Perhaps unsurprisingly, I broadly agree with Tomasello's target article. I am a moral philosopher, however, not a psychologist. Still, even if moral philosophy is an a priori discipline at the foundational level where I tend to work, it cannot avoid giving some hostages to psychological fortune. And mine does so in spades, since I argue that central aspects of deontic morality – obligation, right, wrong, and so forth – are conceptually related to the psychological states P. F. Strawson called “reactive attitudes” through which we hold people morally accountable (Darwall Reference Darwall2006; Reference Darwall2013b; Reference Darwall2013c; Strawson Reference Strawson1968). So, it has been enormously exciting, and something of a relief, to find confirmation in Tomasello's work for the second-personal psychology of mutual accountability.
Psychologists tend to identify “prosocial” motivation with sympathetic concern and the desire to benefit. As Tomasello shows, however, what is essential to distinctively human forms of cooperation is not a desire for others’ goods, but a deontic motivation: a “sense of obligation,” including the desire to treat others fairly and with respect. This is a motive of right rather than good. It is conceptually related to what can be warrantedly demanded of us. The very idea of moral obligation, I argue, is the concept of what we can justifiably be held accountable for doing, what it would be blameworthy to fail to do without excuse (Darwall Reference Darwall2006; Reference Darwall2013b; Reference Darwall2013c).
Although the “sense of obligation” is psychological, what it is a sense of is decidedly not, any more than mathematic intuition, clearly a psychological phenomenon, concerns something psychological. The object of the latter is an a priori mathematical structure, and that of the former is an essentially normative one. This fundamental fact has significant consequences that need to be borne in mind.
Tomasello distinguishes two different stages at which the sense of obligation enters, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically. Whether in collaborative play in early childhood or the obligate collaborative foraging of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, an initial stage involves a sense of obligation to individual partners as having equal claims to the collaborative benefits and to respect as an equal partner. A second stage involves wider cooperation within a cultural group and a sense of obligation, less to particular individuals, than “objectively” or “period.”
The psychological, as well as philosophical, engine driving the sense of obligation in both cases, for Tomasello, is that joint undertakings create a “we” with the standing to make demands of collaborating parties. When individuals cooperate voluntarily, their “we” can make demands of each that ratifies claims the other has on them as an equal partner, underwriting the parties’ sense of obligations to one another. When the cooperative scheme is more diffuse and less voluntary, as with a cultural group, the “we”s demands are not on behalf of individuals. The resulting sense of obligation is not to anyone individually. They are on behalf of shared cultural values that inform a sense of “objective” obligation.
Now, as we noted, obligation is a normative, rather than a psychological (or sociological) phenomenon. It follows that any “we”s expectations or demands can generate obligations only if they are justified demands that it would be blameworthy to ignore or flout. It is important to see, moreover, that being culpable cannot be understood in terms of what any actual “we,” whether voluntary or implicit, actually blames on pain of robbing obligation of its normativity. What is blameworthy is what there is justification to blame. I argue, therefore, that blame involves a standpoint of a presupposed moral community of second-personally competent persons – that is, moral agents or subjects, as such (Darwall Reference Darwall2006; Reference Darwall2013b; Reference Darwall2013c). It presupposes an ideal “we.”
No de facto group can create obligations by default. Individuals become obligated to one another through agreements only because of a background requirement on all moral agents to keep agreements (other things being equal). We can become obligated to one another through agreements only if it would be blameworthy to violate them without excuse, where this consists in there being justification for demands (and blame for violators) from a presupposed “we” of any (second-personally competent) person. The inescapable point is that both “second-personal morality” and “‘objective’ morality,” as Tomasello calls them, presuppose morality in the intrinsically normative sense. They presuppose what we might call “objective morality without the scare quotes.”
Here are two reflections of this fact. First, voluntarily agreeing to something can obligate one only if a would-be partner's forcing you to do as they wish without your agreement would be wrong and would wrong you. This background moral fact is presupposed. The wrongness of forced “cooperation” cannot completely derive from the demands of any de facto group, obviously not from a not-yet-constituted group, and not from any more encompassing de facto group, either.
