The published Chapter 14 of On What Matters corresponds to the account given in the 2008 version of the work which I treated previously. In many respects the analysis and response to the discussion thus is much of a piece with that given earlier. In order to make the case for a response to Parfit's published version worthwhile, however, I have chosen to focus here on what I now view to be the key methodological device used in Parfit's discussion of impartiality. This is the recourse to a process of imaginative identification as the way in which impartiality is to be understood. The importance of stress on this will become clear when I make subsequently manifest how it ensures that Parfit does not seriously respond to the Kantian view that he takes himself to be replying to in this chapter.
The chapter opens, as previous versions of it did, with a statement of Kant's rejection of a principle that Parfit, along with others, has identified with the "Golden Rule" where the rejected rule incorporates already a notion of imaginative identification as it asks us to treat others as we would wish to be treated by them. Kant rejects this rule and indicates a number of problems with it. The nature of the specific problems that Kant poses with the rule are not identical, however, with how Parfit takes Kant's objections to go. Kant objects that the rule is not fit to be viewed as providing a universal law and he gives 2 reasons why this is so: a) it does not contain the ground of duties toward oneself or of love toward others; b) it does not contain the ground of duties owed to others. The second part of the first objection (concerning the duty of love towards others) is restated on the basis that some would agree to not be benefited by others if only it follows that they are not required to benefit these others. Hence this point is to the effect that the nature of the reciprocity recognised in the rule is insufficient to ground beneficence. The second objection is supported with a reductio proof to the effect that the rejected rule provides no ground for a judge sentencing a criminal since the criminal can ask the judge whether he would like to be punished. In both cases Kant suggests that the process of identification that the rejected rule seems to require is insufficient to ground the duty in question.
Parfit's discussion opens with a description of why the objection to the attempt to ground beneficence on the rejected rule would fail according to Kant. Parfit indicates that the rejected rule is not faulty in the way indicated since the rule does not lapse simply because one is not inclined to ask for the help of others. The reason why Parfit thinks he can make this move is that the rejected rule requires that we help others if we would wish to be helped whereas the exemption suggested in the objection Kant makes is that someone might only say, not, that they don't want help but that they would be willing to forego it if they are thereby freed from obligation towards others. The reason why Parfit thinks this is a reply to Kant appears initially mysterious. After all, isn't the denial of such help thus the basis for saying that I have renounced the need for help and therefore have a ground for asking others to do the same? I think that Parfit fails to see this point as he is held captive to a picture, a picture that runs through the whole of this chapter and the picture is one in which the imaginative appeal of the need of others is taken to provide not only a binding ground of obligation but to have a kind of obvious basis as such a ground, one that no one could really be obtuse enough to deny (except, as we shall see later, in cases where the other person is radically different to oneself).
Parfit is, however, wrong to think that he has replied to Kant's objection. The objection holds since the rejected rule requires and mandates only reciprocity of treatment on the basis of the imagined identification and the person Kant considers has simply requested that others extend to him the courtesy he would to them of refusing to ask for help. This plea is entirely in accord with the rejected rule and is at variance with the Law of Nature formula since the law of nature formula requires not imaginative identification but instead the construction of a world governed by the maxims that are stated in the aim underlying the specific policies of given actions. Here it would be an aim of generalised non-beneficence and this is why Kant views the maxim here as falling foul of the Law of Nature formula in a way it does not fall foul of the rejected rule. It falls foul precisely because such a generalised maxim of indifference could not be willed universally as to will it would undercut a basic condition of agency which requires the help of others to prosecute innumerable policies and their accompanying aims so that the maxim of non-beneficence is in tension with the general conditions of agency, not with imaginative relations to others.
Parfit's next consideration of the case of benevolence states that the rejected rule does not refer to conditions of willing as it does not view people generally as being absolute monarchs or dictators who can make others do what we will, a remark that indicates a complete failure to understand the basis of reference to willing in Kant's case. It is not that Kant wishes us to imagine that any one is an absolute monarch, it is rather that he wishes us to view our will as setting laws that apply to others in the same way as natural laws do, that is, as publicly acknowledged and consistently binding of their action. When so viewed some types of maxim conflict with conditions of agency and this shows the problem with them. Parfit subsequently shifts ground and argues that the rejected rule can also incorporate understanding of this is if it is stated in a form that says something like, "do as you would be done by". However this is simply not equivalent to a recognition of willing as it is rather again an imaginative relation to others in terms of how each of us treat others and requires us, as in the standard form, to regulate our conduct by how we would wish to be treated, thus beginning from a kind of egoistic starting point and requiring that standpoint to be checked by this imagination of others treating us as we have treated them. But this is not the same as thinking about internal requirements of willing and their coherence which is what Kant is concerned with.
