Parfit, Kant and Consequentialism

In my last posting on Parfit I discussed the general problems I think there are with his notion of "contractualist consequentialism" as presented in the third of his 2002 Tanner Lectures. In this posting I want to look at the concluding section of this third lecture in order to see how Parfit brings the argument there to a conclusion and to use the discussion of this conclusion to demonstrate again some reasons for thinking that Parfit stacks the deck rather when he reaches the conclusion that Kant gives the basis for a contractualist view that is substantively consequentialist.


Parfit opens the final section of this lecture with a statement that whilst Kant was not a consequentialist the argument's point is not to examine the reasons why Kant was not a consequentialist but instead to point to some reasons for taking it to be the case that we can develop a consequentialist view by appealing to some elements of Kant's positions. In making this case Parfit appeals to an important distinction. The distinction is between what he terms Kant's "moral beliefs" on the one hand and the "implications of his principles" on the other. The former are what are involved in Kant's not being a consequentialist on Parfit's view, whilst the latter, by contrast, point to consequentialist conclusions. This distinction is an important one, as we shall see in looking at the concluding phase of Parfit's argument.


Parfit's case is built by reference to the principle he extracted from Kant's Formula of Humanity as the first part of it. This principle is what Parfit terms "Kant's Consent Principle" (KCP). The "consent" involved is framed by Parfit as "rational consent" and it is connected to the act consequentialist view that rational consent can be seen as agreement that everyone be treated in ways that would make things go best. If we look at rational consent in this manner, then treating people in a way that implies adoption of an axiological standard of value is equivalent to treating them in ways to which they could rationally consent. One of the points Parfit rushes to make here is, however, meant to assuage a problem Rawls raised against utilitarianism. Rawls indicated that a problem with accepting "classical utilitarianism" was that it required some to  sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others and that such a sacrifice was one that the ones being sacrificed could accept only if they were prepared to sacrifice the very point of being in an ethical space at all (so it is connected to his problem with the "separateness of persons"). However Parfit thinks he has a reply here as if the act in question would impose great burdens on some for the sake of greater benefits for others then this act would not make things go best but instead go worse. This is despite the fact that the person in question might "rationally consent" to the act. On this basis Parfit argues that consequentialists don't have to be seen as utilitarians.


The separation of consequentialism from utilitarianism that this argument involves does, however, require, as a consequence that an optimific act is not one that can be assessed only through the prism of rational consent. Rational consent is thus not a means to determine the rightness of the act if such rightness is standardly viewed in terms of optimific understanding. In which case, whilst Parfit thinks that KCP could be accepted by act consequentialists, it is not sufficient as a standard of rightness for them. 


Parfit, however, takes the argument a different way as he now moves away from the consent principle and back to the principle he earlier termed "Kant's Contractualist Formula" (for which see this earlier posting). The contractualist formula requires that we appeal to principles that everyone could rationally choose and we could not rationally will that everyone accepts act consequentialist principles and so the act consequentialist principle is not one we should act upon. Notably, however, and remarkably, Parfit has here done something that cuts heavily against the grain. He has presented act consequentialism as sufficiently robust that it can provide a defence for the separateness of persons, such a defence that it can be distinguished from utilitarianism, and then, having done this, has used an appeal to contractualist views about universal rational acceptance, to undercut act consequentialism after all. It would, according to standard ways of presenting the moral situation, be rather more apt to say that act consequentialism, like act utilitarianism, is insufficiently robust to prevent appeal to demanding notions of self-denial and then use that to support a view of consent principles that did not view the latter in optimific terms. So Parfit's initial argumentative strategy is, to say the least, very odd.


Parfit refers now to the argument Sidgwick famously used that it would be best, from a utilitarian point of view, if not everyone was a utilitarian. This argument, which shows that utilitarianism lacks transparency, is one that Parfit endorses here against act consequentialism. In doing so he appears to appeal to the view that moral beliefs matter in the sense that if we knew it to be true that it would not make things go best if everyone acted in ways dictated by principles of maximising what would go best, we should prefer it that not everyone had the belief that they should make things go best. Indeed, not only does Parfit appear to make this move, but he also uses it to prefer rule consequentialism to act consequentialism since rule consequentialism requires us to act on principles whose acceptance would make things go best even should this be the view that not everyone believe that they should act in ways that make things go best.


Parfit now constructs an argument that is meant to move from  Kant's "contractualist formula" that we ought to act on principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally choose to the conclusion that rule consequentialism is correct on Kantian contractualist grounds. Now there are several stages in this argument which bear close analysis if a response is to be made. The first point to look at is how Parfit views reasons. Parfit introduces and critically interrogates the premise everyone could rationally choose whatever they would have sufficient reason to choose. This premise is interrogated as what we have sufficient reason to choose is argued by Parfit to depend on facts whilst what we rationally choose is, by contrast, based on beliefs. The difference matters since false beliefs give us reasons to choose something that it is not ultimately rational to choose. So the application of Kant's "contractualist formula" requires congruence between beliefs and facts. 


The next premise is to the effect that everyone would have sufficient reason to choose that everyone accept the principles whose acceptance would make things go best assuming the congruence we have established as a requirement for this. Now, in critically evaluating this premise, Parfit points to the "impartial reason-involving" sense of normative reason as the basis for viewing how to evaluate whether or not things have gone best. However, in assessing this claim, Parfit also refers back to his earlier distinction between "moral beliefs" and "principles" since he rejects the objection that such a principle might produce immoral action on the grounds that such an objection illegitimately introduces moral beliefs. There is a problem with this reply since it assumes that the contractualist procedure is thus far not loaded or is effectively neutral between different views. But it is not. In taking our standard in terms of an axiological conception of evaluation we have already adopted a consequentialist standard into our reasoning so it is evident such a standard will be our conclusion. If, however, our argument precisely concerns a question about how "rational consent" is to be understood, for example, then we cannot simply stipulate that it be seen in not merely an impartial sense but in terms of a view of impartial reason that is pre-set in terms of outcomes. Viewing impartial reason in terms of outcomes incorporates a "moral belief" into the "neutral" evaluation. And it does so in a way that is then used to appeal to "principles" as if they are not described in ways that are set against other "principles" where the other principles are then merely demoted to the status of "beliefs".


The reason why Parfit thinks that such a division between "principles" and "beliefs" is stable is because he sees the former as tracking "facts" and making them congruent with "true beliefs" whilst an insistence on "moral belief" simpliciter is simply an argument from what we "already accept". However the reference to "facts" here is one that involves a view of the factual that is itself normatively loaded since it takes factual support to consist in a view about what is axiologically supported and so it is not neutral between views.


Parfit argues that in pursuing this strategy he is following a standard contractualist procedure and he even appeals here to the example of Rawls to support him. Rawls, however, when constructing the original position, does so by building the position out of what he termed "formal constraints of the concept of right" and such constraints are not discussed by Parfit. Particularly important from such constraints was a solution formally argued to the "priority problem" with regard to principles. Parfit stipulates a solution by taking axiological criteria to be supreme, something that cuts precisely against his earlier recognition of the point that there is a case to be made against abstracting from the separateness of persons.


Parfit next goes on to consider this claim by balancing what he regards as the considerations of personal points of view with those of impartial reason. In doing so Parfit stresses the idea that there are non-self-interested personal reasons which, indeed, there are in terms of different conceptions of the good. However, Parfit does not consider this question in terms of different conceptions of the good but only in terms of personal reasons being seen, if they conflict with impartial ones, as self-interested. Parfit does not consider that personal reasons that oppose what he views as "impartial" reason may also be principled in their opposition. Because of this Parfit simply arrives at the conclusion that it is always optimific to follow impartial reason and that we should accept impartial reasons as personal reasons given that this is so. But this is not evident at all if there are impartial reasons that are non-optimific in form as is the case with non-consequentialist views. 


