In my last posting on Rawls I addressed the first half of Chapter VII of A Theory of Justice which focused on the kind of view of practical reason that emerged from it. In this posting, by contrast, I want to look at the second half of Chapter VII where, essentially, Rawls addresses topics concerned with the good for persons, a topic that emerges out of the previous discussion of practical reason.
In section 66, Rawls directly discusses the definition of the good for persons, prior to going on to focus on some excellencies and deficiencies of valuation later and concludes the chapter with some summary differences about the role of the notion of the "good" compared to that of the right. So the unity of the second half of the chapter is clearly focused on filling in the "thin" theory of the good and arriving at a "full" theory of it. At the beginning of section 66 Rawls summarises what has been achieved by the previous half of the chapter as indicating that a person's good involves the successful execution of a rational plan of life. Having arrived at this notion it is now possible to introduce, as Rawls puts it, "further definitions".
The primary goods that have been referred to throughout Theory are now described as goods that it would be rational to want whatever else is wanted and to be presupposed within the original position. They are explained essentially by the "thin" theory of the good and include liberty, opportunity, income, wealth, and self-respect, the latter of which has a special place here. The general theory of goodness as rationality is taken to account for these primary goods as arising from the account of practical reason previously given. However, Rawls now points out that the conception of reason that has guided his account is one that is regarded with some suspicion by some philosophers, particularly on the grounds that it provides only an instrumental conception of value and thus does not suffice to account for the notion of "moral worth", the very notion that Kant is particularly concerned with in Groundwork I.
Rawls' view is that if we apply the thin theory directly to the account of moral worth then we will indeed arrive at only an instrumental conception of goodness but that the thin theory is only meant to provide "part" of the description of the original position. We have, that is, to develop our account of the good in order to arrive at an account of moral worth, moving from the "thin" theory to the "full" theory. The first way of making this move that Rawls identifies is concentration on basic roles and positions, taking the example of the notion of the "citizen". If we identity key elements of what is involved in the notion of the citizen this would be one route to a view of the good person since the good person would be someone who particularly exemplified the role in question. This could be seen by thinking of the reasons other citizens would have to see the good person in this way. Having begun on this track the second logical move is to see the "good person" as representing a general or average assessment so that the idea of a good person can be extended beyond the specific starting point. Finally, there can be seen to be properties that a person occupying particular social roles would be desired to possess generally and then to assess these broad properties as ones that it would be rational to endorseas dispositively to be encouraged.
These three different accounts of how we could arrive at a conception of the good person are considered by Rawls and the third, which Rawls indicates he derived to an extent from Thomas Scanlon, is specifically taken to be valuable. But Rawls confesses that there would be difficulties in filling in this idea of a "good person", so considered. Firstly the point of view from which the properties in question are selected has to be identified. It surely includes, Rawls thinks, a sense of the virtues as classically considered. Representative people in a society will want a fair demonstration of virtuous action as underpinning the right institutions in the right way. However there are also, as Kant would say, "talents" that it is a good idea to encourage the development of although such talents still need to be regulated by a sense of justice in those who possess them. 'Talents' broadly considered are natural assets and have to be distinguished from virtues properly so called.
The "good person" then has moral worth due to possessing, in a higher degree than is normal, features of moral character that it would be rational for all to want to be manifested in action. This provides us with a generic sense of moral worth to be placed alongside the theory of justice and the thin theory of the good. However getting this sense of moral worth is not equivalent to a full theory of the good. Rather such a full theory requires as well a clearer sense of what the good generically consists in and its sub-parts. So Rawls defines "good action" in the general sense as an act "performed for the sake of the other person's good". This account of goodness thus presupposes the general sense of the good as being benevolence perhaps because such guided action is thought of as the most natural way that we leave behind the specific sphere of pursuing our own rational ends and relating to others. Such a conception also has the attraction of making clearer than many others in what supererogation consists, namely, an act "which a person does for the sake of another's good even though the proviso that nullifies the natural duty is satisfied". In other words, a kind of good act that is undertaken at potential cost to our own interests.
A complete sense of "rightness as fairness", the notion that is implicitly supposed here, would require, as Rawls confesses, some view of "reasonable self-interest" as defined from the original position and work outwards from there but this is not here provided. What does arise from the brief generic view of the good that has been given is a set of distinctions that provide a rudimentary theory of vice. So Rawls distinguishes between unjust, bad and evil persons taking the first two to relate themselves to aims that are in themselves legitimate but to use them in an excessive way. Hence the "unjust" person, on this conception, seeks dominion for the sake of wealth and security when wealth and security are, in themselves, legitimate ends. Similarly, the "bad" person is one who wishes for arbitrary power as they have an excessive desire for ends that again are fine in themselves such as the esteem of others and a sense of self-command. So the "unjust" and "bad" persons on this picture are seen in an essentially Aristotelian way as over-stepping the mean in relation to ends. By contrast, the "evil" person delights in the humiliation of others for its own sake, an end that could never be legitimate thus leaving behind real intercourse with others.
