1. Behaving as if deontology is true, on the object level: following RIGHTS and related norms
2. Behaving as if deontology is true, on the meta level: saying the kinds of things a deontologist would say (things like "we have non-instrumental reasons to follow RIGHTS")
My guess is you mean for deontic fictionalism to refer to just (1)?
I agree with the view you present here, but I think the best arguments in favour of self-effacing consequentialism are psychological and sociological, not directly philosophical. Are we (individually or collectively) capable of adhering to a norm if we regard it as only instrumental? Are we capable of behaving _as if_ a theory is true, without believing in it?
I think arguments along these lines can be overstated, but they're at least not crazy, and I think to be fully convincing you have to address to what extent our (again, individually or collectively) capacity to be "deontic fictionalists" is a real practical difficulty to be overcome.
Moreover, I think you rightly emphasize deontic fictionalism as a sort of middle-ground position, ("training wheels") that is a little unstable--but for people who worry that real prudent two-level consequentialism is too hard to maintain (if we know the norms are instrumental, it will always be easy to find instrumental reasons to discard them in particular cases), that very instability is a problem. If position 1 isn't psychologically or socially feasible, and if position 2 is just the training wheels version of 1, then that strengthens the case for 3.
"Much confusion in moral theory stems from people conflating the practical question of whether to endorse a norm against X with the theoretical question of whether agents have non-instrumental reason to avoid doing X. These are different questions!"
I think saying this sort of thing is perceived by deontologists as condescending, and is likely to make them stop reading when they see it. No, they're not conflating anything; they just believe in the non-instrumental reason.
Having gotten to know multiple good philosophy profs of different ethical viewpoints, it was pretty clear to me that several of them regarded the viewpoints of the others as not even worth thinking about (and vice versa) since they thought they didn't understand some basic thing like this.
Can you comment on the distinction between
1. Behaving as if deontology is true, on the object level: following RIGHTS and related norms
2. Behaving as if deontology is true, on the meta level: saying the kinds of things a deontologist would say (things like "we have non-instrumental reasons to follow RIGHTS")
My guess is you mean for deontic fictionalism to refer to just (1)?
I agree with the view you present here, but I think the best arguments in favour of self-effacing consequentialism are psychological and sociological, not directly philosophical. Are we (individually or collectively) capable of adhering to a norm if we regard it as only instrumental? Are we capable of behaving _as if_ a theory is true, without believing in it?
I think arguments along these lines can be overstated, but they're at least not crazy, and I think to be fully convincing you have to address to what extent our (again, individually or collectively) capacity to be "deontic fictionalists" is a real practical difficulty to be overcome.
Moreover, I think you rightly emphasize deontic fictionalism as a sort of middle-ground position, ("training wheels") that is a little unstable--but for people who worry that real prudent two-level consequentialism is too hard to maintain (if we know the norms are instrumental, it will always be easy to find instrumental reasons to discard them in particular cases), that very instability is a problem. If position 1 isn't psychologically or socially feasible, and if position 2 is just the training wheels version of 1, then that strengthens the case for 3.
"Much confusion in moral theory stems from people conflating the practical question of whether to endorse a norm against X with the theoretical question of whether agents have non-instrumental reason to avoid doing X. These are different questions!"
I think saying this sort of thing is perceived by deontologists as condescending, and is likely to make them stop reading when they see it. No, they're not conflating anything; they just believe in the non-instrumental reason.
Having gotten to know multiple good philosophy profs of different ethical viewpoints, it was pretty clear to me that several of them regarded the viewpoints of the others as not even worth thinking about (and vice versa) since they thought they didn't understand some basic thing like this.