Parfit on Contractualism

Chapter 15 of Parfit's On What Matters concerns contractualism and the first part of his re-working of the third 2002 Tanner Lectures which I treated previously. Contractualism is summarised by Parfit as based principally upon a claim to rational agreement concerning principles all ought to follow. However, whilst this point is relatively uncontroversial, Parfit quickly introduces a methodological reflection on the understanding of such rational agreement that is far from obvious. This is to the effect that the rational agreement in question would be one that produced outcomes that were expectably-best. In focusing on outcomes, and in relating to them in terms of what would be optimal, Parfit assumes that the best test for a contractualist view would be a consequentialist one.

Parfit further makes a second assumption that comes out in his very brief account of, and reply to, the work of David Gauthier. Gauthier's Hobbesian form of contractualism is faulted by Parfit for its basic use of a state of nature device. The real problem with this device, on Parfit's view, is that it concedes ground in advance to the inequality of power that exists between people and hence allows a kind of threat advantage to dictate the terms of the resultant agreement.  This ensures that many "plain duties" as Parfit calls them are effectively flouted. So this second assumption is to the effect that where there appears to be an intuitive understanding of such "plain duties" that this needs to be accounted for on any plausible contractualist view.

Having these assumptions in hand Parfit turns to examining Rawls' form of contractualism though, notably, the way he approaches Rawls is very narrow. Parfit concentrates not on "justice as fairness" but rather only on "rightness as fairness", the general moral view that Rawls refers to a few times but never systematically developed. Part of Parfit's analysis of Rawls also works on the assumption that Rawls is committed to a desire-based view of reason, an assumption that seems to me faulty. It is not that Rawls assumes "desires" to be the basis of reason but that he does take it that there is a "thin theory" of what all people can be said to want which should guide elementary moral psychology.

Parfit looks at different models of the veil of ignorance that Rawls provides and finds fault with the thicker veil that Rawls appeals to. One of the reasons Parfit does this is distinctly odd, however, since he alleges that if there is a good basis for denying knowledge in the original position then such denial should apply as well even to the view that there are inequalities between people (of strength, intelligence, etc) at all. But the extension of the veil in this way has no practical purpose and even foils part of the point in invoking it. This would be the point of ensuring that the result of the procedure of construction of the original position would ensure that the design of the basic structure was most respectful of the worst off. This could not be achieved if we did not assume that there exists such a thing as a group that is worst off. The reason Parfit gets in to this discussion is that he has a prior agenda of bringing Rawls' view as close as possible to utilitarianism and in doing so he continues his methodological move of favouring axiological criteria of morality but this also cuts against the key constraints of the notion of right that Rawls builds into the original position.

These skirmishes with Rawls are still preliminary to Parfit's key discussion in this chapter which concerns what he terms the "Kantian Contractualist Formula", a formula specified as stating that everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will. This formula is evidently intended as a version of Kant's formula of the kingdom of ends. However Parfit cuts this formula off from the general discussions of contractualism in asserting that it is not based on achieving general agreement. It is instead motivated as a formula that is applied by individuals rather than a group so that the results of many over-lapping thought-experiments are meant to point to a generally agreed result. In arguing for this peculiar move Parfit draws on the Rawlsian argument against utilitarianism which alleges that the problem with the latter view is that it enables some to be sacrificed for the sake of the many. Parfit returns to the basic inequality between persons to reject the search for a rational agreement formula using the example of Gauthier to do so though this is again a pretty odd move given that the process of Rawls' original position does not at all model Gautheir's and shows that search for a rational agreement formula need not favour the strongest over the weakest.

More interestingly Parfit argues for a contractualist formula that does not suppose rational agreement is possible on the grounds that if unanimity is able to be achieved through a formula that is not based on presupposing it then it will be all the stronger an agreement. However what is assumed instead of such agreement is shared search by everyone for well-being that replaces the Rawlsian focus on primary goods. 

Parfit proceeds to make two additional moves in the chapter. Firstly he introduces Thomas Scanlon's notion of contractualism according to which everyone should follow the principles that no one can reasonably reject. In introducing this formula however Parfit appears to move away from his earlier recognition of 'plain duties', a recognition that was used against Gauthier. This is done by denying that we should appeal to judgments about what is wrong in applying the contractualist formula and thus removes the ability to appeal to the 'plain duties' that were invoked against Gauthier. Further Scanlon himself states, and Parfit quotes him stating, that the problem with utilitarianism is that it produces results that are starkly at variance with our "widely held convictions", a move that supports the view that there is some ground for thinking that such convictions do affect the evaluation of contractualist formulas and are thus not irrelevant to their application.

In noting this point of Scanlon's Parfit again returns to the principal anti-utilitarian point made by Rawls to the effect that burdens imposed on some just for the benefit of others are prima facie to be rejected. Given judicious use of thought-experiements Parfit moves away from the strict version of this point and tries instead to restrict its application to special cases (such as describe how doctors should treat patients). In so doing the basic force of the principle is weakened. 

Parfit's final move in the chapter concerns his implicit appeal to common sense restrictions on moral principles and these are now justified in terms of the view that contractualist principles are not themselves sufficient to describe wrong-making properties of actions but that they rather state higher-level properties of wrong-making that are intended to include the lower-level properties. This is meant to give us a reason not to include such lower-level properties in the application of the contractualist principle but rather in evaluation of its application. In making this large concession to intuitive views of what is wrong, however, Parfit also ensures that the examples to which he appeals are ones whose evidential force can be established, something of a tall order.

Parfit, Rawls and Deliberative Rationality

The third of Parfit's 2002 Tanner Lectures concentrates specifically on contractualism and eventually becomes Chapters 15 and 16 of On What Matters. The discussion of contractualism in the 2002 lecture is effectively divided, however, into 2 distinct parts, the first of which first derives a reason for discussing Rawls' conception of contractualism and then presents a criticism of the view that it can provide us with a basis for determining the wrongness of acts. The second part of the lecture, by contrast, presents a case instead for what Parfit terms "Kant's contractualist formula", a notion the derivation of which at the close of the second lecture I traced in a previous posting. However the account of Rawls turns out itself to be divided into 2 parts with the first part considering Rawls' conception of rationality and the second his account of the veil of ignorance. In this posting I am going to concentrate only on the account of rationality and in subsequent postings I'll look at the discussion of the veil of ignorance and the account of "Kant's contractualist formula".


