The previous Rawls posting closed the discussion of Chapter VII of A Theory of Justice and in this one I am going to open the account of Chapter VIII. The title of Chapter VIII is "The Sense of Justice" and this notion does indeed get explicated, in at least a preliminary fashion, in this chapter. However, in the paragraph introducing the chapter Rawls introduces a change in focus here when compared with the last chapter and states, in the process, that Chapter VIII is to be understood as the first stage of discussion of "the problem of stability", by contrast to the account of the "good" given in Chapter VII. Before looking in detail at the first section of Chapter VIII it is first worth spending a bit of time with the notion of its relationship to the previous and subsequent chapters.
The shift announced from a concern with the "good" to that of "stability" is one that hides the continuity between Chapters VII and VIII. Just as Chapter VII concluded with an account of the good for persons that included a rudimentary theory of virtue and vice, so also the first few sections of Chapter VIII concerns different levels of moral development, including thereby a description of moral sentiments. Indeed, the basic subject of Chapter VIII is nothing else than a general account of moral psychology. Given that this is so, there is rather less of a shift in focus from Chapter VII to Chapter VIII than Rawls' introductory remarks to the latter suggest. In fact, within Chapter VII it was stated that it concerned the good for persons and that later Rawls would look at social goods. This does mark the difference between the discussion in Chapter VII and that in Chapter IX. Chapter VIII presents, by contrast, an intermediate level of consideration which is meant to show how the good for persons is best viewed as embedded within a social sense of the good.
If Rawls' contrast between the foci of Chapters VII and VIII is, to an extent, misleading, however, there is still some sense in viewing Chapter VIII as providing considerations of a sort that Chapter VII did not include. What is fundamentally at issue in Chapter VIII is a preparation for the concluding chapter in which the congruence of the sense of justice with the sense of our own good is laid out and this was only hinted at in Chapter VII whereas Chapter VIII consistently indicates a concern with this question.
The first section of Chapter VIII concerns the concept of a well-ordered society (WOS). This conception was first described at the very beginning of Theory where it was determined as a society "designed to advance the good of its members and effectively regulated by a public conception of justice", a determination repeated here. Having restated this notion Rawls next spends some time expounding not, initially at least, on the idea of the "good" of the members of the society but, instead, on the sense of a "public conception of justice" (my italics). The key point about this is that "everyone accepts and knows that the others accept the same principles of justice". This public point is subsequently stressed as essential to justice as fairness. This occurs through first a discussion of the original position and then an account of the WOS. The original position is framed in such a way that the principles chosen are assumed to be ones that can be publicly justified and this is part of the way that the probable effects of adopting principles of justice is assessed there. Any conceptions of justice that depend on esoteric elites holding back knowledge are rejected on principle and the conception of justice adopted is one that is assumed can be based on generally available knowledge concerning people and their place in society, a consideration that has importance in subsequent sections of Chapter VIII.
If the original position is thus constrained by reference to publicity conditions it follows that the conception of the WOS will have to fulfil the conditions that were specified during the course of deliberation in the original position. Hence the members of the WOS will have the desire to act in accordance with the principles of justice given that these principles will be known to regulate the conduct of all within it. It is after specifying the sense of public adherence to the principles of justice as a central feature of the WOS that Rawls turns, for the first time in this chapter, to considering the idea of stability. A conception of justice is more stable if "the sense of justice that it tends to generate is stronger and more likely to override disruptive inclinations and if the institutions it allows foster weaker impulses and inclinations to act unjustly". In presenting the test for the stability of conceptions of justice in this way Rawls presents what are, effectively, two different tests. On the one hand a conception of justice is more stable if it has a resilient psychological appeal whilst on the other hand it is stable if, by following it, we are led to construct institutions that, in their elementary functioning, discourage unjust inclinations. The first of these tests of stability is one that can be assessed by means of moral psychology, the second, by contrast, requires a conception of social institutions. This marks the real difference between Chapters VIII and IX as Chapter VIII addresses the stability test in relation to moral psychology, whilst the discussion of congruence in Chapter IX, by contrast, is meant to outline the way in which the good of persons can be connected to a view of social institutions.
The stability tests thus require to be built into the original position just as it was regulated by requirements of publicity. The need for such a test in relation to moral psychology is evident in the sense that, without such a test having been ventured, there are no grounds for considering the anthropological realism of the conception offered. So the concluding chapters of Theory are meant to provide a basis for the claim that justice as fairness is a more stable conception of justice than others on offer. This is so despite Rawls admitting here that the criterion of stability is not alone decisive. What is meant in stating this is that it is possible for a view of justice to be advanced which takes little notice of the criterion of stability and Rawls interprets Bentham's utilitarianism in this way. However, even should this interpretation of Bentham be correct what it would show would only be that such a doctrine was a limit case with regard to conceptions of justice since the majority of such conceptions adjust themselves in more or less explicit ways to some features of what is taken to be humanly sustainable. The stability criterion is effectively meant to show how a conception of justice would in practice generate its own support and in Chapter VIII this test is applied by virtue of a general theory of moral sentiments being provided.
Within the first section of Chapter VIII Rawls describes the notion of stability as part of a theory of systems, systems that have reached equilibrium. In so doing Rawls draws upon some views developed within economics that are specified in the following way:
Three things are essential: first, to identify the system and to distinguish between internal and external forces; second, to define the states of the system, a state being a certain configuration of its determining characteristics; and third, to specify the laws connecting the states.
On this conception a system is in stable equilibrium when departures from it call into play forces that will tend to bring it back to its initial state. This function will be general assuming the shocks are within reasonable boundaries. Equilibriums are unstable whenever shocks force great changes within the internal operation of the system. The ability to adjust well to such shocks should be manifested within a time frame that is one that those within the system are able to bear though this notion is naturally left vague.
As far as Rawls is concerned the system in question is the basic structure of the society, a "complex", as he terms it, of political, economic and social institutions. In assessing the relative stability of conceptions of these the operative assumption throughout Theory is that of a generally self-contained national community, which is clearly a simplifying assumption. It does not imply that there is no change in the institutions but that any change within them is governed by continuous reference back to the conceptions of justice that is meant to govern their operation. One of the things taken to assure this is the development of moral sentiments that support the conceptions of justice.
Having arrived at this picture Rawls pauses to consider theories of moral sentiments and refers to two general traditions with regard to them. On the one hand there is the empiricist theory that has guided utilitarianism and which Rawls takes to also be reflected in the form of social psychology known as "social learning theory". A major contention of this theory is that the point of moral training is to supply what are termed "missing motives". What is taken to be missing is any original disposition towards principled right action. Given that this is missing it is the task of society to encourage such dispositions artificially. This is done by use of authority to mark approval and disapproval of conduct and to do this by means of rewards and punishments in order to produce a general sense of right and wrong. This view can be seen to be a kind of Pavlovian social conditioning view of moral sentiments. It is backed up by the sense that it is necessary to acquire moral sentiments at a stage prior to being able to understand them. Rawls thus views psychoanalytic conceptions of social learning to be a variant on the general empiricist tradition.