Having given this generic account of virtue and vice in section 66 Rawls turns, in section 67, to an analysis of some specific elements of the full theory of the good. The first concentration here is on the primary good of self-respect, a good already referred to as having a specific status that is higher than other primary goods. The conception of goodness as rationality is intended to show why self-respect has such a high status. Two reasons are essentially picked out for this status existing. On the one hand, self-respect underpins any sense of a rational plan of life as worth pursuing. On the other hand, it implies confidence in the ability to carry out such a plan. Hence if rational plans of life are to be nourished at all the primary good of self-respect has to be encouraged and taken, within the original position, as a central value that the basic structure should underpin.
The first of the two parts of self-respect, the sense of plans worth pursuing, is developed by means of ensuring that such plans relate to the Aristotelian Principle and that our person and deeds are confirmed by others and that association with others is grounded in shared esteem. One of the ways the relation of such shared esteem is emphasised in practice is through the development of talents that require intricate appreciation. Anyone who can display talents that do this is more likely thereby to appreciate the achievements of others. As Rawls puts this point:
the conditions for persons respecting themselves and one another would seem to require that their common plans be both rational and complementary: they call upon their educated endowments and arouse in each a sense of mastery, and they fit together into one scheme of activity that all can appreciate and enjoy.
The general problem that could be raised with this would be that such development cannot be one realised across the society. However Rawls understands the condition given here to be met if there are associations within which such appreciations can be developed and which therefore will be supportive of separate types of talents.
There is no general principle of perfection that is taken to be endorsed within the basic structure. Rather such a principle has earlier been rejected as unfitting for such a role and hence the diversity of talents is, by contrast, essential to the way that the plurality of goods is assumed within the society. Having laid out the general sense of self-respect and how it is to be understood Rawls next turns to the relationship between it and both "excellencies" and shame.
Shame is introduced at this point as it is understood by Rawls as the feeling of injury to self-respect. It implies, on this view, a particularly intimate connection to our person and to those who are especially close to us. However this definition of shame is not where Rawls leaves its discussion as he turns to giving an account of the reasons why shame is so understood. In order to do so Rawls develops his account of "excellencies" as shame will subsequently be related to this. Rawls thus distinguishes between goods that are primarily good for the one possessing them on the one hand and goods that are good for others as well as the one possessing them on the other. Exclusive goods that are owned only by certain persons are mainly understood to be belong in the former class whilst "natural assets and abilities" including such things as beauty and intelligence are in the latter class. People join together in appreciation of the latter class of goods and they are what Rawls terms the "excellencies". For the one possessing them they enable a sense of mastery in relation to activities to develop but they are also appreciated and valued by others and are thus, as Rawls puts it, "a condition of human flourishing".
Having outlined this account of the "excellencies" Rawls now returns to his account of shame and describes "natural" shame as arising from failure to exercise or display the excellencies. On these grounds one type of shame is manifested with regard to appearing to others to be lacking in grace or slow in understanding. Even should these qualities not be voluntary they affect self-respect and this is the basis for them producing shame. Rawls thus describes what he calls "natural" shame as based on perceived "blemishes" in the person experiencing it. Such shame relates either to generally valued qualities which we seem deficient in or, more especially, to failures with regard to our adopted rational plans.
However, interesting as Rawls' view of "natural" shame is, it is but a prolegomenon to his description of "moral" shame. This arises from combining the previous account of the "good person" with the account of "natural" shame. Someone is liable to "moral" shame inasmuch as the excellencies they particularly value are moral ones. So actions that betray the absence of the moral attributes so valued produce moral shame and a sense of a diminished self. There are a couple of grounds for this. The first is that the Kantian interpretation of the original position leads us to the view that the desire to do what is right and just is the main way for persons to express their nature and, similarly, from the Aristotelian Principle, it follows that this expression of their nature is a fundamental part of their sense of the good.
Rawls subsequently spends some time distinguishing between shame and guilt but the essential difference for him is that guilt is appropriately felt when someone acts contrary to their sense of right whilst shame indicates a failure of self-command. It is the inability to carry out aims that seem to us worthwhile that is productive of moral shame.
In the final section of Chapter VII Rawls turns to a series of contrasts between the right and the good, contrasts that illuminate the distinct places of these notions within his conception. The first difference is that the principles of the right are what would be chosen in the original position whilst the principles of deliberative rationality that are central to pursuit of the good would not be chosen. There is no necessity for an agreement on the principles of rational choice as each person is free to plan their life as they please assuming that their plans are consistent with the principles of justice. The general desire for the primary goods is assumed and that of self-respect taken to be essential to all but there is no need to assume agreement on all the standards of choice with regard to the good. Secondly, pluralism with regard to the good is taken to be a good thing whilst this is not a good thing with regard to the right. There is no need for a publicly accepted judgment of the good of individuals in the way that there is such a need with regard to the right. Thirdly, applications of the principles of justice are restricted by the veil of ignorance whilst evaluations of the good require full reference to facts. The latter is so as the good relates to talents and talents are developed by individuals in distinct ways that cannot be specified in advance.
In a recent posting I looked at how Parfit discusses the Formula of Humanity's declarations against treating persons merely as a means in his 2002 lectures. Now I want to turn to looking, by contrast, at how Parfit's account of this topic is set out in Climbing the Mountain, the first book-length form of the work that eventually became On What Matters. The material from the 2002 lectures that I have been looking at in recent postings on Parfit is developed in Climbing the Mountain into three chapters, two of which expand on the discussions given first in the first of the 2002 lectures, and the last of which introduces topics that were not part of the first of the 2002 lectures at all. So it will require 3 postings to look in full at the way the treatment of the Formula of Humanity is presented in Climbing the Mountain.
