Reducing promises to assertions

To promise something, I need to communicate something to you. What is that thing that I need to communicate to you? To a first approximation, what I need to communicate to you is that I am promising. But that’s circular: it says that promising is communicating that I am promising. This circularity is vicious, because it doesn’t distinguish promising from asking: asking is communicating that I am asking.

But now imagine I have a voice-controlled robot named Robby, and I have programmed him in such a way that I command him by asserting that Robby will do something because I have said he will do it. Thus, to get him to vacuum the living room, I assert “Robby will immediately vacuum the living room because I say so.” As long as what I say is within the range of Robby’s abilities, any statement I make in Robby’s vicinity about what he will do because I say he will do it is automatically true. This is all easily imaginable.

Now, back to promises. Perhaps it works like this. I have a limited power to control the normative sphere. This normative power generates an effect in normative space precisely when I communicate that I am generating that effect. Thus, I can promise to buy you lunch by asserting “I will be obligated to you to buy you lunch.” And I permit you to perform heart surgery by asserting “You will cease to have a duty of respect for my autonomy not to perform heart surgery on me.” As long as what I say is within my normative capabilities, by communicating that I am making it true by communicating it, I make it be true, just as Robby will do what I assert he will do because of my say-so, as long as it is within his physical capabilities.

This solves the circularity problem for promising because what I am communicating is not that I am promising, but the normative effect of the promising:

1. x promises to ϕ to y if and only if x successfully exercises a communicative normative power to gain an obligation-to-y by ϕing

2. a communicative normative power for a normative effect F is a normative power whose object is F and whose successful exercise requires the circumstance that one express that one is producing F by communicating that one is so doing.

There are probably some further tweaks to be made.

Of course, in practice, we communicate the normative effect not by describing it explicitly, but by using set phrases, contextual cues, etc.

This technique allows us to reduce promising, consenting, requesting, commanding and other illocutionary forces to normative power and communicating, which is basically a generalized version of assertion. But we cannot account for communicating or asserting in this way—if we try to do that, we do get vicious circularity.

Do we have normative powers?

A normative power is supposed to be a power to directly change normative reality. We can, of course, indirectly change normative reality by affecting the antecedents of conditional norms: By unfairly insulting you, I get myself to have a duty to apologize, but that is simply due to a pre-existing duty to apologize for all unfair insults.

It would be attractive to deny our possession of normative powers. Typical examples of normative powers are promises, commands, permissions, and requests. But all of these can seemingly be reduced to conditional norms, such as:

• Do whatever you promise

• Do whatever you are validly commanded

• Refrain from ϕing unless permitted

• Treat what you are requested as a reason for doing it.

One might think that one can still count as having a normative power even if it is reducible to prior conditional norms. Here is a reason to deny this. I could promise to send you a dollar on any day on which your dog barks. Then your dog has the power to obligate me to send you a dollar, a power reducible to the norm arising from my promise. But dogs do not have normative powers. Hence an ability to change normative reality by affecting the antecedents of a prior conditional norm is not a normative power.

If this argument succeeds, if a power to affect normative reality is reducible to a non-normative power (such as the power to bark) and a prior norm, it is not a normative power. Are there any normative powers, then, powers not reducible in this way?

I am not sure. But here is a non-conclusive reason to think so. It seems we can invent new useful ways of affecting normative reality, within certain bounds. For instance, normally a request comes along with a permission—a request creates a reason for the other party to do the requested action and while removing any reasons of non-consent against the performance. But there are rare contexts where it is useful to create a reason without removing reasons of non-consent. An example is “If you are going to kill me, kill me quickly.” One can see this as creating a reason for the murderer to kill one quickly, without removing reasons of non-consent against killing (or even killing quickly). Or, for another example, normally a general’s command in an important matter generates a serious obligation. But there could be cases where the general doesn’t want a subordinate to feel very guilty for failing to fulfill the command, and it would be useful for the general to make a new commanding practice, a “slight command” which generates an obligation, but one that it is only slightly wrong to disobey.

There are approximable and non-approximable promises. When I promise to bake you seven cookies, and I am short on flour, normally I have reason to bake you four. But there are cases where there is no reason to bake you four—perhaps you are going to have seven guests, and you want to serve them the same sweet, so four are useless to you (maybe you hate cookies). Normally we leave such decisions to common sense and don’t make them explicit. However, we could also imagine making them explicit, and we could imagine promises with express approximability rules (perhaps when you can’t do cookies, cupcakes will be a second best; perhaps they won’t be). We can even imagine complex rules of preferability between different approximations to the promise: if it’s sunny, seven cupcakes is a better approximation than five cookies, while if it’s cloudy, five cookies is a better approximation. These rules might also specify the degree of moral failure that each approximation represents. It is, plausibly, within our normative authority over ourselves to issue promises with all sorts of approximability rules, and we can imagine a society inventing such.

