Slaves of the Passions

Despite the suggestive title and cover art, this is not a cheap Victorian romance novel. It is a book of philosophy, in which Mark Schroeder defends a variation of David Hume's claim that reasons to act are explained by desires, or as Hume put it, "Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions." Schroeder does admirable work in addressing the numerous arguments against the Humean theory of reasons, identifying the assumptions made by these critiques and showing how his own version, Hypotheticalism, can avoid their conclusions. His further attempt to derive an Aristotelian virtue ethic of universal normative reasons from his theory is ambitious but incomplete. If the right kind of reasons to do A are those shared by everyone doing A, as Schroeder claims, it is still possible to ask questions like "granting that people who give to charity do so from the right reason of a desire to help the less fortunate, what reason do I have to be charitable?" Of course, this sort of question plagues much of moral philosophy, and it is hard to discredit Schroeder too much on this count. Slaves of the Passions remains a thorough examination and extension of the Humean theory of reasons.

Slaves of the Passions is a fantastically argued and well compromised defense of a Humean theory of reasons, namely Hypotheticalism. The majority of the book is supposed to show that Hypotheticalism (Schroeder's brand of Humeanism) can avoid many of the attacks which Humean theories face. He also argues that most attacks are really against "fixes" to the Humean Theory in response to particular problems. Schroeder tries to show that all of these are mistaken in some way. What is remarkable about this book is the authors deep understanding of the issues which Humeanism faces. He also accepts many of the beliefs of his opponents with only slight revisions on what he believes they get wrong. The arguments are well thought out and insightful for anyone interested in the Philosophy of Action, Ethics, Metaethics, and even Metaphysics. There are some fantastic discussions within the book, including the chapter on constitutive explanations of reductionism, his thesis about the agent-neutrality of reasons, the proper way to assess the weight of reasons, as well as my personal favorite, the chapter on the Aristotelian nature of Hypotheticalism and its solutions to issues in moral epistemology. Although I would love to go into detail about the main arguments, it would neither be fair to the author to condense his work so crudely, nor would it be fair to the readers who I encourage to buy this book and read it for themselves. But to give a flavor of what you'll be getting yourself into by picking up this book, I will briefly discuss those aspects and arguments which I take fault with. * * * One of the first arguments is against the No Background Conditions assumption. This states that desires are part of what makes something a reason. This is objectionable to a Humean for many reasons, as will be seen throughout the rest of this review. This, combined with the Deliberative Constraint (that to deliberate well about reasons one must include all aspects of the reasons into the deliberation) causes serious conflict for the Humean. Schroeder attempts to answer this by illustrating that it is often the case that desires do not enter into deliberative considerations and so the desire is not part of a reason(s), but a background condition of having such reasons. But if my desire doesn't enter into any considerations to act, that doesn't mean that it doesn't unconsciously play a role as a reason in conjunction with with the other reasons I have. This in turn would seem to make the Deliberative Constraint still apply. I would not be considering my unconscious desire during deliberation so my deliberation would be incomplete. Schroeder discusses the Objectionably Self-Regarding character of Humeanism with the No Background View. If to deliberate well, I must deliberate fully and if my desires are part of the reasons I have to act, then my action is Objectionably Self-Regarding because it forces me to deliberate about whether or not I have some desire to act. But the failure to support a Background Consideration view of desire seems to make the Objectionably Self-Regarding principle that much stronger. If the No-Background Considerations problem was not solved, any reason for action for a Humean would still involve the agent's desire to act. So if Katie needs help, Ryan's reasons for helping are that Katie should get everything she needs and Ryan unconsciously desires to help Katie. But this not only has the consequence of his reason being self-regarding, but also unconsciously self-regarding. I would find it less objectionable for an individual who consciously considers whether they desire to do something, than do something without acknowledging their desire. This is a serious problem that the main argument must face as many aspects of Hypotheticalism emerge throughout the work. One of which is his wonderfully insightful (and surprisingly Kantian) description of agent-neutral reasons as well as how he explains the weight of reasons. Agent-neutral reasons are explained by Schroeder as being reasons which are vastly over determined. So given any desire, there is a reason for X to do A. This seems to make sense, but what is it that motivates the desires themselves? On what are they founded? To Schroeder they are founded on true beliefs. He says true beliefs rather than beliefs in general because any error about some belief in regards for some X to have some desire P which promotes the doing of A can and typically does involve error about other relevant beliefs. To satisfy these desires, then, an agent ought ideally have all true relevant beliefs. Example: There is an agent-neutral reason to eat healthy foods. I have all relevant true beliefs and do not desire to be healthy, but I do desire to look good. To look good, I need to eat better, hence eat healthy food. Someone else has all relevant true beliefs but no desire to look good or be healthy, but has a desire to live as long as possible. Healthy foods are a way to live longer. Some further person has all relevant true beliefs but doesn't desire to be healthy, look good, or live long, but does desire to alleviate painful constipation. Healthy foods help to alleviate and prevent constipation. etc. Schroeder goes on to characterize a very intuitive and satisfying view on the weight of reasons. Where sets of reasons of the right kind in favor of some X to do A are contrasted with sets of reasons for some X against doing A. His formal argument is fantastic as well as the method of deriving relative weights of sets of reasons. Unfortunately, this is one of the many areas where the problem of No Background Considerations comes back to haunt the theory. It seems that desires, if they do in fact play a role, must still be coupled with reasons as well as being part of the Deliberative Constraint. If I am correct in thinking that Schroeder failed to challenge the No Background Conditions view, then particular desires MUST, in some way, be part of what gives weight to reasons (since reasons would have desires as a component). If we add this to his formal system of "weighting" reasons, I don't see how Hypotheticalism can avoid the objections Schroeder was trying to deflect. Even on Schroeder's account of what makes a reason agent-neutral, since reasons would still have a desire as their proper part, it's hard to see how his idea of agent-neutral reasons can be defended properly. He moves on from here to say that desire needs to be part of the psychological background which is motivationally efficacious where being motivated in the right way counts as acting for a reason. But if the first part fails, then all that is left is to be motivated in the right way. But if the desire is PART of the reason, it could not do this. A further difficulty the No Background Consideration raises is on Schroeders idea of the role desires play regarding reasons. Simply put, he claims that desires are the background psychological feature which clusters particular reasons together as being salient towards certain considerations. As intriguing as this notion is, it could not be anything but hopelessly circular if the No Background Conditions was not properly resolved. * * * It pains me to not go into detail about those aspects of the book which I find so wonderfully argued, especially his discussion of Aristotelianism, but it is my hope that what has been said above has at least sparked an interest in picking it up for yourself. Slaves of the Passions should be required reading for anyone interested in reasons, Humean and Non-Humean alike. Many of the issues discussed set up some fantastic distinctions and will certainly be a rich source of discussion in the future. This is definitely a dense work for something around 200 pages, but it is well worth the effort. In short, I would say Slaves of the Passions is one of the best works of philosophy I have read in some time. It seamlessly combines an extremely attractive Humean View with a form of Kantianism and Aristotelianism. It is without a doubt, on par with some of the greatest works in contemporary ethics such as Derek Parfit's