Ethica - Volume 1

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

1

Volume 1

2021

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

2

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

CONTENTS

Assuring Through the Written Word: a new defence of the assurance view of

testimony.

5

Ought fertile same-sex couples seeking to reproduce undergo genetic testing in

order to determine who should contribute genetic material to their future child(ren)?

17

Argument for the Impossibility of Free Immoral Action in Kant 29

When Harry Sexually Harassed Sally - An extension of the behavioural view for

consent

36

Can Science Explain Consciousness? 47

3

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

4

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Assuring Through the Written Word: a new defence of the assurance view

of testimony.

Abstract:

Benjamin Clark

The Assurance View of testimony holds that testimonially warranted beliefs can be acquired by an audience only if an

interpersonal, assurance-based relationship has been established between a testifier and that audience. However, both

advocates and adversaries of the Assurance View have considered whether the assurance relation holds primarily from

within the paradigm of spoken testimony, in which a speaker audibly tells a hearer something and the hearer believes the

speaker. This essay explores the additional problems that arise for the Assurance View when the assurance relation is

considered from within the paradigm of written testimony, such as that offered in letters, text messages, and informative

non-fiction books. The main aim of the essay is to provide a novel defence of the Assurance View by suggesting certain

amendments that could be made which would allow it to account for the problematic cases that arise from considerations

pertaining to assurance through the written word. In offering such a defence, the essay demonstrates how the Assurance

View can still be considered one of the main accounts in the epistemology of testimony.

1. Introduction

According to the Assurance View of testimony,

testimonially warranted beliefs are acquired on

the basis of the establishment of an

interpersonal, assurance-based relationship

between a testifier and her audience. The

Assurance View is typically presented and

defended from within the paradigm of spoken

testimony between a speaker and a hearer, paying

little attention, if any, to other important ways of

acquiring testimonial beliefs, such as through

written testimony. Accordingly, this essay will

assess the adequacy of the Assurance View in

terms of how well it can account for cases of

written testimony that we ordinarily think

provide us with testimonially warranted beliefs,

such as letters, text messages, and informative

non-fiction books. Understanding testimony

from within this alternative paradigm will prove

to present the Assurance View with more

challenges—in the for m of potential

counterexamples—than has previously been

acknowledged in the literature. However, this

essay aims to show that, given certain

appropriate amendments, the Assurance View

can provide adequate answers to such challenges.

Therefore, the primary aim of this essay is to

provide a novel defence of the Assurance View.

The essay will proceed as follows. In §2, I will

outline and elucidate the main features of

Richard Moran’s influential account of the

Assurance View of testimony. Then, in §§3-5, I

will defend the Assurance View against a series

of potential counterexamples to its central claim:

that the establishment of an assurance relation is

a necessary condition for an audience to acquire

a testimonially warranted belief. More

specifically, in §3, I will defend the Assurance

View against “the problem of over-readers”,

which consists of cases which suggest that anyone

who witnesses the establishment of an assurance

relation is in a position to acquire a testimonially

warranted belief, including those people who

were not offered an assurance by the testifier.

Then, in §4, I will consider and reject “the

problem of the secret diary”, which suggests

that there are cases in which no assurance

relation is established, yet the reader is still

considered to have acquired a testimonially

warranted belief from the author’s testimony.

Finally, in §5, I will outline and respond to “the

problem of no author”, which suggests that

there are cases in which an audience can acquire

a testimonially warranted belief from a potential

assurance relation which has not been, and

cannot be, actualised, for the testifier has died by

5

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

the time the relation could have been established.

I finish with a brief conclusion in §6.

2 . Moran’s Assurance View:

One of the “central goals” of the Assurance

View—or, as it is sometimes called, “the

Interpersonal View” 1—is to offer an account of

what makes the epistemic warrant provided by

testimony distinctive from the epistemic warrant

provided by other epistemic sources, such as

perception, memory and inference. 2 Advocates

of the Assurance View aim to achieve this goal

by arguing that a speaker’s testimony ‘that p’

provides her audience with a special kind of

reason for believing ‘that p’, called an

“interpersonal” or “testimonial” reason. 3 Such

reasons, the Assurance theorist holds, are

generated by the interpersonal relationships

established between a speaker and her audience

whenever the speaker successfully performs the

illocutionary act of assuring her audience that p. 4

By offering such an account, the Assurance View

opposes the Inferentialist—or, Evidential—views

of the epistemology of testimony, which hold

that the fact that a speaker has offered testimony

to an audience can at most provide nondistinctive,

evidential reasons from which the

audience can infer the truth of what the speaker

says. 5 Accordingly, this section will outline

Richard Moran’s influential critique of the

Evidential View before elucidating the details of

his specific account of the Assurance View.

In his paper “Getting Told and Being Believed”,

Moran states that he wants to examine “the basic

relationship between people when one person

tells a second something, and the second person

believes him”, for he claims that this is “the basic

way knowledge gets around”. 6 Through the

course of his examination, Moran wants to find

an adequate answer to the question of why a

speaker’s testimony provides an epistemic reason

for a hearer to believe what the speaker tells her.

Moran argues that the Evidential View of

testimony cannot provide an adequate answer to

this question, for it faces what Faulkner has since

called “the problem of intentionality”. 7 Regarding

this problem, Moran writes: “if we are

considering speech as evidence, we will

eventually have to face the question of how

recognition of its intentional character could

ever enhance rather than detract from its epistemic

value for an audience”. 8

Since speech acts are performed by rational

beings, they are acts which are performed for an

intended purpose; and since people are known to

persuade, mislead, exaggerate, or otherwise act in

their interests, the Evidential View will be

challenged to explain how testimony could be

more than “tainted” or “doctored” evidence in

light of its intentional character. 9 For example,

finding a handkerchief at the scene of the crime

may provide the detective with a good reason to

suppose that X did it. But if the detective later

found out that the handkerchief was deliberately

placed there by Y, then it would seem that Y had

some agenda for doing so, which would detract

from the epistemic value that the evidence would

1 Richard Leonard, “Testimony, evidence and interpersonal reasons”, Philosophical Studies 173, no. 9 (2016), 2333.

2 Philip Nickel, “Assurance view of testimony”, in The Routledge Handbook of Social Epistemology, ed. Miranda Fricker et al,

(New York: Routledge 2019), 96-7.

3 Richard Moran, “Replies to my critics”, Philosophical Explorations 23, no. 3 (2020), 304.

4 Philosophers who have explicitly defended the Assurance View include: Edward Hinchman (2005; 2014); Benjamin

McMyler (2011); Richard Moran (2006; 2018); Angus Ross (1986); and Linda Zagzebski (2012).

5 For more on the distinction between inferentialist and non-inferentialist accounts, see Chapter 3 of Miranda Fricker’s

book, Epistemic Injustice (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007).

6 Richard Moran, “Getting Told and Being Believed”, in the epistemology of testimony, ed. Jennifer Lackey and Ernest Sosa

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 273.

7 Paul Faulkner, Knowledge on Trust, (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011), 138. His emphasis.

8 Moran, “Getting Told and Being Believed”, 278. His emphasis.

9 Moran, “Getting Told and Being Believed”, 277-78.

6

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

have had for the detective if Y hadn’t planted the

evidence. Accordingly, Moran argues that, in

general, treating testimony as evidence seems to

be a less reliable way of learning what a speaker

believes than, say, brain-scans or private

observation of their behaviour.

Yet, in contrast to the Evidential View, Moran

thinks that a speaker’s act of telling an audience

something can add epistemic value for the

audience. To explain how, Moran appeals to

Grice’s distinction between “deliberately and

openly letting someone know” and “telling”. 10

Grice illustrates this distinction through two

cases. In the first, a photograph is presented to

the audience “of Mr. Y displaying undue

familiarity to Mrs. X”, whereas, in the second, a

drawing is shown to the audience of “a picture

of Mr. Y behaving in this manner”. 11

Concerning the former case, the person who

presented her audience with the photograph

would be letting the audience know that Mr. Y

was displaying undue familiarity to Mrs. X. But

Grice argues that the audience could form this

belief about Mr. Y’s behaviour regardless as to

whether the person showing the photograph

intended for the audience to form this belief.

The photograph would have the same epistemic

significance whether it was found accidentally or

whether it was shown with the intention of

letting us know. Therefore, the audience would

treat the photograph as evidence for the truth of

what it shows regardless of any intentions held

by the person who produces the photograph.

By contrast, concerning the latter case, Grice

argues that whether or not the audience has

reasons to form a belief will depend upon the

intentions of the drawer. That is, the audience

would not be able to discern whether Mr. Y was

displaying undue familiarity to Mrs. X simply by

being shown the drawing (and therefore the

drawing would have no epistemic significance for

them) unless the audience recognised that the

intention of the drawer was to induce that belief

from his drawing. Equally, the thought is that a

speaker’s intentions behind his act of telling adds

epistemic value because the intentions of the

speaker generate a reason for the audience to

believe what he says. So, Grice’s cases show that

in telling an audience something, as opposed to

merely letting them know, it is essential that the

audience recognises the intentions of the person

telling them in order to have a reason to believe

what they are told. This leads to Grice’s

definition of “telling”:

A uttered x with the intention of

inducing a belief by means of the

recognition of this intention. 12

However, Moran notes that this definition is

inadequate as it stands to explain why an

audience has a reason to believe the speaker, for

just because an agent A intends for another

agent B to do something, this fact alone does not

always give B a reason to comply. For example,

just because you recognise that I want you to

give me all of your money, this fact alone does

not provide you with a reason to actually do so.

Equally, just because a recipient of testimony

recognises that the testifier is intending to induce

a belief in her by means of the recognition of

the testifier’s intention, this does not give the

recipient a reason to believe what the speaker

wants her to believe.

To solve this problem, Moran adds to Grice’s

account that the speaker must assume

responsibility for the truth of the belief that he

is intending to induce:

The speaker intends not just that the

recognition of his intention play a

role in producing belief that P, but

that the particular role this

recognition should play is that of

showing the speaker to be assuming

10 Moran, “Getting Told and Being Believed”, 285.

11 Paul Grice, “Meaning”, The Philosophical Review 66, no. 3 (1957), 382.

12 Grice, “Meaning”, 384.

7

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

responsibility for the status of his

utterance as a reason to believe P. 13

Moran argues that it is this assumption of

responsibility which makes the speaker’s

assertion one that has the force of providing an

audience with an epistemic reason to believe

what the speaker asserts. This is because the

testifier is offering his assertion in a way that

makes him “accountable for the truth of what he

says, and in doing so offers a kind of guarantee

for its truth”. 14 That is, Moran argues that, if the

audience recognises that the speaker is intending

to assume responsibility for the truth of what he

asserts, then the audience is provided with a

non-evidential, distinctly testimonial reason for

believing the speaker. 15 The reason is taken to be

non-evidential in the sense that it is provided by

the establishment of an interpersonal, normative

relationship between two people, whereas

evidential reasons are typically considered to be

impersonal and individualistic. 16

Yet Moran suggests that the account of the

transfer of testimonial warrant considered thus

far is still inadequate as it stands, for a testifier

cannot either assume to be, or be assumed to be,

responsible for something if they fail to meet a

set of background conditions. That is, Moran

argues that “it must be assumed by both parties

that the speaker… possesses the relevant

knowledge, trustworthiness, and reliability” in

order for him to be considered responsible. 17 If

the audience assumes that the testifier is

unreliable based on, for example, his past

tendency to lie, then the audience would clearly

not be warranted in believing him, even if he

was offering accountability for the truth of what

he asserted. Therefore, the interpersonal

relationship in which a speaker provides a

testimonial reason for an audience’s belief can be

established only if such background conditions

on the speaker are mutually believed to be

satisfied by both the speaker and his audience.

We are now in a position to offer Moran’s

complete account of the necessary and sufficient

conditions required for the establishment of an

interpersonal relationship in which the audience

comes to acquire testimonially warranted beliefs

from a testifier: (i) the testifier must tell the

audience that p (in the above sense whereby the

testifier assumes responsibility for the truth of

his assertion), and (ii) both parties must assume

that the testifier meets certain background

conditions of reliability. 18 Concerning (i), Moran

takes “telling” to involve “assurance” insofar as

the testifier is acting as a kind of guarantor for

the truth of (the content of) what they assert.

Therefore, it is the assurance aspect of “telling”

that seems to do all of the epistemic work in the

interpersonal relationship. As such, the transfer

of testimonial warrant depends upon the relation

of assurance holding between testifier and

audience. So, what is the nature of that relation?

An assurance relation is similar to a promise in

the sense that an utterance that is intended by a

speaker to offer a promise to the addressee of

that utterance is merely a potential promise,

which can become an actual promise only if the

addressee recognises that the speaker intended to

offer her a promise through his utterance. That

is, offering an assertion as an assurance only

becomes an assurance once it is recognised as

such by the intended recipient of that assertion.

Therefore, in order to establish the interpersonal

relationship which is necessary for the transfer

of testimonial reasons, the assurance relation

must be a three-part relation of the form “A

13 Moran, “Getting Told and Being Believed”, 289-90.


15 See Jennifer Lackey, Learning From Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2008), 223.

16 Moran, “Replying to my critics”, 304.


18 See Frederick Schmitt, “The Assurance View of Testimony”, in Social Epistemology, ed. Adrian Haddock, Alan Millar, and

Duncan Pritchard (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 219.

8

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

assures B that p”, for the relation can be

established if, and only if, both (a) the speaker

offers an assurance, and (b) the intended

audience recognises that an assurance is being

offered.

In the next three sections of this essay, I will

consider a series of potential counterexamples

which could be presented against the Assurance

View when it is considered from within the

paradigm of written testimony. Accordingly, I

will assume that everything that has been

expressed in terms of “speaker” and “hearer”, or

“audience”, in Moran’s account can be specified

in terms of “writer” and “reader”. This

assumption seems reasonable because the

assurance relation only requires that a testifier

has offered an assertion with certain intentions,

and it seems uncontroversial that people can

assert through writing as well as speech.

3. The Problem of Overhearers/Over-

Readers

A standard problem presented against the

Assurance View is that it fails to account for

cases in which beliefs are formed on the basis of

testimony by people who are not the intended

audience of the testifier, but who simply

“overhear” the testifier telling their intended

audience something. In such cases, the assurance

relation does not hold between the testifier and

the overhearer, yet some philosophers hold that

it is intuitive that the overhearer has acquired a

testimonially warranted belief. 19 If such

intuitions are well-founded, then this would

undermine the Assurance View, for the

assurance relation would not be required in order

for an audience to acquire testimonially

warranted beliefs. This problem can also be

specified in terms of those who read someone’s

written testimony and, despite not being the

intended audience, form a belief based on the

writer’s telling someone else – call such people

“over-readers”. The details of this problem can

be illustrated through the following case:

Case One – OVER-READER: Emma

writes and sends a text message to Pete to

tell him that she is going to London this

weekend. When Pete opens the message,

John, who is sitting next to Pete, reads the

text message from Emma on Pete’s phone.

On the basis of Emma’s testimony, both

Pete and John form the belief that Emma

is going to London this weekend. 20

Concerning this case, the Assurance theorist

would argue that Pete has acquired the

testimonially warranted belief that Emma is going

to London this weekend, but that John has not

acquired a belief with this status. This is because

the assurance relation holds between Pete and

Emma, but not between John and Emma, for

Pete is the intended audience of Emma’s

testimony whereas John is simply an over-reader.

The only way that John could possess a reason

for the relevant belief, the Assurance theorist

would hold, is by treating Emma’s assertion as

evidence for the truth of what she asserts, and

by inferring from considerations about her

reliability. Moreover, since John recognises that

Emma is assuring Pete, it seems that this

assurance acts as good evidence for the truth of

her assertion, for Emma is acting as a kind of

guarantor for the truth of what she asserts to

Pete. Yet, the Assurance theorist would maintain,

John could not have a distinctly testimonial reason

for believing Emma, but merely an evidential

reason.

The fact that overhearers/over-readers are not

assured by a telling which is not addressed to

them is confirmed by the illocutionary norms

that accompany a successful assurance relation.

As Moran writes about the overhearer: “He has

not himself been told anything, much less

promised anything, and no right of complaint

has been conferred on him”. 21 That is, Moran

would argue that Pete has a right to complain if

19 Philosophers who endorse the problem of overhearers include Lackey (2008), Leonard (2016), and Owens (2006).

20 For a similar case, see Benjamin McMyler “The Epistemic Significance of Address”, Synthese 190, no. 6 (2013), 1064.

21 Moran, “Getting Told and Being Believed”, 295. His emphasis.

9

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Emma’s assertion turns out to be false, whereas

John would not have such a right even if he feels

disappointed about not acquiring a true belief

from what she says. Moran argues that the right

to complain comes from a testifier having told

her addressee something, and since an overreader

has not been addressed, they have not

been told anything. This is shown through the

different ways that John and Pete would respond

to challenges to their respective beliefs that

Emma is going to London this weekend. Pete

would reply to such challenges to his belief by

saying that “Emma told me”, whereas John

would have to offer a much more convoluted

response such as “I was sitting next to Pete, read

his message from Emma, noticed that she was

telling Pete, etc…”. 22

However, objectors to the Assurance View argue

that it fails to adequately account for cases like

Case One because they think that, whether the

author’s testimony was addressed to her or not,

there is no salient difference to the epistemic

status of the reader’s testimony-based belief. 23

For example, Elizabeth Fricker has argued that a

testifier’s telling is a “public good” available to

everyone (including overhearers/over-readers),

and that “[t]here is no special entitlement to

believe (nor requirement, epistemic or moral)

made available to the intended audience of the

telling, which is not available to anyone else”. 24

Fricker is cited by David Owens who also argues

that, in cases such as Case One, it is intuitive that

any reader can “believe the speaker or take their word

for it even though this word was not addressed to

them”. 25 Accordingly, Owens would argue that it

is intuitive that John can believe Emma for the

truth of her assertion even if John believes what

she says merely by treating her assertion (or

assurance) as evidence, which would suggests

that John can acquire testimonial warrant for his

belief that Emma is going to London this

weekend.

Owens’s objection amounts to the claim that the

class of testimonial warrant is greater than the

class of testimonial warrant provided by the

establishment of an assurance relation. That is,

Owens argues from the apparent intuition that

an over-reader can believe the writer, rather than

merely what they write, to the conclusion that

there must be testimonial warrant that is not

based on an assurance relation. However, I do

not find it intuitive that the over-reader believes

the testifier in cases such as Case One, rather

than merely what the testifier writes. In Case

One, I do not think it is intuitive to say that John

believed Emma for the truth of her assertion,

taking her word for it, for John was never presented

with Emma’s word. Instead, especially given the

responses that Pete and John would reasonably

offer to a challenge to provide reasons for their

respective beliefs, it seems more intuitive to say

that John believed that Emma was asserting

something true by inferring from the fact that

she attempted to assure Pete. Conversely, it

seems more plausible that Pete believes Emma,

taking her word for it, and that he does not need

to treat her assertion as evidence from which to

infer whether her assertion is true in order to

have a reason to believe what she tells him.

Since it is possible to be reasonable in finding it

intuitive that over-readers and overhearers can

only acquire evidential rather than testimonial

reasons for believing the testifier, the balance of

intuitions need not support Owens’s objection.

