's limited practical options, there was no obligation after all. But the limitations on his practical options will no doubt be taken into account when the extent of his blameworthiness is considered. (Whether these limitations are taken to mitigate his blameworthiness may, however, depend on whether they were psychological limitations ascribable to his character.) I suggest, then, that the first-order Ought-Can principle be abandoned, and that, at the metatheoretical level, the slogan 'ought implies can' be regarded as merely a convenient way of referring to a line of criticism which need not be decisive.

NEW UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER

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Moral Theory and the Ought--Can Principle

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