Because Parfit has construed the choice situation in the way he has he cannot avoid the problem of unreasonable burdens that, at the beginning of the discussion, he wished to argue was not a necessary element of consequentialist views. Assuming that one holds a non-optimific view of goodness by means of a conception of the priority of the right over the good one will always be told that ones view of the good is only personal and should be sacrificed optimifically which is to abstract from the separateness of persons in precisely the way Rawls complains of. This is still the consequence of Parfit's preferred rule consequentialism which is why it still incorporates the classic consequentialist move of requiring us to see impartial reasons as always optimific in form. Parfit thinks he can appeal against this since he argues that ultimately he is appealing to Kant's "contractualist formula" and basing rule consequentialism on this. However this is dishonest as the contractualist formula, in application, is always used to bolster the conception that impartial reason is framed in terms of optimific outcomes so it is only a supplementary principle meant as a support for consequentialism and is not, as Parfit pretends, foundational for ethical principles. 


So whilst Parfit concludes by saying he has not argued that we should become rule consequentialists but only that Kantian and contractualist premises support rule consequentialist conclusions this is not what his argument shows. What his argument shows is, instead, that if contractualist and consent principles are interpreted axiologically then they support consequentialism. But that is only because they have been pre-defined in such a way that consequentialism is their inevitable focus. Parfit assumes that the only response to this argument is to favour "moral beliefs" over "principles" but, as I have argued, this division is founded on an incorporation of a "belief" into his account of "principles" in the first place.

Parfit on Contractualist Consequentialism

In my previous posting I objected to the account Parfit gives of the "veil of ignorance" and in the posting prior to this I advanced an account of deliberative rationality that challenged the view articulated by Parfit. Both of these postings were responses to part of the argument presented in the third of Parfit's 2002 Tanner Lectures. However the arguments discussed in the previous two postings were essentially negative in import for Parfit, ways of clearing the way for the view of contractualism that he wishes to present within this third lecture. The argument that is presented here is for something that has not previously been identified as a possible contender in the area of moral theory, a notion of contractualism that is consequentialist. In this posting I aim to do two things: both present the considerations that enable Parfit to arrive at the understanding that it is possible to reconcile consequentialism with contractualism and also to show why the combined view that thereby arises is unsustainable. So my purpose here is both reconstructive of Parfit's argument and critical of its import. This ensures that this posting will be more than usually involved.


After replying to Rawls in the first two parts of this third lecture Parfit returns to his original account of the basic notion of contractualism in his view, the notion of 'rational agreement', a notion that requires unanimity. In doing so he contrasts the idea of such agreement as understood on the minimal view of David Gauthier with what he terms "Kant's Contractualist Formula", the derivation of which I treated previously. Now, in contrasting these two views at this point, Parfit points a methodological contrast between them based on the fact that the Gauthier type formula requires adoption of principles that everyone would choose whilst, on Parfit's construal "Kant's Contractualist Formula" (or KCF) only requires adopting principles that each reasoner could see as required themselves. (Notice that the contrast between them is thus structurally similar to that between the two versions of the veil of ignorance treated in my previous posting.) So rather than conducting one thought-experiment in which we try to find principles for all of us there are many thought-experiments, basically one each in which we use reference to an understanding of moral belief in order to reach the principles that everyone would accept if rational.


Now in justifying KCF over the Gauthier type formula Parfit appeals to certain safeguards that contractualists are concerned should be in place. One of these is to eliminate inequalities of bargaining power (something Gautheir's formula does not do for reasons that Rawls provides). There is no requirement for each of us to choose principles just on the grounds that others will choose them as we first ask if they are reasonable to us. A second concern that is meant to be met is that we should avoid the outcome where some are viewed as capable of bearing burdens for the sake of others (as often arises from utilitarian conceptions). This second concern is what Parfit terms the contractualists' "protective aim". Again Parfit argues that a Gauthier type view cannot achieve this as the aim of reaching unanimous agreement gives those who possess unequal power an advantage (though, notably, only if we accept the "equal chances" view of the veil of ignorance). Parfit again misunderstands Rawls' view here since he takes Rawls to adopt a self-interest conception of rationality although he had previously indicated he knew this to be false.


KCF neither requires unanimous agreement nor has a veil of ignorance and these characteristics of it are meant to show that it achieves the "protective aim" of contractualism better than previous alternatives considered. Further, its failure to guarantee unanimity means that should it achieve it then this would be all the more impressive. However KCF does imply a particular view of reasons which Parfit elaborates as a "wide value-based" conception as opposed to desire-based theories. The value-based conception is, however, one in which "we have strong reasons to care about our own well-being, and in a temporally neutral way". However, least one voice the view that this implies an egoistic conception, Parfit is quick to point out that it is part of KCF to assume that we can rationally care as much about some other things as well as this, including here the well-being of others and "justice" (although he takes no time here to define this latter notion). So when we adopt KCF we take with it this view of reasons. I'll return subsequently to the point that if we see KCF as involving this view of reasons then we will have grasped KCF in such a way that it precisely is not, despite Parfit's arguments to the contrary, really a contractualist conception at all.


However before we move on to the reasons why I take this to the case it is important to next follow the claims that Parfit makes that enables him to arrive at the conclusion that KCF is both contractualist and consequentialist. The first point to be introduced is the criteria that Parfit gives for KCF succeeding in meeting the problem that contractualism aims to address. This is that it must meet a 'uniqueness condition', such that, there is some relevant principle, and only one principle, that everyone could rationally choose. In illustrating a way that a principle could meet such a condition Parfit gives an example in which there exists a quantity of unowned goods that no one has a special claim on and the distribution of which would have the same total sum of benefits however it was done. In such a case, says Parfit, we can all see that a basic principle of equal shares applies. It is notable that the example of application is a distributive one of some set of resources and not, for example, of a criteria that would define rights or liberties. Such an example already implies a definite conception of what type of thing we should be concerned with when aiming for a notion of unanimity.


A wrinkle that is worth observation in terms of how Parfit justifies the appeal to equal shares is that there is a difference, on his view, between consenting to acts and choosing principles. So we might consent to an unequal share, taking less for ourselves in order to aid others. However this is quite different to adopting a principle that some (whether ourselves or others) should as a matter of course have unequal shares since that principle is not one we could rationally accept. (On the basis of the wide value-based conception of reasons.) This argument is used also to show that the type of principle we should end up with is not act utilitarianism since act utilitarianism could state that it is permissible to give some no benefits at all since the net effects would not thereby be affected.


Having reached this point in his argument Parfit turns next to a further connection between moral beliefs and beliefs about reasons suggesting that our moral beliefs may partly depend on our beliefs about reasons. There are two ways that this connection is perceived by him to go. On the one hand we might hold a view, such as contractualism, which determines the understanding of the rightness of acts by reference to the relationship of such acts to principles that everyone could rationally accept. On the other hand, we might find that moral beliefs depend in some way on our non-moral beliefs about the kinds of things that are good or bad. Now the second sort of relationship between moral and non-moral beliefs turns out to be the one that Parfit exploits and he does so at the expense of the first sort of relation. An example of this second sort of relation concerns our general understanding of hedonic states. The point that Parfit makes about these states is that our reaction to them involves us in accepting that there are certain actions that are good or bad to perform and that this understanding reflects what he terms a "reason-involving" sense of goodness and badness. 