That is, it seems that different people could

reasonably develop different intuitions about

22 For a similar point, see McMyler, “The Epistemic Significance of Address”, 1065.

23 McMyler, “The Epistemic Significance of Address”, 1060.

24 Elizabeth Fricker “Second-Hand Knowledge”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73, no. 3 (2006), 598.

25 David Owens, Normativity and Control (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 235. His emphasis.

10

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

who acquires testimonially warranted beliefs in

cases like Case One. 26 Therefore, I agree with

Vermaire that overhearer objections “aren’t

decisive”, 27 for they depend upon what people

find intuitive about cases, which may reasonably

vary between people.

So far, the problem of over-readers has only

been considered in parallel to the existing

literature, which only considers the case of

overhearing under the paradigm of spoken

testimony. However, by thinking about the

overhearer problem in terms of written

testimony, another more fundamental challenge

arises for the Assurance View. To see this,

consider the fact that authors of informative

non-fiction books often do not know exactly

who is going to read their books, whereas in

spoken testimony it is often the case that the

speaker is addressing a determinate audience in

front of them. Authors could be writing to an

indefinitely large audience, and the audience

could include specific people who they did not

expect to read their book. Therefore, it could be

argued that, due to the vast ambiguity

surrounding the intended audience of an author,

everyone who reads their book would count as

an over-reader. But according to the Assurance

View, over-readers cannot acquire testimonially

warranted beliefs. So, it could be argued that no

testimonially warranted beliefs can be acquired

from informative non-fiction books.

This would be a problem for the Assurance View

because it seems that when someone turns to

informative books such as textbooks or

encyclopaedias, they would have an epistemic

right to complain if what the author was telling

them turned out to be false, for the book should

have been written with the intention of inducing

accurate beliefs in its readers by its nature as

informative. Assurance theorists argue that such

an epistemic right is generated from the

assumption of responsibility on the part of the

author, and it seems plausible that most authors

of non-fiction books would intend to assume

such responsibility. Therefore, if the assurance

relation cannot be established for any

informative books, then it seems that it can be

rejected that the Assurance View is an accurate

theory of the transfer of testimonial warrant.

However, I think that advocates of the

Assurance View would respond to this challenge

by arguing that the intended audience may not be

as determinate as in cases of spoken testimony,

but nevertheless the author can adequately pick

out their intended audience under a description,

or set of descriptions, that designates the

appropriate class of people. For example, a

textbook may be published for a certain level of

student, so the author’s intended audience would

be the students at this level (and perhaps their

teachers). Everyone who does not fall under this

description may be classed as over-readers. Or,

the author may have a larger intended audience

that is non-specific, in which case their

description may plausibly be: “everyone who

reads and understands my intentions to both tell

them and assume responsibility for the truth of

what I say”. Therefore, with a more precise

understanding of what is meant by an “intended

audience”, the Assurance View may be able to

account for the challenge that all readers of

informative non-fiction books would be overreaders.

The next section will address another popular

problem that is structurally similar to the

problem of over-readers: the problem of the

secret diary. That problem, I will argue, fails to

undermine the Assurance View owing to a

similar imbalance of reasonable intuitions

regarding the problem cases it presents against

the Assurance View.

4.The Problem of the Secret Diary

As with the objection considered in the previous

section, the problem of the secret diary is

commonplace in the philosophical literature as a

26 For example, Jennifer Lackey (in Learning From Words) shares David Owens’s intuitions about this case, and Benjamin

McMyler (in “The Epistemic Significance of Address”) shares Moran’s.

27 Matthew Vermaire, “Retraction and testimonial justification: a new problem for the assurance view”, Philosophical Studies

177, no. 12 (2020), 3963.

11

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

potential counterexample to the necessity of an

assurance relation for the acquisition of

testimonially warranted beliefs. It seems to be

the main, if not the only, time when

philosophers concerned with testimonially

warranted beliefs acknowledge the problems

with accounts of testimony from within the

domain of written testimony. The problem

consists of cases in which the assurance relation

does not hold because the author does not

intend to tell anyone anything through her

writing, and so there cannot be an interpersonal

relationship established between the reader and

writer. As with the previous potential

counterexample, an example case will be

illustrative:

Case Two – SECRET DIARY: Natalie

writes down a series of propositions that

express her beliefs in her personal and

private diary, including “I am in love with

Aran”. She does not intend for anyone to

ever read her diary, and hopes to destroy it

before it ever gets out of her hands. One

day, Harry finds and reads the diary,

recognising that Natalie is expressing her

beliefs, including the belief that she is in

love with Aran. Consequently, Harry

forms the belief that Natalie is in love

with Aran.

Concerning this case, Harry is not part of

Natalie’s intended audience, and so Natalie does

not tell Harry anything. Accordingly, since the

Assurance View holds that the establishment of

an assurance relation is a necessary condition for

an audience to acquire testimonially warranted

beliefs, and since no such relation has been

established between Harry and Natalie, the

Assurance theorist must conclude that Harry

cannot form any testimonially warranted beliefs

from Natalie’s assertion. As with the problem of

over-readers, the problem of the secret diary is

articulated in terms of our intuitions about

whether the reader believes the person, qua

testifier, or whether the reader can only treat the

writer’s testimony as evidence for the truth of

what she asserts.

Similar to his argument concerning Case One,

Owens argues that “one may trust a secret diary,

believe the writer, take their word for it, and so

forth, even though (as one knows) the writer was

quite determined to have the diary destroyed

before anyone could see it”. 28 Moreover, in

response to the claim that the author has not

told anyone anything, Owens argues elsewhere

that “the diarist may not have told me anything,

but his diary has and to believe his diary is to

believe him, to take his word for it”. 29 Therefore,

Owens argues that it is intuitive that a reader can

always believe a writer, regardless of whether

they are part of the writer’s intended audience or

not, and regardless of whether there is any

intended audience at all.

However, as previously argued with respect to

Case One, I am inclined to disagree that this is

intuitive. I think that it is at least as intuitive, if

not more intuitive, that Harry believes that

Natalie is expressing a true proposition rather

than believing Natalie, qua testifier, in Case Two.

Natalie does not seem to be offering her word at

all, and so it would seem incorrect to say that

Harry can “take her word for it”. Moreover, if

Harry was challenged to specify what reason he

has for believing that Natalie is in love with

Aran, it seems incorrect for him to say “Natalie

told me”, as opposed to the more convoluted “I

read the words in her diary, noticed she was

recording her beliefs, etc…”. Yet it seems more

plausible that Harry infers that Natalie’s assertion

is good evidence for the truth of what she

asserts from the fact that, without an intended

audience, Natalie has no reason to deceive

anyone, and that, in the context of writing in a

private diary, she would likely be expressing her

beliefs with the force of deeply held convictions.

Other commentators on the problem of the

secret diary agree that it is not intuitive to say

28 Owens, Normativity and Control, 235.

29 David Owens, “Testimony and Assertion”, Philosophical Studies 130, no. 1 (2006), 118. His emphasis.

12

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

that an assertion can provide a testimonial

reason for someone’s belief when there is no

intended audience for that assertion. 30 McMyler,

for example, has argued that “if we stipulate that

we are imagining a case in which a diarist’s

statements are not addressed to anyone, then I

think it is far from clear that reading the diarist’s

[statements] puts one in a position of having

been told anything by the diarist”, even if it can

“give one very good grounds for belief ”. 31

Therefore, similar to the considerations I offered

with respect to Case One, the balance of what it

is reasonable to find intuitive concerning Case

Two is not necessarily in favour of an objector

like Owens, making the problem of the secret

diary equally indecisive. The fact that there is a

disagreement concerning whether a reader’s

being addressed by a writer makes a salient

epistemic difference to a reader’s testimonybased

belief indicates that there are no decisive

intuitions either way. Therefore, the problem of

the secret diary also fails to undermine the

Assurance View.

In the next section of this essay, I will outline

and address what I consider to be the most

potent potential counterexample to the

Assurance View’s claim that the establishment of

an assurance relation is a necessary condition for

a reader to acquire testimonially warranted

beliefs: the problem of no author. Instead of

focusing on cases in which the assurance relation

fails to hold because of something to do with

the reader—such as that she is not addressed by

the testifier—the problem of no author

considers cases in which a reader is addressed,

yet the assurance relation fails to hold because of

a problem concerning the author of the written

testimony.

5. The Problem of No Author:

Unlike most of the counterexamples to the

Assurance View presented in the previous

sections, the problem presented in this section

has not been previously discussed in the

literature because, at least in its presentation, it is

a problem that arises exclusively for the

acquisition of testimonially warranted beliefs

from written testimony. The problem turns on

the idea that there can be cases in which, from

the reader’s subjective point of view, the reader

has acquired a testimonially warranted belief

because, from their perspective, the assurance

relation holds; yet in reality (objectively) no such

relation has been established. I argue that such

cases are possible when both of the following

conditions hold: (i) the author of a written piece

of testimony has died by the time the reader

comes to recognise the author’s intended

assurance, and (ii) the reader is unaware of the

death of the author.

In such cases, it could be considered plausible

that the reader has acquired a testimonially

warranted belief from a potential rather than an

actual assurance, which would show that the

establishment of an assurance relation is not

necessary for the acquisition of testimonially

warranted beliefs. To illustrate the details of this

problem for the Assurance View, consider the

following case:

Case Three – NO AUTHOR: Emma

sends a text to Pete to tell him that she is

going to London this weekend. However,

there is a network delay in the text delivery

and, in this delay period before Pete receives

the text message, Emma dies. The fact that

Emma has died is both unknown and

unknowable to Pete before he receives and

reads the text message. Once he has done

so, Pete recognises that Emma is telling

him that she is going to London this

weekend and, on that basis, forms the

belief that Emma is going to London this

weekend.

The following argument could be made from

Case Three to claim that the establishment of an

assurance relation is not necessary for the

acquisition of testimonially warranted beliefs.

Since Emma has asserted that she is going to

30 For example, see Fricker, “Second-Hand Knowledge”, 597; and McMyler, “The Epistemic Significance of Address”,

1077.

31 McMyler, “The Epistemic Significance of Address”, 1077.

13

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

London this weekend to Pete with the force of a

telling, the Assurance View would claim she has

intended both to induce this belief in Pete by

means of the recognition of this intention, and

to assume responsibility for the truth of what

she asserts. Pete has then recognised Emma’s

intentions which, according to the Assurance

View, would provide him with a reason for belief

that is distinctly testimonial. Therefore, Pete has

a testimonial reason for believing Emma that she

is going to London this weekend, which shows

that Pete is testimonially warranted in holding

this belief. Yet the assurance relation is never

established between Emma and Pete because, by

the time Pete comes to recognise that Emma

intends to assume responsibility for the truth of

what she asserts, she is already dead. Therefore,

since Emma’s merely potential assurance seems

to provide Pete with a testimonially warranted

belief, it follows that an actual assurance is not a

necessary condition for the acquisition of

testimonially warranted beliefs.

Assurance theorists could respond to this

argument by appealing to the idea that there are

two aspects to the reason for belief given by a

speaker’s telling. First, there is an internal aspect,

which follows from Pete recognising that Emma

is asserting with the intentions of both inducing

a belief in him, and assuming responsibility for

the truth of what she asserts. Second, there is an

external aspect, which follows from the assurance

relation (in fact) holding between Emma and

Pete, which would have made Emma (in fact)

responsible for the truth of what she asserts. So,

although Pete may have acquired a distinctly

testimonial reason for his belief by recognising

Emma’s intentions to assure him, that reason has

only the internal aspect: it is merely based on

Pete’s believing or assuming that the assurance

relation holds between him and Emma, and thus

believing that Emma is actually accountable for

the truth of what she asserted. Yet these beliefs

are mistaken: the assurance relation does not

actually hold and Emma is not actually

responsible for the truth of her assertion

because she is dead. Therefore, in Case Three,

the external aspect of the reason—which would

have been generated by the fact that the

assurance relation had actually been established

—is missing.

The Assurance theorist could then argue that the

internal aspect of the testimonial reason is

insufficient to provide Pete with an adequately

warranted testimonial belief, for it is only when

the reason has both of its aspects that it is a

good enough reason for someone to actually be

testimonially warranted. That is, although Pete

may have a testimonial reason for belief based

on Emma’s offer of assurance, it is not a good

enough reason without it actually being the case

that the assurance relation holds. Pete might have

judged that it is a good enough reason based on

the reliability and trustworthiness of Emma, but

it is not actually a good enough reason because

she does not actually assume responsibility for

the truth of what she asserts. Therefore, if the

Assurance View was amended so that it requires

both aspects of a testimonial reason in order for

someone to acquire a testimonially warranted

belief, then the establishment of the assurance

relation would be necessary for a belief to obtain

the epistemic status of a belief that is adequately

testimonially warranted. Hence, in Case Three,

the amended Assurance View would suggest that

Pete is not adequately testimonially warranted in

believing that Emma is going to London this

weekend, even though he would have been if

Emma was alive when he received her text

message.

Therefore, the problem of no author has shown

that, as a point of clarity, the Assurance View

must provide an account of what constitutes a

sufficient testimonial reason for a testimonybased

belief – an account which plausibly

includes an exposition of the internal and

external aspects of testimonial reasons.

6. Conclusion

The Assurance View has typically been presented

and defended under the paradigm of spoken

testimony. This essay sought to assess the

adequacy of the Assurance View under the

alternative paradigm of written testimony. It has

done so through an exploration and assessment

of counterexamples to the Assurance View’s

claim that the establishment of an assurance

relation is necessary for the acquisition of

testimonially warranted beliefs. This exploration

14

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

and assessment has shown that, in order to

account for the fact that written testimony often

seems to address an ambiguous audience, Moran

needs to specify what constitutes an intended

audience. Also, Moran needs to provide an

explicit account of what constitutes a sufficient

reason for belief based on testimony, perhaps

encompassing both an internal and external

aspect. Accordingly, this essay has shown that,

with appropriate amendments, Moran’s

Assurance View can plausibly account for the

problem cases presented against it from

considerations of written testimony. Therefore,

this essay has demonstrated that there are good

grounds for holding that the Assurance View

should remain one of the main accounts in the

epistemology of testimony.

15

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Bibliography

Faulkner, Paul. Knowledge on Trust. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Fricker, Elizabeth. “Second-Hand Knowledge”. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73, no. 3 (2006):

592-618.

Fricker, Miranda, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2007.

Grice, Paul. “Meaning”. The Philosophical Review 66, no. 3 (1957): 377-388.

Hinchman, Edward. “Telling as Inviting to Trust”. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70, no. 3

(2005): 562-87.

Hinchman, Edward. “Assurance and Warrant”. Philosophers’ Imprint 14, no. 17 (2014): 1-58.

Lackey, Jennifer. Learning From Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Leonard, Nick. “Testimony, evidence and interpersonal reasons”. Philosophical Studies 173, no. 9 (2016):

2333-52.

McMyler, Benjamin. Testimony, Trust, and Authority. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

McMyler, Benjamin. “The Epistemic Significance of Address”. Synthese 190, no. 6 (2013): 1059-78.

Moran, Richard. “Getting Told and Being Believed”. In the epistemology of testimony, edited by Jennifer

Lackey and Ernest Sosa, 272-306. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Moran, Richard. The Exchange of Words. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Moran, Richard. “Replies to my critics”. Philosophical Explorations 23, no. 3 (2020): 302-13.

Nickel, Philip. “Assurance views of testimony”. In The Routledge Handbook of Social Epistemology, edited

by Miranda Fricker, Peter Graham, David Henderson, and Nicolaj Pedersen. 96-102. New York:

Routledge, 2019.

Owens, David. “Testimony and Assertion”. Philosophical Studies 130, no. 1 (2006): 105-29.

Owens, David. Normativity and Control. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Ross, Angus. “Why Do We Believe What We Are Told?”. Ratio 28, no. 1 (1986): 69-88.

Schmitt, Frederick. “The Assurance View of Testimony”. In Social Epistemology, edited by Adrian

Haddock, Alan Millar, and Duncan Pritchard. 216-42. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Vermaire, Matthew. “Retraction and testimonial justification: a new problem for the assurance view”.

Philosophical Studies 177, no. 12 (2020): 3959–72.

Zagzebski, Linda. Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2012.

16

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Ought fertile same-sex couples seeking to reproduce undergo genetic

testing in order to determine who should contribute genetic material to

their future child(ren)?

Abstract

Tosca Herson

This paper sets out to explore pre-conception genetic selection through questioning whether same-sex couples ought to

genetically test themselves before choosing to procreate. This is a moral discussion, exploring disease traits inheritable

through genetics. Many of the theoretical arguments that will be explored are normally associated with pre-implantation

genetic diagnosis however they will apply here. These arguments include procreative liberty, Savulescu and Kahane’s

procreative beneficence, Parfit’s non-identity problem, and genetic essentialism, moving onto Albrecht and Davlieger’s

disability paradox. I argue that we need a system to place value judgements onto different disorders in order to decide

whether a disorder is ‘bad enough’ to be selected against. I do not believe that genetics should be the sole consideration for

same-sex couples seeking to be parents however with an understanding of value judgements we can see where genetics

should be a priority. Procreative beneficence provides a useful basis for this, however I argue that it places too many

restrictions onto future parents and so it should be employed with a minimum threshold. This paper could form a useful

basis for discussion of non-disease traits and future discussion for heterosexual couples.

Introduction

Increasingly, there are debates surrounding the

moral obligations that parents have towards the

genetic makeup of their children. These are old

debates, however with new technologies allowing

us to screen, alter, and choose the genetics of

our future children, these discussions are gaining

importance. In this essay, I will discuss the moral

obligations, specifically of same-sex couples, to

genetically screen themselves to determine

which, if either, should be the genetic parent of

their future child(ren). My focus is on the UK.

Currently, there is no commonly available way

for both members of a same-sex couple to be

biological parents of future children. Same-sex

couples wanting to have children through

biological means must make a decision about

who should contribute the genetic material. This

is why I am focussing on same-sex couples.

In the UK there are several ways in which samesex

couples can have children. I am concerned

with couples using surrogacy alongside egg

donation or intrauterine insemination or in vitro

fertilisation alongside sperm donation. 32 My

focus is on couples where both are fertile,

meaning I will also only be discussing people

who are the gender they were assigned at birth.

My focus is on disability and disease traits that

may arise from genetic inheritance. Further

discussion would be required to explore nondisease

traits. The focus on same-sex couples

means a focus on pre-conception selection,

however I will here apply arguments relating to

preimplantation genetic diagnosis (henceforth,

PGD). I will explore gamete donor selection,

reproductive liberty, and procreative beneficence.

Family history will be considered as a useful tool

32 Parents.co.uk, Co 2020. Can Gay People Have Kids? Accessed February 2, 2021. https://www.coparent.co.uk/ blog/cangay-people-have-kids/.

17

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

in deciding whether to get genetically tested.

Finally, I will consider how we can make value

judgements about certain diseases, exploring the

disability paradox and quality of life factors.

There are both benefits and drawbacks to

genetic testing. The benefits concern providing

future people with a good quality of life. The

drawbacks concern misunderstanding and

discrimination against disability, and the right to

ignorance. In this essay, genetic testing will be

discussed as a moral question, not a legal one.

Genetic disease will be considered as any

conditions, mental or physical, which is linked to

genetic inheritance. This essay will focus on

carrier testing: testing for genes that could get

passed onto future children. It is important to

remember that carrier testing is not 100%

acurate and testing negative for carrying a gene

does not mean that their future child will not be

born with certain conditions, as some conditions

can be developed whatever the genetics, such as

breast cancer.

