Moral Libertarianism: A Reply to Mr.

Franklin
Author(s): C. A. Campbell
Source: The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 49 (Oct., 1962), pp. 337-347
Published by: Blackwell Publishing for The Philosophical Quarterly
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2217426
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 337

DISCUSSIONS

MORAL LIBERTARIANISM: A REPLY TO MR. FRANKLIN

In the January 1962 number of this journal there is an article by Mr.

R. L. Franklin severely criticising " the theory of freewill held by Professors
C. A. Campbell and W. G. Maclagan "-a theory to which he gives the con-
venient name " Moral Libertarianism ".1 An opportunity to reply would
be appreciated.2
Since Franklin's criticisms are very extensive, and since I am quite
unable to accept any of them, my reply can be compressed within reasonable
limits only by being somewhat more selective than I could wish. I hope,
however, to be able to cover the most material points of difference.

1. FREEDOM IN MORAL AND NON-MORAL CHOICE RESPECTIVELY

Following a brief initial account in Section I of the general character of
Moral Libertarianism, Franklin devotes the whole of his second Section to
an assault upon one of its major positions, namely, that there is a radical
difference in respect of freedom between moral and non-moral choices.
Moral choice means in this context, as Franklin makes plain in a foot-note
(p. 24), " a choice between doing our duty and not doing it ". It operates
in " the situation of moral temptation ". Franklin's contention is that
there is no difference between moral and non-moral choices (i.e. all other
choices), as we experience them, which could serve as a basis for arguing
that the former are free in a way that the latter are not.
Non-moral choices, Franklin rightly declares, as well as moral choices,
carry in the experience of them a claim to freedom. Indeed, the one feature
he can detect that is common to all non-moral choices is that we have in
them " a sense of being the arbiter between genuinely open possibilities ".
But-so Franklin alleges-this phrase is "Campbell's own description of
the distinctive nature of the moral choice" (p. 26, italics mine). How then,
he naturally wonders, can I proceed from the non-existent difference of
these two kinds of choice as experienced to their " radical distinction " in
respect of freedom ?
1' feel rather less beholden to him for renaming Scepticism and Construction (p. 24,
foot-note), though " Reconstruction " may well be an improvement!
2Circumstances have unfortunately made it impossible for Professor Maclagan and
myself to collaborate fully in the preparation of this reply. To my great profit, however,
we have contrived to have discussions on a number of points, and I am authorised
to say that there is a large area of agreement (though perhaps not total agreement)
between us as regards its substance.
338 C. A. CAMPBELL