Chapter 5 of Climbing the Mountain replicates and expands the discussion of the element of the Formula of Humanity that concerns treating people merely as a means and opens with material that is essentially the same as in the first 2002 lecture. This includes distinguishing between treating people as a means (meaning just using someone's abilities, activities or body) and treating them "merely" as a means (viewing them purely as an instrument or tool). However, an objection is mentioned from Frances Kamm who took this understanding of treating someone merely as a means to be too weak since, on this account, it would appear sufficient for a slave-holder not to be said to be treating someone merely as a means if he allowed the slaves to rest during the hottest part of the day. Parfit takes this objection seriously though it is far from clear to me why he does since, after all, treating someone as a slave is prima facie to treat them merely as a tool (as Aristotle recognised clearly). After all, if a tool is essential for a task one wants to perform then you don't act in such a way as to break it so the slave-holder in the example is merely a prudent tool-owner, not someone who is failing to treat his slaves merely as a means.
Parfit, however, affects to take Kamm's objection seriously and re-formulates the mere means principle so that it states not just that it is wrong to treat anyone merely as a means but, in his second formulation of the principle, that is wrong to treat anyone merely as a means "or to come close to that" (apparently as a way of responding to Kamm). So the slave-holder only "comes close" to treating someone merely as a means if they are sufficiently considerate to allow them to take time off work during the hottest part of the day. As already indicated I find this concession utterly unnecessary.
After beginning in this confusing way Parfit moves on to a negative claim involving what kinds of concerns would rule out the idea that our treatment of someone was not to be correctly viewed as treating them merely as a means. This restrictive negative construal indicates that we are not treating someone merely as a means if our treatment of them is either a) governed or guided in "sufficiently important ways" by a relevant moral belief or concern or b) we do or would relevantly choose to bear some great burden for this person's sake.
The first of these ways of preventing some treatment of someone as not being subject to the charge that we are viewing them merely as a means is treated with some care by Parfit. So, for example, if a slave-holder doesn't whip his slaves merely because he is aware that this would give him a sadistic pleasure then this does not show that he is not treating the slaves merely as a means, an odd point given Parfit's apparent earlier allowance of Kamm's flawed objection. Part of the point of raising this odd case is, however, to suggest that it is not always obvious if we have a case of the first type at hand (since, apparently, if the slave-holder wasn't whipping the slaves due to some "belief" in their worth that would exculpate him!).
The second way of preventing something being viewed as treating a persons merely as a means does not only involve taking on great burdens for someone else as these burdens also have to have sufficient moral relevance to the acts being considered. The introduction of these qualifiers is meant to sharpen the way Parfit has distinguished between treating a person simply as a means and treating them merely as a means. Treating someone as a means is viewed by him as only referring to our intentions whereas, by contrast, treating someone merely as a means depends not only on this but also on underlying attitudes and policies (akin to how some have viewed the Kantian idea of a "maxim").
After reinforcing this distinction Parfit next points to an ambiguity in the notion of treating someone merely as a means since it could refer either to attitudes or to actions and he views the application of the notion to actions as something that is more difficult. In making this point Parfit introduces the example of the egoist who saves a child from drowning but only with the aim of being rewarded. The point of introducing this example is to state that whilst the attitude here is a wrong one, the action is not. However, understanding the principled basis of this distinction proves complex as becomes clear when Parfit discusses ways of incorporating reference to it in one's general account of the mere means principle. So, incorporating the distinction, in reference to the case of the egoist just considered, might lead us to introducing a third restrictive condition on evaluation of what kinds of things would not merit the charge of treating someone merely as a means.
The way that would go would be to give the formulation that we don't treat someone merely as a means if we know our acts won't harm the person in question. However, as Parfit uses an imaginary case to show, this way of framing an exemption from treating someone as a mere means is pretty problematic since it would seem to allow conduct short of actual harm even though it was motivated entirely by egoistic considerations and included no reference to benefiting someone and that appears odd. So it might well be safer, rather than trying to add this third restrictive condition on the evaluation of the action of the egoist saving the child, to instead regard this action only as one that lacks moral worth.
This leads Parfit next to a third formulation of the mere means principle so it now states that it is wrong to treat anyone merely as a means or to come close to that, if our act will also be likely to cause harm to the person. This is another puzzling feature of Parfit's argumentation, however, since stating that the act of the egoist is one that lacks moral worth is to state something quite different from saying that their action is wrong and yet this amendment is introduced as a way to indicate that treating someone merely as a means is not a distinctively wrong-making manner of treating them and this simply does not follow from his argument.
Parfit next moves to the stage of trying to give a unified treatment of the Formula of Humanity by tying together the mere means principle with the Consent Principle that he earlier located as expressed in the first part of Kant's formula. The restrictions on the application of the mere means principle included reference to conduct governed by a relevant moral belief or principle and the Consent Principle is now taken to be such a principle and hence to play the role of the first way of restricting the application of the Mere Means principle to evaluation.