In claiming that we have a "reason-involving" response to hedonic states Parfit takes himself to be in disagreement with Kant given that Kant does not take inclinations to be themselves reason-giving. Parfit views this as a claim to the effect that whilst hedonic states may not be the ground of a moral claim they still could be the ground of a reason-giving claim and that Kant ignores the latter. This, however, is an odd reading of Kant since Kant claims not that there may not be reasons to relate to hedonic states in certain ways but that these reasons are part of the formulation of maxims and it is the endorsement of the maxims that provides the reasons in question, not simple experience of the hedonic states alone. Putting this in Parfit's terms it is not that the hedonic states are themselves "reason-involving" in the sense that the mere experience of them produces a reason to respond in a given way. It is rather that we take the states, in conjunction with maxims in which they feature, to provide grounds for appropriate actions. And this is quite different from the way Parfit puts the case as the way he puts it suggests that it is the experience of the states simpliciter that is reason-involving and that is what Kant denies.


Parfit takes hedonic states to be "reason-involving" as he assumes that there are person-relative reasons always to avoid painful states. I have denied this claim even though it seems true intuitively. The reason I deny it is simply that the painful state is not itself motivationally sufficient for action as it has to be related to other considerations that are prevailing at the time it is experienced. Parfit's claim could be reformulated as saying that pain is something we avoid cateris paribus but the conditions involved remain important and indicate that the response to pain is not one we normally assume to be simply permissive of actions following a certain pattern (say, of avoidance). Further Parfit moves swiftly from the claim that the response to hedonic states has this person-relative sense to the more general claim that painful states are impersonally bad. It is important to note that there are counter-intuitive aspects to Parfit's claim here just as I have indicated there are to the way I denied his claim concerning person-relative reasons. The counter-intuitive sense of his claim becomes apparent in the following sentence: "If more people suffer, that would be worse, even though it may not be worse for any of these people". 


In a claim like the one just cited it becomes apparent that Parfit conceives of hedonic states in an aggregative fashion so that the more they point one way or another en masse the worse or better the general situation is. This is to view hedonic states, however, in complete abstraction from the experience had of them as Parfit confesses when he agrees that the "worse" outcome on his view may not be worse for anyone. This indicates that the "non-moral" sense of badness that he has is radically impersonal since its assessment of badness is not one that refers to criteria of what is bad for persons. This "non-moral" claim is, however, one that it is not obvious should be accepted as a serious criteria of goodness and badness by persons. Parfit sloughs over this point passing from the acceptance that the "non-moral" sense of goodness and badness he is advocating is impersonal to the quite different claim that it is agent-neutral. It is not at all evident that a seriously agent-neutral claim is one that has to be impersonal. After all if we think of the "mere means" criteria of the Formula of Humanity we refer to an agent-neutral claim as it specifies a way of relating to persons generally regardless of who they are but it is not thereby "impersonal".


Parfit's conception of agent-neutrality is of a form of reason that is a "reason for everyone" and this applies to the application of the Formula of Humanity but it does not apply to his kind of "non-moral" form of goodness since the latter is in fact a reason for no one which is precisely implied by the notion of its impersonality. Each of us has, Parfit implies, reasons to prevent or relieve pain, whether of oneself or others. But this is untrue not merely because it is not always possible to do so but also because the pain experienced may not be, in the given case, a "worse" state for the person in question. This is directly admitted by Parfit and since it is so it follows that the response to pain does not have the over-riding "non-moral" value Parfit claims it has. Not only is this so but if we adopted a different standard, from the "mere means" criteria of the Formula of Humanity, for example, we would have an agent-neutral way of responding to others that was not impersonal and which would be a general guide to conduct.


Now if the first point of difficulty with Parfit's view concerns the way in which he slides from 'agent-neutral' reasons to "impersonal" ones the second problem arises from the conception of how to weight the reasons that his "impersonal" view has led us to consider. Parfit states that this should be in terms of outcomes so that the best "impartial" reason for preferring something is if the features it has give everyone "the strongest impartial outcome-given reasons to prefer this outcome". At this point it appears we have simply specified a consequentialist view and so one may wonder what happened to the apparent contractualist procedure. Parfit is sensitive to this point and agrees that the impartial outcome-given reasons should not be assumed to be the only impartial reasons. Further Parfit also accepts that some other types of impartial reasons might outweigh on given occasions impartial outcome-given reasons. However whilst Parfit refers here to rights as other sources of impartial reasons he gives no general account of rights and nor does he provide any lexical procedure for describing the relationship between rights and impartial outcome-given reasons. 


The view thus far is described by Parfit as "semi-consequentialist" since it gives some weight to impartial outcome-given reasons but not necessarily over-riding weight as yet. Consequentialism generally does give over-riding weight to such reasons as Parfit agrees in specifying act-consequentialism as the view that acts are right just in case they make things go best in terms of impartial outcome-given reasons. Parfit is clearly no more willing to endorse this view than he was act utilitarianism but this leaves him open to the attractions of rule consequentialism in which acts will be right if they are permitted by one of the principles whose acceptance would make things go best in an impartial reason-giving sense. Since this conception is related to the "wide value-based" view of reasons it is a form of consequentialism that Parfit feels able to term a reason-consequentialism. 


At this point the basic problem emerges with some clarity. Contractualism involves the conception that we aim to develop a view that understands that as right which we can all rationally accept. However Parfit understands this claim by means of the consequentialist idea that was already expressed in his value-based conception of reasons to the effect that we have strong reasons to care about considerations of well-being and subsequently moves from this to the understanding of impartial reasons in terms of impersonal outcomes that no one in particular ever has some reason to want. This ensures that his conception is one that presents as a reason we should all rationally accept a consideration that no one of us has any reason to endorse. And that hardly meets the contractualist criteria.


Parfit's claim that contractualists and consequentialists are "climbing the same mountain on different sides" is essentially built on the claim that the consequentialist appeal to impartial outcome-based reasons will coincide with contractualist appeals to what everyone has a rational basis for choosing but in doing so it overlooks that the former presents for the latter reasons that no one has any particular reason to endorse. Not only is this so but there is a further problem involved in the relationship between these theories. This problem was expressed by Rawls in section 5 of A Theory of Justice where Rawls contrasted two methods of moral reasoning. On one of them "the good is defined independently from the right, and then the right is defined as that which maximises the good". This is the means by which consequentialism works. It has an independent conception of the good, as Parfit claims here when he speaks of hedonic criteria as providing a "non-moral" standard of goodness. This methodology contrasts with the other one that Rawls speaks of and which he follows Kant in preferring. This is outlined by Kant as indicating that it is only by means of and through the moral law that we arrive at a view of the good. So the good is not then independently defined but viewed rather through the prism of the right.


This second type of relationship is implied in contractualism which views the good not as an independent variable but as something that is arrived at by means of right reasoning. On the contractualist conception the right is that which we would all rationally want and the good emerges as that which is constrained by appeal to this notion of the right and thus becomes manifest to us by means of it. This methodology is quite distinct from that of consequentialism and is directly opposed to it. Not only is this so but correctly seeing the right as prior to the good in the way that Rawls and Kant direct us to implies that there is always a basis of lexical priority between the "moral" and the "non-moral" goods since the nature of what can be permissibly classed under the latter is defined by the former. 


Parfit cites Rawls' account of the way that consequentialist theories involve giving the good priority over the right and appears to agree with Rawls that this indicates a problem with such theories. However the reason Parfit gives for rejecting the claimed priority of the good is not Rawls' reason and it is also not a good reason. Parfit states that if consequentialism requires us to take the good as prior to the right then this implies that the right is trivially defined so that we end up with tautological claims. This is not the way Rawls understands the point. Instead Rawls' point is that taking the good to be prior to the right ensures that the independently defined good is one that is given over-riding priority in considerations that inevitably require abstraction from the nature of reference to persons. This is precisely what we have seen follows also from Parfit's view. Parfit attempts to avoid this by stating that whether the right or the good is made prior you end up with trivial claims but this is simply false. On the one hand you produce a claim that there is an impartial reason-involving good which is grasped in an outcome-based way (as in his view) whilst on the other hand you arrive at a conception of law and right that defines and describes what can be taken to be good (as on Rawls and Kant's view). And the difference between these two is anything but trivial.