This looks like a trump card, against myself at any rate. And no doubt
it would be, if only it were in the pack. But of course it isn't. I never have
described, and I should never dream of describing, the distinctive nature
of moral choice in this way. Franklin's authority for crediting (or discrediting)
me with it is spurious. He refers (p. 24) to my use of the phrase on p. 113
of Scepticism and Construction. The phrase does indeed occur there; but a
glance at the context makes it abundantly clear that it does not function
as a description of the distinctive nature of moral choice. It occurs in the
opening lines of the first of two chapters entitled " Moral Freedom ", before
I have even begun to analyse moral choice. In this passage I draw attention
to the " curious paradox " that " whatever be the outcome of theory, it
seems just not possible to engage in practice without believing that we are
free; and free in the so-called 'popular' or 'vulgar' sense of being the
arbiter between genuinely open possibilities ". It will be patent to the
reader not only that I am not attempting here to describe the distinctive
nature of moral choice, but that the word 'sense' actually bears in this
context a quite different connotation from that which it bears in a sentence
like ' we have a sense of being the arbiter . . .'. In the passage I have
quoted, ' sense ' manifestly means ' significance '; not, as it ought to mean
if Franklin's citation of it is to have point, some sort of mental state.
I have no wish to rub in what must be a mere slip on Franklin's part.
But it has had unfortunate consequences. Presumably it is mainly responsible
for his not pursuing what I should have thought to be the natural procedure
for anyone desirous of eliciting my view of the nature of moral choice-to
go to the formal introspective analysis of it which I have given pretty often
in my writings (too often, I fear; but the centrality of this analysis for the
doctrine of free will I favour has forced some repetition upon me). It would
then be open to a critic to argue either that my analysis is defective or that,
even if sound, it will not support the conclusions I build upon it. Had
Franklin proceeded in this way, I should at least have known what I had to
answer. As things are, I don't-save, of course, for the misrepresentation
to which I have already alluded.
Merely to leave the matter thus, however, could hardly be very satis-
factory. And though I must not weary the informed reader with yet another
recital of the aforementioned analysis, I may perhaps be permitted to state
briefly and dogmatically its main result, and then to indicate how this
bears upon the doctrine that moral choice is " free " in a way in which non-
moral choice is not.
It will be remembered that the experiential situation to which moral
choice (as understood in our present context) relates is the situation of
moral temptation; the situation where the agent has before his mind a
possible course of action which he conceives to be his duty, and at the same
time a different course, incompatible with the former, towards which he is
aware that his strongest desire inclines him. Analysing this situation, it
is argued that the agent, as engaged in it, believes himself to enjoy an absolute
 MORAL LIBERTARIANISM 339
or categoricalfreedom to decide whether or not to put forth the moral effort
which is required of him if he is to resist the urge of strongest desire and
" rise to duty ".
In non-moral choice, on the other hand, the freedom which the agent
believes himself to have is obviously not a freedom to decide whether or
not to exert moral effort. He has to do with ends which are all ends of
de8sire,and of desire alone. But if so, the freedom which he is claiming for
himself can be seen to be not a categorical,but only an hypothetical,freedom.
For suppose A and B to be two such alternatives. The agent reports his
belief-and the report, so far, is hardly open to challenge-that he is " free
to choose either A or B ". But in what sense of this expression? If it be
put to him, " Do you mean that you believe yourself free to choose either,
irre8pectiveof which of them you de8ire mo8t at the moment of choice, so that
you can, for example, choose A, even if at the moment of choice your strongest
desire is for B ? ", I think he must, on due reflection, answer " No ". For
he thinks of his choice, presumably, as a rational act; and where the ends
are solely ends of desire, it is manifestly not a rational act to " choose "
what one desires less in preference to what one desires more-that would
be an act for which one could give no " reason ".3 Such choices, accordingly,
are not really " choices " at all, and 'freedom to choose either ' cannot
mean 'freedom to choose either, irrespective of which of them one desires
most strongly at the moment of choice'. What does it mean ? I suggest
that the agent could easily enough be brought to recognise that the freedom
he claims for himself in his non-moral choices is really the freedom to choose
whicheverof the alternatives before hUs mind he most strongly desires at the
moment of choice-A if he desires A most strongly, B if he desires B most
strongly, and so on. But this is an hypothetical,not a categorical, freedom.
It contrasts sharply with the freedom claimed in moral choice, where the
freedom to choose between the end which duty prescribes and the end of
strongest desire is subject to no limiting conditions whatsoever.
Looking, then, to the actual experience of moral and non-moral choice
respectively, I find in moral choice the claim to an absolute or categorical
freedom, and I find in non-moral choice no such claim, but a claim only to
an hypothetical freedom. This, of course, does not establish, and I have
never taken it to establish, that moral choices are free in a way that non-
moral choices are not. It may be that the belief in categorical freedom
inherent in moral choice is an illusion, and that the freedom we actually
have in moral choice is merely hypothetical. Hence there follows the Moral
Libertarian's main task-to show, if he can, that there are sound reasons
for maintaining the agent's belief in his categorical freedom to be a true
belief.
This, necessarily in very condensed form, is the argument from the ex-
perienced difference between moral and non-moral choice to their difference
3See W. G. Maclagan's The, Theological Frontier of Ethics (Allen & Unwin, 1961),
pp. 195-6,
340 C. A. CAMPBELL

in respect of freedom. Whether or not it is a valid argument is another

matter. That can be decided only by an examination of it in the detail
with which it is expounded in the original texts.
Franklin, however, having failed to grasp the structure of the argument
actually employed, but being hesitant to assume that there just is no argu-
ment, imagines an argument of quite different structure (pp. 27-8) which
he suggests may be the real reason for the Moral Libertarian's acceptance
of the " radical distinction " he criticises. The structure of this argument
he finds " fundamentally confused " (p. 28). It may well be so. But it is
not the Moral Libertarian who is responsible for the confusion.

