Ought implies can: A puzzle
Here's a possibly stupid question, which has been bothering me in trying to think about the causes of tyranny. It is a commonplace of ethical thinking that "ought implies can." That is, obligations properly (not so much supererogatory acts of virtue) must be such that they would be possible for a "normal" human being. The puzzle is: does this apply to societies? Or perhaps: can this apply to societies?
That is, if we say that a given ordering of society ought to be a certain way, does this imply that it can be that way? Certainly classical political philosophy seems to have thought that the answer to this question was negative (I have argued this for Plato).
Here's a complication. Suppose a certain ordering of society is "possible" (in the abstract sense that some sequence of human actions could be imagined that brings it about) but vanishingly unlikely in an empirical sense (e.g., the actions required are not available to normal human beings, only perhaps to people at the extremes - and yet more than the extremes need to do them). Can one still speak of "can" in a relevant sense here (certainly "ought implies can" in the individual does not seem to imply "even if the can is a vanishingly small possibility").
Or let's put the point in a different way. Social transformation - of a lasting, not superficial kind - unless it happens through impersonal processes, often requires heroism (which is highly unlikely). Does that mean that ought does not necessarily imply can at the social level? Or should we get rid of the principle "ought implies can" at the individual level too?
(The puzzle comes to mind as I was using a game derived from Carles Boix's Democracy and Redistribution in my class to think about causes of authoritarianism. It turns out that, according to the model, if the conditions aren't right [and for most of human history, they simply weren't right], it's almost impossible to have anything other than authoritarianism of various kinds. Of course, this need not imply bad government - though it makes it very much more likely).
That is, if we say that a given ordering of society ought to be a certain way, does this imply that it can be that way? Certainly classical political philosophy seems to have thought that the answer to this question was negative (I have argued this for Plato).
Here's a complication. Suppose a certain ordering of society is "possible" (in the abstract sense that some sequence of human actions could be imagined that brings it about) but vanishingly unlikely in an empirical sense (e.g., the actions required are not available to normal human beings, only perhaps to people at the extremes - and yet more than the extremes need to do them). Can one still speak of "can" in a relevant sense here (certainly "ought implies can" in the individual does not seem to imply "even if the can is a vanishingly small possibility").
Or let's put the point in a different way. Social transformation - of a lasting, not superficial kind - unless it happens through impersonal processes, often requires heroism (which is highly unlikely). Does that mean that ought does not necessarily imply can at the social level? Or should we get rid of the principle "ought implies can" at the individual level too?
(The puzzle comes to mind as I was using a game derived from Carles Boix's Democracy and Redistribution in my class to think about causes of authoritarianism. It turns out that, according to the model, if the conditions aren't right [and for most of human history, they simply weren't right], it's almost impossible to have anything other than authoritarianism of various kinds. Of course, this need not imply bad government - though it makes it very much more likely).
posted by Xavier Marquez @ 9:44 PM
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