Julie Tannenbaum
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Emotional Expressions of Moral Value
Introduction
In reading the Nicomachean ethics one lesson to be learned is this: how people feel reveal
what they value. When a person is pained at parting with money in order to repay a loan, this
reveals that he overvalues money. And when a person gives away too much money with
pleasure, this reveals that he undervalues money.1 The rash man feels no fear in battle and this
reveals that he does not properly value his life, whereas the courageous man does feel fear
thereby showing that he does value his life.2 Aristotle goes so far as to integrate an agent’s
feelings into his description of whether an action is involuntary; an agent who acts by force or
because of ignorance and who is pained, regretful, and distressed by what comes about acts
involuntarily.3
In “Moral Luck” Bernard Williams revisits these themes of involuntary action, feelings
and values.4 Williams describes a lorry driver who, through no fault of his own, runs over a
child. The example, as I understand it, is meant to be one in which the agent neither intentionally
nor negligently kills the child. Williams does not elaborate on the details of the case, but doing
so will be helpful to our discussion. Imagine that the street is commercial—a place where
children do not live or play. The driver kept within the speed limit, was focused on his
surroundings, and so on. The child, let’s suppose, ran out from behind a parked car, which is why
the driver didn’t see the child until it was too late; he hit the child before there was even a chance
1
Nicomachean Ethics, Book IV, chapter one.
Nicomachean Ethics, Book III, chapter six through nine.
3
Nichomachean Ethics Book III, chapter one. See also Rosalind Hursthouse’s article “Acting and Feeling in
Character: Nicomachean Ethics 3.i,” Phronesis (1984).
4
“Moral Luck” in Moral Luck (Cambridge University Press, 1981). All the references to and quotes by Willaims are
drawn from this article.
2
to apply the breaks. Williams claims that the driver “will feel differently from any spectator,
even a spectator next to him in the cab” (p.28). He labels this feeling “agent-regret.”
The goal of this paper is to explore the values revealed or expressed in the driver’s
feeling agent-regret. There are really two kinds of values or evaluation at issue: the driver’s
feelings reveal a negative evaluation of his action—he regrets his killing of the child (and in a
way that is different from how others might regret it)—and that act evaluation is itself grounded
on something else the agent values. To illustrate these two values and their relation, think back to
the repayment example. An agent who repays a loan, but is pained by doing so, negatively
evaluates his repayment and he has this negative evaluation since the repayment is judged as
contrary to the value he places in money. The question is what sort of negative evaluation does
the driver make of his action and what value does he see his action as contrary to or in conflict
with.
I want to defend a particular hunch, namely that the driver’s agent-regret is a moral
feeling, by which I mean that the values that give rise to or find expression in the feeling are
moral. The challenge this paper undertakes is explain what sort of moral evaluation the driver
makes of his action and what moral value grounds this act evaluation.
In section one I point out that not all forms of agent-regret are moral and I discuss some
initial difficulties with explaining why the driver’s agent-regret is moral. In the second section I
aim to show that appeals to moral obligation cannot explain why the driver’s feeling of agentregret is a moral feeling. I describe what I see as the two most plausible views of moral
obligation, one deliberatively oriented and the other performance oriented, and show that neither
can make sense of the driver’s agent-regret. The goal of section three is to show that there is a
morally evaluating an action without reference to moral obligations. I suggest that there are at
2
least three conditions on the success of an action: first, the action must result from deliberations
that reflect what the agent values; second, the action must realize the ends reached in
deliberation; and third, the agent must have the right values. The driver’s action meets the first
and third conditions but it does not meet the second condition, and so his action is a failure.
Moreover, it is a moral failure because the ends he fails to realize are moral ends, that is, they
reflect his moral values.
Section One: Moral and Nonmoral Agent-Regret
Notice that nothing Williams says in elucidating the concept of agent-regret obviously
indicates that it is a moral feeling. The “constitutive thought”5 of agent-regret is “how much
better if I had acted otherwise” (27). But there is nothing about this thought that is obviously
moral. I can imagine having this thought upon discovering that seven is the winning number
rather than the number I betted on. Nothing in my thought, “how much better if I had bet on 7”
reveals anything about my moral values. It does tell you that I value winning or making money,
but there is not anything obviously moral about that value. So, on its face, there are certainly
nonmoral examples of agent-regret. And yet the driver’s regret strikes me as moral and it is this
intuition that I want to explain.
Perhaps the driver’s thought “how much better if I had acted otherwise” indicates his
belief that his act lacks justification? Kant thought there was a close connection between moral
value and justification. But it strikes me that moral value is just one element of justification and
5
I plan to put aside the issue of how thoughts and feelings are related, that is, whether thoughts constitute, cause or
are caused by feelings.
3
so an action can be unjustified without being morally deficient.6 Moreover, Williams warns us
away from understanding the constitutive thought of agent-regret as a thought about justification.
He claims “we should not entirely assimilate agent-regret and the wish, all things taken together,
to have acted otherwise.” (31). At least in some cases he thinks that an agent can think his action
justified and yet still feel agent-regret.
