Beatrix Himmelmann, Robert B. Louden (Eds.) Why Be Moral?

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Why Be Moral?

Edited by Beatrix Himmelmann and Robert B. Louden An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libra- ries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access. More information about the initiative can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org

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The editors would like to thank all those individuals and institutions thathave supported us in one wayoranother. Several of the contributions to this volume have been presented at the conference “WhyBeMoral?”,which was organized by the Tromsø Ethics Research Group in the fall of 2013.The group is based at the PhilosophyDepartment of UiT,The Arctic UniversityofNorway.Other chapters have been written for the present collection independently. We thank all the authors for their commitment to the project and the institutions mentioned for their organisational and finan- cial assistance. The authorsand the editors of the book owe special thanks to Peter Dennis, Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method at the Lon- don School of Economics,who was acopy editor as competent and reliable as one can wish for.

Beatrix Himmelmann &Robert B. Louden, May2015

TableofContents

Beatrix Himmelmann Introduction 1

Part I: Investigating the Question

Dieter Birnbacher Why Be Moral – APseudo-Problem? 13

Peter Schaber Why Be Moral: AMeaningful Question? 31

Part II: Exploring ViableAnswers

Robert B. Louden Why Be Moral? ANew Answer to an Old Question 45

Hallvard J. Fossheim Aristotle on Virtuous Questioning of Morality 65

Ivar Russøy Labukt The Egoistic Answer 81

Beatrix Himmelmann Why Be Moral? An Argument from the Human Condition in Response to Hobbes and Nietzsche 103

David Sussman Morality,Self-Constitution, and the Limits of Integrity 123

Christoph Horn What is Kant’sPreciseAnswer to the Question ‘Why Be Moral’? 141

Iddo Landau The “Why Be Moral?” Question and the Meaning of Life 159 VIII TableofContents

Roe Fremstedal Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardian Approach 173

RichardEldridge Acknowledging the Moral Law 199

Erik Lundestad “Why Be Moral?” Pragmatism’sAttempt to Dismiss the Issue 217

Héctor Wittwer Is the Overridingness of Moral Reasons aSemantic Fact? 235

Alan Thomas Williams on Integrity,Ground Projects and Reasons to Be Moral 249

Contributors 273

Index 275 Beatrix Himmelmann Introduction

“Whybemoral?” is an age-old question, which has been discussed ever since the Sophists contested the validity of moral claims. No longer,itseems, could they be considered amatter of course. Whereas the Seven Sages of Greecehad stated what they deemed obvious in laconic brevity: “Nothing in excess”; “Honour the Gods”; “Be yourself”; “Yield to justice”,¹ later generations felt the need of explaining and exploring what they sawasanything but self-evident.Socrates and Plato, most prominently, not onlyaccepted the challengebut turned the ta- bles by asserting thatexamination and self-examination are part and parcel of a trulyhuman life. Accordingly, assumptions thatunderlie human thinking and conduct should not be taken for granted but have to be accounted for. Logon di- donai, giving arguments in order to justify your beliefs, is considered arequire- ment henceforth. These endeavours to investigatealleged givens included, con- traNietzsche, right from the beginning the issue of what he called our “faith in morality”.² Asomewhat related question, “Whyshould Ibemoral?” was also highonthe agenda from very earlyon. Plato’swell-known discussion³ still figures into today’seffortstocome to terms with this delicate as well as central question. Several contributions to this collection also bear witness to the lasting influenceofPlato’sthought-provoking case studies and ambitious arguments.⁴ First and foremost,this collection of new essays is intended to shedlight on the “Whybemoral?” question from avariety of perspectives. Different approaches originatingfrom different philosophical traditions represent the possibilities of discussing this still haunting question today. The anthologyincludes authorsfrom Europe, North-America,and Israel. It starts out by putting the meaningfulness of the question, “Whybemoral?” itself to the test.Inview of the fact that countless attempts to provide for aconvincing answer have turned out to be futile, Dieter Birnbacherwonders whether the “Whybemoral?” problem is areal problem or what Carnap and others called a “pseudo-problem”.Apseudo-problem is aproblem which,for some reason or another,proves to be undeserving of philosophical effort.The “Whybemoral?” question, Birnbacher argues, is not apseudo-problem in that it is trivial. Itssol- ution cannot be considered obvious. Neither does the concept of moralitycover

 Cf. Wachsmuth/Hense ,p.f.  Cf. Nietzsche ,Vorrede .  Cf. Plato, Rep. II, aff.  Cf. the contributions of Dieter Birnbacher,Robert B. Louden, and Peter Schaber. 2 BeatrixHimmelmann anyvalues anyindividual might prioritize, nor does it implythat moral norms necessarilyoverride all other kinds of norms. Birnbacher suggests, however, that the “Whybemoral?” problem is unsolvable for reasons of principle. Either it can be answered by giving moral reasons or by giving non-moral reasons to follow morality in cases of conflict. The first option seems to be unattractive because it is question-begging.The second option is fated, Birnbacher contends, in that it also leadstoakind of circularity.Onlywhoever is alreadyconvinced that moralityisprecious and preferable willbeopen to non-moral justifications of the priority of the moral. In spiteofthisrathersoberingresult, Birnbacher does notdeprive thosewho continueworking on answeringthe “Whybemoral?” question of anyhope: “The irresolvabilityofthe problem”,heassuresus, “is by no meansobvious”.Mostof theother contributors to this anthology, indeed,dosuggest solutionstothe problem. PeterSchaber also aims at investigatingthe question, “Whybemoral?” by in- specting thepossibletypes of answersitinvites.Isthe “Whybemoral?” question meaningless? Suspicions to that effect have been voiced,notably by H. A. Pri- chard.⁵ Schaberarguesthatthe question is meaninglessindeedifitisunderstood as thequestion of whetherwehavereasons to do what is morally required.Itis meaningful,though, if it is understoodasthe question of what reasons canjustify theclaim that we ought, morally,toact in certainways. Schaber’spoint is that the reasons forobeying moral principles areequivalenttothe reasonsthatgivethese principles theirjustification.Accordingly, he rejectsthe widely sharedviewthat moral theories,whentryingtorespond to theworries of themoral sceptic, have to proceedintwo steps: First, they determinewhatthe rightmoral principles are; second,theyanswer thesceptic’squestion “Whyshould I follow theseprinciples?” Instead,Schaber suggests,ittakes only one step to satisfybothrequire- ments: Thejustification of moral principles provides us,atthe same time,with thereasons forfollowing theseprinciples. Though we mightverywellask whether acertain moral principleisjustified,wecannotsensiblyask whetherwehavereasons to follow amoral principlethatwetaketobejustified. What are the moral principles that can be justified?Inwhat way, if any, does the kind of moral principle suggested shape the answer that is giventothe “Why be moral?” question?Thisanthologypresents arangeofdifferent responses to these queries, beginning with Robert Louden’spaper. In order to convince moral sceptics thatthey have sufficient reason to give up their scepticism about moralityand instead try to be moral, Robert Louden

 Cf. Prichard . Introduction 3 considers it necessary to locate non-moral reasons that are powerful enough to do the job. He is very clear,though, about the failureoftwo standard candidates. Neither appeals to self-interest, nor related appeals to happiness, provide any credible reasons for being moral. The pull of self-interest itself mayoften be the biggest barrier to acting morally, so it would be wrong-headed from the start if we relied on one of the sources of immoralityinorder to solicit morality. Prospects of happiness,onthe other hand,donot necessarilyarise as aresult of moral conduct and, therefore, cannot always motivateit. Louden’sown strategy involves drawing attention to the moralnorms and values thatlie behind or are presupposed by ordinary cognitiveactivity and rationalcommunication. There are norms, he demonstrates,regardinghow we ought to think and reason, and some of these norms, he claims, are moral norms. If we can show,sothe argument goes, thatanyone who wishes to engageinsuch activities successfully must first adhere to certain underlying norms and values, then we have also shown, in effect,that anyone who wishestoengageinordinary cognitive activity and rational communication must also try to be moral – at least in some minimal sense. Whereas Louden and other contributors takethe “Whybemoral?” question to be raised by someone considering herself outside morality,HallvardFossheim investigates the significancethe question might bear for someone who clearlyis and conceivesofherself as being inside morality.Hedoes this with Aristotle as argumentative source. From an Aristotelianpoint of view,asking “Whybe moral?” may, at first sight,looklike some sort of shortcoming. It seems to be an instance of Williams’sfamous notionof“one thought too many” since it appears to suggest an agent alienated from or uncommitted to an ethical stance. Also from avirtue ethical standpoint,toask this question seems to indicate some kind of deficiency.Itimplies that morality is not settled in youasyour character.Contrary to those expectations, Fossheimaims to show that being able to ask “Whybemoral?” and similar questions forms anecessary prerequisite in the process of moralimprovement and for developing amoral stance that is both far-sighted and broad-minded. Hencethe virtuous person’squestioning and self-questioning maybeseen as tokens of full ethical agency rather than moral immaturity. Contrasting with Fossheim’sinvestigations,IvarRussøyLabuktexploresthe viabilityofthe egoistic answer to the “Whybemoral?” question.Hedoesso, he explains,not becausehefinds this approach immediately attractive,but because he is convincedthatitis, ultimately,the only kind of justificationofmoralitythatis available. Labukt does not, in this paper, defend hisscepticismtowards non-ego- isticjustifications. Instead,his aimistodescribeand assess theegoistic alternative in ordertoshowthatitismoresatisfactory than most philosophers believe. Ego- 4 BeatrixHimmelmann isticconsiderations, he argues,inmost casessupport acommitmenttomorality that is fairly deep andatleast as extensiveasthe one displayed by “most actual people”.Labukt identifies threekinds of egoistic reasons that countinfavour of a commitment to morality. Strategic reasonssuggest followingmoral rulesinorder to obtain non-moral benefits or avoidnegative sanctions. Psychologicalreasons suggestfollowing moral rulesinorder to comply with what our general capacity forsympathyand thecapacityfor aconsciencerecommend doingoromitting – on pain of sufferingemotional distress andmissing outonsubstantialsources of pleasure andjoy.Reasons speaking in favour of adeliberativecommitmentto moralitysuggest followingmoral rulesinorder to gain thebenefitsofbeing involved in “attractive projects”,suchasdoing what one, on acognitive level, takestobemorally right, or providingstructure to one’slife. Labukt admits, though,thatthere arelimitations on anyegoisticjustification of amoral wayof life:itdoesnot applytoall persons andcircumstances. This latter point is confirmed by the results at which other contributors to this volume arrive.RespondingtoHobbes,who is up to this dayone of the most inspiring authors claiming thatenlightened self-interest is the sourceas well as the motivation of being moral, Beatrix Himmelmann argues that this position is mistaken. The sameholds truefor Nietzsche’salternative contractualist theory,which relies on the idea of an equilibrium of power among agents. Even though both positions seem to be attractive because they do not allow for any gapseparating the “real” world and “ideal” morality,they fail to do justiceto the human condition. Contrary to Hobbesian assumptions, there is more to human reason and reasoning than looking out for pleasure maximization and resolving related technicalproblems the most important of which is taken to be the institution and maintenance of social stability.Weare not merelyand not essentiallypleasure-maximizing or power-balancing rational animals, Him- melmann contends, pointing towardsaspecific use of reason that distinguishes humans: acapacity for relatingtothemselvesbythematising themselvesthat they show,for instance, in referringtothemselvesand their doingsas“I…”, or by being aware of theirfinitude. Thus being able to become an issue for themselves, these animalsmust demand to be treated accordingly. The capacity for self-knowledge,entailing self-esteem, self-will and all the other forms of self-relation,turn human beingsinto very special animals who cannot claim aright to ignorance and innocenceany longer.Why be moral? In order to live up to our knowledge of who we are. DavidSussman discusses thequestioninthe lightofa“constitutivist” approach.The aimistoshowthatcommitmenttomoral principles is anecessary conditionofbeing arationalagent. Therewould be evidence then that thereis no wholly non-moral perspectiveany agentcouldhopetoinhabit.Thisapproach Introduction 5 canbetracedbacktoPlato,Aristotle,perhaps Kant,and many others; more recently it hasbeenprominently advanced by ChristineKorsgaard.⁶ Sussmancriticiz- es Korgaard’saccount. As Sussmanexplains, Korsgaardarguesthatthe formal aim of actionistointegrateagentsinawaythatenables them to act, much as the proper functioning of anyliving thingservestosustain andreproducethatorgan- ism. Theself-constituting function of action involves,for Korsgaard, practical reasons that are “public” or “shareable”,thusmeeting therequirements of Kantian universalizability.Sussman suspects that this idealofimpersonaluniversality, sup- posedlygrounding individual integrity, carriesthingsmuchtoo farinthatitdoes notdescribefully rationalagencybut deprives theagent of anycharacter that he couldrecognize as hisown.Against this type of “alienation”,Sussman sideswith Bernard Williams.Williamsshows convincingly,Sussman argues,thatthere are limits to choice andself-determinationwhich supposedly provideassurance of re- mainingoneself “come what may”.There aresituations,however,which do not allowfor anysuchchoicebut onlyfor an acknowledgement that thereisnochoice left.Nobodyknows or needstoknowinadvance where theselimitslie in hisor herown case.Kant’smoral lawcould then be recoveredasaregulativerather than aconstitutiveprinciple of rationalagency. Asking “Whyshould I be moral?” wouldturnout to reveal acommitmenttosomeprinciplesofobligation andinter-personalaccountability thescope of whichwillcorrespondtothe formsoflifethatthe agentcould inhabit. While Korsgaard’sadoption of specific Kantian lines of thoughtiswidelyap- preciated, it is also recognized as more or less detached from what we can find in Kant’sown work. What is Kant’sprecise answer to the question, “Whybe moral?” This is the issue Christoph Horn investigates.First,heshows whythe “constitutivist” response is insufficient.AccordingtoKant,the moral lawcannot be derivedfrom anyantecedent good such as rationalagency and its enabling conditions.Second, Horn argues that Kant does not accept moral intuitionism either.His idea thatthe consciousness of the moral lawhas to be seen as a “fact of reason” cannot be taken in the sense of some sort of immediate insight into moral obligation. The “Whybemoral?” problem then would resolve itself. Horn’sown suggestion is that Kant’sanswer to the question is somewhat close to the solution proposed by ancient eudaimonism, according to which moral agency is characterized as advantageous to the agent himself. By practising morality we are,onthis view,actualizing our “true” (rational) natureand are gaining the happiness that is inherentlyconnected to self-perfection. Horn’ssuggestion comes as asurprise giventhat Kant explicitlyset out to untangle moral claims

 Cf. Korsgaard . 6 Beatrix Himmelmann and the demands madebyour striving for happiness.However,byway of ana- lysingKant’sconcept of will, which turns out to implyfeatures of apre-modern understanding of this facultypointing towards qualities of purity and purifica- tion, Horn arrivesatwhat he takes to be Kant’s(indirect) answer to the “Why be moral?” question. Following the moral lawultimatelyleads us to the onlyappropriatesort of happiness:thatwhich is qualified by our moral worth. By being forced to neglect our happiness,Horn argues, the morallaw realigns us – and preciselythereby,itfinallybringsustoour “true” natureand happiness. Iddo Landauchooses an interesting and related angle in thathelinks the question, “Whybemoral?” to the notion of the meaning of life. Overall, he aims to show that morality makes our livesmore meaningful. He proceedsbyin- validatingall kinds of objections that might be raised against this claim. Critics could point out thatsome theories of the meaning of life are subjectivist,and as such implythat meaningful livesneed not be moral at all. But various considerations, Landauargues, suggest that subjective theories of meaningfulness are too problematic to accept.This is one of them: Giventhatmeaningfulness rests on worth or value and meaninglessness,correspondingly,onthe lack of worth or value, people can be wrongintheir evaluations, includingtheir self- evaluations. So it looks as if amoreconvincing account of meaningfulness need to be objectivist to acertain degree and mayinclude, to acertain extent, features of moral commitment.Critics,however,may accept this movewhile denying that these objective features have to do with morality.Some theories of the meaning of life present bothsubjective and objective conditions for meaningfulness and do not mentionmorality at all, thus allowing for highlyimmoral lives to be considered meaningful. But if ameaningful life, Landauinsists, is alife that,overall, has asufficientlyhighdegreeofworth or value, it cannot be very lowin, say, morality, yetvery highinmeaningfulness.Somoralityand meaningfulness are not independent of each other.Moralityaffects the overall value of one’slife and thus its meaningfulness.Also, since the notion of ameaningful life is alaudatory,honorific notion that has positive connotations it cannot be applied to individuals committing horrific crimes and saying they find meaning in so doing,whereas we would consider their immoral behaviour despicable or abhorrent.Landauacknowledges, though,that livescan be highly meaningful without displaying moral excellence.Some great artists mayserve as examples. So it seems as if refraining from behaving in highlyimmoral ways is anecessary condition for having ameaningful life, whereas behaving in highlypositive moral ways is not.Why be moral?Because it frequentlyenhances meaningfulness,Landaureplies. This is an answer which Roe Fremstedal, discussingKierkegaard’sapproach, would rather make stronger: we should be moral because it is essentialtomean- Introduction 7 ingfulness,full stop. Not least differences in identifying the demands of morality maylie at the heart of differences in specifying the demands of being moral. On the one hand, there are conceptions distinguishingsome minimal sense of morality (and being moral) from richer or thicker notionsofmorality (and, correspondingly,higher levels of the moral commitment required), thus allowing for quitearangeofdifferent degrees of morality (and senses of being moral). On the otherhand, there are conceptions which do insist thatmorality,byits nature, does not allow for such grading,thus ruling out the idea of minimal or max- imum senses of morality (and being moral). This samedivision holds true for most of the contributions to this volume. Fremstedal presents Kierkegaard’smultifaceted ideas, as well as contemporary versions of them, by bringingout the main arguments they involve. He prin- cipally, but not exclusively,focuses on the debate between various aesthetes and the ethicist as depicted in Either/Or, concentratinghis analysis on the position of the reflective aesthete. Themes of central significanceare love, selfhood, and freedom. The ethicist argues that it is in the aesthete’strue interest to become an ethicist.Without ethical commitment,hecontends, love is episodic, lacking continuity and importance,selfhood unbalanced, and freedom negative, empty,and arbitrary.Thus, the ethicist confronts the aesthete with an internal critique rather than condemning the aesthete on moral grounds,something that maybeseenasmoralistic and unhelpful. The aesthetic stageseems to fail on its own terms,and it appears to be preserved in the ethical stage. To defend these claims, Kierkegaardchooses to develop a via negativa: we onlyunderstand the ethical through its failure, through guilt,sin, and despair.Fremstedal elaborates on “the argument from despair” in detail and concludes by highlight- ing the role of hope and honestcommitment.Inhis WorksofLove Kierkegaard argues that hope without the moral duty to loveone’sneighbour is false. Hoping onlyfor myself involves conceiving of hope as something privatethat does not concern my relationship to others, as if Icould have afuture of my own without others. Hopinginthis wayfails to appreciate the extent to which Iamdependent on others. Also, avoiding honestcommitment,keepingthingsand people at a distance deprivesthe aesthete, finally, of anystance, identity or character whatsoever.Hewould be doomed to despair. Richard Eldridgesuggests another,modest wayofjustifying moralityand being moral. It is not through despair thatwecome to understand and acknowledge what Eldridge – looselyfollowing Kant – calls the moral law. Starting out from Bernard Williams’squestioning of the absolute authority of distinctively moral reasons,Eldridgeaims at elucidatinghow moral reasons make claims on us. This task, Eldridge points out,requires accepting the fact that we are embedded in diverse personal and social relations.The emergence of distinctively 8 BeatrixHimmelmann moral commitments out of an enormous variety of developmentalbackgrounds, both individual and social-historical, maydisplayakind of path independence. Normative reasons are instituted by us in the course of our complex practical lives, and they are subjecttohistorical variation. What is deemed morally right or wrong is often amatterofdispute. Forinstance,what one of us calls telling someone ahard truth out of respect another one calls inconsiderate cruelty; what Icall encouragement to develop one’stalents and specific forms of self-respect youcall indulgence and pampering.Mistakes and errors on all sides are possible. Whatcounts as respect for persons is itself asubject for open,imaginative,explorative inquiry and moral conversation in an ongoingway,even wherethe value of respect for persons is abstractlyshared. Whatreasons,finally, do we have to acknowledge the moral law? We cannot have,Eldridge concludes, but happilydonot need,ajustification for being moral “from nowhere”,apart from our location within aset of developing circumstances of life. This is asubject-matter which is also touched upon by Erik Lundestad. His essayenquires into the argumentativeresources that pragmatism maycontribute to the discussion of the “Whybemoral?” question. Pragmatists hold, as Lundes- tad shows, that the question both can and ought to be dismissed. As they see it, this question onlyappears interesting to those of us who, mistakenly, assume that morality forms asphere distinct from that of prudence. Giventhis misconception, moral acts will be seen as having aspecific aim, different from that of prudential acts. Pragmatists,however,dismiss the idea that there is any such gapbetween morality and prudence. Thisdistinction, they argue, does not have anyprecursor in practice, in the manner in which we act.Everything we do is aimed at agood; the question, “Whybemoral?”,then, does not seem to be very exciting.Ofcourse, pragmatists have to reconstruct or redescribe what is usually perceivedasaspecificallymoral act if they want to be convincing.Focusing his analysis on the work of John Dewey,Lundestad presents the main arguments of pragmatism and confronts them with pieces of criticism put forward by Habermas and others. One of the most serious problems arising is the risk of conflatingwhat is good with that which acontingent society at a giventime actually takes to be good. While Dewey approachesmorality from the perspective of community members concernedwith theircommon good, Habermas contends thatthis perspective is mistaken. It is onlyonthe basis of adistinctive “horizontal We-perspective” and not a “vertical We-perspective” that we are able to account for morality.Thus it maywell be true, Lundestad concludes,that it isn’tthe “Whybemoral?” question but pragmatism’sdismissal of it thathas to be dismissed. Héctor Wittwerdiscusses another optionofsetting aside the problem. This option would be available if it could be shown thatthe problem is trivial because Introduction 9 its solution is obvious. “Is the overridingness of moralreasons asemanticfact?”, Wittwer asks, and he carefullyanalyses different aspects of this question. If it could be givenapositive answer,itwould be clear from the outset whyeach of us should be moral: because moral reasons for action always and systemati- callyoverride all other kindsofreasons for action.Atleast,this understanding would be implied by anyspeaker who properlyusesterms such as “moral” and “morality”.The (normative)overridingness of moral reasons would be simply a part of the language-game of morality and, hence, a semantic fact. Wittwer re- futes this claim, presentingavariety of objections. There is no consensus about the precise meaning of the word “morality” among all competent speakers of the different languages, and it cannot be established either.Wewould not nec- essarilyconsider sentences such as the following contradictory: “Even though it is your moral duty to do x,you should refrain from so doing because it is imprudent.” Forthese (and stillother)reasons,normative overridingness cannot be a conceptual feature of morality,Wittwer concludes. But we can neither provide anynon-linguistic justification of the alleged overridingness of morality,hecontends.Should the claim pertain to the relative priority of morality,asaconse- quence of assessing thingsfrom the moral point of view,itistrue but trivial. If it refers to the absolute priority of morality,the argument is doomed to fail, Wittwer assumes, because “nothing can ever have absolute priority over something else”.Soitlooks to him as if, finally,weare left with nothing but the (rational)preferences of agents,choosing between self-interest and moral demands. Whatever they decidetodo, no normative conclusion, he thinks, can be drawnfrom their actual choice. Do we reallyhavetoleave the problem behind like this?Eventhough Ber- nard Williams, as mentioned before, doubts the absolute authority of moralreasons and disapproves of what he calls the “morality system”,⁷ he does offer an – ambitious – answer to the question, “Whybemoral?” Thisisshown by Alan Thomas, who addresses the question from the standpoint of Williams’smoral and political philosophy. He extends his consideration of Williams’sanswer from its origin in aconception of practical reasons – as always “internal”–to Williams’spolitical psychology, particularlyfocusing on the late discussion of this topic in Truth andTruthfulness.⁸ Certainly, Williams suggests no formal answer involving apriori constraints on practical agency as such. As Thomas expounds, the question, for Williams, can onlyhaveasubstantive answer; thatisitcan onlybeanswered in the

 Cf. Williams ,Chap. .  Cf. the bibliography. 10 BeatrixHimmelmann light of the substantivecontent of an agent’s “ground projects”.Hence, thosean- swers fall within the class of “moderate morality”⁹.Furthermore, Thomas argues, it can be shown that Williams considers morality as consonant with abackground conception of ethical community thatinvolvesrelations of mutualrespect.This is the upshot of the argument Williams pursues in his late book Truth and Truthfulness. In complex and interesting ways illuminatedbyWil- liams, “Accuracy” and “Sincerity”,both epistemic virtues, are shown to have shaped the “system” of knowledge,disposing people to take care and not to lie or otherwise mislead. This “politics of knowledge”,asThomas demonstrates, helps to explain the phenomenon of a “politics of recognition”,its ethical (and political)complement.While individuals develop identitiesbycommittingthem- selvesto“ground projects”,which are as much found as made,they call for acknowledgement when presentingthemselvestoothers. An essential role is played by mutualrecognition and the very sociability that makes individuality possible. Anyanswer to the question, “Whybemoral?”,Thomas concludes,isconstrained by mutual acknowledgement and mutualrespect in the context of amodern ethical community,which has to be seen as ahistorical achievement. Presumably, none of the contributors to this volume would disagree.