The next step in Parfit's treatment of benevolence is to view the rejected rule as having the resource that he thinks is behind Kant's discussion of willing, namely of capturing a notion of rational choice. Then the "Golden" rule becomes: "We ought to treat others only in ways in which we would rationally be willing to be treated by others". This reformulation has the same methodological form as the classic version of the rule since it proceeds exactly in the way just described in the previous paragraph with the addition that now "rational" willing is presented as a form of willing that prudently involves a check on its own exercise for the benefit of the one willing. This converts the "Golden" rule into a kind of instrumental guide for conduct but such a guide is not equivalent to an appeal to the conditions of rational willing as outlined in the Law of Nature argument.
That the two are not equivalent becomes apparent as Parfit looks at cases in which beneficence is required. To sharpen the "Golden" rule in his new understanding of it Parfit asks that we apply it to conditions that might not be actual for us so that, for example, in thinking about cases of starvation we should imagine not if we would be willing to do without food now where we may have plentiful ways of getting some in the future and perhaps have been eating too much, but in some quite different case where we really are like those who are starving. Similarly, it is not sufficient, on Parfit's revised "Golden" rule, for a racist to deny others the use of resources on the grounds that they are not a member of the affected race as the revised rule requires that this racist place himself in the position of those who he is harming. This makes clear that identification with the plight of those harmed is to the fore and that this often requires imagination to be stretched as when it may be necessary to imagine that one is a member of a different race, lives elsewhere or even belongs to a different gender. This expanded procedure leads to Parfit viewing the "Golden" rule next as stating that we should treat others as we would rationally wish to be treated ourselves "if we were going to be in these other people's positions, and would be relevantly like them".
Parfit next looks at the objection Kant makes using a reductio argument to the idea that the rejected rule could treat of duties owed to others with the case of punishment used to suggest a problem. Parfit gives a formulation of the rejected rule that he thinks would face this problem and this produces a further reformulation of it on his part so it now becomes: "we ought to treat other people as we would rationally be willing to be treated if we were going to be in the positions of all of these people, and would be relevantly like them". On this basis the judge can now reject the case the criminal makes for why he should not be punished as the judge takes a wider identification than was at first in view and includes the victims of the crime (for example) in his imaginative extension of his identity. On these grounds the rule can provide a basis for punishment. Notice, however, that the question of the scope of identification is carefully here limited. Imagine further that the criminal had a number of dependants and that their need is greater than that of his victims. Should this be taken into account by the judge in his imaginative identification thus giving the criminal a renewed case? Or is there perhaps something wrong with the whole idea that what matters here is imaginative identification?
The last point that Parfit considers is Kant's suggestion that the rejected rule does not cover duties to oneself. Parfit acknowledges that if the rule does not do this it could have serious consequences and that generally it is likely it has been formulated in a way that does not appear to recognise this point given that we do not tend to ignore our own well-being. In acknowledging this point Parfit simply extends the scope of imaginative identification further so that when we consider how to treat others we are one of the "everyone" who would be affected. Notably, however, this appears to make us simply equivalent to others and, indeed, to render all others commensurable with each other.
Parfit considers the "Golden" rule and Kant's Formula of Universal Law as alike in two respects. Firstly, they both appeal to rational grounds of choice. Secondly, they both take everyone to matter in a way that involves some basic moral egalitarianism. Now, the point I wish to make is that the ground of the "Golden" rule on Parfit's defence of it is quite different, in both these respects, from the ground of Kant's procedure for identification of the supreme principle of morality. In regard to rational grounds of choice the "Golden" rule defines this in terms of needs and benefits and understands these in terms of imaginative processes of identification with others. With regard to moral egalitarianism it further assumes a basic commensurability of moral agents. By contrast, Kant's procedure is to view the ground of universality in terms of conditions of rational agency, not in terms of needs and benefits but instead in terms of what the conditions are for any identification of an agent that has any needs or benefits. Secondly, moral egalitarianism is defined not in terms of commensurability of agents where such commensurability abstracts from the separateness of persons but instead identification of persons as basic moral units.