Does Williams provide any other clues to how we might understand the driver’s agentregret as a moral feeling? Williams points out that agent-regret motivates what might seem to be
moral actions. Williams points out that the driver will, if he can, make reparations or restitution
or engage in self-punitive actions (28). I wonder whether self-punitive actions are necessarily
moral actions. I might well punish myself (slap my thigh) after losing a point in a tennis game,
even when I played my best. This is a response to not measuring up to my ideals or goals, and
perhaps even a method of getting myself to measure up. But none of this is about moral ideals or
moral goals, but rather about measuring up to standards, standards which are not moral but rather
about good tennis playing.7
The descriptions “restitution” and “reparation” however, do have a moral ring. Notice,
however, that for an action to bear these descriptions the action must be done with a particular
intention. That is, for an act to be an act of restitution the agent must do the act with the intention
of making up for what he has done. If I bring you flowers, but not in order to make up for a
missed appointment, but so that I have something nice to smell while I’m in your dreary office,
my bringing you flowers is not an act of restitution for the missed appointment. It is necessary
6
I argue for this view in Moral Action and Moral Motivation (Ph.D dissertation). Michael Smith also argues for this
view, although in a different way in The Moral Problem, p.185 and in “In Defence of The Moral Problem: A Reply
to Brink, Copp, and Sayre-McCord” (especially pp.280-291) in Ethics and the A Priori.
7
The cause of my not measuring up the standards of good tennis playing needn’t be a moral failure. Perhaps the
other player is simply better and out hit me. It needn’t be that I’m lazy or careless. And are laziness and carelessness
necessarily moral failings anyway? Or are they moral failings only when they get in the way of successful moral
activity?
4
that I act with the intention of making up for my missed appointment. That is, I must see some
previous action of mine as lacking. Moreover, for restitution to be a moral action, I must think of
my previous action as morally lacking. And so we are back to the question of how the driver
evaluates his action; in what way does he see it as morally lacking and what are his reasons for
viewing his action in this way? Without such an account in hand, we cannot explain why the
driver’s feeling of agent-regret is a moral feeling.
Section Two: Unsuccessful Accounts of Agent-Regret
In this section I aim to show that appeals to moral obligation cannot explain why the
driver’s feeling of agent-regret is a moral feeling. I will describe two views of moral obligation
that I find appealing. The first is deliberatively oriented and the second is performance, and
hence outcome oriented. Neither view, when coupled with what I will call the Evaluative
Thesis—that an action can only be morally evaluated by reference to the agent’s moral
obligations—can make sense of the driver’s feeling of agent-regret as a moral feeling.
According to the deliberative view of moral obligation, our sole moral obligation is to
deliberate in a particular way. There is no moral obligation to perform a specific action.8 When
such a view held in combination with the Evaluative Thesis, it follows that all actions are
morally evaluated solely on the basis of the agent’s deliberations that led to the action.
To make the view more concrete consider a Kantian version of this deliberative view of
moral obligation.9 According to the Kantian, the mark of a moral value is its connection to
8
Of course, one can also speak of deliberation as an activity, but doing so makes it difficult to describe the view I
have in mind.
9
As I’ll show later, one needn’t be a Kantian to accept a deliberative view of moral obligation.
5
rational nature. Rational nature, according to Kant is unconditionally valuable.10 To value
rational nature properly is a matter of the agent’s practical deliberation having certain features. In
particular, to value rational nature unconditionally just is to adopt and pursue the end of
respecting rational nature and to give this end its proper status with respect to one’s other ends.
Adopting and pursuing the end of respecting rational nature generates a variety of further subends.11 For instance in some cases respecting rational nature will be a matter of sustaining
rational nature, in other cases a matter of promoting it. Moreover, in giving the end of respecting
rational nature its proper status relative to other ends, the agent will take there to be a
deliberative presumption against negatively impacting rational nature, even if doing so would
advance some end that he has.12 This presumption can be rebutted, but only in very specific
ways. So, for example, there is a presumption against killing another person, since this
negatively impacts their rational nature. However, this presumption against killing is rebutted in
cases in which we say a person’s right to life can be overridden (trolley case), forfeited (selfdefense), or waived (euthanasia).13 In addition, the more specific ends (sustaining and promoting
rational nature) and constraints (not negatively impacting rational nature) generate yet further
10
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, section one.
The relation between the end and sub-ends is a rational connection. If one adopts the end of respecting rational
nature then one must, on pain of irrationality, adopt the relevant sub-ends.
12
I use the formulation “negatively impact rational nature” rather than “undermine rational nature” or “disrespect
rational nature” since not all killings are instances of undermining or disrespecting rational nature. Insofar as
Kantians wish to capture the intuition that killings are presumptively morally problematic, it is important to think of
killing as problematic because they negatively impact rational nature.
13
In cases of abortion, the fetus does not yet have a rational nature and so abortion cannot be considered to
negatively impact rational nature. Kantians might attempt to capture the intuition that abortion is morally
problematic, though not necessarily impermissible, by appealing to the fact that the fetus potentially has rational
nature and so has a special moral status. There are, however, difficulties with this line of argument. See, for
example, Joel Feinberg’s article “Abortion” in (ed. Regan) Matters of Life and Death (Temple University Press,
1980).