Parfit next introduces the same "trolley" examples that were given in the 2002 lecture and which I discussed here. As in the 2002 lecture the point of introducing these trolley examples is to argue that the sense of "consent" in the Consent Principle is not actual consent. However, after making this argument, Parfit now adds some additional considerations that were not present in the 2002 lecture. These involve a potential objection to his argument that trades on a different understanding of the mere means principle to that which Parfit himself has given. This different understanding is expressed in what Parfit terms "the standard view" which states: "if we harm people, without their consent, as a means of achieving some aim, we thereby treat these people merely as a means, in a way that makes our act wrong".
Parfit objects to this "standard view" not least because it misidentifies what may be happening in harming people as a means since we may not be treating these particular people as a means and, even if we are, we may not be treating them merely as a means. But, most importantly for Parfit's own discussion, even if we are so treating them, this may not be sufficient for it to be said that we have acted wrongly. So you might harm someone (as in self-defence) without treating them as a means. Secondly, we might treat someone merely as a means on the standard view without evidently having done something wrong as when you cause harm to someone to save someone else (who is not yourself).
Parfit next considers some typical claims that have been made about treating people merely as means as when Onora O'Neill and Christine Korsgaard highlight coercion and deception as treating others merely as a means. However, in response, Parfit points out that if I prevent someone from killing me by giving them a false impression of what I have done or am going to do this seems insufficient for the act in question to be viewed as wrong. Korsgaard also makes a point about free-riding pointing out that wrong actions are often such in that they only work due to the assumption that they won't form a general pattern of behaviour. However, as Parfit points out in a Bad Samaritan case I am not treating someone merely as a means if I walk on by ignoring the injured party so the wrong-making characteristic of this action has not been pulled out by application of the mere means principle (which, thus, cannot be identified simply with the generalised injunction against free-riding).
The point about the Bad Samaritan example, on Parfit's construal, is that the person responded to in the way indicated is treated not as a mere means but rather as a thing (hence not as a person at all). This may well indicate a different kind of wrongness to that of treating someone merely as a means and a much more serious moral failing thus may be involved here (although Parfit does not, having made this point, return to Korsgaard's point about free-riding).
In the conclusion of this chapter of Climbing the Mountain Parfit returns to the distinction between regarding people merely as a means and treating them in this way. Treating someone merely as a means is viewed by Parfit in a very restrictive sense, however, since he regards a gangster who buys a cup of coffee merely because it would be too much trouble to steal it as treating the vendor merely as a means. This is a case, however, of acting in a way that lacks moral worth but it is far from obvious that it means treating someone merely as a means (it may just involve treating them simply as a means). The introduction of this flawed example is meant to pave the way to a further consideration of the third way Parfit formulated the mere means principle and includes a further treatment of harmful means in which harm is regarded as something that ought not to be caused except if it is the least harmful way to achieve an aim and, given the goodness of the aim, the harm caused is not disproportionate.
In considering this amendment to the third mere means principle Parfit points out that we have no obvious guidance for how to consider disproportionate harm. However, whilst this is a fair point, Parfit over-plays it since he takes it that the amendment proposed would rule out even mild forms of harm, something hard to square with the point about proportionality.
Parfit's general aim in the chapter is surprisingly negative. It consists in a general claim to the effect that the mere means principle is insufficient to characterise an action as wrong (though it can define an attitude as wrong). This is in accord with the treatment of the principle that was given in his 2002 lecture but the chapter of Climbing the Mountain works harder to establish this conclusion without, however, being obviously persuasive.
In my last posting on Allison I discussed his initial account of the "good will" in Chapter 3 of his commentary on the Groundwork. In this posting I am moving on to an account of Chapter 4 of the commentary where Allison talks about 2 topics, the Kantian account of maxims on the one hand, and the dispute over the meaning Kant gives to "moral worth", on the other. The latter discussion expands upon some of the remarks about duty with which Chapter 3 closed.
The first part of the discussion in Chapter 4 on maxims opens with an examination of the two definitions Kant gives of the term "maxim" in the Groundwork. Key to these definitions is the view that "maxims" are "subjective" principles. Allison subsequently points that, in the Critique of Practical Reason (Ak. 5: 79), Kant also states that maxims presuppose interests and that interests rest on incentives. Further, in the Critique of Practical Reason, "incentives" are presented as subjective determining grounds of the will whilst an interest is defined there as "an incentive of the will insofar as it is represented by reason" (Ak. 5: 79).
Maxims are ways of thinking and there can be a general orientation of the will that indicates its disposition to adopt maxims of certain sorts. They are the proper objects of moral deliberation and assessment and are related by Allison to a view of how deliberation takes place on a Kantian view. The generic account of deliberation includes a distinction between different forms of consciousness and self-consciousness but the key thing about these is that, in terms of practical deliberation, maxims are part of the spontaneity of an agent. When there is reflexive awareness of maxims then they become taken as guides for action.
Allison distinguishes three functions of maxims. Their first function is in moral deliberation where we examine maxims which requires their explicit formulation. By contrast, in moral assessment, we have to respond to the problem of Kant's account of the opacity of motivation. Allison argues, however, that Kant highlights such opacity only at the level of determination of the purity of motivation. Even spur of the moment decisions are choices made by agents and involve rational commitments. This point leads to the third level of discussion of maxims, which concerns their relationship to rational agency. What is crucial, on Allison's account, is that Kant's theory of rational agency requires that intentional action refer to some maxim even without requiring that there always be complete certainty about the nature of the maxim in question.