Family history is very useful in determining

whether it is worth getting tested for a carrier

gene. For example, the NHS only offers it if

“you or your partner have a health condition that

could be passed on to your children” 33 and

family history has “been shown to be a risk

factor for a majority of chronic diseases of

public health significance.” 34 An example might

be if one member of a same-sex couple is of

Ashkenazi Jewish descent, because Ashkenazi

Jews carry genes for “some 20 recessive

hereditary disorders.” 35 Using family history to

understand what might be passed on can be very

useful to decide whether genetic testing before

conception is a good idea.

Gamete donation

In this section, I consider the inheritable

conditions that gamete donors are screened for.

Same-sex couples choosing who will contribute

genetically to a future child act, on a purely

genetic level, like gamete donors; one of them is

chosen to contribute over the other, just as one

gamete donor is chosen by prospective parents

over another. Due to this, we can consider the

extent to which rules of gamete donor screening

should be applied to these couples.

Before being selected by a clinic, gamete donors

undergo genetic screening. At the London

Sperm Bank potential donors undergo screening

for “Cystic Fibrosis, General Chromosome

Screen, as well as ethnicity-specific tests (such as

Sickle Cell where necessary).” 36 If they carry

something ‘unfavourable’, they are not allowed

to donate. They should also not donate if they

“have been adopted and do not have access to

the medical history of their biological parents,”

or “have a “family history of genetic

conditions,” emphasising the importance of

family history. 37 Personal history of bad eyesight

33 NHS. 2019. Genetic and Genome Testing. Accessed March 12, 2021. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/genetic-and-genomictesting/

.

34 Yoon, Paula W., Maren T. Scheuner, Kris L. Peterson-Oehlke, Marta Gwinn, Andrew Faucett, and Muin J. Khoury. 2002.

"Can family history be used as a tool for public health and preventive medicine?" Genetics in Medicine 4: 304-310.

35 Siegel-Itzkovich, Judy. 2006. "Gene tests show that two fifths of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from four women." BMJ

332 (140).

36 The London Sperm Bank. 2021. The London Sperm Bank. Accessed February 26, 2021. https://

www.londonspermbank.com/.

37 Ibid.

18

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

and allergies do not prohibit donation. 38 The

London Egg Bank imposes similar restrictions.

Clinics and governments have rules around

screening potential gamete donors. These rules

are enforced to reduce the “high risk of serious

harm to the future child.” 39 Dondorp, et al., in a

study relating to new genetic screening

technologies, believe avoiding harm should be

the bottom line because it “will lead to a child

with a seriously diminished quality of life.” 40

Using a donor should “be as safe as reasonably

possible.” 41 If “serious disorders can be tested

for against reasonable expenses and without

other drawbacks, then this should be done.” 42

Due to risk of passing on serious conditions, it is

appropriate for clinics to screen for genetic

disease in order to limit these conditions in

future children. Following this reasoning,

suggesting a same-sex couple get tested to see if

either carries CF for example to decide whether

to pass on their genetic material or not, is fair.

However, gamete donation, as with any form of

genetic selection, faces objections.

A number of questions are discussed by Brandt,

et al. Firstly, whether it should be “obligatory for

recipient parents and/or clinics to select against

‘disadvantageous’ genetic characteristics in their

future offspring via donor selection.” 43 Should

people who carry certain ‘unfavourable’ traits be

prohibited from become donors? The 2008

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act states

that you should choose a gamete with no known

“gene, chromosome or mitochondrion

abnormality involving a significant risk that a

person with the abnormality will have or develop

a) a serious physical or mental disability, b) a

serious illness, or c) any other serious medical

condition,” over one with known risks. 44

The case of same-sex couples is not so clear.

When using a gamete donor, there are many

people looking to be potential donors, so

screening and prohibiting some people from

donating still leaves many options. With samesex

couples, there are only two options. Making

it obligatory would mean there are some

instances where neither can pass on genetic

material, which would ultimately impinge on

procreative liberty, the idea that prospective

parents should have the freedom to use genetic

selection and testing as they wish, without any

moral obligation, something discussed further

on.

A second question in the discussion of gamete

donation is “whether selection for/against

certain characteristics may be impermissible on

grounds that it explicitly or implicitly expresses

misinformed or ‘ugly’ and discriminatory

attitudes towards existing persons with

‘deselected’ characteristics.” 45 Is it discriminatory

toward people who already have certain

conditions to select against those conditions? By

selecting against a trait, we imply a judgement

that that trait is bad.

We can understand this for the case of a samesex

couple. It might be felt more personally; the

selection is not just against a trait but against one

38 The London Sperm Bank. 2021. The London Sperm Bank. Accessed February 26, 2021. https://


39 Dondorp, W., G. De Wert, G. Pennings, F. Shenfield, P. Devroey, B. Tarlatzis, P. Barri, et al. 2014. "ESHRE Task Force on

Ethics and Law 21: genetic screening of gamete donors: ethical issues." Human Reproduction 29 (7): 1353-1359.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 Brandt, Reuven, Stephen Wilkinson, and Nicola Williams. 2019. Stanford Encyclopedia: The Donation and Sale of Human Eggs

and Sperm. Accessed February 5, 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2019/entries/gametes-donation-sale/.

44 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. 2008. "Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act."

Brandt, Reuven, Stephen Wilkinson, and Nicola Williams. 2019. Stanford Encyclopedia: The Donation and Sale of Human Eggs

45


19

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

member of the couple who might have a family

member who has that condition. Discrimination

is an important consideration which will be

expanded on when discussing the disability

paradox; the phenomenon originally theorised by

Albrecht and Davlieger in which they

acknowledge that able-bodied people assume the

quality of life of disabled people will be

considerably worse than their own.

A final question in reference to gamete selection

is “whether the desire to influence children’s

genetic constitutions through gamete donor

selection represents troubling parental attitudes

which may be contrary to common conceptions

of the good parent and parental virtues such as

‘unconditional love’ and ‘openness to the

unbidden’.” 46 Would selecting make you a bad

parent? This is a Kantian idea that choosing a

child’s genetic make-up is akin to

“instrumentalising children: treating them as a

means of fulfilling parental hopes and dreams

rather than as entities who, once born, exist for

their own sake.” 47

In response, we must recognise the difference

between prospective and existing parents. It is

fair to want a child without any form of disease

because of the suffering it may cause, however

that does not mean you wouldn’t love a child

who did have a disease. When it comes to samesex

couples, this defence holds up. If they

choose to genetically screen and act on the

results, there is no reason to believe they would

love a child with a medical condition any less,

even if they have attempted to select against.

Procreative Liberty

Gamete donation is a useful place to start this

discussion, however, its usefulness is limited,

mostly because there are only two choices in a

same-sex couple, and the couple in question are

personally affected by any diseases a child might

have. Procreative liberty is the “freedom to

decide whether or not to have offspring and to

control the use of one’s reproductive capacity.” 48

Under procreative liberty, prospective parents

should be able to decide whether they wish to

genetically test before deciding what, if any,

selection processes they want to use.

Robertson believes we should have the right to

use or not use any reproductive technology we

want, “unless strong justification for limiting

them can be established.” 49 Some circumstances

are ‘serious enough’ for parents to be dissuaded

or prohibited from acting with liberty, for

example, family history of Huntington’s might

encourage getting screened even if it does

impinge on procreative liberty. Robertson says it

should be up to the “opponents of any

particular technique” to make a case for why

liberty should be taken away from the parents. 50

This being said, under most circumstances,

liberty should be prioritised because of its

“central importance to individual meaning,

dignity, and identity.” 51

On this view, a same-sex couple looking to

conceive is within their moral right to get

genetically tested for carrier genes, or not to. To

act on any result, or not to. This allows a lot of

freedom and is a rational moral position to hold:

the couple have the freedom to choose and live

with the consequences.

46 Brandt, Reuven, Stephen Wilkinson, and Nicola Williams. 2019. Stanford Encyclopedia: The Donation and Sale of Human Eggs


47 Ibid.

48 Robertson, John A. 1994. Children of Choice: Freedom and the New Reproductinve Technologies. Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 16.

49 Ibid, 4.

50 Ibid, 16.

51 Ibid.

20

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Savulescu and Kahane argue against procreative

liberty claiming that, “according to this principle,

it is permissible for parents to select the best, but

it is equally permissible for them to select the

worst.” 52 This is true and is something that needs

to be reconciled. As a result, procreative liberty

should be supported conditionally since, at the

very least, it encourages respect for other

people’s decisions.

Non-identity Problem and Genetic

Essentialism

Arguments in favour of genetic selection face

some problems. One opposition is Parfit’s nonidentity

problem. The idea is that “most

reproductive choices cannot benefit a future

child because the choice itself changes the

genetic identity of the child brought into

existence.” 53 Future children are possibilities, not

guarantees. “’Possible people’ are people who

will exist if we act in one way, but who won't

exist if we act in the other way.” 54 We cannot say

that the child of a same-sex couple who is born

with a disease would not have had that disease

had the other parent contributed genetically as

the other parent would have produced a

completely different child. In this case, the two

possible children don’t even have the same

biological parents. Once born, a child cannot be

better or worse off from a genetic standpoint. 55

This ties into genetic essentialism. Genetic

essentialism is “the tendency to reduce the self

in all of its complexity to genes.” 56 When it

comes to genetic selection, it is the idea that we

reduce a future child down to possible disease

traits, not considering their other characteristics.

Reducing someone to their genetics causes

problems. We tend to bundle people with similar

genetics together, assuming they are similar in

ways beyond this. “People’s understanding of

genes may thus serve as an essence placeholder,

allowing people to infer their own and others’

abilities and tendencies based on assumed shared

genes.” 57 This runs the risk of a deterministic

view of a future child’s life.

Someone who discovered they carry the gene for

CF, might make assumptions about what a child

born with CF will be like, based on someone

they know who has CF, or someone from TV,

for example. Genetic essentialism encourages

“people to view genetically influenced outcomes

as inescapable and fatalistic. If the genes are

present, the outcome is expected.” 58

Another concern is that it can lead people to

assume that the cause of a disease is genetic. In

some cases, such as CF, this is the case. In others

however, there is a risk whether one has a

genetic predisposition or not, such as breast

cancer. Getting genetically tested and making a

decision about who should contribute the

genetic material to a future child might lead to

“devalu[ing] the role of ontogenetic,

environmental, or experiential factors.” 59

52 Savulescu, Julian, and Guy Kahane. 2009. "The moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life."

Bioethics 23 (5): 274-290.

53 Malek, Janet, and Judith Daar. 2012. "The Case for a Parental Duty to Use Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis for Medical

Benefit." The American Journal of Bioethics 12 (4): 3-11.

54 Parfit, Derek. 2006. "Rights, Interests, and Possible People." In Bioethics: An Anthology, edited by Peter Singer and Helga

Kuhse, 86-90. Oxford: Blackwell., 86.

55 Ibid.

56 De Melo-Martín, Inmaculada. 2014. "The Ethics of Anonymous Gamete Donation: Is There a Right to Know One's

Genetic Origins?" Hastings Center Report 44 (2).

57 Dar-Nimrod, Ilan, and Steven J. Heine. 2012. "Genetic Essentialism: On the Deceptive Determinism of DNA."

Psychological Bulletin 37 (5): 800-818.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

21

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Genetic essentialism can lead people to believe

that the only way to improve the quality of life

of a person with a genetic disability is through a

genetic cure. While this is sometimes the

ultimate cure, arrangements can be made to

make people’s lives easier. This follows the social

model of disability and the idea that we don’t

always need a cure for the disease, we simply

need better ways of dealing with it. Genetic

essentialism is a reason not to genetically test as

“once people’s genetic essentialist biases have

been activated, people come to view the relevant

condition or outcome in different ways than if

they had not considered an associated genetic

foundation.” 60 There is significant cause for

concern that by genetically testing, prospective

parents will come to pin all their assumptions

and hopes on the genetics of the future child,

rather than letting the future child be something

more than their genetics.

Procreative Beneficence

An argument for genetic selection is Savulescu’s

procreative beneficence. He poses this in relation

to PGD however it is applicable here too.

Procreative beneficence is the idea that “couples

who decide to have a child have a significant

moral reason to select the child who, given his or

her genetic endowment, can be expected to

enjoy the most well-being.” 61

On this view, we have significant moral

obligation to provide the best possible life for

our potential future children, just as we would

provide the best possible life for our existing

children. This is not a new idea. For example,

many parents will wait to be financially stable

before having children partly in order to provide

the best life with the most opportunities and to

allow the parents to lead good lives themselves.

Savulescu and Kahane justify procreative

beneficence in two ways. The first requires

thinking of our future children as people. If we

think like this, then “our reason to select the

child with better prospects is that that child will

benefit more than the other would by being

caused to exist.” 62 For example, all other things

being equal, a child with CF has worse life

prospects – life expectancy, quality of life, etc –

than a child without.

This justification is dependent on everything else

in the future children ’s lives being equal. This is

not possible. Asch notes, “judging one life to be

better than another simply based on this one

factor reduces the value of the individual to that

single characteristic in a morally problematic

way.” 63 This response is in line with genetic

essentialism. This may be the case, however

Savulescu notes that it is not the trait that poses

the problem, “but its impact on a life in ways

that matter which is important.” 64

Beyond this defence however, Savulescu and

Kahane have a second justification. Instead of

thinking about the future child as a person, we

take a more impersonal view. This view states

“that selecting the most advantaged child would

make the outcome better, even if it is not better

for the child created.” 65 This view accepts that

you do not make any specific ‘child better-off ’.

It’s not like curing a disease that someone already

has. What it means is that you make a ‘better-off

child’. 66 Choosing a child without CF is better,

60 Dar-Nimrod, Ilan, and Steven J. Heine. 2012. "Genetic Essentialism: On the Deceptive Determinism of DNA."

Psychological Bulletin 37 (5): 800-818.


Bioethics 23 (5): 274-290.

62 Ibid.

63 Malek, Janet, and Judith Daar. 2012. "The Case for a Parental Duty to Use Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis for Medical


64 Savulescu, J. 2001. "Procreative beneficence: why we should select the best children." Bioethics 15 (5-6): 413-26.

65 Ibid.

Malek, Janet, and Judith Daar. 2012. "The Case for a Parental Duty to Use Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis for Medical

66


22

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

regardless of the identity of that child. In this

way, Savulescu and Kahane escape the nonidentity

problem.

Following procreative beneficence, it is morally

preferable for both members of a same-sex

couple to get genetically tested for carrier genes

in order to determine who should contribute the

genetic material to a future child. This aims for

the best possible outcome.

Procreative beneficence is a very demanding

moral standpoint. Depending on what each

member of a same-sex couple carries, it could be

difficult to know who to choose. If neither

carries anything then it would be fair to choose

either. However, if both carry minor traits, such

as bad eyesight, how is a decision made?

Something Savulescu and Kahane propose is the

idea of a minimum threshold. This says that the

couple “have a significant moral reason to select

one of the possible children they could have

who is expected to have a life worth living over any

that does not; they have no significant moral

reason to choose one such possible child over

any other.” 67

This is a more intuitive standpoint; however, it

throws up the problem that if both members of

the couple carry genes with traits that are below

the minimum threshold, then neither should

contribute genetically to a future child. That

being said, it is reasonable to advise both

members of a couple against contributing

genetic material to a future child if unfavourable

traits are carried by both.

Another concern with procreative beneficence,

as with all arguments in favour of selection, is

the problem of value judgements. This is the

assumption that disease traits are bad and that

someone without a disease will have a better

quality of life, as well as the assumption that

diseases can be ranked, some deemed as

acceptable, some not.

Value Judgments

In this section on value judgements, I will first

explore the disability paradox. In relation to this,

I will discuss quality of life (henceforth, QoL)

and explore a system which can be used to ‘rank’

disease traits against each other.

The disability paradox is this: “why do many

people with serious and persistent disabilities

report that they experience a good or excellent

quality of life when to most external observers

these people seem to live an undesirable daily

existence?” 68 This often comes up in relation to

deaf people. Hearing people are often under the

impression that their life would be worse if they

were deaf, due to missed experiences, harder

communication, etc. Often however, deaf people

report experiencing no such reduction in QoL.

It is possible that able-bodied people make these

judgement “based on misinformation regarding

both the severity and true nature of disability.” 69

It is also possible that disabled people have

adjusted to their way of living and do not regard

their condition as negative. Whatever the reason

for it, there is clearly a disconnect between how

disabled people regard their QoL and how ablebodied

people view it.

This idea came to a head with the 2002 case of a

deaf lesbian couple, Sharon Duchesneau and

Candy McCullough, who actively attempted to

conceive a deaf child, using a fifth-generation

deaf sperm donor. The deaf community had

been a huge part of both of their lives, and they

had a very good QoL and believed that a deaf

child would also be a member of this community

and the child’s life would be richer for it. Many

people did not agree with their decision, thinking


Bioethics 23 (5): 274-290.

68 Albrecht, Gary L., and Patrick J. Davlieger. 1999. "The disability paradox: high quality of life against all odds." Social Science

& Medicine 48 (8): 977-988.

Brandt, Reuven, Stephen Wilkinson, and Nicola Williams. 2019. Stanford Encyclopedia: The Donation and Sale of Human Eggs

69


23

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

that it was unfair to purposefully attempt to have

a child with a disability. This clearly demonstrates

the disability paradox. 70

In the UK, under the 2008 Human Fertilisation

and Embryology Act, selecting for a deaf child is

prohibited. When using PGD, “any embryo with

an ‘abnormality’ that could cause ‘serious

physical or mental disability’ must not be chosen

over an embryo without one.” 71

The disability paradox poses problems for the

arguments I have discussed. If we know for a

fact that we are increasing QoL by selecting

against disease, then selection is morally

permissible. However, if we accept the disability

paradox, then it is harder to know what to do.

Intuition leads us to rank diseases. This is

also done in practice. As mentioned, gamete

donor clinics allow some diseases but not others.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology

Authority also has a list of over six hundred

diseases for which one currently is allowed to use

PGD to select against. 72 Clearly both have made

value judgements about what is ‘bad enough’ to

select against.

The question now is where to draw the line.

When is it morally justified to select against a

disease trait? I will now assess factors that

increase and reduce QoL. In their study

confirming the existence of the disability

paradox, Albrecht and Davlieger spoke to

disabled participants about what increases QoL

and what reduces it. For factors that increase

QoL:

“respondents explain their well-being in

terms of acknowledging their

impairment, being in control of their

minds and bodies; being able to perform

expected roles; having a `can do'

approach to life; finding a purpose,

meaning, and harmony in life; having a

spiritual foundation and outlook;

constructing and living in a reciprocal

social world, including emotional give

and take; and, feeling satisfied when

comparing one’s self to one's capabilities

and the conditions of others in similar

situations.” 73

Factors that reduce QoL are:

“disorganizing experience of pain; being

de-energized by continual fatigue and a

sense of hopelessness; the loss of

control of corporal or mental activities;

and/or having no clear purpose or

spiritual outlook in life.” 74

Many of these factors are subjective and so the

problem of ranking isn’t solved entirely.

However, it does make it easier. While these

factors are subjective, they are also intuitive and

understandable so I will be using these as the

basis for value judgements.

Imagine, for example, one member of a samesex

couple carried a gene for autosomal recessive

polycystic kidney disease (henceforth, ARKPD)

and the other carried a gene for macular

degeneration (henceforth, AMD). We can use

the factors above to assess who should

contribute genetically to the future child.