11
6
sub-ends, such as being aware of whether one’s action will sustain, promote or negatively impact
rational nature.14
According to the deliberative-Kantian view of moral obligation, our sole moral obligation
is to adopt and pursue the ends, sub-ends and deliberative constraints related to respecting
rational nature.15 This deliberative-Kantian view, combined with the Evaluative Thesis (an action
can only be morally evaluated by reference to the agent’s moral obligations), implies that we are
to morally evaluate actions in the following way. If an agent does not have or pursue the end of
respecting rational nature, or does not give it the status it should have relative to other ends, or if
the agent does not adopt and pursue the relevant sub-ends, then the resulting action is morally
wrong. For instance, if an agent knowingly kills another without rebutting the deliberative
presumption against doing so, his action is morally wrong. And if an agent unknowingly kills
another while ignoring whether his action would have this result, his action is morally wrong. In
both cases the agent’s deliberation does not meet the criteria described above and this explains
why the action is evaluated as morally wrong. However, if an agent’s action is the result of
deliberation that does have the features described above, then the action has moral worth. So the
moral evaluation of action depends solely on whether the agent’s deliberations reflect the fact
that the agent values rational nature unconditionally.
With these materials in hand, can we explain why the lorry driver’s agent-regret is a
moral feeling? The driver, as I mentioned at the outset, neither knowingly nor negligently kills.
He adopts and pursues (I’m supposing) the end and sub-ends related to respecting rational
For a more nuanced Kantian account along these lines, see, for example, Barbara Herman’s book The Practice of
Moral Judgment (Harvard University Press, 1993).
15
Notice that the deliberative view of moral obligation makes use of the ordinary (and conceptual) connection
between valuing and the content and structure of one’s deliberations. Consider a person who values money. Such a
person will adopt the end of making money, sustaining the money they have, and there will be a deliberative
presumption against losing money. Moreover such a person will be on the lookout for which of his actions make,
sustain, or lose money.
14
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nature. He pursues his end (doing his job/driving down this street) on the condition that and with
the belief that his action will not kill anyone (any rational natures).16 Moreover, he has and
pursues the end of being aware of whether his action of driving will kill anyone. The trouble is
that he arrives at the false belief that driving down this street will not kill anyone. His belief is
false but reasonable. He meets all the reasonable requirements for justification in forming this
belief. If actions are morally evaluated solely on the basis of an agent’s deliberation, then the
driver’s action of killing the child is not morally deficient, since the action results from
deliberations that have the features that amount to valuing rational nature unconditionally. And
so the deliberative-Kantian view cannot account for the driver’s negative moral evaluation of his
action as revealed by his feeling agent-regret.
As I mentioned earlier, there are other versions of the deliberative view of moral
obligation apart from the Kantian one described above. Some philosophers, such as Aristotelians,
think that living well is what is morally valuable.17 On a deliberative Aristotelian view of moral
obligation, one is only morally obligated to adopt the end and sub-ends related to living well
(eudaimonia). Living well is the chief human good18 and valuing living well is a matter of
adopting the end of living well and so also the sub-ends of living justly, generously,
courageously, and so on. There is a deliberative presumption against killing, since it is contrary
to generosity and justice unless shown otherwise.19 However, notice that an agent can deliberate
well with respect to the end and sub-ends related to living well while nevertheless blamelessly
arriving at a false belief. If actions are morally evaluated solely on the basis of an agent’s
16
The child is not so young as to lack a rational nature.
Some Aristotelian’s eschew the talk of morality all together, but others aim to give a virtue theoretic account of
moral value.
18
Nicomachean Ethics, Book I.
19
See for example, Philippa Foot’s discussion of the relation between killing, justice, and generosity in “Euthanasia”
in Virtues and Vices (University of California Press, 1978).
17
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deliberation, then the driver’s action of killing the child is not morally deficient, since the action
results from deliberations that have the features that amount to valuing living well as the chief
human good.
Regardless of which substantive moral theory one appeals to,20 so long as moral
obligations are deliberative, and one embraces the Evaluative Thesis, one will not be able to
account for the moral aspect of the driver’s agent-regret. Insofar as one is committed to the
deliberative view of moral obligation and the evaluative thesis, one will be tempted to think that
the driver’s feeling of agent-regret is irrational if it is in fact a moral feeling.21 Notice that when
Williams first introduces agent-regret, he states that the driver will feel agent-regret (p.28) but
that doesn’t speak to whether the driver is rational in feeling agent-regret. Williams does go on to
claim that “it would be a kind of insanity never to experience sentiments of this kind towards
anyone, and it would be an insane concept of rationality which insisted that a rational person
never would” (p.29). But some might find this mere assertion unsatisfying. Moreover, Williams
claims that others will rightly (p.28) attempt to get the driver to stop feeling agent-regret. If it is
right for them to move him away from such feelings, how can it also be right for the driver to
have the feeling in the first place?
The goal of this paper is to show that the driver is rational in feeling agent-regret, where
this feeling is understood to be a moral feeling. As I see it, a feeling is rational only if the feeling
has the appropriate object, that is, if the agent conceives of the object in the right way and the
20
The deliberative view of moral obligation is by no means restricted to just two moral theories (Kantianism and
Aristotelianism.
21
There is a difference between a feeling’s being typical, understandable, and rational. It might be typical for
enraged drivers in Los Angeles to shoot when cut off in traffic, but it is neither understandable nor rational. It is
understandable that a parent would become excessively angry when his child is only slightly harmed, but it is not
rational. A feeling is rational if the agent feels what he should, when he should, at the object he should, in the degree
that he should, and so on.
