I don’t think hypothetical imperatives can be reduced. The if-ought of a hypothetical imperative is a full-blooded normative claim. But you can’t reduce that to a simple if-then about cause and effect.
To see why, consider a nihilist about oughts. She recognizes the causal connections between calorie consumption/burning and weight loss. But she doesn’t accept any claim about what people ought to do, even hypothetical imperatives about people who desire weight loss. This seems perfectly coherent: she accepts causal claims, but not normative claims, and there’s no contradiction or incoherence there. But this means the causal claims she accepts are not conceptually equivalent to the normative claims she rejects.
For another way to see why, consider the causal claim “less calorie consumption and more calorie burning leads to weight loss”. This causal claim points in no normative direction. It doesn’t recommend anything, or register any approval, or send any positive or negative messages. Of course, we can take it in one direction or another, but only by combining it with separate normative claims:
Less calorie consumption and more calorie burning leads to weight loss.
People ought to take causally efficacious steps to satisfy their desires.
Therefore, if you desire to lose weight, you ought to consume less calories and burn more calories.
Premise 2 is what provides the normativity. It points us in the direction of satisfying desires. But we could easily take things in the opposite direction.
Less calorie consumption and more calorie burning leads to weight loss.
People ought to take causally efficacious steps to frustrate their desires.
Therefore, if you desire to lose weight, you ought to consume more calories and burn less calories.
Again, premise 2 is what provides the normativity. But it points us in the opposite direction, viz. the direction of frustrating desires.
So it’s pretty clear that premise 1 has no normativity in it. It can’t be reduced to either of the two 3′s. For we cannot arrive at a 3 without a 2.
I think stating premise 2 is a little odd. It is a bit deja “Tortoise and Achilles” all over again. If there’s a norm hiding around here, it’s an “ought” portrayed by the desire.
Second, conceptual analysis (or conceptual equivalence) is not necessary for reduction. Look at reduction in the sciences for examples.
Well, I’ll acknowledge that you could change premise 2 into an inference rule. But notice that you could change either premise 2—the pro-desire-satisfaction one and the pro-desire-frustration one—into an inference rule. Indeed, you could change any normative claim into an inference rule: you could change “people who want to have gay sex ought to go see a trained Baptist minister to get cured” into an inference rule, and then validly go from “I want to have gay sex” to “I ought to go see a trained Baptist minister to get cured”. So from the fact that premise 2 could be changed into an inference rule, I don’t think anything follows that might jeopardize its status as a full-blooded normative claim.
On the second point, I thought lukeprog was discussing direct conceptual reduction. But if he wants to provide hypothetical imperatives with a synthetic reduction, he’ll need a theory of reference capable of explaining why the normative claim turns out to make reference to (and have its truth-conditions provided by) simple causal facts. And on this score, I think hypothetical imperatives and categorical moral imperatives are on an equal footing: since reductionist moral realists have a hard time with synthetic reductions, I would expect reductionist ‘instrumental realists’ to have a hard time as well.
Perhaps so, but then the normativity stems from premise 1, leaving premise 2 as non-normative as ever. But the question is whether premise 2 could be a plausible reduction basis for normative claims.
I don’t think hypothetical imperatives can be reduced. The if-ought of a hypothetical imperative is a full-blooded normative claim. But you can’t reduce that to a simple if-then about cause and effect.
To see why, consider a nihilist about oughts. She recognizes the causal connections between calorie consumption/burning and weight loss. But she doesn’t accept any claim about what people ought to do, even hypothetical imperatives about people who desire weight loss. This seems perfectly coherent: she accepts causal claims, but not normative claims, and there’s no contradiction or incoherence there. But this means the causal claims she accepts are not conceptually equivalent to the normative claims she rejects.
For another way to see why, consider the causal claim “less calorie consumption and more calorie burning leads to weight loss”. This causal claim points in no normative direction. It doesn’t recommend anything, or register any approval, or send any positive or negative messages. Of course, we can take it in one direction or another, but only by combining it with separate normative claims:
Less calorie consumption and more calorie burning leads to weight loss.
People ought to take causally efficacious steps to satisfy their desires.
Therefore, if you desire to lose weight, you ought to consume less calories and burn more calories.
Premise 2 is what provides the normativity. It points us in the direction of satisfying desires. But we could easily take things in the opposite direction.
Less calorie consumption and more calorie burning leads to weight loss.
People ought to take causally efficacious steps to frustrate their desires.
Therefore, if you desire to lose weight, you ought to consume more calories and burn less calories.
Again, premise 2 is what provides the normativity. But it points us in the opposite direction, viz. the direction of frustrating desires.
So it’s pretty clear that premise 1 has no normativity in it. It can’t be reduced to either of the two 3′s. For we cannot arrive at a 3 without a 2.
I think stating premise 2 is a little odd. It is a bit deja “Tortoise and Achilles” all over again. If there’s a norm hiding around here, it’s an “ought” portrayed by the desire.
Second, conceptual analysis (or conceptual equivalence) is not necessary for reduction. Look at reduction in the sciences for examples.
Well, I’ll acknowledge that you could change premise 2 into an inference rule. But notice that you could change either premise 2—the pro-desire-satisfaction one and the pro-desire-frustration one—into an inference rule. Indeed, you could change any normative claim into an inference rule: you could change “people who want to have gay sex ought to go see a trained Baptist minister to get cured” into an inference rule, and then validly go from “I want to have gay sex” to “I ought to go see a trained Baptist minister to get cured”. So from the fact that premise 2 could be changed into an inference rule, I don’t think anything follows that might jeopardize its status as a full-blooded normative claim.
On the second point, I thought lukeprog was discussing direct conceptual reduction. But if he wants to provide hypothetical imperatives with a synthetic reduction, he’ll need a theory of reference capable of explaining why the normative claim turns out to make reference to (and have its truth-conditions provided by) simple causal facts. And on this score, I think hypothetical imperatives and categorical moral imperatives are on an equal footing: since reductionist moral realists have a hard time with synthetic reductions, I would expect reductionist ‘instrumental realists’ to have a hard time as well.
For what it’s worth, I think what’s really being inferred by the advice-giver is:
1 Granting your (advisee’s) starting point, you ought to lose weight.
2 Less calorie consumption and more calorie burning leads to weight loss.
3 Therefore you ought to consume less and burn more calories.
The advisee’s desire portrays the starting-point as a truth.
Perhaps so, but then the normativity stems from premise 1, leaving premise 2 as non-normative as ever. But the question is whether premise 2 could be a plausible reduction basis for normative claims.