Bibliography

Korsgaard, Christine M. (2009): Self-Constitution: Agency,Identity and Integrity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1988): “Morgenröte”.In: Giorgio Colli/Mazzino Montinari, eds.: Kritische Studienausgabe (= KSA3). Berlin/NewYork: De Gruyter. Prichard, H. A. (1968): “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on aMistake?” In: Duty and Interest. Oxford: Oxford University Press,pp. 1–17. Scheffler,Samuel (1992): Human Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wachsmuth, Kurt/Hense, Otto,eds. (1894): Ioannis StobaeiAnthologium, vol. 3. Berlin: Weidmann. Williams, Bernard (1986): Ethics and the LimitsofPhilosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress. Williams, Bernard (2002): Truth and Truthfulness: An EssayinGenealogy. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.

 Cf. Scheffler ,p.. Part I: Investigating the Question

Dieter Birnbacher Why Be Moral – APseudo-Problem?

1Introduction

The question what reasons we have to do what is morallyrequired instead of what we happen to want for nonmoral reasons is one of the oldest questions of moral philosophy. It loomslarge alreadyinthe Platonic dialogues, especially the Gorgias and the Republic. At the same time it is one of the most controversial problems.Thisistrue not onlyinthe sense thatthere is controversy about which of the solutions proposed for it has the best chances to be true or adequate but also in the sense that it is an open question whether it is arealproblem or what Carnap and others called a “pseudo-problem”,i.e.anapparent problem which, for some reason or other,proves to be undeserving of philosophical effort. Though the Why-be-moral-problem is onlyrarely giventhe label “pseudo-problem” (but seeThornton 1970,p.453), there is apresumption that it is in fact a pseudo-problem giventhe futility of the numerous attemptstosolve it. Aproblem maybeclassified as apseudo-problem for anumber of reasons: that standard formulationsofthe problem are semantically meaningless or otherwise unintelligible;that statements of the problem start from wrong or contra- dictorypresuppositions;thatitistrivial because its solution is obvious; or that,to the best of our knowledge,itisunsolvable for reasons of principle, so that further attempts at asolution can be expected to be futile. Not all of these justifications for reducingaproblem to the status of apseudo-problem are relevant to anypur- ported pseudo-problem. Aparadigm case, however,for which they are all relevant is the problem to which Heideggergavethe name “fundamental problem of metaphysics”,i.e.Leibniz’squestion whythere is something rather thannoth- ing.There are good grounds to think that the Grundfrage is in fact apseudo-problem though not for the reasons givenbyWittgenstein and the Logical Empiricists (cf. Birnbacher 1990). In many ways,the role the Why-be-moral problem plays for moral philosophyiscomparable to the role the “riddle of existence” (Rescher 1984) plays for metaphysics. It is afoundational question which nevertheless is onlyrarelymade the focus of philosophical inquiry,not least because of its controversial status. The aim of the following contribution is to see how far the suspicion that the Why-be-moral problem is apseudo-problem can be supported by applying strategies and arguments similar to thosethat have been deployed in throwingthe Grundfrage from its metaphysical throne. 14 Dieter Birnbacher

2The Triviality Thesis

One strategytoexpose the Why-be-moralproblem as apseudo-problem is to arguethat it is trivial because the solution of it is analyticallyimplied by the terms by which it is formulated. The term thatissupposedtodothe job is the term “moral”.Thisterm, accordingtothe triviality thesis, prejudgesthe question whymorality should have priority and thus renders anyfurther reflection about the Why-be-moral problem superfluous. There are, as far as Ican see, two variants of this thesis. The first variant was put forward by the Australian philosopher D. H. Monro. AccordingtoMonro, there is no reason to ask whyweshould do what is requiredbymorality because the concept of moralitycovers anything that we prioritizeinour personal aims. “Morality” refers to the values that are most important to us, no matter whether these are egoistic, altruistic, or impersonal,whether these values are universal or idiosyncratic, constant or transitory.Morality,thus understood, stands for an individual’shighest priorities, irrespective of their content,their temporalstability and the degree of the individual’scommitment to them. At first sight,Monro’sposition looks like asleight-of-hand.Itis, however,not as extreme as it mayappear.Itdoes not implythat we necessarilyfollow morality because whatever we do is directed at the realization of our highestvalues. Instead, it reserves the name “morality” for whatever we think are our highest and most important values.Thus, it leavesroom for akrasia and other failures to conform to these values in our actual behaviour.Morality is not the name for what in fact drivesusinour actions but what we think should drive us. In this way, the question, “Whyshould Ibemoral?” is not exposed to the criticism of meaninglessness. There maybeaconsiderable gapbetween aperson’sprior- ities (whatever they are) and aperson’sfactual choices. Nevertheless, it maybe doubted whether admitting so much reduces the triviality of the question. It is evident that aperson always has agood reason to do what the person thinks it is important to do, and that the best reason aperson can possiblyhavefor acourse of action is that it is the course that is, giventhe background of this person’svalues, the most important.Thereforethe question whyIshould do what I think Ishould do has atrivial answer: Nothing could be more obvious. This result, however,essentiallydepends on the acceptability of Monro’sex- plication of the concept of morality. Whence comes this concept of morality? Monro appeals to common usage:

We sometimes use ’morality’ of anyover-ridingprinciples,whatever their content (’Satan’s morality, ’his morality is purelyselfish’). (Monro1967, p. 225) Why Be Moral – APseudo-Problem? 15

In asimilar vein, Kurt Bayertz thinks that this comprehensive use of the term “morality” is at least “one of the ways the word ‘morality’ is used in everyday language”:

In afirst use, “morality” designates acomplex of norms,values or ideals that provides each individualwith ageneral orientation for leadinghis or her life. (Bayertz 2004,p.34)

Is this plausible? Ithink the answer has to be negative.Were we to accept Mon- ro’sand Bayertz’sthesis, we should be compelled to give the name of morality to absolutelywhatever an individual puts in the first place. This would not onlybe incompatible with widespread usage, it would be positively misleading. Not only would the amoralist whose maxims glorify pure egoism or arbitrarinesshaveto be credited with amorality.The samewould have to be done even in the case of the immoralist who deliberatelybreaks the most essential moral rules (such as the character Lafcadio in André Gide’s TheCaves of the Vatican). We have to accept,Ithink,that moralityisnot to be equated with anysystem of norms, values and ideals aperson happens to adopt or to follow.Itissomething distinctive with specific formal and material features.Ofcourse, it is no easy task to define these features in ageneral and coherent way. Most of the properties attributed to moralityasnecessary and/or sufficient conditions do not stand the test of confrontation with counterexamples.Onthe contrary,the failureofthe search for strictlydefining conditions of the concept of morality (see, for example, Wal- lace/Walker 1970)suggests that the characteristic features distinguishing moral from other (aesthetic, personal, or technical) norms and values are to be conceivednot as necessary and sufficient conditions but as family resemblan- ces in the Wittgensteinian sense or as conditions characterizing typical instances of the concept,i.e.asfeatures thatdonot claim strict universality. In arecent publication, Iproposed four interrelated features that might be candidates for typical features of moral norms and values in this sense: community-relatedness,obligatoriness,subjectiveimportance,and association with emotions (Birnbacher 2013). It is easy to show that individually, these four features are neither necessary nor sufficient: Not all moral values are community-related, and manysorts of norms are community-related without being moralnorms. A moralitycan entirelyconsist of ideals or virtuesthat implyevaluations of behaviour,motivesand character traits without containingordirectlyimplying norms or obligations. Neither is obligatoriness by itself distinctive of morality.Again, moral demands are typically, but not necessarily, associatedwith an emphasis and seriousness that is foreign to prudential, aesthetic and conventional demands. This feature explains, at least to acertain extent,the inherent tendency of moral principles to objectification (Mackie 1977,p.30ff., Blackburn 1986,p. 16 Dieter Birnbacher

181ff.), the tendencytobeprojected into entities beyond human subjectivity and interests, into the “nature of things”,transcendent values, or God’swill. Afur- ther typical feature is the close associationofmoral norms and values with moral emotions, each of them having an importantroleinmotivating moral behaviour. Even if the abovelist of the typical features of morality is onlyprovisional, it suffices to make it probable thatMonro’sthesis is wrong and that morality is not to be equated with anysystem of norms and values whatsoever by which aperson orients his or her life. Even if moralityisone, and avery important,system of norms and values by which we orient our lives, it is not the onlyone. Morality is a distinctive system of norms even if it lacks aclear-cut demarcation against other systems of norms, whether individual or social.Itfollows that the question whyweshould follow these norms and not others cannot be trivial. Accordingtothe second variant of the triviality thesis the answer to the question, “Whybemoral?” is trivial not because of the indistinguishability of moralityand other kinds of norms but because of another assumeddefining feature of morality,the overridingness of moral norms in contrasttoother norms. The thesis is anatural consequenceofthe view that “overridingness” is an inherent feature of morality and that,therefore, it is analytic that moral norms claim priority in situations in which aperson is in doubt whether to follow the moral course rather than acourse suggested by egoism, social convention, or spontaneous feeling.The thesis of the overridingness of morality has are- spectable provenance that reaches back to the Platonic Socrates. There is asug- gestion of overridingness also in the Kantian tendencytoassociate morality with Unbedingtheit,unconditionality.The most explicit statement of this position is to be found in the writingsofthe Britishphilosopher Richard Hare:

There is asense of the word “moral” (perhaps the most importantone) in which it is characteristic of moral principles that they cannot be overridden […], but onlyaltered or qualified to admit of some exception. This characteristic of theirs is connected with the fact that moral principles are[…]superior to or moreauthoritative than anyother kind of principle. Aman’smoral principles, in this sense, are those which, in the end, he accepts to guide his life by,evenifthis involves breaches of subordinateprinciples such as those of aesthetics or etiquette. (Hare1963, p. 168f.)

This variant of the trivialityview differs from the first one in maintaining that overridingness is anecessary and sufficientfeature of morality without at the same time making morality apurelyformal concept.For Hare, unlike Monro, there can be nothing like a “Satan’smorality”.Moralityhas material featuresbe- yond its formal ones. Nevertheless this variant shares with the first variant the view that moral norms and values are necessarilyofsupreme importance and Why Be Moral – APseudo-Problem? 17 prejudge the issue of which of two or more conflicting kinds of norms is given priority:Moral norms are by their very nature the most important norms and claim aprivileged position so that the question which kind of norms should be givenpriority in cases of conflict does not arise. This variant is exposed to two sorts of criticisms, each of which, Ithink, makes it lose much of its attraction. The first is that the inherent overridingness of moral norms and values is far from evident.Though moralnorms are in most cases important considerations to be taken account of in one’schoices it seems mistaken to saythat they are by necessity the most importantnorms in anysit- uation. There are situations in which nonconformity with moral demands, whether social or individual, seems excusable so that conflicts between the moral course of action and the prudential course of action cannot be categorical- ly ruled out.Inthese situations, at least,questions of the sort “Whyfollow the moral course instead, say, the prudential one?” are anything but trivial. Amartya Sen givesthe following example:

There is nothingparticularlyschizophrenic in saying: “Iwish Ihad avegetarian’stastes, for Idisapprove of the killingofanimals,but Ifind vegetarian food so revolting that Ican’tbear to eat it,soIdo eat meat.” (Sen 1974,p.63)

It does not at all seem obvious that moral principles are, as Hare claims, “superior to or more authoritative than anyother kind of principle,” or that moral values necessarilytakeprecedence over nonmoral values.Nor is it obvious that “overridingness” is an inherent feature and part of the very meaning of morality. It is true, most people in fact see themselvesasmoral evaluators.But they do not see themselvesasmoral evaluators throughout.Their evaluations of their own and other’sbehaviour take manyforms, and these vary with context.Inmany contexts – e.g. the economic one – they orient themselvesprimarilybypruden- tial norms of individual rationality, in others – e.g. the family – by “self-referen- tial altruism” (Mackie1977, p. 84), i.e. with partialityfor the near and dear.Peo- ple usuallyliveinanumber of different normative worlds,amoral, asocial,a prudential and an aesthetic world. Of course,from the perspective of the “moral point of view”,wenecessarilygivepriority to the moralaspectsofa givencase. But from this it does not follow that we necessarilygivepriority to this point of view.Evenifmoral norms and values are associated, as arule, with particularlystrongand sustained emotions, such as guilt,shameand indignation, this does not implythat whoever acceptsthese values givesthem priority. The selfsame prominent role that moral emotions like guilt,shame and indignation playinthe decidedlymoral person maybeplayedbyemotions like envy, anger and pride in the rational egoist. 18 Dieter Birnbacher

The second criticism of this variant of the triviality thesis is that even if overridingness were anecessary feature of morality this would not render superfluous or trivial the question whether it is followed, in toto or in an individual case. Normative priority does not entail factual priority.Eventhe most authoritative and absolutemoral norm cannotprevent its adherents from acting against it. There is no pre-established harmonybetween the norms and values held by a person and the person’sactions. It is perfectly thinkable thatsomeone sincerely holds acertain moral principle and frequentlyacts against it.Espousal of the principle is not necessarilyinvalidated by deviant behaviour.That there is aconsiderable “gap” between judgment and performance is alsosupported by moral psychology. Empirical evidence stronglysuggests that the capacity to make moral judgementsislargely independent of the readiness to act in accordance with them (cf. Montada1993, p. 268). Though internalists about moral motivation will dispute the possibilityofaccepting amoral rule without integrating it into one’smoral outlook,this leavesopen the possibility thatthe internalization of moral norms and values is too weak to counteract motivationallystronger non- moral impulses and desires.Ithink that internalism is perfectlyright in maintaining that the adoption of moral norms and values cannot be seen as apurely cognitive affairbut has emotional and motivational components that dispose whoever adopts these principles to act in accordance with them. But though a firmlyinternalized moral conviction will, as arule, be accompanied by acertain conformity in action, this does not exclude that it is overruled, in certain situations, by nonmoral motivations. The conclusion of this section is negative.The examination of the two variants of the triviality thesis has shown that the hypothesis that the Why-be- moral problem is apseudo-problem cannot expect support from this side.

3MoralReasons forMorality?

Are there other avenues to the conclusionthat the Why-be-moral problem is a pseudo-problem?One candidate is the thesis that the problem is unsolvable for reasons of principle and that,therefore, we should discontinue attempts at asolution and rather leave it as it is. The thesis that the problem is unsolvable usually goes together with the construction of adilemma,both horns of which are said to lead to an impasse. The dilemma can be stated as follows: Either the Why-be-moral problem can be answered by giving moral reasons or by giving nonmoral reasons to follow morality in cases of conflict.Accordingtothe futility position both horns are equallyun- attractive,though for different reasons.The first horn is unattractive because it is Why Be Moral – APseudo-Problem? 19 ultimatelyquestion-begging:the question whyweshould follow the moraloption is reiterated at ahigher level. The second horn is fated by the inability of purelynonmoral motivations to support even aminimalisticmoralitydeserving the name. The first horn of the dilemmaisconnected with some of the most well- known attempts in the history of philosophytogivemoralityaprivileged normative status, especiallyoveragainst prudential ones. Moral philosophers with the most diverse background theories have concurred in postulating that in cases of conflict between morality and prudence, moralityshould be paramount. If prudence or other ego-centered principles are legitimate, they are legitimate onlyas instrumental principles or because they are otherwise sanctioned by morality, e.g. as arights (such as liberty rights or rights to privacy), or as mandatory rights that bind the right to pursue one’sown ends (such as those directed at the realization of one’spotentials or at self-perfection) to self-directed moralobligations The problem, however,isthat the principles by which this superiority of moralityoverprudenceand other norms and values is argued are, as arule, themselvesmoral principles, though of ahigher generalitythanthe principles of the morality in question. One such principle is the principle of universalization. It implies astrict reciprocity of the morality we expect from others in their dealingswith us (and those we care about) and our moral obligations to these others. Afamiliar example is truthfulness.Asfar as Iexpectothers to follow the moral rule to be truthful to me and people Icare about,Ishould be prepared to follow the same rule in my dealings with others even in cases in which I have astronginterestinnot tellingthe truth. The problem is, of course, thatuni- versalization in this sense is itself (or depends on) arather strong moralprinciple, the principle that moralreasons hold irrespective of the identity of persons and that statements of these reasons must not involveproper names and index- icals. In this waywhat at first sight looks like amerelylogical requirementde- velops aconsiderable normative force – comparable to that of moral principles like equityorfairness that are less likelytoobscure theirgenuinelymoral character.Infact,the genuinelymoral character of the principle of universalization is sometimesconcealedbyconfusingitwith aprinciple thatisinfact truly logical, the principle of the supervenience of moral properties over nonmoral properties. This principle says that situations identical in all morallyrelevant nonmoral characteristics must be identicallyjudged. Giventhat certain nonmoralcharac- teristics of asituation are morallyrelevant,they must be morallyrelevant in all cases and not onlyinaparticularcase at hand. But this principle is a mere principle of consistency.Abreach of it would involveone in acontradic- tion. The principle of universalization goes beyond such amere consistency principle in restrictingthe rangeofcharacteristics thatare allowed to count as rele- 20 Dieter Birnbacher vant.Itrequires that onlythose characteristics count as morallyrelevant that can be expressed by logicallyuniversal terms.Differentlyfrom the purelyformal principle of consistency,this principle is asubstantivemoral principle. This point can be generalized. If the meta-principles by which an ethical theory attemptstojustify the priority of moral over against other principles are themselvesmoral principles, this maybeanimportant undertaking,for example to show,informal terms,the unity and coherenceofacertain system of morality, or,inmaterial terms, the justice, fairness or efficiency with which it distributes rights and duties,advantagesand disadvantages, benefits and costs over its addressees.Itisunsuited, however,togiveasatisfactory answer to the Why-be-moral problem. The answer it givesisnecessarilyincompletebe- cause it depends on the prior acceptance of the meta-principle invoked. If neither the amoralist (who is indifferent to morality as awhole) nor the immoralist (who is opposed to it) has areason to accept and to act on agiven morality,they do not have areason either to accept and to act on the meta-principles by which these are legitimized. It is surprising to find that, among the moralphilosophers conscious of the difficulties posed by the first horn of the dilemma, one of the most clear-sighted was Kant,the same philosopher who was more eager than anyone to establish the supremacyofmoral norms and values over norms and values of other kinds. Kant sawclearly thatprovingthe Categorical Imperative to be the fundamental principle of morality is not sufficient to establish this Imperative as the highestand most authoritative principle of action.Ifthe Categorical Imperative is to be more thanthe basicprinciple in areconstruction or explication of what it means to judge and act morally, more must be shown,namelythat this principle is supreme and deserves to take precedence,inour judgmentsand actions, over prudential or aesthetic principles. If we are free, as Kant emphaticallyasserts, the question is inevitable whyweshould, in acase of conflict,opt for following the CategoricalImperative rather than for following our best interest or our strongest desire. Whyshould all reasons that are not strictlymoral reasons be contrary to practical reason?Orrather: Whyshould practical reason be so narrowly defined as to admitonlyofone interpretation, that of conformity with the Categorical Imperative?That Kant was aware of the necessity to saysomething more about the authoritativeness of the Categorical Imperative than is implied by its simple statement is documented by his manyattempts to provide arguments that might close the gap. One of these arguments is the argument,inhis Lecture on Ethics,that freedom (which, for Kant,implies conformity with practical reason) is the “essential end of humanity”: Why Be Moral – APseudo-Problem? 21

He whosubjects his person to his inclinations,acts contrary to the essential end of humanity;for as afree beinghemust not be subjected to inclinations,but ought to determine them in the exercise of his freedom; and beingafree agent he must have arule, which is the essential end of humanity.(Kant 1963, p. 122)

It is evident that this argument is vulnerable. Forone, it is not clear what “essential end” can mean in this particular context.Understood in aliteral sense, an end is necessarilyanend of asubject.But who is this subjectofthis end?Intra- ditional metaphysics,this subject was supposed to be God or Nature. But this view can hardlybeattributedtoKant,particularlyinview of the personalization involved in either of them. “End” thereforeshould rather be understood as something like “inherent teleology”.Kant seems to think thatman is destined to be free, not in the sense of being literallycreated for this end, but in the sense of being free as part of his peculiaressence. Nevertheless, the difficulty arises that it is left unexplained whythe individual should be obliged to follow this teleology. Afterall, non-conformity with this essence might be taken to be an even more convincing proof of his freedom than conformity.However that maybe, it is clear that the kind of argument by which Kant attempts to confer legitimacy on the supremacyoffreedom (alias morality) is itself amoral argument,anargu- ment based on an essentialist morality. Another argument designed to show the supremacyofmoral over other kinds of principles can be found in the Grundlegung:

… because the world of understanding contains the ground of the world of sense, hence also of its laws, henceisimmediatelylegislative in regardtomywill (which belongs wholly to the world of understanding), and hencemust also be thoughtofwhollyassuch, there- foreasintelligenceIwill cognize myself, though on the other side as abeingbelongingto the world of sense, as nevertheless subject to the laws of the first,i.e., to reason, which in the idea of freedom contains the lawofthe understanding’sworld, and thus to autonomyof the will; consequentlyImust regardthe laws of the world of understandingfor myself as imperativesand the actions that accordwith this principle as duties. (Kant 2002,p.70)

Accordingtothis argument,practical reason deserves priority because it is part of the intelligible worldwhile desires are part of the sensible world, with the intelligible world dictating the laws of the sensibleworld and thereforerightly claiming priority.Ofcourse,the premise that the intelligible world dictates the laws to the sensibleworld is closely bound up with the Kantian scheme of the priority of the noumenal world in relation to the sensibleworld, and therefore with his own two-worldmetaphysicswhich by itself cannot claim authority. But even if one accepts this piece of Kantian metaphysics it is not evident that what is metaphysicallyprior is also normatively prior.Moralityisaphenomenon of the sensibleworld, the world of human society.Itmight be argued thatits 22 Dieter Birnbacher foundations should be soughtinthe facts of the world in which it comes into play, i.e. the social world, and not in the depths of ametaphysical theory.But again, however that maybe, it is evident that this argument,likethe former, once more legitimizes the supremacyofmoralitybyamoral argument. At this point,aconcession is in order.The difficulties just noted in justifying the priority of morality by moral reasons applyonlyifthe question, “Whybe moral?” is understood as aquestion relatingtomoral action and not to morality as a character trait,acomplex of virtues or as moral motivation in the sense of Kant’s “good will”.Ifmorality is understood, not as asystem of rules but as a personal disposition to act morally, astraightforwardjustification can be givenfor being moral, namelyinterms of agiven morality, understood as asystem of moral principles. Such ajustification neither begs the question nor ends up in circularity.Itsimplyrefers to the instrumentality of the possession and acquisition of moral dispositions for moral action. Giventhat one accepts acertain system of moralrules and is willingtoact in accordance with them, it is evident- ly advisable to acquire fixed dispositions to follow them, both in dailylife and in existentiallycrucial situations.Who is virtuous by habit (has madevirtue his “second nature”)will be spared the effort to bring himself to do what virtue demands in anyconcrete situation. Forhim, in fact,the question, “Why be moral?” – in contrast to the question, “Why do the moral thing?”–has aclear and phil- osophicallyunproblematic answer: because it disposes him to do the moral thing more easilyand naturallythan in the contrary case. Of course, this kind of legitimation of being moral will impress neither the amoralist nor the immoralist.Itpresupposes what they call in question, the bindingness of moralityasa system of rules for action.

4Nonmoral Reasonsfor Morality

Adilemma is completeonlyifnot onlyone but both horns lead to an impasse – if there is no satisfactory answer to be expected for either option.The answer to the first horn was negative:Ifthe question, “Whybemoral?” is givenamoral answer the question is onlyrenewed. Giventhat the amoralist and the immoralist have no reason to be persuaded by considerations of morality they willbe persuadedbyconsiderations of second-order morality as little as by considerations of first-order morality. Are there chances for asatisfactory solution based on nonmoral rather thanmoral reasons?Can the egoist,the amoralist or the immoralist be persuaded to do the moral thing from prudence and other purely selfish motives? Why Be Moral – APseudo-Problem? 23

The literature on the reasons the egoist has to act morally, from Plato through Seneca to Kant and modern moralists,isnot onlyvast but has,as Nietzsche would have expressed it,anunmistakable smell of moralism. Though onlyfew have gone to the Stoic extreme to assert thatmoralityand well-being coincide, so that aloss of morality is by the same token aloss of well-being, this literaturepersistentlyexaggerates the sacrifices an amoralistic life strategy imposes on the egoist.Thus, KaiNielsen, in one of the by now classicalarticles on the topic, writes:

Giventhe world as it is, adeliberate,persistent though cunningpolicy of selfishness is very likelytobringonguiltfeelings,punishment, estrangement,contempt, ostracism, and the like. Aclever man might avoid one or another of these consequences but it would be very unlikelythat he could avoid them all or even most of them. (Nielsen 1970, p. 477f.)