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object really does have those features.22 So, for example, fear is rational if the agent conceives of
what he fears as dangerous and if the object really is dangerous.23 What I plan to show is that the
driver’s feelings of agent-regret are rational by showing that he is right to think of his action as
morally lacking.24
Would an alternative view of moral obligation, coupled with the Evaluative Thesis, fare
better at showing agent-regret to be both rational and a moral feeling? I do not believe so.
Consider a performance account of moral obligation. According to the performance view of
moral obligation, agents are morally obligated to perform and refrain from certain sorts of
actions. For many actions, to be that type of action, the action must have a certain outcome. And
so this view of moral obligation is somewhat outcome oriented. For example, whether one’s
action is a helping or merely an attempted helping depends, at least partly, on whether the person
in need is helped. And whether one’s action is a killing depends partly on whether the person
dies as a result of what one does. If one is morally obligated to help and not to kill, then actions
that fail to help or that are killings will be evaluated as morally lacking. While such a view of
moral obligation, in combination with the Evaluative Thesis, seems like a promising avenue for
explaining the rational and moral aspect of the driver’s feeling of agent-regret, ultimately I do
22
Moreover a feeling is rational only if it has the appropriate intensity, duration, and so on. For purposes of this
paper, I will focus only on the object or content of the feeling.
23
See for example Aristotle’s discussion of fear in Book III, chapters six through nine, and his discussion of anger
in Book IV, chapter five. See also Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson paper “The Moralistic Fallacy: On the
‘appropriateness’ of Emotions,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2000).
24
I do not plan on arguing that the driver’s feelings are required (rationally or morally). It seems to me that a feeling
can be rational without being required. Consider the example of fear again. Perhaps there is a certain risk of being
bitten by a dog. In such a scenario, feeling fear is rational but not required. If a feeling is required, then not having
the feeling is not rational. Some would think ill of the driver if he didn’t feel bad for killing the child and so
conclude that feeling agent-regret is required. But I think if the driver could convince us that he really did value the
child and disvalue his action in the way that I go on to describe, then we would not think ill of him for not feeling
agent-regret. This shows, I believe, that feeling of agent-regret in such situations is not required but merely rational.
10
not think the view can offer us the right account of why the driver’s feelings are rational and
moral.
To illustrate this performance view of moral obligation, consider a performance oriented
Kantian view of moral obligation. This view, like the deliberative-Kantian view, holds that mark
of a moral value is its connection to rational nature. However, on this view one is morally
obligated to perform actions that sustain and promote rational nature (at least in certain
situations) and to refrain from performing those actions that negatively impact rational nature
(unless one is in one of the special situations mentioned—the trolley case, self-defense, and
euthanasia). To promote rational nature the agent’s action must result in the bettering of his own
or another’s rational skills or in providing the conditions for the widened use of his own or
another’s rational nature. To avoid negatively impacting rational nature, the agent’s cannot kill
another or himself, and so the agent has an obligation not to kill.25
There are, of course, other versions of the performance view of moral obligation.
Consider an Aristotelian version. As stated earlier, what is of value is living well. The
Aristotelian performance view holds that what one is obligated to do is act justly, courageously,
generously and so on.26 Killing (unless one is in one of the special situations mentioned above) is
unjust and so one is obligated not to kill.
The driver’s action is a killing and he is not in one of the special situations that permit
such an action. If actions must be evaluated in terms of the agent’s obligation, then given this
25
Is the following view of obligation performance or deliberatively oriented? T. M. Scanlon suggests in What We
Owe To Each Other (Harvard University Press, 1998) that agents are morally obligated to act only ways that they
could justify to one another. An act is justified if and only if no rational agent could reasonably object to it. It seems
to me that this view could be interpreted in one of two ways. Suppose, for instance, that an action can be
successfully justified if and only if one can show that the deliberations leading to the action manifest respect for
rational nature as unconditionally valuable. Then his view of obligation is deliberative. But suppose, on the other
hand, that an act is justified if and only if the act does not undermine rational nature (unless one is in one of the
previously noted special situations). Then his view of obligation is performance oriented.
26
Or perhaps one is obligated not to act unjustly, ungenerously, and so on.
11
performance view of obligation, there are two ways to morally evaluate the driver’s action: either
(a) his action violates his obligation not to kill,27 and so is morally wrong, or (b) his action
merely fails to satisfy his obligation not to kill. Either way one evaluates the driver’s action, the
performance view of obligation can explain why the driver’s feeling of agent-regret is moral.
However, as I’ll show, it does not offer the right explanation.
Suppose (a) the driver’s action is a violation of his obligation not to kill. That is, suppose
his action is wrong. What the driver feels regret about is doing the wrong thing, that is violating
his moral obligation. The object of his agent-regret is a negative moral evaluation of his action,
that his action is morally wrong, and on this view he rightly judges his action as morally wrong.
However, intuitively, the driver is not to blame whether by himself or others. Moreover, if selfblame, that is guilt, were appropriate, then the driver’s case would not be useful for highlighting
the feeling of agent-regret, which is supposed to be different from the feeling of guilt. So feelings
of guilt are different from feelings of agent-regret. But what exactly, on this view, is the
difference between feeling guilty and feeling agent-regret? The distinctive mark of feeling guilty
is evaluating one’s action as morally wrong. If agent-regret also involves evaluating one’s action
as wrong, then how are these two feelings different?