Parfit opens the third lecture by defining the basic notion of contractualism as offering an agreement on which moral principles we can accept. As Parfit puts it, this appears to imply what he terms the "Rational Agreement Formula" defined as stating that we ought to act on the principles to whose acceptance it would be rational for everyone to agree. However, notably Parfit immediately assumes a view of rational agreement as involving choices that would be "likely to be best" for those making the choice and whilst in a way that seems alright it does also seem to imply that the process of attaining agreement is defined by axiological criteria, something decidedly not neutral between different conceptions of rationality. Not only does this appear to be the case but Parfit further assumes that the parties coming to the contract are ones that have available to them extensive knowledge concerning their present position as it refers, for example, to different possible scales of understanding of what is best for one should one be rich as opposed to being poor. 


The basic point of the agreement is defined as indicative of a general understanding that the world without an agreement is, in some important way, radically deficient so that there is a basic incentive to reach agreement. Parfit indicates that some theorists see this point about the preferability of the world with the agreement above the world without it as the "essence" of the contractualist position. This assumes that the outcome is to reach a mutually advantageous bargain and thus to view just or right principles as simply those that emerge from such a bargain rightly constructed. Parfit adds to this picture a complication when he points out that, given the assumption of general information being available as to one's present condition, it follows that some have more incentive than others to reach an agreement. Roughly, those who are worst off now are likely to be more desperate for an agreement than those who are currently doing reasonably well for themselves. So the latter might hold out for principles that would secure their special status rather than place it in the melting pot. This picture of the contractualist view is defended by contemporary Hobbesian theorists such as David Gauthier and explicitly repudiated by Rawls. Rawls puts the problem with this view clearly enough when he describes it as dependent on a conception of "each according to his threat advantage".


It is after setting the discussion up in this way that Parfit turns now to assessment of Rawls' version of contractualism. Parfit opens with an account of what he takes Rawls' assumptions concerning rationality to involve. Parfit indicates that Rawls accepts the Deliberative Theory of rationality according to which we ought rationally to do whatever would best achieve what we most want after informed deliberation. However Rawls is clear that he disentangles this conception from any reference to a Self-Interest Theory of rationality. In describing Rawls' view in this way Parfit is drawing on section 86 of A Theory of Justice (part of the final Chapter IX) where Rawls describes "rational choice" as involving the notion of deliberative rationality and as including the sense that it is better to act from the standpoint of justice above all else and even that it is rational to do so. When Rawls brings this point in to his discussion it is part of his description of acquiring a sense of justice that is "truly final and effective" so that justice has precedence over all else and is publicly so understood. However Parfit assumes that the theory of rationality in question with which Rawls is working is one that is, as Parfit puts it, "desire based" as followed also from his earlier account of deliberative rationality as concerned with we "most want" after informed deliberation. This view of Rawls' conception of rationality as based on desires is, I think, quite mistaken.


Rawls refers not to "desires" but to a conception of "primary goods" and he understands the latter to include, for example, such goods as respect and self-esteem, not terms that fit with standard empiricist models of "desire" to which a "desire based" theory belongs. It is not simply a case for Rawls of determining what we "most want" but rather an account of how "primary goods" that everyone is assumed to require can be savoured by all in a setting that guarantees security and justice for each. Rawls draws on a conception of persons as "free and equal rational beings" and devises a contractualist view that is meant to capture and further this sense of what persons are like. The reason why Parfit makes the mistake that he does here appears when he responds to the discussion of the agreement in section 86 of Theory. Parfit quotes this section to support the view that Rawls' theory of rationality is "desire based" as in this section Parfit takes Rawls to make an important admission. The admission, according to Parfit, is that there may be some people who would benefit from injustice and not care about morality and to such people we cannot honestly recommend justice as a virtue.


Now the passage to which Parfit points is one in which Rawls does not state simply the view that Parfit attributes to him. Rather, what Rawls does is mention the conception attributed to him by Parfit as arising from Philippa Foot, not as a conception that he endorses. The people in question that would deny caring about morality would be operating only according to a "thin" theory of the good and Rawls responds to Foot's point by asking whether it is correct to say that in the original position it is only apt to recommend people to act in terms that can be justified by the thin theory of the good alone. Rawls denies that the parties to the agreement are confined by such a condition and thus denies that the parties to the agreement are ones that find those who who don't think morality is a benefit are people who they should accommodate but this does not mean that reasons do not publicly exist as to why such people should nonetheless comply with the agreement that surpasses the thin theory of the good. The people who are denying that they take morality seriously are operating only with a general conception of egoism which Parfit has already acknowledged is not part of deliberative rationality for Rawls. The principles of right and justice are collectively rational and because they are it is in the general interest of all that all should comply with just arrangements. So if there are some who state that they don't find that it is in their nature to act morally then to them Rawls states one can answer both that this does not mean all the same that requirements of deliberative rationality don't apply to them (which provides a rational answer to them) and that "their nature is their misfortune" and not a ground for something being different.


So Rawls simply does not accept that there are some who have reasonable outstanding grounds for refusing to accept the constraints of right and justice and hence he does not rest his view of deliberative rationality on requirements motivated by an empiricist conception of desires. It also follows that there are ends that rationally people should accept for their own sake on Rawls' view, the ends that are expressed in primary goods and which are secured and furthered by recognition of their rational nature. Parfit makes similar mistakes when he assumes that Rawls' recognition of the "impartial spectator" model of rationality is part of a "desire based" view of reasons when, to the contrary, it is part of a problem Rawls has with the way such a model does not include a sufficiently robust view of motivation which is why Rawls writes in section 30 of Theory that: "The impartial spectator definition makes no assumptions from which the principles of right and justice may be derived" and, in this respect, it is quite unlike the contract doctrine that Rawls is defending. Parfit's criticisms of Rawls' general model of rationality are thus quite wrong-headed and seem to turn on the requirement that a conception of rationality that is not "desire based" has to be one that is consequentialist. Rawls' conception, however, is neither desire based nor consequentialist and Parfit has mis-represented it.


