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Ought Implies Can

Frances Howard-Snyder
The idea that ought implies can (hereafter, OIC) or perhaps more perspicuously,
that inability to do something implies that one does not have an obligation to do it,
has been around a long time. It has been traced back to Pelagius and Augustine and
is akin to the Roman legal maxim impossibilium nulla obligation est, but is usually
associated with Kant (1996; see kant, immanuel). It is connected to issues of moral
luck (see moral luck), moral dilemmas (see dilemmas, moral), questions about
subjective and objective obligation, and the debate over freedom, determinism,
moral responsibility, and the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (see free will).
I will consider different versions of OIC, major arguments in support of it, and
major arguments against it.

Different Versions of OIC

The ought in OIC is primarily a moral ought, rather than a prudential, evidential,
epistemic, or aesthetic ought. Some philosophers have suggested that there is more
than one moral sense; one linked to wrong, obligation, and action-guidance,
which we can call the deontic sense and another, more evaluative, optative sense,
as when we say Little children ought not to suffer (see ought). If so, then discussions of OIC focus on the first, and mostly ignore the second. Some philosophers
distinguish between subjective and objective oughts. Of these, some prefer to see the
ought in OIC as subjective and others as objective.
A final distinction among oughts is between prima facie oughts and ultima facie
or all-in oughts (see prima facie and pro tanto oughts). Given the motivations
behind OIC and the role it has played in our thought, the more traditional view
interprets it as concerning all-in oughts.
Another way OIC might be ambiguous concerns the second word implies.
Ishall understand it to mean that necessarily, if an agent ought to do x, then she can
do x. This is stronger than conversational implicature, but weaker than the claim
that ought implies can is true in an uninteresting, obvious analytic way. It is not a
refutation of OIC that it isnt absurd or obviously contradictory to say that one ought
to A even if one cannot.
A third way that OIC is thought to be ambiguous concerns can. When is it
true that someone can ? Some have suggested this as an account of ability: an
agent can just in case if the agent were to try to , then he probably would. (The
so-called conditional analysis of can. For some discussion of this and other
notions of ability, see Maier 2010.) This is only roughly right because there are
cases where the agent cannot , because he cannot try to , for example, because
The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Edited by Hugh LaFollette, print pages 37483757.
2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee402

he is unconscious or brainwashed, even though it is true that if he were to try to ,

he would. But it seems to be a good necessary condition. This suggests that an
agent who is physically too weak to is unable to , an agent who is psychologically unable to is unable to , an agent who is gagged and bound or who lacks
the ingredients, tools, etc. is unable to , and an agent who lacks the know-how is
unable to . I shall try to focus on clear, uncontroversial cases of inability in what
follows.
A further dispute over the interpretation of OIC concerns the temporal indices.
The claim that At noon, John can reach Seattle by three contains two different
times, and this makes for at least two different interpretations of OIC:
If S ought to do A at T, then there is a time T* such that S can at T* do A at T
(Howard-Snyder 2006).
If S ought at T to do A at T, then S can at T do A at T (Zimmerman 1996).
Which of these a theorist is drawn to seems somewhat dependent on which of the
two major motivations he or she is moved by, and makes an important difference to
how he or she handles the first objection below.
Finally, it is sometimes argued that OIC includes the claim that ought implies can
avoid so that it is not true that I ought to do what I cannot avoid. I shall not treat OIC
as committed to this claim.

Arguments in Support of OIC

Traditional arguments
Although OIC has typically been treated as an axiom rather than the conclusion
of an argument, in the literature, two major arguments emerge as traditional
supports for OIC. The first is the thought that it is unfair to say that you did
wrong (and especially to blame you) for failing to do what you could not (see
blame). The second is the thought that, while morality is supposed to be actionguiding, it seems pointless to tell agents to do what they cannot. (In what follows
I shall refer to these as the unfairness argument and the pointlessness argument,
respectively. For detailed references to sources for these two arguments, see
Vranas 2007.)
Critics object that the unfairness argument conflates wrongness with blameworthiness. While it may be true that blameworthiness implies can, it doesnt follow
that ought implies can, since one can do wrong without being blameworthy. Critics
object that the pointlessness argument conflates the question of whether some
statement has a point with the question of whether it is true. Moreover, it is not
always true that there is no point in saying that he ought to do x when he cannot
e.g., it might be relevant for future cases. (For succinct statements of these responses,
see Stocker 1971.)