By contrast to this tradition the other view, which Rawls terms "rationalist" is associated by him with Rousseau, Kant, Mill and Piaget in which the development of innate capacities is encouraged. Taken in the generic sense in which Rawls pictures it this latter tradition is viewed as assuming natural sympathy exists between persons which provides an affective basis for the moral sentiments. Mill hence speaks of acceptable principles of reciprocity and tendencies to sociality. Such a model does not primarily stress external authority for social norms or the acquisition of new motives but rather the development of capacities already present towards their appropriate maturation.
Whilst it might have been expected that Rawls would view the latter position as more congenial with justice as fairness than the former he rather states that he assumes that there is much sound in both traditions and that he will try to combine them in what he terms a "natural" way. The subsequent next three sections of Theory aim to do this through an ideal picture of moral development within a WOS.
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 the latest issue of The New York Review of Books there is a review of On What Matters by Samuel Freeman. Since I have previously covered reviews of the work by Simon Blackburn and Philip Kitcher it seems only right to provide a general summary and response also to this one by Freeman.
Freeman's review opens with comments aimed at the general reader concerning the philosophical attempt to explain the purposes of common sense moral rules and to resolve moral dilemmas. Freeman refers to Kant almost immediately afterwards mentioning both the unconditional character of moral demands on Kant's conception and the Formula of Humanity. The argument of the first part of the Groundwork is implicitly referred to when Freeman mentions the view that the categorical imperative "justifies" our common sense duties to one another and also provides a "more fine-grained method of reasoning" concerning what we ought to do. Following Parfit's own startling conjunction of names in the "Preface" to On What Matters Freeman moves from Kant to Sidgwick and the latter's argument in The Methods of Ethics that it is the principle of utility that truly "justifies" common sense morality. The move from Kant to Sidgwick also allows Freeman, however, to refer to the Rawlsian challenge to the dominance that the utilitarian tradition had, until recently, in the area of social theory.
The introduction of the account of utilitarianism into Freeman's narrative also allows him to mention that the method of ethical appraisal promoted by this school is really a specific form of the general notion of consequentialism and that many consequentialists today have abandoned a simple commitment to hedonism and do not necessarily view utility as the best way of assessing consequences. After mentioning the shift within moral theory from utilitarianism to consequentialism Freeman fills out his picture of the general state of contemporary moral reflection by mentioning Thomas Scanlon's notion of "contractualism", a much more recent theory than Kantian and consequentialist ones. Scanlon is presented by Freeman as someone who modified the Rawslian view so that it was applied not to the theory of justice but instead to personal duties or duties towards others. Not only is this the basis of contractualism according to Freeman but this view is related by him to the Kantian one in terms of recognising the equal status of persons as integral to moral reasoning and, in making this emphasis so significant, as ensuring that these accounts stand together against consequentialism.
As Freeman mentions in a footnote, the three theories of Kantianism, consequentialism and contractualism are the centre of Parfit's book and are related together by him as the key traditions that have to be brought together, a point that ensures that virtue theory is simply left without consideration by Parfit. Parfit intends overall to articulate what he terms a "Triple Theory" that will combine optimific considerations with Kantian and contractualist ones thus producing what Parfit calls a "Kantian rule consequentialism". This argument for a "Triple Theory" of normative ethics is combined by Parfit with a general account of moral reasons that is aimed at showing their objectivity with the arguments in favour of this claim being the centre of the first and the sixth parts of the book. The latter claim is specifically presented by Parfit in response to subjectivist views of reasons and in riposte to a claimed nihilism with regard to values said to characterise much contemporary theorising about morals.
Parfit's attack on subjectivism is rightly presented by Freeman as mainly consisting in responses to the "Humean" theory of reasons that understands reasons primarily through the prism of desires. In response to such a claim Parfit insists on an account of objective reasons based on a view of intentional objectivity but the nature of the specific theory Parfit here elaborates and the problems with it are not considered by Freeman who simply presents it as laudable that Parfit attacks relativistic subjectivism without discussing whether such an attack is, as stated, either too blunt or unconvincing. This is a peculiar weakness in Freeman's review and is likely connected to a dialectical strategy of refuting the "Triple Theory" but upholding the significance of Parfit's book in terms of the defence of "objectivity" in morals. One of the reasons why Freeman may have taken this tack is due to the prevalence of forms of the "Humean" theory in contemporary economics and the need to challenge such a model as applied there.
Freeman looks at Parfit's treatment of the Formula of Humanity and chides Parfit for considering it in separation from Kant's general moral theory. However there are further significant problems both in terms of how Freeman views Parfit's discussion of the Formula of Humanity and with how Freeman understands the place of the Formula of Humanity in Kant's own theory. With regard to Parfit's treatment Freeman stresses the way that the discussion of the "mere means" requirement appears to be favoured by Parfit above other considerations though this point is here not well made given that Parfit considers another point to flow from the Formula of Humanity than this. Parfit also stresses a notion of "rational consent" that he articulates as the basis of the first part of the Formula and, whilst Freeman may not find this a persuasive reading of the Formula it is remiss of him to simply present Parfit as viewing the Formula only through the "mere means" requirement. It is true that Parfit does not view the Formula in terms of a "respect requirement" but Parfit does provide arguments for not viewing the "respect requirement" as really providing further normative guidance and this requires to be discussed and answered.
Freeman indicates some awareness of the "respect requirement" but moves rather quickly from referring to it to an account of some themes from Kant's philosophy of right including the "innate right to freedom" and the notion of independence from being constrained by another's choice. Since these themes belong not in Kant's general moral theory but to the account of right it is not at all clear why they are referred to by Freeman and it is not remiss of Parfit to have failed to engage with them when formulating his notion of a Kantian consequentialism. It is correct to argue that the Formula of Humanity appears to include a constraint on action in terms of describing something one should not act against but Freeman fails to bring this point out and generic reference to the notion of "individual rights" is insufficient to make clear the specific problem with Parfit's view of the Formula of Humanity.