Parfit appears to partially recognise that he has not got Rawls' model right when he later argues that Rawls appears at times to make assumptions about well-being, something that Rawls does not do and which appears to be a confused recognition of the theory of primary goods. Parfit next discusses what he terms "Rawls' Formula" which is the formula of the veil of ignorance and the rest of Parfit's discussion of Rawls turns into an account of the veil of ignorance. I'll turn to this discussion in a subsequent posting.

Parfit and Kant on Impartiality (III)

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.

Parfit and Kant on Moral Dilemmas (III)

The published Chapter 13 of On What Matters addresses moral dilemmas as a way of responding to the universalisation tests that Kant uses when motivating consideration of the Law of Nature formula. In relating the universalisation tests to moral dilemmas Parfit is following the precedent set by him in previous drafts of this material.


The basic question that is asked in the universalisation test concerns whether a maxim can be one that can include its own willing in the universalisation of it. Parfit asks, concerning this test, not whether it works, as has been common in the secondary literature on Kant and universalisation, but rather what the alternative to such willing would be. In raising this point Parfit moves the considerations involved in a definite direction since the adoption of a maxim as a universal law is taken to be something we can endorse if the outcome of adopting a different one would be worse than the adoption of this one. So the standard set immediately is an axiological one. Parfit's discussion thus begins with putting the good prior to the right. 


Parfit assumes that the Law of Nature formula works best when it is applied to maxims of which 3 things are true: a) that it would be possible for many people to act on the maxim in question; b) when the effects of such acts will be similar regardless of the number so acting; c) when the effects would be distributed equally between different people. Having made this point Parfit next introduces classic dilemmas from games theory, dilemmas generically described by him as "each-we" coordination problems and which include the group known as prisoners dilemmas. The general structure of these dilemmas is that if each of us does what is best for themselves this will be worse for all of us collectively. There are various ways such dilemmas arise as policy questions, including with regards to public goods that benefit all, including those who do nothing to produce them and with regard to "fisherman's dilemmas" where if we all pursue activities of certain kinds we will collectively deplete the resource we are interested in though for each one of us it appears plausible to act in the specified way.


These general dilemmas tend to be structured on a peculiar model of rational agents where such agents are generically assumed to be personal utility maximisers, an implicit assumption that is not interrogated by Parfit. Parfit does, however, expand the arena of the utility maximisation by discussing how, according to common sense morality, we have special obligations to others and we tend to incorporate these special obligations into our calculations thus meaning that we need not be seen, even on this model, purely as egoistic utility maximisers. In political terms the consideration of treatment of these dilemmas tends to be undertaken through coercive measures that impose heavy costs on non-compliance with activities taken to have wider value than even that of our enlarged sense of self-interest allows. Morally consequentialists take themselves to have ways of addressing the problems of such dilemmas including associated difficulties with free riders.


There is a further class of dilemmas, called by Parfit, "unsolved" dilemmas in which no one is performing in the right way. With regard to such "dilemmas" Kant's universalisation procedure is regarded by Parfit as particularly useful since it prompts attitude adjustment in just the right way. One of the results of this is to lead to all of us seeing that acts that, taken individually, might not be "wrong" may be so in an accumulative sense and this will challenge us and lead to a different valuation being placed on these acts.


However, whilst Parfit introduces the relationship between dilemmas and the universalisation test by showing one way in which the latter can respond to a form of the former, his general attitude in this chapter is not favourable to the practice of universalisation tests as a response to the problems posed by the dilemmas. The reason why Parfit's reaction to universalisation tests takes this negative turn is due to his invocation of what he terms the "threshold objection". This objection basically states that there are thresholds that relate to the effects of actions and this is a salient criteria that should be invoked in terms of actions that we should perform. Given this salient criteria we should not simply invoke universalisation as a blunt tool to tell us what to do since the threshold determines the way our actions will impact on others and it is this that balances simple universalisation.


Having invoked this objection Parfit considers some possible responses Kant might make to it. The first response is to put universalisation tests in hypothetically conditional form. The second is to follow a suggestion of Thomas Pogge and to see the question as requiring us to invoke criteria of moral belief. However what becomes clear in the course of Parfit's discussion is that the threshold objection is really another form of the "mixed maxims" objection that was raised in the previous chapter of On What Matters. And when this becomes clear it also becomes evident that the threshold objection turns on how maxims are understood as did the "mixed maxims" objection. Essentially maxims can either be said to state aims or policies. Policies are adopted in order to realise aims whilst aims are the general thing that policies are guided by. Kant is after a formulation of aims with his universalisation test that will give us a formal way of relating to policies rather than viewing policies as ends we have selected due to some prior commitment to the good. Thus Kant's methodological approach is not akin to that which Parfit follows.


This division can be seen as Parfit moves to reformulate the Law of Nature formula so that it refers to what can be "rationally" willed in "similar circumstances" where the nature of the circumstances appears not just to require a sense of adjustment of policies as Parfit gives us the impression is the case but to affect the way we are to understand appropriate aims. 


One of the ways this becomes apparent is when Parfit motivates the second major objection of this chapter, the so-called "Ideal World Objection". This differs from the "threshold objection" as it concerns not simply the effects produced after tipping points have been reached but also the plausibility of standards derived from ideal theory in a non-ideal world. Here Parfit argues that viewing universalisable maxims as stating ideal willing can produce counterproductive effects as attention to the actions of others doesn't lead me to adjust my own actions. The "coordination" required here is one in which my own willing is governed by what is achievable given the way others are behaving. Again Parfit considers conditional forms of maxims which, however, lead to the production of too permissive results. In response to this point Parfit arrives at the result that we should be aiming not to answer the question expressed as "what if everyone did that" but instead the answer to the question, "what if everyone thought this way". The revision in thought is meant to be governed by the attempt to coordinate action with others rather than to be concerned with universalisation as such.