Parfit views the different questions posed methodologically by appeal to these two notions in a way that is different to how I would put them. According to him the "Golden" rule asks how I would like it if something of a certain sort was done to me. By contrast, the formulas of Kant are alleged to ask "what if everyone did that"? In fact whilst I agree that the "Golden" rule has an implicitly egoistic starting point I don't think that it contrasts with the Kantian procedure primarily just through that being its question whilst Kant asks instead of some kind of universal consequence of others doing certain things. Rather it is the case that the advocates of the "Golden" rule adopt the procedure of asking me to view actions in terms of the consequences to me of certain things becoming universal. Whilst Kant's examples also often appear to do this the basic question underlying them is asking something else in addition: namely, what would happen to agency, my own included, if x, y, or z became universal. So it is not a question of a consequence that is primarily at issue for Kant but of a status being respected, the status, that is, of agency itself.
The "Golden" rule asks questions about points of view for Parfit, the points of view of others and myself in certain situations and assesses rights and wrongs through trying to arrive at a way of harmonising my point of view with others. Kant's procedure is different as he instead wishes to ask us what the conditions of agency themselves require. When Parfit subsequently invokes the idea of the "Impartial Observer" beloved of Adam Smith he is not leaving the ground that he has occupied previously of defence of the "Golden" rule as this "impartial" observer is an external way of visualising the conditions of imaginative identification meant to remove specific peculiarities from how I may view something. By thus abstracting from my own case I am supposed to still be able to carry out imaginative identification without having this any longer involve even partial reference to my own self. This abstractive sense of imagination is still one in which an idea or image of a self is meant to fill the role that for Kant is filled by a general argument about agency itself.
Parfit assumes that a procedure of imaginative identification has more motivational power than the kind of argument Kant uses. Some of the reasons why Parfit thinks this become clear as he motivates some objections to Kant. The first objection is the one he terms the "rarity objection" which essentially consists in imagining cases in which I can ensure that someone else suffers a burden or fails to get a benefit unjustly for my own egoistic reasons due to it being the case that our situation ensures that my actions don't subsequently rebound on me. This rarity objection is a form of maxim-fiddling which is meant to get past Kant's Law of Nature formula on the grounds that if others don't and can't discover what I have done they will not subsequently affect me in the way I have affected an other here. This, however, simply fails to view the maxim in question as one that has been put to Kant's test at all since if it had been it would be a public, universally known law and given that it would there would be no way for concealment to take place. Such a publicity criterion is key to the statement of the Law of Nature formula and failure to bear it in mind ensures that Parfit states an objection that simply does not apply.
A different type of objection is made by Parfit to Kant when he states what he terms the "high stakes objection", based on the problem that in some situations acting against another may well be overwhelmingly plausible to me given that failing to do so would have seriously adverse consequences for me. Parfit is right to think that such circumstances are ones in which terrible temptation is placed before people and that frequently they weaken when this is the case. However, whilst this is true, it is still not sufficient to say that the Law of Nature formula does not apply in the case. It still governs the case and that it does is not affected by the difficulties of the person in question. They are still asked to take the universal law into account, however difficult it is for them psychologically to do so. In similar cases, other moral rules of similar scope would be similarly difficult but would not, due to this alone, have to be contravened.
The third and final objection Parfit makes concerns what he calls the "non-reversibility objection" in which we are in a situation with regard to others that is asymmetric. The example Parfit refers to is again the case of the racist who wishes to deny services to others of other races, something that, as Parfit puts it, is universal "in his social world". Parfit seems to assume that because the maxim of such conduct is currently widely "acted upon" that it poses some special challenge to Kant's account and that the better process of response is the one motivated by the extension of imaginative identification. However it is neither the case that some special problem is stated here nor that the case is better dealt with by appeal to imaginative identification. The reason it is not a special problem is that the wide currency of a practice in some given social circle is not the same as its actual universality and nor would even an actual universality be the same as a normative universality. It is the latter which is at issue and it is not defined by processes of exclusion in which others are arbitrarily treated as undeserving of recognition as rational beings. The reason the extension of imaginative identification is not preferable to the appeal to conditions of rational agency is that the required identification may simply be declared too difficult or, even worse, the racist or sexist might simply state that in such cases they would rightly accept their own inferiority. Appeal to universality of agential requirements does not allow such a response.