Parfit is, in any case, as Freeman recognises, more concerned with Kant's discussion of universal law than with the Formula of Humanity. The discussion of universal law is interpreted by Parfit in accord with a principle taken from Thomas Scanlon so that it becomes understood as prescribing the requirement that everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will. This notion of a "Kantian Contractualism" is one that requires viewing the notion of universal law in terms that are not derived from Kant himself but Freeman emphasises more the application of the principles that follow for Parfit. Freeman terms Parfit's application "peculiar" and part of what is thus peculiar is the way the combination of Kant with Scanlon is meant to underpin rule consequentialism. Parfit requires us to see the reference to what makes things go best as grounded on some kind of formal rule process built into an understanding of rational willing. This has the result, as Freeman puts it, that "morality is then a kind of efficiency in promoting universal good".
Once we have a concentration of this optimific sort ethics clearly becomes axiological and this is part of what Freeman rightly regards as controversial in Parfit's view. Kant and Scanlon are generally taken to have provided moral views that are not consequentialist (although there are other varieties of "Kantian consequentialism" such as the one articulated by David Cummiskey). In making the move of bringing Kant and Scanlon into alliance with consequentialism Parfit follows the method inaugurated by Sidgwick who made a similar move the centre of The Methods of Ethics. Freeman suggests that this move on Parfit's part will have particular effect for Kantians since he claims that: "Parfit's consequentialist interpretation of the categorical imperative will stimulate philosophers for years to come".
Despite making the suggestion that Parfit's reading of Kant is one that is likely to be philosophically significant Freeman rejects quite central aspects of Parfit's methodology. One of the elements of Parfit's work that provoked Simon Blackburn's ire was the insistent use of Trolley problems in the work and Freeman joins with Blackburn in finding recourse to them problematic. One of the reasons Freeman gives for rejecting the use of Trolley problems is that such problems can be varied with resultant differences of appraisal. Freeman also cites Susan Wolf's reply printed in the second volume of On What Matters in which she claims that there is "no single principle" underlying our moral intuitions in Trolley type cases. In citing Wolf (and also Allen Wood) in opposition to the use of these cases, however, Freeman seems simply content to state their objections to Parfit's procedure without considering the extensive replies Parfit includes to interlocutors, something which certainly seems rather odd. Freeman also seems to rest content with claiming that if Trolley problems really are of little use in moral philosophy that this in itself undermines Parfit's 'Triple Theory' thereby implying that there are no substantive arguments given by Parfit with regard to the formulation of the 'Triple Theory' that are separable from the use of Trolley Problems and this contention, as put, seems a rather strong reading of the recourse to Trolley Problems.
Freeman's overall evaluation is strongly negative since he argues that Parfit does not address the questions as to why we should view morality axiologically or provide us with a view of what the ultimate good is that we are to optimise. However, the first point is stronger than Freeman himself ultimately puts it since he recognises a strain in Parfit's work that derives from Sidgwick and is based on the notion of a general impersonality. It may be, as Freeman says, a kind of "refined philosophical sensibility" that prefers this concentration to one on personal affairs of the sort provided by Scanlon but it is the basis of a ground for axiological conceptions of morality. In so being it is, as Freeman rightly stresses, somewhat out of key with Kantian and Scanlonian views of morality and this cuts against the sense that the basis of the three views Parfit treats can easily be reconciled. However in considering why Parfit takes it that there is an ultimate ground of unity between the views Freeman retreats again to the assertion that Parfit's argument substantively depends on an inductive generalisation from the consideration of Trolley problems and this argument is one I think over-states the importance of the Trolley problems Parfit considers.
It is a separate problem and a better point to argue that Parfit is never specific about the general good that is to be optimised though it seems to me that part of the basis of this general good is to be found in the view of objective reasons that Parfit defends and which Freeman fails to challenge. Freeman concludes his review with a statement to the effect that Sidgwick's syncretic project has been brought to a point by Parfit that ensures it has a greater range than even Sidgwick would have thought possible. Whilst this might be true the grounds of the difficulty with the 'Triple Theory' cannot simply reside within normative ethics alone but must also be grounded on the account of the "objectivity" of ethics that Parfit articulates, an account that Parfit himself presents as importantly in tension with the kind of Rawlsian view that Freeman himself defends and to which therefore Freeman should have taken time to respond in his review.
In my last posting on Parfit I looked at Chapter 9 of Climbing the Mountain, the first manuscript-length version of what has recently been published as On What Matters. In this posting I'm going to look at Chapter 10 of Climbing the Mountain where Parfit addresses the notion of impartiality, including, thereby, the relationship between the Formula of Universal Law and the "Golden Rule".
This chapter opens with a description of Kant's view of beneficence indicating that the duty to beneficence is conceived of by Kant as a duty we owe to others on the grounds that we expect such conduct from others towards ourselves. This way of capturing the duty of beneficence leads Parfit to invoke the "Golden Rule" of the Gospels, famously formulated as do unto others as you would they did unto you. Kant is generally taken to have rejected this rule, a rejection based on citation of a footnote in the Groundwork:
"Let it not be thought that the trivial quod tibia non vis fiery etc. can serve as the benchmark or principle here. For it is, though with various limitations, just derived from the latter; it can be no universal law, for it does not contain the ground of duties to oneself, not of duties of love to others (for many a man would gladly agree that others should not benefit him if only he might be exempt from showing them beneficence), finally not of owed duties to one another; for the criminal would argue on this ground against the judges who punish him, and so on." (Ak. 4: 430n)
A few points are worth making about this citation, the first of which is that Kant does not here cite, as Parfit supposes, the Golden Rule but, rather, the so-called "Silver" Rule, which is a negative formulation to the effect, do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you. This point is significant since the problems listed with the Silver Rule by Kant may well not transfer simply to the Golden Rule and, arguing on this basis, it has been suggested by some, that Kant therefore did not mean any direct criticism of the Golden Rule at all.
Kant introduces the cited footnote just after discussing the false promising maxim in relation to the Formula of Humanity, hence, not in connection with the Formula of Universal Law at all. So, when Kant claims that the Silver Rule is "just derived" from the latter, he presumably means by "the latter" the reference to consideration of the ends that are contained in the person of others. The subsequent point is that the Silver Rule is not a "universal" law which, given its negative formulation, is not that surprising a point. It will only operate to forbid conduct, not to promote it and when Kant goes on to the consideration of the third example in relation to the Formula of Humanity (to do with cultivation of talents) he introduces precisely considerations for thinking that there is a positive as well as a negative sense to this formula, thereby demarcating it from the Silver Rule. Kant next amplifies the point about the lack of universality of the Silver Rule pointing out that it is not possible to arrive at the "ground" of a number of duties from it. This argument repeats the point about the essentially negative character of the Silver Rule as it is expansive duties that cannot be arrived at on its basis including duties to oneself and duties of love. Both these kinds of duties are explored not in the Groundwork but in the Doctrine of Virtue where duties of love cover duties with regard to beneficence, gratitude and sympathy so the point clearly again is that such duties cannot be derived from a purely negative formula such as the Silver Rule. Similarly, with duties towards others generally, the Silver Rule is open to the kinds of problems Kant lists with regard to both maxims of indifference and the conduct of the criminal towards the judge.