The general shift away from universalisation tests as a generic procedure of action towards one that concerns how to inculcate the right kinds of moral beliefs is governed by a process of considering right results as "good" ones, i.e., ones in which the best consequences are produced by the following of the right rules. The result is that a kind of rule consequentialism is favoured rather than a Kantian morality. In reply it is worth pointing out that the Kantian question is not asked or considered in its own terms but always evaluated in terms that are alien to its account of the right structure of moral theory.

Parfit and Kant on Maxims and Universal Laws

Chapter 12 of On What Matters mirrors the unpublished account of universal laws that was presented in the 2008 manuscript of the book that I posted about recently. However, whilst Chapter 12 retains the title 'universal laws' which was used in earlier versions of Parfit's treatment, the argument as finally published is more carefully gradually presented as a basis for revising Kant's account in such a way as to remove from it the notion of "maxims". Since Kant's formulas of the categorical imperative consistently refer to "maxims" it is a surprising feature of Parfit's view that the notion of "maxims" is a dispensable one. In this posting I will review Chapter 12 in order to assess the way Parfit here builds a case against taking the notion of 'maxims' to be required in a Kantian moral theory.


As in his previous versions treating this material so also in the published form Parfit opens Chapter 12 considering what he terms the 'impossibility formula' of the categorical imperative. Before doing this, however, he first makes clear his generic view of what Kant takes 'maxims' to be, namely, 'policies and underlying aims'. As we will see, the two notions are far from evidently equally weighed in Parfit's account and play different roles in how he views both different formulas and different examples. As Parfit points out after having introduced the notion of "maxim" it is used by Kant to characterise some apparently divergent things since the "maxim of self-love", for example, is clearly, an "underlying aim" whilst that of making lying promises would appear rather to be a "policy". The first question one might ask, in terms of understanding Kant's account of maxims, would surely be how to relate these uses of "maxim" to each other? 


However it is not obvious that this hermeneutic rule is applied by Parfit when he goes on to consider formulas and examples in Chapter 12. After describing the notion of "maxim' in the way he does Parfit next formulates something that he takes to underlie Kant's application of the test of maxims that is provided in the Formula of Universal Law as an "impossibility formula". This interpretation views FUL as stating that it is wrong to act on any maxim that "could not be a universal law". Now Parfit first expands on this view by dismissing some ways of understanding it that have been proposed before arriving at his own conception of it which is different, according to him, from how Kant himself determines it. The "stated" version of impossibility that he takes Kant to have is repeated as the same impossibility formula with which Parfit begins whilst the "actual" formula Kant uses is argued by Parfit to be different from this. The 'actual' formula is one that Parfit articulates as follows:

It is wrong to act on any maxim of which it is true that, if everyone accepted and acted on this maxim, or everyone believed that it was permissible to act upon it, that would make it impossible for anyone successfully to act upon it. 

Notably the "actual" formula as Parfit states it includes a success condition that is a kind of practical restraint. It is this restraint that, it would appear, is meant to express the "underlying aim" of the impossibility formula so that the notion of impossibility becomes merely a kind of "policy" in using the success condition on Parfit's construal. In fact, however, this is to get things quite backwards as becomes apparent when Parfit applies the "actual" formula to examples.

The application to examples is meant to determine whether the formula as given will be sufficient to provide us with a wrong-making criterion. Various examples are considered to check this beginning with one that states it is alright to kill or injure others if that would benefit us. Now, taking this as a "maxim" is to view it as a form of policy which is, however, itself a specification of the more general "underlying aim" of unrestricted egoism. Parfit here follows Barbara Herman in claiming that the "actual" formula he appeals to would not prevent it from being the case that such an act could succeed. Notably, by having viewed the impossibility formula as really stating something that is measured by "success" in action Parfit has given this maxim passage in a simple way. If, however, the impossibility formula is one that is not measured in terms of "success" but in terms of coherence of universal willing in a world where it stated the law of that world it is not then seen in terms of 'success' primarily at all as 'success' is rather derivative of coherence in willing rather than the other way round as in Parfit's formula.

It is the case that Parfit is far from alone in viewing the "success" notion as the prominent element in the conception of impossibility that Kant is apparently appealing to in his consideration of universal laws. Christine Korsgaard and Barbara Herman view the question of lying in terms of it failing as a practical strategy if it were to be universally adopted as an aim, apparently without considering whether lying is itself not a policy rather than an underlying aim. Parfit himself makes this point indicating that lying usually expresses a principle of unrestricted egoism and that such a principle could not be said to be defeated by the universalisation of lying alone. Whilst that is correct it points to the need to view lying in terms of such a principle and to evaluate the sense of universalisation in terms of underlying aims rather than purely through particular policies.

Similar problems apply to the way Parfit treats other maxims in terms of the 'impossibility' notion as, when he views the maxim 'let no insult pass unavenged' he argues that this maxim, which Kant views as one that is inconsistent with itself, not to be one that must fail of universalisation since it could be universally achieved (albeit at considerable cost to all). Again it is false to view the criteria here as one of "success" since the reason why Kant speaks of it as being a notion that would be "inconsistent with itself' if universalised is not because of an implicit appeal to a simple "success" model of appraisal but rather in terms of a reference to a universal law of nature being applied to the maxim so that it applied to all. Then, given the inevitability of others feeling insulted by something or other one does and that they thus would have every right to reply to this in deadly ways if they were so inclined it would undermine the condition of agency of the one who had such inordinate pride as to state this maxim. This point is simply missed by viewing the 'success' criterion as the point of the reference to impossibility.

Parfit perhaps feels on safer ground in wielding the success criteria when he considers Kant's treatment of lying promises since here Kant indicates that the universalisation of a maxim of lying promises would fail of its intent since no one would in such a case believe promises. However the nature of Parfit's misunderstanding here is of a piece with elsewhere even if the case is one that requires subtler handling. Parfit assumes that Kant's remarks about failure of intent show that he is here using a criteria of "success" as the basis of the evaluation of the maxim and that what Kant is wishing to appeal to (in the manner of a rule consequentialist) is the need to protect certain practices that are in themselves generally valuable.