Zimmermans argument
Michael Zimmerman (1996) presents an elaborate framework for understanding
ought or obligation. This framework, which is intended to be neutral between act
consequentialism, rule consequentialism, Kantianism, Rossianism, rights theory, and
divine command theory, and virtually all other theories of obligation, implies that
The main gist of the interpretation is simply this: an agent S ought to do an act A iff [if
and only if] (a) S can do A, (b) S can refrain from doing A, and (c) any accessible world
in which S does not do A is deontically inferior to some accessible world in which
Sdoes A. (1996: 26)

To say that a world in which agent S As is accessible is more or less equivalent to the
claim that S can A. Zimmermans framework, therefore, implies OIC. If this framework is fruitful in explaining and organizing the data on obligation and related
notions, this constitutes a powerful argument for OIC. Evaluating the success of
this framework is clearly the subject for a much longer work than this, however.

Vranass argument
Peter Vranas (2007: 1712, lightly paraphrased) has offered the following argument:
P1 If an agent has an obligation to , then the agent has a reason to .
P2 If an agent has a reason to , then -ing is a potential action of the agent.
P3 If -ing is a potential action of the agent, then the agent can .
Vranas explains P3 like this: P3 holds by definition: I understand an agents potential
actions (in contrast to her conceptually possible ones) as determined by what the agent
can do (in contrast to what it is conceivable for her to do.) Given this clarification, P2
should read: If an agent has a reason to , then the agent can . This is not absolutely
obvious. It seems that Jane has a reason to stop being deathly afraid of harmless
spiders such fear is an inappropriate reaction to the spiders even if she cannot do so.
Suppose I come across the scene of a recent accident in which two victims are badly
injured on an otherwise deserted road, but lets suppose I cannot call for help because I
have lost my cell phone. P2 would imply that I do not have a reason to call. Arguably, I do
still have a reason to call namely the need to save the lives of the twovictims. Perhaps
most people would agree that I dont have a reason when they realize that the reason in
this case would be a moral reason, and in fact, a moral obligation, to help save lives, and
ought implies can. But that wont convince anyone not already convinced of OIC.

Howard-Snyders argument
Another contemporary argument goes as follows. Consider the following three
phenomena: second-best options, necessary enablers, and overridden prima facie
obligations (Howard-Snyder 2006). These are cases where an agent cannot do some

ideal action, and so acquires an obligation to do something else instead. These

phenomena are best explained by the principle that OIC. By way of illustration,
consider the last of these. We often have prima facie obligations to do two different
incompatible things; for example, a prima facie obligation to keep a promise to meet
a friend for lunch, and a prima facie obligation to stop and save someone from
drowning. In some such cases, it is clear which obligation is more stringent, and the
other prima facie obligation is overridden or trumped. In this example, the obligation
to meet the friend for lunch is trumped. So, it seems that the agent ought to save the
drowning victim rather than meeting her friend for lunch. But why is it not true that
she ought to do both? The best explanation is simply that she cannot do both and
OIC. Similarly, suppose an agent is faced with an injured hiker trapped under a
boulder. The ideal (best) thing to do would be to lift the boulder. The second-best
thing would be to run for help. Given that she is unable to do the best, it seems that
she acquires an obligation to do the second best (rather than the best). The best
explanation for this is OIC. Similarly, suppose an agent ought to volunteer at the
food bank, but cannot do so without driving to the food bank. The act of driving is
here a necessary enabler of fulfilling her obligation. It seems that she acquires an
extra obligation to drive to the food bank. But why not simply volunteer at the food
bank without driving? The best explanation is that OIC.
In response, opponents of OIC can insist that the agent ought to keep the promise
and save the drowning victim in spite of the impossibility of doing so. This seems
odd, in many cases. We dont judge the agent who failed to keep the lunch date
because she was saving a life as having acted wrongly.
An alternative strategy is to agree that the agent loses the obligation to do what
she cannot do in these cases, but to insist that this does not establish the general
principle that OIC, but rather some limited version of it (Sinnott-Armstrong 1984).
This rather ad hoc-seeming move can be bolstered if the opponent of OIC can
find cases where OIC fails or seems to fail. If this strategy succeeds, then a less simple view would be vindicated. Lets now examine some suggested cases of this sort.