Perhaps one could distinguish feelings of guilt and agent-regret in this way: when an
agent feels guilty he judges his action to be a voluntary wrongdoing, whereas when an agent
feels agent-regret he judges his action to be an involuntary wrongdoing. I wonder whether this
really speaks to the phenomenology of the feelings. Moreover, I do not see that guilt is restricted
to voluntary wrongdoing. It seems clear to me that a person should feel guilty for negligently
killing another and yet I do not see that the action is any more voluntary than the lorry driver’s
I will simply talk of the agent’s obligation not to kill, rather than the obligation not to negatively impact rational
nature from which this more specific obligation not to kill is derived.
27
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action. The negligent killer, like the non-negligent lorry driver, does not realize that he will kill
the child, but the negligent killer, unlike the lorry driver, is to blame for his lack of knowledge,
and this is why we blame him for killing. So it is not clear that this version of the performance
view of obligation (where the driver’s action is considered a violation of his obligation) can
successfully draw a distinction between feelings of guilt and agent-regret.
Suppose (b) the driver’s action is a mere failure, rather than violation of his obligation not
to kill. Elsewhere I have argued that some actions neither satisfy nor violate one’s obligation but
are instead mere failures to satisfy one’s obligation.28 Let me illustrate what I have in mind. A
parent is holding his child as he walks into a restaurant. He notices that the floor is wet and takes
care to step where it is dry, so as to avoid slipping and dropping his child. However, he does not
notice a low hanging lamp, and so bangs the child’s head into the lamp as he moves forward. In
this case the parent has the proper moral orientation towards the child and is trying to do right by
the child but simply forgets to look around and not just down. And yet, I think, it is reasonable to
require the parent to look around and so it is reasonable to require the parent to know that there is
a low hanging lamp and so to avoid hitting his child’s head into the lamp. The parent is obligated
not to harm the child and he does not succeed in doing so. But he does not violate this obligation.
His action is quite different from someone who negligently harm the child (and so violates this
obligation), since, acting negligently, as I understand it, is a matter of both not doing what one
should and being blameworthy for so doing.29 Negligence, and wrongdoing in general, requires
agents have an inappropriate orientation towards those affected by their action, and this is the
source of blame. The parent, unlike a negligent agent, has the appropriate orientation towards his
child; he takes seriously the needs of the child and aims to meet those needs. A negligent agent,
28
29
See my manuscript “All Too Human.”
On my view one is not necessarily blameworthy for not doing what one should.
13
however, does not take seriously the needs of others and so disregards them or does not bother to
consider them in his deliberations.30
If the lorry driver’s killing of the child were a mere failure, then the driver’s agent-regret
would be distinguishable from feelings of guilt. To see why, first consider the non-negligent
parent who harms his child. The parent has something to feel bad about, namely that he did not
meet the obligation he had towards his child. He evaluates his action as a moral failure, since he
failed to satisfy his moral obligation not to harm the child. He does not evaluate his action as
wrong and so his feelings are quite different from those of guilt, though both spring from valuing
rational nature unconditionally. Similarly what the lorry driver has to feel bad about is not
meeting his obligation to the child (and not that he acted wrongly). In feeling agent-regret the
driver evaluates his action as a mere moral failure and not as moral wrongdoing.
However, there is a crucial difference between the parent’s situation and the driver’s
situation. The driver’s ignorance about the fact that the child will run in front of his car is quite
different from the parent’s ignorance about the fact that there is a low hanging lamp in his path.
It is reasonable to require the parent to know what he does not know whereas it is not reasonable
require the driver to know what he does not know. This makes a difference as to what the agents'
obligations are in the two cases. The parent did have an obligation not to harm his child in the
way that he did. However, I do not think that the driver had an obligation not to kill the child in
30
An inappropriate orientation towards another can have a variety of manifestations as well as causes. The first, and
perhaps most obvious, manifestation occurs when an agent acts out of ill will. Another clear manifestation occurs
when an agent is aware that he could help, for instance, but grossly misunderestimates the importance of helping
relative to his other projects. An inappropriate orientation can undercut an agent’s imaginative abilities necessary to
determine how to help, and it can lead an agent to be unaware that someone is in need of help.
14
the way that he did.31 The driver, unlike the parent, could not avoid killing the child through no
fault of his own.
In rejecting the claim that the driver had an obligation not to kill the child in the way that
he did I am relying on the slogan “ought implies can.” The slogan, as I interpret it is not just a
claim about physical possibility, but also a claim about rational accessibility. Moreover, it is only
what an agent cannot physical or rationally do through no fault of his own that rebuts a claim of
obligation. Let me explain. Suppose a person is taking a hike where he always hikes and where
there is no history of anyone ever having been injured in this area. Nevertheless, there is, for the
first time, an unconscious injured person off the trail. The hiker has the physical capacity to help
this injured person (he can get to the injured person and he can properly tie a tourniquet, which
would stop the bleeding and allow time for a rescue to team to arrive). But the fact that someone
is injured off trail is not rationally accessible to the hiker through no fault of his own, and so he
cannot rationally come to the conclusion to help the person through no fault of his own.32 If he
were to go off trail looking for potential people to help, he would discover the injured person.
