Value Judgments and Possible Worlds
Michael Vossen

"The laws of nature are laws according to which everything does happen; the laws of morality are laws according to which everything ought to happen; they allow for conditions under which what ought to happen doesn’t happen."
-Immanuel Kant

Robert Adams, in his paper "Theories of Actuality", argues that value judgments reflect the belief "...that the actual is, absolutely considered, more real than the merely possible." In arguing for this claim, Adams is suggesting that a possiblist theory of modality is at odds with our intuitions about moral worth. If Adams' claim is true, and we are to preserve our intuitions, then our value judgments provide reason to avoid adapting such a theory, for a possibilist theory would be incompatible with them. This essay will consider arguments for Adams' claim, and replies that his possiblist target might make to them. The replies that David Lewis, a leading proponent of possiblism, does or might make will be focused on especially.

Adams' claim appears to rely on two relatively unexplained points. The first of these is that the possiblist will not have an adequate reply to the question "What is wrong with actualizing evils, since they will occur in some other possible world anyways if they don't occur in this one?" This claim will be considered shortly. The second point Adams' claim relies on is that "We also normally suppose that there are many future acts which it is at least logically possible for me to either perform or fail to perform. These suppositions may be rather important to us; they seem to be involved in many of our attitudes and beliefs about moral rights and wrongs and responsibility." Again, Adams' point is unexplained, and needs to be drawn out.

Looking at an ethical scenario in light of a possiblist view about possible worlds helps illuminate Adam's remarks. Consider the following situation: A friend of mine is drowning in quicksand before me, and holds a rope that is within my reach. Here, I can either pull her out with little effort, or let her drown. I believe it will be agreed that our common sense intuitions about morality suggest that I should pull her out; it would be wrong of me to not pull the rope and let her drown, reasons why it is wrong aside. Let us consider how various actions I take in this scenario reflect upon me under a possiblist conception of possible worlds.

The possiblist's modal account holds that all possible worlds are equally real, and either I exist at multiple possible worlds, or that I exist at one world, and have counterparts at other possible worlds who are like me but ultimately not me. While the latter is Lewis' position, since Adams is responding to possiblist theories in general, and not Lewis's theory in particular, to be fair Adams' criticism we should consider both. We will consider the former position, the position in which I exist at multiple equally real worlds, first.

Further, it will be helpful to distinguish between an "absolute" moral perspective, and a "world-relative" moral perspective. These perspectives correspond to the scope of actions that are considered in evaluating an agent's moral value. A narrow scope would look at a few of an agent's actions, while a broad scope looks many or all. An absolute moral perspective is one in which a person's moral worth is given by all the real actions he does, including actions done in other possible worlds. A world-relative moral perspective is one in which a person's moral worth is given by all the real actions a person does in a particular world. Note that I use the term 'action' broadly, and take it to cover mental activities as well, such as intending or wanting something to happen.

Let's consider the quicksand scenario from an absolute moral perspective, under a possiblist theory under which I exist at multiple possible worlds. Suppose, in the world this essay is being read, I save friend from drowning. What is my absolute moral worth? Well, although I really save my friend in this world, I also really let her drown in another world. Depending on how you calculate moral worth, I might be morally neutral, if the moral value of actions cancels each other out, and both actions are worth about the same number of moral points. Or, perhaps, under a strict moral weighing, I'm morally bad, as I performed even one impermissible action. Further, if it is agreed that there are a more ways a person can act wrongly in a moral situation than rightly, it seems that all people, even those who do much good in this world, are very much morally bad, as they do fewer right actions in the scheme of possible worlds than wrong.

I think this is way in which Adam's question, "What is wrong with actualizing evils, since they will occur in some other possible world anyways if they don't occur in this one?” has weight. Lewis's reply to this, that "If you actualize evils, you will be an evil doer, a causal source of evil." , does not seem particularly responsive to Adam's problem understood this way, as he might respond "So what? If you don't actualize evils in this world, you'll still actualize evils in another, so you'll still be an evil doer". This might be taken as a basis for a theory of immoralism, of the form Dostoevsky’ character Pavel Smerdyakov, from The Brothers Karamazov acts upon. "Everything is permitted" declares Pavel; there is no moral basis for why you should or should not do a certain action, as you'll do it anyway in some possible world. Thus, there is no moral basis for performing an immoral action rather than a moral one. So, act however you would like. Worse still is the fact that even if you wanted your possible selves to be good rather than bad, there seems to be nothing you can do to prevent them from acting immorally. Acting morally thus appears pointless.

Now let's consider the quicksand scenario from an absolute moral perspective, under a possiblist theory where I have counterparts existing at other possible worlds. Suppose that I save my friend from drowning. What is my absolute moral worth? Well, although I have counterparts in other worlds, they are not me, but the person most like me in that world. This is drawn from Lewis' claim "Your counterparts resemble you in content and context in important respects. They resemble you more closely than do other things in their worlds. But they are not really you." So, if we are calculating my moral worth, and not the moral worth of Michael*, the Michael who lets his friend drown, we should only calculate the moral worth based on actions I do, and not actions my counterpart takes. Since I perform a good action, and my performing a bad action in another possible world does not shadow the worth of this, as I don't exist there, Lewis' account does appear to link up moral worth to agents in the right manner. Interestingly, my worth under the absolute moral perspective will collapse into my worth under the world-relative perspective with regards to Lewis' theory, as I only exist in one of the many possible worlds. Lewis' form of possiblism thus does not appear to generate a moral problem regarding my actions being actualized in other worlds.