After going through the account of maxims, Allison turns to the objections that have been made to Kant's view of moral worth. One of the objections has concerned the relationship between duty and sentiment, in the name of more sentiment-based views. More radically, some argue that emphasis on duty is alienating (as Bernard Williams appears to have thought), a view that refers back to the traditional Schiller objection to the argument of Groundwork I. Allison mentions a number of possible responses to these objections, and, in particular, the more radical of them. The first response referred to is the one that was made by Paton and emphasised the view that Kant is practicing a "method of isolation" in the argument of Groundwork I. This argument has been taken further by Barbara Herman who takes Kant to be making not a general point about inclination but only a specific point concerning the alteration of the attitude of one person (as in the case about the sympathetic person who acts eventually only from duty). However, as Allison states, it is far from obvious that this is a sufficient reply to the Schillerian objection.
The second reply to objections given is the one formulated by Richard Henson and discussed in some detail here. Henson argues for a view he terms the "fitness report" model of moral worth in which the enjoyment of duty does not lessen its moral worth as long as the sense of duty is also present but this view is taken by Henson not to be the representative one given in the Groundwork where, instead, he found there to be a 'battle citation' model given which is essentially close to the argument that Schiller objected to. Not only is this so but, Allison argues, Henson's positive model reflects an empiricist view of agency.
By contrast to these two responses, Allison gives a third one in considerably more detail. This is the view argued for by Allen Wood which distinguishes acting from duty from possession of a "good will". Allison objects to the suggestion that someone with aversion or apathy to moral demands could be said to have a good will though this is in accord with Wood's own statements. However, unlike Wood, Allison stresses the need for self-constraint in following one's duty as there is always some temptation to act contrary to duty. Wood is also accused by Allison of failing to note the difference between taking duty to be a direct motivating factor and seeing it instead as an underlying commitment to do what morality requires. For Allison a maxim's moral content is evidently part of the maxim which leads him to the view that adoption of a good maxim is a reflection of possession of a good character.
Allison's positive view of moral worth appeals to his conception of the "incorporation thesis", a thesis he famously located in a passage from Kant's Religion (Ak. 6: 24). On this view it is not the case that an incentive or desire can of itself provide us with a reason for action as such a reason is only given if the incentive or desire is incorporated into our maxim. Unlike with Henson's conception of overdetermination, Allison's view of the incorporation thesis does not take the will to be determined but it does involve seeing it as having determining grounds. When one adopts a maxim one also incorporates an incentive into one's reasons on this view. So you can act with inclination but from duty. However, as the previous chapter ended without a full enough view of moral worth emerging so this chapter ends without a full enough view of the incorporation thesis emerging and Allison promises to return to giving a fuller account of the latter later in the work.
It's been a little while since my last posting on Henry Allison's book on the Groundwork. In that posting I addressed some of Allison's remarks on Kant's relationship to the previous traditions of moral philosophy. The discussion of that relationship closed the first part of Allison's book and the second part is concentrated entirely on the interpretation of the first part of the Groundwork. The second part consists of three chapters, looking at different aspects of the argument of Groundwork I and in this posting I'm going to look at the first of these, Chapter 3, in which Allison concentrates in particular on Kant's discussion of the good will.
Chapter 3 of Allison's book is devoted entirely to the first thirteen paragraphs of Groundwork I which deal with the topics of the good will, Kant's "teleological" argument and a discussion of acting from duty. Allison's chapter is divided between these topics, beginning with the account of the good will. Kant's account of the good will involves the specific claim that it is the only thing that is good "without limitation" (Ak. 4: 393). Partly this argument is negative, in terms of showing the limitations of other things that might be deemed "good". However, Kant also makes the positive point that the good will possesses the characteristic of having "absolute worth" and Allison follows Allen Wood in taking the "higher worth thesis" to be logically independent of the "good without limitation thesis". To claim that the good will has absolute worth tells one something about the degree of its goodness whilst claiming that it is good without limitation, by contrast, tells one about the kind of goodness it has.
The claim about the good will's absolute character, however, does commit Kant to the view that it is the condition of value of all other goods, according to Allison. This is part of the way Allison makes sense of the distinction Kant makes between what has a "price" and what possesses "dignity" (where the latter is "beyond" all price). In many cases, particularly with regard to pleasure, the claim here is not difficult to see since pleasure is evidently possible with regard to almost anything so in itself it is too indeterminate to hold as a measure of value. This is why Kant talks about being "worthy" of happiness.
However, Allison is careful to point out that despite claiming that the good will is what is good without limitation that this does not entail that the good will is equivalent to the "complete" good. Allison rather identifies the latter with the "highest good" (though, in so doing, he is failing to note some of the distinctions involved in the discussion of the latter in the Critique of Practical Reason). This argument is not, in any case, made explicit in the discussion of the good will in the Groundwork. It is, though, clear enough that a world in which the good will was capable of having effect would be a morally preferable one to one in which it was not so capable.
