Why Freedom is the Foundation of Morality (Part II)
The moral relevance of agency freedom, autonomous freedom, and disability.
TL;DR: Morality presupposes free beings. These agents must have both agency freedom, a sensation of personal choice, which can impose value onto the world, as well as autonomous freedom, the ability to have—and act in accordance with—higher-order principles. Without these abilities, a being couldn’t become a party to the social contract since they wouldn’t be able to contract, nor would other free agents want to contract with them. Although this conception of freedom is abilities-based, it doesn’t deny moral status based on disability.
Philosophers have gotten so stuck on the problem of free will that they can’t properly move on to morality. They feel so uncomfortable with compatibilism that they retreat into welfarism or vague notions of virtue. Despite being essential concepts in ethics, blame, desert, and responsibility sit uncomfortably in their moral theories.
Morality not only requires freedom but its characteristics are positively shaped by freedom. Yet because of the conceptual issues that free will presents, philosophers either get hung up on this issue or try to do morality without it, to their detriment.
Freedom is both a sense of personal agency and the ability to have higher-order principles. What I call “agency freedom” exists as an experience, and “autonomous freedom” exists as a capacity. So what does this have to do with morality?
As I have been arguing, morality is the agreement that free agents behind a veil of ignorance would agree to, based on their higher-order autonomous principles. Of course, no such agreement would literally have had to happen, but it’s the moral standard that all our principles and actions adhere to. So if morality is what free agents would agree to based on their higher-order principles, then being a party to this agreement requires being a free agent with such principles.
Given this criterion, moral rules don’t apply to parties who can’t participate in a social contract. Morality presupposes freedom. And freedom is both a necessary and sufficient condition of morality. If there are things one should do, then one has to be able to do something different.
Yet how does anyone have the ability to do differently in a deterministic universe? I’ve argued that free will exists as an experience, not as an affirmation of some mind-independent truth (the same way all of reality exists).
Ethics, to many, is reduced to mere pain and pleasure since their conception of agency is undefined and flimsy. While most philosophers are compatibilists, many would still struggle to place free will into a determined universe. And their moral systems suffer as a result.
My previous article argued that freedom is necessary for morality. Ought does imply can. This article will attempt to show how freedom is sufficient for morality —that freedom has morally relevant qualities to create the social contract which defines our moral universe.
Freedom implies certain morally relevant abilities allowing a being to become a party to the social contract. If a party is free, then they have certain abilities. And if they have these abilities, then they are able to become parties to the social contract.
Sense of Agency and a Recognition of Other
Agency requires an experience of freedom, and this experience requires a sense of self-recognition as distinct from others. With language, humans can clearly express their sense of agency. The “problem” of other minds isn’t much of a problem. We can express our free agency in a way comprehensible to others, so we can be reasonably certain that other humans have this sense of agency.
And without agency, there is no value. Value doesn’t exist objectively, independent of observers, but requires a subjective agent to impose value onto it. This is why pain isn’t bad in and of itself, but is always subject to interpretation (the “pain” of parenting can be extremely rewarding for some, hell for others).
Beings who lack this first-person experience of agency can’t independently value anything. They don’t have a reflective “self” that can impose its own values and meaning onto the world. Therefore, they couldn’t be members of the social contract because they don’t have an agenda that they could freely pursue.
If an agent has its own subjective value that is deserving of respect, it has to actually possess a subjective experience. Proponents of animal or AI rights must explain how the experience of an animal differs from that of a human or videogame character. Do their experiences actually exist? Do they have an agenda to pursue in the social contract? Or all their actions only biological/mechanical reactions that we misinterpret as agency. I don’t believe animal rights proponents have taken the latter question as seriously as they should.
Many animals are clearly able to distinguish themselves from other beings. They prioritize their own well-being over that of others. But a survival instinct is different than self-awareness and personal agency, the requirements for entering into the social contract.
The mirror test is sometimes used as a test of the capacity for consciousness and morality. If an animal can recognize themselves in the mirror, then they may have a general sense of self—a self with its own set of values that it imposes on the world. But even this test is beyond the capabilities of most animals.
And while success on the mirror test may show a necessary ability of self-recognition, it’s still not sufficient to show agency freedom. Awareness of one’s physical self isn’t necessarily self-awareness and agency.
As I’ve argued, freedom is an objective state (you either have a first-person experience or you don’t) and establishes the boundaries for those who are inherent members of our moral community (although we can still welcome others as trustees).
For this reason, it is impossible to act immorally against a non-agent, like an inanimate object or virtual character, just as it is impossible for those non-agents to act immorally. Without consciousness, a being can’t actually create value that can be violated. Value is subjective and therefore requires subjectivity.
But agency is just one aspect of freedom. The other part is “autonomous” freedom. And autonomous freedom requires more than just the sense of freedom but also the ability to abide by higher-order principles that one creates for one’s self.
The Power of Joint Agency
A sense of self isn’t enough for moral worth. It might make someone a free agent, but not someone who could create contracts or one with whom other free agents would want to contract with. So a moral agent must also possess certain abilities that would let them become parties to agreements.