But any course of reasoning that leads a mere day hiker (as opposed to a ranger) to the
conclusion “I’ll wander off trail looking for injured persons in case there is one” will not be
rational. He would be unreasonably endangering himself. Since there is no appropriate line of
reasoning that would lead him to believe that there is someone injured off trail, then there is no
appropriate (non-defective) line of reasoning that would lead him to the conclusion to help the
31
Does he have an obligation not to kill the child? Well, sure, in the sense that if he were to stop the car and get out
and shoot the child, he would violate his obligation. But his driving over the child (and so killing the child) in the
manner that he did was not what he was obligated not to do.
32
If I carelessly make two incompatible promises, I cannot do what I ought. Or if I am unable to avoid killing
someone while driving drunk, I cannot do what I ought. However, this impossibility does not rebut the claim that I
am obligated to keep both my promises and not to kill pedestrians. In this case it is through a fault of my own that I
cannot do what I ought.
Can you end up vicious, and so without resources to act virtuously, through no fault of your own? And are
such vicious people under an obligation not to do the vicious acts that they do? If so, then this is a serious challenge
to the slogan “ought implies can” as I interpret it.
15
person off trail. And so helping the person is not something he rationally can do through no fault
of his own. For this reason, I believe that helping this person is not something the hiker is
obligated to do. Likewise, in the case of the lorry driver the fact that a child will run out in front
of his car is not rationally accessible to him through no fault of his own33 and so he cannot
rationally come to the conclusion not to kill the child in the manner that he does. And so he does
not have an obligation not to kill the child in the manner that he does. Thus the driver’s action is
neither properly evaluated as a wrongdoing nor a mere failure to satisfy his obligation.
If we accept that the driver has no obligation not to kill in the way that he did, then
appealing to the driver’s performance obligations will not reveal why the lorry driver evaluates
his actions as morally lacking. His action is not morally lacking with respect to the performance
obligations that he has. But without an explanation of why he evaluates his action as morally
lacking, we cannot account for the fact that his feeling of agent-regret is both moral and rational.
One could pursue alternative views of moral obligation. However, I believe that what is
standing in our way of making sense of the driver’s feelings of agent-regret is the Evaluative
Thesis, namely that an action can only be morally evaluated by reference to the agent’s moral
obligations.34 Accounting for my hunch that the driver’s feelings of agent-regret are moral and
rational requires that we not assume that all moral evaluations of an action are determined by
reference to the agent’s moral obligations. Whatever respect in which the driver’s action is a
moral failure, it is not a moral failure due to failing to live up to a moral obligation. So the
question is this: is there a way to think about moral value and the moral evaluation of action
33
The driver is not at fault for his false belief. He does not fail to meet some epistemic standard of justification for
his false belief.
34
There are other ways of morally categorizing actions, such as morally permissible and morally supererogatory.
However, I don’t see that these other categories will be of much help in showing the driver’s feelings of agent-regret
to be rational and moral.
16
without bringing in moral obligations? In the next section I suggest a positive answer to this
question, moreover an answer that is compatible with either of the two views of moral obligation
sketched above.
Section Three: Explaining Why Agent-Regret Is Rational and Moral
For a moment, let’s consider this sort of Kantian view35: rational nature is
unconditionally valuable and so when it goes out of existence before its natural time, something
of moral value is destroyed and that is a morally bad thing to have happen.36 It is a morally bad
thing when tsunamis, wars, and disease destroy rational persons. When we feel mere regret, as
opposed to agent-regret, about the deaths of person in such situations, the feeling is moral. It is a
response to the untimely destruction of rational nature. More specifically, it is the expression of
valuing rational nature unconditionally and seeing its destruction as a morally bad thing—as
something to be regretted. So, the feeling of mere regret is moral if the content of the thought
constituting or otherwise related to the feeling is moral.
If agent-regret is similar to mere regret, then one could add to the thoughts above in order
to explain agent-regret is a moral feeling (when it is). Remember, agent-regret is different from
mere regret. The driver’s feelings of agent-regret do not simply involve the thought that it was a
morally bad thing for the child to have died. After all, any bystander could have that thought.
Such a thought is constitutive of mere regret. Nor is the driver’s thought simply that his action
was morally bad because it led to a morally bad thing, namely the untimely destruction of
35
Nothing hangs in this paper on formulating things using Kantian language. One could just as well make the
following points by appealing to Aristotelian terms. However, it may be that not just any moral theory is compatible
with the account I offer of agent-regret.
36
The thought is not just that a bad thing happened, which would be true if a fire consumes a Picasso. The thought is
that a morally bad thing happened because something of moral value, as opposed to aesthetic value, is destroyed.
17
rational nature. Even that thought is one that anyone could have. Although notice, already we
have a way of morally evaluating an action without thinking of the action as a violation or failure
of a moral obligation.
So what thought is distinctive to agent-regret? Is driver’s thought this: “I am the one did
that morally bad thing” coupled with the wish that he had not been the one? I think we are
getting in the right ball park at this point, although the focus of this thought seems misdirected;
the agent’s thought is focused on himself rather than the child—as if what he regretted was that
he was involved in the death of the child rather than the death of the child. More importantly, we
have not explanation for why the driver should not want to be a cause of destruction of rational
nature—why is the act of killing such a morally bad thing, a distinctive kind of problem over and
above the destruction of rational nature? I think something can be said to answer this.