2. COMMENSURABILITY AND INCOMMENSURABILITY OF ALTERNATIVES

Franklin points out that for the Moral Libertarian the alternatives
before the agent in moral choice are incommensurable. He himself (I think)
agrees that they are so; but he does not agree that in this respect there is
a difference of principle between moral and non-moral choices. In some
cases of non-moral choice, he contends, the alternatives are likewise in-
commensurable. He offers examples; such as the case of " a man deciding
between on the one hand a risky or unremunerative job which would give
him room to express his artistic capacities, and on the other hand a safe
and well-paid job which did not " (p. 26). In a foot-note I am chided for
not seeing this.
It seems to me that Franklin's criticism arises from a failure to recognise
a necessary distinction.
In the strict mathematical sense value-alternatives are " commensur-
able " only if it is possible to compare them in terms of the precise number
of self-identical units of value which each possesses. I suppose everyone
would agree that in this sense the non-moral alternatives Franklin names
are incommensurable. Certainly I should; and I would merely add that, in
this sense, few if any of the alternatives we have to decide between in prac-
tical life are not so.
But of course we often speak of " measuring alternatives against one
another " where mathematical calculation of this sort is out of the question.
We use here a second, looser sense of 'commensurability'. In this sense
alternatives are commensurable in value if it is possible to compare them
in terms of their respective conduciveness to some general end or other to
which we ascribe value; e.g., the productiveness of a factory, or the winning
of a war, or-to mention what is probably the most general end taken
account of in non-moral choices-one's personal happiness. Not infrequently
the process of comparison yields a certainty not far short of mathematical
about which alternative is the " best " ; more often we have to be content
with a fair degree of probability; occasionally we are left still undecided,
since the alternatives (assuming for the sake of simplicity that there are
only two) turn out to be equally balanced. But in the last case no less than
in the other cases we have " measured " the alternatives against one another.
 MORAL LIBERTARIANISM 341

Now I can see no reason why " measuring ", in this weaker sense, should
not be applicable to the examples which Franklin gives of " incommensur-
able " alternatives in non-moral choice (or to any other examples that
might be offered). In the example I quoted, it would surely be the most
natural thing in the world for the man to reflect hard and long upon which
of the alternatives, in the circumstances-these including pre-eminently his
own tastes and capacities-is most conducive to his happiness. Experience
suggests that it is very likely he will reach a conclusion sufficiently well-
grounded, in his opinion, to warrant action upon it. Even if he doesn't,
however, this does not mean that the alternatives were incommensurable.
It merely means that they appeared to him to weigh equally in the balance.
In moral choices, on the other hand, where the alternatives between which
we have to decide are A, the end which we take to be our duty, and B, the
end towards which we feel that our strongest desire impels us, the alter-
natives are incommensurable even in the weakersense of' commensurable'.
It is' true that, before we have finally judged A to be our duty, we shall
probably have compared A with B, and with other ends besides, in order
to ascertain which end really does most adequately realise the general
principle or principles in which the concept of " duty " happens to be, for
us, concretely embodied. But once we have made up our minds that it is A
that is our duty (and this is the situation when moral choice comes into
operation), comparison of A with B in terms of their respective conducive-
ness to some more general value is inept. In so far as A is our duty, its claim
upon us is absolute. Its importance qua duty is totally independent of its
conduciveness to anything else whatsoever.
I conclude, therefore, that the alternatives before the agent in moral
choice are in no sense commensurable, whereas there is a very real, though
secondary, sense in which those before the agent in non-moral choice are
always commensurable.
I need not take up Franklin's further point that " even if incommensur-
ability of alternatives belonged exclusively to moral choices, this would not
prove them uniquely free " (p. 26). Whether Franklin is right or wrong in
this assertion, the line of argument he indicates is in any case not that on
which I rely.