No doubt,Nielsen has apoint.There are sacrifices egoists, amoralists and im- moralists have to make if they want to pursue their life strategies consistently. At the same time, one wonders how Nielsen can be as sure as he is that these sacrificescannot be more than compensated, from the perspective of these characters,bywhat they gain from theirimmunity to moral demands. Nielsen combines,inthe abovequotation, twovery different kinds of “sacrifices” the amoralist has to face: the sacrifices in well-being by non-conformity with one’sown personal moral convictions, and the sacrificesinwell-being by non-conformity with the moralityofone’svarious reference groups or society at large.All these moralities maydiffer substantially, bothincontent and in demandingness, and the question arises in relation to which of them the amoralist has to face the necessity of “sacrifices” of the sortreferred to. One thing that can be said at the outset is thatthere will be little occasion, for the amoralist,for “sacrifices” in foro interno from his or her own moral principles. Whyshould the amoralist have guilt-feelingsifhis own conscienceissi- lent on his own behaviour,includingwhat moralists would call wrong-doing and recklessness?All the amoralists cares about is how farhis behaviourmay be imprudent,foolishorself-destructive,and it is well imaginable that he mentally suffersfrom his occasional or frequent failures to act accordingtohis best interest more than the moral person from his or her own moral lapses.But even if the amoralist suffers from pangsof(prudential) consciencefor irrationality,this is far away from the guilt-feelingsascribed to him by Nielsen and others. What about the “sacrifices” in social contacts and the lack of social respect and support the amoralist has to confront?Dothey provide the amoralist with reasons sufficientlystrong to make him changehis ways and to follow morality in cases where this conflicts with his interests, wishes or feelings? Do the amor- 24 Dieter Birnbacher alist’smotivesfrequently, or even necessarily, lead to estrangement from his or her social environment?This is certainlytobeexpected in asocial environment of resolvedmoralists, for example if the amoralist marries into afamilywith a highlevel of moralcommitment.Inorder to arrangehim- or herself with this environment the amoralist willoften have to simulate emotions and motiveshe does not have and dissimulate emotions and motiveshehas.Ingeneral, however,the psychological burden the amoralist has to bear by these manoeuvres will be limited to the extent that he manages to stayawayfrom social milieus with highlydevelopedmoral sensibilities and adense network of social control. Fur- thermore, the more open and liberal the society is in which he lives, the less likely he willbeexpected to show particularmoral fervour.Tofind acceptance, he will need hardlymorethan to endorse, in words and deeds, the central values of his society and observethe norms of political correctness. He will be well ad- vised to seek his contacts primarilyincirclesofamoralists like himself, and the more open the society is in which he happens to live,the less difficult it willbe for him to find them. The livesofamoralists (egoists included) might be agreat deal better than the moralist is prepared to recognise/ize. Onlythe immoralist with his ambition to deliberately act against (public) moralitywill risk significant punishment and ostracism,atleast to the extent to which he deliberatelylaysopen his doingsto public inspection. But the immoralist in this sense is mainlyaliterary figure, or a construction from Nietzschean and Gidean fantasies. In the real world, amoralists and egoists are much morenumerous,and they will, if onlythey are mod- erately rational, guard against publiccensureand the social isolation following from it.Few,for example, will risk being publiclysuedfor failuretopay their taxes and to suffer the loss of reputation going with it.Informer times, in which the bank secret was regarded as something like the first commandment of international commercial relations,this was decidedlydifferent.Incirclesof well-to-docitizens, tax evasion used to be, until recently, not onlytolerated, but respectedand recommended as amore or less obvious duty of self-care. Moralists referringtothe “sacrifices” incurred by amoralism often overlook a crucial dimension of the amoralist’slife-balance: the compensation of potential- ly lacking moral respect and support by other forms of social respect and support.Inmanycases, the amoral person is able to gain respect and support in virtue not of moral virtue but of other qualities, such as intelligence, creativity, courageand in virtue of economic, scientific, artistic or political achievement. Often, these qualities are further garnished by personal attractiveness, charm or charisma. Whyshould the amoralist worry about contempt from moralists if he is more than compensated by the admiration of others?There is plenty of empirical evidence thatamoralists can be highlysuccessful and lead correspond- Why Be Moral – APseudo-Problem? 25 ingly happy livesnot in spite of but exactlybecause of their amoralism and recklessness (cf. Babiak/Hare 2009). They tend to be more ambitious, more risk-seeking and more inspiring than more moral people and thereby able to compete more successfullyonthe economic, scientific, artistic and political labour market.Since self-esteem is largely dependentonsocial esteem, even the amoralist’s self-esteem need not suffer,provided his own super-ego is sufficientlytolerant.It maywell be that he will have to do without many of the options for cooperation offered to less selfishpeople. But he maybecleverenough to act in away that establishes areputation of beingsufficientlydependable to be givenopportuni- ties to achieve his personal aims with the co-operation of others. Another argument commonlyput forward by moralists is hardlymore convincing.Itsaysthat whoever,asanamoralist,tries to live without commitment to moralnorms and values will miss possibilities of experiencing life as meaningful thatare,for people with moral commitments, an important sourceofsat- isfaction. Alife without genuinelymoral emotions is, accordingtothis argument,animpoverishedlife. Aconsiderable part of affectiveexperience – the moral emotions – will be inaccessible to the amoralist.His emotional life will be amputated, as it were, by the absenceofemotions such as guilt and remorse, indignation and forgiveness, moralpride and moralself-gratulation. But,again, the amoralist can in manycases easilycompensate these limitations in his range of emotions by other kinds of emotions, just as the areligious person is able to compensatethe dimension of religious emotionsbyother emotions. Hispassions will go in adifferent direction but they need not be less intense. The egoist’spas- sions will be focused on self-centered emotions like ego-ideals, experiences of success and failure, pride, honour and self-satisfaction. To manyartists, scientists and economic leaders ego-ideals and perfectionist ambitions are afar more powerful motivation to give their best than moralideals. They are productive and creative because they feelastrongurge to live up to images of their own grandeur.Nor can it be doubtedthat they draw agreat deal of satisfaction from being successful in this, especiallyiftheir achievements helps them to gain recognition, both from their family, friends and colleagues and from the general public. There is little to suggest that morality is so vitallyimportant for happiness that even amoderatelyhardened egoist will be persuaded thatmorality is anecessary condition of well-being. My conclusion is thatnot everyone who wants to live as an egoist or amoralist can be givenareason to opt for the moraloption in cases of conflict with his or her desires,and that the second horn of the dilemma has proved to lead to an impassenoless thanthe first.There is, however,animportant proviso:Thisre- sult holds primarily on the level of theory.What it means in practice depends cruciallyonwhat might be called the “level of moral aspiration” of agiven (so- 26 Dieter Birnbacher cial or private) morality.Amorality can be more or less stringent,ormoreorless demanding.The less stringent it is, the more probable it is thatthere are no, or very few,situations in which the demands of moralitydeviate from the demands of self-interest. Giventhat social conformity and the desire to avoid the disap- proval and to gain respect and support from significant others is astrongmotive in humans, this motive maywell be sufficienttomake an averageperson conform to the moral norms of his or her group, thus harmonizingself-interest and morality.Aswas shown by Kohlbergand others (cf. Kohlberg/Turiel 1971, p. 440), most people follow the moral norms of theirsociety primarily not for intrinsic reasons but for reasons of social conformity,i.e.inorder to avoid what Bentham called “popularsanctions” (Bentham 1948, p. 25). The question, “Whybemoral?” does not in general arise for them because the moralthing co- incides with what satisfies at least one basic and stronginterest.The gapbetween morality and self-interest will be the broader,however,the more stringent the relevant morality (of an individual, agroup or society at large)is(or is believed to be) and the more and heavier sacrifices it demands in the satisfaction of the individual’sdesires. It is interesting to see that this scepticism about the chances of giving morality afoundation in rational egoism was shared by one of the great moralists of the nineteenth century, John Stuart Mill – pace his attemptstogivemorality,in Utilitarianism,abasisinindividualistichedonism. As his notes on Plato’s Gor- gias show,Mill was well aware of the difficulties of giving morality abasis in individual egoism. In the Notes,hepresents himself as thoroughlysceptical about the chances to convince the stubborn egoist of the usefulnesshecan expect for himself from moral virtue.For Mill, ironically, the “sacrifices” appealed to by the moralist as being part and parcel of amoralism are mostlyonthe side of moralism:

It is impossible,byany arguments,toprovethat alife of obedience to duty is preferable, so far as respects the agent himself, to alife of circumspect and cautious selfishness.Itwill be answered, perhaps, that virtue is the road to happiness,and that “honesty is the best policy”.Ofthis celebrated maxim, maywenot venturetosay,oncefor all, without hesitation or reserve, that it is not true? The whole experience of mankind runs counter to it.The life of agood man or woman is full of unpraised and unrequitedsacrifices. (Mill 1978,p.149)

AccordingtoMill, historical evidence fails to support the hope of moralists that there is afair balance between morality and happiness,moral desertand desti- ny.Atthe sametime, Mill is anxious to differentiate. The human tendencytocon- formism mayinfact be sufficient to make people follow what moralityrequires giventhat what morality requires is hardlymore than the observanceofthe most fundamental rules necessary to keep society going.Assoon as morality aims at Why Be Moral – APseudo-Problem? 27 something higher,atthe improvement of society or mankind, egoism or amoralism will no longer be supportiveofmorality.Intrinsic moral motivations are indispensable, at least on the part of an elite with the ability to influencepublic opinion:

They,indeed, whohavenoconception of anyhigher honesty than is practised by the majority of the society in which they live,are right in consideringsuch honesty as accordant with policy.But how is he indemnified whoscruples to do that which his neighbours do without scruple? Whereisthe reward, in anyworldlysense, for heroism?(Mill 1978,p.149)

Intrinsic motivations are required in order for society to elevateitself abovethe most elementarymoral minimum.The principles of moralitymust have been successfullyinternalized by upbringing, education and other social forces in order to make moral virtue asufficientlystable part of one’sidentity to motivate unselfishactions. The great achievement that Mill attributes to Plato’sseveral arguments in the Gorgias to show that virtue pays even for the convinced egoist is, paradoxically, their utter failure.What they show is that without the preexistence of moral motivations purelyrational arguments are unpersuasive.Onlythose who are alreadysocialized in amoralitywill happilyaccept these arguments – not because they are rationallyconvinced by them but because they lead to conclusions they experience as supportingtheir ownpreexistent moralcommit- ments. Onlythey will be sympathetic to Plato’ssuggestion thatwhoever acts contrary to morality acts against the health of his own soul:

Those onlywill go along with Socrates in the precedingdialogue, whoalreadyfeel that the accordanceoftheir livesand inclinations with some scheme of duty is necessary to their comfort; whose feelings of virtue arealreadysostrong,that if they allow anyother consideration to prevail over those feelings,they arereallyconscious that the health of their souls is gone, and that they are, as Platoaffirms,inastate of disease. (Mill 1978,150)

Thus, the second horn is also seen to lead to akind of circularity.Eventhe non- moral justification of the priority of the moral, at least that suggested by Plato, will onlybeaccepted by whoever is alreadyconvinced that immoralityharms his or her mental integrity.The amoralist has no reason to worry about this kind of ill-health unless he believes in aLastJudgment,karma or anyotherform of metaphysical sanction. 28 Dieter Birnbacher

5Conclusion

The conclusion to be derivedfrom the abovearguments is thatthe thesis that the Why-be-moral problem is apseudo-problem is in fact true – on the condition that ultimateirresolvability is asufficientcondition for aproblem to be classified as apseudo-problem. If more is required, namelythat this pseudo character is so obvious thatitmakesany effort at closer inspection superfluous from the start, the answer is negative.The irresolvability of the problem is by no means obvious. To that extent at least,the examination of the pros and cons of the pseudo-problem thesis presented in this contribution maynot have been futile.

Bibliography

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Peter Schaber Why Be Moral: AMeaningful Question?

In Plato’s Republic Glaucon tells the story of Gyges, who discovered agolden ring that could make him invisible: “… and becomingaware of this,heimmediately managed thingssothat he became one of the messengers who went up to the king,and on comingthere he seduced the king’swife and with her aid set upon the king and slew him and possessed his kingdom. If now there should be two such rings,” Glaucon added, “and the just man should put on one and the unjust the other,noone could be found, it would seem, of such adamantine temper as to persevere in justice…”¹ In his comment,Glaucon makes explicit what the story is about,namely, the question that has occupied moral philoso- physince its beginnings: Whyshould we be moral? Whyshould Gyges, Glaucon asks, if he could make himself invisible and so fear no sanctions for his actions, not seduce the queen, slaythe king and take the kingdom?Would it not be irrational to pass up such an opportunity? Manysee the question raised in Glaucon’sstory as the skeptical challengeto moral philosophy: Whyshould Idowhat is morallyright?Clearlywhoever asks this question has amorethan superficial interest in ethics. This person wants to know whether he also has reasons to do what is morallyright.Weshould not rule out the possibilitythatalthough being moral is undoubtedlyagood thing it is by no means arational thing to do. It might be that in manycases we simply do not have anycompellingreason to do what is morallyright. Such aconclusion would be sobering for moralphilosophysince it would contradict the widelyshared conviction that moralprinciples are universally binding.This means thatamoral principle is considered binding for every person in every situation, unless it conflicts with astronger moral principle. Who- ever wants to holdonto this idea of the universality of moral principles must thereforefind asatisfactory answer to the question “Whybemoral?” And in fact manymoral philosophers do believeitisacentral goal of moral philosophy to find aconvincing answer to this question. However,not all philosophersagree. H.A. Prichard, for example, famously argued that the question “Whybemoral?” is meaningless because therecan be no proper answer.And the reason is that Prichard assumes that there are in principle onlytwo possible answers to the question whyweshould be moral. Either we should be moralfor non-moral reasons or for moral reasons:

 Plato, Republic, –d. 32 Peter Schaber

So far as Ican see, the answers all fall, and fall fromthe necessities of the case, intoone of two species.Either they statethat we ought to do so and so, because as we see when we fullyapprehend the facts,doingsowill be for our good, i.e. really, as Iwould rather say, for our advantage,or, better still, for our happiness;orthey state that we oughtto do so and so, because somethingrealized either in or by the action is good. In other words,the reason ‘why’ is stated in terms either of the agent’shappiness or of the goodness of somethinginvolvedinthe action.²

ForPrichard both answers are unsatisfactory.Ifwegivenon-moral reasons,then we give the wrongreasons.Ifwegivemoral reasons, then the answer presupposes what it is supposed to show,namelythat we oughttodowhat is morallyrequired. As Prichard puts it:

If the motive in respect of which we think an action good is the sense of obligation, then so far from the sense that we ought to do it beingderivedfromour apprehension of its goodness, our apprehension of its goodnesswill presuppose the sense that we ought to do it.³

It is, if we follow Prichard, impossible to give aproper answer to the moral skeptic. Is the question “Whybemoral?” meaninglessthen and anyfurther discussion of it futile? As Iwill argue, Prichard does have apoint.The question— “Whyshould Ibemoral?”—is, as Iwill argue, meaningless, if it is understood as the question of whether we have reasons to do what is morallyrequired. That wayitisunderstood as the question whyweshould complywith moral principles: Do Ihavereasons to do what is morallyrequired?Itis, on the other hand,ameaningful question if it is understood as the question of what the reasons are that justify the claim thatweought to act in certain ways. This latter question asks for ajustification of amoral principle. Iwill argue that the reasons that justify moral principles are at the sametime the reasons whyweshould obeythese moralprinciples. In other words, the reasons for obeying moral principles are equivalent to the reasons thatgivethese principles their moral justification. If one accepts principles as moralprinciples one accepts that there are reasons to complywith the principles. As aquestion about independent reasons for obeying moral principles the question “Whybemoral?” does then not make sense anymore. It is devoid of content. This is not just about the sense or nonsense of asking aquestion that has been repeatedlyand intensively discussed throughout the history of moral philosophy. It is aboveall about determiningwhat it means to justify moral princi-

 Prichard(), .  Prichard(), . Why Be Moral: AMeaningful Question? 33 ples. This can mean anumber of things, including the attempt to give an answer to the question “Whybemoral?” And in fact manymoral philosophers would see their work in just this light.But Ithink this is not the right waytounderstand justification. Justifying moralprinciples does not consist in answering the question “Whybemoral?” but in answering the question what are the right moral principles. Moral justification is, Ibelieve, about the question of what speaks in favorofaclaim that we ought,morally, to act in acertain way. And if this question is answered, there is no further question of whether we have reasons to obey the moral principle. We have reasons to obey moral principles: the reasons which speak in favorofthe claim that we ought to act as the principle tells us.

1The MoralSkeptic

Moral philosophershaveprovided avariety of answers to the question “Whybe moral?” One of them is—as Socratesargued—that acting morallyisnecessary for living atrulyhappy life. Another answer is—as for instance Christine Korsgaard thinks—acting morallyisconstitutive of our identity as human beings.⁴ And fi- nallyKant believed that we follow practical reason onlybyacting morally.⁵ I will not discuss these proposals here. Iwill rather focus on the assumptions that those giving these kinds of answers to the question “Whybemoral?” make. These answers are all addressed to the same audience. They are addressed to the person who asks whyheshould have anything at all to do with morality, to someone who is “outside” moralityand not to someone “inside”.This person outside moralitycan be called a “moralskeptic”.⁶ And it is this moral skeptic that must be convinced of the binding character of morality, if one wantsto show thatmoral principles are binding for everyone, also for those who have no moralinclinations. If we can convince the moral skeptic thathehas to complywith moraldemands, then we can convince anyone; thatis, if we can show the moral skeptic thathehas reasons for following moralprinciples, then we can show anyone. And this would mean we have proved thatmoral principles are universallybinding. If we have been able to do this, then we have,asmany moral philosophers think, justified morality.

 Cf. Korsgaard(), .  Cf. Kant (), .  Cf., for instance, Stemmer (), . 34 Peter Schaber

If we are to be successful in this task, we must first know more about what kind of person the moral skeptic is, or if there werenosuch person, what kind of person he would be.Thiswill allow us to determine what question he is asking exactly, and thus what kind of reasons we are looking for.Iwill follow here Peter Stemmer’saccount of the moral skeptic. AccordingtoStemmer the moral skeptic has the following three characteristics: 1) The moral skeptic does not have anyaltruistic predispositions or interests. In other words, he has no interest in showing consideration for others. “It is not part of his conception of himself to be someone who does something for another person.”⁷ Thereasons we have for obeying moralprinciples cannot then involveempathyorcompassion. 2) The moral skeptic is outside morality.According to Stemmer,hedoes not take anymoral standpoint: “What he is asking is whyheshould take this standpoint.”⁸ And so he will not be persuadedifwegivehim moral reasons. 3) Moreover,the moral skeptic rejects the idea thatthereare objective values and norms. ForStemmer,itisthus “unthinkable in adiscussion of the question whyheshould act morallytorefer to the objective existenceofmoral norms or claims as part of the world.”⁹

This is the person we have to convince. But of what exactlyshould we convince him?Heshould be convinced of complying with moral principles. What kind of principles are we talking about here? It cannot be about complying with just any kind of principle. We aim at convincing the skeptic that he should complywith moral principles. If principles are not justified, no one—be it askeptic or not— has areason to complywith them.Therefore, the skeptic cannot be talking about such pseudo-principles but rather is talking about principles that he al- readyacknowledgesare morallyjustified, that is, the right moral principles. The moral skeptic must recognize certain moralprinciples as the right moral principles. Otherwise the question of whether he should complywith the principles would not be sensible. His question then is: Whyshould Ifollow the right moral principles?What are the reasons he has to complywith these principles? This seems to be the question the moral skeptic can sensiblyask. Hereisaninteresting distinction to be made. There are reasons whyone should complywith aprinciple. And thereare reasons whyaprinciple should be seen as amoral principle. Reasonsofthe second kind are ones that justify

 Stemmer (),  (translated by Paul Lauer).  Stemmer (), .  Stemmer (), . Why Be Moral: AMeaningful Question? 35 moral principles. They can be found in theories of moral obligation, for example in utilitarianism, in contractualism, in Kantian ethics and others. Take autilitarian who thinksthatweought to give ten per cent of our income to charity.Why—one can ask—should we do so?The utilitarian might say, “ because it prevents bad thingsfrom happening”.This is ajustificatory reason for the principle that we oughttogiveten per cent of our income to charity. Moral theories such as utilitarianism provide us with justificatory reasons for moral principles. Whether these reasons are reallyjustificatory reasons for moral principles is what the moral debate is all about.Thus, one might reject the givenutilitarian justification. One might arguethat the fact thatbad things can be prevented from happeningisnot areason whyweought to act in acertain way. So it is an open question whether the givenreason is reallydoing the justificatory work it is supposedtodo. What is important in our context is this: With regardtoany moralprinciple two different questions can be asked: (a) Ican ask whether the principle that we ought to give ten per cent of our income to charity reallyisamoral principle, that is, something that we reallyought to do. Someutilitarians would sayyes, some deontologists would denythis. (b)Ican ask whether Ihaveany reasons to do what Ithink Iought to do, for instance, to give tenper cent of my income to charity.The moralskeptic asks—as manymoral philosophersthink—the second, not the first question. The moralskeptic thinksthat certain moral principles are correct.But he would like to know what reasons he has to obey them. Accordingly, moral theories that intend to answer the skeptic’squestion proceed in twosteps.First,they determine what the right moral principles are; second, they answer the skeptic’squestion, “Whyshould Ifollow these principles?” Thus, one could arguefirst why, for instance,utilitarian moral principles should be accepted as the right moral principles and then address the question why these utilitarian principles should be followed. This is what John Stuart Mill does in his book Utilitarianism. He first tries to provide us with aproof of the utility principle and is then asking whythe principles should be followed.¹⁰ The same structure can be found in Peter Singer’s Practical Ethics. He first argues in favorofcertain moral principles, trying to show what we ought,morally, to do with regard to various practical issues: how animalsshould be treated, what should be done about world poverty etc. In the final chapter 12 then he writes:

 Mill (), : “This firm foundation is that of the social feelings of mankind—the desire to be in unity with our fellow creatures, which is alreadyapowerful principle in human nature, and happilyone of those which tend to become stronger … from the influences of advancingciv- ilization …” 36 Peter Schaber

Previous chapters of this book have discussed whatweought,morally, to do about several practical issues and what we arejustified in adoptingtoachieveour ethical goals.The nature of our conclusions about these issues—the demands they makeupon us—raises afurther,morefundamentalquestion: whyshould we act morally?¹¹

As concerns the question “Whyshould we act morally?”,thingssuch as acertain idea of agood life, fear of sanctions,orone’sown consciencemight provide us with the reasons to complywith what has been shown as what we ought,morally,todo. Thisatleast seems to be the idea of how amoral theory should proceed.

2Stemmer’sModel of Justification

Not everyone agrees with this model of moral justification. Stemmer,for instance, rejects it.Itisinteresting to note whyherejects it. Stemmer thinksthatthe question of the moral skeptic is not subordinate to the actual justification of moralprinciples. On the contrary,hebelieves that the justification of moral principles is nothing less than answering the question of the moral skeptic, i.e. answering the second question. And this is his argument: Stemmer thinks thatthe practical reasons aperson has depend on the goals that person has. Ihaveareason to do x, provided doing so furthers my goals.¹² Thisis also true for those thingsweought to do in amoral sense.Aperson ought to do x, if and onlyifher goals would call for her to act in this way. Moral obligations are, Stemmer thinks, relative to the goals people pursue and so they are always conditional obligations.¹³ Amoral principle is then onlyvalid for aperson if complying with this principle is in accordancewith his owngoals. The answer to the question of the moral skeptic does not assume the existenceofalist of justified moral principles. On the contrary,such alist can onlybedrawn up in the light of the goals an individual has. Is the question of the moral skeptic then also aquestion about the right moral principles?Ithink that this is indeed the case, but not for the reasons that moral philosopherssuch as Stemmer address.Ithink thatthe justificatory reasons for moral principles are at the same time the reasons we have for following these principles. Thus, if moral principles werejustified by the reasons that are provided by our own goals and by nothing else, Stemmer would be right in

 Singer(), .  Stemmer’sview is reminiscent of David Hume’sdesire-based view of practical reasonaccord- ing to which reasoncan onlyshow me how to efficientlyfulfill my desires.  See Stemmer(), . Why Be Moral: AMeaningful Question? 37 saying that the justification of moral principles would at the same time provide reasons for the skeptic to do what he morallyought to do, but not for the reasons Stemmer claims. It can, of course, be questioned whether the reasons thatjustify moral principles are the reasons that are provided by the goals people pursue. Such an explanation seems to be implausible because if it were true, we would no longer be able to distinguish moral principles from advice.Ifthese principles wereonlyvalid when they served an individual’sgoals, then the moral principle would take the form of “Since youhavethis or thatgoal, then my advice to youistodothis or that.” And we would have to interpret statements such as “Youshould do this or that” as advice. But then it would no lon- gerbeclear whether we could still meaningfullyuse moral languageand, for example,bejustified in calling some actions morallywrong.Whoever does not follow advice maybefoolish or even stupid, but he is not acting immorally.

