Michael Stocker, in his paper "The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories"[1] brings a heavy charge against a wide range of ethical theories. He suggests that practitioners of these theories suffer what he calls "moral schizophrenia," that is, such a person will necessarily have a gap between his or her values and motives. He calls such a gap a "malady of spirit" (66) and suggests that, because these theories result in this malady, they are seriously flawed.
Among the theories to which Stocker claims his critique applies are hedonistic egoism, act- and rule-utilitarianism, and deontology. During the course of the paper he presents clear and convincing arguments for how hedonistic egoism and act-utilitarianism result in such schizophrenia, but he merely asserts that deontology has the same failing. In this essay I will attempt to show that a fair reading of Kantian deontology does not reveal moral schizophrenia in the theory's agents. Thus, Kantian deontology should be exempt from Stocker's critique of modern ethical theories. Stocker's critique should be confined to optimific moral theories-that is, theories that require their agents to strive to maximize a particular value.
A review of Stocker's notion of moral schizophrenia
Stocker describes an unexpected feature of modern ethical systems: that they require a gap between values and motives, a gap he refers to as moral schizophrenia. This schizophrenia can be seen most clearly in the extreme cases, as when one is "moved to do what one believes bad, harmful, ugly, abasing … [or] being disgusted, horrified, dismayed by what one wants to do" (66). While these extreme cases may be rare, milder cases are extremely common. These milder forms of moral schizophrenia can be seen in such mundane emotional and mental states as "weakness of the will, indecisiveness, guilt, shame, self-deception, rationalization, and annoyance with one's self" (66). Stocker suggests that modern ethical theories do not allow for but rather necessitate such schizophrenia. After such a provocative claim, he proceeds to spell out his reading of hedonistic egoism and utilitarianism.
A hedonistic egoist believes that an act is moral insofar as it tends to maximize his own pleasure. Such a person might recognize that a friend or lover may serve to greatly advance his own pleasure, and so wish to engage in a relationship of friendship or love. But in order to engage in such relationships, "one must care for the beloved and act for that person's sake as a final goal; the beloved, or the beloved's welfare or interest, must be a final goal of one's concern and action" (69). The requirement that one act for the sake of another is a requirement that hedonistic egoist qua egoist cannot meet (because his only motive for action is supposed to be pleasure-for-self.) Thus, the true hedonistic egoist qua egoist is denied the pleasures of friendship, love, and so on.
This is not to say that it is impossible for the hedonistic egoist to achieve these goods-he simply must forget that he is an hedonistic egoist for the time that he is engaging in them. This feature of the theory-that one must hide from oneself the fact that one is an hedonistic egoist if one is to collect on the goods of the theory-makes sense of Stocker's choice of the term "schizophrenia" to describe this malady. And a serious malady it is. It seems Stocker has uncovered a self-refuting aspect to the theory of hedonistic egoism. As he puts it, "to the extent that you live the theory directly, to that extent you will fail to achieve its goods" (73).
The case regarding utilitarianism is very similar. For a utilitarian, an act is moral insofar as it tends promote the general social utility. (Let us, for the sake of convenience, assume that utility is here defined as happiness.) If a utilitarian is obliged to maximize happiness through his acts, friendship and love are possible means to this end. But if a utilitarian enters into a friendship-like relationship, he will not, in fact, be entering a friendship, as he will never act for the sake of his friend (again, one of the requisites for friendship) but will always and only act for the sake of his moral obligation. "The person you supposedly love engages your thought and action not for him/herself, but rather as a source of pleasure" (71). Once again, if a utilitarian would like to enjoy the happiness intrinsic to friendship and love, he must willingly submit to the schizophrenic malady and hide from himself the fact that he is a utilitarian.
A review of Kantian deontology
I take the core of Kantian morality to be the application of Categorical Imperatives, or the so-called CI-procedure. The CI-procedure is the means by which an agent can evaluate whether or not a proposed action is morally permissible.
The CI-procedure works like this. First, identify the maxim that governs your action. What exactly these maxims look like is not entirely uncontroversial, but it is generally understood that they are of the form: in such and such a circumstance I should do such and such an action to accomplish such and such a goal.