Second, Tomasello notes experimental evidence that young children tend to equalize the benefits of collaboration. It seems implausible that they generally agree to this in advance or “write it into” the contract constituting their “we.” Much more likely is that there is a moral presumption of equal treatment that is presupposed in the phenomenon of cooperation itself (Darwall Reference Darwall2006). Tomasello hypothesizes “self-other equivalence” and that the children are “equal causal forces.” But why suppose that this is generally true de facto? The relevant equivalence is irreducibly normative and moral, not empirical. In the relevant sense, it holds even if (say, because one is ambidextrous and the other is not), one is actually capable of playing both roles and the other is not, or if one contributes more than the other in a strictly causal sense.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I broadly agree with Tomasello's target article. I am a moral philosopher, however, not a psychologist. Still, even if moral philosophy is an a priori discipline at the foundational level where I tend to work, it cannot avoid giving some hostages to psychological fortune. And mine does so in spades, since I argue that central aspects of deontic morality – obligation, right, wrong, and so forth – are conceptually related to the psychological states P. F. Strawson called “reactive attitudes” through which we hold people morally accountable (Darwall Reference Darwall2006; Reference Darwall2013b; Reference Darwall2013c; Strawson Reference Strawson1968). So, it has been enormously exciting, and something of a relief, to find confirmation in Tomasello's work for the second-personal psychology of mutual accountability.
Psychologists tend to identify “prosocial” motivation with sympathetic concern and the desire to benefit. As Tomasello shows, however, what is essential to distinctively human forms of cooperation is not a desire for others’ goods, but a deontic motivation: a “sense of obligation,” including the desire to treat others fairly and with respect. This is a motive of right rather than good. It is conceptually related to what can be warrantedly demanded of us. The very idea of moral obligation, I argue, is the concept of what we can justifiably be held accountable for doing, what it would be blameworthy to fail to do without excuse (Darwall Reference Darwall2006; Reference Darwall2013b; Reference Darwall2013c).
Although the “sense of obligation” is psychological, what it is a sense of is decidedly not, any more than mathematic intuition, clearly a psychological phenomenon, concerns something psychological. The object of the latter is an a priori mathematical structure, and that of the former is an essentially normative one. This fundamental fact has significant consequences that need to be borne in mind.
Tomasello distinguishes two different stages at which the sense of obligation enters, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically. Whether in collaborative play in early childhood or the obligate collaborative foraging of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, an initial stage involves a sense of obligation to individual partners as having equal claims to the collaborative benefits and to respect as an equal partner. A second stage involves wider cooperation within a cultural group and a sense of obligation, less to particular individuals, than “objectively” or “period.”
The psychological, as well as philosophical, engine driving the sense of obligation in both cases, for Tomasello, is that joint undertakings create a “we” with the standing to make demands of collaborating parties. When individuals cooperate voluntarily, their “we” can make demands of each that ratifies claims the other has on them as an equal partner, underwriting the parties’ sense of obligations to one another. When the cooperative scheme is more diffuse and less voluntary, as with a cultural group, the “we”s demands are not on behalf of individuals. The resulting sense of obligation is not to anyone individually. They are on behalf of shared cultural values that inform a sense of “objective” obligation.
Now, as we noted, obligation is a normative, rather than a psychological (or sociological) phenomenon. It follows that any “we”s expectations or demands can generate obligations only if they are justified demands that it would be blameworthy to ignore or flout. It is important to see, moreover, that being culpable cannot be understood in terms of what any actual “we,” whether voluntary or implicit, actually blames on pain of robbing obligation of its normativity. What is blameworthy is what there is justification to blame. I argue, therefore, that blame involves a standpoint of a presupposed moral community of second-personally competent persons – that is, moral agents or subjects, as such (Darwall Reference Darwall2006; Reference Darwall2013b; Reference Darwall2013c). It presupposes an ideal “we.”
No de facto group can create obligations by default. Individuals become obligated to one another through agreements only because of a background requirement on all moral agents to keep agreements (other things being equal). We can become obligated to one another through agreements only if it would be blameworthy to violate them without excuse, where this consists in there being justification for demands (and blame for violators) from a presupposed “we” of any (second-personally competent) person. The inescapable point is that both “second-personal morality” and “‘objective’ morality,” as Tomasello calls them, presuppose morality in the intrinsically normative sense. They presuppose what we might call “objective morality without the scare quotes.”
Here are two reflections of this fact. First, voluntarily agreeing to something can obligate one only if a would-be partner's forcing you to do as they wish without your agreement would be wrong and would wrong you. This background moral fact is presupposed. The wrongness of forced “cooperation” cannot completely derive from the demands of any de facto group, obviously not from a not-yet-constituted group, and not from any more encompassing de facto group, either.
Second, Tomasello notes experimental evidence that young children tend to equalize the benefits of collaboration. It seems implausible that they generally agree to this in advance or “write it into” the contract constituting their “we.” Much more likely is that there is a moral presumption of equal treatment that is presupposed in the phenomenon of cooperation itself (Darwall Reference Darwall2006). Tomasello hypothesizes “self-other equivalence” and that the children are “equal causal forces.” But why suppose that this is generally true de facto? The relevant equivalence is irreducibly normative and moral, not empirical. In the relevant sense, it holds even if (say, because one is ambidextrous and the other is not), one is actually capable of playing both roles and the other is not, or if one contributes more than the other in a strictly causal sense.