However the point here is quite different to what Parfit supposes. Promises do involve binding obligatory relations to others which is why Kant treats them as stating forms of contractual relation we have accepted. However the breaking of the promise, viewed as a universal law, is not simply the breaking of a valuable social practice. And nor is Kant's argument meant to simply show the failure in effect of the application of a certain kind of maxim. It is rather to show, as Onora O'Neill puts it, that some maxims involve themselves in a direct self-contradiction when universalised. So the aim to be achieved in the lying promise cannot be achieved when universalised and this is the point of the test, not the protection of the social practice. It is not that the failure of the aim is assessed however as a product of an application of a success condition but that the nature of "success" is shown to depend on lack of universalisation of the aim which is why the policy succeeds when it does. This is different from the case of avenging insults as there the direct aim does not get involved in a direct self-contradiction when universalised but rather is shown wanting because its universalisation would produce a world in which the adoption of the policy of avenging insults would undercut the agency whose pride was being expressed in the aim in question.

Unfortunately Parfit only responds to the problems he espies arising from application of the "success" criteria by refinements upon it, none of which, unsurprisingly, produce an improvement when applied to examples. Given this he concludes with the view that there is no useful sense "in which we could claim it to be wrong to act on maxims that could not even be universal laws", a conclusion which only follows from always viewing the impossibility criterion by connection to a success conception.

In the second part of his discussion Parfit moves away from the impossibility conception to one founded in viewing FUL in terms of the ability to will universal laws. The reference to willing is viewed in terms of consistency and contradiction so aligns with the usual way of understanding the Kantian tests. Parfit also views this discussion as part of a claim concerning the rationality of willing. This more promising direction of analysis leads Parfit next away from FUL towards the actual formula Kant uses in testing maxims in the second part of the Groundwork and in the Critique of Practical Reason, namely the law of nature formula. However Parfit views the Law of Nature formula through the prism of another one of his own devising concerning moral belief. The "moral belief formula" states:

It is wrong for us to act on some maxim unless we could rationally will it to be true that everyone believes that such acts are morally permitted.

As Parfit viewed the application of FUL to cases by means of the "success" criterion so the application of the Law of Nature formula is now seen through the prism of this claim about moral belief. The reason why this move is made is because Parfit wishes to introduce a test that is not equivalent to Kant's. Kant formulated the Law of Nature notion so that we could see what would take place if the specific aim underlying the policy formulated in our maxim were universally enacted and this is quite different from what Parfit goes on to look at. Parfit rules out consideration of "deontic beliefs" on the grounds that admission of them would lead to a "bootstrapping" account of moral reasons. 

In considering the application of the moral belief formula Parfit refers again to how maxims may involve "policies" or aims but having done so fails to apply this distinction in consideration of cases. So the first problem he poses to his own criteria of moral belief concerns a "rarity objection" in terms of how maxims could be so weirdly formulated that they would have no chance of being universally stated. Here it appears that the reasons why anyone would adopt a policy of action, i.e., what their aim would be in doing so, gets completely lost as it often does when people formulate strange cases of maxims. The reason why the rarity objection is thought to hold is that Parfit assumes that it is at least logically possible someone could hold highly specific or particular maxims but in making this point he completely neglects to question what possible aims could be forwarded by doing so.

Having presented but thus failed to adequately justify this "rarity objection" Parfit turns next to a different case which does reach for an understanding of an agent's aim. However having done so Parfit now reveals an inverse problem in his account of maxims to that which has underlaid his discussion up to this point. Up until now the problem has been that in cases where the fundamental question concerned the aim of acting in certain ways he fixated only on the policies that get adopted, now, by contrast, he views policies that are worthy of endorsement as problematic for Kant because they are part of an overall aim that he would not. The case to which Parfit turns here is that of the egoist whose aim is expressed in a general thesis of doing what is best for themselves and Parfit says that it should follow from the application of the moral belief formula that whenever this person acts in accordance with this maxim they are doing something wrong. This is far from following. Kant's generic point about such a person would rather be that some of their actions were morally fine and others not but that none of them possessed true "moral worth", something quite different from saying that they were all "wrong".

To take one of the cases that Parfit formulates in relation to the egoist, it may well be the case that the egoist only pays their taxes because it would be too much trouble to their self-interest to avoid them. This means that their paying of their taxes is not an act expressive of moral worth but it does not mean that the acts involved in paying the taxes are wrong because they conform to the egoistic maxim which is, as a maxim, wrong. 

A different case arises with regard to people with false moral beliefs. It may be that someone sincerely believes that it is better to deny girls education than to provide them with it but that, as one of the consequences of this belief, they expensively fund education for some boys who would otherwise never have had the opportunities in question. Whilst the general belief is a wrong one the acts they are led to perform due to it are not in themselves wrong and nor is it part of a Kantian conception of maxims to relate to them in this way.

Parfit's confusion with regard to these matters leads him to formulate the notion that there are "mixed maxims", a point introduced to argue against the fictitious problem that Kant's view implies that adoption of some types of aims renders all policies in accordance with these aims wrong. This point, as illustrated already, is quite false and thus there is no ground for thinking here of a problem of "mixed maxims" in Parfit's sense. 

Having been misled by his own account Parfit now formulates a revision of Kant's formulas to respond to this non-problem of "mixed maxims". It is right to say, as Parfit does, that a general aim adopted, which itself is one that fails Kantian tests, does not in and of itself invalidate or show to be wrong specific policies endorsed by the agent in question. This does show that the aim alone does not point to the wrongness of what will be done. In many cases an aim does itself directly state something wrong as we noted above when considering the impossibility cases but in others it leads to a policy choice that, whilst in conformity with the wrong aim, is also itself not something "wrong" as it is harmonious with the Law of Nature formula. Parfit, by contrast, thinks that inasmuch as we view "maxims" as policies we shouldn't take them to be relevant at all, something whose falsity I have demonstrated above. Parfit's direction of travel is to consider acts without discussing maxims but doing so ensures that the reasons why acts are performed are not to the forefront and without this the point of the Kantian test (to view the basis of someone acting a certain way) drops out of the picture. Parfit attempts to reply to this by introducing a notion of "moral principle" instead though it should be pointed out that this notion faces the objection that it precisely introduces a deontic notion as was earlier ruled out.