Second, imagine a world in which your maxim is universalized; that is, a world in which everyone in your circumstance performs the action that you have proposed. If it is logically impossible to conceive such a world, then your maxim has suffered a "contradiction in conception" and has failed Kant's morality test. That action is morally prohibited. Similarly, if the world in which your maxim is universalized is conceivable, but the very intent (or goal) expressed in your maxim would be frustrated in such a world, then you have once again suffered a contradiction in conception, and your proposed action is prohibited.
Now, there are broad classes of general aims, tendencies, and intentions that human beings are in all cases bound to have. So the final test of the CI-procedure says, if the world created by your universalized maxim is a world that would frustrate these general aims and intentions (not just the specific goal you are currently after,) then your maxim has suffered a "contradiction of will," and is prohibited. An example: if the universalized maxim of a proposed action created a world in which no one could speak, such a maxim might pass the conception test. It is clearly possible to conceive a world of universal silence, and it is entirely possible that an inability to speak will not frustrate the particular intent expressed in the universalized maxim. However, such a maxim will still be forbidden by the CI-procedure, because an inability to speak will clearly frustrate intentions one is as some point bound to have, simply by virtue of one's being human. Such a maxim will suffer a contradiction of the will.
If a maxim passes each of these tests, then the action proposed in the maxim is morally permissible. A man who considers himself a Kantian deontologist will consider it his duty to act, out of respect for the moral law only on maxims that pass the CI-procedure.
Examples of morally schizophrenic deontologists
During the course of the paper, Stocker gives two examples of persons who are possible candidates for morally schizophrenic deontologists. The first is the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, the second is the fictitious Smith, who visits you in the hospital. Stocker presents Smith as a moral schizophrenic. The case with Eichmann is much stranger, as Stocker presents Eichmann specifically as a man with harmony betwixt motive and value. I suggest that the characterization that Eichmann presents of himself at his own trial is the very picture of a moral schizophrenic, and while this character is surely invented, it is an interesting character to analyze under Stocker's concepts.
In September of 1939, when war broke out in Europe, Adolf Eichmann was the head of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. In 1941, at the rank of Lt. Colonel in the SS, he was put in charge of Germany's Jewish population. From this position, he oversaw forced marches, internment, and extermination of Jews. In the same year he was charged with the development of the Final Solution. By the end of the war, Eichmann was widely considered to be the primary architect of the entire genocide campaign. In 1961 he was tried and convicted of crimes against the Jewish people. He was hanged in 1962.
Stocker refers to Eichmann when he claims that a harmony between motives and reasons is not always a desirable thing. "It would have been far better for the world and his victims," says Stocker, "had Eichmann not wanted to do what he thought he should do" (67). Stocker is claiming that Eichmann is not a moral schizophrenic, and that many things would have been better if he were. Interestingly, Eichmann himself does his best to resist this reading of his character in statements at his own trial.[2]
Prior to his sentencing, Eichmann paints a portrait of himself as both a deontologist and a moral schizophrenic. He claims to have been, above all, concerned with doing his duty. "I accuse the leaders of abusing my obedience. At that time obedience was demanded, just as in the future it will also be demanded of the subordinate. Obedience is commended as a virtue."[3] Not only was his perceived duty to his superiors the overriding influence in his decisions, but there is evidence that Eichman engaged in a Kantian style of decision making. "It is said that I could and should have refused to be obedient… An individual could secretly slip away. But I was not one of those who thought that permissible." This sounds a great deal like the words of someone who has engaged in the CI-procedure, or something similar. He proposed, to himself, a possible course of action, analyzed that course of action, and found it forbidden by his moral theory. Such a method of moral decision making is clearly not egoist, and it is hard to image it is utilitarian. Eichmann sounds a lot like a deontologist.
Furthermore, Eichmann would have us believe he is a moral schizophrenic. He says, "it was my misfortune to become entangled in these atrocities. But these misdeeds did not happen according to my wishes. It was not my wish to slay people." And "I am overwhelmed by shame when I think about the evil committed against the Jews." What Eichmann is claiming is that he was moved morally to do something he felt to be horrifying. He is claiming the most extreme form of moral schizophrenia that Stocker mentions at the outset if his paper.[4]
Let us, for a moment, take Eichmann at his word, and suppose that he is a deontologist suffering from moral schizophrenia. Does Eichmann's schizophrenia flow directly from the fact that he is a deontologist? Clearly not! Eichmann's claimed schizophrenia is the result not of his deontology, but of a misapplication of the CI-procedure.