3Arguing within Moral Theory

What is right about Stemmer’sargumentation is thatthe justification of morality does not take two steps but onlyone. The justification of moral principles provides us with the reasons we have to obey these principles. Say, for instance, that we oughttohelp people in need. The reason whythis principle holds is— whatever it turnsout to be—the reason whyweshould act accordingtoit. If one accepts that it is amoral principle that we ought to help people in need, then one accepts that there are reasons whythis is so, i.e. that thereare reasons for compliance. If this werenot the case, it would not be seen as amoral principle in the first place. And the moral skeptic would not have anyreason to ask whyheshould complywith the principle, for since he grants that it is amoral principle he alsogrants thatthere are reasons to complywith it.Thus, if one asks the question “Whybemoral?” one cannot sensiblyask whether thereare reasons to complywith the moralprinciple that we ought to help people in need, for instance. One could saythat the moralskeptic is asking whether the reasons thatjustify amoral principle are at the same time reasons for him. He could assume that there are reasons whyone ought to help people in need,atthe sametime however believethat he need not himself follow that principle. Then the question he is asking would be:Are the reasons that justify the moral principle reasons for him?But this question does not make anysense. If the skeptic accepts aprinciple as amoral principle (“we oughttohelp people in need”), he at the sametime accepts thatthereare reasons for him that justify the principle in question (without necessarilyknowing them).Ifthis were not the case he would not accept the 38 Peter Schaber principle as amoral principle. He might very well do so, but then his doubts could not be understood as doubts about the idea that he has reasons to do what he accepts is morallyrequired. If the skeptic asks for the reasons to do something that is demanded of him, then he can onlysensiblyask whether this demand is justified. Thisishowever not the question whyheshould be moral but the question whether or not this principle is amember of the class of morallyright principles. But this would mean that the moral skeptic is no lon- gerarguing from astandpoint outside morality but from one inside. He is taking part in adebate about the content of morality and not about the reasons for obeying moralnorms. If the moral skeptic on the other hand acknowledges that the principles he is being obligated to obey are the right moral principles, then it is indeedunclear what he is asking about.Whoever says, “Yes, those are the right moral principles”,and then asks whether he should obey them is asking aquestion thatdoes not make anysense.¹⁴

4Reasons forthe MoralSkeptic

Whoever shares the widelyheld view that moral principles are universallybinding must show that even amoral skeptic has reasons to accept the moral principles. And if what Ihavesaid so far holds, then the reasons the moral skeptic has to accept moral principles are nothing other thanthe reasons that justify moral principles. Thus, he might have to accept that he ought to help people in need because this would save them from very bad things. Will the moral skeptic who is outside moralitybepersuaded by such reasons?Well, it could be thatthe moralskeptic will not enter the realm of reasons, that is, he will rule out reasons in general terms. If that is so, then he will remain unpersuaded. That does not however mean that there are no reasons for him to act morally. It simplymeans thatherefuses to consider such reasons.The fact that there are reasons to act morally—for example, to help others in need—is un- affected by such arefusal. The moral skeptic could however simply refuse to accept that something givenasareason (for example, thatvery bad thingsshould be prevented) is areason. In this case we would have to discuss what reasons justify moral principles. Thisiswhat moral philosophersdo. However,this is not adebate—and this is importantinour context—that takes place outside mor-

 If one accepts moral principles,then one necessarilyaccepts that one has reasons to act accordingly.One might,ofcourse, have at the same time reasons not to act accordingly.Reasons of self-interest might speak against actingmorally. Still, one has reasonstoobey the moral principles. Why Be Moral: AMeaningful Question? 39 ality.Itisnothing other thanwhat moralphilosophers discuss. They are arguing about justifications of moralprinciples: what we morallyought to do and whywe ought to do such things. Can the moral skeptic be convinced whyheshould do so? Let us assume thatthe principle “we ought to help people in need” is correct.And the reason is that by doing so very bad thingscan be prevented. This is what we tell the moral skeptic. The moral skeptic might not be convinced. He doubts that these are justificatory reasons for the principle in question. Thus, he doubts whether the principle that “we oughttohelp people in need” is a moral principle. If he does so, he takes part in the ordinary moral debate on the right principles of morality.Orhemight accept the principle: “Yes, we ought to help people in need”.And he might then ask whyheshould to do so. But what then is he asking for?Heisnot asking whether thereare anyjus- tificatory reasons for the principle, because this he alreadyaccepted by accepting the principle as amoral principle. One might saythat he is asking the question of whether following the principles is serving his own interests. Thisis, of course, asensible question. The moral skeptic can ask whether acting morally serves his interests. But does the question “Whybemoral?” address this concern?The justificatory reasons of moral principles are the reasons whywe should be moral. And they are accepted, if the principles themselvesare accepted as moralprinciples. So the moralskeptic is not asking for those reasons, provided he has accepted aprinciple as amoral principle. And if someone asked: “Arethere reasons to follow these principles?” the skeptic would say “Yes, there are: the reasons which justify the principle”.These are at the same time the reasons to obeythe principle. Of course, he could ask whether following the principles is servinghis own interests. They might differ,they might not.If the moral reasons differ from the reasons of self-interest,the moral skeptic would still have reason to follow the moral principles. The justificatory reasons would still obtain. He might at the same time have no reasons of self-interestto follow the moral principles. Some think that this impliesthathehad no reasons to act morally. But this is wrong. He has reasons to act morally, namelythose that justify the moral principles.

5The Answer to Glaucon’sQuestion

Ibegan this paper by remindingusofGlaucon’sstory about the shepherd Gyges, and Iwould like to return to it.Why should Gyges—this is Glaucon’squestion— not have seduced the queen, slain the king and taken the kingdom since he would have been able to make himself invisible and would not have had to 40 Peter Schaber fear anyreprisal?Would it not have been stupid for him to have passed up this opportunity?How should we respond to Glaucon?Ithink thatweshould give him our moralreasons for not acting likethis, for example, tell him that we should not act likethis because it violates the fundamental right of another person to life. Of course Glaucon could ask whyitiswrongtoviolate afundamental right of another person. He would, however,simplydoubtthat violating afundamental right of another person is areason not to act in acertain way. We find our- selvesthen once again discussing the content of moral reasons.Can the moral principle not to treat the king the waythat Gygesdid in the story be justified with referencetoafundamental right or not?Whateverthe answer to this question is, it is also—as Ihavetried to show—an answer to Glaucon’squestion “Why be moral?” This does not mean that Gygesnecessarilywould have acted differ- entlyifhehad acknowledgedthat the fundamental rights of the king are violated by deception and murder.When we talk about reasons for action,then we are not eo ipso talking about what motivates people but merelyabout what should mo- tivatepeople. The question “Whybemoral?” is, however,not aquestion about the actual motivation of people but aquestion about reasons for acceptingprin- ciples as moral principles. As far as these reasons are concerned, moralphilos- ophydoes not need to make anyspecial effort.The reasons we have in mind when we saythat we must act in certain ways are reasons that we should all act on. And the reasons not to do what Gygeswas said to have done are nothing but the reasons that justifiablydemand that he refrain from such actions. There is no further question about reasons.Whoever knows he ought,morally, to do something knows that he has reasons to act accordingly. Gygesmight not recognize thatheought,morally, to do something.Hemight reject thatthereare any reasons to act morally. And if he then asked whyheshould be moral, he might not be sure whether there are reallynomoral principles (“Are there reasons to accept moralprinciples Ihavenot yetdiscovered?”). But once he accepts moral principles the question “Whybemoral?” would be meaningless. It mayseem as if Ihaveargued in favorofH.A. Prichard’sclaim that the question “Whybemoral?” has no meaning. But Idonot think thatthis is the case. The question is meaningless if it is understood as the question of whether there are anyreasons to complywith moral principles. But the question is asensible one, if it is understood as the question of whether there are reasons to accept moral principles in the first place. If Ithink that we oughttohelp people in need, Icannot sensiblyask whether Ihavereasons to do so. But Icould have doubts whether we morallyought to do help people in need. AndImight ask whether we oughttohelp people in need. This is asensible first order moral question. It needsgood moraltheorizing to answer it. Why Be Moral: AMeaningful Question? 41

Bibliography

Kant, I. (1785): Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten,translated by L. WhiteBeck (1990) as The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Second Edition, New York: Macmillan. Korsgaard, Ch.(1996): The SourcesofNormativity,Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress. Mill, J.S. (1979): Utilitarianism,ed. by G. Sher,Indianapolis: Hackett. Plato(1961): The Collected Dialogues of Plato including the Letters,ed. by E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Princeton: PrincetonUniversityPress. Prichard, H. A. (2002): “Does Moral Philosophy RestOnaMistake?”,inMoral Writings, Oxford: Oxford University Press,pp. 7–20. Singer,P.(1993): Practical Ethics,Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press. Stemmer,P.(2000): Handeln zugunsten anderer,Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Part II: Exploring Viable Answers

RobertB.Louden Why Be Moral? ANew Answer to an Old Question

The UltimateQuestion?

The question, “WhyBeMoral?” is astaple in manyanthologies of ethical theory¹ as well as in numerous textbooks² and monographs³ on ethics. It has also been described variouslyas“the supreme question” (Stace 1937,p.252), “the Ultimate Question” (Taylor 1978,p.483),⁴ “the profoundest problem of Ethics” (Sidgwick 1907, p. 386n.4),⁵ and “the HolyGrail of moral philosophy” (Hills 2010,p.3).⁶ Is there anything new to sayonthis topic?Ibelievethere is. In this essayIwish to offer anew and more plausible answer to this venerable question, primarilybe- cause all of the existing answers with which Iamfamiliar appear to be unsatisfactory. Iwill saymoreshortlyabout whythe existing answers seem to be unsatisfactory,but first Iwish to sayafew words about the wayinwhich the question is understood in most philosophical discussions. There is aclear sense in which the correct answer to the question, “WhyBeMoral?” is simply “because it’s right” (Hospers 1961, pp. 191–98), and this is one reason whyF.H.Bradley begins his classic essay, “WhyShouldIBe Moral?” by observing: “Whyshould Ibe moral?The question is natural, and yetseems strange. It appears to be one we ought to ask, and yetwefeel, when we ask it,that we are whollyremovedfrom the moralpoint of view” (Bradley1927, p. 58). IbelievethatBradley is right: when we try to find an answer to the question, “Whybemoral?” we are, as he puts it, “whollyremoved from the moralpoint of view.” This is alsoone rea-

 Cf. Hospers and Sellars ,Pahel and Schiller ,Pojman ,Shafer-Landau , Sher .  Cf. Hospers ,Pojman ,Shafer-Landau .  Cf. Bradley ,Stace ,Toulmin ,Frankena ,Gert .  However,ifone is searching for areallyultimatequestion, the case that Camus makes for his own candidatedoes seem rather compelling: “Thereisbut one trulyserious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.Judgingwhether life is or is not worthlivingamounts to answeringthe fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has threedimen- sions,whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These aregames; one must first answer” (Camus ,p.).  See also Parfit , :pp. –.  See also Blackburn ,p.. 46 RobertB.Louden son whyPrichard attacks the very attempt to give arguments for being moral, holding instead “that we do not come to appreciate an obligation by an argument,i.e.byaprocess of non-moral thinking” (Prichard 1968, p. 9). People who are alreadycommitted to the moral point of view do not need anyadditional reasons to be moral, and the question, “Whybemoral?” will appear strangeto them. If they view acertain action as being morallyright,then they believethey ought to do it – its rightness alreadysupplies them with asufficient reason for performing the act (see Hospers 1961, p. 193). But the “WhyBeMoral?” question, as interpreted by most philosophers, is understood as aquestion asked by someone who is not alreadycommitted to morality.Itisaskeptical question posed by someone who stands outside of morality, not one asked by someone who already subscribes to the moral point of view.The question is normallyinterpreted as being asked from outside amoral framework, and thus translates into something like “Whyshould Istep inside amoral framework?”–wherethe ‘why’ is short- hand for “are thereany compellingreasons?” Arethereany compellingreasons for me to be moral, or should Isimplyremain outside of morality? Whyisitra- tional for me to be moral?Ineffect,weare looking for nonmoral reasons to be moral, and then asking if anyofthem are strong enough to lead us to give up our skepticism about morality.⁷ Tworelated points: 1) Somephilosophers have held thatitisimpossible to find nonmoralreasons that would convince amoral skeptic to adopt the moral point of view.For instance, Prichard’sfamousclaim thatmoral philosophy “rests on amistake” (Prichard 1968, p. 1; cf. Gert 1988, pp. 228–29) – viz., the belief that arational proof can be giventoshow people that they oughtto be moral, has often been interpreted in this manner.Onthis view,the question “Whybemoral?” does not admit to an answer and is in effect closed.Morality is viewed as akind of exclusive club – if you’re not alreadyamember,thereisno waytobeadmitted. But Iview it as an open question: we don’tknow if aconvincing answer can be giventothe moral skeptic until we try.2)Itwas popular for awhile among analytic philosophers to arguethat the question “Whybe moral?” is simplynot ameaningful question but onlyapseudo-question (Thorn-

 The unsatisfactoriness of BernardGert’sanswer to the question “Whybemoral?” should now be apparent.Hewrites: “one should be moral because he will cause or increase the likelihood of someone sufferingevil if he is not” (Gert ,p.;see also p. ). But as he himself notes, “this is amoral reason or answertothe question ‘Whyshould one be moral?’” (p. ). How- ever,whatweneed is anonmoral reason. Gert’sanswermay work for someone whoisalready committed to morality,but it won’tworkfor someone who stands outside of morality.Ineffect, he’ssaying “one should be moral because it’smorallywrong not to be moral.” His answer is question-begging. Why Be Moral? ANew Answer to an Old Question 47 ton 1970,p.453), like so manytraditional philosophical queries whose absurd- ities needed to be exposed in order to advance knowledge.The absurdity of the question “Whyshould Ibemoral?” became apparent,itwas claimed, once the implied ‘should’ (“Why should Ibemoral?”)isconstrued as amoral ‘should’.Interpreted in this manner,the question then becomes vacuous, like asking “Whyare all round thingscircular?” (Nielsen 1970,p.748;cf. 1958) or “are theresome emerald objects that aren’tgreen?” (Toulmin 1950,p.162). How- ever,ifthe ‘should’ is not interpreted as amoral ‘should’,then the question is by no means absurd.And as noted earlier,this is in fact the waythat the question has traditionallybeen understood. So we should construe “Whybemoral?” as a meaningful question. But – judging by the growingvolumes of literature devoted to the problem – it is certainlynot an easy question to answer in aconvincing manner.⁸

Problemswith Previous Answers

Iremarked earlier thatthe traditional answers to the question “Whybemoral?” are unsatisfactory.Although Ican’texamine all of the answers in this short essay, let me try now to brieflysketch what is wrongwith at least the most popular ones. From the beginning and up to the present,the most frequentlygiven answer to the question “Whyshould Ibemoral?” is “because it is in my self-interest.” In order to show that it is rational to be moral, it has been assumed that we must show that it is in one’sself-interest to be moral (see, e.g.,Gauthier 1970). Letusquickly review some of the relevant points in the frequent appeals to self-interest. Plato, in Book II of the Republic – still todaythe locus classicus of the discussion⁹ – has Socrates respond to Glaucon’schallengebyarguing that justice

 Likeother traditional philosophical problems that were oncedismissedaspseudo-questions (including the question of meaninginlife – see Quinn ,p.), “Whybemoral?” has re- centlygained anew lease on life. But,again, it is not an easy life, for thereislittle consensus about how to properlyanswer the question.  Cf. Shafer-Landau ,pp. –,Sher ,pp. –,Pojman ,pp. –.Wil- liam Frankena, in his lecture, “WhyBeMoral?” pushes the issue back even further when he remarks that “the question is at least as old as Hesiod” (Frankena ,p.). In Worksand Days –,for instance, the poet says that he is just because it pays: … Iwould not be just myself nor would Ihavemyson so – for it is abad thing to be just if the unjust should getmorejustice than the just man; but Idonot believethat yetZeus of Counsel will make such an ending(Nelson ,p.). 48 Robert B. Louden in fact benefitsits possessors (Plato 1996,p.1007/367d). In other words, it is to one’sown advantage to be moral. Socrates develops his case laterinthe Repub- lic chieflybyarguingthat injusticeorimmorality corrupts one’ssoul. Immorality corrupts one’ssoul, it is not in one’sinterest to have acorrupt soul, so therefore one has aself-interested reason to be moral. Hobbes,another frequently-cited source,¹⁰ alsoholds thatmorality and self- interest are not in conflict,but his focus is on human beings’ collective self-interest.Itisinour collective self-interest to be at least minimallymoral because if we are not,society willfall apart.Hobbesian morality functions as amechanism of social control, and outside of society there is no morality.Unless and until there is ageneral adherencetothe requirementsofmorality,human life will once again (as it was before individuals left the state of nature)become “solitary, poor,nasty,brutish, and short” (Hobbes 1946,p.82). However,asothers have pointed out (Hospers 1970,p.743;Nielsen 1970,p.751), this Hobbesian strategy, updated by Baier (1958), Kavka(1984) and others in the late twentieth century, though it mayprovide aplausible answer to the question “Whyshould people in general be moral?” does not address the harder question, “Whyshould I be moral?” Formyinterests maynot coincide with other people’sinterests. There maybegood reasons for people in general to be moral that don’tapplytome, particularlyifIcan successfullyobtain what Iwant without succumbing to the moral constraints adhered to by others. The traditionalreligious answer to our question –“Ishould be moralbecause God willrewardmeifIam, and punishmeifIam not”–is not discussed much by contemporary philosophers, even though this “divine command” response continues to be the most popularanswer to the question among laypeo- ple. But the main point Iwish to stress here is that this kind of religious answer to the question, “Whybemoral?” is alsoanappeal to self-interest.AsHospers remarks,

It is just self-interest pushed intothe next world instead of beingconfined to this one. The person whoacts from this motive is just playingthe gamefor higher stakes. He is declaring his willingness to postpone his rewardabit longer in order to collect at ahigher rate of interest in the next world – which is as selfish as it could be. It is like working longer hours in order to collect time and ahalf at the end of the day. (Hospers 1970,p.738)

These well-known self-interested answers to the question “Whybemoral?” can easilybemultiplied (and in textbooks they usuallyare,byadding additional readings on psychological egoism and so-called “ethical egoism”), but they all

 Cf. Shafer-Landau ,pp. –,Sher ,pp. –,Pojman ,pp. –. Why Be Moral? ANew Answer to an Old Question 49 seem to me to be beside the point for the simple reason that moralityisseldom about self-interest. Moralityoften asks us to overcomeour self-interest and take a genuine concern for others, and the pull of self-interest itself is the biggest barrier to actingmorally. Indeed, even in cases wherepeople appear on the surface to be acting morally, they are usually onlyacting out of self-interest.This is Kant’spoint in the Groundwork when he remarks

From loveofhumanity Iamwillingtoconcede that the majority of our actions are in accord with duty,but if we look morecloselyatthe intentions and aspirations in them, we every- where come up against the dear self [das liebe Selbst],¹¹ which is always flashingforth, and it is on this – and not on the strict command of duty,which in manycases would require self-denial [Selbstverleugnung] – that their purpose is based (Kant 1996,p.62/4: 407).¹²

If the requirementsofmorality are often inconsistent with the dictates of self-interest,then the attempt to convince someone to be moral by appealing to her self-interest is wrongheaded and essentiallyirrelevant.For in appealingto self-interest,weare not necessarilymaking contact with morality at all.¹³ Morali- ty and self-interest are not the same – they do not always coincide. Humans are capable of at least occasionallyovercoming egoism, and this is what moralityfre- quentlyasks of them. Here too, my own view on this topic is thus close to Pri- chard’s, who held thatthere is no reason to suppose thatthe dictates of morality and self-interest coincide. Much of the history of moral philosophy, he observed, “is occupied with attempts either to provethatthere is anecessary connexion between duty and interest or in certain cases even to exhibit the connexion as something self-evident.” But his own position, and mine as well, is that these

 The title of Alison Hills’sbook, TheBeloved Self:Morality and the ChallengefromEgoism, stemsfromthis passage.However,she uses Jonathan Bennett’stranslation of the passage,in which “das liebe Selbst” is rendered as “the beloved self” (see Hills ,p.).  However,there is a(very) different sense in which morality on Kant’sview is consistent with self-interest.For he holds that duties to oneself are “the supreme condition and principium of all morality” (Kant ,p./: ). If there werenoduties to oneself, “then therewould be no duties whatsoever (Kant ,p./: ). The work that one needs to do on oneself in order to become an effective moral agent (“normative self-government,” as Korsgaard puts it – ,p.)thus grounds morality.For discussion, see Louden ,pp. –, –.And Kant’sappeal to self-respect as afeelingthat “is the basis of certain duties, that is, of certain actions that areconsistent with his duty to himself” (Kant ,p./: )has also been invokedbysome as aKantian answertothe question, “Whybemoral?” Fordiscussion of this latter point,see Ricken ,pp. –.  As H.L.A. Hart remarks, “obligations and duties are thought of as characteristicallyinvolving sacrificeorrenunciation, and the standingpossibility of conflict between obligation or duty and interest is, in all societies,amongthe truisms of both the lawyerand the moralist” (Hart ,p. ). 50 RobertB.Louden attempts are “out of place” and should “never have been made” (Prichard 1968, p. 204). Closelyrelated to the issue of self-interest is the appeal to happiness: “You should be moral because youwill be happier if youare.” And this answer too goes back at least as far as Plato. In the Republic,Socrates replies to Glaucon’s challengebytrying to convince readersthat aman is trulyhappy when he is moral. But this alleged connection between morality and happinessquicklybe- gins to vanish upon examination. Being moralcertainlyisnot sufficient for happiness – this was Aristotle’spoint when he observed that “those people who claim thatsomebodybeing tortured on the wheel or meetingwith great misfor- tune is happy – if he is good – make no sense” (Aristotle 1999,p.117/VII.13 1153b20 –22).Inmaking his own case for the necessity of “goods residingin the bodyaswell as external goods and chance” (Aristotle 1999,p.116/ 1153b18), Aristotle undoubtedlywent overboard (as Stoics and Christians would laterpoint out) in claiming thatwealth, political power,good children, and personal beauty wereall necessary for happiness (see Aristotle 1999,p. 11/I.81099a30 –1099b9), but freedom from constant and excruciatingpain does not seem toomuch to ask for. But is morality even necessary for happiness?Eventhis weaker claim is sus- pect,and both real life and fiction seem intent on knockingitdown. Justice does not always triumph, good deeds sometimesdogounrewarded, crime sometimes does pay, and moral virtue does not always make its possessors happy.Nietzsche surelyexaggeratedwhen he remarked in Twilightofthe Idols that “onlythe Eng- lishman” strivesafter happiness (Nietzsche 1988, vol. 6, p. 61/I.12) – manypeople elsewherealso strive after it.But Itake his point to be, at least in part,that the English utilitarians are simplywronginthinking that moralityaims primarilyat happiness.Inreal life as well as in manynovels and films, thereare some people who managetoachievehappiness without being moral, and thereare some morallygood people who are not happy. Henry Fielding,inhis novel TomJones, puts it wellwhen he observes: “There are aset of religious,orrather moralwrit- ers, who teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery,in this world. Avery wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true” (Fielding1950,p.690).¹⁴ And Leslie Stephen echoes Fielding’sremark in the Conclusion to his popular late nineteenth-century textbook, TheScience of Ethics:

one great difficulty must remainunsolved. Rather,Iassert that it is intrinsicallyinsoluble. There is no absolute coincidencebetween virtue and happiness.Icannot provethat it is

 Hospers also citesthis passage in his “WhyBeMoral?” (,pp. –). Why Be Moral? ANew Answer to an Old Question 51

always prudent to act rightlyorthat it is always happiest to be virtuous.Myinability to provethese propositions arises,asIhold, from the fact that they arenot true (1907, p. 418).¹⁵

Although the aboveisbynomeans intended as an exhaustive examination of all previous answers to the question, “Whybemoral?” the main territory has been surveyed, and the central weaknesses of each position have been indicated. What Ibelieveisneeded in order to make headwayinthis ancient and ongoing debate is to locate some nonmoralreasons that are not simplyappeals to self-interest or happiness,but yetare powerful enough to convince moral skeptics that they do indeedhavesufficient reason to give up theirskepticism about morality and instead try to be moral. In the next section of my paper,Iwillindicate what these reasons are.