Intuitively, normally, if one is capable of a greater change of normative reality, one is capable of a lesser one. Thus, if a general has the authority to create a serious obligation, they have the authority to create a slight one. And if you are capable of both creating a reason and providing a permission, you should be able to do one in isolation from the other. If you have the authority to command, you have the standing to create non-binding reasons by requesting.

We could imagine a society which starts with two normative powers, promising and commanding, and then invents the “weaker” powers of requesting and permitting, and an endless variety of normative subtlety.

It seems plausible to think that we are capable of inventing new, useful normative practices. These, of course, cannot be a normative power grab: there are limits. The epistemic rule of thumb for determining these limits is that the powers do not exceed ones that we clearly have.

It seems a little simpler to think that we can create new normative powers within predetermined limits than that all our norms are preset, and we simply instance their antecedents. But while this is a plausible argument for normative powers, it is not conclusive.

Autonomy and God

We have much in the way of autonomy rights against other people. Do we have autonomy rights against ourselves? I think so. There are ways of constraining our future selves that are contrary to our dignity.

Here is a thesis I find plausible:

1. We have no autonomy rights against God.

Of course, and importantly, God has reasons for action based on the value of our autonomy. But I think it’s still true that these reasons are not going to be conclusive in the way that they would be if we had autonomy rights. (They might be conclusive in some other way, say if God promised us autonomy in some area. I take it that a right to have a promise fulfilled is not an autonomy right, perhaps pace Kant.)

Claim (1) seems to be a thesis about God’s authority. It paints a picture of God as an authoritarian being with infinite normative power, and the picture is not so attractive to modern sensibilities.

But I think there is a different way of thinking and feeling about (1). We can, instead, think of (1) as consequence of the ways that

2. God is infinitely close to me—closer than I am to myself.

There are many ways in which I am “not that close to myself”. I am ignorant of much that goes on in me, even in my mind. I don’t love myself as much as I should. My future is murky and my past is fading. And, above all, I don’t have being in myself, but being by participation in another, God. God is closer to me than I am to myself. And a consequence of this closeness is that I have even less in the way of autonomy rights against God than I do against myself.

Related to (1) is an interesting hypothesis. Everyone agrees:

3. God has infinite power.

It intuitively sounds plausible that:

4. God has infinite normative power.

I am not sure what exactly (4) means, or how it is true. But doesn’t it sound right?

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.

Normative powers

A normative power is a power to change a normative condition. Raz says the change is not produced “causally” but “normatively”.

Here is a picture on which this is correct. We exercise a normative power by exercising a natural power in such a context that the successful exercise of the natural power is partly constitutive of a normative fact. For instance, we utter a promise, thereby exercising a natural power to engage in a certain kind of speech act, and our exercise of that speech act is partly constitutive of, rather than causal of, the state of affairs of our being obligated to carry out the promised action.

There are two versions of the above model. On one version, there is an underlying fundamental conditional normative fact C, such as that if I have promised something then I should do it, and my exercise of normative power supplies the antecedent A of that conditional, and then the normative consequent of C comes to be grounded in C and A. On another version, there there are some natural acts that are directly constitutive of a normative state of affairs, not merely by supplying the antecedent of a conditional normative fact. I think the first version of the model is the more plausible in paradigmatic cases.

But why not allow for a causal model? Why not suppose that a normative power is a causal power to make an irreducible normative property come to be instantiated in someone? Thus, my power to promise is the power to cause myself to be obligated to do what I have promised.

I think the difficulty with a causal model is the fact that in paradigm cases of normative power, there is a natural power that is being exercised, and we have the intuition that the exercise of the natural power is necessary and sufficient for the normative effect. But on a causal model, why couldn’t I cause a promissory-type obligation without promising, simply causing the relevant property of being obligated to come to be instantiated in me? And why couldn’t I engage in the speech act while yet remaining normatively unbound, because my normative power wasn’t exercised in parallel with the natural power?

Maybe the answer to both questions is that I could, but only metaphysically and not causally. In other words, it could be that the laws of nature, or of human nature, make it impossible for me to exercise one of the powers without the other, just as I cannot wiggle my ring finger without wiggling my middle finger as well. On this view, if there is a God, he could cause me to acquire promissory-type obligations without my promising, and he could let me engage in the natural act of promising while blocking the exercise of normative power and leaving me normatively unbound. This doesn’t seem particularly problematic.

Perhaps the real problem for a lot of people with a causal view of normative powers is that it tends to lead to a violation of supervenience. For if it is metaphysically possble to have the exercise of the normative power without the exercise of the natural power, or vice versa, then it seems we don’t have supervenience of the normative on the non-normative. But supervenience does not seem to me to be inescapable.

Gamification

Most philosophers don’t talk much about games. But games actually highlight one of the really amazing powers of the human being: the power to create norms and to create new forms of well-being.

Lately I’ve been playing this vague game with vague rules and vague non-numerical points when out and about:

• Gain bonus points if I can stay at least nine feet away from non-family members in circumstances in which normally I would come within that distance of them; more points the further away I can be, though no extra bonus past 12 feet.