ARKPD is an inherited disease with a lifeexpectance

of less than a year. If the child does

live beyond that point, they are likely to

experience many nasty and painful effects. 75 The

child will experience most of the factors for

reducing QoL, such as pain and loss of control.

70 Wordsworth, Rich. 2015. Why Some Parents Choose to have a Deaf Baby. Accessed March 13, 2021. https://www.vice.com/

en/article/ypwa5j/how-reproductive-tech-could-threaten-or-preserve-deaf-culture.

71 Ibid.

72 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. 2021. Approved PGD and PTT conditions. Accessed March 13, 2021.

https://www.hfea.gov.uk/treatments/embryo-testing-and-treatments-for-disease/approved-pgd-and-ptt-conditions/.

73 Albrecht, Gary L., and Patrick J. Davlieger. 1999. "The disability paradox: high quality of life against all odds." Social Science

& Medicine 48 (8): 977-988.

74 Ibid.

Malek, Janet, and Judith Daar. 2012. "The Case for a Parental Duty to Use Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis for Medical

75


24

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

It is unlikely that they will experience any of the

factors that increase QoL.

AMD is a disease that can be inherited, and

which causes slow loss of sight in the middle

part of your eye. It usually affects over fifty-yearolds.

76 It is likely you will live most of your life

unaffected. At later stages the loss of vision may

reduce QoL, however there is a lot of help for

people with impaired vision and it is fairly likely

that you will be able to continue doing a lot of

everyday activities.

Using the QoL factors, we can clearly see that

ARKPD is a worse disease than AMD. The

negatives of having a child with ARKPD

outweigh any potential arguments against

selection however AMD is more permissible in

that a good QoL can still be achieved even with

this condition. Therefore, if one member of a

same-sex couple were carrying a gene ARKPD

and the other carried AMD, it is rational to

suggest that the person carrying AMD

contributes the genetic material to the future

child, despite it being an unfavourable trait.

The right to ignorance

One final consideration is that, if same-sex

couple choose to undergo genetic testing in

order to determine who should contribute

genetically to a future child, they must learn

genetic information about their future child, as

well as about themselves. The right to genetic

privacy and ignorance is a topic many people feel

strongly about. In some places, the right to

ignorance has been enshrined in law. 77 People

may wish to remain ignorant due to stigma

around certain disorders, or because they do not

want to know their fate.

A question that Harris and Keywood discuss is

how the right to ignorance works with

autonomy. What they suggest is that a “right [to

ignorance] cannot easily be defended by

reference to claims to autonomy.” 78 By choosing

to know or not to know, a person changes what

decisions they make in the future, however, we

cannot say that “our autonomy has been

adversely affected by knowing something we

would prefer not to have known” whereas not

knowing the information limits our future

choices. 79 Giving information someone had

requested not to have “may violate a liberty they

assert but I do not violate their autonomy, for

the information I give them is necessary for their

autonomous decision making.” 80

While it may not be autonomous to remain

ignorant, it is in keeping with personal liberty.

However, with the case of a same-sex couple,

not only is the autonomy of the parents limited

by not getting the genetic test, but the liberty of

the future child is also limited as the decision

about who should contribute genetically affects

the future child. Liberty claims must be

“[c]ompatible with a like liberty for all.” 81

By respecting their own liberty to remain

ignorant, a same-sex couple interferes with the

liberty of any future children as well as reducing

their own autonomy to make a decision about

who should contribute genetically. However, if a

parent does undergo a genetic test, they interfere

with the autonomy and privacy of their future

children. For example, if a parent knows that

they carry the BRCA1 for breast cancer,

knowing that their child might also have this

gene, could be thought of as violating the

genetic autonomy and privacy of that child.

76 NHS. 2018. Age-related Macular Degeneration. Accessed April 1, 2021. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/age-related-maculardegeneration-amd/.

77 Council of Europe. 1997. "European Treaty Series-No. 164Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity

of the Human COnvention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the

Application of Biology and Medicine." European Treaty Series

78 Harris, J., and K. Keywood. 2001. "Ignorance, Information and Autonomy." Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 22 (5):

415-436, 418.

79 Ibid, 419.

80 Ibid.

81 Ibid.

25

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

However, the right to autonomy and privacy

must be “balanced against claims that the failure

to test deprives children of the ‘right’ to grow up

i n a n a t m o s p h e r e o f o p e n n e s s a n d

understanding of their situation and a ‘right’ or

interest not to form unrealistic hopes and plans

about the future.” 82

Autonomy aside, wanting to remain ignorant

about one’s genetics is not an uncommon

feeling, 83 however remaining, as shown by Harris

and Keywood, remaining ignorant cannot be

done in the name of autonomy. Wanting to

remain ignorant is intuitive, for example based

on the worry of genetic essentialism: feeling that

once the possibility of developing a disease has

been revealed through genetics, life is

determined. With these reasons in mind,

remaining ignorant is reason enough not to

genetically test, even to prevent passing on of

genetic disease.

Conclusion

To conclude, the question of whether same-sex

couples seeking to reproduce ought to undergo

genetic testing in order to decide who should

contribute genetic material to their future child/

ren provides a useful framework to discuss many

of the ideas surrounding genetic selection of

disease traits. Same-sex couples do have to make

a choice - with any children they have - about

who will be the biological parents. If genetic

testing is the way that they want to make this

choice, then there is good moral reason to make

it in this way. However, this is not the only way

to make a choice and if another choice is

preferable, there is no moral obligation to focus

solely on genetics.

From this discussion, the most standout reason

for potential parents to use genetic testing to

make their decision is if there is a worrying

family or personal medical history. If this is the

case, then there is more moral obligation to the

future child to get genetically tested in order to

decide if it is ‘safe’ to pass on certain genetics.

Understanding disability is important before

making these decisions however, recognising that

disability does not need to be a defining

characteristic in a child’s life and a very high QoL

can still be achieved. Certain conditions however,

such as ARKPD, do lower the QoL of the child,

and the parents, to such an extent that there

could be a moral encouragement to select

against.

Procreative autonomy is a useful way to think

about whether to undergo genetic testing.

However, once genetic testing has been decided

upon and done, procreative beneficence with a

minimum threshold is a useful moral position. If

someone tests positive for carrying a condition

that is ‘bad enough’, using the QoL criteria of

Albrecht and Davlieger, there is a moral

obligation to select against that condition. When

a condition can be seen to still allow for a high

QoL, it should be up to the parents what they

wish to do.

While we discussed the usefulness of gamete

donation, there is no obligation to get genetically

tested in the first place however, due to wanting

to remain ignorant for example. The conditions

of becoming a biological parent are very

different from the conditions of becoming a

gamete donor in that there is a connection to the

child which donors do not have.

This essay provides a specific framework with

which we can think about genetic selection

against disease, specifically through preconception

selection. It focuses on the moral

responsibility of selection against disease and the

discussion could be expanded to heterosexual

couples with further thought. Overall, we have

established that it is morally permissible to use

genetic testing as a way to decide which parent

should contribute the genetic material, however

it is not a moral obligation.

82 Harris, J., and K. Keywood. 2001. "Ignorance, Information and Autonomy." Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 22 (5):

415-436, 423.

83 Gino, Francesca. 2020. “Ignorance is bliss? Why people prefer to remain unaware of potentially unpleasant but useful

information.” Scientific America.

26

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Bibliography

Albrecht, Gary L., and Patrick J. Davlieger. 1999. "The disability paradox: high quality of life against all

odds." Social Science & Medicine 48 (8): 977-988.

Brandt, Reuven, Stephen Wilkinson, and Nicola Williams. 2019. Stanford Encyclopedia: The Donation and

Sale of Human Eggs and Sperm. Accessed February 5, 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/

win2019/entries/gametes-donation-sale/.

Council of Europe. 1997. "European Treaty Series-No. 164 Convention for the Protection of Human

Rights and Dignity of the Human Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity

of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine." European Treaty

Series.

Dar-Nimrod, Ilan, and Steven J. Heine. 2012. "Genetic Essentialism: On the Deceptive Determinism

of DNA." Psychological Bulletin 37 (5): 800-818.

De Melo-Martín, Inmaculada. 2014. "The Ethics of Anonymous Gamete Donation: Is There a Right

to Know One's Genetic Origins?" Hastings Center Report 44 (2).

Dondorp, W., G. De Wert, G. Pennings, F. Shenfield, P. Devroey, B. Tarlatzis, P. Barri, et al. 2014.

"ESHRE Task Force on Ethics and Law 21: genetic screening of gamete donors: ethical

issues." Human Reproduction 29 (7): 1353-1359.

Harris, J., and K. Keywood. 2001. "Ignorance, Information and Autonomy." Theoretical Medicine and

Bioethics 22 (5): 415-436.

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. 2008. "Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act.”

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. 2021. Approved PGD and PTT conditions. Accessed

March 13, 2021. https://www.hfea.gov.uk/treatments/embryo-testing-and-treatments-fordisease/approved-pgd-and-ptt-conditions/.

Malek, Janet, and Judith Daar. 2012. "The Case for a Parental Duty to Use Preimplantation Genetic

Diagnosis for Medical Benefit." The American Journal of Bioethics 12 (4): 3-11.

Mayo Clinic. 2020. Genetic Testing. Accessed March 12, 2021. https://www.mayoclinic.org/testsprocedures/genetic-testing/about/pac-20384827

.

NHS. 2018. Age-related Macular Degeneration. Accessed April 1, 2021. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/

age-related-macular-degeneration-amd/.

—. 2019. Genetic and Genome Testing. Accessed March 12, 2021. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/geneticand-genomic-testing/

.

Parents.co.uk, Co. 2020. Can Gay People Have Kids? . Accessed February 2, 2021. https://

www.coparents.co.uk/blog/can-gay-people-have-kids/.

Parfit, Derek. 1986. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Parfit, Derek. 2006. "Rights, Interests, and Possible People." In Bioethics: An Anthology, edited by Peter

Singer and Helga Kuhse, 86-90. Oxford: Blackwell.

27

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Robertson, John A. 1994. Children of Choice: Freedom and the New Reproductinve Technologies. Princeton:

Princeton University Press.

Savulescu, J. 2001. "Procreative beneficence: why we should select the best children." Bioethics 15 (5-6):

413-26.

Savulescu, Julian, and Guy Kahane. 2009. "The moral obligation to create children with the best chance

of the best life." Bioethics 23 (5): 274-290.

Siegel-Itzkovich, Judy. 2006. "Gene tests show that two fifths of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from

four women." BMJ 332 (140).

The London Sperm Bank. 2021. The London Sperm Bank. Accessed February 26, 2021. https://


Wordsworth, Rich. 2015. Why Some Parents Choose to have a Deaf Baby. Accessed March 13, 2021. https://

www.vice.com/en/article/ypwa5j/how-reproductive-tech-could-threaten-or-preserve-deafculture.

Yoon, Paula W., Maren T. Scheuner, Kris L. Peterson-Oehlke, Marta Gwinn, Andrew Faucett, and Muin

J. Khoury. 2002. "Can family history be used as a tool for public health and preventive

medicine?" Genetics in Medicine 4: 304-310.

28

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Argument for the Impossibility of Free Immoral Action in Kant

Abstract

Benjamin Pryce

In Section III of his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant discusses the nature of free will, and how it

relates to the moral law. Following a line of argument suggested by Fugate, 84 I intend to demonstrate that Kant’s

asymmetrical conception of free will as a positive rational capacity may be defended from a common criticism known as

Objection R/S 85 by interpreting moral evil as resulting from a lack of this capacity, rather than a separate capacity to act

against the law. I will posit that equating this freedom to a capacity for moral understanding allows for further insight into

its nature, highlighted by my own examples as well as an analogy from Fugate, and Kant’s own discussion of the ‘holy

will’ in the Groundwork 86. I aim to defend this position against several objections and counterexamples, and suggest that

the inevitable result, that moral responsibility may not be imputable to an immoral agent, might not be as troubling as it

first appears.

Objection R/S

I

One common objection to Kant’s discussion of

free will is attributed to Carl Leonhard Reinhold

and Henry Sidgwick who, according to Fugate,

each argued separately 87 that Kant commits

himself to the following ‘seemingly inconsistent

triad of propositions’:

‘1. Freedom of the will is the ground of

moral imputation. Or, more precisely

expressed, freedom is that quality of the

causality of the will by virtue of which

actions can first be ascribed to the will as

to their sufficient cause.

2. Freedom of the will and the moral law

are analytically related and thus reciprocal

concepts (Wechselbegriffe).

3. The human will, which is free, can

have moral evil imputed to it’. 88

I will argue that Kant may not in fact be

committed to this third claim, which, by leaving

only the first two (consistent) propositions,

would appear to resolve Objection R/S. Fugate

suggests this may be achieved by understanding

84 Courtney D. Fugate, “On a Supposed Solution to the Reinhold/Sidgwick Problem in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals”,

European Journal of Philosophy 23:3 (2012), 367-8.

85 Fugate, “Reinhold/Sidgwick Problem,” 349.

86 GMM 4:414 (Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Christopher Bennett, Joe

Saunders and Robert Stern. (Oxford University Press, 2019): 28-29).

87 Although, each considered themselves to be defending Kant rather than challenging him (Paul Guyer, "The Struggle for

Freedom: Freedom of Will in Kant and Reinhold.” In Kant on Persons and Agency, ed. Eric Watkins. (Cambridge University

Press 2017), 121).

88 Fugate, “Reinhold/Sidgwick Problem,” 349-350.

29

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

immorality ‘not as something positive in itself,

but rather as an inexplicable failing of freedom

to become manifest’ 89. Under this interpretation

of proposition 3, immorality would seem to

result from a lack of freedom, and assuming that

people are only responsible for their actions

insofar as they are free, this leads to the

conclusion that immorality cannot lead to the

imputation of responsibility.

Main Argument

Kant insists throughout the Groundwork that the

moral law can be arrived at a priori, that is,

through reason alone, and thus no empirical

evidence is required to discover it 90. In Section I,

he argues that simply thinking about the moral

law can generate in a rational agent a sense of

respect for it, and that this is ultimately what leads

them to carry out their actions. 91 This is a crucial

step, as it follows that if indeed the moral law

can be discovered through reason alone, and is

the source of all moral action according to

proposition 1, then immoral action must arise

either from ignorance of this law, or else from

some motivating force other than ‘respect for the

law’ which tempts the agent away from it. I will

investigate the former case, as this seems a more

plausible interpretation of Kant’s writings, and

accounts for immoral action without having to

posit another independent source of free action.

Under this interpretation of Kant, freedom then

becomes a positive capacity for moral awareness

or understanding, and therefore the extent to

which an agent is free is determined by the

extent to which they possess this capacity.

Hence, complete ignorance of the moral law

would allow no room for imputation of moral

responsibility.

Fugate outlines Kant’s understanding of

immoral choice (‘Unvermögen’), as follows:

‘[...]he does not think it to be like the

case of a person with closed eyes, but

rather like the case of a person with no

eyes, or at least like one who has not

developed eyes to a state where they are

ready to become active.’ 92

Under this interpretation, Kant does see evil

action as a real option, but one which loses its

appeal entirely when the agent is able to ‘see’ the

moral law in its fullness. This idea arises in the

Groundwork when Kant introduces the concept

of the ‘holy will’, 93 one which is so in tune with

the moral law that it ceases to present itself as a

law at all, as such a will experiences no resistance

to it, thus eliminating any possibility of ‘duty’ or

‘conformity’ 94 in its actions. Perhaps, then, Kant

may have introduced the holy will not as a

fundamentally distinct concept from the rational

will, 95 but merely as the extreme case of freedom

possessed in the absolute. This interpretation

would allow immoral action to be understood as

resulting from a lack of freedom, rather than

from an entirely separate capacity for evil. A will

which is wholly evil therefore possesses no

freedom, and is understood as the antithesis of

the holy will; it is entirely unfree. Such an agent

could not, then, be plausibly held responsible for

their actions.

This conclusion fits with many of our intuitions

about moral responsibility, as we see in the

example of children’s immoral actions. Often

aware on some basic level that their actions are

wrong, this is rarely enough to compel them to

act otherwise; in many cases, only fear of getting



91 GMM 4:400 (15-16).


93 GMM 4:414 (28-29).

94 GMM 4:433 (46).

95 In this case, conformity to the law presents itself as a duty.

30

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

caught will stop them. Their understanding of

‘right from wrong’ amounts to little more than

propositional knowledge 96 given to them by their

parents, and thus lacks the deeper significance

we take to constitute genuine moral

understanding. Such maxims of selfpreservation,

it seems, have nothing at all to do

with moral motivation, and instead fall into

Kant’s category of hypothetical imperatives:

ones which aim only at achieving some end (in

this case avoiding punishment), rather than

having value ‘in themselves’, 97 as in the case of

categorical imperatives. 98 That young children do

not fully grasp the moral dimension of their

decisions is the ground on which we consider

them to be responsible for their actions to a

lesser degree than, say, an adult doing the same

thing.

The conclusion that moral freedom is

proportional to some form of awareness of our

available options in fact fits well with our

intuitions about such freedom. As with children,

this is often crudely articulated as the extent to

which someone ‘knew right from wrong’ in a

court of law. However, there is a grain of truth

in this expression which points to the deeper

sense Kant is referring to. If ‘knowing right

from wrong’ is simply knowledge of which

actions are right and wrong as a matter of fact,

then morality becomes a seemingly arbitrary

quest to accumulate propositional knowledge. If,

however, we think of this knowledge as being

the degree to which we experience moral

enlightenment, in the sense of increasing our

moral awareness through reflection on the law,

then we are left with a less arbitrary (though no

less mysterious) source of morality, which has

little to do with knowledge of facts and more to

do with depth of understanding of some

underlying truth about the world. Of course, this

view may be dismissed on grounds that it makes

a significant realist assumption about morality,

namely that in some sense the moral law exists as

a ‘thing in itself ’ 99 which we are able to

encounter. However, this interpretation is a

natural reading of Kant, which is justification

enough for its inclusion here.

We do not see accumulation of mere knowledge

of right and wrong actions, as matters of fact, to

constitute wisdom, or good moral character.

Kant highlights this when he talks about the

‘respect’ we have for the moral law, 100 and how

this is what compels us to act on it. He crucially

identifies revelation, or epiphany, as the

motivating force behind moral action, rather

than a vague and oversimplified ‘knowledge of

right from wrong’ which is often understood as

the basis on which a judge should convict a

criminal. Though a credible legal system is

ultimately limited to observable evidence in its

consideration of a person’s moral intentions,

Kant believed we can do a far more precise job

of this through pure rational thought. 101

Thus, our intuition that moral responsibility (i)

exists on a scale, and is not equal between agents,

and (ii) has something to do with awareness or

understanding, seems appropriate, and would

suggest that immoral action may indeed result

from a lack of moral understanding which, if

equivalent to freedom as a positive rational

capacity as Kant discusses, cannot allow for

imputation of moral responsibility. This

concludes my main argument, having

demonstrated the idea of freedom as a capacity

for moral understanding as originating from

96 Defined by Paul Moser as ‘knowledge that some proposition is true’ in “Propositional Knowledge”, Philosophical Studies:

An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 52, no. 1 (Jul.,1987): 91.