The development of Parfit's own view is one that he sets up as involving a criteria that he thinks does mitigate its general consequentialist thrust when he introduces criteria of distribution of benefits and burdens that is meant to favour an egalitarian conception. So the goodness of outcomes is then taken not in a bluntly aggregative sense but in a way that relates this aggregation to the way the benefits and burdens are distributed. Rawls considered such a view in section 5 of Theory and determined that it would no longer be "teleological" in a classical sense as it would now take distribution to be an independent variable. Taking it to be so implies a notion of right (through distribution) that is meant to apply to the impartial outcome-based reasons and to provide a way of assessing different outcomes. Notably it does not affect the understanding of agent-neutral goods as impersonal goods however so it remains in its basic orientation a theory that is still based on the priority of the good over the right. Simply accepting that not all distribution is equal so that there is some form of distribution that is morally preferable to others and thus endorsing an egalitarian principle is not in itself sufficient to dilute the general consequentialist thrust of the theory. The nature of what is good and the form of right in relation to this good remain broadly consequentialist with only the balancing of distribution taken to be one that has a basis for preference that is not blunt. But the rationale for the preference for equality is not evident and the goods distributed are still essentially understood in a way that abstracts from consideration of the good of persons.


In the next posting I am going to conclude assessment of the third of Parfit's 2002 lectures by coming back to how the conclusion of his argument relies on his assessment of KCF and what this tells us about the kind of reading of Kant that Parfit has undertaken in his work. 

Parfit and Kant's "Contractualist Formula"

The third of Parfit's 2002 lectures concerns contractualism and involves an extended discussion of what he calls Kant's "contractualist formula". Since the formula in question is not one that Kant himself specifically states and since Parfit's derivation of this formula occurs in the concluding part of the second of the 2002 lectures it is necessary to return to this derivation before the argument of the third lecture can be considered. This is what I will do in this posting, which is devoted only to uncovering the argument by which Parfit arrives at and justifies this formula.


In the final section of the second 2002 lecture Parfit turns to the question of whether, in the course of this lecture, he can be said to have misinterpreted Kant's understanding of universal law. Whilst considering this possible objection Parfit points to the way in which Kant discusses, in the case of beneficence, the application of the law of nature formula by means of appeal not to what "everyone" could will but rather to the nature of the specific person's willing. Parfit also rejects the view that Kant's universal law test should be seen in terms of Rawlsian notions of the veil of ignorance. Parfit presents both Scanlon and Rawls as offering not interpretations of Kantian notions of universal law but as instead providing ways of revising it. This leads to Parfit presenting a complicated diagram of possible ways the universal law formula could be understood. Prominent amongst the possible understandings for Parfit is the treatment given by Scanlon which leads Scanlon to state that an act is wrong "unless everyone could rationally will that everyone acts in this way". 


However whilst Parfit is favourably impressed by Scanlon's formula he does not leave the matter there. Scanlon's formula is one that Parfit thinks is impartial but that it goes further than we have to since some acts are right without being ones that everyone could perform. This leads Parfit to revising Scanlon's formula so that it becomes, as Parfit terms it, the "formula of universally willed acts" which states: "an act is wrong unless it could be rationally willed by everyone". This formula is now understood to be equivalent to the first half of the Formula of Humanity on Parfit's construal of the latter, which he has earlier termed "the Consent Principle". On the basis of this we treat people only in ways that they could rationally consent to. The wider formula of this that has become the formula of universally willed acts now adds that an act is wrong unless everyone, if they had the choice, could rationally choose the act in question as one that would be done. 


However despite the argument having thus given us a formula that is at least loosely related to something Kant said Parfit is not finished yet. Parfit had earlier invoked the quite different standard that he termed Kant's "moral belief" formula which involved stating that an act is wrong unless we could rationally will it to be true that everyone believed it was permissible. This formula introduces a lot of complicated epistemic issues that Parfit does not really discuss but at this point all he does is argue that the so-called "moral belief" formula is one that can be converted into Scanlonian terms so that it becomes a claim to the effect that an act is wrong unless everyone could rationally will it to be true that everyone believed such acts permissible. This version of the "moral belief" formula interprets the claim about belief in a better way in a sense since it is no longer merely a claim about a given person's belief states and this is surely preferable as otherwise we seem mired in subjectivism. This version of the moral belief claim is meant to be understood as a way of addressing the problem of what general principles of action we could all will. 


Not only is the Scanlonian notion of moral belief a reply to a genuine Kantian question it also has the advantage, according to Parfit, of being suggested by Kant's formulas of autonomy and the realm of ends. The point about the formula of autonomy is that it involves a claim about rational beings giving themselves universal law through the maxims of their will. The understanding of this that Parfit wishes to champion is in terms of the Scanlonian version of "moral belief". The Scanlonian version is also termed by Parfit a "formula of universally willed moral beliefs" but it is shortened and given the name "Kant's Contractualist Formula" so that it becomes: "we ought to act on the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will". Parfit concludes the second lecture by contrasting this formula with a Rawlsian formula that involves, instead, reference to choice under conditions where we know nothing about the circumstances of others. The contrast between these formulas will motivate the structure of the third 2002 lecture. I am making no comment here on the argument Parfit has given as I wanted merely to draw it out as the basis on which the formula that Parfit consistently in the third lecture refers to as "Kant's" formula, despite not being stated anywhere by Kant, is arrived at.

Parfit and Kant on Impartiality

In my last posting on Parfit I looked at Chapter 9 of Climbing the Mountain, the first manuscript-length version of what has recently been published as On What Matters. In this posting I'm going to look at Chapter 10 of Climbing the Mountain where Parfit addresses the notion of impartiality, including, thereby, the relationship between the Formula of Universal Law and the "Golden Rule". 


This chapter opens with a description of Kant's view of beneficence indicating that the duty to beneficence is conceived of by Kant as a duty we owe to others on the grounds that we expect such conduct from others towards ourselves. This way of capturing the duty of beneficence leads Parfit to invoke the "Golden Rule" of the Gospels, famously formulated as do unto others as you would they did unto you. Kant is generally taken to have rejected this rule, a rejection based on citation of a footnote in the Groundwork:

"Let it not be thought that the trivial quod tibia non vis fiery etc. can serve as the benchmark or principle here. For it is, though with various limitations, just derived from the latter; it can be no universal law, for it does not contain the ground of duties to oneself, not of duties of love to others (for many a man would gladly agree that others should not benefit him if only he might be exempt from showing them beneficence), finally not of owed duties to one another; for the criminal would argue on this ground against the judges who punish him, and so on." (Ak. 4: 430n)

A few points are worth making about this citation, the first of which is that Kant does not here cite, as Parfit supposes, the Golden Rule but, rather, the so-called "Silver" Rule, which is a negative formulation to the effect, do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you. This point is significant since the problems listed with the Silver Rule by Kant may well not transfer simply to the Golden Rule and, arguing on this basis, it has been suggested by some, that Kant therefore did not mean any direct criticism of the Golden Rule at all.


