Incommensurability, Social Practices and Moral Dilemmas: A Rejoinder to Heidi Hurd’s Anti-Perspectivalism

Résumé 0

The paper criticizes Hurd’s rejection of role-related perspectivalism about moral duties. Raz’s notion of value incomensurability is used to defy the correspondence thesis according to which the justifiability of an action determines the justifiability of allowing or preventing this action. Against Hurd’s Hohfeldian reconstruction of incommensurable choices as “liberties” that “lack moral value of any sort”, the argument highlights the moral significance of the fact that the choice among incommensurable options is still action for a reason. Incommensurability is explained, then, as a consequence of the social dependence of values on social practices and of the constitutive role of conventions in shaping social relations, personal projects, goals and the responsibilities that define them. It is argued that the severity of the problem of perspectivalism for Hurd is due to her narrow conception morality and that a wider conception that integrates obligations towards others with the requirements of personal integrity is superior. The agent’s goals, relationships and projects take part in moral reasoning since the value incommensurability they make possible is required for value pluralism and personal autonomy. The argument concludes suggesting that a non-positivist, interpretivist conception of legal practice, although acknowledging residual moral combat, would reduce its occurrence and relevance.