3. THE MEANING OF 'DESIRE'

Franklin asserts that I use ' desire ' in two senses, and that I reach
certain of my conclusions " only by oscillating between one and the other"
(p. 28).
I must repudiate this. It was my intention to use the term to stand
for any felt motive to action other than the moral motive of " duty ", and
I think I did so use it uniformly throughout. But this meaning (if I under-
stand him aright) Franklin calls a " special " and " unusual " meaning of
'desire ', which I employ for particular purposes, not the major and common
sense of the term.
 342 C. A. CAMPBELL

What in Franklin's opinion that latter sense is, I shall consider shortly.
But why, first of all, is there anything " special " about the former sense ?
It seems to me no more, and no less, than what philosophers generally have
meant by 'desire' for centuries when they have been discussing the conflict
of desire and duty in the situation of moral temptation. Moreover, this use
of 'desire ', to cover each and every felt non-moral motive, seems to me
not only supported by tradition but to be entirely natural. If it were not
so, it should be possible to point to some felt non-moral motive which cannot
without strain be regarded as falling under the genus " desire ". I cannot
for my part think of any. Can Franklin ?
At any rate he does not name any. What he does do is to name certain
non-moral motives which (he thinks) do not fall under a particular species
of desire. This species he distinguishes from " motive-desire "-his name,
as I understand him, for desire in my supposedly " special " sense-and
calls " longing-desire ". A longing-desire, he tells us (p. 28), is " a felt
experience of such a sort that, at least in powerful cases, we would speak of
a craving or yearning or longing or repugnance or revulsion ". These turn
out to be "the two senses of desire " between which I am supposed to
" oscillate ".
I am extremely sceptical about this distinction. Franklin tries to justify
it by giving examples of motive-desires which he thinks are not longing-
desires; but they seem to me far from supporting his case. Thus: " If
I long for a smoke, I may refrain from lighting my pipe from shyness,
or because I am economising, or because it is not the done thing at a
funeral. None of these prevailing counter-motives are in themselves
longing-desires " (pp. 28-9). But aren't they, on his own description of a
longing-desire? If my motive in refraining is shyness, is it not a
repugnance to making myself conspicuous ? If economy, is it not a
repugnance to spending money except on necessities ? If convention at
funerals, is it not a repugnance to violating widely respected taboos ?
In short, Franklin's distinction between motive-desire and longing-desire
seems to me a distinction without a difference. And if so, this is enough to
refute the charge that I oscillate between these " two senses of desire "
One cannot oscillate between two things that are the same.

4. DESIRE AND SENS:E OF DUTY

Almost the whole of Franklin's Section III loses its point if his distinction
between motive-desire and longing-desire cannot be sustained. I can confine
further comment on it, therefore, to a few words on what seems to me his
very odd rejection of the seeming truism that " ' sense of duty ' and ' desire'
are mutually exclusive concepts which cannot overlap " (p. 30).
There is one respect, of course, in which it is true, but also extremely
trite, that sense of duty and desire can overlap (though not as " concepts ").
Our sense of duty may prescribe a course of action which is identical with
that towards which desire inclines us. But Franklin is not just proclaiming
 MORAL LIBERTARIANISM 343