We can re-construct what Eichmann's CI-procedure might have looked like. According to his post-trial comments, his maxim must have been something like, "When I am compelled by my superiors to murder Jews, and I feel this is wrong, I should refuse, in order to avoid having to murder Jews." Eichmann, in thinking such action morally prohibited, must have found a contradiction of conception or will in the universalized version of this maxim. But no contradiction is obvious. A world in which everyone refuses when ordered to murder is certainly conceivable. Presumably, if everyone in his circumstances refused, this would not substantially frustrate his own ability to refuse. Finally, it is clear that the universalized maxim does not lead to a contradiction of the will.
Kantian deontology seems to permit perfectly well Eichmann to refuse to be part of the Final Solution. Thus, Eichmann's claimed schizophrenia flows from a misapplication of the CI-procedure, not from his moral system itself. The important thing to note from this example is that, if Eichmann had applied his deontological principles properly, he would have had harmony between his motives and his values, which is to say he would not have been morally schizophrenic.[5]
The second schizophrenic deontologist Stocker mentions is Smith, the man who comes to visit you at the hospital, not because he enjoys your company or wants to cheer you up, but because he feels it is his duty. Furthermore, Smith is completely candid in admitting that he visits you solely out of a sense of duty. In Smith's case, moral schizophrenia does seem to be creeping onto the scene. Smith cannot effectively improve your spirits unless he wants to cheer you up for your own sake. Although he believes it is his morally required duty to cheer you up, he cannot-unless he forgets that he is performing this action for the sake of duty.
It should be clear that this example is not entirely fair to Kantian deontology. It constructs the ethical requirement as "in every situation you should act as duty demands," rather than a more accurate, "it is my duty to act only on maxims that pass the CI-procedure."
If Smith were a Kantian deontologist, one might expect the example to look more like this. Smith understands that you are in the hospital, miserable. He would like to visit you to try to cheer you up. So he frames the maxim, "When my friend is in the hospital I should go visit him in order to cheer them up." This maxim clearly passes the CI-procedure, and as a result, Smith is morally permitted to visit you in the hospital. In other words, Smith wanted to act for your sake, tested his desire against his morality, and then acted on his desire. Moral schizophrenia is conspicuously absent from this account.
Does deontology lead to moral schizophrenia?
Let us return, for a moment, to the character of Eichmann as presented in his post-conviction comments. Let us suppose this character were entirely inverted. That is, suppose there was a Kantian deontologist who liked nothing better than to kill Jews. Suppose this man frames the maxim, "when I am having a bad day, I should kill Jews, in order to cheer myself up." Such a maxim fails the CI-procedure. If this man took Kantian deontology seriously, he would be compelled to refrain from killing Jews in these circumstances. But this is a case of moral schizophrenia: this man wants to murder, but he feels compelled not to by his moral theory. Few would argue that schizophrenia in this situation is a defect in the morality governing his actions.[6]
Any moral theory, not just deontology, but any moral theory that provides checks and curbs on an erring will will result in this sort of schizophrenia. It is a strength of moral theories that they reign in an erring will, and the fact that in these situations there is a gap between the agent's motive and reason is no cause for criticism. In other words, that moral schizophrenia can crop up from time to time in an agent is not a problem with that agent's theory. In fact, that a theory requires schizophrenia when an agent's will is in error is a strength.
The offending theories then, are for Stocker the theories that demand schizophrenia of their agents, even when the will of these agents is not in error. As we have seen in the inverted Eichmann example, Kantian deontology results in moral schizophrenia when its agent's will errs. And from the modified Smith example, we see that Kantian deontology does not result in schizophrenia when the will of its agents is not in error. Because deontology does not demand schizophrenia of its agents in these situations, it does not deserve the criticisms that Stocker rightly brings to bear against egoism and utilitarianism.
Discussion
If I am right, and Stocker is mistaken to claim his criticism applies to deontology, then what is the significant difference between deontologies and the theories that Stocker successfully skewers?
A clue can be found in Stocker's presentation of the Smith example. Recall that in this example, a problem arises for Smith because the motivating reason for him to visit you in the hospital is that "he thought it was his duty" (74). It has already been shown that such a characterization is not entirely fair, and that a phrasing like "my duty-morality permits me to visit you when I want to visit you" does not lead to moral schizophrenia. The major difference between these two phrasings is twofold. First, the theory expressed in the first phrasing attempts to usurp the role of the will. The second reason, closely related to the first, is that the first phrasing reveals a moral theory that is constantly making demands of its moral agents, while the second phrasing reveals a moral theory that provides a system of checks on the actions of an agent in a morally challenging position.