Arguments against OIC

Self-imposed inability
A powerful argument against OIC concerns cases where an agent voluntarily makes
himself unable to perform an act that he would otherwise be required to perform
(Sinnott-Armstrong 1984: 2524). Suppose that Joe has promised to marry Mary at
9 a.m. on Saturday in Seattle. On Friday evening, he boards a plane for London. At
8 a.m. on Saturday (Seattle time) he calls Mary and says that he cannot make the
wedding date. It seems crazy that he avoids his obligation to keep his promise, to be
present at his wedding, not to hurt and humiliate Mary, by deliberately making himself unable to do these things. Joe cannot be present for the wedding at 9 a.m. in
Seattle, but Joe ought to be present for his wedding. So, we have a counterexample
to OIC.

Advocates of OIC tend to divide in how they respond to this example depending,
I believe, on which of the two major motivations for OIC they are moved by. If they
are moved by the unfairness argument, they will be more inclined to agree that Joe
ought to be present at the wedding, since it is not unfair to blame him or to say that
he acts wrongly in not being present. In order to retain OIC, they will advocate a
version of OIC that says roughly, Ought implies can or could have. Since Joe could
have kept his promise, he is not off the hook.
If they are moved by the pointlessness argument, they will deny that Joe ought to
be present at the wedding (Vranas 2007: 16771). If at 8 a.m. Joe is asking advice
about what to do, its not helpful to tell him that he ought to be at the wedding now.
Instead, he needs advice about what else to do, what to do instead. This line of
response can accommodate Marys sense of outrage at Joe, since it can be combined
with the claim that he acted wrongly, that it was wrong of him to leave town yesterday. He can be subject to just the same degree of negative consequences as someone
who was able to make it but just refused to do so. Some object that this is changing
the subject. What Joe does wrong is to fail to turn up for his wedding. If its not
wrong not to turn up for his wedding, why is it wrong to fly to London the night
before? Michael Zimmerman (1996: 97111) responds to this worry by pointing out
that Joe had an obligation to turn up for the wedding at 9 a.m. in Seattle. He violated
that obligation. We are entitled to hold him responsible for violating that obligation
and to blame him for it. So, we are not changing the subject and focusing on a different violation. However, his violation occurred when he boarded the plane on
Friday night, rather than on Saturday morning. The violation is indirect. By analogy
here, we can consider a package bomber who sends a bomb through the mail on
Monday (and then, lets suppose, falls into a long coma). The bomb explodes on
Friday, killing its intended target. The bomber has killed (violated his obligation not
to kill). His wrongful act took place on Monday. Its effect took place on Friday. The
fact that he was unable on Thursday to prevent the death makes him no less guilty
of murder.

Other-imposed inability
Johns friends tie him up in the tree house. Its all good fun, but he cannot untie
himself. His mother might chide the friends, saying, Dont tie him up boys. He
ought to help his grandmother with her luggage. If OIC, then Johns inability to
help his grandmother means that it is not true that he ought to help her. So, his
mother cannot use that as a reason why his friends ought not to tie him up. But it
seems to be a good reason (Stocker 1971: 312). In response, the defender of OIC
can reply that the truth-maker for the mothers claim is something more like:
Dont tie him up boys. His grandmother needs his help. In other words, there is
really no deontic ought here. The speaker is pointing to some state of affairs that
would be ideal. In support of this, note that if the boys dont release John, and
hence, if his grandmother has to struggle alone, we would not say that John had
acted wrongly.