this commonplace. He means much more, something which puzzles me

considerably. This comes out explicitly in his footnote: " It is quite natural
to say: 'His sole desire in the whole unpleasant business was to do his
duty as he saw it'. Here his desire i8 his sense of duty " (p. 30).
It appears from this passage that Franklin wants to hold that sense of
duty and desire can overlap in the drastic sense that, in certain circum-
stances, one can actually be the other. I find it hard to attach an intelligible
meaning to this. " Desire " is one subjective mode of experience, " sense of
duty" is another. Each has its own distinctive form. How can one ever
" be" the other ? It makes not the slightest difference what the desire
happens to be " for ". If it has not the distinctive form of desire, it is
not a desire; and if it has, it is not a sense of duty. To call an experience by
both names at once looks like a flat self-contradiction.
I suppose it is just possible, however, that Franklin is prepared with an
analysis of 'sense of duty' in terms which would permit it to be defined
as a species of 'desire'. Given such an analysis, there might be nothing
wrong in saying of a certain desire that it is a sense of duty. But Franklin
gives no hint here of favouring so unorthodox (and unpromising) an analysis.
It will be time enough to discuss it if and when it appears.

5. MORAL AND NON-MORAL CHOICES AND "PREDICTABILITY"

Franklin says that for Maclagan and myself an act must be " either free
or in principle predictable, but not both " (p. 30) ; so that for us moral choice
is not in principle predictable. This is correct, though a slight verbal
modification is desirable to obviate possible misunderstanding. What, on
our view, Moral Libertarianism entails is that moral choices are not in
principle predictable with certainty. This distinguishes them from non-moral
choices, which are in principle, though assuredly not in practice, predictable
with certainty.
Franklin argues that this distinction has no sound basis. There is a
"residual uncertainty " about all such predictions, but " this is no greater
in moral choices than in others ".
Let me first make clear what is the basis of the distinction for the Moral
Libertarian.
In non-moral choice the notion of duty, ex hypothesi, does not enter into
the situation. The alternatives are solely ends of desire; and, as earlier
urged (p. 339), the conclusion seems unavoidable that in such cases a man's
choice will always follow his strongest desire. Accordingly if, in a given
non-moral situation, we could have perfect knowledge (based on knowledge
of his character) of a man's strongest desire, we should be able to predict
with certainty what course he will choose. In practice, however, we never
do have this perfect knowledge, and some uncertainty in prediction there
must be. But often we know enough about a man's character, as so far
formed, to be pretty confident, in a given situation, what his strongest
 344 0. A. CAMPBELL