A free agent should therefore have other-oriented principles, where they can value an abstract agreement that accounts for their own as well as the interests of others. They need to be able to create a standard for themselves in regard to others where compliance with this standard is right, and violating it would be wrong.
Because why would anyone contract with a party who can’t fulfill a contract? We wouldn’t contract with inanimate objects or animals since they would have no ability to even comprehend the agreement, let alone comply with it. And morality depends on a social contract—the outcome of free people agreeing on reasonable principles establishing what is wrong and right. If a being can’t participate in that contract, it can’t participate in our moral universe.
Contracts are inherently joint endeavors. Freedom doesn’t only create a sense of personal agency but also joint agency, as discussed in detail by primatologist Michael Tomasello. By regulating their behavior and considering the interests of others to achieve a joint goal, humans possessed the ability to form joint agency, allowing humans to coordinate with one another.
And as far as we know, the capacity for joint agency is unique among humans. Not even chimpanzees have the capacity to carry a log together. So joint agency isn’t just an evolutionary quirk but is necessary for contract formation. If agents can’t act out of mutual concern for one another, they can’t create agreements.
Specifically, in his “The Evolution of Agency,” Tonasello describes three human adaptations responsible for our capacity for joint agency. First, humans are able to develop common goals that superseded their personal goals. Second, humans are able to take the perspective of and communicate with others to achieve these common goals. And third, humans are able to regulate cooperative activity.
These abilities of (1) joint goal creation, (2) other-regarding perspective-taking, and (3) social regulation are (as far as we know) uniquely human cognitive abilities that I’ll discuss in more detail below. And these abilities aren’t just fancy cognitive gadgets, but are requirements for status in the social (moral) contract.
Higher-Order Desires
Developing joint goals require controlling one’s first-order desires. It’s not about desiring the same thing as someone else but regulating your desires altogether through meta-desires. As an agent with such meta-desires, you need to convince yourself that you shouldn’t chase rabbits since it would interfere with the joint goal you have with your friends for hunting stag. Your instinctual desires need to be regulated by consciously-created desires. And joint goals require the ability to have and act in accordance with higher-order principles, possessing what I call autonomous freedom.
While we are, in a large sense, very evolved primates, our informed principles aren’t necessarily our inherited primal nature. Freedom implies the ability to have personal goals shaped by one’s own reasons. Our goals aren’t determined by our evolutionary wiring but by our personal reflections.
And rather than being restricted to our innate impulses, freedom gives us the power to develop our own informed, conscious values. Freedom can be positively expressed in a way that is subject to moral judgment, whereas natural, unfree, impulses are outside of morality.
Take sharks. Sharks aren’t morally responsible for killing humans, they are just acting in accordance with their natural inclinations. Yet an anthropomorphic, conscious, free shark would be morally liable for such violent desires.
If a Shark wanted to eat me, then that’s not a desire that I should respect or judge. It’s a reactive behavior, only an act of nature. It wouldn’t be the subject of morality any more than the forces of gravity.
However if that shark, under conscious reflection and in cold blood, freely wanted to murder me, then that would be a desire that is subject to moral judgment.
With thoughts and feelings that agency creates, moral beings have “the capacity to have, to revise and rationally to pursue a conception of the good,” as John Rawls describes it as. This isn’t a good that derives from our natural impulses but a reflective good resulting from our conscious thought. An agent can deliberately choose to have certain desires—such as certain joint goals. And the conscious procedure of free choice is what makes the outcome subject to moral praise or blame.
Freedom gives one the ability to value freedom and reason. It’s worth emphasizing that the ability to value reason differs from the ability to reason. What makes humans uniquely moral beings, I argue, is their freedom, not their reasoning faculties.
Perspective-Taking and Communication
This feature focuses on the freedom of others rather than the freedom of the moral being. Even if a being has certain capabilities that would entitle it to moral worth, for that worth to reasonably obligate other parties, that being must also be other-regarding. Basically, communication and perspective-taking abilities are requirements for agents to obligate others to contract with them.
Say a being did have agency and higher-order principles. But if that agent could not take the perspective of other parties, nor could they communicate their principles to others, then those others would have no moral obligation to contract with them. Why would they contract with a party who can’t even understand the interests of others nor communicate their interests?
A solitary being may have the capacity for morality like agency, but without other-regarding powers, other free agents wouldn’t want to make contracts with them and they couldn’t reasonably be forced to be. An agent wouldn’t want to make a contract with another agent who couldn’t communicate or give them regard. Otherwise, how would you know what their interests are? And how would you know they are also considering your interests?
Even if beings were to have subjective experience, that experience couldn’t on its own bind others. That is why the moral contract is the social contract. It’s an agreement that is justifiable to others. Essentially, people should not be forced into contracts that they would never make. And no one would make a contract with a solitary who could not communicate with or even consider others.
Freedom is the Power to Judge
A contract needs to be enforced. It’s not enough to make an agreement—an agent should be able to judge their partner’s actions as either right or wrong in response to their compliance. Parties need to have a standard that they hold each other to.