Unfortunately Parfit conflates the actual rule Kant cites and distances himself from (the Silver Rule) with the rule from the Gospels (the Golden Rule) that Kant does not give and does not discuss. This is a shame, not least since, as the Golden Rule is stated in a positive form, it is not as evidently open to the same riposte Kant sets out against the Silver Rule. Parfit in fact goes further than pursuing the case Kant sets out against the Silver Rule as if it were an argument against the Golden Rule, he also turns Kant's case against another formula that was not at issue for Kant in the citation given, namely, the Formula of Universal Law. Textually problematic as this is Parfit opens with an account of the maxim of indifference and states that if people wish to be helped then they should also wish to help others. Having put the point this way as a case that the Golden Rule can enable to be stated against the maxim of indifference, Parfit argues that the maxim of indifference could be formulated in accord with the Formula of Universal Law although it cannot accord with the Golden Rule. This claim is problematic on a number of levels, not least that Kant at no point relates the Formula of Universal Law to duties but only refers the Formula of the Law of Nature to them. Not only is this so but the maxim of indifference is specifically rejected when related to the Formula of the Law of Nature on the grounds that it could not be "willed" to hold everywhere as a law of nature (the contradiction in the will test). This point is part of showing that the Law of Nature formula has two dimensions and that one of these involves a sense of consistency of willing, not merely of conception.
Parfit does note that Kant discusses this riposte of contradiction in willing but rejects it as inadequate on the grounds that it involves people wanting to be helped whereas it is possible that there could be people who never want to be helped and that with regard to them the reference to universal law will be insufficient. There are further problems with these remarks including the point that wishing to be helped is not an optional extra in human life even though there are situations in which some may be convinced they will never require help. As such the discussion involved in Kant's account of beneficence with regard to universal law includes a sense of what it is that has to apply to finite rational beings due to the nature of their finitude.
Parfit again recognises this point and formulates a response with regard to what he terms "rational" willing. Having recognised it he proceeds to reformulate the Golden Rule in such a way that it includes a similar recognition as appears in Kant's discussion of universal laws. This reformulation on Parfit's part renders it as follows: "We ought to treat others in ways in which, if we had the choice and were rational, we would choose that others treat us". This formulation is condensed further into a reference to what we would rationally choose. Having reformulated the Golden Rule in this way Parfit has significantly altered its scope and understanding. This is furthered when he extends application of the new rule not just to the "actual world" but also to imaginary cases.
Having reformulated and extended the Golden Rule in the ways indicated Parfit next considers cases that might be thought to present difficulties for it including one in which a racist claims to be applying the Golden Rule when refusing admission to his hotel to anyone not of his race. This can be done if the racist assumes only that the rule applies simply to those of different races and not to any of his own race and thus endorses such treatment as applicable universally given that his own race is always in the favourable position. In response Parfit claims that the racist in question has misunderstood the Golden Rule since the rule requires that one relate to others as if one might be in their position. So application of the Golden Rule requires imagining changes not just in other things but also, potentially, in ourselves so that we were as the others we treat now are. This gives the third formulation of the "Golden Rule" that Parfit has: "We ought to treat others only in ways in which we would rationally choose that we ourselves be treated, if we were going to be in these other people's positions, and if we would also be relevantly like them".
This conception of the Golden Rule involves a form of imaginative identification and in so doing is well on the way to being something like an impartial spectator model of moral reasoning. It is clear, however, that the reasoning and the model has reached a point very far removed from the formulation of the Silver Rule Kant criticised in the Groundwork.
Returning to the Groundwork text Parfit refers to the example of the criminal arguing with the judge concerning punishment that Kant gives towards the conclusion of the footnote discussing the Silver Rule. Parfit suggests that the rule Kant is here rejecting is more like a rule that states we ought to treat each other person "only in ways in which we would choose that we ourselves be treated if we were going to be in this person's position". This formulation, the one Parfit imagines Kant to be actually reading into the Silver Rule is like the third formula of the Golden Rule that Parfit has given in the sense that it involves a form of imaginative identification. It however does not include the sense of rational willing that Parfit has built into his third formula of the Golden Rule. Parfit indicates that the kind of identification he takes Kant to be involved in the rule he objects to is one that it is, indeed, right to reject. The reason Parfit rejects it, however, is that it implies a kind of egoistic position. In response Parfit gives another kind of formulation of the Golden Rule that cites it as stating that we "ought to treat other people as we would rationally choose that we be treated if we were going to be in the positions of all of these people, and would be relevantly like them". This extension of the process of imaginative identification clearly makes it impersonal since, if we are to be asked to think of what it would be like to be in the positions of "all" of them then no particular characteristics can be at issue (unlike in the earlier formula where Parfit was precisely building in particular characteristics to forestall the racist move).
The readings of the Golden Rule that involve the kinds of imaginative identification Parfit has in mind are formulated to prevent the kind of appeal the criminal is imagined to be capable of making working on Kant's conception of the Silver Rule. Parfit does, however, simply now adopt the impersonal reading of the Golden Rule and appears just to drop his earlier interpretation of imaginative identification. This is meant to show that punishment is quite capable of being morally justified.
Parfit next considers the objection Kant makes to the effect that the Silver Rule provides no basis for duties towards oneself and recognises that failure to do this will ensure that others appear always to have priority over oneself, something that is implausible. Given this point Parfit further refines the Golden Rule to meet this point and arrives at another formulation of it. This formulation states: "We ought to treat everyone as we would rationally choose that we be treated if we were going to be in all of these people's positions, and would be relevantly like them". This point is meant to indicate that we are part of the "everyone" in question though, notably, it abstracts from the separateness of persons in precisely the manner Rawls famously objected to utilitarianism for doing.
Parfit next returns to comparing the "Golden Rule" in the formula in which he has now arrived at with the Formula of Universal Law and points out that both involve appeals to claims about what it would be rational for people to choose and include the basic egalitarian point that everyone matters equally (though the way the latter point is recognised in Parfit's "Golden Rule" is quite different from how it is recognised in the Formula of Humanity). The difference between them that Parfit registers concerns the manner in which thought experiments are conducted. The "Golden Rule" is meant to address the question, on Parfit's view, "what if that was done to me" rather than, as he takes to be required on Kant's Formula of Universal Law, "what if everyone did that"?