Is/ought objection
Some have worried that if OIC is true, then we can derive an ought from an is in
violation of an old well-recognized principle that this is impossible (see hume,
david; isought gap). If OIC, then from the nonmoral fact that John cannot lift the
truck, we can derive the moral fact that it is not true that John ought to lift the truck.
In response, note some analogous arguments:
John is an amoeba.
So, it is not true that John ought to lift the truck.
Or:
John is dead.
So, it is not true that John ought to lift the truck.
Or:
John is a fictional character who does not exist in the real world.
So, it is not true that John ought to lift this (actual) truck.
These arguments seem unexceptional. If the principle that one cannot derive an
ought from an is would rule these out, then the principle is faulty. Perhaps this
shows that the principle that one cannot derive a moral fact from a nonmoral fact
should be restricted to the derivation of positive moral facts that attribute obligations
(including obligations not to) or permissions. We should also note that it does not
follow from the fact that it is not true that John ought to lift the truck, that John is
obligated not to lift the truck or that John is permitted not to lift the truck. (The
example of the amoeba makes that clear.)

Can is Context Relative

Ned Markosian suggested the following argument in conversation:
1 The proposition expressed by S can A depends on the context in which it
isuttered.
2 So, if OIC, then the proposition expressed by S ought to A depends on the
context in which it is uttered.
3 But S ought to A does not depend on the context in which it is uttered.
4 So, OIC is false.
Premise 1 is defended by David Lewis (1981). Premise 3 seems attractive. Whether
Ihave an obligation or whether I had an obligation that I failed to fulfill seems impervious to context. One cannot avoid an obligation simply by shifting to another context. Here are a couple of suggestions as to how to respond to premise 2. First, as Ryan
Wasserman reminded me, there are counterexamples to the general principle behind

it. Tall is somewhat context relative; x is a skyscraper implies that x is tall. It does
not follow that x is a skyscraper is context relative. Moreover, it seems plausible that
the can implied by ought does not vary with context. Although there are some
contexts in which he can speak French although his jaw is wired shut expresses a
true proposition, having ones jaw (unavoidably) wired shut constitutes the sort of
inability that defenders of OIC would believe cancels an obligation to speak French.

Frankfurt-style arguments
Harry Frankfurt (1969) presented an argument attacking the claim that moral
responsibility requires the ability to do otherwise. A number of philosophers have
tried to connect this principle and this debate to OIC. The simplest connection is the
claim that the sort of argument that Frankfurt offered can be recycled as an argument against OIC. Heres an example of such an argument. Gunnar wishes to shoot
Ridley. An evil demon, Black, reads Gunnars mind, hopes that Gunnar carries
through on his plan, but stands ready to intervene and force him to do so if he hesitates. Gunnar does not hesitate. He kills Ridley without Blacks intervention.
One version of the argument against OIC proceeds as follows: Gunnar cannot avoid
shooting Ridley. But Gunnar ought to avoid shooting Ridley. So, here is something
that Gunnar ought to do but cannot do. In response, note that there is some reason to
doubt that Gunnar ought not to shoot Ridley. Think of the case in retrospect. Imagine
that Gunnar and his mother are discussing the case, in light of all the facts:
Mother: I wish you hadnt done it, darling. What a terrible, terrible thing!
Gunnar: Im so sorry, mother, for putting you through this. But what would you have
me have done?
Mother: Not shoot Ridley!
Gunnar: But you know that wasnt an option for me, mother. I know you wish the
world hadnt conspired to force me to shoot Ridley. But it wasnt an option
for me not to shoot Ridley.
Mother: But you werent forced. Thats just it. You had the option to try not to shoot
Ridley. Thats the very least that you should have done.

This seems right. Gunnar does have the ability to avoid the world where he shoots
Ridley on his own, without activating the evil demons counterfactual mechanism.
Thats what it seems reasonable to expect of him. If he had been forced, his mother
and others would not have blamed him. This suggests its not the killing thats the
problem, but the killing on his own.

Psychological oughts
Here are some claims we often make or think:
I ought not to have taken pleasure in his suffering.
You ought to have felt more grateful.
She ought to love her parents, children, neighbor, God.

I ought not to have laughed at his haircut.