In conclusion Parfit considers cases of "defences" of Kant which view the Kantian procedure on the pattern of imaginative identification so that it becomes the case that Kant is treated as if he was formulating "a greatly inflated version of the Golden Rule". This is not the point of Kant's procedure as Nagel suggests when he asks us to think we are in everyone else's position or when T.C. Williams asks us to take the standpoint of the impartial observer. Such methodological moves are alien to the spirit and point of the Kantian method which does not require us to be responsive to others' needs on the basis of sympathy. The ground of benevolence is not found there for Kant. It is, rather, found in conditions of agency itself. It is the point of Kant's objection to the "Golden" rule that this ground is not identified by it as what is morally crucial.
Parfit fails to see this is and this failure is the basis of the concluding move of the chapter, a move in which he argues for an assimilation of Kant's procedure with that of Thomas Scanlon. Scanlon, like Kant, asks the question, "what general principles of action could we all will" and this appears to be viewed by Parfit, at the end of this long chapter, as a question like the one that motivated the "Golden" rule on his construal of it. As we have seen it is not the case that the methodology of the "Golden" rule is the same as that of Kant and nor is it the case that what is salient for the one is equivalent to what is salient to the other. So when Parfit concludes the chapter with his formulation of a "Kantian Contractualist Formula" it remains to ask whether contractualism is to be understood by Parfit after the image of imaginative identification that has guided his account of impartiality.
Showing posts with label impartial spectator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label impartial spectator. Show all posts
Saturday, 26 May 2012
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
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:
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.
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.
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Rawls, Classical Utilitarianism and Benevolence
The final section of Chapter III of A Theory of Justice returns to the topic of "classical" utilitarianism in the wake of the argument in the chapter that the utilitarian principle that would be seriously considered in the "original position" would not be the "classical" utilitarian one but rather the notion of "average" utility. The point of returning, at the conclusion of the chapter devoted to the "original position" to consideration of "classical" utilitarianism is to work through the conceptual means by which this view is justified since on the argument of the chapter it cannot have been by means of any kind of contractarian concern.
In indicating the problem of understanding the question of where the "classical" conception of utilitarianism can turn for its justification Rawls invokes the view of the "impartial spectator" used by Hume and Adam Smith. This notion of impartiality shows a commitment to a form of idealisation that is distinct from that involved in the conception of the "original position". The idea in general is that the "impartial spectator" has a general point of view that enables possession of knowledge of the relevant circumstances. The first point, after identifying this notion, is to work out what kinds of consideration the impartial spectator is concerned with and to see how they relate to those at work in the "original position".
The key difference between the impartial spectator and the original position on Rawls' argument is simply that the former's definition includes no assumptions from which the two principles of justice could be derived. Rawls views the basis for this claim to reside in the more restrictive sense of concern that applies to the impartial spectator. The impartial spectator's definition does not include any reference to deductive provision of reasons to adopt principles.
So the first look at the impartial spectator leads to a kind of "empty formalism" objection to its use. However, rather than stopping with this kind of criticism of the device Rawls looks instead at the means by which it can be given more determinate content. One way would be to supply this spectator with a form of moral psychology such as to give them plentiful supplies of sympathy (thus bending the device in a sentimentalist direction). Once this is done the derivation of "classical" utilitarianism can take place. Rawls points to Hume's account of utility as one example of how the link between the impartial spectator and a classical notion of utilitarianism can take place. On the Humean account there can be supposed increases in pleasure in the impartial spectator as the forms of pleasure felt within the social whole increase. So sympathy is here taken to be a principle that provides us with a psychological ground for impartiality.