Parfit takes the use of Kant's Law of Nature Formula to require reference to different possible worlds and to apply the laws in question as if they were ones everyone followed in these worlds. This differs from another kind of test Parfit attributes to Kant in which we ask what would happen if everyone had certain kinds of moral beliefs. Parfit next invokes the notion of an ideal impartial observer who is not involved in any events and judges as it were from the standpoint of the "universe" (as Sidgwick puts it in The Methods of Ethics) and he contrasts this with the "Consent Principle" that he previously formulated as the first part of the Formula of Humanity.
Parfit confesses, however, that the "Golden Rule" in his account of it faces the objection that it might lead us to ignore the fact that, in the "actual" world, ideal redistributions of benefits and burdens could produce irretrievable losses for some that, at least for them, are not compensated and that this matters when we are considering distributive justice. Due to recognition of this point Parfit thinks that the "Golden Rule" is, as he puts it, "theoretically" inferior to the Impartial Observer Formula and to the "Consent Principle" he earlier stated as the first part of the Formula of Humanity. The point Parfit should here have noted however is that the "Golden Rule" is not the only one of these principles open to this objection and, if it were, it would be not "theoretically" but "practically" inferior to the other formulas.
Parfit next considers some questions that he thinks create difficulties for Kant's discussion of universal laws. The first point considered here is that wrong-doing often involves acts that can only be rarely performed, a point Parfit formulates as the "Rarity Objection" and which is given an example in the case of someone who is willing to let another be punished for a crime that they committed. The question that is asked with regard to this person is whether their maxim falls foul of the Law of Nature Formula. Parfit suggests that the universalisation of the maxim of the person in question is plausible though, in making this point, he does nothing to test the maxim with regard to the criterion Kant uses in the Groundwork in terms of types of contradiction. In failing to refer to the tests in question Parfit simply pre-judges his case against the Formula of the Law of Nature. Similarly Parfit considers an egoistic maxim here and imagines a case where we have an egoist who could live in a world of other egoists, thereby ignoring the points made about this case when Kant discusses consistency of willing.
A much better case is made by Parfit when he moves from the discussion of rarity to one of "high stakes" and imagines cases where the perceived benefit of maxims for those considering them is very great compared to the alternatives. Such cases do show a ground for action in which it is hard to imagine people being persuaded to act in terms of what would be best overall given their own good is so great to them at the time but they do not count against a formal process in which abstraction from questions of the good is required. So again Parfit builds into his case assumptions that do not allow considerations of Kant's point.
The next objection Parfit considers is that the Law of Nature Formula is insufficiently impartial or not impartial in the "right way" unlike the "Golden Rule". The reason for this claimed difference is that Kant's rule does not build in a specific reference to the actor in question. Kant does, however, fail to do this for a specifically good reason that Parfit recognises which is to abstract away from the consideration that the egoist wishes to hold to. However Parfit suggests that this abstraction fails to recognise a key problem, that he terms "non-reversibility" where it is possible that we do to others something that no one is able to do to us in the same way (for whatever reason). This is, in fact, a problem much like the earlier racist suggestion Parfit considered and shows still that the case is being considered continuously in relation to material benefits that are not relevant to Kant's formula with conditions that do not allow for universality of application so, once again, beg the question against Kant's formula.
Parfit seems to think this "non-reversibility" claim is an important one simply due to the realities that something like it may well be involved in many cases of social injustice. So, for example, if men believe rape of women justified this may be because they are not women and not capable of being treated in the same way. However, even should such beliefs be actually held in such situations they are simply not relevant to the consideration of Kant's formula since, in holding to such beliefs the actors in question are not subjecting themselves to the standards of universality Kant is stating.
Parfit considers a response of this sort to his cases of "non-reversibility" but does so through Thomas Nagel's suggestion of a form of imaginative identification much like the one Parfit himself earlier built into the "Golden Rule". In responding to this point Parfit cites the response Kant made to the maxim of indifference in which Kant pointed to the contradiction in the will as being to do with what it would state about the one who formulated this maxim in a world governed by it. This point is taken by Parfit to indicate an illicit partiality in the formula rather than a consideration of the cases of all as in his own "Golden Rule". However the point surely is that cases of "non-reversibility" do not require the introduction of imaginative identification of the sort Parfit has invoked any more than Kant thought of such as involved in the response to the maxim of indifference. It was rather a question of reaching the maxim in question and formulating it as a universal rule that did the trick. Similarly, assuming something like a principle of "non-reversibility" is at work in much wrong-doing let's articulate its general assumption as something like the following: "I will take advantage of the ways in which others are differently vulnerable to myself in order to have mastery over them" and then think of its universal application. Are there are any cases in which this could not be applied to the disadvantage of the one formulating the maxim? It is enough to ask the question to point to the answer.
Parfit does not consider a response like the one I have given but he does mention Rawls' "veil of ignorance" notion only to suggest that Kant does not include reference to anything like it but, in so doing, he fails to discuss the ways in which Rawls interpreted Kant's typic of universal law in order to show considerations of the "veil of ignorance" type were at work there, thus, once again, he merely assumes his point. Similarly, Parfit considers Thomas Scanlon's interpretation which produces an account of universality that asks us to consider what everyone could rationally will only in order to rebut it by mentioning that Kant does not explicitly state things this way which is no answer to Scanlon.
Parfit subsequently proposes to revise Kant's formulations in order to meet his notion of "non-reversibility" which is done by importing considerations of the sort Scanlon was concerned with when he referred to what everyone could rationally will. Having done so Parfit concludes the chapter with what he terms is the "Kantian Contractualist Formula" and which is stated as: "Everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will". Such a formula assimilates Kant to Scanlon.
One of the most recent books published in the series Renewing Philosophy that I am the general editor of for Palgrave Macmillan is this book by Beth Lord. The book provides an innovative take on Kant's engagements with different kinds of "Spinozism" and it has been reviewed over at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. The review outlines a generic context into which the book needs to be fitted and makes evident some of the commitments with regard to Kant that this requires. Beth has also recently been interviewed over at New APPS, a fact that makes further manifest the degree of influence on contemporary European philosophy her book is having.
In my last posting on Rawls I looked at the account of the "thin" theory of the good with which Chapter VII of A Theory of Justice opens. In this posting, by contrast, I'm going to set out to provide a summary of the work in sections 63-5 of Theory where, effectively, Rawls provides a general description of practical reason. By saying this is a general description of practical reason I don't mean to suggest that it is any more, though, than a structure of deliberation that fits something like the overall task of indicating how end-oriented rationality is to be seen. Thus it is far from equivalent to a Kantian picture of pure practical reason, providing something more like a prolegomena of ground that would have been covered if Kant had described in sufficient detail how hypothetical imperatives work.