To see our way through to a solution, let’s first think about how agents evaluate their
actions when morality is not at issue. Suppose I value good tennis playing. There are many ways
in which my valuing good tennis playing might manifest itself: I might adopt the end of watching
good tennis playing, or adopt the deliberative constraint that my activities not interfere with good
tennis playing, or I might adopt the end of playing tennis well. There is no requirement that my
valuing tennis manifest itself in one of these ways rather than another. Suppose I adopt the end of
playing tennis well, and so adopt the relevant sub-ends, like hitting the ball in the court and being
attentive to what the effects of my actions will with respect to this end and its sub-ends. Suppose
on a windy day I fail to be attentive to how the wind will affect my stroke and so the ball goes
out. Here I judge my action as unsuccessful due to the unsuccessful deliberations that led to my
hitting the ball out. Or suppose that on a windy day I fail to be attentive to how the wind will
affect my stroke and yet luckily the wind keeps a shot of mine in the court that would have
18
otherwise gone out. I would also judge this tennis shot as lacking due to the unsuccessful
deliberations that led to my hitting the ball. I would not think of the shot as an instance of good
tennis playing, but instead merely a lucky shot.
Now suppose that on a perfectly still day I hit the next shot out in spite of my best
intentions, effort, and attention. My hitting the ball out is not due to the wind but simply a failure
in execution, as happens to even the best tennis players in the world. How do I judge my action?
I cannot find fault with my action insofar as it is the embodiment of my deliberations. But I can
find fault with my action insofar as it does not embody what I value, namely playing tennis well,
which in this case comes to hitting the ball in the court (among other things). This is my end and
I fail to realize my end and so from my point of view the action is not a success.
So in cases where morality is not at issue, there are at least these two necessary
conditions for successful action: first my action must result from deliberations that reflects my
values and second my action must realize the ends (and sub-ends) I have reached in deliberation
(and so the ends that reflect what I value). (Often) I have more control over my deliberations
than I do over the realization of my ends, and so I have more control over whether my action
embodies my values from a deliberative perspective than I do over whether my action embodies
the ends that I value. Nevertheless, both are equally relevant to the evaluation of my action as a
successful action. So there are two different ways of embodying my values in action and both are
relevant to the whether my action is a success.37
Unlike playing tennis well, which is an optional value, valuing rational nature (or living
well) is not optional but morally required. Moreover, I agree with the deliberative view of moral
37
Why should there be these two conditions on successful action? Perhaps the answer is that in the case of human
action its proper aim is the embodiment of the agent’s values. Since there are two ways that an action can embody
the agent’s values, both are relevant to determining whether the action lives up to what an action is meant to be,
namely the embodiment of the agent’s values.
19
obligation at least to this extent: we are morally obligated to reflect this moral value in a specific
deliberative way, namely by adopting and pursuing the end and sub-ends of respecting rational
nature.38 And so there are at least three conditions on the success of an action: the action must
embody the agent’s values in both ways described above and the agent must have the right
values.
As I argued earlier, the lorry driver meets whatever deliberative and moral performance
obligations he has. But meeting these obligations is not the sole basis for morally evaluating his
action. As in the tennis example, there is the question of whether the driver’s action realizes the
driver’s ends (driving without killing, where killing is to be avoided because it negatively
impacts rational nature or because it is unjust) and so whether the action embodies his moral
values. In this case the agent’s end (to drive without killing) manifests his moral values. But his
action, killing the child, does not realize his ends. The action does not embody his moral values.
The action is not a success. It is a failure as an action since it does not embody the agent’s values
and it is a moral failure insofar as the values that were not embodied are moral values.
As agents we are in a rather curious position. One standard against which we evaluate our
action as a success is that the action embody our values. And yet what action we perform is not
always completely up to us, and so whether we embody our values in our action is not always
complete up to us. And so in acting we set up ourselves up to be evaluated relative to a standard
that we cannot (always) guarantee that we meet. Whether we save or kill depends (in part, but
not only) on whether death is prevented or results from our action and that is something over
which we do not always have decisive control. The reason it matters to us whether we have
killed, as opposed to whether a killing has taken place (even a killing by me), is that killing is
38
Where I disagree with the deliberative view is in thinking that moral obligations are only deliberative.
20
precisely the kind of action (in circumstances like the driver’s) that cannot be the embodiment of
our moral values.
The driver’s connection to the death of the child is different from a bystander’s, or even
that of someone who parked the car behind which the child hid.39 A bystander can regret that the
child is dead, but only the driver, and not the person who parked the car, killed the child. The
way the driver is causally connected to the death of the child makes his action a killing. This is
not true of anyone else in the scenario, even if they are causally connected, as the person who
parked the car is, to the death of the child. Merely being causally connected to death, doing that
without which the death would not have resulted, is not sufficient to make one a killer. This is a
point about the metaphysics of actions—it has nothing to do with morality. If a doctor initiates
and then removes life support that is not self-sustaining, he does not kill the patient, but lets the
patient die, even though but for the doctor’s withdrawal of aid the patient would not have died.40
The reason we are interested in some causal chains (the driver’s hitting the child which leads to
death) and not others (the parking of the car, which contributes to the child’s death) is that some
causal chains indicate that what one did was a killing, while others doe not. In the driver’s case
only the driver kills and so only the driver is in a position to say that his action does not embody
his moral values.