The possibility of the good will having an effect is also at work in how Allison understands the goodness of the good will since he determines this to consist not in an occurrent condition but rather in possession of a dispositional trait. In making this claim he follows the hints Kant drops that the good will is to be understood in terms of the possession of a certain kind of character. The character involved would be one of a general orientation towards the moral, based on principles rather than sentiment.
Allison's opening account of the good will is followed by an investigation of the four paragraphs of Groundwork I where Kant refers to teleology and which many commentaries have failed to address. Kant's discussion of this is prefaced by the mention that there could be sceptical doubt about the very possibility of the "good will". In addressing these doubts, on Allison's construal, Kant develops a kind of polemical reply to the views of Christian Garve, to the effect that there is some sense in which nature has provided reason to human beings as part of a superior means of self-preservation. On this view there is something prudentially (and, ultimately, eudaemonistically) good in human possession of reason.
Kant replies to this suggestion with some indications of why reason is far from being able to meet this requirement of also providing those possessed with it the advantages suggested. Not only does reason not make it easier to attain ends of self-preservation, it also complicates matters by multiplying the types of ends we strive after. Allison also mentions a relationship of the discussion in Groundwork I to the account of historical teleology Kant gives in his Idea of Universal History. Both the earlier essay and the Groundwork agree that reason is not something that makes mechanical possession of happiness easier but rather something that replaces the ends of instinct with other types of end.
The final part of Allison's account concerns Kant's analysis of acting in accordance with duty. Having a good will is not, on Allison's argument, sufficient for one to act from duty. The discussion of the relationship between acting from duty and moral worth is a controversial matter, however, as some of the recent postings on this blog attest to. Allison analyses five paragraphs of Groundwork I in terms of how they relate to these questions.
Here are included some of Kant's famous examples, including that of the shopkeeper who does the right thing, not because it is right, but purely from prudential interests. Kant also here considers cases of doing the right thing from inclination rather than from duty and Allison points out that there is an important similarity between acting in such a way and acting purely prudentially since, in both cases, the action that accords with duty is not undertaken for its own sake. The difference between them, however, is that those who have a sympathetic disposition that leads them, in some almost immediate sense, to do the right thing, do deserve a kind of moral praise that the merely prudential behaviour does not merit. This does not, however, mean that such behaviour is equivalent to that which has true moral worth, not least because the inclination is quite capable of simply leading to beneficent actions that in fact could even conflict with morality. Kant does, though, still mark an important difference between such attitudes given that he is capable of arguing, as he does in the Doctrine of Virtue, that there is an indirect duty to cultivate sympathetic feelings.
The case of the person who loses their sympathetic inclination and yet nonetheless does the right thing is, by contrast, meant to draw out the true source of moral worth is not resident in the immediacy of sympathetic inclination but rather in a relation to duty. Whilst Allison's view of these examples has a character that is more sympathetic towards them than some others it is also clear that his account is foreshortened and fails to address some of the problems others have raised. Further, the discussion in Chapter 3 is essentially introductory of Allison's response to the argument of Groundwork I and there are two more chapters devoted to its argument. Subsequent postings on Allison's book will look at these later chapters, which will enable a more considered view of Allison's account of moral worth to be evaluated.
In my previous posting I looked at Richard Henson's article on Kant and moral worth and reported the basis of his conclusion that we may not have a duty to perform actions that have moral worth. The point of Henson's argument was to take the sting out of the view, as reported in part of the Groundwork, that there is a sense in which the presence of inclination is apparently sufficient to undermine the moral worth of an action. Henson's argument, whilst ingenious in its way, and certainly influential, has not gone without opposition. In this posting I am going to look at the reply to Henson made by Barbara Herman.
Herman opens her piece by indicating that her sense of Henson's achievement consists in the notion that he has managed to salvage Kant's view by indicating two distinct views of moral worth in Kant's texts and that only one of these requires the view that the presence of inclinations undermines the moral worth of an action. The view that cuts against this conception, on Herman's account, is the fitness-report model of moral worth but this view is not, on Henson's report, the model of moral worth that Kant adopts in the Groundwork. Henson appears to view the Groundwork account as requiring that respect for duty be present if an act is to have moral worth (and this is what he terms a "battle-citation" view). In responding to Henson, Herman's first move is to return to the text of the Groundwork to see if it supports the account that Henson has given.
Henson's interpretation of the Groundwork is based largely on the account of the sympathetic man (or "friend of mankind") mentioned in the first part of the work. This person normally does what is right due to finding an inner satisfaction in doing so. However, in extremis, when overcome by sorrow, he finds a ground for doing the right thing despite no longer having any inclination to do so and now for the first time, as Kant puts it, "his action has its genuine moral worth" (Ak. 4: 398). Henson generalises from this case to the position that there is a basic problem with inclination in the Groundwork which produces his "battle-citation" conception of moral worth.
Herman, however, in returning to the text of the Groundwork, goes back prior to the invocation of this example by Kant in order to look at the wider context of the discussion in the first section of the work within which this example occurs. The first part of the Groundwork is evidently concerned with the conception of the good will and after the concept of duty has introduced "certain subjective limitations" on the good will we arrive at the discussion of moral worth and the examples of acting for the sake of duty. This suggests, says Herman, that moral worth is part of an account of what it is that is involved in the good will. Now, the key to the good will, as appears from its connection to duty, concerns the motive involved in performing a dutiful act. The important thing, however, is that the motivation here considered is one in which acting dutifully means acting for the sake of duty rather than for the sake of something else.