Kant introduces the cited footnote just after discussing the false promising maxim in relation to the Formula of Humanity, hence, not in connection with the Formula of Universal Law at all. So, when Kant claims that the Silver Rule is "just derived" from the latter, he presumably means by "the latter" the reference to consideration of the ends that are contained in the person of others. The subsequent point is that the Silver Rule is not a "universal" law which, given its negative formulation, is not that surprising a point. It will only operate to forbid conduct, not to promote it and when Kant goes on to the consideration of the third example in relation to the Formula of Humanity (to do with cultivation of talents) he introduces precisely considerations for thinking that there is a positive as well as a negative sense to this formula, thereby demarcating it from the Silver Rule. Kant next amplifies the point about the lack of universality of the Silver Rule pointing out that it is not possible to arrive at the "ground" of a number of duties from it. This argument repeats the point about the essentially negative character of the Silver Rule as it is expansive duties that cannot be arrived at on its basis including duties to oneself and duties of love. Both these kinds of duties are explored not in the Groundwork but in the Doctrine of Virtue where duties of love cover duties with regard to beneficence, gratitude and sympathy so the point clearly again is that such duties cannot be derived from a purely negative formula such as the Silver Rule. Similarly, with duties towards others generally, the Silver Rule is open to the kinds of problems Kant lists with regard to both maxims of indifference and the conduct of the criminal towards the judge.


Unfortunately Parfit conflates the actual rule Kant cites and distances himself from (the Silver Rule) with the rule from the Gospels (the Golden Rule) that Kant does not give and does not discuss. This is a shame, not least since, as the Golden Rule is stated in a positive form, it is not as evidently open to the same riposte Kant sets out against the Silver Rule. Parfit in fact goes further than pursuing the case Kant sets out against the Silver Rule as if it were an argument against the Golden Rule, he also turns Kant's case against another formula that was not at issue for Kant in the citation given, namely, the Formula of Universal Law. Textually problematic as this is Parfit opens with an account of the maxim of indifference and states that if people wish to be helped then they should also wish to help others. Having put the point this way as a case that the Golden Rule can enable to be stated against the maxim of indifference, Parfit argues that the maxim of indifference could be formulated in accord with the Formula of Universal Law although it cannot accord with the Golden Rule. This claim is problematic on a number of levels, not least that Kant at no point relates the Formula of Universal Law to duties but only refers the Formula of the Law of Nature to them. Not only is this so but the maxim of indifference is specifically rejected when related to the Formula of the Law of Nature on the grounds that it could not be "willed" to hold everywhere as a law of nature (the contradiction in the will test). This point is part of showing that the Law of Nature formula has two dimensions and that one of these involves a sense of consistency of willing, not merely of conception.


Parfit does note that Kant discusses this riposte of contradiction in willing but rejects it as inadequate on the grounds that it involves people wanting to be helped whereas it is possible that there could be people who never want to be helped and that with regard to them the reference to universal law will be insufficient. There are further problems with these remarks including the point that wishing to be helped is not an optional extra in human life even though there are situations in which some may be convinced they will never require help. As such the discussion involved in Kant's account of beneficence with regard to universal law includes a sense of what it is that has to apply to finite rational beings due to the nature of their finitude.


Parfit again recognises this point and formulates a response with regard to what he terms "rational" willing. Having recognised it he proceeds to reformulate the Golden Rule in such a way that it includes a similar recognition as appears in Kant's discussion of universal laws. This reformulation on Parfit's part renders it as follows: "We ought to treat others in ways in which, if we had the choice and were rational, we would choose that others treat us". This formulation is condensed further into a reference to what we would rationally choose. Having reformulated the Golden Rule in this way Parfit has significantly altered its scope and understanding. This is furthered when he extends application of the new rule not just to the "actual world" but also to imaginary cases.


Having reformulated and extended the Golden Rule in the ways indicated Parfit next considers cases that might be thought to present difficulties for it including one in which a racist claims to be applying the Golden Rule when refusing admission to his hotel to anyone not of his race. This can be done if the racist assumes only that the rule applies simply to those of different races and not to any of his own race and thus endorses such treatment as applicable universally given that his own race is always in the favourable position. In response Parfit claims that the racist in question has misunderstood the Golden Rule since the rule requires that one relate to others as if one might be in their position. So application of the Golden Rule requires imagining changes not just in other things but also, potentially, in ourselves so that we were as the others we treat now are. This gives the third formulation of the "Golden Rule" that Parfit has: "We ought to treat others only in ways in which we would rationally choose that we ourselves be treated, if we were going to be in these other people's positions, and if we would also be relevantly like them".


This conception of the Golden Rule involves a form of imaginative identification and in so doing is well on the way to being something like an impartial spectator model of moral reasoning. It is clear, however, that the reasoning and the model has reached a point very far removed from the formulation of the Silver Rule Kant criticised in the Groundwork.


Returning to the Groundwork text Parfit refers to the example of the criminal arguing with the judge concerning punishment that Kant gives towards the conclusion of the footnote discussing the Silver Rule. Parfit suggests that the rule Kant is here rejecting is more like a rule that states we ought to treat each other person "only in ways in which we would choose that we ourselves be treated if we were going to be in this person's position". This formulation, the one Parfit imagines Kant to be actually reading into the Silver Rule is like the third formula of the Golden Rule that Parfit has given in the sense that it involves a form of imaginative identification. It however does not include the sense of rational willing that Parfit has built into his third formula of the Golden Rule. Parfit indicates that the kind of identification he takes Kant to be involved in the rule he objects to is one that it is, indeed, right to reject. The reason Parfit rejects it, however, is that it implies a kind of egoistic position. In response Parfit gives another kind of formulation of the Golden Rule that cites it as stating that we "ought to treat other people as we would rationally choose that we be treated if we were going to be in the positions of all of these people, and would be relevantly like them". This extension of the process of imaginative identification clearly makes it impersonal since, if we are to be asked to think of what it would be like to be in the positions of "all" of them then no particular characteristics can be at issue (unlike in the earlier formula where Parfit was precisely building in particular characteristics to forestall the racist move).


The readings of the Golden Rule that involve the kinds of imaginative identification Parfit has in mind are formulated to prevent the kind of appeal the criminal is imagined to be capable of making working on Kant's conception of the Silver Rule. Parfit does, however, simply now adopt the impersonal reading of the Golden Rule and appears just to drop his earlier interpretation of imaginative identification. This is meant to show that punishment is quite capable of being morally justified. 


Parfit next considers the objection Kant makes to the effect that the Silver Rule provides no basis for duties towards oneself and recognises that failure to do this will ensure that others appear always to have priority over oneself, something that is implausible. Given this point Parfit further refines the Golden Rule to meet this point and arrives at another formulation of it. This formulation states: "We ought to treat everyone as we would rationally choose that we be treated if we were going to be in all of these people's positions, and would be relevantly like them". This point is meant to indicate that we are part of the "everyone" in question though, notably, it abstracts from the separateness of persons in precisely the manner Rawls famously objected to utilitarianism for doing.


Parfit next returns to comparing the "Golden Rule" in the formula in which he has now arrived at with the Formula of Universal Law and points out that both involve appeals to claims about what it would be rational for people to choose and include the basic egalitarian point that everyone matters equally (though the way the latter point is recognised in Parfit's "Golden Rule" is quite different from how it is recognised in the Formula of Humanity). The difference between them that Parfit registers concerns the manner in which thought experiments are conducted. The "Golden Rule" is meant to address the question, on Parfit's view, "what if that was done to me" rather than, as he takes to be required on Kant's Formula of Universal Law, "what if everyone did that"? 


Parfit takes the use of Kant's Law of Nature Formula to require reference to different possible worlds and to apply the laws in question as if they were ones everyone followed in these worlds. This differs from another kind of test Parfit attributes to Kant in which we ask what would happen if everyone had certain kinds of moral beliefs. Parfit next invokes the notion of an ideal impartial observer who is not involved in any events and judges as it were from the standpoint of the "universe" (as Sidgwick puts it in The Methods of Ethics) and he contrasts this with the "Consent Principle" that he previously formulated as the first part of the Formula of Humanity.