The impartial spectator thus works through a form of empathetic identification with members of the society. Impartiality works here to weaken self-interest and knowledge of circumstances and a real capacity for identification guarantees that others are genuinely taken into account. Once the device's role is filled out it becomes apparent that it plays the role for the "classical" utilitarian that the "original position" has been designed by Rawls to play for the contractarian. They are hence competing devices. Interestingly, the appeal to the impartial spectator has also been explicitly made in Sen's recent work The Idea of Justice so Sen, in making this appeal, indicates a commitment to the idealising device that was, in Rawls' view, central to the formulation of "classical" utilitarianism.
If the impartial spectator requires sympathetic identification, the original position, by contrast, supposes nothing similar, instead taking the parties to the agreement to be mutually disinterested (as is the case with Adam Smith's market operators). Further, there is no appeal in the original position to either knowledge (which is generally not possessed due to the "veil of ignorance" with certain exceptions in regard to moral psychology) and, given the notion of mutual disinterest, nothing like the idea of sympathetic identification. Thus, in one sense, the moral psychology presupposed in the "original position" appears less generous than that applied to the "impartial spectator" though, in a different way, that allowed in the "original position" is greater due to the determinate notion of "person" allowed within the "original position". Generality is arrived at in the "original position" not by means of sympathy but instead precisely from the need, given the veil of ignorance, to assume it as a vantage point since one has little else to go on.
The determinate sense of personhood involved in the "original position" is in terms of the general meta-commitment each member of the contracting parties has to protection of their interests including the interest in being able to prosecute their own notions of the good. By contrast, the sense of person in the impartial spectator situation is appropriately "bare" with no indication included either of specific interests or of meta-interests. This is the basis, as Rawls now points out, for the charge that utilitarianism abstracts from the separateness of persons. The capacity for sympathy has replaced all specific interests and, in doing so, has robbed from participants any real sense of selfhood at all.
The abstraction from determinate qualities of persons in the impartial spectator device requires the notion of "impersonality" to fill the requirement of impartiality. Rawls views this as conflating all possible desires into a single system of desire. At this point the real reason why the "classical" utilitarian doctrine would not be adopted in the "original position" becomes evident as a consequence of the moral psychology assumed to be applicable to the contracting parties. Only if the contracting parties were assumed, not to be, as they are, disinterested but instead as perfect altruists, would there arise adoption of the classical principle of utility. "Thus we arrive at the unexpected conclusion that while the average principle of utility is the ethic of a single rational individual (with no aversion to risk) who tries to maximise his own prospects, the classical doctrine is the ethic of perfect altruists." Hence the conception of personhood presupposed in the different formulations of the principle of utility is not equivalent in the two cases.
Having brought out the psychological assumptions underpinning the "classical" utilitarian doctrine Rawls next turns to what these assumptions themselves involve. The perfect altruist of the "classical" doctrine is effectively without any specific desires of their own so they are parasitic upon the existence of others who possess such desires. This is presumably why Sidgwick and others have tended to the view that it might well not be best, from a utilitarian point of view, if all are utilitarians. If all were so assumed to be there would be no place at which any view of distribution could be centred. By contrast, the assumption of mutual disinterest in the original position takes it that there are separate interests which are in conflict and thereby works on the assumption that justice is concerned with the reconciliation with such competing interests.
One of the bases of the utilitarian appeal becomes clear from the considerations of this discussion. It is that it presents an intuitive rendering of the sense that moral judgments involve impartiality. But the device of the "original position" presents this appeal to impartiality in a different way by making different psychological assumptions and the assumptions that the original position requires are ones that Rawls can present as more "realistic" than those of the device of the impartial spectator. Rawls indicates that the interpretation of impartiality by utilitarianism is in terms of impersonality and that it is this interpretation that requires abstraction from the separateness of persons.
The possibility opens at this point in Rawls' discussion of a different theory of justice should the impartial spectator device be adopted but not involve conflation of desires into one system. Philanthropy as a principle, however, runs into similar problems as the adoption of benevolence would if it does not assume conflicting desires are present and if such conflicts exist then it follows that philanthropy will become selective and cease to operate as a general principle. The general point that emerges is that the problem with principles based on sympathy, benevolence or love all face the difficulty that they are second-order notions that are parasitic on first-order commitments. This is a new way of endorsing Kant's objection to pathological emotion as a form of ethical generalisation. Kant objected on the grounds of the instability of feeling. Rawls adds to this the point that feelings are, in any event, generally partial in consideration and to adopt an impartial conception of them is to require the continued existence of partiality and this continued existence of partiality is itself a problem for public adoption of sentimental principles. So "nothing would have been gained by attributing benevolence to the parties in the original position".