This limitation on dutiful acts is undertaken in order to contrast such a form of motivation from ones in which dutiful acts are undertaken for some other end with the example of a dutiful act undertaken for self-seeking ends (as in the case of the shopkeeper) and due to immediate inclination (in the case of the "friend of man") brought in as contrastive to the action undertaken for the sake of duty alone. In the shopkeeper example it is evident that acting honestly is undertaken instrumentally and hence need not apply in all circumstances. Now this problem with the maxim of the shopkeeper does not obviously apply to the philanthropist who is generally disposed to act in ways that do accord with duty. Whilst the philanthropist has not adopted the right maxim instrumentally, however, it is still true, Kant suggests, that there is only a contingent connection between the ground of their maxims and right action and it lacks, he says, "moral content". In other words, the philanthropist is essentially indifferent to morality.
Looked at in general terms, Herman argues, Kant's discussion of the examples is not intended to give an overall account of moral worth. But what it does do is show us a problem with dutiful actions being performed for motives that are not themselves dutiful. The key point then would not concern inclination ultimately (as it does for Henson) but, instead, an understanding of what is involved in moral motivation which is, for Herman, the claim that a moral motive, to be truly said to exist, has to give the agent adopting it an interest in the rightness of their actions. So the problem with Henson's account of "overdetermination" of motives really concerns whether such motives involve attention being directed to such rightness as, if they do not, their connection to the rightness of actions remains only contingent. To be sure that an action has moral worth we thus need a non-contingent (or necessary) relation between the motive of the agent and the duty that the action would manifest.
Once things are put in this way Herman can move to complicate the details of Henson's original picture which she does by considering two models of her own of moral worth. On the first account the fitness-report model of moral worth that Henson argues is articulated in the Groundwork requires to be understood through a notion of "greater strength". What this involves is that an action would be judged only to have moral worth if the moral motive was sufficiently strong to prevail over other inclinations regardless of whether they cooperation or conflicted with the moral motive. The battle-citation model is only different in the sense that it has here been specified that the moral motive has won out. In other words, on Herman's account, it becomes implausible to view Kant as having adopted different models of moral worth in the Groundwork and the Doctrine of Virtue as Henson argued. However the problem with this first account is that since it really collapses the two views of moral worth into one by upholding the battle-citation model that it seems to require that moral worth be understood as the same as moral virtue.
On the alternative reading Herman requires that the moral motive be the one on which the agent acted and that the configuration of motives be one that is reliable in its outcome. The reliability of outcome seems to be guaranteed not by an appeal to "strength" (which perhaps was still a contingent measure) but by the direct invocation of the moral motive as the ground of the action so that an action with moral worth was produced. The stress here seems to fall on the action rather than the agent as the general structure of the agent's character is what is meant by virtue. The disambiguation that Herman has carried out in distinguishing this second alternative from the first thus consisted in seeing the appeal to the ground of the maxim as crucial to the given action rather than taking it to represent a permanent alteration in the structure of the agent's willing.
Herman's account of dutiful actions thus indicates the nature of the appeal to the moral motive as the assessment of the moral worth of the action undertaken. The motives provide what she calls "limiting conditions" on what we can do for other motives than the moral one. The key is that the moral motive be the effective ground of the action undertaken regardless of the presence or otherwise of other elements. It limits the effective presence of other motivations but is also a ground of appeal when we do act in its own right.
However Herman's picture becomes more complicated when we note that she speaks of duty being a motive in a primary sense in dutiful actions whilst it is only limitative of the presence of other motives in, for example, merely permissible (but not mandatory) actions. So the role of duty is not always expressive in the primary sense as it can simply act as a means of filtering out immoral temptations.
Going back to the "friend of humanity" who was important for Henson's original argument, Herman now presents this person in terms of a change of temperament and the point concerns not the kind of view that Schiller endorsed (and towards which Henson's interpretation inevitably drifts) but rather that this case has broken the person in question from having only a contingent connection between their willing and an action that can be said to be right. In support of this Herman also cites Kant's discussion of suicide in Groundwork I in which it becomes clear that it is not normally morally worthy that we avoid it but it becomes so when we are robbed of the normal reasons inclination provides us with not to wish for it. Inclination alone provides us with nothing that has moral worth as it gives no reason to act morally. So the appeal to being free of inclination in order for an act to have moral worth concerns, as Herman concludes by arguing, a situation of independence from circumstances and it is that which we have when inclination ceases to be the ground on which we act.
I have posted a number of pieces recently concerned with how different commentators have responded to the argument of the first part of the Groundwork, including, most recently, Christine Korsgaard's account of its argument. However, what I have not addressed thus far in the postings given over to this topic, have been the contributions in the secondary literature that have focused specific attention to the topic of "moral worth", something that is worth some detailed attention as the literature on this topic has, in recent years, rather grown. As one of the first pieces devoted specifically to discussing moral worth was by Richard Henson I will, in this piece, seek to retrace the main points of Henson's argument in order that the subsequent responses to it can be given separate consideration in later postings.
