Abstaining from goods

There are many times when we refrain from pursuing an intrinsic good G. We can classify these cases into two types:

1. we refrain despite G being good, and

2. we refrain because G is good.

The “despite” cases are straightforward, such as when one refrains from from reading a novel for the sake of grading exams, despite the value of reading the novel.

The “because” cases are rather more interesting. St Augustine gives the example of celibacy for the sake of Christ: it is because marriage is good that giving it up for the sake of Christ is better. Cases of religious fasting are often like this, too. Or one might refrain from something of value in order to punish oneself, again precisely because the thing is of value. These are self-sacrificial cases.

One might think another type of example of a “because” case is where one refrains from pursuing G now in order to obtain it by a better means, or in better circumstances, in the future. For instance, one might refrain from eating a cake on one day in order to have the cake on the next day which is a special occasion. Here the value of the cake is part of the reason for refraining from pursuit. On reflection, however, I think this is a “because” case. For we should distinguish between the good G₁ of having the cake now and the good G₂ of having the cake tomorrow. Then in delaying one does so despite the good of G₁ and because of the good of G₂. The good of G₁ is not relevant, unless this becomes sacrificial.

I don’t know if all the “because” cases are self-sacrificial in the way celibacy is. I suspect so, but I would not be surprised if a counterexample turned up.

Bidirectionality in means and ends

I never seem to tire of this action-theoretic case. You need to send a nerve signal to your arm muscles because there is a machine that detects these signals and dispenses food, and you’re hungry. So you raise your arm. What is your end? Food. What is your means to the food? Sending a nerve signal. But what is the means to the nerve signal?

The following seems correct to say: You raised your arm in order that a nerve signal go to your arm. What has puzzled me greatly about this case in the past is this. The nerve signal is a cause of the arm’s rising, and the effect can’t be the means to the cause. But I now think I was confused. For while the nerve signal is a cause of the arm’s rising, the nerve signal is not a cause of your raising your arm. For your raising your arm is a complex event C that includes an act of will W, a nerve signal S, and the rising of the arm R. The nerve signal S is a part, but not a cause, of the raising C, though it is a cause of the rising R.

So it seems that the right way to analyze the case is this. You make the complex event C happen in order that its middle part S should happen. Thus we can say that you make C happen in order that its part S should happen in order that you should get food. Then C is a means to S, and S is a means to food, but while S is a causal means to food, C is a non-causal means to S. But it’s not a particularly mysterious non-causal means. It sometimes happens that to get an item X you buy an item Y that includes X as a part (for instance, you might buy an old camera for the sake of the lens). There is nothing mysterious about this. Your obtaining Y is a means to your obtaining X, but there is no causation between the obtaining of Y and the obtaining of X.

Interestingly, sometimes a part serves as a means to a whole, but sometimes a whole serves as a means to the part. And this can be true of the very same whole and the very same part in different circumstances. Suppose that as a prop for a film, I need a white chess queen. I buy a whole set of pieces to get the white queen, and then throw out the remaining pieces in the newly purchased set to avoid clutter. Years later, an archaeologist digs up the 31 pieces I threw out, and buys my white queen from a collector to complete the set. Thus, I acquired the complete set to have the white queen, while the archaeologist acquired the white queen to have the complete set. This is no more mysterious than the fact that sometimes one starts a fire to get heat and sometimes one produces heat to light a fire.

Just as in one circumstances an event of type A can cause an event of type B and in other circumstances the causation can go the other way, so too sometimes an event of type A may partly constitute an event of type B, and sometimes the constitution can go the other way. Thus, my legal title to the white queen is constituted by my legal title to the set, but the archaeologist’s legal title to the set is partly constituted by legal title to the white queen.

There still seems to be an oddity. In the original arm case, you intend your arm’s rise not in order that your arm might rise—that you don’t care about—but in order that you might send a nerve signal. Thus, you intend something that you don’t care about. This seems different from buying the chess set for the sake of the queen. For there you do care about your title to the whole set, since it constitutes your title to the queen. But I think the oddity can probably be resolved. For you only intend your arm’s rising by intending the whole complex event C of your raising your arm. Intending something you don’t care about as part of intending a whole you do care about is not that unusual.

Follow-through

As far as I know, in all racquet sports players are told to follow-through: to continue the racquet swing after the ball or shuttle have left the racquet. But of course the ball or shuttle doesn’t care what the racquet is doing at that point. So what’s the point of follow-through? The usual story is this: by aiming to follow-through, one hits the ball or shuttle better. If one weren’t trying to follow-through, the swing’s direction would be wrong or the swing might slow down.

This is interesting action-theoretically. The follow-through appears pointless, because the agent’s interest is in what happens before the follow-through, the impact’s having the right physical properties, and yet there is surely no backwards causation here. But there not appear to be an effective way to reliably secure these physical properties of the impact except by trying for the follow-through. So the follow-through itself is pointless, but one’s aiming at or trying for the follow-through very much has a point. And here the order of causality is respected: one swings aiming at the follow-through, which causes an impact with the right physical properties, and the swing then continues on to the “pointless” follow-through.

Clearly the follow-through is intended—it’s consciously planned, aimed at, etc. But it need not be a means to anything one cares about in the game (though, of course, in some cases it can be a means to impressing the spectators or intimidating an opponent). But is it an end? It seems pointless as an end!

Yet it seems that whatever is intended is intended as a means or an end. One might reject this principle, taking follow-through to be a counterexample.

Another move is this. We actually have a normative power to make something be an end. And then it becomes genuinely worth pursuing, because we have adopted it as an end. So the player first exercises the normative power to make follow-through be an end, and then pursues that end as an end.

But there is a problem here. For even if there is a “success value” in accomplishing a self-set goal, the strength of the reasons for pursuing the follow-through is also proportioned to facts independent of this exercise of normative power. Rather, the reasons for pursuing the follow-through will include the internal and external goods of victory (winning as such, prizes, adulation, etc.), and these are independent of one’s setting follow-through as one’s goal.

Maybe we should say this. Even if all intentional action is end-directed, there are two kinds of reasons for an action: the reasons that come from the value of the end and the reasons that come from the value of the pursuit of that end. In the case of follow-through, there may be a fairly trivial success value in the follow-through—a success value that comes from one’s exercise of normative power in adopting the follow-through as one’s end—but that success value provides only fairly trivial reasons. However, there can be significantly non-trivial reasons for one’s pursuing that end, reasons independent of that end.