Parfit confesses, however, that the "Golden Rule" in his account of it faces the objection that it might lead us to ignore the fact that, in the "actual" world, ideal redistributions of benefits and burdens could produce irretrievable losses for some that, at least for them, are not compensated and that this matters when we are considering distributive justice. Due to recognition of this point Parfit thinks that the "Golden Rule" is, as he puts it, "theoretically" inferior to the Impartial Observer Formula and to the "Consent Principle" he earlier stated as the first part of the Formula of Humanity. The point Parfit should here have noted however is that the "Golden Rule" is not the only one of these principles open to this objection and, if it were, it would be not "theoretically" but "practically" inferior to the other formulas.


Parfit next considers some questions that he thinks create difficulties for Kant's discussion of universal laws. The first point considered here is that wrong-doing often involves acts that can only be rarely performed, a point Parfit formulates as the "Rarity Objection" and which is given an example in the case of someone who is willing to let another be punished for a crime that they committed. The question that is asked with regard to this person is whether their maxim falls foul of the Law of Nature Formula. Parfit suggests that the universalisation of the maxim of the person in question is plausible though, in making this point, he does nothing to test the maxim with regard to the criterion Kant uses in the Groundwork in terms of types of contradiction. In failing to refer to the tests in question Parfit simply pre-judges his case against the Formula of the Law of Nature. Similarly Parfit considers an egoistic maxim here and imagines a case where we have an egoist who could live in a world of other egoists, thereby ignoring the points made about this case when Kant discusses consistency of willing.


A much better case is made by Parfit when he moves from the discussion of rarity to one of "high stakes" and imagines cases where the perceived benefit of maxims for those considering them is very great compared to the alternatives. Such cases do show a ground for action in which it is hard to imagine people being persuaded to act in terms of what would be best overall given their own good is so great to them at the time but they do not count against a formal process in which abstraction from questions of the good is required. So again Parfit builds into his case assumptions that do not allow considerations of Kant's point.


The next objection Parfit considers is that the Law of Nature Formula is insufficiently impartial or not impartial in the "right way" unlike the "Golden Rule". The reason for this claimed difference is that Kant's rule does not build in a specific reference to the actor in question. Kant does, however, fail to do this for a specifically good reason that Parfit recognises which is to abstract away from the consideration that the egoist wishes to hold to. However Parfit suggests that this abstraction fails to recognise a key problem, that he terms "non-reversibility" where it is possible that we do to others something that no one is able to do to us in the same way (for whatever reason). This is, in fact, a problem much like the earlier racist suggestion Parfit considered and shows still that the case is being considered continuously in relation to material benefits that are not relevant to Kant's formula with conditions that do not allow for universality of application so, once again, beg the question against Kant's formula.


Parfit seems to think this "non-reversibility" claim is an important one simply due to the realities that something like it may well be involved in many cases of social injustice. So, for example, if men believe rape of women justified this may be because they are not women and not capable of being treated in the same way. However, even should such beliefs be actually held in such situations they are simply not relevant to the consideration of Kant's formula since, in holding to such beliefs the actors in question are not subjecting themselves to the standards of universality Kant is stating.


Parfit considers a response of this sort to his cases of "non-reversibility" but does so through Thomas Nagel's suggestion of a form of imaginative identification much like the one Parfit himself earlier built into the "Golden Rule". In responding to this point Parfit cites the response Kant made to the maxim of indifference in which Kant pointed to the contradiction in the will as being to do with what it would state about the one who formulated this maxim in a world governed by it. This point is taken by Parfit to indicate an illicit partiality in the formula rather than a consideration of the cases of all as in his own "Golden Rule". However the point surely is that cases of "non-reversibility" do not require the introduction of imaginative identification of the sort Parfit has invoked any more than Kant thought of such as involved in the response to the maxim of indifference. It was rather a question of reaching the maxim in question and formulating it as a universal rule that did the trick. Similarly, assuming something like a principle of "non-reversibility" is at work in much wrong-doing let's articulate its general assumption as something like the following: "I will take advantage of the ways in which others are differently vulnerable to myself in order to have mastery over them" and then think of its universal application. Are there are any cases in which this could not be applied to the disadvantage of the one formulating the maxim? It is enough to ask the question to point to the answer.


Parfit does not consider a response like the one I have given but he does mention Rawls' "veil of ignorance" notion only to suggest that Kant does not include reference to anything like it but, in so doing, he fails to discuss the ways in which Rawls interpreted Kant's typic of universal law in order to show considerations of the "veil of ignorance" type were at work there, thus, once again, he merely assumes his point. Similarly, Parfit considers Thomas Scanlon's interpretation which produces an account of universality that asks us to consider what everyone could rationally will only in order to rebut it by mentioning that Kant does not explicitly state things this way which is no answer to Scanlon. 


Parfit subsequently proposes to revise Kant's formulations in order to meet his notion of "non-reversibility" which is done by importing considerations of the sort Scanlon was concerned with when he referred to what everyone could rationally will. Having done so Parfit concludes the chapter with what he terms is the "Kantian Contractualist Formula" and which is stated as: "Everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will". Such a formula assimilates Kant to Scanlon.

Parfit and Kant on Universal Law

When I last looked at Parfit's 2002 Tanner Lectures, the "Ur-text" of On What Matters, it was to discuss the first of those lectures, and, not least, to examine how there Parfit interpreted Kant's Formula of Humanity. In this posting I'm going to look at Parfit's second 2002 lecture where he turns, by contrast, to the discussion of Kant's Formula(s) of Universal Law.


Parfit opens the second of his lectures with a discussion of the nature of Kant's references to "maxims" in his account of the rightness of acts. Parfit lists some statements that are described by Kant as "maxims" and then proceeds to describe what he terms Kant's "stated criterion of strict duties" which is: "it is wrong to act on maxims that could not be universal laws" though this seems to be based on Ak. 4: 424 where Kant in fact, by referring to at least two types of contradiction, refers to notions of "conception" and "willing" to distinguish them, a distinction that Parfit appears to make nothing of. Parfit looks instead at the notion that what is tested by the reference to universal laws is the "permissibility" of certain maxims (not their "possibility" of being experienced which is what Kant discusses). The notion of "permissibility" is not, in any case, taken by Parfit to be a very helpful way of understanding Kant's notion of universalisation and he raises questions about maxim-formation that have been circulating in the literature for some time in terms of the "test" of universality being either under-determined or over-determined. 


In the process of raising these points Parfit criticises ways of understanding universal laws that have been made by Onora O'Neill which culminates in a switch from the initial "stated criterion of strict duties" to a different "actual criterion of strict duties" which latter states that: "it is wrong to act on maxims whose being universally accepted, or believed to be permissible, would make it impossible for anyone successfully to act upon them". This criteria has the advantage that it appears to make questions of publicity emerge as key to the way universal laws are meant to work. However, it is not this, but instead the notion of "success" that Parfit fixes on, arguing, as he does, that the alleged maxim of coercing others wherever this would benefit me, even if adopted universally, would not be universally impossible to successfully achieve. This objection strikes me as a pretty odd one since such a situation would, if it was the basis of all known and avowed maxims, make rather a large number of actions impossible of success and is the basic reason why, in the Doctrine of Right, Kant can provide an argument for the need for a sovereign power.