Rawls opens section 63 by stating that he has, up to this point in the chapter, only discussed the first stages of the definition of good in which no questions were asked as yet about the rationality of the ends taken as given. However we do often inquire into the rationality of ends (equated here with 'desires') and this is necessary if the account of the good is to be fit for the theory of justice. In making these claims Rawls draws explicitly on the American Idealist thinker Josiah Royce and his view of a person. Royce is said by Rawls to treat persons as human lives ordered according to a plan. When the plan is a "good" one then the person's conception of his good is rational.
Two conditions for this conception of a rational plan of life are next added, to the effect that such a plan has to be consistent with the principles of rational choice applied to the relevant features of the person's situation and their plan has to be chosen with "full deliberative rationality", a notion left vague in section 63 but the subject-matter of section 64. Finally, a person's interests and aims are rational "if and only if" they are to encouraged and provided for by the plan rational to that person. Before discussing the principles of rational choice Rawls first expands upon the conception of a rational plan. Plans vary for individuals in relation to endowments and circumstances, involve provision over time and include a notion of postponement as one of the elements of rational choice. In a general sense a plan is something like a "hierarchy" of sub-plans involving often implicit commitments in terms of prioritisation. A plan incorporates some sense of the primary goods and a sense of scheduling.
After setting out this generic picture of a "plan" Rawls turns next to principles of rational choice (though, with the notion of postponement, he has already stated one). The first principle is that of "effective means" which holds that we are to adopt the alternative, assuming there are alternatives available for realising a given end, which realises it in the "best" way. Otherwise put, with the "least expenditure of means". The second principle is that one plan is to be preferred to another if its execution would achieve all of the desired aims of the other plan and one or more aims in addition. This is a principle Rawls terms that of "inclusiveness". The third principle is that of the "greater likelihood" which favours a plan that makes it probable that ends will be realised whilst other aims are not less likely to be attained. These first three principles apply most obviously to short-term plans.
Rawls now moves on to long-term plans including the longest term plan of all, what one should do with one's life. The principle of inclusiveness has application also with regard to this as do the others already listed. The discussion of the principle of inclusiveness with regard to long-term plans is, however, more complex than that of the others since future desires and orientations are not evident to us now. This is why Rawls mentions here for the first time the notion of the Aristotelian Principle to which he devotes the whole of section 65 but which here is simply specified as saying that we have a higher-order desire to follow the principle of inclusiveness. A more comprehensive plan involves more complex combination of abilities and the Aristotelian Principle is that "other things being equal, human beings enjoy the exercise of their realised capacities", an enjoyment that increases the more the capacity is realised. This shows why we enjoy an activity the more proficient we become at it.
The three principles first given are what Rawls terms "counting principles" and alone they are insufficient, he adds, to order plans. This is one reason why there is appeal often made to principles of maximisation as a way of definitely solving such a problem of ordering. In contrast to such an appeal Rawls next follows Henry Sidgwick in developing an idea of deliberative rationality. On this view: "An individual's good is the hypothetical composition of impulsive forces that results from deliberative reflection meeting certain conditions". So a rational plan is one that would be picked out following principles of rational deliberation when the agent reviewed what it would be like to realise these plans.
The situation in which this conception is laid out is, however, highly idealised since it assumes that the best plan for an individual would be one adopted in the light of full information, something which is never given. So the agent has to make do with the information that is given and is fallible. The process of such deliberation is governed also by the formal rule that specifies its range of operation when Rawls adds that reflection should continue up to the point that benefits from improving the plan come to be out-weighed by the costs of further deliberation. Further Rawls builds in a "realistic" assumption to the effect that different individuals will value the process of deliberation in different degrees.
One of the points involved in such deliberation is consideration of the genesis of wants since this often teaches us which desires are most strongly felt. The principle of postponement also counsels us to leave our options open in cases where this is possible. A further principle that affects deliberation is that of continuity in the sense that the plan is one we take to have a unity over time. Similarly we are to assume the advantages of rising expectations with regard to the plan as time advances. This latter point assumes that a characteristic of a rational plan is that it is not discarded subsequently. This leads Rawls to the view that: "the guiding principle [is] that a rational individual is always to act so that he need never blame himself no matter how his plans finally work out". This is described later as a principle of responsibility to self.The principle of responsibility to self is subsequently described by Rawls as resembling a principle of right. It applies in the original position so that the parties involved in it would not accept a conception of justice that would surely later lead to self-reproach.
Section 65 concerns the "Aristotelian Principle" but Rawls opens this section with a discussion of what he terms some "general facts". These include the broad features of desires and needs as affected by physiological and other circumstances, such as maturation, growth and social interdependency. Goods include such things as friendship and meaningful work and they involve social interdependency as achieving them often requires contributions from others.
The Aristotelian Principle is added to these points as indicative of a sense of enjoyment that is involved in exercising our faculties and that, of two activities we do equally well, the one that draws on a larger repertoire of activities is preferred. The Aristotelian Principle thus includes a form of the principle of inclusiveness but it is also an important principle of motivation. It also includes recognition of the shift that occurs over time as increasing complexity is favoured in objects of attention. Learning, for example, which is often difficult, is nonetheless accompanied by satisfaction as tasks are met. There is an upper limit of difficulty and an equilibrium state is one where the effort and the satisfaction balance one another.
Rawls describes the Aristotelian Principle as a "natural fact" and concludes from this that it is rational to realise and train mature capacities. It states, however, only a tendency and not an invariable principle of choice but place has to be left in the design of social institutions for its operation. It is indeterminate in terms of the specific activities any one may prefer but shows that people, as they concentrate on an activity tend to become more proficient with regard to it and take pleasure in this increasing proficiency. But it is not the case that all activities are related to in similar ways which is why routine is favoured for simpler activities.
Rawls also terms the Aristotelian Principle a "deep psychological fact" that is part of the background that regulates considered judgments of value. It is also a principle that Rawls assumes connects to the primary good of self-respect.
It's a little while since I last blogged about the role of the "good will" in the first part of Kant's Groundwork, the subject of which has provoked quite different responses from Richard Henson and Barbara Herman. However, Tom Sorell in a piece published in this collection, has offered a reply to both their pieces that articulates an interestingly different view of the good will and in this posting I'm going to summarise and partially amplify his general argument.
As with the other pieces reflecting on the use Kant makes of the notion of the "good will", so also in Sorell's case the principal question concerning it is to do with the view of "moral worth" Kant is canvassing in Groundwork I. Is it Kant's claim that moral worth owes nothing to benevolent feelings or, as we more colloquially might put it, to our "good nature"? This appears to be Kant's claim and it is, I venture to suggest, a quite radical view in some respects though, and this is the interest of Sorell's piece, it might nonetheless be a view that is founded on moral intuition (or "common sense" claims about morality). If the latter can be justified then it might turn out that the implications of ordinary morality are not entirely equivalent to how we often represent them to ourselves.