The EthicsofRationalDiscussion

My strategy for answering the question, “Whybemoral?” is in part an application of previous work of mine to adifferent domain,¹⁶ and it involves drawing attention to the norms and values thatlie behind or are presupposed by ordinary cognitive activity and rational communication. There are norms regardinghow we ought to think and reason, and some of these norms are arguablymoral norms. If we can show thatanyone who wishes to successfullyengageinsuch activities must first adhere to certain underlying norms and values (and if we can alsoshow that these norms and values are at least arguably moral norms and values),then we have also shown, in effect,that anyone who wishestoen- gage in ordinary cognitive activityand rationalcommunication must also try to “be moral”–at least in some minimal sense. Afterpresentingmyargument,I will also try to show that this strategyavoids the pitfalls associatedwith earlier canonicalanswers to the question, “Whybemoral?” That is, my answer to the question does not itself involveanappeal to moralreasons (and thus is not a question-begging response), nor does it rest on appeals to self-interest or happiness. Finally, in the concluding sections of my paper,Iwill also respond to some objections to my position. What is necessarilypresupposed whenever anyone engages in arational discussion with others?Among other things, the following:honesty regarding facts

 Frankena (,p.)and Pojman (,p.)also citethis passageintheir discussions.  See Louden ,pp. –,Louden ,and Louden . 52 RobertB.Louden and evidence, respect for the equal rights of others to participateinthe discussion, and absence of coercion (refraining from violence) in attemptingtojustify one’sposition to others. These necessary assumptions are what Habermas and other discourse ethicists call “presuppositions of communication (Kommunika- tionsvoraussetzungen)” (Habermas 1991, p. 133), and,asAlan Gewirth notes, they are “moralaspectsofthe intellectual enterprise” (Gewirth 1978,p.360). These moral aspects¹⁷ of rational discussion and communication lie behind and are presupposed by our cognitive activities, and adherencetothem is necessary in order for the activities to function in their normalintended manner. Forinstance,if(as occasionallyhappens in real life) someone distorts the data to fit his own personal agenda, or deceivesothers by making false statements, or uses coercion to forceothers to accept his position, the discussion itself suffers in afundamental way – its rational credentials are severelycompro- mised or (in severe cases) forfeited entirely. Thus far Ihavepresented my position by referring to some underlying norms and values that are presupposed by rational communication and ordinary cognitive activities. But the basic idea can be pushed back still further,toaneven more fundamental notion. The slogan “meaning is normative” has been in the philosophical air for some time (cf. Gibbard 2012,p.6), and in the work of manycontemporary philosophersitclearly “plays apivotal role” (Boghossian 2005,p.205). Recently, Allan Gibbard has published an entirebook devoted to defending aversion of the slogan. Earlier defenders of one or another version of the claim thatmeaningisnormative include Saul Kripke (1982,p.37) (who in turn arrivesatitvia Wittgenstein – see Wittgenstein 1958, esp. p. 82/§201)¹⁸ and John McDowell (1984,p.336), but Gibbard traces the keyidea behind his approach to following openingstatement from Lance and O’Leary-Hawthorne’s 1997book, TheGrammar of Meaning:

the very speech act of makingameaningclaim is itself normative, … sayingwhatsome- thingmeans is prescribing. As such, meaningclaims have moreincommon with the claims of morality than they do with the claims of scienceand so ought to raise for us philosoph-

 Obviously, much hinges hereonwhatisexactlymeant by “moral,” and Idon’tintend to beg the question. See “Moral/Nonmoral,” below,for attemptatananswer.  Cf. Glock, whoargues that “within analytic philosophy, the idea that thereisanirreducibly normative dimension to linguistic meaninggoes back to Wittgenstein” (Glock ,p.). But he traces the claim back to pre-Investigations Wittgenstein, citing atextofFriedrich Waismann’s “from the earlythirties which is based on dictations by Wittgenstein” (Glock ,p.)in which Waismann recordsWittgenstein as sayingthat one needs to regardlanguage “fromanor- mative perspective” (Waismann ,p.,see also p. ). Why Be Moral? ANew Answer to an Old Question 53

ical questions consonant with those arisinginmoral philosophy, rather than in philosophy of science. (Lanceand O’Leary-Hawthorne 1997, p. 2; cf. Gibbard2012,p.ix)

Philosophical arguments about “the meaning of meaning” (cf. Ogden and Ri- chards 1923)can and do getcomplicated quickly,but the basic idea behind Gib- bard’sversion of the thesis that meaning is normative is actuallyrather simple. As Christopher Hill writesinhis review of Gibbard’sbook, “Gibbard’smain claim is thatlinguistic meaning is normative. … [He] proposes thatclaims about meaning implyclaims of obligation – more specifically, claims about what we ought to sayinresponsetoqueries, and claims to the effect thatweought to accept and reject sentences in various circumstances” (Hill 2013,p.1). Or,asGibbard himself puts it, “the slogan ‘Meaning is normative’…cashes out in another slogan, ‘Means implies ought’.Ascriptions of meaning implystraight ought ascriptions” (Gibbard 2012,p.11; cf. 10). Itakethe claim that meaning is normative to be consistent with, and at bottom quite similar to, my earlier claim that ordinary cognitive activity and rational communication involveadherencetonorms and values. In both cases, we are pointing to anormative dimension that is necessarilyinvolvedwith something that manypeople regardasentirely nonnormative.But thereisalsoasense in which the “meaning is normative” thesis is more radical than my earlier claim. Foritimplies that one needn’tbefirst engagedinanargument or discussion with anyone else in order to feel the forceofanought.Assoon as one commits oneself to the meaning of alinguistic term (“Ibelievethat the concept x means y”), normative commitments are involved. Forinstance (this is one of Gib- bard’sexamples), if youbelievethat snow is white, then you ought not to believe that nothing is white(Gibbard 2012,p.13). Similarly, if youbelievethat cats are mammals, then you ought not to believethat thereare no mammals with soft fur, ashort snout,and retractable claws. Foreach meaningful linguistic term that a speaker subscribes to, there will be ahuge – probablyinfinite – number of relevant obligations concerning what the speaker oughttobelievethat follow from her view of what the term means. And this is at least part of what Kripke has in mind when he claims that “the relation of meaning and intention to future action is normative,not descriptive” (Kripke 1982, p. 37). Ihavetried to show that much more is at stake in one’sresponse to the question, “Whybemoral?” than has been traditionallyassumed. Foronce we realize how manymundaneand fundamental human activities themselvesinvolve ad- herencetobasic norms and values (assuming we can also convince ourselves that these norms and values are arguably moral norms and values – see “Moral/Nonmoral,” below), we seethatthe question actuallytiesintoawide rangeofhuman activities and not merelyto“moralconduct,” narrowly con- 54 RobertB.Louden strued.And this realization should be powerful enough to persuade even the most stubborn moral skeptics thatthey too should try to be moral. Forifthey do not,they willnot be able to make meaningful claims or engageinrational discussions. Granted, this realization willnot necessarilymotivatethem to strive to become moralsaints. But that is amuch different problem. The question we are trying to answer is not “Whybeasmorallygood as possible?” but the more modest question, “Whybemoral?” One might respond to the line of argumentation presented thus far as follows: “But aren’tyou toomerelyappealing to self-interestand/or happiness? That is, isn’titinone’sself-interest to speak meaningfully(make oneself understood), communicaterationallywith others, etc.? And aren’tpeople more likely to be happy if they saysomething coherent and meaningful, communicate rationally with others, etc.? Anddidn’tyou argueearlier that appeals to self-interest and happinessare not appropriateresponses to the question, ‘Whybe moral?’” My response to this objection is “yesand no.” Yes, in the sense that Iagree both thatitisgenerallyinone’sself-interest to speak meaningfullyand communicate rationally, and that one will oftenbehappier if one acts in these ways.But no, in the (more important) sense that what Ihavedrawn attention to is something much biggerthan self-interestand happiness.For instance,eventhe most selflessaltruist imaginable occasionallyneedstospeak meaningfullyand communicate rationally, and when she does so, self-interest will not be her motive – for she is aselfless altruist. Similarly,anextremelydisconsolateperson – say, Kant’sexample of someone “who feels weary of life because of aseries of ills that has grown to the point of helplessness” (Kant 1996a, p. 73/4:421)and who as aresultissuicidal – even this person will need to at least occasionally speak meaningfullyand communicate rationally. Andwhen he does so, he is not aiming at happiness,for he is weary of life. In short, everyone – even those who do not act out of self-interest or adesire to be happy – at least occa- sionallythinks coherently, speaksmeaningfully, and communicates rationally. And when they do so, they are forced to alsoadhere to the underlying norms and values implied by meaning and rational communication. In other words, there are norms and values that govern and permeate human thought, and those who forswear them completelycannot think coherently. And whywould people choose to think incoherently?¹⁹

 Forthe purpose of deceivingthemselves, one might reply. Possibly. But if they wish to be successful in achieving this aim, they toowill need to at least occasionallyadhere to the norms and values to which Ihavedrawn attention. Forarationallyexecuted plan of self-decep- Why Be Moral? ANew Answer to an Old Question 55

Finally, this argument is also not an appeal to moral reasons (e.g., “you should be moral because you’ll cause an increase in suffering if youdon’t”), and thus it is not question-begging.Wehavepresented moral skeptics with powerful nonmoral reasons to be moral, and in doing so we have shown them why they need to step inside what is arguably amoral framework.

ANew Answer?

Ihavebilledmyresponsetothe question, “Whybemoral?” as a new answer,but it is time to confess that there is asense in which it is not new at all. Forthe ear- liest and most famous antecedentofthe view that Iamdefending is of course Plato’saccount of the form of the good in the Republic. When Plato’sSocrates asserts that “what givestruth to the thingsknown and the power to know to the knower is the idea of the good [ten tou agathou idean]” and that the idea or form of the good is “the cause [aitian]ofknowledge and truth” (Plato1996, p. 1129/508e), he too is claiming that adherencetomoral values is necessarily presupposed by all cognitivelymeaningful activity.Values,according to Plato, come before facts and make facts possible. As Julia Annas remarks in her expo- sition of Plato’sform of the good, “values are fundamental to explaining facts,” they “can be better known than facts,”“they are more fundamental to our understanding” thanfacts, and “in some obscure way” they are even “more real” than facts (Annas 1981, pp. 246,247). Much of the contemporary literature thatIhave drawnfrom focuses primar- ilyonnorms and normativity,whereas Plato’sfocus is on values and evaluation. The normative domain is centered on concepts such as ought, obligation,and a reason. As Gibbard remarks (with some help from Wilfrid Sellars), “normative judgmentsare ‘ought’ judgments. They are judgmentsthatare …‘fraughtwith ought’.They are judgments that movewithin ‘the space of reasons’.Theyare ‘oughty’” (Gibbard 2012,p.10; cf. Millikan 2005,p.61, Sellars 1956,§36). The evaluativerealm, on the other hand,focuses on concepts such as good and bad,aswellasonthicker virtue and vice concepts such as courageous/cowardly and generous/stingy. The normative commitments impliedbymeaning and rational activity are perhaps easier to see thanthe evaluative commitments.For instance, as noted earlier,aclaim about what aterm means also impliesclaims about how we

tion of the sort envisaged(“in order to deceive myself, Iwill think incoherently”)itself implies that the agents in question are consistentlyfollowingahypothetical imperative. 56 Robert B. Louden ought to respond to queriesinvolving the term, and engaging in arationaldis- cussion impliesthat the participants ought to look at the evidence impartially, that they ought to be honest, ought to consider counterarguments, etc. But Ifol- low Platoinasserting thatthere are also value commitments implied in these activities. Ironically, Nietzsche – not exactlyafan of Plato’s(“Plato is boring” and “acowardinthe face of reality,” asymptom “of decay” whose moralism is “pathologicallyconditioned”)²⁰ – offers some insight in grasping this claim. Be- hind logic and science, he asserts in Beyond Good andEvil and elsewhere, “stand valuations [Wertschätzungen] … Forexample, thatthe definite should be worth more than the indefinite, appearance worth less than ‘truth’.”²¹ Nietzsche of course also criticizes Plato’sform of the good, but his claim that logic and science presuppose acommitment to the view that truth is good and error bad is nevertheless at least ahint in the direction of Plato’smysterious doctrine that the good is the ultimatecause of the knowledge,truth, and reality of everything else. An additional complication is that in real life the distinction between norms and values is not always rigid – norms and values frequentlyentail one another.For instance, teleological ethical theories posit avision of the good (viz., avalue) to strive for.But they then attach an ought (viz., anorm) to this value: “youought to realize the good, your duty is to maximize the good.” But my main point regardingPlatoatpresent is thathedoes not employ his famousdoctrineofthe form of the good as aresponse to Glaucon’schallenge, “Whybemoral?” Rather,the primary role of this doctrine in the Republic is to justify the claim thatphilosophers should rule in ajust state. True philosophers have knowledge of the forms, including the highestand most important form of all – viz., the form of the good. And those who trulypossess aknowledge of what is good should rule over the rest of us. Why does Plato not have Socrates employ the doctrine of the form of the good as away of answering Glaucon’schallenge, and instead try to convince Glaucon thatitisinhis interest to be moralbecause he will be happier if he is?I’mnot sure. But if he had done so, he would have articulated something closer to my view – viz., thatone should be moral because one cannot even make meaningful statements or engageinrational communication unless one is at least minimallymoral. In other words, one can logicallyinfer my answer to the question, “Whybemoral?” from Plato’sancient doctrineofthe form of the good. But because neither Plato (nor,tothe best of my knowledge,anyone

 Nietzsche , TI vol. ,p./X: ;vol. ,p./II: ;vol. ,p./II: .  Nietzsche , BGE vol. ,p./;cf. GM vol. ,pp. –/III: –, GS vol. , pp. –/. Why Be Moral? ANew Answer to an Old Question 57 else thus far)has actuallyadvocated this answer in responding to the question, “Whybemoral?” Ihaveimmodestlybilled my answer as anew answer.However, whether the answer is new or in fact extremelyold is ultimatelynot terribly important,philosophicallyspeaking.The important issue is whether the answer is correct.And Ihavetried to show that is.

Moral/Nonmoral

One key objection that always comes up when Iraise these issues is the following: “But even if we grant your claim that norms and values are entailed by meaning and rational activity,how do youknow the norms and values you are talking about are moral norms and values?Not all norms are moralnorms, not all values are moral values.” This is an important question, and Icertainly agree that there are manydifferent kinds of norms – e.g., aesthetic norms, legal norms, social norms, norms of etiquette, norms (rules) of tennis and every other sport.And the sameholds for values. Agood baseball playeris not necessarilyamorallygood person, amorallygood person is not necessarily agood philosopher,etc. And Ialsoagree thatweshould not try to collapse these different kinds of norms and values into one unwieldyblob. To do so constitutes adistortion of reality.These claims about the plurality of norms and values seem intuitivelytrue and beyond dispute. However,despite the intuitiveobviousnessofthese claims, the trickier question of how exactlytodistinguish moralnorms and values from nonmoral norms and values is not so easy to answer,inpart because the concept moral itself is essentiallycontested (Gallie1956). Forinstance, in TheDefinitionofMorality,a collection of late twentieth-century essays devoted to defining morality,editors G.Wallace and A.D.M.Walker conclude their introductory remarks about the contributions by noting:

Our review of the various types of definition[of morality] completed, it can be seen that none of the theses we have examined statesasufficient condition for arule or principle’s beingamoral rule or principle, and that understood as statinganecessary condition, many of them present difficulties.(Wallaceand Walker1970, p. 20)

Keeping this skeptical observation about the essential contestability of the concept of morality in mind, let’ssee if we can nevertheless make some headwayin answering the objection that the norms and values we have referred to are not necessarily moral norms and values, using Wallace and Walker’scollection of different definitions of morality as abenchmark (seeWallace and Walker 1970, 58 RobertB.Louden pp. 8–19). Let’sstart by examining the kind of ought that is entailed by meaning claims. Hill writes:

What is the nature of the ‘ought’ that Gibbardrelies on in explaining … [his] normativity thesis?Hetellsusthat it is exceptionless,inthe sense that statements involvingithold across all contexts and for all agents. It isn’tanought that applies onlytopeople who areinterested in believingthe truth, or onlytopeople whowant to have degrees of conviction that areinline with the weight of evidence. It isn’tanought that applies onlywhen agents have certain interests or occupy acertain perspective.Moreover,itisan‘all things considered’ ought … (Hill 2013,p.2;cf. Gibbard2012,pp. 12–16)

An exceptionless oughtthat holds across all contexts and for all agents?Anall thingsconsidered ought?We’re talkingabout avery strongought here, and according to manytraditionalconceptions of ‘moral’,itsure soundsalot like a moral ought.For instance, this kind of oughtisuniversalizable – it applies to everyone in relevantly similar situations (see Wallace and Walker 1970,pp. 8–9). And, since we’re talking about an ought,itisofcourse also prescriptive – it tells us what we oughttobelieveand how we ought to act (seeWallace and Walker 1970,pp. 9–10). But does this kind of oughtoverride other oughts (seeWallace and Walker 1970,pp. 10 –11)? It would seem to – e.g.,the imperativetodisbe- lievecontradictions (if youbelievesnow is white, youought not to believe that nothing is white) would seem to override an oughtofetiquette such as “Which forkshould Ieat the salad with?” Forifwefail to adhere to the former ought,wewon’tevenbeabletoascertain correctlywhich cases involves viola- tions of the second ought. Does this kind of ought have an importance that other kinds of oughtlack (see Wallace and Walker 1970,pp. 11–13)? Again, it would seem to (e.g.,disbelieving contradictions seems intuitively more important thanusing the correct fork at dinner). But are there certain types of sanction associated with this ought that are not associated with otherkinds of ought (see Wallace and Walker 1970,pp. 14– 16)? Forinstance, social pressureinthe form of ostracism or hostility,orpersonal feelings of guilt, shame, and remorse? In many cases, yes. Think of the public outcry,legal repercussions, and personal shame that oftenaccompanyscientists who distort data, or politicians who lie out of self-interest,orevenstudents who cheat on exams. To cite just one example, re- call the trial of Eric Poehlman, reported in the New York Times Magazine,aten- ured science professor at the University of Vermont who “pleaded guilty to lying on afederal grant application and admittedtofabricatingmore than adecade’s worth of scientific data on obesity.” Sentenced to “one year and one dayinfed- eral prison, followed by two years of probation,” the Poehlmanepisode grew into “one of the most expansivecases of scientific fraudinU.S.history” (Inter- landi 2006,p.1). Anddoes this oughtrefer to aspecific kind of content thatis Why Be Moral? ANew Answer to an Old Question 59 absent in the case of other oughts, e.g.,the promotion of social harmony(see Wallace and Walker 1970,pp. 16–19)? Again, it would seem to.Adherenceto the norms of truth and respect for evidence does promotesocial harmony – indeed, as Hobbes reminds us, without this adherenceand respect civil society becomes impossible. However,because Wallace and Walker’scollection is limited to competing late twentieth-century definitionsofmorality, it does not include that old Kant- ian standby,the categoricalimperative.Are the oughts of meaning and rationality “objectivelynecessary” by themselves(Kant 1996a, p. 67/4:414), without ref- erencetoany other ends?Will they “set human beingsinmotion irrespective of other desires or obligations they mayhave,” and do they “uniformlytrump all other considerations” (Glock 2005,p.240)? This is an extremelyhighhurdle. Al- though we have shown both that thoseindividuals who completelydisavowthe norms embedded in meaning and rationalitycannot even coherentlyexpress their disavowal without subscribing to the very norms from which they are trying to escape, and that human society itself is not ultimatelyviable without adher- ence to these norms, neither of these truths can establish the strongerclaim that the normativity of meaning and rationality is acategorical imperative.These oughts are not objectively necessary by themselves. Forinstance, those who do not want to be successfulininterpreting the world or in communicating co- herentlywith others (or even with themselves) need not consistentlyabide by these norms and values.²² So wheredoes this leave us?Accordingtomanycontemporary definitionsof ‘moral’,the norms involved in meaning and ordinary cognitive activity do count as moral. Onlywhen judgedbythe sterner test of Kant’scategoricalimperative do they fail.But it is no secret that this particular yardstick has failed to win uni- versalsupport,and some contemporary philosophersmaintain that thosewho hold that moral oughts are objectively necessary by themselvesare merely “relying on an illusion” in an attempt to give these oughts “amagic force” (Foot 1978, p. 167). So perhapsaless controversial test is needed. In showing that arguablymoral norms and values are involved in ordinary cognitive activities and meaning claims – activities and claims thatare often viewed as paradigmaticallynonmoral – we have alsosucceeded in findinga new and different answer to the age-old question, “Whybemoral?” If this argument is accepted, it does show that people have compellingreasons to try to be moral in at least aminimal sense – not merelybecause it is in their self-interest to do so (though it often is), or because they will be happier for doing so (though

 Iwould like to thank Beatrix Himmelmann for pressing this point on me. 60 RobertB.Louden they often will be), or because it is morallyright to do so (though it is) – but for other fundamental reasons. People who forswear moral norms and values com- pletelywill ultimatelynot be able communicatecoherentlywith others or utter meaningful statements,and they will thus be cut off from agreat manyactivities that are central to human life. But there is of course aprice to be paidfor this wayofansweringthe question. In arguing that the scope of moralityisinfact much broader thancommon- ly assumed, we willbeaccused of an unwelcomemoralism –“seeing thingsas moral issues that aren’t, and thereby overmoralizing the universe” (Coady2008, p. 17), or “thinking about moralityinwaysthat discount the importance of other (non-moral) values” (Taylor 2012,p.2;cf. 4, 127–29). And if the implicit assumption concerning the limited scope of morality and the accompanying definition of ‘moralism’ as adenial of this assumption are both accepted, then aconviction on this charge seems inevitable. However,Ireject boththe assumption and the definition. Forthe assumption is question-begging,and the definition does not adhere to ordinary usage. And once amoretraditionaldefinition of ‘moralism’ is substituted – viz., the inordinate desire to make judgments about others’ morality,particularlyincases wherecommon sense deems it inappropriate to do so – then an acquittal is quiteprobable. Fornothing said in this essayeveninvolves making moral judgments about the conduct of others, much less doing so in inappropriate circumstances. There are important conceptual and normative arguments for steeringclear from this sort of traditional moralism, rangingfrom Kant’srepeated warnings about the inscrutability of our moral status and the opacity of human intentions,²³ to Jesus’ insightfulquestion: “Whydoyou look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’seye,with never athoughtfor the great plank in your own?” (Matthew 7: 3 – 4).²⁴ Rather,myconcern has been to show that thereare fundamental moralnorms and values that are presupposed by manymundane human activities, and that much as we might prefer to avoid “messy morality” (Coady2008), in real life this is very,very difficult to do. Also, in arguingthatmoral norms and values underlie ordinary cognitive practices,weare not guilty of collapsing all typesofnorms and values into one big unwieldyblob.The norms of etiquette remain distinct from legal norms, the rules of tennis are not the same as the rules of chess, aesthetic values are not the same as moral values, etc. And the question of which of these norms or values should override the other or be deemed more important in cases of

 Kant a, p. /: ;p./: ;Kant b, p. /: ;cf. O’Neill ,pp. , , , .  In TheNew EnglishBible with the Apocrypha. .New York: OxfordUniversity Press and Cambridge University Press. Why Be Moral? ANew Answer to an Old Question 61 conflict still remains an open question, at least accordingtothe modest position defendedinthe present essay. Finally, for thosewho believethat there is more to life than morality, and that the nonmoralgoods available to humans are ultimatelymoresignificant than the moral goods (Wolf1982),²⁵ the thesis defended in this paper is not adirect refutation of their views. Ihavemerelytried to show that moral norms and values need to be adhered to even in the pursuit of nonmoral goods, to the extent that such pursuitinvolves making meaningful claims and communicating rationally.The question of which goods are ultimatelymore significant is aseparate issue.²⁶

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 Wolf’sessay, “Moral Saints,” is also reprinted as the last selection in the “WhyBeMoral?” section of Shafer-Landau. The editor interprets her as encouraging “us not to be” moral (Shafer- Landau ,p.).  Earlier versions of this paper were presentedasinvited lectures at the WhyBeMoral?conference held at the University of Tromsø in September  and at the University of New Eng- land in February .Iwould like to thank Beatrix Himmelmann and Andrew Rotondo for their detailed comments on my written text, as well as audiencemembers at each venue for their valuable questions followingmypresentations. 62 RobertB.Louden

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One Thought TooMany?

It is often thought thatasking oneself “Whybemoral?” is asign of ethical immaturity.Askingoneself whether one should act justly, or honestly, or bravely —or perhaps,asking oneself whether one should perform an act from the appropriate ethical motivation—appears in itself to betray some sort of shortcoming. The more youare able to think seriously outside the ethical box, as it were, the more it might seem that this is not agood thing,but rather abad thing. One might think of Bernard Williams’sfamous notion of “one thoughttoo many” in this context.¹ His comments, as Iunderstand them, are primarily about the questionable psyche of the person who needsadetour through moral theory (in his example: the idea of impartiality) in order to decidewhat is the right thing to do. But something likethat picture is relevant to the “Whybemoral?” question too. Forasking this question in full earnestness seems to require that the agent be sufficientlyalienated from, or uncommitted to, an ethical stance for him to be able to step outside it and question its validity. Askingoneself “Whybemoral?” can be characterised as ashortcomingper- haps not least from avirtue ethical standpoint.For accordingtoacommon un- derstandingofwhat virtue is, it means that your moral motivations have not grown into afully-fledgedethical character.You are, as it were, still open for suggestions comingfrom outside the sphere of the morallyresponsible, which is to saythat youare not good. If something is part of your character,you cannot distance yourself from it; it has become part of who youare, and not something you can take off like ashirt or awatch. So being able to ask the question implies that moralityisnot settled in youasyour character.

The Claims

What Iwould like to suggest in what follows, is that this is an undue simplification of the matter.Onthe contrary,Iwould like to try to arguefor two claims of

 Cf. the final paragraphs of Williams (). 66 HallvardJ.Fossheim which the first is difficult to unite with the “one thoughttoo many” story just outlined. And Iamgoing to do this with Aristotle as umpire and argumentative source. One of the claims will be that whenitcomes to the individual’sprocess of betterment,the question “Whybemoral?” and its familyofrelated questions are highlyuseful and form an absolutelynecessary prerequisite in the process of moralimprovement. The main conclusionthatIwill try to make acase for is that the good person too needs to be able to ask something very like the “Whybemoral?” question. That is, not onlyinour development towards ethical goodness, but in the state of ethical goodness itself and as an integral part of it,the person willsee and feel a pull from other,non-moral options and alternatives. This is something which puts the moral stance (if we can call it that) into relief,and amountstoacapa- bility to ask something likethe “Whybemoral?” question.