Parfit and Kant on Impartiality (II)

The version of Parfit's account of impartiality that was given in Climbing the Mountain was treated here. In one respect the version that appears in the 2008 version of On What Matters is vulnerable to an objection that was given to the earlier version in a completely unchanged way. This is that Parfit persists in On What Matters in stating the Silver Rule to which Kant states an objection in the Groundwork as if it was equivalent to the Golden Rule, something that he is, it is true, far from alone in doing. Since in the earlier posting I stated at some length the problems I take there to be with this I won't revisit that point here.


The reason why the whole question of the "Golden" Rule is discussed is because of Kant's account of benevolence in the second part of the Groundwork which arises as one of the examples to which the Formula of Universal Law is related. The rule that Kant objects to as a potential alternative to the Formula of Universal Law is rejected by him for three different reasons. Firstly, the rejected rule does not contain the "ground" of duties to oneself, secondly it does not contain the ground of duties "of love" towards others and thirdly it does not contain the ground of "duties" owed to others. The duties of "love" include benevolence and Kant indicates here that the rejected rule does not lead to a duty of benevolence since, on its basis, one can say that one won't help others as one does not require help from them.


The rejected rule is one that Parfit states provides help to others on the basis of the need the others possess and this would be sufficient on its basis to provide an obligatory basis for one helping others. However the rule as Parfit states it is simply that we treat others "as we would want others to treat us" and Kant's point is that if we reject the need for help we can thereby reciprocally deny the need to supply it. This point appears not to be grasped clearly by Parfit. Parfit seems to be arguing, firstly, that the objection misses its target which it does not and secondly that it would apply to FUL which it would not. FUL does not focus on need but on the ground of obligation and the ground of obligation is one that requires universalisation of maxims in accordance with formal rules. These latter do not permit the exemption begged by the one who does not wish to be helped.


Parfit goes on to consider Kant's argument to this effect treating it as a requirement of rationality. When seen this way Parfit appears then to think that the rejected rule would make the same requirement but in doing so he fails to note the reciprocity stated in the rejected rule which is what allows the begged exemption to be stated and which is not involved in FUL in terms of needs. In an attempt to capture some of the force of this idea Parfit restates the rejected rule as follows: "We ought to treat others only in ways in which we would rationally be willing to be treated by others". However this restated form of the rejected rule is one that is then given an objection by Parfit in terms of a different type of begged exemption. Given the reformulation the begged exemption this time does not refer to need but instead is formulated in racist terms with the example being someone who is willing to universally treat those of another race in a way that denies them treatment of a sort that would not be denied to himself. The point that Parfit makes in response is that such a begged exemption misunderstands the reformulated rule which asks us to treat others as we would be treated by them were we in their position.


This additional requirement leads Parfit to restate the rejected rule in a new way: "We ought to treat others only in ways in which we would rationally be willing to be treated, if we were going to be in these other people's positions, and would be relevantly like them".  This point brings in a form of imaginative identification and in so doing is meant to counteract the racist move. Having reached this point Parfit assumes that he has reached a formula that is not subject to Kant's objection that the rule be rejected because it does not supply a basis for duties of "love" towards others and turns instead to Kant's objection that the rule does not cover duties "owed" to others. That objection was stated in a form that was appropriate to a duty of right since Kant stated that we need a formula that does not lead - absurdly - to the situation that a convicted criminal can argue with his judge that the judge would not wish to be imprisoned and thus has no right to imprison others. Parfit concedes that certain kinds of view of the rejected rule would have this result. However the right interpretation of the rule would not have this effect and in making this point Parfit revises the rule again: "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".  This rule is meant to rule out the absurd result but has the effect that the nature of its application is much harder to see.


The judge is apparently to be asked, in response, to commit the act of imaginative identification not merely of the state of the criminal but of those affected by the criminal's acts. Due to this the judge would not be sympathetic to the criminal's plea. Seen this way, however, it would be the case that the rule has to be viewed as much more extensive than the initial formulation suggested and that might well lead us to the view that it is no longer the same rule that Kant objected to. 


The final objection that Kant made to the rejected rule was that it does not disclose the basis of duties to oneself. Parfit first suggests that it is not meant to do this and so this is not an objection to it but concedes that failure to describe such duties might also distort our sense of obligations to others. In order to meet this objection, however, Parfit makes a move that appears questionably consequentialist. It is to reformulate the rejected rule as follows: "We ought to treat everyone as we would rationally be willing to be treated if we were going to be in all of these people's positions, and would be relevantly like them". This response is meant to cover the objection based on duties to oneself by treating oneself, as Mill famously put it, as "one and no more than one" which is precisely the grounds on which Rawls stated that utilitarianism abstracts from the separateness of persons. After all, one is not simply equivalent to others and to treat one in this way is to view obligations as an occasion for maximisation. In fact Parfit does state an awareness of this point but does not attempt to reformulate further the rejected rule in order to meet it.


Rather than do this Parfit looks again at FUL and at Onora O'Neill's view that it is intended to pick out the intuitive idea that we should not treat ourselves as worthy of special treatment. Parfit does specifically mention Rawls' separateness of persons objection and concedes that one person's burdens are not compensated by another's benefits. 


Parfit next considers some objections that can be made against universal impartial principles beginning with the Rarity Objection that applies to actions that would be "too rare" to have significant effects on others. This includes cases in which some might be punished for crimes they have not committed on the maxim "let others be punished for my crimes", a maxim that Parfit thinks could pass the Law of Nature test. In appearing to think this Parfit reveals a lack of understanding of the test since the only way this could be taken to be a rule universally applicable is if one could will it applying universally so that others could likewise state it something that would provide a clear contradiction in the will. Parfit seems to think that this is an insufficient response since he thinks this is only a question of a calculated risk not of a real Law of Nature despite affecting to consider the application of the Law of Nature formula. Parfit thus does not really consider the application of the Law of Nature formula in this case at all.