Henson's article is meant to focus on the question of what is involved in attribution of "moral worth" to an action given Kant's statements and the statement analysed in particular in Henson's article is in the first section of the Groundwork. It is worth adding, however, that Henson also emphasises the notion that moral motivation can be "overdetermined" as it may involve a mixture of inclinations and determining reasons. In relation to the maxim being taken to be a moral one Henson also points out that it is not sufficient that it pass the universalisation test (although it is necessary that it does so) but failure to carry out the action should also be wrong. However, the key point for Henson doesn't concern duty itself but rather "moral worth" and the suggestion that an act "only" has such worth if it is done from duty. Finally, for the purposes of introduction of Henson's argument, the suggestion that moral worth attaches only to actions done from duty, is taken by him only to feature as an argument in the Groundwork and not to be part of the argument of the Doctrine of Virtue, not least because, in the latter work, we have a distinct class of "duties of virtue" which are simply not performed at all unless done from duty.
The key passage from the Groundwork on which Henson builds so much is the one concerning the "friend to mankind" who has been overcome by some sorrow such that they are no longer capable of possessing an inclination to do a good act but manage to tear themselves "out of this dead insensibility" and perform the required act "without any inclination" and then have performed an act which has "genuine moral worth" (Ak. 4: 398). Having cited this passage Henson questions its import on two levels, asking both (A) what it means to ascribe moral worth to an act and (B) under what circumstances we are to say that someone has acted from duty. The first question concerning the ascription of moral worth is one that is presented as having two possible answers, either (a) that the person at the time of performing the action was in a "fit moral condition" or (b) that the person at the time acted in such a way that we feel they won a significant battle against evil.
The second question (B), by contrast, concerns overdetermination of acts given that it is often the case that one may well have many distinct motives for performing a given act. Henson argues that Kant gives no direct answer to this second question but that he could have given one of three possible answers to it: 1) reverence for duty was present and would be enough without anything further; 2) other inclinations were present and show the act was not done from duty; 3) both could be present but this does not show, in any given case, on which motive the agent was acting. Henson effectively rules out 3) (despite giving it some supporting grounds) in order to argue between 1) and 2) and argues that the example given at Ak 4: 398 tells in favour of 2) and thus to support the view that it is only when one acts without any supporting inclination that one is acting from duty.
Henson does concede, however, that many would be tempted to deny that Kant adopts 2) as the right answer to B) simply because it seems to leave him open to the view of Schiller to the effect that he is endorsing the suggestion that having pleasure in doing duty is itself "wrong", an odd and counter-intuitive result and one that most Kantians have always been concerned to reject.
In order to respond to this putative objection to his account Henson rolls together his responses to A) and B) now in order to articulate what he takes the full Kantian reply to be to the question of what it means to say that a dutiful act has moral worth and he states that the choice is between one of two answers: i) provided respect for duty was present then it doesn't matter whether or not there were other motives; ii) only if respect for duty was the sole motive was there moral worth in the act performed. Now this full response also relates back to the alternative answers given to question A) since the fitness report model (a) would coincide with i) whereas the battle model would require ii).
Now, having stated these points Henson returns to the putative objection from Schiller and points out that it counts as such only if Kant agrees c) that the presence of inclinations defeats the attribution of moral worth and d) it is a moral defect not to perform actions which require moral worth. Both conditions are required for Schiller's response to the Kantian account to be the right one since the failure of c) would ensure that the presence of inclinations had no effect on the award of moral worth to an action whereas the failure of d) would show that it was not necessary to put oneself in positions where it is was required to act from duty. (So there would not be a duty to act from duty.)
Assuming that Henson's earlier argument was accepted it would follow that part of Schiller's condition was fulfilled since c) would hold and the presence of inclinations would have an effect on the award of moral worth to an action but this does not, by itself, entail that d) also has to hold. This means that the battle that could be won in overcoming evil is not one that we would necessarily encourage people to undertake. A reason for adopting this view, according to Henson, is that the argument of the Groundwork does not lead to the conclusion that we have to perform acts that have moral worth (or even, he says, that we "ought" to). The reason for this is that the situation that requires moral worth is not one that we should wish to be placed in and nor is it one that we have a duty to find ourselves in. A supporting argument for this view is the suggestion made at Ak. 4: 428 concerning the wish to be free from inclinations which Henson takes merely to require that we be free of inclinations which would hinder us from performing our duties not of inclinations per se (which takes part of the sting out of Schiller's attack).
The final part of Henson's argument turns on his view of the case in the Doctrine of Virtue since the duties of virtue require, he states, that we adopt the end in question and if we lacked it we would not have performed the said duties at all. On this model it does become the case that it is a moral defect to fail to perform acts having moral worth (d) on Schiller's account but not evidently a problem that there be cooperating inclinations. So neither the Doctrine of Virtue account nor that of the Groundwork satisfies both conditions of Schiller's gibe though each work possesses one of the conditions of meeting it. This does suggest that the works are inconsistent with each other on Henson's view but he argues the reason for this inconsistency is that Kant failed to pay sufficient attention to the question of overdetermination of actions.
Having set Henson's argument out in detail I will, in future postings on moral worth, review some of the responses to it that have appeared in the secondary literature but will link back to this posting when I do so in order that the replies can be evaluated in terms of how well they have depicted Henson's original argument.
