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COUNTERFACTUALS AND TWO KINDS OF OUGHT 589
In my interpretation, Hare’s challenge is the following. From our independent viewpoint,
after John has been born, we endorse the following valuations:
(i)
(ii)
Mary ought not to have conceived John.
Upon giving birth to John, it is appropriate for Mary to adopt John-centred values.
Guided by these values, Mary should accept that she ought to have conceived John.
Our verdicts (i) and (ii) are time-invariant. We accept (i) at any time. And we accept (ii) at any
time (anticipating John), although Mary should only adopt John-centred values after John
has been born. So her judgement should shift: before John has been born, she should judge
that she ought not to conceive a child earlier, after John has been born, she should judge that
she ought to have conceived him.
Hare endorses an even stronger claim:
(iii)
Even after his birth, Mary herself should accept that she ought not to have
conceived John.
I am not so sure about this claim. Thus, I will concentrate on (i) and (ii). But in case (iii)
seems convincing, I offer the following explanation: there are two different readings for ‘I
ought to have conceived John’ as judged from Mary’s viewpoint. There is a default reading:
her evaluative outlook guiding the present judgement is the present one. At t 2, after she has
given birth to John, she should judge that she ought to have conceived John. But there is a
non-default reading of ‘Mary ought to have conceived John’: in that reading, the point in time
at which she accepts ‘I (Mary) ought not to have conceived John’ and the point for which she
evaluates this judgement come apart: she so to speak takes the vantage point of her former
self. Judging from a point of evaluation and everyone’s (including her own) values at t 1,
before she has given birth to John, she ought not to have conceived John. For simplicity, I
mostly disregard this refinement of the case.
2. Hare’s Distinction of Two Kinds of Ought
I now turn to Hare’s solution to the new problem. Hare distinguishes a subjective and an
objective sense of ought:
what you ought to do in the objective sense has to do with the merits and de-merits of
the options available to you, while what you ought to do in the subjective sense has to
do with the merits and de-merits of the options available to you, from your epistemic
position …
The Ought of Omniscient Desire: What you ought OD to do is what an omniscient,
rational creature with appropriate interests would want you to do.
The Ought of Most Reason: What you ought MR to do is what there is most reason to do.
(Hare 2011: 190, first emphasis mine)
Ought OD is determined by all facts, past and future ones. Ought MR is determined by facts
which are available to the agent when she makes a decision. The difference between both
kinds of ought is presented as an epistemic one. Ought MR is confined to reasons within your
purview as a finite cognizer, ought OD comprises reasons within the purview of an omniscient
ideal cognizer. Hare goes on to flesh out the distinction in terms of counterfactuals. I think
that the counterfactual part of his reasoning is flawed. I will come to it in a moment
Nevertheless, at first glance the idea that the epistemic distinction bears on the Non-Identity
Problem is appealing: to Hare, Mary ought OD to have conceived John, yet she ought MR not to
have conceived John. She could not know that she would conceive John. So she could not feel