However, in conclusion, Rawls does allow the contracting parties in the original position to have a "sense of justice", albeit not one that requires commitment to supererogation almost as a matter of course. The principles of justice, once adopted, are indicated by Rawls to later also be the basis of a sense of virtue. This appears to advert again to his earlier notion of "rightness as fairness" though, as usual, Rawls does not work this through at this point.
With the completion of section 30 Chapter III ends and so also does the first part of Theory, the part itself entitled "Theory". The key philosophical role of this part of the work is evident, not least in Chapter III itself. In the "preface" to the original edition Rawls indicated some parts of Chapter IV were also included in the "essentials" of the text but it is apparent that the first part of the book provides most of the "foundations" of the theory. As such, they have also provided some of the most important philosophical points of dispute with Rawls. It will be necessary, however, to press on in future postings to look in more detail at the ways in which the next parts of the book develop in order to see how Rawls goes on to "introduce order and system into our considered judgments" as he puts in the original introduction.
In indicating the problem of understanding the question of where the "classical" conception of utilitarianism can turn for its justification Rawls invokes the view of the "impartial spectator" used by Hume and Adam Smith. This notion of impartiality shows a commitment to a form of idealisation that is distinct from that involved in the conception of the "original position". The idea in general is that the "impartial spectator" has a general point of view that enables possession of knowledge of the relevant circumstances. The first point, after identifying this notion, is to work out what kinds of consideration the impartial spectator is concerned with and to see how they relate to those at work in the "original position".
The key difference between the impartial spectator and the original position on Rawls' argument is simply that the former's definition includes no assumptions from which the two principles of justice could be derived. Rawls views the basis for this claim to reside in the more restrictive sense of concern that applies to the impartial spectator. The impartial spectator's definition does not include any reference to deductive provision of reasons to adopt principles.
So the first look at the impartial spectator leads to a kind of "empty formalism" objection to its use. However, rather than stopping with this kind of criticism of the device Rawls looks instead at the means by which it can be given more determinate content. One way would be to supply this spectator with a form of moral psychology such as to give them plentiful supplies of sympathy (thus bending the device in a sentimentalist direction). Once this is done the derivation of "classical" utilitarianism can take place. Rawls points to Hume's account of utility as one example of how the link between the impartial spectator and a classical notion of utilitarianism can take place. On the Humean account there can be supposed increases in pleasure in the impartial spectator as the forms of pleasure felt within the social whole increase. So sympathy is here taken to be a principle that provides us with a psychological ground for impartiality.
The impartial spectator thus works through a form of empathetic identification with members of the society. Impartiality works here to weaken self-interest and knowledge of circumstances and a real capacity for identification guarantees that others are genuinely taken into account. Once the device's role is filled out it becomes apparent that it plays the role for the "classical" utilitarian that the "original position" has been designed by Rawls to play for the contractarian. They are hence competing devices. Interestingly, the appeal to the impartial spectator has also been explicitly made in Sen's recent work The Idea of Justice so Sen, in making this appeal, indicates a commitment to the idealising device that was, in Rawls' view, central to the formulation of "classical" utilitarianism.
If the impartial spectator requires sympathetic identification, the original position, by contrast, supposes nothing similar, instead taking the parties to the agreement to be mutually disinterested (as is the case with Adam Smith's market operators). Further, there is no appeal in the original position to either knowledge (which is generally not possessed due to the "veil of ignorance" with certain exceptions in regard to moral psychology) and, given the notion of mutual disinterest, nothing like the idea of sympathetic identification. Thus, in one sense, the moral psychology presupposed in the "original position" appears less generous than that applied to the "impartial spectator" though, in a different way, that allowed in the "original position" is greater due to the determinate notion of "person" allowed within the "original position". Generality is arrived at in the "original position" not by means of sympathy but instead precisely from the need, given the veil of ignorance, to assume it as a vantage point since one has little else to go on.