A different objection that Parfit considers is what he terms the High Stakes Objection where performing some kind of act would be undertaken due to it being the case that not to perform would have unusually high consequences for the one in question. So, for example, unless I steal a particular drug from another who also needs it, I'll die. In such a case there is a particularly strong incentive to perform the act in question and this undercuts the appeal to the Law of Nature formula. In fact although it might well be particularly difficult to follow the advice of the Law of Nature formula here this example does not undercut it since, again, application of the maxim in question as a universal law of nature would also render me vulnerable in the same way and thus still be problematic as a universal law to will.


The next point Parfit makes is that the rejected rule is more direct in its impartiality than is the Law of Nature formula. However it is not obvious this is so. The rejected formula requires an act of imaginative identification which fails to include a real sense of agency in it whereas the Law of Nature formula, by contrast, in making its appeal directly to the conditions of agency, could be said to be more direct in its appeal. If what is meant with the claim of indirectness here is that the Law of Nature formula is less directly about the others affected the point is that it is only the ground of the duty, it is not the duty itself which is to the others directly but not directly about them in ground.


The next objection Parfit states is what he calls the Non-Reversibility one which is meant to say that in some cases there is a lack of symmetry between self and others that the Law of Nature formula does not capture. So: "we may know that, even if everyone did these things to others, no one would do these things to us". However this point views the universality tests as if they are meant to seen in terms of actual effects on us rather than as applying to the world in which we would live through the laws that would apply. Such laws would apply to how others related to us in general even if not in specific terms with regard to a given act. Seen like this I fail to see how a non-reversibility claim can be made. Parfit assumes that the racist case cannot be ruled out on the basis of the Law of Nature formula but this is only because he does not think of the racist formula as one that can be used by all races against each other and that this is what is precisely not being willed by the racist (who is therefore "begging an exemption").


Similarly Parfit rightly points out that in many cases privileged people are acting on maxims that allow them to be privileged in appropriate ways. However the point is one not of whether privilege as such is to be viewed as given but of whether behaviour is to rightly based on the ground of duty expressed in the Law of Nature formula. And this does not allow begging of exemption on the part of groups any more than on the part of individuals. So Parfit's examples of treatments of women or slaves are not counter cases to the Law of Nature as treating other groups as inferior on the basis of certain characteristics is not relating to them as rational beings who themselves have the capacity to state and govern themselves by universal laws. It is here that the wrong of such maxims resides.


Parfit fails to grasp this and thus thinks that a different type of rule to the Law of Nature requirement is needed to address specifically disadvantaged groups. This is why he refers to the kinds of imaginative identification that was involved in his reformulation of the rejected rule. This is taken to be preferable to Kant's insistence on a first-personal reference in the Formula of Universal Law. However the point of such reference is to bring out that it is a question of willing that is at issue and this is not involved as clearly in Parfit's reformulation of the "Golden" Rule. Parfit prefers to the Law of Nature formula a version of Moral Belief that is stated on the grounds of a proposal from Thomas Scanlon as follows: "It is wrong for us to  act on some maxim unless everyone could rationally will it to be true that everyone believes that such acts are morally permitted". This reference to moral belief has the advantage of bringing in a kind of publicity requirement although the way it does it is not notably preferable to the form of publicity involved in mandating laws to hold as laws of nature. Parfit thinks that the formulation from Scanlon addresses the situation of oppressed groups better but I have seen no reason to accept this.


Parfit's argument concludes with a suggestion that the best way of viewing the situation of rational willing is in terms of a further revision that is expressed as the Kantian Contractualist formula as follows: "Everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will". This formula assimilates Kant to Scanlon but leaves open all the questions about the relationship between the two.

Parfit and Kant on Moral Dilemmas (II)

I reviewed the account of moral dilemmas that Parfit poses with regard to universalisation tests in Climbing the Mountain and in this posting I am going to track the parallel treatment that he provided in Chapter 13 of the 2008 version of On What Matters. This chapter is given a title in the 2008 version that is new as it is now headed "what if everyone did that?", a question often used to crudely summarise the basic idea taken to be behind Kant's universalisation tests.


It is interesting to see how Parfit summarises the understanding he has of the question given in the chapter title. It is to the effect that what has to be asked, in testing maxims, is whether we could rationally will it to be true that everyone acts on some given maxim. However it is not merely that this is the translation Parfit gives of the question that appears to be asked when the universal law formula is related to maxims. It is also a question that Parfit considers has to include reference to alternatives. So, it is not just whether everyone could rationally will in a certain way, but a relation of this question to options that the situation includes that would be different. The way this is understood by Parfit is that the acting of everyone in accord with a "bad" maxim could be better than an alternative if the alternative were that everyone apart from ourselves were to act in a different way. This would ensure however, that the way the maxim testing procedure is going to go is through axiological measurement. An alternative to this which Parfit considers and approves of as preferable is that we ask instead whether rational willing of a maxim is better if everyone acts on the maxim in question rather than no one acting on it. But even this is complicated by the question of what other maxims people would act upon rather the one being put to the test.


Parfit argues that the Law of Nature Formula works best when it is applied to maxims of which 3 things are true, namely that it would be possible for many to act on the maxim, that the effects would be similar regardless of the number who so acted and that these effects would be equally distributed. The reason Parfit takes trouble to specify things in this way becomes clear when the topic of moral dilemmas subsequently enters the picture as these dilemmas are understood in a particular way. The dilemmas are taken from cases of game theory in which there exist what are termed "each-we" dilemmas of practical rationality in which "if each rather than none of us does what would be in a certain way better, we would be doing what would be, in this same way, worse".


Now the way these dilemmas are construed is not neutral between different ways the universalisation test could be understood. In these dilemmas there is an implicit assumption which Parfit makes explicit to the effect that what is really at issue are questions of "benefit" or "well-being". This applies to the classic prisoner's dilemmas cases which Parfit understands as "self-benefiting" dilemmas in which the whole question turns on whether self-interest is best served by doing what appears immediately to maximise it or rather by doing what would, should cooperation follow, be best overall. Similar considerations are at issue in "contributors dilemmas" that frame discussions of public goods. Parfit complicates matters in one way by introducing a variant that is not usually mentioned in these contexts. The variant concerns special attachments which are favoured by ordinary common sense morality including those formed between parents and children. These special attachments frame connections that Parfit terms M-relations and there can be "dilemmas" concerning whether we favour people in these relations as opposed to having impartial aims.