• Win game if I avoid inhaling or exhaling within six feet of a non-family member. (And of course I have to be careful that the first breath past the requisite distance be moderate in size rather than a big huff.)

When the game goes well, it’s delightful, and adds value to life. On an ordinary walk around campus, I almost always win the game now. Last time I went shopping at Aldi, I would have won (having had to hold my breath a few times), except that I think I mumbled “Thank you” within six feet of the checkout worker (admittedly, if memory serves, I think I mumbled it quietly, trying to minimize the amount of breath going out, and then stepped back for the inhalation after the words; and of course I was wearing a mask, but it's still a defeat). Victory, or even near-victory, at the social distancing game is an extra good in life, only available because I imposed these game norms on myself, in addition to the legal and prudential norms that are independent of my will. Yesterday, I think I won the game all day despite going on a bike ride and a hike, attending Mass (we sat in the vestibule, in chairs at least nine feet away from anybody else, and the few times someone was passing by I held my breath), and playing tennis with a grad student. That's satisfying to reflect on. (At the same time, playing a game also generally adds a bit of extra stress, since there is the possibility, and sometimes actuality, of defeat. And it's hard to concentrate on the Mass while all the time looking around for someone who might be approaching within the forbidden distance. And, no, I didn't actually think of it as a game when I was at Mass, but rather as a duty of social responsibility.)

I think the only other person in my family who has gamified social distancing is my seven-year-old.

Unreleasable promises would be useful

Alice promises Bob to impose on him some penalty should Bob do a certain wrong. Bob does the wrong, and points out to Alice that imposing the penalty is some trouble to Alice, and that Bob is happy to release Alice from the promise.

If the promisee can always release the promiser from a promise, then in a case like this Bob may be exactly right. Deterrence thus would sometimes work better if one can make a promise that the promisee cannot release one from.

Of course, the fact that a normative power would be useful does not mean that the normative power exists. I doubt one can make a promise to another that the other cannot release one from.

One might, however, be able to vow the deterrent penalty to God. Or maybe just promise it to a third party (society?) who has no incentive to release one from the promise.

Normative powers and theism

There’s a curious puzzle for the following conjunction of views:

1. theism
2. normative power account of promises.

To introduce the puzzle, think about making baskets. I have the power to make a (pretty shoddy, I expect) basket come into existence. I would exercise the power by going to the river, gathering reeds and weaving them together. But God can directly make the basket come into existence, simply by willing it to exist. The point generalizes: all the things I can make exist, God can simply make exist by willing them to exist.

On the normative power account of promises, by going up to a friend and promising to dance a jig, I make an obligation for myself come into existence. So God can simply will my obligation to dance a jig into existence.

But that seems wrong. Of course, God can bring it about that I am obligated to dance a jig. God has a myriad of ways of doing so. God can, for instance, make a rich person inform me that if and only if I dance a jig, she’ll give a million dollars to a good cause. Or God can simply issue a command to me to dance a jig. But the idea that God can simply will the obligation into existence seems wrong. That would imply that there is a world just like this one, differing only in respects like: (a) God wills that I be obligated to dance a jig, (b) I am obligated to dance a jig and (c) I ignorantly fail in that obligation. That just doesn’t seem right. (The world where God commands me to dance a jig is different: it is essential to a command that it be expressed to the person being commanded.)

Well, but in a sense there are some things God can’t bring about simply by willing them, even though we can. For instance, I can bring into existence a hand-made basket. But God can’t bring a hand-made basket into existence simply by willing it, because the concept of a hand-made basket precludes it being brought into existence in any way but by hand. So our principle that God can directly bring into existence anything we can bring into existence needs to be qualified to exclude things whose description specifies something about how they are brought into existence. (If essentiality of origins holds, then things whose description include de re reference may be like that.)

But obligation to dance a jig doesn’t seem to be like that. It doesn’t seem to carry reference to how it’s brought about, in the way that hand-made basket does. There are multiple ways an obligation to dance a jig can come about, e.g., promises, authority and consequences.

I think a natural law approach has a nice escape from this. Suppose it is a part of the concept of an obligation that it be partly constituted by the nature of the obligated entity. Then God can’t just directly bring about obligations by willing them into existence. He would have to bring about an entity with a particular nature. God could bring it about that an agent is obligated to jig, but he would have to do it either by working through general norms grounded in the agent’s nature (say, by issuing commands if the agent has a nature that requires her to obey) or by creating an agent with a particular sort of nature, say a nature that strives to jig.

And divine command theories also don't have any problem: God commands us to keep promises, and that's all there is to that. There is, however, a difficult question there about the grounds of God's obligation to keep promises.

Should a non-theist care at all about what I said? I think so. Even if there were no God, the thought experiment of God simply willing the normative fact seems illuminating. It suggests that normative facts aren’t just be free-floating facts to be brought about by “normative powers”.