The Question

Before proceeding,Ishould saysomething more about how Iwill approach the “Whybemoral?” question. Itakethe question not as arequestfor arguments, in the abstract,for whyany individual, or anyrational individual, should follow morality. Such arguments go in and out of fashion, and can build on, say, ego- tisticalconsiderations, normative ideas of consistency,orprudence. Rather,I hope it is alreadybecomingclear that the angle Iwant to test has to do with what it means for agents like ourselves—and those lessgood thanus, and those better than us—to be asking basic questions about how to act and why. The question “Whybemoral?” is ambiguous in several ways.Let me point out acouple of the ambiguities before advancing anyfurther.One sourceofam- biguity concerns whether,when Iask myself whyIshould be moral, Iamasking whether Ishould from an external point of view act morallyinagivensituation I am facing,orwhetherIshould be moral in the sense of being motivated by the right sort of reasons.The implications of the two can differ greatly, as one might perform the sameset of external motions with very different motives. Arelated ambiguity concerns whether Iamasking myself the question with aview to asingular setting,orwith aview to broader vistas—ultimately, my life as awhole. This ambiguity is related to the previous one in thatwetend to think of acts as singular,while being one wayoranother characterizes the person and the person’slife more broadly. But the two are not identical, since it is possible to ask about one singular situation and find that one worries about one’ssoul, or to ask about one’spersonal qualities and find that one onlycares about this be- Aristotle on Virtuous Questioning of Morality 67 cause of how it might affect one’sperformance in the present singular situation. Forpresent purposes, Iwould like to hold on to both sides of bothambiguities.²

Goodness,Character,and Akrasia

Let us start by brieflyconsidering akrasia and her militant cousin enkrateia,as these seem, at least at first blush, to constituteAristotle’smain instancesof the sort of psychological openness characteristic of the “Whybemoral?” question. Theacratic seems to be characterized by atwo-sidedness whereone of the thoughts or impulses overrules the notion that thereisindeedapositive reply available. It bears noting thatifitisanything like what the literature normally suggests, akrasia must be extremelywidelydiffused among us. The acratic on this conception cannot be arare bird, but will be exemplified by most of us at least from time to time. The acratic has standarlybeen used to establish apicture of Aristotle’sgood person as someone who no longer sees, or is able to consider,what the acratic sees and is affected by.However,wedon’tneed to think of the motivational set of the good person as having silenced all other considerations thanthe ethicallyideal ones. Isuspect that part of what has made such readings possible has been awrong-headed and overlybroad conception of the acratic and encratic types. Aristotle’sanalysis of the acratic and the encratic types does not force us to admit aclass into which most of us fall most of the time. Youmay or youmay not agree that the good person must be open to suggestions in away not allowed by what we might call the “total silencing” interpretation. (I call it the “total silencing” interpretation, because it is not entirely clear to me whereJohn McDowell’sreadinglands on the question of how the virtuous agent experiences the lureofalternative courses of action, or whether she does so at all.³ What sort of experiential differencefrom the encratic’sexperience does his talk of “not count for him as anyreason” (91) or “count for nothing” (92) imply? If silencing is substantiallydifferent from outweighing or overriding, then it is difficult not to see this interpretation as yielding aview of goodness

 By these comments, Iatthe same time want to stress that Idonot mean to limit the question “Whybemoral?” to instances wherethe individual understandsherself as asking, hyper-exis- tentially, once and for all and across the boardwhether she would liketobelongtomorality or not.Most instances of people posingthemselvesthe “Whybemoral?” question clearlyare not like this, and the ones that are, perhaps arenot in the end as importantasthe person at the time feels them to be.  Cf., e.g., McDowell (), pp. –. 68 Hallvard J. Fossheim which is not onlyidealized to the point of being non-existent,but—as as I’ll try to illustrate in what follows—ethicallyimpoverished as well.

Being Good andSeeing Bad

Hereisone argument for the necessity of the good person in acertain sense having badness in him. In order to act well, one must be able to grasp the characters,motives, and schemes of others. No act is an island. What the act signifies, and not least,whether it succeeds, will depend on the agent having grasped what motivates the other individuals involved. Furthermore, success in action depends on the agent’sability to give some sortofprediction of how each of the others involved will see and react to what one does. Now this in turn depends on one beingable to somehow align with each of them. Understandinganother’s point of view in apractical sense is not amatter of treating him or her as ablack box, and through some algorithmic, statistical, or accidental approach calculat- ing the actions that will follow.Onthe contrary,itisamatter of seeing the whole from that person’spoint of view.What are the goods at stake? What is the other person up to?Which alternative courses of action seem most desirable to him, and why? Et cetera. But youcannot do this without,asitwere, having ataste of those goods, desires,and perspectivesasthe other person experiencesthem. Whether we think of this quality or ability in terms of emotional intelligence or as being savvy, these other perspectivesmustbeavailable as part of the horizon for the agent,ifheorshe is to be successfulinaction.How can we gettoa closer determination of what sort of stance the good person must have towards this plethoraofshortcomings? Now “having ataste of” is not the same as “having ataste for” in afull sense of actuallybeing readytogoinfor whatever is the object in agiven case. So the goods in question are not the individual’sown preferred goods, simply because the individual is able to read the other person’sperspective.But on the other hand: the waythe good person relates to the other person’sperspective must normallybemore than only knowing that the latterperson goes for that sort of thing.Itmustinfact involveareal perspective on ways of construingoptions that implythe felt presenceofthe “Whybemoral?” question, in some cases even the denial that there is apositive account which could yield areplytoit. LookingtoAristotle, he is clear that manyless-than-perfect desires and acts are not to be liked, sympathizedwith, or even tolerated. Often, part of being good will be reactinginstinctively to something—apersonal characteristic, amotive, an action—as disgustingorasaprovocation. So understandingisnot the same as condoning.Nor is it,insuch cases, being overwhelmed by the point Aristotle on Virtuous Questioning of Morality 69 of view of the other.But the other’sexperience must still be somehow available and recognizable to the agent. Do we have Aristotle on board here? On the one hand, Aristotle seems very clear that beinggood includes swift and merciless denunciation of certain actions. There is no reason to think that there is acrucial differencebetween how the good person is supposedtoreact instinctively to others’ actions and how he is to react to their motives. An action, in Aristotelian parlance,normally includes the motive or motivesbehind it.And just as the person shows himself as being all the better for not having to think the matterthrough,but straightaway initiates the proper response, we should think (all else being equal) thatthe good person will be immediate in his emotional-cognitiveresponses to others and to their actions. Is this picture compatible with the notion that the good person has direct access to bad motivesand desires?

Emotions and States

Abasic question can be articulated as: “What is it liketobeavirtuous person?” On what Iunderstand to be the common interpretation, the good person is someone who feels and reactsonlyinthe ways that are identical to, or expressive of, virtue as away of seeing the practical field. But we have seen that thereare reasons to think otherwise.Not least is the consideration that in order to act well, youneed to be able to grasp—or “see”—the point of view of all kinds of people. This consideration also remindsusthat in away,what Itaketobethe re- ceivedinterpretation can be said to represent asort of ethical poverty when it comes to the capacities of the good person. Now what is unavailable to the good person on this interpretation, is every point of view other than the good person’sown, perfect,takeonthings. We might call this “the narrow view conception of virtue”.Ofcourse, it would all be worth it in the end, if this is what it takes to be good. But at the sametime, this interpretation of the good person holds that goodness includes amassive impairment.Ifbeing in the state which allows youtoact well also entails that youlack all perspectivesother than that of goodness,can we then not properlyspeak of virtue as asortofcog- nitive shortcoming? Iwant to suggestthat goodness-as-cognitive-impairment,inthe sense just described, does not necessarilyrepresent Aristotle’sview.But Iwilladmit that the receivedinterpretationdoes have textual evidence workingfor it.Inaman- ner very different from that of Plato, Aristotle seems to takeaspart of the coreof his moral psychologythat growingupand being broughtupmeanstaking on a 70 Hallvard J. Fossheim character,amore or less consistent set of states definable in terms of virtuesand vices.And such acharacter is presented as asolid and lasting accomplishment. Once youhaveacharacter,changing it in anysubstantive wayisusuallypresent- ed as impossible, or close to impossible. In order to see whether openness to the “Whybemoral?” question and its concretizations in givensituations might be construed as part of Aristotle’saccount of avirtuous person, it is necessary to consider more closelyhow Aristotle classifies states of character.Aristotle says,

[s]incethereare threeconditions arisinginthe soul—emotions,potentialities and states— virtue must be one of these. […]If, then, the virtues are neither emotionsnor potentialities, the remainingpossibility is that they arestates.⁴

So virtues, and by implication vices,are states.Astate or hexis is something du- rable and determining for action. It is not like acoat of paint,which on awhim can be scrapedoff or painted over in some other colour.Astate is more like a second nature. Furthermore, a hexis represents aserious narrowinginrelation to acapacity or dunamis. Says Aristotle, at alaterpoint in the Nicomachean Ethics, “while one and the samecapacity or science seems to have contrary activities, astate that is acontrary has no contrary activities”.⁵ The underlying logic seems to be that if nature provides us with acapacity to become good, then a hexis is arealization of that capacity.That is to say, one and the same capacity functions as the basis for different and opposing states.Capacities belong on alevel of determination which can “hit both ways”,asitwere, in relation to virtue and vice. The same capacity thus standsasanexplanation, or at least apartial explanation, of diametricallyopposed ethical states.Tothe extent that acapacity for anger,for instance, is abasis for the virtue of mildness, the samecapacity also stands in the same relation to the vice of hot-temperedness. Both the virtue and the vice, and all the other more or less vicious states building on acapacity for anger,can be traced back to that capacity as anaturalcondition for theirexistence. Thisiswhy capacities are said to relatetoactions in the waythe possessor of medicalsci- ence relates to acts of healing:the doctor is the one eminentlycapable of both

 EN II, v, b–, a–;Irwin’stranslation, modified by substituting,for the sake of consistency, “emotion” for “feeling” and “potentiality” for “capacity” throughout.  EN V, i, a–. Aristotle on Virtuous Questioning of Morality 71 killing and saving her patients. And correspondingly,acapacity has the structur- al role of underlying the corresponding virtueand vice alike.⁶ This would seem to constituteastrongargument in favour of the received interpretation. An ethical hexis determines the person. One hexis characterises person Aand her relevant actions, while another and opposed hexis characterises person Band her relevant actions. So if your state is one of mildness, then mildness is all youfeel in the relevant cases. Hot-temperedness is alien and nothing to you. But does this reallyfollow?Ithink there is reason to tread carefullyhere. The first claim seems unproblematicallytofollow:ahexis narrows aperson’srange of possible actions, and this is whyitcan function as explanans to the explan- andum of her action. But the second claim does not follow.The premises do not necessarilyentail that aperson with agiven hexis does not have anyaccess to other emotive reactions. Consider the following passages.

in so far as we have emotions, we aresaid to be moved; but in so far as we have virtues and vices, we aresaid to be in some condition rather than moved.⁷

First,then, neither virtues nor vicesare emotions.For we arecalled excellent or base in so far as we have virtues or vices,not in so far as we have emotions [kata ta pathê]. We are neither praised nor blamed in so far as we have emotions; for we do not praise the angry or the frightened person, and do not blame the person whoissimplyangry, but onlythe person whoisangry in aparticular way[pôs]. But we arepraised or blamed in so far as we have virtues or vices.⁸

There is more thanone reason whyitisimportant for Aristotle to distinguish sharplybetween hexeis (virtues and vices) and emotions. One of them is that without this distinction, there is no room for atheory of acquired ethical virtue of the sort he is out to defend. So the distinction is at least principled, in the sense thatemotions and states are different even if it turns out that they are one and the same moralpsychological entity in anygiven instance. But this does not rule out the possibility that one might have awide variety of emotional reactions to agiven situation, as long as one of them is the ruling

 Not all potentialities relate in this waytotwo diametricallyopposed states. The motion of the elements,e.g., is unidirectional,inthat the elements(such as apieceofearth) do not harbour a potentiality for developingmoredeterminatestates. The capacities for human goodness, however,dohold such possibilities.  EN II, v, a–.  EN II, v, b–a. 72 Hallvard J. Fossheim one and the one shaped into part of one’scharacter:that is to say, as long as one of them is the one that foreseeably determines action. To what extent does Aristotle think of the emotion as remainingsomehow intact “underneath” the state? He cannotthink of emotion as something which as amatter of fact existsinabstraction from what we might termthe “how-ness” of virtue or vice.For anycase of emotionmustalways present itself in some wayorother.Aristotle says both that emotion as such belongsonagen- erallyanimal level, which is transcended by virtue, and that virtue is nothing but the alteration, rather than the overcoming, of emotion. So the question reallyis how much can be said about human nature, in anarrower sense, as something which is stillapresenceinthe habituated individual. The following passage seems to support the idea of emotion as aconstant aspect of, or basis for,our states and actions, inherent in us from nature. Avirtue of character

is concerned with emotions and actions,and these admit of excess, deficiencyand an in- termediatecondition. We can be afraid, e.g., or be confident,orhaveappetites,orget angry,orfeel pity,ingeneral have pleasureand pain, both toomuch and too little, and in both ways not well; but [havingthese emotions] at the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way, is the intermediateand best condition, and this is proper to virtue.⁹

Avirtuous state consists at least in part in being well off in relation to emotion. And avirtuousstate marks, Aristotle seems to say, amiddle point in adeterminate rangeofstates,the extremes of which are full-blown vices. Therefore, it makes good sense that at least some virtue-vice continuities getmuch of their unity from relatingtosome emotionorother. Naturally, it is not necessarilyonlyemotion which defines an ethical virtue. Aristotle also seems to place some emphasis on the notion of asphere of action in this respect.But emotions do yield manyofthe virtues. Bravery relates in this waytofear.¹⁰ Temperance relates to the basic appetites. Generosity,magnifi- cence, magnanimity,and “the virtue concerned with small honours” can of course deal with goods which are ostensiblyobjects of appetite. But ultimately, all these virtues are alsowaysofrelating to the emotions, such as anger,aform

 EN II, vi, b–.  And to confidence, as notedby, e.g., Urmson (), pp. –.AfterPears()and in particular Hursthouse(), Idoofcourse not mean to set forth the idea that each virtue is delimited by experiencingthe right amount,quantitatively,ofone emotion. What Iwish to do is bringout twocentral aspects of the relationship between emotionsand virtues/vices. Aristotle on Virtuous QuestioningofMorality 73 of the self-assertion of thumos.¹¹ In these central cases, then,wesee that emotion is imperative in providingfocus for the virtue-vice continuity.¹² But if avirtue-vice continuity can be said to be based on emotion, that tells us something about the cognitive strength of such an emotion. The relation between emotion and state seems to be partlyalogical one: that is, in amore or less completed or habituated individual, it is possibleto“peel off” in analysis the state determination and be left with anotion of emotionwhich amounts to much more than onlyareconstruction of some original natural state. To name but one example again, bravery is concerned with the emotion of fear, which is thus alreadyconceivedinterms of adesire to avoid danger.Wemust thereforethink of Aristotelian emotions as always alreadymoreorless determinate. Expressed in terms of desire, then, fear will be adesire to avoid danger, irrespective of which state one has, that is, of how one is disposed towards one’sfear.The emotion has sufficientcognitivestrength to be determined apart from whether the human being in question is “well or badlyoff” with respect to it.Onamore general level, then, the virtuous and the non-virtuous person mayshare the relevant emotion as away of experiencing or grasping the situation. There is support for such areading outside the Ethics too. Forthis,presumably, is the level on which the Rhetoric’sdefinitionsofemotions operate, allowing for its characterisation of fear as “asort of painoragitation derivedfrom the imagination of afuture destructive or painful evil”.¹³ This is adefinition which determines the general cognitive direction of an emotion, that is, its general sort of object,without includinganaccount of just how fine-grained or advanced the cognitive structure might be. But the point remains that,eveninabstraction from the state, Aristotle’scharacterisation of fear allows it an important role in cognising the relevant situations. Sticking with the present example, adanger is something which threatens one’sown being;this appears to implythat as an emotion,fear has to include some grasp of oneself as opposed to others

 Slightlyconfusing in this context is how Aristotle seems to conflate honours with what seem to be merely material goods, but the cluefor grasping the connection is probablythat both money and honour classify as external goods.  Moreproblematical is, e.g., general justice, which relates to all the emotions via its relating to all the other virtues considered as awhole, or even special justice, which is the part of general justice dealingspecificallywith honour or wealth or safety,and accordingly relates to emotions likeanger,appetite, and fear.Not to mention avirtue likewit,which seems to relate moreex- clusively to arealm of action (dialogueordiscussion) than to anyparticular recognisableemo- tion.  Rhetoric II, v, af; translation George A. Kennedy. 74 Hallvard J. Fossheim

(whose danger is an object of pity rather than of fear); of the pain of injury or obliteration as opposed to the pain or discomfort of, for instance, mild hunger; and of afuture state of affairs, that is, of something which is not yetpresent.But it does this withoutsaying how the individual relates to that fear—well (the virtuous state) or badly(some more or less vicious state). This quietude is, Ithink, central to allowing the notion of emotion the importantlynon-ethical, or rather pre-ethical, status it holds. For, giventhe wayitisdefined, an emotion like fear might applyequallytoalogical analysis of the virtuous character of amature individual and to the doingsofachild (or perhaps even an animal). So the state of affairs is something like this: in mature human beings, every external displayofemotion is at the sametime adisplayofsome state or,inthe case of naturalvirtue,state-like manner in which it is set,asacognitive “tuning” of that emotion. Emotion seems to be treated at least partlyasthe aspect of a virtue or vice which is catered for by nature. Astate proper,bycontrast,isnot the resultonlyofnature as an internal principle of development,but has been formedbyhabituation. So anymature displayofanger,for instance, is simulta- neously adisplayofanemotion and of astate. Thus, in certain contextsemotion can even be treated as if it existed in separation from virtue and vice. This is evident from Aristotle’sadvicetothe public speaker.Aristotle’sinsight,inthe Rhetoric,isthat since the publicspeaker cannot fullytake into account the individuallydeveloped character of each person in the audience,the capacities for emotional response, which are universally shared among all or most,form the level at which areflective analysis of public address must be carried out.One person is more rash than another,and one more egoistic than another,sothe address cannot be made to serveasaperfect vehicle for ensuring anyfine-tuned aggressive response in each and every one among them. What the speaker must do, is attempt to create adesire for revenge in each by considering the more generallyshared level of emotion.Inthis sense, the more general emotive level can still be said to be directlyavailable in the mature, state-determined individual. And it maybeAristotle’sview that the emotive perspectivesofother characters willbeavailable to the good or decent member of the audience, although she will not act on what has in this waybeen made emotively available to her.This meansthat agood person maybeable to experience something like the impulses and perspectivesnot onlyofthose who feel the existential forceofthe “Whybemoral?” question, but even of those who have settled on adenial that the question has apositive answer.While the good person will not herself be unsettled by its force, its experiential recognition will enable her bothtoact and to speak morewisely. Aristotle on Virtuous Questioning of Morality 75

Three PossibleObjections

Iwant to very brieflyrespond to three possible objectionsconcerning my interpretation of the specifics of Aristotle’stheoretical framework. They concern, respectively,(1) the settledquality of character,(2) the differencebetween praxis and technê whenitcomes to their characteristics, and finally(3) an objection of amore purelynormative sort. As for the first possibleobjection, this would be the suggestion that, although we are “somehow co-responsible”¹⁴ for our character,this very phrasing reminds us that character is not something we can changelike ashirt.While this is surelytrue, it does bear noticing,however,that Aristotle in this passageis speakingonlyofpeople who are comingupshort. He does not in fact sayany- thing about anypossible limitations of the good person. The responsibility in question concerns aless than good person who has done something thatisno good, and this also means thatthe concern, in the context,istopoint out that such aperson could have made something else of himself. And in fact, even here the setting impliesthat the person in question is defending himself in away thatrequires his ability to see that what he did was wrong.Ifyou are blaming something on your own weakness or shortcoming,then youare cer- tainlycapable of seeing it as ashortcoming.Sothis passagewill not save the “narrow view conception of virtue”. The second objection makes thingsmore interesting.The claim here is that Aristotle himself implies astrict POV(“point of view”)limitation for the good character too, in his definitional contrasting of character from technical knowledge.While technicalknowledge and know-how enables youtoswingboth ways —say, using the samemedicalknowledge to save or to kill—ethicallyembedded insight is defined by opening up aspace of actionand reflection in onlyone direction. While the doctor can save and kill, the good person can perform only good deeds. So while the bad person is trapped in the direction of evil, the good person is equallytrappedinthe direction of good, unable to perform unjust,orgluttonous,orcowardlyactions. But this is amisrepresentation of the case. More accurately, the criticism depends on aconfusion of levels. We can agree that acertain character is partly defined in terms of acertain set,orrange, of actions—actions that are justrather than unjust,for instance. But this is not what is at issue. What is at issue, is whether the stability that acharacter seems to provide is provided through that character’sinability to think and feel otherwise—that is, to think and feel

 Aristotle’swording is sunaitios pôs (EN III, , b). 76 HallvardJ.Fossheim what would, had the experience been action-effective,lead to acts other than those of the good person. And assuredness about this latter contention is what the argument so far has hopefullyserved to undermine. Afinal,more normative kind of criticism can also be raised.The claim will be that we do not want astate of affairs wheregoodness is that fragile. Aworld without solidly good people, withoutcharacters that are unambiguouslyvirtuous and will remain so at least in the near future, is aworld of distrust and anxiety.If there is no solidity in goodness,why bother disciplining oneself or providingoth- ers with agood upbringing? Here, it is of course possibletorespond simplythat our not liking something is not necessarilyaknock-down argument against its being true. But we can also saymore. Foragain the objectionmisses the mark, much in the waythe last objection did. The vision of aworld off its hinges does not follow from the suggestion thatifcharacter entails asignificant measure of stability,itdoes not do so through simple constriction. Iwant to end by trying to make this differencein levels more clear by taking adevelopmental perspective on character.

InsightsfromaDevelopmental Perspective

Ihope to have established that Aristotle does not necessarilyclaim that the good person onlyhas access to emotions perfectlyattuned to performing good actions. And correspondingly,nothing in what he says deniesthatthe less-than-good person might have emotive access both to material approaching the good person’seffective state, and to the perspectivesofother, alternative,less-than- good characters.Onthe contrary:inthe case of less than good people, how could we grasp their betterment as taking place without an appreciation of other perspectivesthan thosethey act upon? This alsomeans that Aristotle does not necessarilyhold thatitisonlythe akratic and the enkratic who have experiential access to two or more emotive perspectives. What distinguishesthe akratic and the enkratic is not that they have this emotive access,but that they are seriouslyintwo minds about how to act. We getsupport for this reading of what is crucial to virtue—and to vice—by consideringsomething which Aristotle himself sees as acentral issue in his discussion of virtues, namely, the question of how we develop them. It is striking, once youthink about it,thatAristotle does not present anyspecificallymental exercise as paramount to developing virtue. Aristotle on Virtuous Questioning of Morality 77

Astate [of character] arises from[the repetition of]similar activities.Hence we must display the right activities,sincedifferences in these implycorresponding differences in the states.¹⁵

Virtue of character [i.e. of êthos]results from habit[ethos]; henceits name “ethical”,slight- ly varied from “ethos”.¹⁶

Aristotle’sunambiguous responsetothe question of what is required to become virtuous does not include anyexercises designed to purify one’ssoul or to cleanse one’spsychological set-up. What he presents as the all-important thing is ensuring that the acts one performsare uniformlyexpressive of virtue (partlydefined in terms of wishing the act for its ownsake). Not onlyisthere nothing here which suggests that there is no room in the good person for alternate perspectives, as long as they do not seriously interrupt the flow of virtuous acts; the training method would seem to be positively ideal for not rooting out all plurality of perspective,aslong as the predictable, harmonious solidity of good agency is ensured. So while such solidity naturallyrequires feeling the right pleasures and pains, this does nothing to exclude aricher emotional life than the narrow view conception of virtue would allow.There is plentyofroom in the logical space between GoodyTwo-Shoes and the enkratic for good agents who can still see and feel the attractions of other routes thanthatdefined by virtuous action.

Emotional Phantasia

Do we have anymorepositive evidence thatAristotle might harbour aview like the one Ihavetentatively been attributing to him?This bringsustothe topic of phantasia,aconcept thathas been understood by readers of Aristotle in widely different ways.Itwould go far beyond the present inquiry to try to construct anything like aunified Aristotelian theory of phantasia. But the few points directly relevant to our question might be broughtout without attemptinganything so ambitious. Forasitturns out,what he has to sayonthe matter in De Anima (III.3,10–11) and in De Motu Animalium (esp. 6–8) strongly suggests apsychological model in line with the sortofopenness Ihavebeen advocating.Consider the following passages.

 EN II, i, b–.  EN II, i, af. 78 Hallvard J. Fossheim

This,then, is the waythat animals are impelled to moveand act: the proximatereason for movement is desire, and this comes to be either through sense-perception or through phantasia and thought.¹⁷

Forthe affections suitablypreparethe organic parts,desire the affections,and phantasia the desire; and phantasia comes about either through thoughtorthrough sense-perception.¹⁸

The sketch is rudimentary,but clear.What should strike us first of all is that the action-inducingdesire is not present at the outset.Rather,the more unwieldy and manifold power of phantasia generatesadesire (orexis), which then in turn generatesanemotional reaction (pathos)proper.This meansthat phantasia must alsobeseen as part of the earlysearchingphase (zêtêsis)ofaction.Inthis phase, several possibilities might suggest themselvestothe agent.Wemust imagine thatthis is the rule rather than the exception: most cases of practical searchingwill lead to more than one option, although they will not all be actively endorsed by the agent in the sense of generating what we might call the “ruling passion”—the action-efficient reaction. Asearch maybeinstigated by the agent’sown broad practical agenda, or by aphysical state, or by something the setting unexpectedlypresents him with. To concretize, the search can be initiatedthrough ageneral notion to do some good, or as areaction to an organic lack of water,orbyalion suddenlyjumping up in front of him. So the story does not start with adeterminate, character-defining desire gen- eratinganaction. This belongsonlytothe final stages of the story. In the beginning is the much more open-endedphenomenon of the imagination doing its job of displaying various hypothetical situations or results.¹⁹ That it makes sense to think thatthe prospects come in the plural is also suggested by the basic example of Aristotle’s, comingbythe help of phantasia to see that “This is drink”,and then drinking (MA 7, 701a32–33). Surely, in many situations therewill be more than one option. And in thosecases, the narrowingdown takes place after phantasia has done the job of conjuring up the various possibilities. The progression phantasia → orexis → pathos does not rule out thatthereis some emotive activity in the agent during the initial phase before orexis and then pathos are generated. Rather,Aristotle seems to suggest that there maybeappe-

 De Motu Animalium , a–;Nussbaum’stranslation.  De Motu Animalium , a–.  That what is imagined areresultingstates which also include the agent,issuggestedbythe specification at EN III (, a–)that the lion does not enjoy the look or sound of the lamb, but “the prospect of ameal” (hoti boran hexei). Aristotle on Virtuous Questioning of Morality 79 tites,thumetic impulses, and more intellectual desires present here too. Again, what is effected by the agent fasteningupon agiven phantasia is not that onlythen does anything like an emotional reaction start—but,that onlythen has the action-effecting desire and emotion come to rule the day.