The problems with a rational theory (not just of morality, but anything else) that attempts to motivate are well known, and have been described since Hume.[7] There is no question, however, that reason can have some effect on our will, either through uncovering things upon which our will can operate, or through illuminating a path toward a goal determined by the will. This may be all that is required by the theories Stocker attacks, and so the second feature (that these theories make constant demands of their agents) is the more important of the two.
The constant interference of a moral theory in an agent's life is not a new target for criticism, at least of utilitarianism. The so-called relentlessness of utilitarianism is a standard (which is not to say ineffective) criticism. The problem with utilitarianism in this regard is that it claims that each act of an agent is to be evaluated as moral if that act serves to maximize social utility. This makes those everyday activities such as eating, sleeping, reading, or watching a movie look positively immoral. After all, there are clearly many ways that such time could be spent that would contribute much to the general social utility.
The relentlessness of utilitarianism flows from the fact that utilitarianism is an optimific theory. The right action in every situation is the optimific action, that is, the action that maximizes utility. It seems likely that utilitarianism's moral schizophrenia also flows from the fact that it is an optimific theory.
The reason here is very simple: because utilitarianism evaluates every action by criteria that are valuable to the theory, it edges out those values that are important to the agent. If a theory demands that such considerations be the motivating factor in every decision, then a gap between motives and values is bound to occur.
The case is precisely the same with hedonistic egoism. This theory is optimific in that it always demands that its agents strive to produce the most pleasure-for-self. Since the theory demands that the agent constantly try to advance this one value-the value important to the theory-there is no room left for the values of the agent, and moral schizophrenia necessarily occurs.
It is clear, then, why Kantian deontology does not result in moral schizophrenia. Instead of requiring that its agents strive to maximize one particular value, it allows its agents to describe their own values, and act on those so long as they do not cross the boundaries laid out by the theory. Because deontology does not insist that one central value be religiously promoted-which is to say, because it is not optimific-its agents are not morally schizophrenic.
It seems that moral schizophrenia may well be a feature of optimific theories. Modern ethical theories, then, are only morally schizophrenic to the extent that they are optimific. Theories such as Kantian deontology, which speak of what is permitted rather than what is demanded, should be exempt from Stocker's attack.
[1] Michael Stocker, "The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories," in Crisp and Slote, eds. Virtue Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) pp. 66 - 78. Unprefixed references refer to page numbers in this edition.
[2] It is important to remember that these statements came after his conviction was handed down. Here, Eichmann is hoping to avoid an all-but-certain death sentence. Considering these circumstances, Eichmann's words must be skeptically received, and Stocker is surely right to suppose Eichmann's will fell, unfortunately, precisely in line with his deeds. However, even if Eichmann is inventing his moral schizophrenia in a last-ditch attempt at life, the character presented to us in his comments is worth analysis in Stocker's terms.
[3] This and all quotes from Eichmann come from "The Trial of Adolf Eichmann," produced by ABC news for PBS. A transcript of Eichmann's post-conviction speech can be found at http://www.pbs.org/eichmann/ownwords.htm
[4] "An extreme form of such schizophrenia is characterized, on the one hand, by being moved to do what one believes bad, harmful, ugly, abasing" (66).
[5] It will be important later that, if Eichmann had had this harmony, he would not have been the architect of the Final Solution, since he would have harmoniously refused to participate.
[6] In fact, about this very sort of moral schizophrenia, Stocker claims that, if Eichmann had been struck by it, "it would have been far better for the world and his victims" (67).
[7] See, in particular, David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature
ed. Selby-Bigge, 2nd ed. revised by Nidditch (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1987) Book III, Part I, Sect. I. Hume says, "Reason is the discovery of
truth or falshood. Truth or falshood consists in an agreement or disagreement
either to the real relations of ideas, or to the real existence and matter of
fact. Whatever, therefore, is not susceptible of this agreement or disagreement,
is incapable of being true or false, and can never be an object of our reason.
Now 'tis evident our passions, volitions, and actions are not susceptible of
any such agreement or disagreement; being original facts and realities, complete
in themselves, and implying no reference to other passions, volitions, and actions.
'Tis impossible, therefore, they can be pronounced either true or false, and
be either contrary or conformable to reason." (Treatise 458)