In this manner, the reply "If you actualize evils, you will be an evil doer, a causal source of evil." is responsive to Adam's question, as the further response "So what? If you don't actualize evils in this world, you'll still actualize evils in another, so you'll still be an evil doer" is false. I do not actualize evils in another world, although another person, my counterpart, does. Lewis is still not in the clear though, for Adams' criticism had a second part. Recall that Adams writes, "We also normally suppose that there are many future acts which it is at least logically possible for me to either perform or fail to perform. These suppositions may be rather important to us; they seem to be involved in many of our attitudes and beliefs about moral rights and wrongs and responsibility." Does Lewis' account conflict with this supposition?

Lets consider the quicksand scenario again, but this time I let my friend drown. Perhaps another person, our guide, has been tied to a tree the whole time and forced to watch. The guide would, correctly I take us to believe, be appalled with me for letting my friend drown. "What are you doing?" the guide might ask, "You let her drown when you could have saved her!". To this I might respond "No, that's not true. Strictly speaking, I could not have saved her, although somebody like me could have saved someone like her in another world." If the guide, who happens to know enough philosophy to find my response intelligible, rather than think me a madman, argues that because I have a counterpart in another world who performs a saving, I'm just as responsible, I could point out that he too has a counterpart in another world who performs a saving as well. What is the difference between the guide and I in that respect?

Exasperated, the guide might point out that he is tied up, and I am not. Yet might not I reply that I too, was incapable of saving her? I exist in a world where I did not save her. While it may seem like there are other worlds where I do save her, this is to confuse me with my counterparts. Since I only exist in one world, it appears to be a matter of luck whether I exist in the world where I save her, or I exist in a world where I do not. As the guide can't physically save her because he is bound from movement by ropes, it appears likewise I can't modally save her because the possibility of actions that I might take is bound by what actions I do happen to perform.

These reflections suggest that there is something to Adams point that our thoughts about responsibility conflict with the possiblist view of worlds. If I am only responsible for doing actions that are possible for me to perform, then the same fact about counterpart theory that blocks Adams' initial thrust, i.e. that my counterpart is not me, seems to abjure my responsibility for any immoral action I do perform. This seems to reflect the observation by Kant that the conditions for morality require cases in which what does happen also might not happen. Again, Lewis' theory does not allow for it; what does happen regarding me could not have not happened.

In this final section of the paper, I will consider various replies a possiblist can make to the arguments thus outlined. One way Lewis might respond is by appeal to mental actions. This might hold that what matters for value judgments of an agent, it is not the actions a person in fact does that get weighed, but what actions the person wills. In this manner, if I willed myself to save my friend, yet I did not save her, I would still be morally worthy. This would require that what attitudes a person adopts toward an action not be a matter fixed by possible worlds though, which means the possiblist needs to explain how possible attitudes are not explained in terms of possible worlds. In other words, the possiblist would need explain how we have control over our willings while we do not have control over our actions.

Another way a possiblist might respond is by challenging the requirement that moral value be determined from an absolute perspective. Lewis' egoist objection can be thought of as doing just this. The question then is whether we care about the absolute moral worth perspective, or the world-relative moral worth perspective, or perhaps some even narrower perspective. Note that this question seems responsive to Adams' first point, rather than his second. As such, even if the perspective is narrowed, Lewis will still face problems with the second of Adams' points.

In some sense, answering this question is like asking about the extent to which past actions play into current judgments of moral worth. While Augustine may have stolen a pear in his youth, we might wonder if that really matters now that he is forty-two. This might suggest a principle of temporal moral distance: in judging a person's moral worth now, look only at recent actions. Likewise, in possible worlds talk, in judging a person's moral worth look only at close worlds, or only at the world the person is at.

A problem for this reply is that worlds where I do not pull the rope in the quicksand case seem prima facia to be as close worlds where I do. So this narrowing should perhaps be thought of as world-relative. While such a line of response does seem promising for the possiblist, a further worry seems relevant. The possiblist seems committed to the temporal analog of judging a person’s worth based on a part of his life, and not the whole. While the Augustine’s situation does seem to suggest a moral distance between current actions and past, this may merely be because we are thinking about Augustine’s life as a whole, and noting that his childhood actions are but a small part of the whole. If this is the cause of our feelings of distance, then it seems like the absolute moral perspective is more appropriate than the world-relative view. As such, the weight seems to be on the possiblist to explain how world-relative perspectives of moral worth are the perspectives that ought to be adopted.

Works Cited

Adams, Robert. "Theories of Actuality". In The Possible And The Actual, edited by Michael J. Loux, Cornell University Press, 1979.

Lewis, David. On The Plurality Of Worlds. Blackwell Publishing, 1986.

Lewis, David. "Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic". In The Possible And The Actual, edited by Michael J. Loux, Cornell University Press, 1979.

Smart, J.J.C. Ethics, Persuasion and Truth. Rouledge and Kegan, 1984.

Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Edited by Jonathon Bennet. www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/kantgw.pdf, 1995.