The first reason that Kant (and Sorell) provide for the claim that there is a lack of equivalence between the notion of the "good will" and the general idea of "good dispositions" is to the effect that there is only an "accidental" correlation between these notions. This claim appears to run up against the intuitive suggestion that someone who acts, for example, in a spontaneously kindly way, is more morally attractive than someone who rather has to deliberate to arrive at the right act to perform. It was due to the apparent conflict between the Kantian view and the alleged intuitive appeal of the spontaneous character that Henson and Herman presented rival accounts of the "good will". Henson distinguished the account given in the Groundwork (which he termed a "battle citation" model) from that given in the Metaphysics of Morals (which was a "fitness model") suggesting that whilst the former presents rightness in terms of conflicts of motives that the latter, rather, instead simply takes duty to be one motive amongst others so long as it could have brought about the right action on its own. Herman, by contrast, doubted that there really were two models of right action in Kant.
Whilst Sorell intends to reply to the dispute between Henson and Herman he also indicates his view of what is going on with the "good will" in Kant will turn out to provide us with a "simpler" view of how "good will" is to be understood. Henson raised the question of whether a right act can be backed by both moral and non-moral motives, a question that can also be framed as one concerned with the "overdetermination" of right action. However, neither Henson nor Herman take Kant to have himself offered a view on overdetermination and Sorell disagrees with them both on this point. It is clearly stated in the general introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals that juridical legislation "admits another motive than the idea of duty itself" and, indeed, the motive that therefore leads me not to commit an act that is contrary to duty may itself have no moral worth (in Kant's claimed equivalence of moral worth with actions that follow from possession of a "good will"). Kant also has a very complicated picture of promising which is presented as implying a juridical duty even though often it is not susceptible to external coercive enforcement. The latter point is used by Sorell to show that Kant does consider the case of overdetermination.
The reason to take promise keeping as so overdetermined is that the thought of duty alone is sufficient, on Kant's account, to lead one to act so as to fulfil this command even though it is also often a command that can be enforced coercively (which latter gives us an incentive to act rightly). When something is represented as a duty subjectively then it is also taken to be something we should, of necessity, do. As Kant puts this point, there are different "modes" of obligation involved here. However, inasmuch as what we are interested in is merely ethics alone, there is no ground for even considering any mode of obligation other than that commanded by duty so, whilst Kant appears to indicate that overdetermination is capable of being at work, he also suggests that such overdetermination is of no interest to someone with a "good will" since this person will simply act in accord with the thought of duty alone.
This argument - drawn from the introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals - is supplemented by Sorell by considerations drawn from the Groundwork. These latter involve the claim, made at Ak. 4: 400, that action done from duty excludes the influence of inclination. Henson raised the question of whether the presence of a co-operating inclination is something that is thereby ethically excluded on the grounds that it would appear that intuition permits this. Now, addressing this exact point, Herman argued that this would open up dutiful actions to the problem of including something that would only align in a fortuitous way with the demand of duty. This point does appear to be emphasised by Kant both at Ak. 4: 390 and at Ak. 4: 398. How Herman sees this point is, however, different from the argument Sorell wishes to present as Kant's. Herman takes it that a disposition to help, for example, might lead to helping someone who is in the process of performing an act that is not morally commendable. So the difficultly with reliance on inclination on Herman's view appears to be that inclinations are "indiscriminate" in their orientation. But this is not the way Sorell suggests we should view Kant's argument. Rather, on Sorell's interpretation, the point is instead that inclinations violate what he terms Kant's "no accident" principle.
To see the difference between Sorell and Herman here it is useful to understand what follows from the claim that it should be "no accident" that the right act is performed. Well, for Herman, it is sufficient that a right act not only meet the requirement that it not depend on "accidental circumstances" but also that "failure in different circumstances does not require denial of moral worth". So there are two different senses of "accidental circumstance" for Herman. Sorell, by contrast, denies that Kant could have accepted the second of Herman's senses of "accidental circumstance". A will viewed in this way is one that is open to conditional rightness and this appears to contravene Kant's requirement that the good will be a will that is good in an unconditional sense. However, when this difference between Herman's and Sorell's reading comes out this way it appears that Sorell's reading reinforces the suggestion, to which Henson's original argument was meant to reply, that there is something about Kant's requirements that is seriously in conflict with moral intuition. Now it appears that the conflict concerns the point that Kant appears to want it not to be accidental ever that the right act is performed whereas "common sense" would appear to be satisfied, like Herman, with the lesser requirement that what is actually willed is right even though, given appropriate variational difference, it could have turned out to be wrong.
Now that we have arrived at this difference between Herman's and Sorell's accounts it becomes clearer that the "no accident" principle in the latter's sense would appear to be the source of the alleged conflict between the unconditionality of duty and the presumed attractiveness of spontaneous good character. In order to see the connection between the "no accident" principle and this claimed conflict it is useful to follow Sorell in looking again at the "natural dialectic" with which Kant concludes Groundwork I. In this "natural dialectic" Kant discusses the contrary pulls of duty and inclination summarising the latter as providing a basis for scepticism concerning the purity and strictness of morals (what Henson termed Kant's "battle citation" model). The point Kant has in view in evoking this "natural dialectic" is to present the commands of moral requirements as inescapable or unconditional. Now the point about responding to the view that alleges spontaneous good character is more attractive in the manner of Henson's alleged later "fitness" model is that it is meant to show that inclination need not be seen as a barrier to this unconditional nature of duty. However the "no accident" principle shows that this unconditional character of duty is not restricted and this appears to cut against any argument that allows "moral worth" to even partially reside in the presence of good inclinations.
Now it is obviously part of Kant's general case that we can detach ourselves from that which we are inclined towards. This is part of the way Kant resists "naturalism" in the sense of arguing that there is nothing about our sensuousness as such that can be morally determinative when it comes to the pure command of duty. This is underscored by Kant's claim at Ak. 4: 410-11 that reason influence us more powerfully than the inclinations. However, as Sorell points out, this brings Kant into apparent conflict with a picture like the one many derive from Aristotle in which the cultivation of the virtues through habitual learning will co-ordinate perception and appetite in such a way as to make right action the general outcome. The "Aristotelian" picture is not without problems of its own though since, as follows from recognition of even Herman's restricted notion of the "no accident" principle, some tend to have less spontaneous direction towards the right than others and would, on this account, therefore tend less towards the right outcome. This would open morality up to the accusation that it sets forth requirements that are in fact ones that some are, due to various types of good fortune, better able to meet than others. Thus circumstantial bad luck would put the good life beyond reach which would seem a poor ground for being responded to with moral opprobrium.