Conclusion

If my suggestions make for aviable interpretation, then the question “Whybe moral?”,surprisingly, does have aplace in the life of Aristotle’sgood agent.Al- though she will not be led into temptation by it,she will be able to ask this and similar questions with aseriousness and understanding available onlytothe person who can see and somehow feeltheir pull. And this ability,onthe part of the good agent,makes areal differencebothfor the richness of her horizon and for her practical ability to realize the perspectivesofother agents less good than herself. Presumably, there will be alimit to what sort of questions the good agent can ask herself without it being indicative of alack in goodness; similarly, there will be alimit to how insistentlyshe can pose them. But these limits seem to be well outside the borders set by ethicallyideal agency as this is traditionallycon- ceived. Farfrom being asign of moral immaturity,then, aquestioning and self-questioning from welloutside the safe centredefined by virtuousmotivation can be seen as aprerequisite for full ethical agency.Giving atwist to Williams’s formulation, we might saythat in this context,something like “one thought too few” is in fact what poses the greater threat.²⁰

Bibliography

Hursthouse, Rosalind (1995): “AFalseDoctrine of the Mean”. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 81/1, pp. 57–72. McDowell, John (1998): “AreMoral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?” In: McDowell: Mind,Value, and Reality. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, pp. 77–94. Pears, David (1980): “CourageasaMean”.In: A.O. Rorty (Ed.): Essays on Aristotle’sEthics. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp.171–187.

 Iamgrateful to the participants of the “WhyBeMoral?” conference held at UiT,The Arctic University of Norwayfor their helpful suggestions,and to the editors for their valuable advice in the final revision of this piece. 80 HallvardJ.Fossheim

Urmson, J.O.(1980): In: A.O. Rorty(ed.): Essays on Aristotle’sEthics. Berkeley: Universityof California Press,pp. 157–170. Williams, Bernard (1981): “Persons, Character,and Morality”.In: Williams: MoralLuck. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, pp. 1–19. Ivar Russøy Labukt The Egoistic Answer

“Because it is in your own best interest” is arguably the oldest and most fre- quentlyproposed answer to the question “Whybemoral?” Some philosophers have been perfectlycontent with this answer.But as the contributions to this volume illustrate, most of us would liketogobeyond it.Isympathize with this approach, but Iamskeptical about its likelysuccess. Thus, Igiveanegoistic answer to the question “Whybemoral?” not because Ifind it immediatelyattractive,but because Ithink it is, ultimately, the onlykind of justification of moralitythat is available. Defendingmyskepticism towards non-egoistic answers is too extensive a task for this paper.Instead, my aim will be to describe and assess the egoistic alternative.Iwill arguethat it is more satisfactory than most philosophers seem to think,but still not quite as attractive as some of its proponents have claimed.Somewhat more precisely, Iwant to show that egoistic considerations in most cases support acommitment to moralitythat is fairlydeep and at least as extensive as the one displayedbymost actual people. At the same time, thereare anumber of notable limitations on an egoistic justification of a moral wayoflife: it does not applytoall persons and circumstances,and it does not cover all aspects of morality equallywell. It mayalso have asignificant metaethical cost: as we will see, if the authority of moralitystems from self-interest,itbecomes more difficult to defend the idea that the content of morality is objective,orhas arealist status. Determiningthe extent to which egoistic considerations support moralityis not onlyimportant to those who share my skepticism of non-egoistic positions. Manyofthe philosopherswho believethat morality has independent,non-egoistic authority admit that this authority is not always supreme: what we have most reason to do all-things-considered also depends on other perspectives, such as that of self-interest.Thus, in order to show that we have most reason to be moral in agiven case, we might have to show that the moral option is also egoisticallyattractive,oratleast not egoisticallydisastrous.Eventhe authors who hold thatmorality is overriding,and so rationallytrumps anycompet- ing perspective,acknowledge that human beingsare not,asamatter of psychological fact,abletoget rid of their irrationallystrong self-love(see e.g. Nagel 1986,pp. 195–204). From apractical point of view it would thus be agood thing if egoistic consideration gave significant support to morality. 82 IvarRussøy Labukt

Before examining the egoistic considerations in favorofmoralitymore closely,Ineed to explain how Iwill be using the concepts of moralityand self-interest.

1Morality

There is one conception of morality that would ensure that thereare always sufficient egoistic reasons to act morally. Thisisethical egoism: the doctrine that moralityisultimatelyabout promotingone’sown self-interest.There are several well-known objections to ethical egoism. The most direct is the observation that the theory seems to condone actions that we would consider flagrantlyimmoral. Imagine, for instance, thatyou are bored and the best available entertainment is to set an innocent person on fire (you have always wonderedwhat it looks like, and your curiosity outweighs your compassion). As long as we make sure there are no bad long-term consequences ethical egoismimpliesthat youare then morallyrequired to do so. Youwould act wronglyifyou sit down and watch TV instead. James Rachels claims, relying on asimilar but less dramatic example, that we can reject ethical egoism simplybecause it is “wicked” (J.Rachels 1974, sect.2). There are various ways in which ethical egoists have tried to arguethat their theory does not in fact recommend behaviorofthis kind in real life cases. But even if they weretosucceed,there is the worry that they would do so in the wrongway.What the theory would say, in effect,isthat Ishould not setfire to innocent people because doing so is ultimatelybad for me. This isn’twhat we typicallyhaveinmind when we judge that performing such actions is morally wrong. In this paper,Iwill assume that ethical egoism is mistaken and thatmorality puts certain restrictions on the pursuit of self-interest.Inorder to give an egoistic answer to the question “Whybemoral?”,wemust now make adistinction between the content of morality and its authority.While admitting thatthe content of the correct moral standard is in some sense and to some extent impartial, the egoist holds that the onlyjustification for being concerned with this standard is that doing so is in one’sself-interest. Another wayofexpressingthe view is to distinguish between the moral “ought” and the practical or all-things-considered “ought”.While it is trivially true thatwemorallyought to be moral, that need not entail thatweall- things-considered oughttobe. Accordingtothe version of egoism we are considering,the egoistic “ought” is the onlydirect input into the all-things-considered “ought”.What we oughttodofrom other perspectives, such as moralityoraes- The Egoistic Answer 83 thetics, can onlyinfluencewhat we all-things-considered ought to do by first in- fluencingwhat we egoisticallyought to do. We could alsosay that,onthis view,morality is not in itself asourceofau- thoritative reasons for action. There is of course asense in which there is always amoral reason to do what is morallyrequired, but accordingtothe egoist,this reason does not have anyauthority on its own. Onlyreasons based on self-interest do. Finally, the view is sometimes expressedbysaying that it is onlyrational to be moral when it is one’slong-term interest.Inline with this, the form of egoism under consideration is oftencalled rational egoism (see e.g. Baier 1993). The notion of rationalityis, unfortunately, used in abewildering number of different senses in the philosophical literature.Itisthereforeimportant to stressthat being rational, in the present context,amountstonothing other than acting on the strongest authoritative reasons, or doing what one all-things-considered ought to do. Peter Singerisanexample of an author who defends rational egoism. As all philosophers know,hethinks that the principle of utilityisthe correct moral standard. What is less well known is that he does not think that it is, in itself, asourceofreasons for action. In order to show that it is generally “rational to act morally”,hethus finds it necessary to show that it is generally “in our long-term interest to do so” (Singer 1993, pp. 314–35). Several other utilitarians have expressed similar views (seeHare 1981, ch. 11;Brink 1989,ch. 3). While there are not manyauthors who go out of their waytodefend rational egoism, it is not uncommon that the position is treated as aserious contender(Baier 1993), or at least aposition that is important to refute(Parfit 1984). Still, I think thatthe position has been somewhat neglected, considering the amount of attention that has been bestowed on the much less plausible ethical version of egoism. As Ihaveformulated it,rational egoism presupposes thatitmakes sense to talk about moralitywithout authoritative moral reasons. This presupposition is actuallyquite controversial. Someauthors think it is part of the concept of morality that moral reasons have some independent authority (Smith 1994,ch. 3; Joyce2001, ch. 2; Cuneo 2007,pp. 36–9), or even overriding authority (Gewirth 1978,p.1;Darwall2006,pp. 97– 9). In fact,some of the participantsinthe debate on egoism seem to holdthat theories of moralitysimply are theories of authoritative reasons: whatever we all-things-considered ought to do is alsowhat is morallyright to do (Sidgwick 1907; Kalin 1970,p.86; S. Rachels 2009,sect.3; Tännsjö 2010,ch. 3). Philosophers who accept anyofthese conceptual claims have two options if they wish to express rational egoism. One is to revisetheir concepts so that a 84 IvarRussøy Labukt claim to independent authority is no longer implicit in moral principles. If this claim is taken to be so essential to moral discourse thatsuch arevision is impossible, they would instead have to resort to scare quotes or some technicalterm, such as “impartiallyjustifiable principles for interpersonal conduct”.For the sake of simplicity,Iwill disregardthese terminological complications in the following and use straightforward moral terms. Apart from my rejection of ethical egoism, Iwill not make any(controversial) assumptions about the content of moralprinciples. Iwant my arguments to be relevant to supporters of all the standard deontological and consequentialist moral theories. Giventhat these theories differ significantlyintheir demandingness, this means that Icannot give aprecise estimate of how much of the moral wayoflife goes beyond egoistic justification. Iwill be comparingthe egoistically desirable commitment to morality not to the one displayedbythe morallyper- fect person (whatever he maybelike), but to the one displayedbyordinary actual people.

2Self-interest

The extent to which egoistic considerations support acommitment to morality obviouslydepends on how we conceive of self-interest.Someconceptions of self-interest are moralized, in the sense that they contain an irreducible other-regarding element. The most well-known example is the Aristotelian idea thatin- dividual well-being is partlyconstituted by the exercise of certain moral dispositions. Amore radical possibility is to hold thatthe interests of other people are somehow fused with one’sown. On the rational egoist David Brink’sobjective list theory of welfare, “one is better off when another’swelfareisenhanced, and especiallywhen one enhances another’swelfare.” (Brink 1989,p.243)Lester Hunt,inapresentation of AynRand’segoism, claims that “one’svalues include, as apart of them, the good of certain other people.” (Hunt 1999,sect.IV; see also Rand 1964,ch. 4) There is something odd about combiningthis thesis about self- interest with rational egoism.Weend up with the position that Ihaveanauthor- itative reason to promotethe well-being of otherpeople not because their well- being in itself should matter to me (it shouldn’t), but because it automatically makes me better off. If one wants to claim that other peoples’ interests are a sourceofauthoritative reasons,itwould seem more plausible and straightforward to saythat they are so in themselves, and not exclusively through their influenceonone’sown interests. The Egoistic Answer 85

At anyrate, Iwill be disregarding this and other moralizedconceptions of well-being.Itisonanon-moralizednotion of self-interest thatthe question “Whybemoral?” is most pressing,challengingand interesting.There are of course manynon-moralized theories to choose between in the philosophical literature. However,Ithink thatthese theories generallytoalargeextent converge on the egoistic value of the moral commitment Iwillbedescribingbelow.Thus, I do not find it necessary to make anycontroversialassumptions about the nature of non-moralized self-interest.Myclaims in the following sections should be compatible with virtuallyall prominent versions of hedonism, preferentialism and objective list theories.

3Egoistic Reasons to Be Moral

In this section, Idescribe three kinds of egoistic reasons that count in favorofa commitment to morality.

3.1 The strategic commitment

Most obviously, perhaps,there are the directlyinstrumental or strategic reasons: following moral rules is often necessary in order to obtain non-moral benefitsor avoid punishment.Evensomeone who is constantlymotivated by self-interest and constantlydeliberatingegoisticallywill, therefore, oftenobey moral rules. This is the kind of justification of the authority of morality Hobbes offers to the “fool” (Hobbes 1651,pp. 101–3). D. A. LloydThomas argues thatitissuffi- cient to solve the age-old question of whyone should be moral(Lloyd Thomas 1970). Most philosophers would be fairlydisappointed with this solution, however.There is alarge number of cases wherethe immoral agent either is toopower- ful to fear punishment or too clever to getcaught.Also, this kind of commitment to moralityisentirelywithoutpsychological depth: moral principles figure only as externallygiven factors in one’sutilitycalculations. Another strategic use of moral principles is to adopt them as rules of thumb or the basis of habits. Always having to calculate whether youought to,say,pay for your groceries would be very tiresome, and youmight be tempted to take undesirable risks. It is better to simplypay without giving the matter anythought. These “moral” dispositions would also lack anysubstantial psychological authority;they would be just like dispositions to brush one’steeth every dayor to refrain from drinking coffee in the evening.Inunusual circumstances, they could easilybeset aside. 86 IvarRussøyLabukt

Idonot wish to denythat the strategic egoistic reasons for fulfilling one’s moral duty are quite weighty,atleast in reasonablywell-ordered societies. How- ever,aswewill see, there is little doubt that most people will benefit from amore robust moral commitment.

3.2 The psychological commitment

There is an element of the human moral orientation that is not directlyunder rational control. Letuscall this apsychological commitment.Itseems to have two basiccomponents:the general capacity for sympathyand the capacity for aconsciencethat prescribes or forbids specific kinds of conduct.¹ Most people have adeeptendency to feel good when people around them are happy and bad when they are not.This tendencyisnot aresult of aphilosophical belief about authoritative reasons.Itisfound in very small children, so perhaps it is not even learned (though it mayofcourse be reinforcedbypraise and rewards). One maypossess the capacity even if one is, like the present author,entirelyconvinced thatithas no rational basis. Because of sympathy, manyactions required or encouraged by morality are actuallyquite pleasant.Inparticular, this is true for assisting or co-operating with others. (Think of helping an old, grateful ladyacross the street,for instance.) Isuspect that we often underestimatehow enjoyable these actions are. Perhaps we tend to assume that,justbecause someone else benefits from our actions, there must be some loss or sacrifice on our part.The distribution of happiness is not azero-sum game, however. Ialsosuspect that the belief in the independent authority of morality actually leadssome people to take less pleasure in helping and co-operatingthan they otherwise would have done. Experiments in social psychologyshow thatpeople who are givenexternal incentivestoperform pleasant activities rate the activities as less desirable thanthosewho engageinthem simplyfor the sake of enjoyment (see e.g. Ariely2008, ch. 4). Thus, it does not seem toofar-fetched to suppose that acceptingrational egoism could lead us to enjoyatleast some types of pro-social behavior more than abeliever in morality with independent authority would.

 This is admittedlyanover-simplification: there is presumably no neat and clear psychological distinction between the two capacities,and Idonot want to denythat other non-cognitive psychological mechanismsare involved in causing moral behaviour.However,the simplification seems safe enough for my present purposes. The Egoistic Answer 87

Another consequenceofthe capacity for sympathyisthatmanywrong actions are not particularlyattractive.Wedonot generallyenjoy hurting others. The non-egoistic attitude towardsmorality mayencouragethe suspicion that if it hadn’tbeen for authoritative moral principles, therewould be nothing stop- ping us from committingatrocities all the time. (This is reminiscent of how some religious people fear the horrible consequences of atheism.) Idon’tthink there are manypeople who would derive substantial egoistic benefits from raping, maiming and killing other human beings. It seems that the most extreme and disturbing evil actions, at least in modern history,havemoreoftenbeen motivated by false moralbeliefs than by adesire for personal well-being. Although one cannot,atagivenmoment,decide how much sympathy to feel, one mayofcourse influencethe workings of the capacity over time. Perhaps it might seem as if it would be worth the trouble to diminish or even, if possible, eradicate the tendencytofeelgood or bad on account of how other people are doing.After all, having this tendencydoes prevent one from performing certain actionsthatmight have very good egoistic consequences. Also, we should not forgetthat there is such athing as sympathetic pain, and gettingrid of that would of course be asignificant benefit – especiallyifone is surrounded by a lot of misery. However,itmust be kept in mind that acapacity for sympathyhas far-reaching influenceonhuman well-being.Itisnot primarilyvaluable because of the rushes of sympathetic pleasure we experience now and then. Itsgeneral impact on interpersonal relations is much more important.Sympathyallows us to conceive of other people as friends and co-operators,rather than just annoying obstacles to the pursuit of one’sown interests. Being “in unity with our fellow creatures”,asMill calls it,satisfiesadeephuman need (Mill 1871,ch. 3). Also, it makes others treat us better.Insum, one could saythat it raises the baseline level of satisfaction derivedfrom social interaction. Since the quality of one’ssocial life is an important part of well-being on any plausible account,itwould takesome weighty reasons indeed to justify the egoistic desirability of having little or no capacity for sympathy at all. This is not to denythat there are people who feeltoo much sympathyfor their own good, or that there are extreme circumstances whereitwould be preferable, as judged by egoist standards,tobecompletelyoblivious to the fate of other human beings. However,Ido want to denythat it is generallytrue that people will become happier by bluntingtheir sympathetic sensibilities. It seems much more likely 88 IvarRussøy Labukt that rational egoism would recommend achangeinthe opposite direction, at least in the Western part of the world.² More specific dispositions to perform or refrain from performing certain classes of actions, such as theft,promise-keepingorkilling,constituteanother importantsourceofmoral behavior.Thesedispositions are not just habits: they have amuch strongerholdoverus. We do not,for instance, keep promises simplybecause this is what we have always done, but alsobecause we feelin some waycompelled to do it,orbecause the idea of breakingthem fills us with disgust or anxiety.Iwill not discuss here exactlyhow the human conscience works.The important point for my purposes is, once more, that is not under direct rational control:comingtobelievethat it fails to track authoritative reasons will not automaticallysilence it.This means thatarational egoist also has access to its benefits. As Sidgwick expresses it,there is adistinction between

the general impulse to do what we believeisreasonable, and special sentiments of likingor aversion for special kinds of conduct,independent of their reasonableness.[…T]hereis every reason to believethat most men, however firmlythey might adopt the principles of Egoistic Hedonism, would still feel sentiments promptingtothe performance for social duty,ascommonlyrecognized in their society,independentlyofany conclusion that the actions promptedbysuch sentiments were reasonable[…]. (Sidgwick1907, 173)

This kind of commitment to moralityissimilar to aphobia. Aperson standing at the edge of acliff mayexperience intense fear without believingthat he is par- ticularlylikelytofall, in the sameway that Istill feel bad for breakingmyprom- ises even though Iamcompletelyconvincedthat Ihavenonon-derivative reason to keep them.Perhaps the moral commitment,too, can be extinguished through cognitive-behavioral therapy.There are some pretty good egoistic reasons for not doing so.³ First,aconsciencekeeps its owner out of alot of trouble. Manyim- moral actions promise instant gratification, and habits and rules of thumbs are ofteninsufficient to prevent us from taking undesirable risks or imprudently

 Sidgwickreached the same conclusion: “enlightened self-interest would direct most men to foster and develop their sympathetic susceptibilitiestoagreater extent than is now commonly attained. […I]t seems scarcelyextravagant to saythat,amid all the profuse waste of the means of happiness which men commit,thereisnoimprudencemoreflagrant than that of Selfishness in the ordinary sense of the term,–– that excessive concentration of attention on the individual’s own happiness which renders it impossible for him to feel anystrong interest in the pleasures and pains of others.” (Sidgwick ,p.)  Utilitarians also think it is desirable to have aversions against certain kinds of conduct,such against lying, even if there is nothingintrinsicallyimmoral about lyingaccording to the principle of utility (see e.g. Sidgwick ,book IV;Hare ,ch. –). The Egoistic Answer 89 giving in to temptation. Psychopaths, who lack these firm moraldispositions but are perfectlycapable of calculation, frequentlyend up in jail, brokeordead. Sec- ond, Ithink that having aconsciencealso provides benefits in social interaction. It partlyconstitutes and partlyencourages asentiment of respect towards other human beings.Respecting aperson is not the same as caring for his well-being; it is more like conceiving him as an independent sourceofclaims or side constraints on what youmay do. This sentiment makes interpersonal relationships deeper and ultimatelymorerewarding. Isuspect thatitismorecommon that human beingshavetoo much commitment to specific moralrules than toomuch sympathy, as seen from the point of view of rationalegoism. Forinstance, some people are too concernedwith telling the truth for their own good. Perhaps rational egoism would, in general, recommend asomewhat looser psychological commitment to specific moral injunc- tions. Idonot think the changes would be very significant,though.⁴ My claim that hedonistic egoism would have relatively conservative implications for our psychological commitment to morality is strengthened by the fact that we do not gettodesign our own psychological commitment from scratch. Part of it is presumablyattributable to our genetic make-up. It is heavilyshaped by parents, teachers,peers and the general cultureduringchildhood and adoles- cence. Thismeans that our character is formed more in accordance with moral standards than egoistic.⁵ (Even if the people around youshould be rationalego- ists, this does not mean that they will provide youwith the set of dispositions and sentiments thatbest promotes your interests. Rather,they would encourage the psychological commitment to morality that is in their best interest,which is likelytobemoresubstantial.) By the time one is mature enough to reflect on one’sown dispositions, they are so deeplyengrainedthat it will take quite a lot of effort to changethem. Forthis reason, it maybeagood idea not to try to correct one’spsychological moral commitment,evenifitshould be somewhat strongerthan what one ideallywould want.