The public policy implications of these dilemmas are typically addressed as Parfit indicates by means of coercive measures intended to disincentivise "free-riding" behaviours. However in the moral arena act consequentialists favour direct responses to these dilemmas, albeit ones that have made many uncomfortable. Kantian solutions appear, by contrast, to favour universal responses on the grounds that the converse are not, as Parfit understands it, rationally willable. Kant's tests apply also not simply to "actual" cases (as do solutions to policy dilemmas) but also to possible ones. It is in so doing that they interest Parfit who thinks that Kantian ways of formulating views concerning putative possible dilemmas are capable of challenging the standard intuitions of common sense morality. An example of this concerns the connection of Kant's universalisation test to acts that appear trivial in impact when related to each person's acts but which have a large accumulative effect. So, on grounds of appeal to the Formula of the Law of Nature Parfit takes it there is a duty not to act so that the earth's resources become seriously depleted as this would not be rationally willable.


If Parfit thinks that appeal to the universalisation tests has a good sense with regard to cases where particular acts seem not to be wrong in themselves but only in their accumulative effect he nonetheless has reservations about the appeal to the Formula of the Law of Nature in other areas. In many cases, on Parfit's view, the problem is not picked out by the universalisation test since the wrongness of an act may often depend, on Parfit's conception, on how many people act in a given way. So when a certain number, call it x, acts on a given maxim, the effect of their so acting is neutral but when the number rises above this, it becomes bad. (Note again the axiological measurement procedure appealed to here.) The example given refers to a behaviour manifested by Kant himself and some of the rest of us. This would be not to have children so as to devote oneself to philosophy. If a certain number act on this maxim the result can be beneficial but if the number rises too high the result would be negative. Notice that the suggestion here of how to assess the maxim assumes, however, that the existence of people is something that can be calculated in terms of its goodness or badness, something that is not at all obvious to Kantians.


The objection that is put here is one that Parfit terms a "Threshold Objection" and Thomas Pogge is mentioned now as someone who thinks that a response to this objection would require us to move away from the Law of Nature Formula to considerations based on moral belief. This would mean not assessing the maxim given in terms of acts but instead in terms of what is believed concerning acts. Parfit is far from convinced that this response is a good one since Pogge's response appears to involve us endorsing beliefs that would, in regard to the acts, specify something untrue of them. Pogge also appeals to conditionality considerations which suggest that acts are endorsed only given certain conditions. This does involve Pogge giving concession however to the implicit consequentialism of the discussion.


In considering this claim about conditionality Parfit looks at a different kind of example such as what is at work in someone acting on the "maxim" that they should become a dentist. Clearly not everyone could become one but there is conditionality built into this maxim since the aim of becoming a dentist refers, at least implicitly to the understanding that this is a stable way of making a living. But, if this kind of case is handled well by reference to moral beliefs of the sort appealed to by Pogge, there are exceptions to it. Not only is this so but, on Parfit's demanding account, we have to consider not just maxims that anyone would endorse but any that someone conceivably "could" endorse. This involves conjuring up a figure familiar from the writings of R.M. Hare, the figure of the moral "fanatic". Such a figure adopts maxims unconditionally and hence is not dealt with by the type of move Pogge has made.


When we reach this level of account however, it appears that the type of objection that is really at work in "threshold cases" is not really a new objection after all as the figure of the fanatic makes clear that what is being considered are cases of "mixed maxims", maxims that it would be sometimes but not always wrong to act upon. And when it becomes clear that the cases in question are really of this type Parfit alters the account he gives of the way that Kantians could respond. Now Parfit suggests that "maxims" should not be considered as referring to general "policies" but instead to morally relevant descriptions of what people are doing. This leads to a revised version of the Law of Nature Formula being given: "We act wrongly unless we are doing something that we could rationally will everyone to do, in similar circumstances, if they can".


The reference to similar circumstances is supposed to cover even the case of the moral fanatic and their unconditional endorsement of maxims. Having introduced the variant of the Law of Nature Formula intended to address the renewed "mixed maxims" objection Parfit next considers a different type of objection. On this objection it would be the case that if enough people act in a certain way, these acts would have good effects but when fewer people act in this way the effects would or might be very bad. Here we have a kind of "reverse threshold" since it is the case that it is the number dropping below x that produces the problem. A case said to indicate the problem is real is that of the maxim, "never use violence" which, according to some, is one that Kant's tests should lead us to endorse but which clear cases (like those prevailing in the 1930's) count against. Game theoretic considerations of similar sort are also again wheeled on here by Parfit. The point of this reverse threshold objection is to motivate the general complaint, attributed to Christine Korsgaard, that Kant provides only standards of conduct that apply to ideal states of affairs and not to actual ones in which they might have disastrous results.


Parfit considers conditional statements of maxims again in order to show that it need not follow that maxims are endorsed that fail to take any account of what others are doing. This enables, for example, a much clearer statement of response to violent acts which allows response to the violence of others should that be manifested. Given that conditionality of maxim formation allows a response to the "ideal world objection" it is not so clear that this can be sustained. However, rather than this being the case, it could instead be true, as Parfit considers, that unrestricted retaliation to violence could be rationally willed. Since this would only be in response to actual violence undergone Parfit assumes that this type of maxim could be, mistakenly, endorsed by Kant's test though it is not at all clear to me why Parfit thinks this. If the onus passes from being unreasonably restrictive to being unreasonably permissive there still appears to be a way of thinking about thresholds that creates a problem (at least according to Parfit). These problems do often afflict rule consequentialism, as Parfit indicates. On the basis of consideration of this reverse threshold objection Parfit revises further the Law of Nature Formula so that it becomes: "It is wrong for us to act on some maxim unless we could rationally will it to be true that this maxim be acted on by everyone, and by any other number of people, rather than by no one".


This revised maxim builds in consideration of the numbers of others that act according to the maxim given. The advantage of this, on Parfit's view, is that many more maxims are now condemned so that Kant's test does not become unreasonably permissive. This revision is one that Parfit assumes further enables it to be the case that moral beliefs that can be endorsed by most are thereby capable of being pursued.