Now, in response to this worry, a worry that Kant can use against the "attractiveness" of the "spontaneous" good character, Kant can and does adopt the view that the type of commendation the "good character" deserves is less moral than aesthetic. The person of "good character" on Kant's view is one who acts in a way that we can term "beautiful" whereas the person who possesses a good will is, rather, one we view as "sublime" in their character. The person with the "good character" of spontaneous type is one who charms us but does not, merely due to this, present us with a check on our view of ourselves. Rather the person of this sort can reinforce a "naturalistic" view of ourselves that leads us to think that if we just leave things alone we will, over time, get the "good character" in question just from habitual observances. By contrast, the "discipline" of reason is based on the sublime authority of the law, an authority that we find we only reluctantly give way to (which is why the person with the "good will" inspires us with respect).
Another way of putting the general point that Sorell has derived from the aesthetic contrast that Kant makes is that the "spontaneous" good character, to be really attractive, is one that we have to think of as one that the one who exhibits it, is responsible for. If the person of "spontaneous" good character really is "naturalistically" good it would follow they were not really a character worthy of commendation for their goodness as this goodness would be purely a lucky possession. Hence, moral intuition agrees with Kant that there have to be internal constraints on good character for it really to be good. Should the character be just an outflow of a "good nature" it would not be one that was really worth commending for its morality since it would not be expressive of a moral character. So we need a "good will behind a good nature" in order to show moral respect. So if there are good inclinations in the person of good will they cannot be what is generically causally the basis of their good acts as otherwise there is nothing there that is worthy of our moral commendation. From which it follows that Kant's thesis is perhaps not, after all, out of accord with common sense morality and thus that the latter might not, despite appearances to the contrary, favour "spontaneous" good character.
I've just written an article on the topic of Kant and the ethics of taxation and published it with the Journal of Accounting, Ethics and Public Policy. It's published and freely downloadable from the Social Science Research Network and can be found here. It's likely to be the most extended article on the topic that can be found so, for anyone interested in what philosophers have to say about taxation, I think I'm not too immodest if I say it is a must read!
In the previous posting on Parfit I looked at Chapter 8 of Climbing the Mountain, the first full monograph-length version of what later was to become published as On What Matters and suggested some significant problems with the treatment Parfit gave there of Kantian formulas of universal law. In this posting I'm going to look at Chapter 9 of Climbing the Mountain where Parfit moves on to addressing some moral dilemmas and connects the understanding of these dilemmas to questions about universalisation tests.
One of the points that this chapter raises concerns the world that is being referred to when universalisation tests are formulated. Is it the "actual" world or not? There are good reasons to think not, not least some remarks Kant makes in his discussion of the typic in the Critique of Practical Reason where he makes clear that we frequently give ourselves a pass with regard to moral requirements precisely on the grounds that not everyone will follow our example in the actual world. Parfit construes this point as requiring the test that is formulated by the Law of Nature Formula to be understood as asking us whether it would be better if no one acted in a certain way.
Parfit takes the Law of Nature Formula to work best when applied to maxims of which 3 things are true: a) it is possible for many people to act on this maxim; b) whatever the number of people who act on it the effects of each such act would be similar; c) these effects would be roughly equally distributed between different people. After stating these points Parfit moves on to the real business of this chapter which is to discuss moral dilemmas, beginning with the case of "each-we dilemmas" in which "if each rather than none of us does what would be better in some kind of way, we would be doing what would be, in this way, worse" (171). These cases are next summarised in terms of well-being.
The basic move that Parfit thus makes, apparently casually, in this chapter, is to examine types of moral dilemma that are based on a general consequentialist appraisal basis and to apply versions of the universality test to cases so considered. Such cases have a wide range, involving free-rider considerations for example, as applied to "public goods" such as the provision of law and order (with cases of tax evasion having force here). The general cases of each-we dilemmas also touch upon special questions from common sense morality that involve those to whom we have special obligations (such as children, clients or colleagues). Each-we dilemmas arise in these cases in particular affecting the people Parfit dubs M-related to us.
Moral cases of each-we dilemmas are often resolved by appeal to forms of utilitarianism but Parfit considers here Kantian solutions though he does so not by asking the question with which the chapter is titled, namely, "what if everyone did that", but rather its negative complement, "what if no one did that". The reasons for invoking this formula in these cases, according to Parfit, is that it will lead us to revise widely held moral beliefs that are mistaken. Not only will appeal to Kant's Law of Nature Formula have this effect, on Parfit's view, it will also challenge common sense beliefs here in an especially forceful way.
When Parfit comes to apply the Law of Nature Formula to the each-we dilemmas he does so with a proviso. This is that we consider acts whose rightness depends at least in part on their predictable effects. The point Parfit is after here is that certain types of maxims are fine if restrictively applied whilst they would become problematic if widely adopted. This type of problem is widely stated in secondary literature on Kant's universal law formulas and would require more consideration than can be given here. Parfit's example is of the maxim "have no children so I can devote myself to philosophy", a maxim that is fine in restricted application but would be disastrous if adopted universally.This is what is termed by Parfit the "permissible acts objection".
With regard to these "permissible acts" most maxims concerning them are formulated in a conditional way and this points to Parfit to restrictions on the maxims in question that are taken by him to be broadly in accord with the standards of the hypothetical imperative (though he doesn't explicitly refer here to the hypothetical imperative). However, in accord with Parfit's general conflation of maxims with intentions he reformulates the Law of Nature Formula to say that we act wrongly unless what we are intentionally doing is something that we could rationally will everyone to do.
After considering this first objection Parfit moves on to a second one. This again is formulated in terms of effects of adopting certain maxims. However, in this case, the problem is taken to be that Kant's general standard is that of an ideal world. Parfit here follows Christine Korsgaard in stating that there might be a problem with stating things in terms of ideal worlds since, in the "actual" world, disastrous results could ensue from following maxims that would ideally be alright. This "Ideal World Objection" applies, for example, to any maxims that rule against violence as such since, in the "actual" world, use of it cannot be unrestrictedly ruled out. However, once we have admitted this and formulated maxims to meet it, there is a different ideal world objection, namely, that maxims might thus become too permissive.
This objection concerning permissiveness is applied by Parfit to the general formulations that are often given of rule consequentialism, and used to further revise the Law of Nature formula. However the revision that arises from considering the permissiveness objection also has the effect of making the kind of consequentialism that Parfit has been building in to the moral situation one that becomes closer to that envisaged by act consequentialists. The chapter closes with this construal of the Law of Nature Formula having become thus close to a modified notion of rule consequentialism that appears well on the way to act consequentialism.
