In my essay I intend to examine the requirement of followability which O'Neill argues is fundamental for thought to count as reasoned. O'Neill claims that anything that is to count as reasoning must be followable (or, at various times, intelligible, acceptable, accessible or cogent) to all relevant others.
Firstly, I will consider the way O'Neill actually uses the concept, since O'Neill's description of the concept on its own appears too vague and chimerical to be a meaningful requirement on reasoned thought. I will argue that an examination of the way O'Neill actually deploys the requirement against rival theories will reveal that O'Neill trades heavily upon an equivocation in her concept of followability. It appears that there are two possible senses in which O'Neill uses followability:
- Weak standard: thought is followable if it is conceivable that all relevant others adopt the set of beliefs; that it would not be inconsistent for them to accept the set of beliefs (whether or not actually adopting the set of beliefs is a real psychological or intellectual option for them).
- Strong standard: thought is followable if adopting the set of beliefs is conceivable in the sense that it is a real psychological or intellectual option for all relevant others.
And it is indeed this strong sense of followability which O'Neill appears to rely upon when she concludes that all non-Kantian-constructivist moral theories are not followable by all relevant others. These theories are not followable because, O'Neill argues, they appear arbitrary or incomprehensible to people who do not accept the various metaphysical arguments/subjective conceptions of the good/actual societal norms of the various theories. The reason these theories are not followable for O'Neill is that there are people within the relevant scope who cannot adopt them, in the sense that it is not a real option for those people. It must be noted that these non-Kantian theories still fulfill the weak standard of followability: it is still conceivable in some weak sense that everyone could become Platonists or utilitarians, for example.
However, it is evident that if we accept this strong sense of followability, O'Neill's own theory fails to meet this standard. There are plenty of people for whom the adoption of Kantian constructivism is not a real psychological or intellectual option. Furthermore, the reasoning which O'Neill employs to reject her rivals also fails to be properly reasoned, since it is clearly not followable by all relevant others (in the strong sense).
The only way that O'Neill can rescue her own theory is by instead applying a weak sense of followability: but this means that all the rival theories will be followable too. Followability thus loses its critical bite.
Secondly, I will examine whether the concept of followability can be repaired by seeing whether either the strong or weak senses of followability can provide useful restrictions on thought to count as reasoned. I will also examine the possibility of considering idealised followability (ie acceptable to all ideally rational agents in the positions of the people concerned). I will argue that O'Neill is right to explicitly reject this idea.
Finally, I will look at why O'Neill's requirement of followability is a desirable one in the first place. I will note that accepting that a being has moral significance does not commit us to according it discursive standing. I will accept that according moral agents discursive standing has strong instrumental value in protecting things of non-instrumental value. However, I will argue that being included within the scope of justification has no intrinsic value of its own. Therefore, while followability is a useful consideration for moral theories, it cannot be used as a restriction on reasoned thought.
[If I run out of things to say, I may also discuss the O'Neill's problems with determining the scope of "practical" reasoning in a non-circular manner]
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