Parfit does not consider such a case, however, preferring instead to look at Kant's arguments against lying and stealing which are, however, themselves interpreted by Parfit in ways that are pretty eccentric since he focuses primarily on the question of the egoist, which was not obviously on Kant's agenda at all here. Parfit makes a better point with regard to lying promises since it is here that he sees that the practice of promising is conditional on the notion that keeping them is the general rule to be observed. This leads Parfit to begin to consider the reference to universality in a different way to previously as based not merely on an account of maxims in relation to acts but also in relation to beliefs concerning acts. However Parfit still has difficulties with the kind of criteria that the reference to universal laws seems to involve since, as he can easily point out, there are cases where lying promises might seem to be required. 


The first lesson derived from the discussion by Parfit emerges at this point which is to the effect that relating maxims permissibility to a standard of universal successful accomplishment appears to make the universality criteria either much too weak or much too strong. It is only after this point has been stated that Parfit actually states Kant's Formula of Universal Law which is, however, given in a form that Kant never explicitly gives. The Formula in Parfit's telling emerges as follows: "It is wrong to act on some maxim unless we could also rationally will it to be true that this maxim is a universal law". Shortly after giving this formula Parfit also adds the "law of nature formula" and what he terms "the Permissibility Formula" which latter is said to state: "It is wrong to act on some maxim unless we could also rationally will it to be true that everyone is morally permitted to act in this way".  This latter notion is said to be derived from Thomas Scanlon and is freely admitted by Parfit to be one that is not generally recognised.


Nor does Parfit stop here, however, since after giving the "permissibility formula" he adds that Kant's basic assumption in this alleged formula refers to effects of beliefs people hold and thus depends on what Parfit calls a "Moral Belief Formula", something that he implicitly appealed to earlier in the lecture but which is now explicitly presented as stating: "It is wrong to act on some maxim unless we could also rationally will it to be true that everyone believes such acts to be permissible". This formula is, however, implicitly conservative since it appears to require recognition of actual beliefs and thus not to test them. 


As often, however, Parfit moves on to a different question than the one that seems obvious since his question about the alleged formulas given does not turn on any particular type of objection to their coherence but instead he goes back again to the question of the status of "maxims" for Kant. Here Parfit makes the point that when Kant speaks of "maxims" it seems that different types of things can be at issue. Thus, on some occasions it appears that Kant is using "maxim" to indicate the "policy" on which someone is acting, on others to the relationship between "policy" and "aim". Having made this point Parfit returns to the general problem of having a view of maxims that provides a serious wrong-making criteria and indicates that many maxims have a "mixed" status in the sense that it is not always bad to act on them nor always good. This is termed by Parfit the "mixed maxims objection" to the accounts of maxims that have been discussed by him up to this point. In response to it Parfit suggests a revision of Kant's Formula(s). The point of the revision is, however, a rather odd one. Having indicated that his basic problem is with "mixed maxims" Parfit suggests that the way that maxims are referred to should not be by means of policies or aims but instead by what persons are "intentionally doing". In fact, in stating this, Parfit seems unusually poorly informed since making the understanding of maxims refer to "intentions" is a proposal that has been widely considered and it has provoked serious objections from a range of philosophers.


Nor, in any case, is it obvious that what Parfit goes on to do is to discuss a revision that is really based on this notion of "intentions". It is instead Parfit's move to begin discussing rational willing and this appears to involve some sense of instrumental coherence, a notion that requires no explicit reference to "intentions" at all. 


Parfit states that Kant's Formula(s) of universal law work best when 3 conditions are satisfied, namely, that it would be (a) possible to act on the maxim; (b) the effects of the maxim would be much the same however many people acted on it; (c) these effects could be randomly or equally distributed between people. Understanding Kant's formulas in this way brings them close to considerations that are at work in standard decision theories and in games theories (much as Parfit invokes in Reasons and Persons). Parfit's claim is that the problems that arise for the Kantian formulas are related to failure of one of these conditions. The only failure Parfit explicitly considers is (c) which leads to burdens being imposed only on select groups. In raising this point Parfit gets to the notion of "impartiality" and indicates that there is no guarantee of impartial consideration in weighing universal acceptability. The example of this given is one that I find extremely unpersuasive though and appears to me to be a prime example of what is often termed "maxim-fiddling". 


The example is of a racist who takes it that there would be no problem of universalising maxims of segregation and unequal treatment. But in allowing the racist this claim Parfit neglects to conceive of the world that would therefore be being willed which would be a world in which there would therefore be no problem with the racist himself suffering the same treatment whenever they were in the minority. In failing to conceive of the general test in this way Parfit has simply fiddled the maxim in the racist's favour.


Parfit eventually gets to a version of this response when he considers Thomas Nagel's account of the maxims concerning benevolence which is the classic counterpart of the problem with contradiction of the will that I have transposed here to the case of the racist. Nagel appears to view the benevolence example as requiring us to be placed in "everyone else's position" but this is too strong and all that is needed is precisely what Parfit agrees is found in the discussion of benevolence in the Groundwork which is the failure of rational willing even in the case of the one willing non-beneficence. It is due to such failure that Rawls, as Parfit cites, invokes his idea of the "veil of ignorance" as a way of seeing the problem here. It is not that Kant has to have directly supposed that we do need to invoke this veil, as Parfit wrongly assumes. It is rather that the veil is an alternative way to make the same point in the same spirit.


In response to the discussion at this point Parfit invokes another way of understanding Kant's formulas of universal law in terms that recognises the question about impartiality in an explicit form. This leads Parfit to give what he terms the "Formula of Universally Willed Acts" which is as follows: "An act is wrong unless it could be rationally willed by everyone". This formula is an extension of the Consent Principle that Parfit found to be the first part of Kant's Formula of Humanity. It faces at least the problem Parfit himself mentions which is that Kant does not refer in this way to "what everyone could rationally will" though it is evident he does require some sense of rational willing to be understood. However Parfit concludes the second lecture with 2 final formulas. The first is meant to build in a reference to beliefs and produces what Parfit terms "Kant's Contractualist Formula" which is: "We ought to act on the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will". This version brings Kant into the vicinity of Thomas Scanlon though this point is not explored in this lecture.


Finally Parfit concludes with a formula that explicitly brings in a reference to Rawls' notion of the "veil of ignorance" and is stated simply as "Rawls's Formula" and is given as follows: "We ought to act on the principles that it would be rational for everyone to choose, as the principles that we would all accept, if no one knew anything about themselves or their circumstances".


Parfit concludes the second 2002 lecture with the claim that the third lecture will be devoted to consideration of the contractualist formula though it surely also considers its relationship to Rawls's Formula and indicates a resolution of some sort of the two formulas. However, before looking at the third and final 2002 lecture I will first consider the ways in which the discussion of the second 2002 lecture becomes transformed and reworked in Climbing the Mountain and the pre-publication version of On What Matters to become, eventually, Chapters 12 to 14 of the published book.

Parfit and Kant on Respect and Value (II)

Chapter 10 of On What Matters is officially entitled "respect and value", a topic that was previously treated by Parfit in Chapter 6 of Climbing the Mountain which I responded to here. However, in the published form of On What Matters, Parfit has combined this discussion with that of the "greatest good", a topic that was given a separate chapter in Climbing the Mountain and which, when combined with the account of respect and value, makes this chapter a complicated one to evaluate. The previous account of the "greatest good" was given extended treatment in an earlier posting. 


The chapter opens with a description of Kant's contention that there is a respect requirement related to the Formula of Humanity that indicates that this requirement is not action-guiding. In the process of making this statement Parfit rejects Allen Wood's conception that respect is here to be viewed as an "expressive" notion. Whilst Wood's notion is problematic I am not convinced by Parfit's argument against it which appears to consist in the claim that the respect requirement is not sufficient to demarcate wrong-making characteristics. The respect requirement is, I would think, part of a "clue" to the meaning Kant is giving to "humanity" in the Formula of Humanity.