An agent is not morally obligated to embody his moral values, that is, to realize his moral
ends. But whether an agent succeeds in realizing his moral ends is a criterion for the success of
his action. This criterion is not set by morality but rather is one of the criteria for being a
successful action. And so whenever one acts, the standards for successful action depend partly on
whether one realizes one’s ends (what one values). If those ends are moral, then the moral
39
I want to thank Paul Hurley for raising this issue.
For a helpful discussion of which cases of withdrawing aid are killings and which are letting die see Jeff
McMahan’s article “Killing, Letting Die, and Withdrawing Aid,” Ethics (1993).
40
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success of the action depends on whether one realizes those moral ends. And so while the lorry
driver’s action is a moral failure, it is not a failure to meet his moral obligations. It is rather a
failure to live up to the standards of successful action, namely embodying one’s values, and in
this case the values that go unrealized or that are undermined are his moral values.41
I believe we can now account for my hunch that the driver’s feelings of agent-regret are
moral and rational. When an agent kills, the action does not embody his moral values, that is, the
action does not realize his moral end of driving across town without undermining rational nature.
And so he evaluates his action as morally lacking. And his action is morally lacking. Insofar as
agent-regret involves the thought that one’s action is morally lacking, agent-regret is a moral
feeling (since it is constituted or otherwise associated with a thought that has moral content).
And insofar as the action really is morally lacking, which it is in the driver’s case, agent-regret is
rational.
Conclusion
In conclusion I will point out two benefits of the account of agent-regret that I have
offered. First, the account of agent-regret can explain Williams’ claim that the driver will feel
differently from a bystander. The driver’s action does not speak to the way he values the child. A
bystander has not acted, and so not acted in a way that does not speak to the way the bystander
values the child. The driver stands in a special relation to the child that others do not—he has
acted towards this child in way that does not embody how he values the child. And so the
driver’s feeling of agent-regret is unlike the mere regret that a bystander feels.
41
The fact that some agents fail, though no fault of their own, to embody their moral values, does not fly in the face
of my interpretation of the slogan “ought implies can” since there is no moral obligation to embody one’s moral
values.
22
Are others right to talk the driver out of this feeling? Others are certainly right to talk him
out of feeling guilty, since he did no wrong. And it seems to me that this is what people do: they
focus on the fact that he was not at fault, that he did everything he could have and there was no
way of avoiding the child, and so on. In pointing to these facts, others are arguing that the driver
neither violated nor failed to meet any obligation that he had.
Would others be right in talking him out of feeling agent-regret? I have just argued that
the driver’s feeling of agent-regret is rational, and so others could not talk him out of his feelings
by claming that the feelings were irrational. Perhaps others would cite charity as their reason for
talking the driver out of his feeling. But sometimes the desire to do good for another can be
misplaced, and so contrary to charity rather than a manifestation of it. Think of a parent who is
overprotective or smothering. The parent does not manifest the virtue of charity (but rather a
vice), though he means to love or do good by his child. But just because the driver’s feelings are
rational, it need not follow that talking him out of his feelings displays misplaced kindness.
Consider this: at the end of a meal with a friend, I offer to pay for the whole meal out of
generosity and my friend refuses and offers to pay for the whole meal out of generosity. How can
it be right for us both to insist on actions that are incompatible with one another? And yet this
seems to happen on a regular basis. Perhaps a similar situation arises with respect to the driver
and bystanders. The driver’s valuing the child leads him to feel agent-regret, and the bystanders
valuing the driver leads them to want to talk him out of feeling bad about killing the child.
Williams' remarks go one step further, however, by suggesting that driver is not mistaken
in allowing himself to be moved away from his feelings of agent-regret. This might simply
indicate that agent-regret, like feelings of grief and anger, have their appropriate duration. It is
consistent with valuing rational nature unconditionally that one not always focus on how one’s
23
actions fail to embody this value. And so it can be rational to feel agent-regret and it can also
rational for others to help him eventually move past such feelings.
Another benefit of the account of agent-regret that I have offered is that one can now
make sense of why agents feel bad in a variety of situations in which violation or failure to meet
an obligation is not at issue. Consider these two examples:
As a woman comes home, flips the light switch in the usual way. But on this night the
flipping of the switch creates an electrical charge that flows next door and
electrocutes her neighbor. There is no reason the agent should have suspected that her
switch was faulty.42
A doctor has good reason to think a patient requires insulin. The patient claims to
have no allergies to insulin and to have taken it in the past. However, this time the
patient has an allergic reaction and dies.
In these cases the agents, like the lorry driver, undertake an action with the intention of achieving
an end (lighting up the room without killing, or healing a patient) and yet the actions they
perform fail to realize these moral ends and hence fail to embody their moral values. They
rightly judge their actions to be moral failures and so feeling agent-regret would be rational, even
though they have meet all of morality’s obligations.43
42
43
This example is Judith Jarvis Thomson’s book The Realm of Rights, p.229.
Thanks to Dan Guevara, Matt Hanser, Barbara Herman, Paul Hurley…
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