We don’t know if other animals have this capacity. Sure, they might get jealous or express anger when they don’t get what they want. But do those emotions derive from higher-order principles, or are they merely reactive sentiments without true moral weight? If contracting parties didn’t have this ability, then any contract with them would be meaningless. It’s not just about being able to make a contract, but reacting when a wrong or right has been committed.
Emotional reactions aren’t enough. If a person was getting screamed at by a lunatic who felt real emotions, they shouldn’t give those emotions any moral weight. But if a person were to make a clear, conscious, and coherent argument explaining why the other party is wrong, then those reasons would have weight.
This is what I will call “conscious reactions,” the ability of one conscious being to judge another conscious being based on higher-order principles. If an agent couldn’t have conscious reactions—the ability to judge actions based on an abstract standard—then they couldn’t participate in a contract.
The Ability to Create Contracts
All of these powers of joint agency culminate into one morally relevant ability: the ability to form contracts—including the social contract, which establishes our moral universe.
And despite our discoveries in animal intelligence, we haven’t yet found another species capable of exchange-based contracting. The power to impose value onto things in the world, recognize that other beings share that power, and then engage in exchange with others for mutual benefit, is an extremely complex and unique ability.
Even our chimpanzee relatives are unable to engage in exchange, where something of value is traded for something of greater value. This ability is, as far as we know, beyond the capacity of non-human animals. So if animals don’t have the capacity to contract, they couldn’t be a party to the moral contract. They wouldn’t have the ability to contract with others, nor would free people want to contract with them.
Dealing with Disability
There is an impulse among philosophers to refute any ability-based conception of moral standing by arguing that it would necessarily exclude disabled humans. If humans’ moral status is based on certain abilities like intelligence, then what is the status of humans whose intelligence falls below that of even some animals? Do those animals then have a higher moral status than disabled humans?
Philosophers are made to either bite the bullet on this question or back off from the claim that moral status is abilities-based.
However, this is a false choice. We can accept both that morality is ability-based and that disabled humans have moral standing despite lacking morally relevant abilities.
We understand that there are characteristics of being human, but certain disabled humans can lack these characteristics while still being human. We can only understand these people as disabled humans because of their lacking such characteristics while still being human.
For instance, one definition of humans distinguishes them from animals by having “superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance.” Yet we can understand that people with severe mental disabilities who can’t speak or even stand upright aren’t any less human than anyone else. They are disabled humans, but still humans. And we understand their disability in the context of their human status.
For example, if a TV is broken so that it is no longer a “system for transmitting visual images and sound that are reproduced on screen” (the definition of a TV) we wouldn’t call it a bundle of plastic, circuits, and glass. Rather, we’d just call it a broken TV. And it’s a TV despite it not satisfying the definition of the TV. It’s still subject to the standard of a TV. That’s how we can understand it as broken.
The same applies to humans. We can only understand disability as falling short of the standard we have established for human beings. We don’t consider disabled humans as non-human but as disabled humans who fall short of certain fundamental human powers and are in need of help as a result.
So even if there are certain humans without the abilities that I describe above, then it wouldn’t make them any less of a moral being. If a being lacks a certain moral power because of a disability, their moral standing should be unaffected since disability itself is not morally relevant. If a being would have those moral powers had it not been for a disability, that being is still a moral being.
And this makes sense intuitively. Just because a person is sleeping doesn't mean he lacks moral standing because he isn’t exercising his moral powers. When I'm unconscious, I may be exercising all the abilities of an inanimate couch, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to sit on me.
And the same is true for future people. If a moral being doesn’t have the moral powers resulting from freedom (sense of self, higher-order principles, joint agency, etc.) only as a function of time, then he is still a moral being. He just isn’t exercising such powers at a certain time. But if we determine that future people with the requisite moral powers are reasonably certain to exist, then their interests should be given consideration. Time, also, is not itself independently morally relevant.
A being’s moral status is unaffected if their lack of agency and autonomy is only a function of features like disability or time. Time and disability aren’t moral qualities and therefore shouldn’t matter when determining moral status.
Conclusion
Freedom doesn’t exist as a thing in the universe, as many argue that it must for it to exist. There is no homunculus or spirit we can point to and declare it to be freedom. Rather, freedom is a conscious experience that implies certain powers. As far as we know, humans are currently the only beings who possess freedom. And this subjective experience isn’t just a topic for the philosophy of mind but is foundational for moral philosophy.
Freedom gives us the power to create higher-order desires, which our natural desires become subject to. With freedom, we can impose value onto the world and create contracts with others. And freedom gives us to power to decide who we would and would not contract with. We can’t reasonably be made to contract with parties who lack the capacity to engage in such contracts.
Just because a living being or machine can manifest humanlike actions doesn’t by itself mean those entities are conscious moral agents. Science will provide us guidance on what beings are and are not free, establishing the citizenship of our moral universe. But this is as far as objective science can take us for figuring out ethics. The facets of morality itself are the product of its members’ subjectivity.
Brilliant article