Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 13.07.1981, Page 236

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Páll S. Árdal
action” not a particular kind of action, but rather an action done at a
particular time by a certain person or persons.
My main concern in this paper is with the value of an analogy be-
tween an appeal to the rules of games and the “rules” governing prom-
ises for helping us to understand the way in which we answer the moral
question “What particular action ought I to do?” when this question
involves a “practice”, such as that of promises. I also want to make
some observations in criticism of the contention that one can, in gen-
eral, find out what one ought to do, by a method analogous to the way
in which one decides what one ought or ought not to do when playing
certain games.
Those who have used an analogy between games and moral practices
have most often referred to compeíitive games like chess, baseball,
cricket, soccer and a Canadian belonging to this camp of writers would
no doubt have used hockey. I now want to consider some of the ways
in which rules are relevant in the context of playing games of this com-
petitive nature. My aim is to explore whether studying these rules can
help us to understand the nature of promises, and when and why we
ought to keep them.
At the beginning of a book of instruction for beginner’s chess, one is
likely to find a description of the elements of the game. One is told the
shape of the board, how it is divided into 64 squares of two different
colours. One is further told the name of the pieces and how one is
allowed to move them. One may represent the whole description as an
account of the rules of chess, or the rules for playing chess. Max Black
gives an example of these rules “A pawn reaching the eighth rank must
be exchanged for a piece”.4 This same rule is given in a chess book as
follows. (It is in a somewhat different form, although the difference does
not concern us here.) “The most important power of the Pawn is that
when it reaches the last row, you can promote it to a new Queen, Rook,
Bishop, or Knight. In almost all cases the new piece is a Queen — for
this is the strongest of all the pieces.”5 The last part of this statement
does not describe the power of the Pawn, but rather, how one ought to
use this power. It also informs the reader how most people do use it,
4 The Analysis of Rules in Models and Metaphors, Cornell University Press,
Ithaca, N.Y., 1962, p. 95.
5 Great Brilliancy Price Games by The Chess Masters, by Fred Reinfeld, p. Vl.