97 GMM 4:451 (63).

98 GMM 4:414 (28-29).

99 GMM 4:459 (72).

100 GMM 4:400 (15).

101 Admittedly, Kant seemed to give up on solving the mysterious origins of evil towards the end of his life, instead

focusing on the more fruitful path of investigating the source of good action in a moral agent.

31

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Kant’s text, and explored its consequences for

the imputation of responsibility through analogy

and example. 102

Objections

II

This leads naturally to the objection that there

seem to be counterexamples in which an agent is

fully aware of what they are doing, and how it

conflicts with the moral law, and yet chooses to

do it anyway. Denying the possibility of free

immoral choice would seem to contradict our

intuition that people choose to act from bad

intentions consciously and deliberately,

apparently well aware of the harmful

consequences of their actions and, in some

cases, even desiring them. For all the crimes

committed in a fit of rage or state of

incapacitation, there are others which do not

seem to arise from a clouding of one’s mental

faculties, but from these very faculties

themselves.

Cases such as these appear to go against the

position I am defending, that Kant’s freedom

can be defined purely as a capacity for

understanding or awareness of the moral law. It

must be noted, however, that freedom as moral

understanding is not identical to clarity of

thought, 103 and so it may be possible for an

agent to have thought clearly about the options

available to them without necessarily

understanding what makes these options right or

wrong. As highlighted by Fugate’s eyesight

analogy, such a lack of perception would not be

the fault of the agent, and as such it seems

unlikely that responsibility could meaningfully be

attributed to them. 104

Similarly, it could be objected that any definition

as an asymmetrical capacity misses out a vital

component of the concept of freedom, and

therefore falls at the first hurdle. 105 It is core to

any conception of the free will, it may be argued,

that it accounts not only for good acts but also

bad ones. Perhaps more worryingly, ruling out

the possibility of freely chosen immoral action

may seem to constitute letting wrongdoers ‘off

the hook’, a prospect which would ring alarm

bells for any functional legal system.

However, this concern is misplaced. The claim

that immoral agents are not ultimately

responsible for their actions does not tell us how

they should be dealt with; it may be that

accountability in a legal sense still has its place as

a means to an end, 106 for example in crime

prevention (or criminal reform), without saying

anything about whether moral responsibility is a

meaningful concept a priori. Such legal

accountability does not entail that an agent must

be established as being ultimately responsible for

their actions, in a sense which negates the

possibility that their wrongdoing was the

inevitable result of a complex chain of previous

crimes by other agents. This is supported

empirically by the sheer number of criminals

who are themselves victims of serious abuse (for

which they cannot be to blame): a fact which

cannot be ignored when considering the possible

cause(s) of their actions. The assertion that such

moral responsibility can exist in addition to the

‘nature and nurture’ components of a person’s

decisions may be superfluous, as it is unclear

what purpose could be served by establishing

someone as the final cause of their actions rather

than merely the immediate cause, other than

allowing a society to rid themselves of their

failed duties towards them. Such scapegoating

may only be truly avoided by accepting the

interconnectedness of our actions, and the

inevitable influence they may have in shaping the

future decisions of others.

102 However, I will largely refrain from discussing the broader consequences of this.

103 Though this may be a consequence, or even a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for it.

104 An alternative comparison could be made to the example of the propositional moral knowledge of children as set out

above, whereby moral evil arises from immaturity.

105 Jens Timmermann, Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2007),166.

106 This would constitute a hypothetical imperative under Kant’s system (GMM 4:414 (28-29)).

32

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Perhaps, then, the concept of blame is only

useful insofar as it allows us to identify the agent

immediately responsible for a crime, in order to

prevent them from causing further harm, but

also in instigating their reform. This mindset

seems to be reflected in modern criminal justice

systems, wherein criminals are increasingly

understood to be victims themselves, rather than

the ultimate source of their own ill will.

Moreover, what purpose could there be in

identifying a criminal beyond protection of

society from a repeat of their crimes, or personal

transformation of the offender in question? It is

unclear what it would mean to assert that an

agent, in addition to having committed a crime

(in the immediate, objective sense), also bears the

ultimate responsibility for it in a moral sense.

Such a claim would have to escape the challenge

of establishing moral responsibility as belonging

ultimately to the offender in question, rather

than being passed down in a near-infinite causal

chain in which an agent’s wrongdoing creates the

necessary psychological conditions for

criminality in their victim. It is unclear, then, that

adapting our definition of freedom to

encompass moral evil achieves anything new, and

so it may be unnecessary to impute responsibility

to an immoral agent.

A third objection may arise from a committed

physical determinist, who believes that an

asymmetrical conception of free will does not

leave room for their metaphysical position. This

is put forward by Timmermann, who argues that

defining freedom as a ‘mere capacity’ makes it

incompatible with ‘nature as a closed

deterministic system’, 107 claiming that the idea

that ‘our morally bad actions can in principle be

predicted, as Kant puts it in the Critique of

Practical Reason, with the same kind of certainty

as a lunar or solar eclipse’ makes us ‘uneasy’. 108

This objection, however, seems to arise from a

misunderstanding of the concept of freedom.

To say that freedom entails that someone’s

chosen action could not have been predicted,

even given complete knowledge of their

character, is counterintuitive; it is generally

assumed that a person’s behaviour is predictable

to the extent that we know their character, and

that such knowledge is based on their previous

actions. It is difficult to see an alternative to this

which would not introduce at least some element

of randomness, a concept which would seem to

constitute the very antithesis of freedom, at least

in the moral sense.

Consider the extreme case, in which all actions

are essentially randomly determined: a person’s

actions may bear no resemblance whatsoever to

those we would expect given their character,

making them impossible to identify as belonging

to that person at all. It seems, then, that

randomness is something to be avoided in our

definition of freedom, and this avoidance may

allow for compatibility with a causally

determined system. We may yet be able to define

freedom as an asymmetrical capacity for moral

understanding, and thus rule out the possibility

of imputing responsibility for immoral actions.

A further objection to the equation of freedom

to moral awareness may posit that freedom is

located within our capacity for choice, and not in

the will itself. On this understanding, our choice

is free insofar as it is spontaneous (a term Kant

uses in the Groundwork 109), and so cannot be

determined by the will, as such an imposition

would serve only to erode the freedom

exemplified in the decision. Fugate identifies a

flaw in this objection: 110 ‘[that] it takes the

freedom of choice to be inconsistent with its

determination by will, and thus places will and

with it the moral law in front of choice as if it

were just any other object to be adopted.’ Hence

the moral law must be given ‘some kind of

additional appeal’ in order to be selected by the

‘spontaneous faculty of choice’, which would not

fit with Kant’s ‘doctrine of the moral incentive’.

He concludes instead that the freedom to choose

our actions is perfectly compatible with

determination by the will, and that this freedom

may even arise from such determination (a view

107 Timmermann, Kant’s Groundwork, 166.


109 GMM 4:452 (65)


33

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

he attributes to Schmid), taking Kant to be

saying that ‘choice of the will [...] owes its own

freedom to the fact that it stands in a relation to

will’. Thus the will is truly free, and is analytically

equivalent to the moral law, opening up the

possibility that negation of the law is a symptom

of a constrained will, or one whose formation is

incomplete. This casts further doubt on the

possibility of imputing moral responsibility to an

agent.

Synthesis

III

Timmermann almost has it right, however, when

he takes Kant to be saying that:

‘Some actions are free in the sense that

they actually realise their full potential,

but all actions are, as one might put it,

sufficiently free for the agent to be

responsible for his or her actions.’ 111

Here he captures the extreme case in which an

agent’s actions ‘realise their full potential’ by

conforming to the moral law, although he is

vague as to why ‘all actions’ should be

considered ‘sufficiently free’ for imputation of

responsibility to the agent. He seems to

acknowledge the relative nature of freedom

(‘sufficiently’); however, he fails to make clear

that this may result in a similarly relative

conception of responsibility. A binary

conception, where agents are held absolutely

responsible for actions over which they had only

relative control, is counterintuitive. A brief

consideration of immorality in children, or in

p e o p l e w h o s e r a t i o n a l f a c u l t i e s a r e

compromised, reveals this very notion: that

moral responsibility is relative, and exists in

proportion to the degree of moral freedom that

can be attributed to the agent.

freedom as an asymmetrical capacity with the

statement that ‘[b]ad actions are subject to

freedom, but they do not proceed from it’, 112

suggesting that our choices do not result entirely

from freedom of the will, and thus the will

cannot be held fully responsible for them. It

seems, then, that Kant does acknowledge the

relative nature of moral responsibility, despite

not always making this explicit in his later

works. 113

Conclusion

In conclusion, I have argued along the lines

suggested by Fugate that Kant’s conception of

freedom as an asymmetrical capacity does not

commit him to holding to an ‘inconsistent triad

of propositions’, 114 as according to Objection

R/S, and that this prospect can be avoided by

understanding immorality not as arising from an

independent capacity for evil, but rather as a

failure of one’s positive capacity of moral

freedom to sufficiently motivate the agent

towards conformity with the law. From here, I

went on to posit that this positive moral capacity

is equivalent to moral understanding, fitting well

with Kant’s discussion of the holy will, as well as

our own intuitions about immorality in children.

Having suggested potential solutions to some

objections and counterexamples, I have

demonstrated that the resulting conclusion, that

it may not be possible to hold immoral agents

responsible for their immorality, need not be

problematic after all.

In quoting from the Religion, Timmermann goes

on to demonstrate Kant as having conceived of


112 Timmermann, Kant’s Groundwork, 165-6.

113 These ambiguities are not the focus of this essay, however many examples are discussed in Fugate, “Reinhold/Sidgwick

Problem,”.


34

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Bibliography

Fugate, Courtney. “On a Supposed Solution to the Reinhold/Sidgwick Problem in Kant’s Metaphysics

of Morals.” European Journal of Philosophy 23, no. 3 (2012): 349-373.

Guyer, Paul. "The Struggle for Freedom: Freedom of Will in Kant and Reinhold.” In Kant on Persons and

Agency, edited by Eric Watkins. Cambridge University Press (2017): 120-37.

Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Christopher Bennett, Joe

Saunders and Robert Stern. Oxford University Press, 2019.

Moser, Paul. “Propositional Knowledge”, Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the

Analytic Tradition 52, no. 1 (Jul.,1987): 91-114.

Timmermann, Jens. Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary. Cambridge University

Press, 2007.

35

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

When Harry Sexually Harassed Sally - An extension of the behavioural

view for consent

Marta Bax

Abstract

This article serves as both a response and extension of an ongoing debate around the subject of consent. The literature has

divided some seeking to define consent into two respective views: the mental view, by which an action is consensual if a

subject mentally agrees to it; the behavioural view, which argues consent must be disclosed by the consent-giver to the

receiver by some act of communication. I argue in favour of the latter by drawing a distinction between consent as

agreement and consent as permission, and more closely aligning consent with the notion of permission, which entails a

behavioural view. However, the characterisation of the behavioural view for consent is incomplete. Drawing on a

particular trope of the romantic comedy which has become embedded in pop culture, I explain against a potential problem

for the consensual behaviourist by arguing for a ‘contextual relationships’ view of consent: consent may exist as being built

up over time as a consequence of the relationship it exists in. Communication-instances may act as groundwork

communication which allows for uncommunicated consent in instances of little to no communication.

In this essay, I defend a behavioural view which

entails a communication 115 requirement for

successful consent. I do this by extending Tom

Dougherty’s defence of communication in his

paper ‘On Wrongs and Crimes: Does Consent

Require Only an Attempt to Communicate?’, a

critique of several arguments presented by

Victor Tadros to justify the view that consent

requires an attempt to communicate, but nothing

more. This extension is required (a) to explain

why it is that many people share Tadros’

assumption that consent can be a merely mental

requirement and (b) to explain why behavioural

consent can be given in instances that are void

of communication. I conclude that consent

ought to be seen as an action that grants

permission as well as one that communicates

agreement and that this permission can be

implicit in the relationships we form with people

due to previous instances of communication, or

in virtue of the socially accepted roles we choose

to enter in.

Preliminary: Mental Views vs Behavioural

Views

In specifying conditions for consent, the moral

philosopher faces several challenges. Accounts

within the literature have contributed to framing

the notion as one which must be autonomously

given 116, must be informed 117 and must be

explicitly communicated by some form of

outward behaviour, amongst many other

conditions. A full account of consent will tend

to all these supposed requirements and specify

the scope with which consent extends to each.

For the purposes of this essay, I will focus on

the latter only. The debate regarding whether

consent requires some explicit form of outward

behaviour as opposed to an implicit non-

115 What is specifically meant by communication, for the purposes of this essay, is communication through some form of

outward behaviour, as specified in the preliminary section below

116 Reis-Dennis, S. 2020. “Understanding Autonomy: An Urgent Intervention”. Journal of Law and the Biosciences, (7).

117 Pugh J. 2020. “Autonomy, Rationality, and Contemporary Bioethics.” Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press. Chapter 6.

“Informed Consent, Autonomy, and Beliefs”.

36

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

behavioural agreement between parties has been

framed by Tom Dougherty as a debate between

‘Mental Views’ and ‘Behavioural Views’:

Mental Views: morally valid consent consists in

some form of mental entity, such as intention to

consent, on the consent-giver’s part

Behavioural Views: morally valid consent requires

some form of outward behaviour on the

consent-giver’s part 118

A form of outward behaviour on the consentgiver’s

part outlines the need for the consentgiver

to communicate their reception of the

proposition which they are consenting to, to the

original proposer, or consent-receiver. 119 This

successful reception of the proposition is known

in the literature as ‘uptake’. Uptake can be more

formally characterized as any condition for

consent pertaining to the accepted receipt of a

proposition requiring consent on the part of the

consent-giver. The behaviourist about consent

(Dougherty) will require that uptake is

communicated by some form of outward

behaviour because it is this communication that

allows the consent-receiver to understand that

they do indeed have consent. They will endorse

the uptake view of consent: Consent is an act that

requires both an attempt to communicate and

uptake. 120 The mentalist about consent (Tadros)

will reject this, arguing consent is guaranteed in

situations where the consent-giver agrees to the

proposition in question, regardless of whether

the receiver is aware of the agreement. In order

to address the intuitions behind these views, this

essay’s first section shall deal with a clarification

that needs to be made with respect to a general

working definition of consent – consent as

agreeing vs consent as permission. It seems to

me that whilst Dougherty’s deconstruction of,

and accompanying arguments for, the uptake

view 121 are generally correct, he is quick in

dismissing Tadros’ non-communicative

intuitions. Once a distinction is made between

the different intuitions agreement and

permission generate, one can trace the route of

the paper’s conflict: Tadros seems to be arguing

for a notion of consent as agreeing, Dougherty

as explicitly giving permission. One’s intuitions

therefore on the question of whether consent

requires outward communication will change

depending on which base assumption is adopted.

Assuming this distinction is warranted, the

second section addresses the normative question

concerning which understanding of consent one

ought to endorse, arguing that the permissionsense

of consent, and therefore the uptake view

of consent, is preferable.

I

Tadros vs Dougherty, Agreement vs

Permission

Some grounding of the main conflicting

arguments pertaining to consent will help justify

the claim that the two authors disagree

primitively on the fundamental formulation of

consent itself. Dougherty presents three replies

in favour of the uptake view in response to

Tadros’ main arguments against uptake. In order,

these are:

(1) The Mumble Argument 122

(2) The Delayed Consent Argument 123

(3) The Control Argument124

Each of these is approached by both

philosophers from two intuitively biased

standpoints; one defines consent as agreement,

the other permission.

118 Dougherty, T. 2018. “On Wrongs And Crimes: Does Consent Require Only An Attempt To Communicate?”. Criminal

Law And Philosophy 13 (3).

119 ‘Proposition’ in this case simply refers to what the consent-giver is actually consenting to

120 Dougherty, T. “On Wrongs and Crimes”: 411.





37

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

(1) The Mumble Argument

The first case is as follows: X asks Y for consent,

Y mumbles a reply. X is not sure what Y has said

and so is not sure whether Y has consented.

Tadros takes this case to support the view that

consent does not require uptake. Dougherty

deconstructs his reasoning as such:

P1*: X is warranted in being unsure whether Y

has consented.

P2: X is warranted in being unsure whether

consent was given only if they do not know the

criteria required for consent to be given.

P3: X knows he lacks uptake

C1*: X does not know the Y consents

Finally, infer from C1 and P3:

C2* Therefore, X’s lack of uptake does not make

it the case that Jones does not consent.

The idea is that X simultaneously does not know

whether consent has been given, and does know

that they lack uptake. Therefore, consent must

be independent of uptake. However, for the

argument to work, both parties (those

sympathetic to the uptake view and those

employing the argument against it) have to

accept the premises. The problem, as Dougherty

notes, is that P1* may not be accepted by

sympathisers of uptake in the first place. Note,

P1 insists that not knowing whether you have

been given consent is a justification for not

knowing whether you have consent. However,

those who endorse uptake will say that situations

in which uptake is not received are not

ambiguous about whether consent is given, but

clear-cut: they are situations in which consent is

absent, and therefore you are not justified in

believing you may have consent. For a

(convenient) analogy to motivate this intuition,

consider a case involving permission instead.

You ask me whether I can have your car keys. I

mumble something back. Are you justified in

thinking I may have given you permission to take

my car? At first sight, the answer may be clearly

‘Yes’. I either agreed to you taking my car out for

a spin or disagreed. However, this potential for

agreement does not imply permission. In order

to have successfully given you permission, or not

given you permission, for that matter, you need

to be aware of whether I have agreed or not. I

may be relaxed about the idea and, agreeing to it,

have attempted to give you permission by

mumbling a ‘yes, of course’. But then you are

warranted only in thinking I may have agreed to

your proposition, or attempted to give you

permission; not that I have actually given you

permission. This is because you were not

successfully given (you did not hear) the

agreement. The reception on your part of my

agreement -which distinguishes agreement from

permission - is similar to the uptake-criterion of

consent Dougherty takes to be primitive.

Similarly to how you are not warranted in

thinking I may have given you permission to take

my car out, X is not warranted in thinking Y may

have consented.

(2) Delayed Consent

The second argument Tadros provides in favour

of a non-uptake interpretation of consent is:

“Delay: On Monday, Bill asks Sally if he can

borrow her car on Wednesday. On Tuesday Sally

writes an email to Bill that he can. Bill does not

read the email until Thursday.” 125

Delay is to be interpreted by sympathizers of the

uptake view as meaning Bill had consent from

Sally to take her car out on Thursday only.

Intuitively, Tadros claims the better view is to

allow that Sally consented on Tuesday, but Bill

did not find out until Thursday. Discussing this

argument, Dougherty draws on the parallel case

of promises without uptake in order to argue that

promises, like consent, do indeed require uptake.

The case of Delayed Receipt 126 is similar to Delay in

that it features two people, Adam and Bertha.

On (for the sake of comparison) Monday, Bertha

writes a letter to Adam promising monogamy.

On Wednesday night, she has sex for the last

time with her ex-boyfriend, Willis. On Thursday,

Adam receives the letter. If consistent with his

views on Delay, it seems Tadros would claim

Bertha promised on Monday, and therefore

incurs promissory obligations at that time.