desire is. And this justifies our predicting with some measure of probability
which alternative he will choose.
In moral choice the alternatives between which the agent has to decide
are, letting his strongest desire have its way, or making the moral effort
to resist temptation and rise to duty. Since, on the Moral Libertarian's
theory, the act of moral decision is absolutely free either to oppose or to
follow strongest desire, and is in no way determined by strongest desire,
it would be impossible, even if we had perfectknowledge of a man's strongest
desire at the moment of decision, to predict with certainty which alternative
he would choose.
For Moral Libertarianism, then, there is present in the situation of moral
choice, but absent from the situation of non-moral choice, an unknowable
factor which makes certain prediction impossible in principle in the former
case, and makes uncertain prediction still more uncertain in the former
case than in the latter.
I think, however, that Franklin is not concerned to deny that this
follows on the Moral Libertarian's " absolutist " view of the freedom of
moral choice. In a sense, indeed, he wants to go much further. He wants
to show that the Moral Libertarian, on this absolutist view, is not entitled
to admit any predictability of moral choice. And Franklin is certainly right
in supposing that, if he can show this, he will be striking a blow right at
the heart of Moral Libertarianism. For it seems an incontrovertible fact of
experience that moral choices are sometimes capable of being predicted
(though never with certainty). And in that case there must be something
radically wrong with a theory like Moral Libertarianism, tied as it is to a
doctrine of freedom which (if Franklin is correct) is inconsistent with the
admission of any predictability for moral choices.
The fundamental question at issue is, accordingly, whether the Moral
Libertarian can consistently admit any qualification whatever to the thesis
that moral choice is unpredictable. As Franklin notes, I have myself specified
certain qualifications which it seems to me must be recognised. His retort
is " Of course Campbell is right in saying that moral choices are often pre-
dictable, but is he entitled to say it ? Can his theory really cope with the
fact at all? ".
I am persuaded that the theory can cope. Let us look first at the qualifi-
cations referred to. They are two in number.
The first is very simple. The alternatives between which the agent has
to decide in moral choice are (a) the course to which his strongest desire
inclines him, and (b) the course which he conceives to be his duty. Our
knowledge of the agent's character as so far formed is often sufficient for
us to be fairly sure, in a given situation, both what he will conceive to be
his duty and what he will most strongly desire. This enables us to predict
with fair probability the range of courses within which his decision must fall.
It would be hard to deny that at least this kind of predictability (to
 MORAL LIBERTARIANISM 345
which, incidentally, Franklin makes no reference) is perfectly consistent
with the absolute freedom of moral decision claimed by Moral Libertarian-
ism. The freedom claimed as absolute is the freedom to decide between
the alternatives furnished by " strongest desire " and " duty" respectively.
That the range of alternatives should be determined has no bearing at all
on the question whether there is or is not absolute freedom to choose within
that range.
The second qualification, the second ground I accept for the predict-
ability of moral choice, is not so simple, nor is it so obviously reconcilable
with the Moral Libertarian's absolute freedom. It is as follows. We all
know from our own moral experience that the moral effort required of us to
rise to duty is proportionately greater where the temptation to deviate is
relatively strong than where the temptation is relatively weak. In other
words, we recognise " degrees " in moral effort. Now on the evidence again
of our actual moral experience-and to what other source can we turn for
information about the nature of moral effort ?-it belongs to the nature
of moral effort that the greater the degree of it required, the more difficult
proportionately is its achievement. And the more difficult its achievement,
the less likely, presumably, it is to be achieved. General recognition of this
makes it the common practice to assume that, where we have good reason
from our knowledge of a man's character to believe him to be assailed by a
strong temptation requiring an intense moral effort to overcome it, we have
good reason also to predict it as probable-and the more probable, the
stronger the temptation-that he will not overcome it, but will follow the
course of strongest desire. And, by and large, results confirmthe assumption.
Now is this second sort of predictability of moral choice inconsistent, as
Franklin supposes it to be, with the absoluteness of the freedom claimed for
moral decision by the Moral Libertarian ? It certainly presents a much
greater threat than the first sort. For this second sort, unlike the first sort,
looks as if it implied some determination by the agent's character not just
of the range of alternatives between which he has to decide, but of which
alternative he will actually decide upon; a determination, that is to say,
of the act of moral decision itself.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that a closer look reveals that this sort of
predictability too is reconcilable with the absolute freedom of moral decision.
For consider. Just how much must we concede that a man's character
as so far formed determines in the case of a moral choice ? We have recog-
nised already, in giving our grounds for accepting the first sort of predict-
ability, that character determines (a) what course he conceives to be his
duty, and (b) to what course his strongest desire inclines him. In virtue of
these determinations a state of moral temptation exists. We are now further
recognising, in seeking the justification of the second sort of predictability,
that it determines (c) how strong that temptation is; and accordingly, what
degree of moral effort must be exerted to overcome it. Now the vital thing
to notice is this. The third determinant is not, any more than the first or
 346 C. A. CAMPBELL