I feel guilty about my motivations for working in the soup kitchen. Im doing it
out of a desire to get into heaven, whereas I know I should be doing it out of a
sense of duty or out of love.
These claims often seem plausible. At the same time, we often recognize that we
dont have the ability to have or avoid the relevant emotion or motivation (Kekes
1984; Adams 1985; see character).
There are two prominent lines of response to this argument (Zimmerman 1996).
First, although we dont have direct control over these states, we do have indirect
control. We can cultivate attitudes of love and gratitude. We can discourage malice
in ourselves. This sort of indirect control (as we saw earlier) is sufficient for oughts.
Secondly, perhaps the ought in some of these cases is not the same sort of ought
as that referred to by OIC. We saw earlier that there is some motivation to distinguish the deontic ought from the optative ought. If the ought in I ought not to
laugh at his haircut is the latter sort of ought, then this is not a counterexample to
OIC. Objectors argue that this is entirely arbitrary and question-begging.

Theistic arguments
The Bible includes claims that hint at the denial of OIC (see early christian
ethics; ethics in the hebrew bible). Commandments such as You shall not
covet, Love your neighbor as yourself, and Be perfect, even as your heavenly
Father is perfect seem to be more or less impossible to obey at least, for some
people. Moreover, these cannot be waved aside as nondeontic oughts, since they
are offered alongside commandments not to steal or murder.
A quick biblical response is to say that we cannot obey them on our own perhaps,
but with God, everything is possible. This then raises the question of whether we
have the power to access Gods enabling power, or whether it is something that God
supplies by his own grace. If we do not have the power to access Gods enabling
power on our own, then it will sometimes happen that we ought to do something
that we cannot do, contra OIC.
One response is to reject the tradition that makes these claims. Within the tradition, there is much discussion of how to reconcile OIC with Gods commands. (For
discussion and references, see Rudder Baker 2003.)
See also: blame; capabilities; character; deontic logic; dilemmas,
moral; early christian ethics; ethics in the hebrew bible; free will;
hume, david; isought gap; kant, immanuel: moral luck; ought; prima
facie and pro tanto oughts
REFERENCES
Adams, Robert 1985. Involuntary Sins, Philosophical Review, vol. 94, no. 1, pp. 331.
Copp, David 1997. Defending the Principle of Alternate Possibilities: Blameworthiness and
Moral Responsibility, Nous, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 44156.

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Copp David 2003. Ought implies Can, Blameworthiness and the Principle of Alternate
Possibilities, in D. Widerker and M. McKenna (eds.), Moral Responsibility and Alternate
Possibilities: Essays on the Importance of Alternate Possibilities. Burlington, VT: Ashgate,
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Frankfurt, Harry 1969. Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility, Journal of
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Howard-Snyder, Frances 1997. The Rejection of Objective Consequentialism, Utilitas,
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Howard-Snyder, Frances 2006. Cannot implies not Ought, Philosophical Studies, vol.130,
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Kant, Immanuel 1996 [1785]. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. M. J. Gregor,
in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 37108.
Kekes, John 1984. Ought Implies Can and Two Kinds of Morality, Philosophical Quarterly,
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Lewis, David 1981. Are We Free to Break the Laws? Theoria, vol. 47, no. 3, pp. 11321.
Maier, John 2010. Abilities, Stanford Encyclopedia of Ethics. At http://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/spr2010/entries/abilities/.
Rudder Baker, Lynne 2003. Why Christians Should not be Libertarians: An Augustinian
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Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter 1984. Ought Conversationally Implies Can, Philosophical
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Stocker, Michael 1971. Ought and Can, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 49,
pp.30316.
Vranas, Peter 2007. I Ought, Therefore, I Can, Philosophical Studies, vol. 136, pp. 167216.
Zimmerman, Michael 1996. The Concept of Moral Obligation. New York: Cambridge
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FURTHER READINGS
Anomaly, Jonny 2008. Internal Reasons and the Ought-Implies-Can Principle, Philosophical
Forum, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 46983.
Dahl, Norman O. 1974. Ought implies Can and Deontic Logic, Philosophia: Philosophical
Quarterly of Israel, vol. 4, pp. 485511.
Jacquette, Dale 1991. Moral Dilemmas, Disjunctive Obligations, and Kants Principle that
Ought Implies Can, Synthese, vol. 88, pp. 4355.
Martin, Wayne 2009. Ought but Cannot, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 109,
pp.10328.
Mason, Elinor 2003. Consequentialism and the Ought implies Can Principle, American
Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 31931.
Sapontzis, Steve F. 1991. Ought Does Imply Can, Southern Journal of Philosophy, vol. 29,
pp. 38393.