125 Tadros, V. 2016. “Wrongs and Crimes”. Oxford University Press: 206

126 Dougherty, D. “On Wrongs and Crimes”: 414-415.

38

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Adam, however, discovers these obligations on

Thursday. Promissory obligation, therefore, is

independent of uptake. Following Liberto 127,

Dougherty responds with two conditions for the

generation of promissory obligations: (a) for a

promissory obligation to arise, it has to be the

case that a promise has been launched, and (b)

that uptake eventually occurs. The uptake view of

promises is preserved in this case since although

it is conceded that promissory obligations can

occur before uptake, the validity of these

obligations remains contingent on whether

uptake eventually occurs.

I think such a reply gets around the issue but

does so fairly weakly. Firstly, there needs to be a

well-justified explanation for why exactly it is

that, upon promising, the promisor is under an

obligation to the promissee, when the promissee

may never be made aware of the promise, or

may potentially refute the promise. Given the

very definition of promising and its use are

debated topics in the philosophical literature,

there isn’t much said on why this notion is

preferable, other than it being an ad hoc move to

save the uptake criterion. Additionally,

conditions (a) and (b) jointly introduce

unnecessary complications. Take, for example, a

promise Sam makes to Brook to marry them in

early adulthood. Ten years on, Brook fulfils (b)

and agrees to marry Sam. The promise was

neither accepted nor refuted until this point. Was

Sam under an obligation, all these years, to marry

Brook? It is worth noting that Liberto does

support her account by providing solutions to

problems conditions (a) and (b) may incur 128. My

aim in this section is instead to justify why (a)

and (b) hold.

The idea is that the general intuitions for (a) and

(b) are right, but for a crucial supplementary

reason. It is not that Bertha has broken a

promise before receiving uptake on Adam’s part

because promissory obligations already existed

from the moment the promise was launched.

Rather, Bertha has broken the promise because

at the moment uptake occurred (Adam accepting

the promise), the terms had already been

damaged. According to Adam, the fine-print of

Bertha’s promise read: ‘I have finally decided to

commit to monogamy from this moment on.’ If the

letter instead implicitly stated ‘I want to be

monogamous from the moment you read this

letter,’ Bertha has indeed committed no wrong. It

doesn’t matter that a promise was launched early

or later or made at the time of promising – what

matters is that if the terms of the promise made

at the moment included actions of the past, the

promissory obligation that is generated by both

parties signing on extends to past events.

Promissory obligations do not obtain because

the promise was launched, they obtain because

when the promise was accepted (uptake

occurred), it extended to actions of the past. I

would argue that unless this distinction was

specified, Adam did not uptake Bertha’s promise

in the correct way. If Bertha meant for her

accountability to start when Adam read the

letter, yet did not specify this, Adam’s confusion

is warranted, but his justification in holding her

accountable is not: in the end, Bertha did not

promise to be monogamous until Adam received

the letter. Unless specified, consent is up for

interpretation. It is therefore important that the

promissee ensures themselves of the details of

the promise they have been made. I think

Liberto and Dougherty won’t have a problem

with such a justification for conditions (a) and

(b) in favour of uptake. I also think the argument

for uptake existing in Delayed Receipt is stronger

than Tadros’ intuition. Crucially, Tadros need not

agree. He may retain that although unspecified,

the agreement between Adam and Bertha for her

to be monogamous unless specified, implies she

committed to this from the moment the letter

was written. It doesn’t matter whether then

Bertha meant for this to mean from the moment

Adam read the letter, ie. it doesn’t matter whether

she actually permitted Adam to interpret the

agreement in this way. It is in this sense that

relying on a distinction between permission and

agreement, and falling back on the latter, could

still vindicate Tadros’ intuitions.

(3) The Control Argument

127 Liberto, H. 2018. "Promises and the Backward Reach of Uptake." American Philosophical Quarterly 55, (1): 20-21.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/45128595.

128 Liberto, H. 2018. "Promises and the Backward Reach of Uptake." American Philosophical Quarterly 55, (1): 15-26.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/45128595.

39

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Tadros’ final argument against uptake relies on

an additional requirement between autonomy

and consent some may hold necessary. The

autonomy thesis, ie. the idea that consent-givers

have an autonomous right to decide to give

consent, is present also in accounts of promises.

The issue arises from two requirements implicit

within the uptake view for consent: in order to

consent with uptake, one has to firstly be capable

of autonomous consent. Dougherty fleshes this

out in terms of “Negative Autonomy: The

capacity to ensure that one is not validly

consenting.” 129 Secondly, the uptake view, in

virtue of requiring that the promissee is aware

of the promise, requires that the promisor is

capable of ensuring consent when consent is

intended. Ie. “Positive Autonomy: The capacity

to ensure that one is validly consenting.” 130

Tadros’ argument is that the uptake view is

limited in that it cannot guarantee positive

autonomy, because plausibly, there are instances

in which no matter the promiser’s efforts, they

fail to guarantee the uptake of the promissee 131

(The Mumble argument above can qualify as one

such effort). The uncertainty of guaranteeing

autonomy in this sense is a problem for Tadros.

It is not for Dougherty. Dougherty himself adds

that given this is an intuitive stand-off, there’s

not much room to provide an argument against

Tadros’ position. However, there is space to

once again outline this as a distinction between

consent as agreement and consent as permission.

If the previous and following arguments in

favour of the latter hold, then one can reject

Tadros’ intuition on the basis of said distinction.

As alluded to in the discussion of the mumble

argument, in order to successfully give permission

for an action x, one has to first ensure that the

permission is received. Otherwise, it is not the

case that permission is given so much as one has

attempted to give permission. In order to give

permission, there has to be some X to whom

you give the permission to, i.e., a sort of

‘transfer’ of intentions is made. In this respect,

consent requires communication because this

transfer of intentions from one to the other

cannot be done telepathically. On the other

hand, it is intuitively plausible that Y can agree to

a set of terms without X being aware she agreed

to them, even if those terms were set down by

X. The very process of letting someone know

you consent entails your mental analysis of the

situation, agreeing, and then letting them know.

To successfully agree to the performance of

action x, the consent-giver needs no assurance

that uptake occurs. She can agree autonomously

to an action being done to her, for example,

without needing to be sure whether her consentreceiver

is aware. This second notion of

agreement reflects Tadros’ requirement in

maintaining the close link between both positive

and negative autonomy with consent, since

negative autonomy is not challenged, and

positive autonomy goes unrequired due to the

absence of uptake.

A question may still remain for some readers of

why exactly, then, one should endorse a notion

of consent as affiliated with permission over one

affiliated with agreement. The following section

aims to motivate this very claim.

II

Permission > Agreement

Does our notion of consent and hence our

opinion on whether consent requires

communication simply depend on which

interpretation we prefer to choose? My

inclinations say no: the framing of consent as

permission rather than agreement is more

desirable. One motivation for this is that consent

on most if not all accounts seems to be a special

type of agreement – namely an agreement for

some agent / group to do something to you, or

vice-versa. It is an expression of agreement that

requires an agential relationship – more in line

with the notion of permission between humans

than any agreement towards a concept / action /

thought. To be more precise, the very nature of

an agential relationship requires a distinction

between the concepts of consent as permission

and agreement. A person can agree to a set of

terms, for example, a legal contract, fixed in



131 Tadros, V. 2016. “Wrongs and Crimes”. Oxford University Press: 219

40

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

writing. Since this contract is immutable, they

need not worry about changing terms or

intentions. Talk about receiving permission,

however, and the subject of change is

introduced. The terms of a contract between

people may change as the external situation

changes (I consented to you giving me a kiss in

exchange for a rubber, but now my friend has

given me hers, so I no longer consent to you

giving me a kiss). They may change as a person’s

internal intentions change (I no longer wish to

be kissed, even if you gave me your rubber. This

might not be fair, or a violation of my agreement,

but you would still lack permission). Agential

relationships factor in this change, and so fall

more in line with the notion of consent as

permission rather than agreement. A modern

reading of sexual consent adheres to the

argument – sexual consent between two people

must be constantly given. Indeed, generally, it is

taken for granted that “so long as (a person)

presently dissents, it is irrelevant that they have

consented in the past.” 132

The framing of consent in terms of permission

serves additionally to aid understanding of valid

vs invalid consent to harm, discussed in Tadros’

2011 article. 133 This focuses on contrasting

intuitions arising on whether consent can make a

difference to the permissibility of harming

others, notable examples including euthanasia

and voluntary cannibalism. What follows in

order to make sense of this contrast between

appeals to autonomy (what is expressed by

informed consent) vs conventional morality

(principles somewhat against harm which we

have come to accept in society), is a further

analysis of the content of the consent, for

example, the magnitude of harm undertaken. 134

Euthanasia is in many cultures considered too

great a violation of the harm principle for a

person’s autonomous desire to die to override

the principle. This is a case where the content of

consent overrides the validity of consent, but

further work needs to be done to explain why

this is. Understanding consent in terms of

permissibility can summarise why this conflict

exists in the first place. There may be cases

where an individual’s permission conflicts with

what society deems as permissible, and these are

cases that constitute invalid consent in said

societies. The ‘content’ ought to be analysed

further not only to see if the individual grants

permission, but whether the social fabric does

too. The requirement of permission from

multiple sources by those against euthanasia can

explain the discord between autonomous rights

and the harm principle. I note that in both

‘Wrongs and Crimes’ 135 and ‘Rape Without

Consent’ 136 Tadros himself expresses concern

over close affiliation of consent with agreement

on the subject of rape, due to the “paradox at

the heart of the definition” 137 involving a tension

between agreeing by choice vs lacking general

capacity or freedom. His resolution is to distance

a new definition of rape from the consent-based

model to a differentiated one. I would suggest

instead converging the agreement-based model

of consent on a permission-based one. “There

are two ways in which agreement might be

understood: either subjectively, as a meeting of

minds, or objectively through the

communication of the parties.” 138 The latter

requires permission and hence qualifies as better

groundwork for what constitutes consent.

Given the above discussion, I am going to

assume consent comes in the form of

permission moreso than agreement, for the

remainder of the essay. This permission-view

entails that consent requires communication. I

am aware that this choice has not been

132 Dougherty, T. 2014. “Fickle Consent” Philosophical Studies 167 (1): 26. doi:10.1007/s11098-013-0230-7.

133 Tadros, V. 2011. “Consent To Harm”. Current Legal Problems 64 (1): 23-49. doi:10.1093/clp/cur004.

134 Tadros, V. “Consent to Harm”: 26.

135 Tadros, V. “Wrongs and crimes”: 207.

136 Tadros, V. 2006. "Rape Without Consent". Oxford Journal Of Legal Studies 26 (3): 515-543. doi:10.1093/ojls/gql016.

137 Tadros, V. “Rape Without Consent”: 521.

138 Tadros, V. “Rape Without Consent”: 521.

41

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

meticulously defended – and welcome any

counterarguments – but I think it is a distinction

that agrees with Dougherty’s superior

counterarguments whilst still allowing

justification for the intuitions of Tadros and

those similar to him via explanatory power 139.

III

Problems for Permission: Romantic Comedy

Scenario (No Communication)

This third section marks a problem for the

behaviourist which, contrary to Tadros’ intuitive

charges, is born out of the permission-view for

consent. I assume consent is sufficient for

fulfilling the demands of sexual morality to

highlight two cases that imply uptake without the

usual framing requiring additional outward

behaviour expressing uptake. What exactly is

entailed by permissive-consent under this view is

blurred with regards to the wider literature on

sexual ethics. In order to work, such an account

will fall much more in line with an ‘enthusiastic’

reading of behavioural consent as opposed to a

‘yes means yes’, ‘no means no’ black-and-white

take. 140 Additionally, these cases ought still

conform to some relevant interpretation of

‘informed consent’, the definition of which may

need to undergo some adjustments with regards

to these particular instances. If upon evaluation

with regards to the wider literature, these cases

hold as instances of valid consent, then there is a

subtlety to address by what behaviourists mean

when we talk of ‘outward’ behaviour when

communicating consent. The subtlety is that

outward behaviour communicating uptake can

be implicit in the relationships we form with

people due to previous instances of

communication, or in virtue of the socially

accepted roles we choose to enter in. An

understanding of, and accompanying complicity,

with regards to these roles is sufficient for

informed permissive-consent. The argument in

favour of this additional requirement is

presented below.

Given the requirement for uptake is accepted on

the permission view for consent, it can be inferred

that some accompanying act of communication

on the part of the consent-giver is additionally

required. Otherwise, there is no prompt that

makes the consent-receiver aware of the

existence of a proposition to consent to. Take,

for example, Tadros’ own foreign lovers’ case:

“Foreign Lovers: Brenda consents to sex with Ahmed in

a language that Brenda thinks Ahmed understands, but

he does not. Because Ahmed does not believe Brenda

consents, they do not have sex.” 141

In order for Brenda to express her permission in

granting Ahmed’s request for sex, she first has to

understand that he indeed is asking for sex. In

order to do so, it seems as though he has to

effectively communicate his intentions to her

somewhat. 142 Under the permission view for

consent, Brenda would then have to successfully

permit the proposition, i.e. grant consent with

communication of uptake. In other words, on

this view, there seems to be not only a need for

uptake of a proposition on the part of the

consent-giver, but additionally there must be

some successful communication from both

parties of the intended request for consent, and

the following denial/acceptance of said request.

Consent is a two-way communicative relation.

The requirement for this two-way

communication is implicit in the arguments for

uptake analysed so far. The question I raise in

this section is whether there exist specific

instances of uptake void of this communicative

relation. These are not, in the vein of Tadros,

examples which ought to fuel intuitions that

139 The explanation is the divergence between two intuitive views based on ideas of consent as agreement vs consent as

permission.

140 Coy M. & Kelly, L. & Vera-Gray, F. & Garner, M. & Kanyeredzi, A. 2016. “From ‘no means no’ to ‘an enthusiastic yes’:

Changing the Discourse on Sexual Consent Through Sex and Relationships Education.” 10.1057/9781137500229_6.


This is also arguably true for an agreement view of consent: although Brenda may not needs to express her uptake to

142

Ahmed for consent, there is still a requirement for Ahmed to communicate his asking for consent in order for there to be a

general understanding of what agreement is being consented to.

42

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

uptake is unrequired for consent. The argument

here will be that uptake can exist without

attempted communication. It is a distinction

Dougherty fails to make in his formulation of

the uptake view, one which is however required to

properly capture the behavioural view.

Romantic comedy scenario (No communication):

In this scenario, Ahmed wants to kiss Brenda,

but this is not communicated. Brenda wants

Ahmed to kiss her, but this too is not

communicated. Ahmed sweeps in and abruptly

kisses Brenda.

It seems clear in the above case that consent in

the permissive ‘you can do this to me’ sense

hasn’t been explicitly given, but there seems to

be justification in saying that the kissing act isn’t

really treated as a non-consensual action, or at

least a harmful non-consensual action (by both

Brenda and Ahmed, as well as the audience).

Why? Perhaps as an audience, we have just

grown likely to excuse instances void of consent

where the main leads are attractive and clearly

like each other. Three other possible appeals to

justification can be made. One route is to say

that consent is made obvious the moment both

participants / Brenda specifically does not stop

the kiss and welcomes it – but this seems very

problematic. E.g. imagine Brenda didn’t intend

or want the kiss, but from the moment it starts

she actually doesn’t find it too bad, and so

continues. Would Ahmed still have had consent

at the moment he leaned forward to kiss her?

Initial consent’s time seems to have come and

passed the moment someone starts performing

an action on you.

A second possible route is to draw a distinction

between instances that are non-consensual, by

which case the consent-giver actively does not

want to give consent, and cases where there is

merely a lack of consent, i.e. there is either no

attempt, a failed attempt, or simply no

communication which may classify as consent.

Cases such as these, however, mark precisely the

distinction between a mental and behavioural

view of consent. The behavioural view to which

I am committed requires communication in

order to establish permissibility. Whether the

absence of consent implies permission on the

part of the consent-giver will inevitably vary by

situation. Two such examples are present in

Dougherty’s ‘Consent, Communication and

Abandonment’: 143

“Wanted Sex. Sue wants Sam to have sex with her.

Yet she is afraid that if she communicates that to

him, he might think she is ‘‘easy’’ or ‘‘trashy’’ and

ultimately reject a long-term relationship with

her, a relationship she desires.

One night, Sam begins making sexual advances

with Sue. Sue wants him to proceed, but she says

nothing to encourage him and indeed resists him

with some force at each step of the way. This

resistance does not deter him, and ultimately,

they have sex.

Sue is delighted. Things worked out just as she

had hoped. Sam had sex with her, but she was

able to communicate that she was not consenting

to it.” 144

“Unwanted Sex. Teresa is not willing to have sex

with Tony. Teresa does nothing to indicate that

she is willing to engage in sexual intercourse with

Tony. Tony realizes that Teresa is not willing to

engage in sexual intercourse, and has not

communicated that she is. Tony proceeds to

engage in sexual intercourse with Teresa.” 145

Both above cases are examples of consent as

absent rather than non-consensual. Dougherty’s

critics have argued that there is a difference that

must be noted between the two scenarios when

considering the criminal justice system which

ought to hold that Tony’s actions are more

morally reprehensible than Sam’s. If it isn’t

mental consent, then the question for

behaviourists is what is the difference between

the two cases which allows permissibility in

Sam’s case but not Tony’s? Why might the

absence of consent be permissible? The answer

is this: an action where consent is behaviourally

absent may classify as consensual if and only if it

was previously explicitly agreed that the absence

143 Dougherty, T. 2019. "Consent, Communication, And Abandonment". Law And Philosophy 38 (4): 387-405. doi:10.1007/

s10982-019-09355-5.

144 Dougherty, T. “Consent, Communication, And Abandonment”: 389.

145 Dougherty, T. “Consent, Communication, And Abandonment”: 391.

43

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

of consent entails consent. I.e. if Sam is

(correctly) aware of Sue’s wanting to have sex by

purposely choosing to perform an absence of

consent, it may be understood as consent (given

she still feels this way). However, if Sam was

unaware of Sue’s motivations, and yet chose to

have sex with her in the absence of sexual

consent, then the action has equal consensual

standing with Tony’s below. Both men are not

given permission to have sex with the women,

the difference is Sue welcomed the act, Teresa

did not. Additionally, it is worth noting that

intuitions about this particular difference may

change with the type of consent warranted.

There are certain agreements between people

commonly understood to require only some

form of passive consent (as long as you don’t

actively prohibit it, it is generally alright to

assume you have consented. An example is an

email arrangement between a professor and

student about the next supervision time: if the

supervisor emails the student specifying a time

for the next supervision unless specifically

requested by the student, the implicit agreement

that they will meet at a said time remains without

need for the student to email back. Sexual

consent is not that type of agreement. It is one

where permission from both parties is required

and disclosed. For these reasons I do not think

this ‘passive’ route alone is the answer to our

dismissal of potentially problematic romantic

comedy scenes.

The final route (I think the more favourable) is

to say that consent exists in this case as being

built up over time as a consequence of the relationship it

exists in - in our romantic comedy case, this

happens over the course of an on-screen

relationship. Brenda and Ahmed enter into a

(potential) romantic relationship along the film’s

timeline made up of many different individual

instances of communication (e.g. going on dates,

walking each other home, meet-cutes). These

communication instances build the nature of this

relationship they have and act as the groundwork

communication which allows for uncommunicated

consent in instances of little/no communication.

To give a different example, one can think of

two colleagues’ previously established work

relationship where they jump up on each other

and scare one another. The nature of the

relationship being established via groundwork

communication, when this non-communicated

act happens, it passes for consent. This is not to

say that just because two people are framed as

romantic interests, and Ahmed and Brenda

communicated this relationship to each other

previously in the film, that Ahmed has

permission at any moment to kiss Brenda.