One of the problems here is that Parfit does not attempt to locate a specifically Kantian notion of rational nature as, when he responds to Wood, he takes it that the notion of rational nature has no specific content. The other problem is that he simply follows Wood in rejecting certain of Kant's specific claims in practical ethics as misapplications of Kantian normative principles without saying enough about the ways in which such misapplications can arise. 


Parfit's object here, is, however, different from the one that would be attained by focusing on the questions I have just mentioned. The object is, as the chapter title suggests, to look at the relationship between Kant's notion of "respect" and an account of "value" and when the subject of "value" enters the chapter Parfit becomes more interesting. Kant makes the claim that there is a "dignity" that attaches to humanity that is distinct from "price" and Parfit connects this point to the Rawlsian conception that the right is prior to the good. However, the argument that Parfit then proceeds to develop does not go in the direction it does for Rawls.


Parfit begins his response to the Kantian claim about "dignity" and the associated notion of the priority of the right by introducing distinctions of his own. Many things are, Parfit tells us, "good or bad" in a reason-implying sense. What this means is spelled out as follows: "Such things have certain kinds of properties or features that would, in some situations, give us or others reason to respond to these things in certain ways". Now, some of these things have a "value" that is one that we think should be promoted and this is typically how happiness and the negation of suffering have been approached. In such a situation, however, it is "these things, not their value, that we have reasons to promote".


The promotion in question refers, on Parfit's conception, to "events", meaning acts and states of affairs. Events are good to Parfit both as means and as ends in themselves and this is part of the overall view that he terms "actualism". According to "actualism" as Parfit conceives of it, events are good as ends when the appropriate features are "intrinsic" to them but only as means when the features in question are only brought about by them but not inherent in the acts or states of affairs themselves. On Parfit's view actualism "covers everything whose goodness is directly relevant to any decision about what we should do". Since this is so, all action-guiding requirements are described by it. This does not entail that actualism is a general theory of the good, however, since it applies only to events and other things than events are capable of being good. Since Parfit follows Thomas Scanlon in viewing "teleological" theories as those that identify intrinsic goodness with events it follows that Parfit does not view actualism as a "teleological" theory though, in stating this, Parfit adopts an eccentric usage of the term "teleological".


Having spun so much out of the kind of value that is to be promoted Parfit turns next to the kind of value that is to be respected. When there is something of this sort, on Parfit's view, it is the things in question and not their "value" that we respect (which parallels his claim concerning "promotion"). When something has the kind of value that requires respect then certain kinds of "actions and attitudes" according to Scanlon are called for. But these can vary since not everything that is worthy of respect should, simply by meeting that criterion, get treated as, for example, worthy of being preserved. However acting in ways that indicate the required respect is acting in a way that manifests a "value" that should be promoted on Parfit's view.


After having made these distinctions Parfit returns to Kant's claims about value and begins by discussing three different kinds of end that Kant appears to recognise. These three are: a) ends-to-be-produced; b) existent ends; c) ends-in-themselves. There is one feature of Parfit's listing here that is odd since the second category is assumed by him to be met by rational beings whilst the third is also so it is not clear how he distinguishes between them. The second group is also initially mentioned as something that is to be "respected" rather than "promoted" on the view of many.


Parfit's first aim in discussing Kantian claims about "value" is to suggest that Kant does recognise the conception of ends-to-be-produced. In one sense Kant clearly does since hypothetical imperatives generally concern them. However the "good will" is also related to by Parfit as an end we should, on Kantian grounds, aim for and hence try to produce. Here I think there is a confusion. In a sense it is evidently right to say that it is better to have a good will than not. However, this does not entail that the production of the good will is something that contains distinct recommendations that are separate from following the priority of the right and since that is so then describing them in a structurally teleological way does not appear appropriate. A similar point can also be made concerning Parfit's assimilation of the realm of ends to the category of ends-to-be-produced. The most striking such example of a problem with Parfit's assimilation occurs, however, with regard to the summum bonum which is referred to by Kant in the Groundwork precisely by reference to the categorical imperative and not by assumptions of any further sort (e.g. Ak. 4: 438).


Parfit reiterates his failure to recognise any specifically Kantian conception of rationality subsequently since he assimilates it first to "cleverness" and secondly simply to morality in general and he has clearly never tried to grapple with Kant's extensive discussion of reason in the Critique of Pure Reason. 


When Parfit returns to the question of the relationship between the right and the good it is after he has assimilated the claim Kant makes about the summum bonum with ends-to-be-produced. This enables Parfit to expound a specific "formula" of the "greatest good" so that everyone is enjoined to "strive to promote" a world that meets the ideal of the summum bonum. This assimilation is one that is subsequently amplified when Parfit over-rides Kant's caution with regard to the virtue of others. 


It is now that Parfit's discussion becomes particularly dense as distinctions accumulate at this point as he introduces criteria for how to describe act consequentialism, hedonistic act utilitarianism and value-based act consequentialism. If act consequentialism requires that everyone ought always to aim at whatever would best achieve "one or more common aims", then clearly hedonistic act utilitarianism specifies these aims either positively or negatively. Parfit understands, however, that the problem with these theories is that they are entirely person-neutral and the basic objection to them is that we do have and value many person-relative ends. 


The appeal to value-based act consequentialism appears in the context of Parfit's description of moral theories that are either wholly or partly value-based and value-based act consequentialism specifies that what we ought to do is whatever would make things go best (and is thus optimific). By contrast, some other moral theories assume that the notion of the "good" should be related not to the notion of "value" but instead to that of "ought". Some theories are reductionist in the sense of attempting to assimilate "value" to the "ought" or vice versa but Parfit rejects such a move citing G.E. Moore as someone for whom the "ought" could be reduced to the "good" and then citing Kant as an example of the opposite view. 


Parfit's account of Kant's view here is drawn out carefully and is worth some attention. Parfit argues that Kant uses the term "good" in an "ought-based" rather than a "value-based" sense. After making this claim Parfit returns to assessing the kind of requirement at work in his alleged formula of the greatest good. Surprisingly to most of us Parfit assimilates this view to a form of consequentialism but denies that it is a value-based form of it since it can be stated without reference to optimific language. This weakening of the consequentialist label is furthered when Parfit points out that it is no part of his conception that Kant is an "act" consequentialist, not least because reference to the "formula of the highest good" is not sufficient for Kant given the other formulas of the categorical imperative are the basis of the highest good having any chance of being attained.


Having recognised this point Parfit also indicates that this view of the summum bonum relates not merely to universal virtue but also to the happiness Kant speaks of as "deserved" since it follows from Parfit's reconstruction that it is following often rigorous rules that would best promote happiness. Parfit somewhat surprisingly assimilates this point to Sidgwick's suggestion that happiness is a second-order good. This is surprising since Kant's point about "deserved" happiness seems to be a different kind of claim than Sidgwick's given that Kant is aiming at indicating the reasons why one could assume that one had a "right" to happiness, not the basis of realistic motivations as Sidgwick is after.


Parfit now restrictively defines consequentialism to mean a "value-based" view and, given that he has defined the Kantian conception as instead "ought-based" should at this point openly state that he does not take Kant's view to be consequentialist. Instead he enters into an account of how plausible optimific views are and appears to arrive at a defence of a form of rule consequentialism based on this discussion. After going through this point Parfit returns to Kant's apparently strict view on lying and conceives Kant's claims about lying in reference to "harm". This account of "harm", like Kant's discussion of "happiness" in the summum bonum are related to his general argument about "desert" and rather than concluding the discussion in this chapter with some argument concerning consequentialism, Kant and goodness and value, Parfit instead drops a hint only that he is going to challenge the Kantian view of desert.