the second, a determinant of the act of moral decision itself. Like them, it is
a determinant only of the situation within which the moral decision has to
be made. The moral decision is the decision whether or not, within the
situation thus determined, to exert the moral effort, great or small, which
the situation requires of us if we are to do our duty; and no reason has
appeared for the supposition that of this act of decision there is any determin-
ant other than the self itself in its ad hoc creative activity. Our ability (in
favourable circumstances) to predict with some measure of probability
whether a man will or will not decide to exert the amount of moral effort
required to resist a temptation is not based on our knowing some relevant
factor in the man's composition, such as a greater-than-normal or a less-than-
normal capacity for exerting moral effort-there is, to the best of my know-
ledge, no serious evidence that this capacity varies as between individuals, or
even as between different phases in the life-history of a single individual.4
The ability to predict is based simply on the fact, vouched for by our moral
experience, that the exertion of moral effort is more difficult (and hence less
likely to be achieved) in proportion to the degree of it that is required.
It will be clear from what has just been said that, for me, such predict-
ability as can be ascribed to the act of moral decision is not based on " causal
calculation ". Franklin surprisingly declares it to be " the basic assumption
of Moral Libertarianism that prediction is based on causal calculation "
(p. 31), and therefore accuses me of an inconsistency here. But as it does
not appear why he thinks this to be a (let alone the) basic assumption of
Moral Libertarianism (unless indeed he is taking prediction to be restricted
to prediction that is, in principle, certain), and as he gives no reference to
anything I have written implying acceptance of such an assumption, I fear
that, as matters now stand, I can only reply to this charge with a flat denial.

6. MORAL PRAISE AND "EFFORTLESS" GOODNESS

When a man has succeeded through past moral effort in so moulding
his dispositions that, in some given moral situation, his strongest desire
and his sense of duty are in alignment, and he performs his duty effortlessly,
then, according to my view, though the man is indeed morally praiseworthy
it is not strictly for what he does now, " but rather for those past acts of
his which have generated the firm habit of mind from which his present act
follows 'necessarily ' " (p. 32).
Franklin seems shocked by this. He emphatically condemns it, declaring
that it " makes nonsense of our plainest moral judgments " (ibid.).
If it did this, I too should be shocked. But does it ? Before the weight
of Franklin's appeal to this quarter can be assessed we shall obviously want
to know who, and what, are being,referredto in the expression " our plainest
moral judgments ". I hardly think he can want to attach much authority
to the moral judgments which seem plain to the unreflective " man in the
4Appearances to the contrary are, I think, illusory. On this point the interested
reader may care to refer to Scepticism and Construction, Ch. V, Sect. 4 (" The Privacy
of Will Power ").
 MORAL LIBERTARIANISM 347

street ". The moral philosopher need feel little misgiving if his meditations
should lead him to a judgment which finds no support from what I have
elsewhere described as " the rough-and-ready, ill-considered, almost slap-
happy" utterances which are allowed to pass for " moral judgments " in
so much everyday intercourse. I feel sure Franklin would agree that the
only moral judgments which it is of the slightest theoretical importance to
have on one's side are the careful, closely pondered judgments of critical
minds informed by some knowledge of and concern for what they are doing
when they pass a moral judgment. But if appeal is made to this quarter,
the result, I am confident, would not be greatly to Franklin's liking. It is
common ground to us all, presumably, including Franklin, that the man is
morally praiseworthy at least inasmuch as he is the same man whose past
effortful acts of duty have made his present dutiful act effortless. The
question is whether he is also to be morally praised for the present act itself.
And surely it is very far from " plain " to a critical mind that an affirmative
answer to this must be returned. After all, it needs little ethical sophistica-
tion to see that where (as here) the paths of duty and of strongest desire
coincide, no end opposed to duty comes into the reckoning, so that if the
man is to act at all he cannothelp doing his duty. Is moral praise appropriate
for an act that the agent cannot help doing ? In such an act there is nothing
" costing " to the agent-no " expense of spirit " such as elicits our moral
esteem in the past effortful acts which (in the case we are considering) have
made the present effortless act possible. For precisely what, then, in the
present act, is the man justly entitled to moral praise ? My own confident
answer is, " for nothing ". If Franklin disagrees, I hope he will tell us what
the " something " is; for there are many besides myself who find difficulty
in detecting it.
Inevitably much remains unsaid which could (I think) be said with
advantage in reply to Franklin's stimulating article. I hope, however, I
may have succeeded in throwing a little light upon certain aspects of Moral
Libertarianism which evidently stood in need of further clarification.
C. A. CAMPBELL
Callander, Perthshire.