Perhaps Brenda was angry with him, didn’t want

a kiss, or found a new love interest in the

previous scene. If all these factors amount to

Brenda not wanting to be kissed, then of course

Ahmed does not have permission to kiss her.

What this ‘contextual relationships’ view of

consent merely implies is that sometimes

consent can be given in non-communicative

situations, NOT as a result of intended mental

consent or attempted consent, nor because of a

previous explicit agreement that the absence of

consent entails consent, but as a result of the

nature of an established relationship. This can be

established in virtue of either previous acts of

communication (two co-workers agreeing they

will play these pranks on each other), or by

socially accepted (and communicated) roles in

relationships (Brenda and Ahmed entering the

roles of romantic interests in a romantic

comedy).

A benefit of this view is that it means consent in

the same scenario ‘without communication’

looks different for different relationships. In a

situation where two co-workers have not

previously established a joke relationship, when

Sam jumps on Bill out of the blue it is clear that

Sam does not have consent. The additional

benefit of this contextualising view of consent is

that it more easily appeases those still with

intuitions of consent as a mental agreement

between two people by allowing for consent to

be present in situations where there is no

communication. However, this view still falls

under a behavioural (communication) idea of

consent because these special-case instances rely

on relationships and dynamics made up of

previous communication.

Possible Counterargument – Ignorant

customers and scheming waiters

One possible way to argue against this

‘contextual relationships’ view as founded on

communication is to formulate an instance in

which the contextual relationship element and

the communication element are in conflict with

44

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

each other. For example, imagine a client in a

restaurant in which the menu is written in a

language she doesn’t understand, asking the

waiter for meat when really, she intends to eat

fish. The waiter decides out of spite (perhaps

because her pronunciation is off) to bring her

the fish dish under the impression that what she

really wants is meat. Thanks to two errors (a-la-

Zagzebski), the client gets the meal she intended

to. But has she consented to the waiter’s actions?

Under a normal behavioural view, it seems she

has not: there was a failure in communication on

both parts. But on a contextual relationship view,

it seems she has – the socially accepted roles in

this relationship are those of the waiter and the

client, both have communicated their roles by

the manner of sitting down at a table in a

restaurant, picking up a menu, walking over to

the table, asking to take an order … The

dynamic of the roles entails the client consents

to the waiter bringing the client the food she

wants. The waiter does this, therefore the client

has consented.

If these two views really do conflict with how

they see consent, then it cannot be the case that

the contextual relationship view is seen as an

extension of the behavioural view and has

explanatory power for instances in which there

seems to be no communication but we are

willing to call consent. It is therefore a relief for

the behavioural view that they do not conflict:

The dynamic of the client / waiter role not only

entails that the waiter brings the client the food

she wants, but that the waiter brings the client

the food she specifically orders. If I order food,

but then change my mind after I have ordered it,

it is not the waiter’s fault if she brings me the

option I ordered, rather it is expected. I have not

given her permission to bring me the food I really

want if I did not communicate this to her. This

is built into the dynamic of the socially accepted

roles in the client/waiter relationship. Hence,

when I enter the role of the client in this

dynamic, I am only non-communicatively

consenting to the waiter bringing me the food I

ordered, not what I wanted. Therefore, when the

waiter brings out the fish dish, both on the

classic behavioural and contextual relationship

view, consent is absent.

Conclusion

To conclude, consent does require

communication. However, the role

communication plays in certain instances of

consent may be subtler, e.g. it may be the case in

instances of no-communication that consent is

given, but this is dependent on a relationship

dynamic established by previous communication.

This extended version of consent as permission

clearly falls under the behavioural view defended

by Dougherty, whilst providing an explanation

for opposing intuitions presented by Tadros and

his akin.

45

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Bibliography

Coy M. & Kelly, L. & Vera-Gray, F. & Garner, M. & Kanyeredzi, A. 2016. “From ‘no means no’ to ‘an

enthusiastic yes’: Changing the Discourse on Sexual Consent Through Sex and Relationships

Education.” In book: Global Perspectives and Key Debates in Sex and Relationships Education: Addressing

Issues of Gender, Sexuality, Plurality and Power 10.1057/9781137500229_6.

Dougherty, T. 2019. "Consent, Communication, And Abandonment". Law And Philosophy 38 (4):

387-405. doi:10.1007/s10982-019-09355-5.

Dougherty, T. 2014. “Fickle Consent”. Philosophical Studies 167 (1): 25-40. doi:10.1007/

s11098-013-0230-7.

Dougherty, T. 2018. “On Wrongs And Crimes: Does Consent Require Only An Attempt To

Communicate?”. Criminal Law And Philosophy 13 (3): 409-423. doi:10.1007/s11572-018-9473-x.

Fox, R.M. & DeMarco J.P. 1996. “On Making and Keeping Promises”. Journal of Applied

Philosophy (13): 199-208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5930.1996.tb00162.x

Liberto, H. 2018. "Promises and the Backward Reach of Uptake." American Philosophical

Quarterly 55, (1): 15-26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45128595.

Pugh J. 2020. “Autonomy, Rationality, and Contemporary Bioethics.” Oxford (UK): Oxford

Press. Chapter 6. “Informed Consent, Autonomy, and Beliefs”. https://

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK556864/

Reis-Dennis, S. 2020. “Understanding Autonomy: An Urgent Intervention”. Journal of Law

Biosciences, (7). https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsaa037

University

and the

Tadros, V. 2011. “Consent To Harm”. Current Legal Problems 64 (1): 23-49. doi:10.1093/clp/cur004.

Tadros, V. 2006. "Rape Without Consent". Oxford Journal Of Legal Studies 26 (3): 515-543. doi:10.1093/

ojls/gql016.

Tadros, V. 2016. “Wrongs and Crimes”. Oxford University Press

46

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Can Science Explain Consciousness?

Will Ryan

Abstract

Despite the usual success of science in explaining all phenomena it investigates, a scientific explanation of consciousness

has remained elusive. Accordingly, this essay considers whether science is equipped to tackle the problem of consciousness.

A critical overview of a sample of scientific approaches to investigating the problem reveals that they consistently fail to

provide an intelligible explanation of why processes consisting of nonconscious matter should be accompanied by subjective

experience. Consequently, a philosophical analysis of the mind-body problem is conducted to see if conceptual clarity might

indicate a way forward. This discovers an operative assumption in the scientific field that consciousness is an emergent,

biological phenomenon. It is therefore suggested that consciousness be treated as an irreducible feature of reality instead. A

scientific approach that treats consciousness as irreducible is identified in integrated information theory (IIT). Further

examination finds that IIT provides more efficient explanations for testable consciousness related phenomena than other

theories, and it is argued that its reliability in explaining testable phenomena increases confidence in its untestable claims

about the place of consciousness in nature. It is therefore concluded that science can explain consciousness, given the

appropriate conceptual foundations.

Introduction

The progress of natural science throughout the

last century has been meteoric. From quantum

theory to mapping the human genome, scientific

developments have impacted every aspect of

modern life. Nonetheless, one phenomenon has

remained as contentious as ever throughout this

period: consciousness. This is, perhaps, in part

due to its intangible nature. It may also partly be

due to the understandable wariness of scientific

sensibilities towards admitting something to

serious study that might inadvertently give

credence to supernatural notions like the soul.

However, the possibility that it is because science

just is not equipped to explain consciousness

cannot be overlooked. The past few decades has

seen a resurgence of scientific and philosophical

interest into consciousness research, with a

plethora of different opinions emerging as to

what it is and how to investigate it. Some have

expressed confidence that any apparent

problems in explaining consciousness will be

swept away with further scientific investigation

(Baars 1988, Crick and Koch 1990, Seth 2018),

while others have gone as far as to doubt

whether there is anything real to be explained in

the first place beyond nonconscious physical

processes (Churchland 1981, Dennett 1993,

Frankish 2016). Even so, as advancements in

relevant fields of scientific enquiry over the years

have delivered an unprecedented understanding

of human behaviour and the neural processes

that underlie it, so too have arguments gained

traction claiming that consciousness is

impervious to these methods of scientific

investigation (Nagel 1974, Levine 1983,

Chalmers 1995, Strawson 2006, Goff 2019).

Such a stark lack of consensus around a topic so

fundamental to human self-knowledge,

knowledge of the world, and the relationship

between the two is obviously disconcerting.

Accordingly, this essay will assess the role of

science in furthering the burgeoning

consciousness debate. Beginning by specifying

w h a t p h e n o m e n o n i s d e n o t e d b y

‘consciousness’, it will then consider scientific

approaches to studying it, such as

neurobiological explanations and cognitive

modelling. While these approaches are insightful,

it is found that they fail to explain why the

47

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

physical processes they study should be

accompanied by, or result in, conscious

experiences. A philosophical analysis is therefore

conducted to see if conceptual clarity might

remove this problem. This discovers that science

had thus far failed to explain consciousness

because it has operated under the assumption

that consciousness is an emergent, biological

phenomenon. As such, a way of conceptualising

consciousness as an irreducible feature of the

world will be considered. As this view seems to

provide a way forward, a scientific theory that

treats consciousness as irreducible will then be

examined. Finally, seeing that this approach has

potential to make substantial progress, it is

c o n c l u d e d t h a t s c i e n c e c a n e x p l a i n

consciousness, given the correct conceptual

underpinning.

What is Consciousness?

All humans are intimately acquainted with

consciousness, so it might seem unnecessary to

define it. However, those who have attempted to

pin it down have invariably run into difficulties.

A famous entry from The International Dictionary

of Psychology (Sutherland, 1989) illustrates the

point: ‘The having of perceptions, thoughts and

feelings: awareness . . . Consciousness is a

fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is

impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or

why it evolved’. Nouns such as ‘awareness’,

‘feelings’, ‘sentience’, and ‘experience’ tend to

arise while trying to home in on consciousness.

These words are generally problematic, however,

as they either simply substitute another word for

‘consciousness’, or don’t capture its essence at

all. For example, awareness can be displayed by

objects there is no reason to consider conscious,

such as the automatic door that opens as one

enters the supermarket. Moreover, the above

definition falls into another common pitfall by

appealing to thoughts and perceptions; but, the

reality of unconscious thought processes being

affected by subliminal perceptions (Karam et al.

2017) makes this strategy tenuous too.

The problem stems from the fact that a word

will usually pick out a referent, some object in the

world or aspect of experience, which is

understood in relation to other objects or aspects

of experience – terms are understood in context.

Consciousness, however, is the context in which

all these relations take place. This means that

there is no context in which it can itself be

placed. Consequently, any attempt to define

consciousness by reference to something more

fundamental must omit crucial features of the

phenomenon, and any attempt to give a

nonreductive definition must ultimately be

circular. It therefore seems the best that can be

done is to elucidate its significant features.

Perhaps the most influential exposition in this

manner is Thomas Nagel’s (1974), which

highlights the ‘subjective character of

experience’. Nagel states that ‘an organism has

conscious mental states if and only if there is

something that it is like to be that organism’. This

statement is effective as it grasps a truly essential

feature of conscious experience, that it entails a

subjective point of view, while being sufficiently

vague so as not to bring along any of the

unnecessary concepts discussed above. 146 This

captures what is being considered in this essay,

so from here on ‘consciousness’ shall simply

denote the presence of a subjective point of

view of any kind. 147

The Scientific Investigation of

Consciousness

Science is an inherently objective enterprise, it

deals exclusively with quantifiable features of the

world that can be corroborated by independent

observers; that is to say, science deals with the

physical world. Thus, if science is to shed light

on consciousness, a mental phenomenon, it must

be possible to explain it in physical terms. Of

course, a good place to start with is the brain:

there is little doubt that the brain, a physical

object, is linked with conscious experience in

some way. As such, a prominent line of

146 Nagel’s conception of consciousness does not require that an organism be aware of its own experience – it does not

require reflexive consciousness or self-awareness. It is merely stating that if it feels like something (anything) to be the

organism – if there is some form of experience of being the organism, rather than total oblivion – then it is conscious.

147 There are many names in the literature to indicate the bare presence of consciousness as opposed to

nonconsciousness in the literature; for example, ‘creature consciousness’, ‘medical consciousness’, ‘generic

consciousness’.

48

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

investigation has been to identify the neural

correlates of consciousness (NCC).

NCCs are defined as ‘the minimum neural

mechanisms sufficient for any one specific

conscious percept’ (Koch, Massimini and Tononi

2016). Accordingly, NCC research targets

specific contents of consciousness by

monitoring brain activity while exposing test

subjects to stimuli. The perceptibility of

particular properties of a stimulus can be

presented at various intensities, for example the

intensity of the redness of a square, and

correlated with the activity of specific neural

circuits. This enables researchers to identify the

neural systems responsible for representing

specific aspects of perceptions, for example

redness or squareness.

Now, the obvious criticism here is that

correlation does not mean causation. However,

the word ‘correlate’ is misleading. The stipulation

that NCCs are the minimum neural systems

sufficient for the given percept filters trivial

correlations, ensuring that only correlates with

explanatory value toward specific elements of

conscious experience are considered NCCs. In

other words, some neural states will correlate

with a percept because they are part of the

general functioning of the brain (indeed, the

entire brain could be considered a correlate);

however, this is a trivial observation as it could

be applied to all perceptions. Therefore, to be

considered an NCC, the neural system must be

specific to the percept, ensuring it has

explanatory value. Thus, ‘Every phenomenal,

subjective state is caused by a particular physical

mechanism in the brain’ (Koch 2017, 43). Even

so, the explanatory value of NCCs is only

applicable to the character of particular

subjective states, given the fact of consciousness;

it does not explain why those neural states

should produce a conscious experience in the

first place.

There have been many suggestions as to what

the NCC could be for consciousness itself, rather

than just its contents (see Chalmers 1998 for a

list). For brevity’s sake, however, one seminal

exemplar will be considered here. NCC pioneers,

Crick and Koch (1990), argued that 40-hertz

oscillations in the cerebral cortex can provide a

broader explanation for consciousness itself.

They claimed that, since different neural circuits

are responsible for representing specific

elements of perceptions (redness, squareness,

and so on), but the experience of the perception

is always unified (a red square is experienced, not

redness and squareness), there must be a neural

mechanism unifying these disparate elements,

ergo enabling conscious experience as a whole.

They argued that 40-hertz oscillations in the

visual cortex (as the example is a visual

perception) synchronise the separate NCCs,

‘binding’ the elements represented by distinct

neural systems into a unified experience. This

explanation, however, is susceptible to the same

problem as before: it gives no reason why this

neural process should feel like something. It

seems, then, that no matter how finely conscious

states are mapped onto neural processes, a

further level of explanation is required to show

why they should be conscious at all.

Another approach to accounting for the link

between brain and consciousness is cognitive

modelling. Cognitive modelling is an effective

way of explaining psychological phenomena

which complexity makes them resistant to direct

analysis and thus renders them less amenable to

neurobiological explanation. By condensing

phenomena into simplified representations of

functions, a system’s internal dynamics can be

mapped out in a more readily understandable

manner. This approach is inspired by

computational modelling; although it does not

entail that cognitive systems are computational

themselves. 148 Accordingly, many of the

phenomena associated with consciousness, such

as learning, memory, and attention have

succumbed to convincing cognitive explanations.

To investigate further, an influential exemplar

will again be analysed as a representative for the

broader approach.

Global workspace theory (GWT; Baars 1988)

aims to explain what makes some cognitive

processes conscious, while other comparable

processes are not. GWT postulates that

consciousness is a global workspace that makes

information available to independent processes

within a distributed system. When information is

made globally accessible to the system through

the workspace (picture a mental blackboard) it

148 It has been argued by some that human cognitive systems are in fact computational. See Dennett (1993) and

Franklin and Graesser (1999).

49

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

becomes conscious. GWT gives satisfying

explanations as to why consciousness is

particularly associated with cognitive functions

that involve the integration of cognitive content,

such as with attention. However, whilst GWT

undoubtably provides an invaluable framework

for explaining why consciousness corresponds to

some cognitive processes and not others (this is

attested to by the enduring influence of GWT in

the decades since: Dehaene and Naccache 2001,

Shanahan 2005), the same difficulty remains: why

should the global accessibility of information be

conscious? There is a missing explanatory link

between the explanation of cognitive functions

and their relation to conscious states. Bernard

Baars, the pioneer of GTW, acknowledged this

problem himself: ‘A skeptical reader may well

agree with much of what we have said so far, but

still wonder whether we are truly describing

conscious experience, or whether, instead, we

can only deal with incidental phenomena

associated with it’ (1988, 27). Rather than

providing a solution, Baars opted to ‘side-step

philosophical issues’ such as this, ‘in the hope

that eventually, new scientific insights may cast

some light on [such] perennial philosophical

concerns’ (ibid, xv-xvi). Nonetheless, in the three

intervening decades, in which neuroscience and

cognitive psychology have made rapid progress,

it is arguable that they have not made any

progress concerning the problem raised above.

The Mind-Body Problem

This obstacle to scientific progress appears to

require philosophical attention; however, this in

itself does not mean that science is not capable

of explaining consciousness, as conceptual

clarity could quell the doubts raised above.

Classically, the problem that these scientific

enquiries keep encountering is known as the

mind-body problem. It is not new; to the

contrary, it is as old as recorded thought and it

has played a central role in modern philosophy

since Descartes. 149 In recent years, the problem

has regained prominence under new names, such

as ‘the explanatory gap’ (Levine 1983) and ‘the

hard problem of consciousness’ (Chalmers

1995). Its resolution demands an intelligible

explanation of how consciousness relates to

matter.

Historically, there are three dominant ways of

accounting for this relation. Firstly, as with

Descartes, dualism considers both mind and

matter to be fundamental substances, neither

reducible to the other. However, dualism is

generally considered undesirable as it produces a

problem as insoluble as the one it is supposed to

solve: if mind and matter are fundamentally

different substances, how is it that they interact?

The next solution can also be considered part of

Descartes’ legacy, although he did not mean it to

be so. As the force of Descartes’ argument

centred on the demonstration of the certainty of

knowledge of mind (the famous cogito), and the

existence of matter was only secured secondarily

with recourse to God, Descartes opened the

door to another strategy to the mind-body

problem: idealism. Idealism is the view that

reality is composed of mind alone. It tends to

stem from the acceptance of the epistemological

primacy of mind (that is, the impossibility of

direct acquaintance with anything beyond mind),

as this produces the problem of what kind of

evidence could prove the existence of the

nonmental. But idealism presents the challenge

of explaining what sustains the world beyond the

mere perception of entities within it, which if

not met quickly leads to solipsism (the view that

there is nothing beyond one’s own mind). While

neither of these approaches necessarily

contradict science, the mechanisms proposed to

solve their problems generally lack parsimony.

On the other hand, the staggering progress of

physical science has brought about a general

consensus that, in fact, matter is the only

substance – a position known as materialism, or

physicalism.

In Search of a Physicalist Solution

As noted above, science deals exclusively with

quantifiable phenomena. This ensures that

independent investigators can falsify erroneous

claims with evidence that can itself be falsified.

By design, this is a method of removing the

subjective peculiarities of different observers to

deliver an objective view of the world. Because

Contemplation of the mind-body problem can be found in the Upanishads and among presocratic philosophers such

149

as Thales and Democritus.