The determinate sense of personhood involved in the "original position" is in terms of the general meta-commitment each member of the contracting parties has to protection of their interests including the interest in being able to prosecute their own notions of the good. By contrast, the sense of person in the impartial spectator situation is appropriately "bare" with no indication included either of specific interests or of meta-interests. This is the basis, as Rawls now points out, for the charge that utilitarianism abstracts from the separateness of persons. The capacity for sympathy has replaced all specific interests and, in doing so, has robbed from participants any real sense of selfhood at all.
The abstraction from determinate qualities of persons in the impartial spectator device requires the notion of "impersonality" to fill the requirement of impartiality. Rawls views this as conflating all possible desires into a single system of desire. At this point the real reason why the "classical" utilitarian doctrine would not be adopted in the "original position" becomes evident as a consequence of the moral psychology assumed to be applicable to the contracting parties. Only if the contracting parties were assumed, not to be, as they are, disinterested but instead as perfect altruists, would there arise adoption of the classical principle of utility. "Thus we arrive at the unexpected conclusion that while the average principle of utility is the ethic of a single rational individual (with no aversion to risk) who tries to maximise his own prospects, the classical doctrine is the ethic of perfect altruists." Hence the conception of personhood presupposed in the different formulations of the principle of utility is not equivalent in the two cases.
Having brought out the psychological assumptions underpinning the "classical" utilitarian doctrine Rawls next turns to what these assumptions themselves involve. The perfect altruist of the "classical" doctrine is effectively without any specific desires of their own so they are parasitic upon the existence of others who possess such desires. This is presumably why Sidgwick and others have tended to the view that it might well not be best, from a utilitarian point of view, if all are utilitarians. If all were so assumed to be there would be no place at which any view of distribution could be centred. By contrast, the assumption of mutual disinterest in the original position takes it that there are separate interests which are in conflict and thereby works on the assumption that justice is concerned with the reconciliation with such competing interests.
One of the bases of the utilitarian appeal becomes clear from the considerations of this discussion. It is that it presents an intuitive rendering of the sense that moral judgments involve impartiality. But the device of the "original position" presents this appeal to impartiality in a different way by making different psychological assumptions and the assumptions that the original position requires are ones that Rawls can present as more "realistic" than those of the device of the impartial spectator. Rawls indicates that the interpretation of impartiality by utilitarianism is in terms of impersonality and that it is this interpretation that requires abstraction from the separateness of persons.
The possibility opens at this point in Rawls' discussion of a different theory of justice should the impartial spectator device be adopted but not involve conflation of desires into one system. Philanthropy as a principle, however, runs into similar problems as the adoption of benevolence would if it does not assume conflicting desires are present and if such conflicts exist then it follows that philanthropy will become selective and cease to operate as a general principle. The general point that emerges is that the problem with principles based on sympathy, benevolence or love all face the difficulty that they are second-order notions that are parasitic on first-order commitments. This is a new way of endorsing Kant's objection to pathological emotion as a form of ethical generalisation. Kant objected on the grounds of the instability of feeling. Rawls adds to this the point that feelings are, in any event, generally partial in consideration and to adopt an impartial conception of them is to require the continued existence of partiality and this continued existence of partiality is itself a problem for public adoption of sentimental principles. So "nothing would have been gained by attributing benevolence to the parties in the original position".
However, in conclusion, Rawls does allow the contracting parties in the original position to have a "sense of justice", albeit not one that requires commitment to supererogation almost as a matter of course. The principles of justice, once adopted, are indicated by Rawls to later also be the basis of a sense of virtue. This appears to advert again to his earlier notion of "rightness as fairness" though, as usual, Rawls does not work this through at this point.
With the completion of section 30 Chapter III ends and so also does the first part of Theory, the part itself entitled "Theory". The key philosophical role of this part of the work is evident, not least in Chapter III itself. In the "preface" to the original edition Rawls indicated some parts of Chapter IV were also included in the "essentials" of the text but it is apparent that the first part of the book provides most of the "foundations" of the theory. As such, they have also provided some of the most important philosophical points of dispute with Rawls. It will be necessary, however, to press on in future postings to look in more detail at the ways in which the next parts of the book develop in order to see how Rawls goes on to "introduce order and system into our considered judgments" as he puts in the original introduction.
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