50

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

of this, science provides physical explanations

for all phenomena. Many problems that have

appeared beyond the purview of science have

been dissolved by demonstrating how the thing

under investigation is ultimately amenable to

physical explanation, and can therefore be

considered a physical phenomenon. This

reductive form of explanation has successfully

explained phenomena such as heat, liquidity, and

even life. Naturally, such stunning progress has

engendered a general confidence that, at its most

basic level, reality is physical. This being the case,

many philosophers, ‘putting their faith in the

[scientific] scheme, . . . have determined to

identify mental things with, or “reduce” them to,

physical things’ (Dennett 1969, 5).

A popular strategy for this has been to show that

mental states are explicable entirely in terms of

behavioural dispositions. Gilbert Ryle ([1949]

2000), for example, argued that the belief in a

‘ghost in the machine’ – that is, that there are

two distinct organised units, a body subject to

mechanistic physical law and a ‘shadowy’ mind

that abides by ‘para-mechanistic’ psychological

laws – is caused by philosophers mistaking the

logical category of mental concepts. As such, the

belief that mind and matter are distinct simply

stems from attempting to combine concepts that

occupy different logical categories. In the same

way that arguing ‘one cannot be in denial

because one is in the kitchen’ is invalid, the

mind-body problem is caused by treating mental

concepts as though they should behave like

physical concepts. However, the mere fact that

mental concepts and physical concepts have

different logical behaviours does not

demonstrate that they are ontologically different.

From this, Ryle concludes that mental states do

not exist in a strictly private realm, sequestered

from scientific investigation, because there are

not, ontologically speaking, separate public

(physical) and private (mental) realms – there are

only distinct logical categories for the use of

physical and mental concepts. Although Ryle

claims that this does not give primacy to the

physical over the mental, but rather shows the

ontological contrast to be erroneous, his

argument demonstrates that nothing is left out

when mental states are described in terms of

behavioural dispositions, and thus that mind is

perfectly amenable to physical explanation.

Nonetheless, Ryle’s thesis has been questioned.

As Peter Geach (1971) pointed out, mental states

cannot be defined purely by behavioural

dispositions without reference to other mental

states. To know how someone is disposed to act

based on a belief, one would also need

information about their desires. Thus, if

someone believes that it is snowing, any account

of this fact in behavioural terms could not be

complete without considering whether the

person would like to build a snowman, or to stay

war m, and so on. This problem was

circumvented by David Lewis (1966), who

argued that mental states can be defined in terms

of their causal roles, such as stimuli that cause

them, responsive behaviours, and (importantly)

interactions with other mental states. Since

mental states are causally efficacious, and

causality (according to fundamental physical laws

like the conservation of energy) belongs to

physical states, then mental states must be

physical states. Thus, ‘every experience is

identical with some physical state. Specifically,

with some neurochemical state.’. This conclusion

ensures that mental states are accessible to

scientific investigation, while preserving the

ability to refer to other mental states in their

definition and therefore avoiding the criticism

that Ryle’s analysis was susceptible to.

Lewis’s argument provides an explanation of

how science can explain mental states in terms

of causal roles. However, as stated above, any

satisfactory explanation of the link between

mind and matter must be intelligible. While

Lewis has demonstrated a functional identity

between mind and matter, he has failed to make

this identity intelligible in the same way that, for

example, describing liquid as the free motion of

loosely bound particles is. This point is

highlighted by Nagel (1974), who argues that

mental phenomena cannot be exhaustively

defined in terms of causal roles because this fails

to capture the subjective character of experience,

and without this essential feature ‘the mind-body

problem would be much less interesting’. The

problem is that the subjectivity of consciousness

cannot be excluded in order to explain it

physically, because subjectivity is essential to

consciousness: once subjectivity is excluded, the

phenomenon is no longer consciousness. The

liquidity example above describes how a physical

phenomenon can appear a certain way to an

observer because of the constitution of their

mind. It therefore makes sense that, in the

absence of the observer, the phenomenon as it

appears to the observer has a physical

51

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

explanation. However, as consciousness is

inherently part of the observer’s mind, removing

the observer simply removes the phenomenon in

question. Consciousness, then, resists reduction

to objective, physical explanation.

This makes it clear why Lewis’s argument does

not establish an intelligible link between mind

and matter. It also gets to the core of the

difficulty in providing a scientific explanation of

consciousness: a purely subjective phenomenon

cannot be explained objectively. If matter is the

only substance, reality in its entirety must be

amenable to physical explanation. However, if

successful, Nagel’s argument implies that there is

nothing in a complete physical account of reality

to suggest that certain organisations of matter

should experience their existence. Thus, the

argument is a powerful challenge to the claim

that physical science can explain consciousness.

Nonetheless, one approach to maintaining the

integrity of scientific materialism against Nagel’s

argument is to demonstrate that, in fact,

consciousness is an illusory phenomenon

without any real basis in the world. If so, a

scientific explanation of consciousness would

only involve showing how the illusion is created.

Daniel Dennett (1993) used this strategy, arguing

that the attempt to find a solution to the mindbody

problem is demonstrative of an implicit

adherence to Cartesian dualism. In fact, the

concept of consciousness as a subjective point

of view (an observer experiencing things in

concreto) is prescientific and superfluous, akin to

the nineteenth century notion of a vital force

that animates living things. Using examples from

cognitive science (such as the colour phi

phenomenon; ibid, 120-122), Dennett dismantles

commonly held intuitions about the nature of

conscious experience. For example, he argues

that there is no measurable moment in which a

specific experience takes place. Using evidence

of this kind, he deconstructs the notion that

there is ever a point where ‘it all comes together’

– that is, a point of view – as there are no

concrete facts to be ascertained about when or

where this point could be. Rather, there is a

multitude of internal representations (an

interface like the graphic display on a computer

screen, but without the user) that are

retrospectively woven into the illusion of a

subject experiencing things. Thus, Dennett

concludes that the evidence of modern science

shows that consciousness as a point of view is

illusory, and therefore that it can be explained

comprehensively by nonconscious physical

processes.

If correct, Dennett’s account of consciousness

does indeed undermine the mind-body problem;

however, not many people would accept that

their conscious experience can be discounted

altogether because close scrutiny of it produces

surprising results. The problem is that due to its

immediacy, there is no difference between

seeming and happening when it comes to

consciousness – if an illusion occurs, there must

be something experiencing it, and this experience

must be accounted for in a complete description

of reality. No matter how mistaken one is about

the nature of experience, it cannot be the case

that one is not actually experiencing.

Consequently, Dennett’s tactic of pointing out

the mistakes in common intuitions about the

nature of experience does not have the breadth

necessary to undermine consciousness itself.

Nevertheless, before concluding that Nagel’s

argument spells defeat for science’s hopes of

explaining consciousness, there is another option

worthy of consideration.

The Intrinsic Nature Argument

An alternative strategy that provides a way

forward is employed by Galen Strawson (2006).

Strawson argues that Dennett has it the wrong

way round: it isn’t intuitive assumptions about

the nature of consciousness that are the

problem, but intuitive assumptions about the

nature of matter. As consciousness is ‘the

fundamental given natural fact’, it must be the

starting point of any account of reality.

Accordingly, it is known that conscious matter

exists; however, it is not known, nor could it be

found out, whether nonconscious matter exists.

Thus, the seeming irreconcilability of mind and

matter stems from a fatal error in the basic

premises of the mind-body problem: treating the

two as if they are opposed categories. As such,

Strawson argues that a thoroughgoing

physicalism must regard consciousness as

physical, although this is not the same as being

able to account for it in terms of physics. To

support this, he draws attention to the work of

Russell and Eddington (among others), who

explain how physical science can only ever

deliver a structural analysis of reality. Science can

only analyse extrinsic properties of matter: how

52

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

it behaves and interacts. Consequently, it cannot

reveal what the intrinsic nature of matter is. 150

The only available insight into the intrinsic

nature of matter is that humans are material

beings, and the human experience of being

matter is just that: conscious experience. Thus,

the only possible means of discerning the true

nature of matter indicates that it is experiential.

If this is the case, there is no need to explain

how consciousness emerges from unconscious

matter – consciousness just is matter. At this

point, the question of why consciousness exists

is pushed down to the level of why anything at

all exists.

This conclusion provides a compelling

conceptual foundation for scientific progress in

consciousness research. It removes the need for

a scientific explanation of why consciousness

should accompany certain organisations of

nonconscious matter, clearing the conceptual

barriers to scientific investigation. It does this by

demonstrating that the perceived problem of an

explanatory gap between the physical and the

mental stems from a hidden assumption: that

consciousness must be an emergent

phenomenon. As has been shown, the

difficulties presented by this assumption are

intractable. Fortunately, it is an unfalsifiable

assumption grounded on nothing more than

common sense, therefore it can be easily

challenged. As history has repeatedly

demonstrated, common sense often needs

updating to accommodate progress

(heliocentrism, evolution, relativity, quantum

theory). Facing up to the magnitude of the

mind-body problem, it seems justified to see if

better results are achieved from a different

conceptual foundation. As such, if one regards

consciousness as a fundamental, irreducible

feature of the world, rather than an emergent,

biological phenomenon, the hard problem of

explaining how a new element of reality can

miraculously appear dissolves. This seems to be a

good place for scientific investigation to

continue from.

It may be argued that this could never be

falsified and so is not a valid proposition on

which to base scientific enquiry, but the same is

true of the assertion that nonconscious matter

exists. Strawson’s position does, however, have

the benefit of one piece of empirical evidence:

the fact that humans experience being matter.

Intrinsically conscious matter therefore has more

evidential support than nonconscious matter.

Moreover, the postulation of an irreducible

feature of reality is not unprecedented in the

history of science. James Clerk Maxwell posited

fundamental electromagnetic properties and

forces to progress his theory of

electromagnetism (Goff 2019, 116).

Nonetheless, Strawson’s conclusion does present

difficulties, one of the most problematic being

the combination problem. 151 If a subjective

point of view is fundamental to consciousness,

and consciousness is the intrinsic nature of

matter, and matter at its most basic level takes

the form of particles, then there must be a lot of

tiny points of view. How, then, can these tiny

points of view combine to compose the large,

unified point of view experienced by humans

and other animals? While it makes sense that

matter can combine to make larger objects, the

notion of minds merging to form larger unified

minds is hard to fathom. A clue to the solution

to this problem can be found in the famous

split-brain phenomenon. Following a treatment

for severe epilepsy that involves severing the

corpus callosum (the nerve fibres connecting the

brain’s two hemispheres), patients displayed

interesting behaviours. While they seemed

completely normal in speech and general

behaviour, certain experiments suggested there

were in fact two distinct agents now occupying

one body (Gazzaniga 2000). If it is possible,

then, to split a consciousness in two, perhaps it is

also possible to reverse the process and combine

two consciousnesses into one. Accordingly, a

scientific understanding of this phenomenon

could provide a solution to the combination

problem. A theory that treats consciousness as

irreducible is making progress on this front and

shall therefore now be examined.

150 As Strawson points out, Stephen Hawking stumbled into this problem in concluding A Brief History of Time: ‘Even

if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into these

equations and makes a universe for them to describe?’ (1988, 174).

151 The combination problem is generally held to have originated from William James’s (1890) discussion of the

problems of a ‘mind dust’ theory.

53

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Integrated Information Theory

Accepting that no account appealing to

nonconscious physical processes will intelligibly

lead to conscious experience, Giulio Tononi’s

(2008) integrated information theory (IIT)

begins with ‘axioms’ about the characteristics of

consciousness, and then determines what

physical properties must obtain to account for

them. From five axioms, two are salient for the

case in hand. Firstly, conscious states are always

differentiated from a range of other possible

conscious states – they bear specific information.

Secondly, conscious states are unified: although

specific features of an experience can be

abstracted in thought, for example a blue chair,

the experience is always a cohesive, integrated

whole – the blue chair is perceived seamlessly

along with everything else in the room including

sounds, smells and so on. From this, Tononi

argues it is the integration of information that

determines the level of consciousness of a

physical system. If the information content of

the system as a whole is greater than the sum of

its parts, the system carries integrated

information and is conscious. The higher the

integrated information, the higher the level of

consciousness. This gives a mathematically

calculable criterion for consciousness. Thus, the

level of integrated information is measured in

bits and designated with the symbol Φ (phi). As

it turns out, Φ is pervasive, even being found at

the atomic level. Thus, IIT gives an intuitive

explanation of how small systems, such as

atoms, can combine to produce a unified

experience in a larger system, because it is the

information content of the whole system over

its parts that is experienced.

Of course, aspects of this theory are untestable.

There is no way to check whether an atom

experiences anything. However, IIT also

produces testable predictions and gives efficient

explanations for phenomena that other theories

struggle to explain. As such, IIT explains why

severing the corpus callosum of split-brain

patients results in two distinct agents, as the

procedure disables the integration of

information between the two hemispheres,

resulting in two separate systems of integrated

information (Tononi 2015). It also gives a

satisfying explanation as to why some areas of

the brain are associated with consciousness while

other larger areas are not. For example, the

cerebellum comprises four times more neurons

than the cerebral cortex; however, when

damaged it does not affect consciousness. This is

because the cerebellum is composed of largely

independent modules, so information

integration, Φ, is low (ibid). Accordingly, IIT’s

efficacy in explaining accessible phenomena

could instil enough confidence to infer that it is

reliable as to what it tells us about inaccessible

phenomena regarding consciousness.

Consequently, IIT provides a satisfying solution

to the combination problem and lends support

to Strawson’s argument that consciousness

should not be regarded as an emergent, purely

biological phenomenon. It demonstrates that

altering the conceptual underpinning of the

scientific approach to consciousness can provide

promising results. Whilst many baulk at these

results on first approach, the impasse caused by

the common-sense handling of consciousness

makes them far more attractive. Moreover,

although it is currently too early to put too much

confidence in the untestable predictions of IIT,

its performance in explaining testable

phenomena is promising. IIT is therefore an

example of how scientific progress towards

explaining consciousness is possible, given the

correct conceptual foundation.

Conclusion

Put simply, consciousness cannot be explained

by physical science if this means providing an

explanation in terms of reduction to

organisations of nonconscious matter. This is

because this method of scientific explanation

involves filtering subjectivity out of the

description to reveal the underlying objective,

physical phenomenon. However, this method

cannot be applied to consciousness because

consciousness is the subjectivity. This is why

attempts to explain consciousness through

reduction to nonconscious physical processes all

run into the same problem: they cannot explain

why the underlying process is accompanied by

subjective experience in the first place. This

impasse justifies a reconceptualisation of the

relation between mind and matter. The classical

approaches to this were found to lack the

parsimony required by a modern science of

consciousness. Moreover, none of the more

recent attempts to conceptually reconcile mind

54

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

with nonconscious matter managed to provide

an intelligible explanation of how this is

possible, as they all ultimately disregard the

subjective point of view. However, Strawson’s

argument avoids this problem as it holds that

consciousness, as the intrinsic nature of matter,

is irreducible. This provides the conceptual

foundation necessary to progress with scientific

investigation. Integrated information theory is a

promising scientific theory of consciousness that

incorporates this insight. IIT has shown that

treating consciousness as fundamental, rather

than as an emergent, biological phenomenon,

enables scientific progress. As such, it seems that

science is capable of explaining consciousness,

given the correct conceptual grounding.

55

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Bibliography

Chalmers, David. 1995. "Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness". Journal of Consciousness

Studies 2: 200-219.

Chalmers, David C. 1998. "On the Search for The Neural Correlate of Consciousness". In Toward A

Science of Consciousness II, 1st ed., 219-230. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Churchland, Paul M. 1981. "Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes". The Journal of

Philosophy 78 (2): 67-90. doi:10.5840/jphil198178268.

Crick, Francis, and Christof Koch. 1990. "Towards a Neurobiological Theory of Consciousness". The

Neurosciences 2: 263-275.

Dehaene, Stanislas, and Lionel Naccache. 2001. "Towards a Cognitive Neuroscience of Consciousness:

Basic Evidence and a Workspace Framework". Cognition 79 (1-2): 1-37. doi:10.1016/

S0010-0277(00)00123-2.

Dennett, Daniel C. 1993. Consciousness Explained. London: Penguin.

Frankish, Keith. 2016. "Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness". Journal of Consciousness Studies 23

(11-12): 11-39.

Geach, Peter T. 1971. Mental Acts. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Gazzaniga, Michael S. 2000. "Cerebral Specialization and Interhemispheric Communication: Does the

Corpus Callosum Enable the Human Condition?". Brain 123 (7): 1293-1326. doi:10.1093/brain/

123.7.1293.

Hawking, Stephen W. 1988. A Brief History of Time. London: Bantam Press.

James, William. 1890. The Principles of Psychology. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Karam, Rania, Mohamad Abou Haidar, Abbas Khawaja, and Ghida Al Laziki. 2017. "Effectiveness of

Subliminal Messages and Their Influence on People’s Choices". European Scientific Journal 13

(17): 1857- 7431. doi:10.19044/esj.2017.v13n17p262.

Koch, Christof, Marcello Massimini, and Giulio Tononi. 2016. "Neural Correlates of Consciousness:

Progress and Problems". Nature Reviews Neuroscience 17: 307-321. doi:10.1038/nrn.2016.22.

Levine, Joseph. 1983. "Materialism and Qualia: The Explanatory Gap". Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 64

(4): 354-361. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.1983.tb00207.x.

Lewis, David. 1966. "An Argument for the Identity Theory". The Journal of Philosophy 63 (1): 17-25. doi:

10.2307/2024524.

Nagel, Thomas. 1974. "What Is It Like to be a Bat?". The Philosophical Review 83 (4): 435-450. doi:

10.2307/2183914.

Ryle, Gilbert. [1949] 2000. The Concept of Mind. London: Penguin.

Seth, Anil K. 2018. "Conscious Spoons, Really? Pushing Back Against Panpsychism". Blog. NeuroBanter.

https://neurobanter.com/2018/02/01/conscious-spoons-really-pushing-back-againstpanpsychism/.

Shanahan, Murray. 2005. "A Cognitive Architecture that Combines Internal Simulation with a Global

Workspace". Consciousness and Cognition 15 (2): 433-449. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2005.11.005.

Strawson, Galen. 2006. "Realistic Monism". Journal of Consciousness Studies 13 (10-11): 3-31.

56

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

Sutherland, Stuart. 1989. The International Dictionary of Psychology. 2nd ed. London: Crossroad Publication

Company.

Tononi, Giulio. 2008. "Consciousness as Integrated Information: A Provisional Manifesto". The

Biological Bulletin 215: 216-242.

Tononi, Giulio. 2015. "Integrated Information Theory". Scholarpedia 10 (1): 4164. doi:10.4249/

scholarpedia.4164.

57

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

WITH THANKS

Holden Davies

Editor-in-Chief

Zacharie Chiron

Editor-in-Chief

Rhian Daniel

Editor, Marketing & Layout Design

Francesca Rubbi

Editor

Nathaniel Peutherer

Editor

Ifti Alam

Editor

Lauren Davies

Editor

Lucy Jeal

Secretary

Sophie Lunt

Marketing

George Ridgard

Submissions Manager

Francesca Adams

Cover Design

Benjamin Clark, Tosca Herson, Benjamin Pryce, Marta Bax, Will Ryan

Contributors

58

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

59

ETHICA

Issue 1, 2021

60

Cover: Francesca Adams

Ethica - Volume 1

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?