 JanÖsterbergalso points out that the egoist must “use aset of derivednormativerules to guide his dailylife” and thinks that “these rules – which, to some extent,must be internalized – largely coincide with common-sense morality” (Österberg ,p.).  According to R. M. Hare, there is actuallynodifference between the moral dispositions you would want to instill in children in order to ensurethat they are likelytohaveahappy life, and the dispositions that the principle of utility would recommend (Hare ,pp. –). This is surelyanexaggeration, but the differencemay not be very great. 90 IvarRussøy Labukt

3.3 The deliberative commitment

Most people also displaywhat we maycall adeliberativecommitment to morality:they reason about what to do and make explicit moral choices.This commitment goes beyond the psychological commitment in two ways.First,ittypically aims for the actions that are in some sense reallyright,and not just considered to be right by one’sparents or popular opinion.Our sympathyand conscience, on the other hand,can servetheiregoistic purpose without tracking anykind of moral truth. ANazi mayget pleasure from being in unity with his fellow Nazis, and in certain societies it would be egoisticallydesirable to have aconscience that demands immoral actions like honor killing and forbids morallyinnocuous thingslike dancing or homosexual relationships.Second, if youhaveadeliber- ative commitment to morality, your moralbeliefs will sometimes playsome role in bringing about morallyright actions. If you, say, give money to charity,then youwill to acertain extent be moved by the belief that doing so is morallyde- sirable, and not onlybyasympathetic impulse, abad conscienceoradesire to develop an egoisticallyuseful helping disposition. Having adeliberative commitment to morality provides egoistic benefits. First,other people will tend to like youbetter.(It is of course true that you could achievethe same effect just by pretending to have the commitment,but doing so would be tiresome and risky.) Second, doing what one, on acognitive level, takes to be morallyright is an attractive project.Itisacomprehensive and lasting wayofproviding structure to one’slife, and it is easilyshared with other people. Both these features contribute to its egoistic value. In addition,there is something particularlyappealingabout the content of this project.Welike the idea thatwecould, during our short stayhere, make the world aslightlybetter place (see e.g. Singer 1993, pp. 332– 5). Or,asDavid Gauthier puts it,weenjoy cooperatingwith others on fair terms,evenifour ultimategoal maybenon-cooperative in nature (Gauthier 1986,pp. 330 – 9). This is not just because others will show theirgratitude or reciprocate; they maynot always do so. The mere knowledge that we have treated other people in ways that they could not reasonablyreject is asourceofsatisfaction independentlyofwhat these other people actuallysay and do.⁶ One might doubtwhether such adeliberative commitment to morality – even though it might be egoisticallydesirable – would be psychologicallysus- tainable for abeliever in rational egoism. If youare convinced that morality

 Thomas Scanlon puts great emphasis on this value in his account of the authority of morality (Scanlon ,ch. ). He does not construe it in egoistic terms, though. The Egoistic Answer 91 does not matter for its own sake, how could youbemotivated by it and find satisfaction in pursuing it? Admittedly, the human mind could have worked in such away that we only found projects attractive and enjoyable when we believed they weredirectlysup- ported by authoritative reasons. But it is quite clear that it does not actuallywork this way. Agood example is the interest manypeople take in sports. Forinstance, Isometimesplayfootball. Iknow that,from aphilosophical point of view,the outcomes of football matches do not reallymatter for their own sake. Yetthis conviction does not stop me from forming afairlystrongnon-instrumental desire that my team should win. Iwould even, in the heat of the moment,bewilling to make a(moderate) net egoistic sacrifice in order to secure avictory.Asaresult, I get, in the long run, much more enjoymentout of football thanIwould with a purelyegoistic motivation. It is important to note that the non-egoistic desire is not aresultofany kind of self-deception. It is not as if Isay to myself: “From aphilosophicalpoint of view,itdoesn’tmatter at all who wins the game. But if Imanagetodelude myself into thinkingthat it actuallydoes, Imight getquite alot of pleasure out of playing.SoIwill temporarilyadopt afalse theory of authoritative reasons.” This processwould never work. (If it did, anyproject whatsoever could be asource of satisfaction.) Idonot revise my normative philosophical beliefs at all; if someone weretoask me seriously, Iwould admit that the victory is, in itself, com- pletelyworthless.Ijust find myself pursuing it even so. There are manythingsthathavethe capacity to attract human beingsinthis way. As John Stuart Mill observes, even money – the paradigmexample of an instrumental good – easilybecomes desired for its own sake, even to the point wherethis is detrimental to the pursuit of what one actuallytakes to have intrinsic value (Mill 1871,ch. 4). On this background, there should be nothing particularlysurprising about the idea of an egoistic deliberative commitment to morality.⁷ In fact,such acommitment should be particularlyunsurprising. Whereas goals in football or the amountofmoney in bank accounts do not matter at all, philosophicallyspeaking,taking into account the interest of others is not meaningless in the samestrongsense to arationalegoist.After all, other

 Though this point was convincinglymade by Butler (Butler ,pp. –)and has been repeated manytimes,itisstill often overlooked. Forinstance, C. H. Whitelyclaims that for the egoist acommitment to morality cannot be “aself-subsistent,independent interest like his interests in chrysanthemumsorgolf or the loveofagood woman” (Whiteley ,p. ). He never explains whythe commitment to morality must be moresuperficial than an interest in pretty flowers. 92 IvarRussøy Labukt people’sinterests reallydomatter to them. This makes the project of treating them rightlyseem much more attractive. Idonot,ofcourse, want to suggest that rational egoism justifies adeliberative commitment to moralityasstrong as the one required by non-egoistic positions. Also, it is probablytrue that those who believethat morality is overriding,oratleast has considerable independent authority,would derivea somewhat deeper and more permanent satisfaction from theirmoral commitment thanbelievers in rational egoism could do. But at the risk of sounding re- petitive,Ido not think that the level of deliberative commitment to morality rec- ommendedbyrational egoism would be very different from the one displayedby most actual people. Some authorsseem to think that this fairlymoderate, on-and-off attachment to moral principles is not feasible: in order to maximize the benefits from being moral, one must have amuch strongerdeliberative commitment.Gregory S. Kavka, for instance,apparentlyholds that arational egoist has to choose between being completelyamoral and adopting “the moral wayoflife” to such an extent that he would consciouslydecidetosacrifice his life even if he could go on to experience more happiness than unhappiness (Kavka 1985, sect.II-III). David Gauthier’sideal egoist,the “constrained maximizer”,has a similarlyrigid commitment to moral fairness.Hemakes “achoice about how to make further choices; he chooses, on utility-maximizinggrounds,not to make further choices on thosegrounds” (Gauthier1986,p.158).Aconstrained maximizer will sometimes, if he misjudgesother agents’ willingness to cooper- ate, find himself in situations wherehis disposition yields suboptimal results (Gauthier 1986,p.169). He will not just be making short-term sacrifices that will be compensated by long-term gains such as attainingadesirable character or beingtrusted by others. The constrained maximizer will be knowinglychoos- ing what is, on the whole, worse for him. It is questionable whether arational egoist’scommitment to morality could be this strong. Even if it would be desirable in certain cases involving cooperation, we do not have the ability to forceourselvestomake certain choices in the future simply by making aresolution. No matter how much Itry to constrain myself today, Iwillnot be psychologicallycompelled to give up anet egoistic benefit tomorrow.AsSidgwick says,when moralitydemands genuine sacrificesof self-interest,any “sane person, who still regardshis owninterest as the reasonable ultimate end of his actions” must be able to “deliberate afresh, and to act (as far as the control of his will extends) without reference to his past actions.” (Sidgwick 1907, p. 174) Unless he possesses some remarkable capacity for self-deception, abeliever in rational egoism could not consciouslydecide that he ought The Egoistic Answer 93 to give up alife worth living (though he mayend up doing so on impulse, or as a resultofweakness of will, of course). Also, it is difficult to see whysuch astrongcommitment to morality would be egoisticallydesirable, as comparedtothe more modest version described above. In real life cases, it is very rare that we onlyhaveaccess to cooperation and support from other people if we have,orappear to be having,acompletely rigid disposition to follow moral principles. Usually, being generallydecent suffices.Onamore personal level, aproject need not be thoughtofassupremely importantinorder to yield satisfaction. We are clearlyabletoderive enjoyment from serious non-moralprojects (say, having agood career)without lettingthe projects trump anyopposing consideration. The behavior of millionsofactual people seems to show thatwecan do the samewhen it comes to morality.

4Exceptions and Limitations

So far Ihavediscussed the egoistic desirability of amoral commitment in very general terms.Onamorespecific level, we find several exceptions and limitations. In this section, Ireview some of the most important.

4.1 Unusualagents

The egoistic reasons for being (reasonably) moral do not applytoall sorts of agents. There are people, most notablypsychopaths, who seem to lack the capacity to develop apsychological commitment to morality.Thisis, generally speaking, bad for them, but giventhat they do lack the capacity,they have no egoistic reason to try to be more moral. Perhaps there is an even largerclass of people who do not find morality attractive as adeliberative project.Ifyou are one of these people, youmiss out on apotentiallyvaluable sourceofsatis- faction and sense of purpose. However,you are not,accordingtorationalego- ism, failing to recognize the authoritative reasons for action that youreally have.What happens, rather,isthat your constitution prevents youfrom having the reasons in the first place.

4.2 Extreme situations

Forpeople who live under extreme poverty or other similarlydifficult circumstances,the benefits of being amoral person are smaller,and the costs are larg- 94 IvarRussøy Labukt er.Such people will have few strategic reasons to be moral, theirsympathyand consciencemight do them more harmthangood, and having an egoisticallyjus- tifiable deliberative commitment to morality will seem like an unattainable luxu- ry. Even those of us who are more fortunate cannot be sure thatwewill never face some extreme situation wherethe egoistic benefits of being moral pale in comparison to the costs.However,aslong as these situations are quiterare, this does not significantlyaffect the validityofmyclaims in section 3. It will still be strategicallywise to be moral in manyother situations, and as explained above, the pursuit of moralitycan be arewardinglife project even if it sometimes must be set aside.Itisonlywhen it comes to the psychological commitment that the possibility of experiencing extreme situations has some general significance. Since this commitment is not under direct rational control and cannot be turned off at will, it is liable to have suboptimal effects in cases wherealot of happiness is at stake.For instance, Ican imagine situations whereIwould sacrifice my life in order to save my son – no matter how convinced Imight be that doing so would be irrationalfrom aphilosophical point of view.But giventhatsuch sce- narios are quite unlikely, they should not be accorded toomuch weight when determiningthe egoisticallyideal level of conscienceand sympathy. Having acom- passionate relationship to my son makes me very happyineverydaylife and is for that reason worth the risk, egoisticallyspeaking.

4.3 Distant groups

The discussion so far maygivethe impression that there is some general level of commitment to treatingothers rightlythat is egoisticallydesirable for agiven agent under givencircumstances. This is actuallyanoversimplification. Egoisti- callyspeaking, it is more important to act morallytowards those who are close to yourself. In order to explore this issue, we need to distinguish between two different questions: (1) Against whom does one have moral duties,and what are their relative strengths? (2)Whom does one have egoistic reasons to treat morallyrightly?

The answer to (1) is determined by the correct theory of morality. Accordingto classicalutilitarianism we have,inprinciple, equallystrongduties towards all creatures capable of sufferingorhappiness. Other theories are more selective; they holdthat our duties to certain people are strongerthanothers, and perhaps The Egoistic Answer 95 also thatthere are people who have no moral claim on us at all (because,say, they have violated our rights). Rationalegoism has no direct implications for this debate, and Iwill not take part in or assess it here. (2)isthe question I am interested in. Even if Ihaveequal moralduties towards all human beings, it mayturn out that it is onlyinmyinterest to be “in unity” with some of them. Let us consider some possible limitations of this kind. Most actual people show much greater concern for people who belong to their own social group. There are good strategic reasons for doing so, since these people have agreater influenceonone’swell-beingand are more likely to reciprocate one’smoral efforts. On the psychological level, feelingsofguilt and sympathyare more easilyaroused when dealingwith people who are, in some respect,similar to oneself. When it comes to the deliberative commitment to morality, it would be very peculiartomake aconscious decision to be strongly concerned with the moral rights of one’sown social group and completelydis- regard the moral rights of anyone who happens to belong to adifferent group. However,amore moderate favoritism does appear both feasible and reasonable. Forinstance,aperson who has been abused as achild maywant to focus his moral efforts on helping people in asimilar situation, even though there are other tasks that are even more urgent from amoral point of view. Since it is widelyaccepted that some notion of impartiality lies at the coreof morality, it has proven very difficult to give amoral justification of our current level of partialism. Forinstance,Peter Singer has argued quite forcefullythat the failureofrich people to help those who are very poor constitutes aserious moral flaw(seee.g.Singer 1993, ch. 8). That maybeso. But as we have seen, Singer also seems to accept rational egoism. And while he mayberight thatit is generallycontrary to self-interest and so irrational to be amorallybad person, that does not entail that this particularform of moralbadness is irrational. People can be distant in atemporalaswell as social sense. Assumingthat we have some moralobligations towards future generations, it is clear that the egoistic reasons to fulfil these obligations are comparativelyweak. There are no strategic reasons to do so, and it is onlytoalimited extent that people who are not yetborn triggerour conscienceand sympathy. From amore deliberative point of view,however,Ithink that the idea of making some contribution to (or at least not obstructing) the “project of humanity” is quite attractive.I think this would suffice to provide an egoistjustification of manyofthe measures we actuallytake – and perhaps even some that we don’ttake – in order to secure the well-beingoffuture generations. Peter Singer has also criticized our attitudes towardsanother weak group: animals. He thinksweare guilty of speciesism, which he takes to be just as mo- rallyobjectionable as sexism or racism (see e.g. Singer 1993, ch. 3). Perhaps this 96 IvarRussøyLabukt moral criticism is correct,too. But arational egoist needn’tjustify his relative lack of concern for animals with aclaim that human beingshavesupreme moral worth; he could simplypoint out thathegets more happinessfrom being in unity with his fellow human beingsthan from being nice to cows and chickens.Now Idothink that rational egoism recommends having some moral concern for animals. Partlythis is an unavoidable effect of the attitude towards human beingsitrecommends;ifyou are able to bond with people and feel sympathyfor them, youwilltend do the same when it comes to animals. How- ever,Isee no reason for supposingthat this concern should always be as strong as the moral concern for human beings. Formost of us, it is easier to isolate ourselvesfrom the sufferingofanimalsthan the suffering of otherpeople, and many animalsdonot have the ability to reciprocate our concern for them to anygreat extent.

4.4 Morally bad people

Though thereare afew exceptions, most philosophers believethat we have moral duties also towardsthose who do not themselvescare about theirduties. Accordingtoclassical utilitarianism, the happiness of aserial killer is actually, in principle, just as morallyurgent to promoteasthat of agreat philanthropist. However,one maynot find it in one’sinterest to care very much about treating bad people rightly. To be sure, since this group is not distant,there maybegood strategic reasons for doing so. We do, however,tend to feel less sympathyto- wards people who are willing to perform actions that are very wrong and less guiltfrom treatingthem badly. Especiallyfrom adeliberative point of view,a life project of fulfilling duties towardssuch people offers few,ifany,prospects of egoistic satisfaction. The appealoftreating others in ways that they could not reasonablyreject is to alarge extent dependentonthe supposition that they have some desire to do the same for us. Of course, it is notoriouslydifficult to determine the real moral worth of people. Nevertheless Idothink that it is possible, as well as egoisticallydesirable, to develop amoral project that focuses more on morallygood people thanthose who are morallybad.

5AThreat to the Realist Status of Morality?

As we have seen, rational egoism does not make anyclaims about what the correct theory of moralityis. But it might have implications for the sense in which a theory of moralitymight be correct.More precisely, it is more difficult to see how The Egoistic Answer 97 moralitycould have an objective, or realist,content if it has no independent authority.⁸ Several prominent moral realistshaveclaimed that we can in fact combine realism about moral principles with adenial of theirindependent authority.For instance, Russ Shafer-Landauwrites:

Do [moral] facts necessarilysupplyuswith reasons for action?Itisimportanttosee that realism per se is neutral on this question. Whether moral facts invariablysupplyreasons for action depends not on realism alone, but very importantlyonwhich theory of practical reasonone adopts.[…]Realists who rejectrationalism [the doctrine that moral reasons have independentauthority]should simplyinsist that morality is onlycontingentlyrea- son-giving; moral demands supplyreasons for action onlywhen they align, for instance, with one’sdesires or interests.This is aperfectlyconsistent view.(Shafer-Landau2003, pp. 165, 192; for similar claims,see Railton1986,sect.V;Brink 1989,ch. 3)⁹

Iagree that this outlook is not inconsistent.But rejectingmoral rationalism does make moral realism less plausible, Ibelieve. As is well known, moralphilosophers have fairlydifferent ideas of what morality is ultimatelyabout.Isit, to name some possibilities, to make the world abetter place, to act in accordance with principles that would be chosen behindaveil of ignorance, to treat people in ways they could not reasonablyreject,ortofollow principles that we are committed to simplyinvirtue of being rational agents?Once we have specified the moral question in either of these directions,itmay have adeterminateanswer, but how do we agree on the question?Ifweaccept moral rationalism, there is astraightforwardsense in which one such proposal could be objectively correct: it could be the one thatconstitutes atrue sourceofauthoritative reasons for action. It might turn out,for instance,that there is an independent authoritative reason to make the world abetter place, but no such reason to follow deontological principles. Consequentialism would then,arguably,bevindicated in the realist sense. If we do not believethat moralityhas independent authority,this wayofsin- glingout the true nature of morality is no longer available. It is not obvious what the alternative would be. To be sure,the various proposed conceptions could seem more or less reasonable, or be more or less supported by actual moral dis-

 Abit moreprecisely, realism is the doctrine that moral facts are stance-independent, i.e. that they obtain independentlyofwhether we want them to, believethem to etc.See e.g. Shafer-Lan- dau ,pp. – for amorecareful statement of realism.  Somewhat confusingly,Shafer-Landauafew paragraphs later claims that denyingmoral rationalism seems to involve “aconceptual error” (Shafer-Landau ,pp. –). 98 IvarRussøy Labukt course, but what basisisthere for claiming thatone is correct in astronger, realist sense? This is not apurelymetaethical problem. Forsome people, the appeal of moralityasalife project is to some extent dependent on the supposition that there is such athing as the true morality.Ifmoral principles are just cultural norms or the expressionsofsubjective attitudes, following them might seem less meaningful and yield less satisfaction. There maybeatheoretical solution to this problem of objectivity raised by rational egoism. But arelated problem would then arise: following the objectively correct moral principles might not be the most egoisticallyattractive other-regarding project.Assume, for instance, that some deontological account of the content of moralprinciples is correct in the realist sense. Aperson with lots of sympathybut acomparatively underdeveloped deontologicalconsciencemight then find that making the world ahappier place is more rewarding thanfulfilling his moralduties. Conversely, if utilitarianism is the correct moral theory,someone who feels strong deontological moralimpulses but little sympathymight have more reason to treat others with deontologicalrespect than to be morally good. It seems, then, that giving an egoistic answer to the question “Whybe moral?” is difficult to combine with the notion thatthereisasingle true morality that should have aprominent place in the livesofall rationalpeople.

6Conclusion

Ihaveclaimed that rationalegoism impliesthat most people should be roughly as moralasthey are. The limitations examined in the previous two sections do not affect the truth of this claim, since people as amatter of fact alreadylimit their moraleffortsinthe ways surveyed. Forinstance, we do neglect our duties to distantgroups,and psychopaths behave at least as morallybadlyasrational egoism would have them to. In other words, thosewho have been skeptical of the doctrine because of aconviction that it would have asubversive effect on morality should revise their assessment of rational egoism.¹⁰

 Of course it is one question how one ought to relate to morality accordingtorational egoism and another question how actual people would react if they became convinced that the theory is correct.Presumablymanywould overlook the considerations in favorofbeingamoral person I have presentedhere. In that sense, rational egoism would probablyhaveasubversive effect on morality. The Egoistic Answer 99

From one metaphilosophicalperspective,weshould expect,orperhaps even demand, thatatheory of rationalityimplies that most people are roughlyration- al most of the time. We could then take my discussion as tending to confirm rational egoism. From another perspective,which Idonot find unreasonable, we should, giventhe kind of world we live in, expect philosophers to do more than merelyprovide arational justification of the status quo. However,evenif we have high hopes of this kind,wecould still find ourselvesstuck with the egoistic answer.That depends on the merits of alternativeanswers, and as Ihave said, Iwillnot attempt to assess them here. However,weare now in abetter position to address another question raised by my discussion: could principles that relyonself-interest for their ultimate authority count as genuinely moral principles?Some of the resistancetothis idea maybeattributable to the worry thatone could onlyhaveavery superficial and cynical commitment to principles of this kind. This is, as we have seen, not true. If my claims in earlier sections are at least roughlyright,asupporter of rational egoism would in manysituations be difficult to distinguish behaviorallyand psy- chologicallyfrom aperson who thinks that morality has independent authority. He will feel impulses to help others and to engageinorabstain from certain more specific kinds of conduct,and these impulses will typicallyhavethe character of what Samuel Scheffler calls “authoritative motivation” (Scheffler 1992, ch 5): the very perception of the situation is motivationallyladen. Moral actions automaticallycome to be represented as actions that justhavetobedone. On a more cognitive level, the conviction that an action would be morallyright auto- maticallycounts as aweighty consideration in its favor; in everydaydeliberation, moral reasons do not have to be constantlyratifiedbyegoistic calculation. AccordingtoDavid Brink, the fact that arational egoist could have much the same motivational relation to morality as abeliever in moral rationalism suffices to meet the “Kantian” objection thatcomplying with moralityongrounds of self- interest would be heteronomy(Brink 1989,p.244). However,what Kant requires from agenuinelymoral person is not that some particulardrive or feeling must be present whenever he acts, but that he acts on the basis of aconviction that moralityhas supreme authority (seeWood 2008, pp. 25–6). And this arational egoist cannot do, of course. Even though he might acknowledge that the needs fulfilledbymoralityare deep and widelyshared, theyare not in principle different from other needs. There is no special authority that attachestomorality and not to,say,sports or fine food. In otherwords, the commitment to morality Ihavebeen describing in this paper is not all that Kant and manyothers have taken the rationalmoral commit- 100 Ivar Russøy Labukt ment to be. Supporters of rational egoism should admit that their theory conflicts with certain pre-theoretical expectations about morality.¹¹ On the otherhand, the egoistic commitment is deeper and more substantial thanwhat is often supposed. It is simplistic and misleading to saythat arational egoist cannot be a moral person since he onlycares about himself. Iwill not discuss exactly what we should say. What is philosophicallyinteresting is the nature and extent of the egoisticallyideal commitment to impartial principles, and not which terms we use to describe it.

Bibliography

Ariely,Dan (2008): PredictablyIrrational. New York: Harper Collins. Baier,Kurt(1993) “Egoism”.In: Singer,Peter (ed.): ACompanion to Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 197–204. Brink,David O. (1989): MoralRealismand the Foundations of Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress. Butler,Joseph (1726/1973): “Upon the Love of Our Neighbour”.In: Milo, Ronald D. (ed.): Egoism and Altruism. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company,pp. 25–36. Cuneo, Terence (2007): The Normative Web. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Darwall, Stephen (2006): The Second-Person Standpoint. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UniversityPress. Gauthier,David (1986): Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gewirth, Alan (1978): Reason and Morality. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Hare, R. M. (1981): MoralThinking. Oxford: OxfordUniversityPress. Hobbes, Thomas (1651/1996): Leviathan. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress. Hunt, Lester (1999): “Flourishing Egoism”.In: Social Philosophyand Policy 16. Joyce, Richard (2001): The Myth of Morality. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press. Kalin, Jesse (1970): “In Defense of Egoism”.In: Gauthier, David P. (ed.): Morality and Rational Self-interest. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall. Kavka,GregoryS.(1985): “The Reconciliation Project”.In: Zimmermann, David/Copp, David (ed.): Morality,Reason and Truth. Totowa,N.J.: Rowman and Allanheld. LloydThomas,D.A.(1970): “Why Should IBeMoral?”. Philosophy 45,pp. 128–139. Mill, John Stuart(1871/2000): Utilitarianism. Peterborough, Letchwood, Rozelle: Broadview Press. Nagel, Thomas (1986): The View fromNowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Österberg,Jan (1988): Self and Others. Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Parfit, Derek (1984): Reasons and Persons. Oxford: OxfordUniversityPress. Rachels, Jim (1974): “TwoArguments against EthicalEgoism”. Philosophia 4, pp. 297–314. Rachels, Stuart (2009): “On Three Alleged Theories of Rational Behavior”. Utilitas 21, pp. 506–520.

 Peter Singermakes aconcession of this kind in his discussion of the egoistic justification of morality (Singer ,pp. –). The Egoistic Answer 101

Railton, Peter (1986): “Moral Realism”. The PhilosophicalReview 95, pp.163–207. Rand, Ayn (1964): The Virtue of Selfishness. New York: Signet. Scanlon,Thomas (1998): What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UniversityPress. Scheffler,Samuel (1992): Human Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shafer-Landau, Russ (2003): Moral Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sidgwick, Henry(1907/1981): The Methods of Ethics, SeventhEdition. Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Singer,Peter (1993): Practical Ethics,SecondEdition. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press. Smith, Michael (1994): The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Tännsjö, Torbjörn (2010): From Reasons to Norms. Dordrecht,Heidelberg,London, New York: Springer. Whiteley,C.H.(1976): “Morality and Egoism”. Mind 85, pp.90–96. Wood, Allen W. (2008): Kantian Ethics. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Beatrix Himmelmann Why Be Moral? An Argument from the HumanCondition in Response to Hobbes and Nietzsche

Givenwhat we know about human beingsand their behaviourthrough the ages, it has been repeatedlydoubted whether moralitydeservesthe praise it commonly receives. The gapseparating what has been understood by moralityand what has been called the “realities behindmorality” (die Realitäten hinter der Moral),¹ suggesting thatthe very idea of morality might conceal and devalue thosereal- ities, appears to be too deep and, therefore, unbridgeable. Hence, this picture might be misleading. In contrasttothe difficulties of ascertaining the substantiveness and the features of morality,itseems fairlysafe to saythatthere is ageneral human striving not onlyfor self-preservation but alsofor well-being or happiness, thus for some kind of satisfaction or completion. However this aspiration is dubbed,itappears to underlie human conduct of life most essentially. We want to gethold of what we deem useful or pleasant or valuable. But what we are able to seize will not necessarilylast so that we could attain what satisfiesour wishes and needs once and for all. On the contrary,circumstances changeand so might our desires.They are not set in stone once and for all. Not least because everythingisinconstant flux and nothing seems to be stable, another factor becomes important,presumablyinkeepingwith the pursuit of happiness: appreciation and esteem for the possibility of doing the thingswe hope make us flourish. This possibility of doing the thingsweexpecttobecon- ducive to our well-being obviouslyincludes relevant capabilities of agents. In short,weall value the power to bring about what we desire. Power in various guises such as skills, physical and mental,foresight,prudence etc. appears to be necessary in order to obtain and possiblymaintain what we need,want, and wish for. The employment of power seems to shape not onlyour dealings with all kinds of thingsorobjectsbut affectsour relations with fellow human beings as well. In fact,Max Weber defines the concept of power by starting out from these relations among human beings, apparentlyconsideringits usagewith referencetoour relations towards non-human thingsderivative: “Power (Macht)is

 Nietzsche e, p.  (= N []). 104 Beatrix Himmelmann the probability (Chance)thatone actor within asocial relationship will be in a position to carry out his ownwill despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests.”² We see that Weber,when introducing the concept of power,comes straight to the crucial point.Power and its exertion originate from human willing and directlyaim at human willing,which is always to be understood in terms of individual willing arising from an actor’swill of his or her own. It is not to be expected that this multitude of individual human willing will be constantlyinharmony. Othersmight turn out to be rivals interested in some of the same thingsweare – and sources of supplymay be limited.Their interests might be opposed to ours, and so we stand in one other’sway.Their interpretation of our conflict might differ from ours, and this can lead to serious discord. Always and to this daythere has been atendencytosolve these kinds of disa- greements by deploying force, be it in coarse or refined ways and on large or small scales. Forthe sake of flourishing or,sometimes, just to survive,recognizing and copingwith power structures appears to be inevitable. Andsoitlooks as if the pursuit of happiness is not conceivable without also acknowledging the realities of power. Morality,onthe other hand,seems to requireyou to do good, or maybe “the good”,eventhough this might do severe damagetoyour pursuit of happiness and let youfall behind with regardtoyour position within thatfield of forces and powers in which youappear to find yourself. So the possibilityofadivide between the realities of what looks like general human endeavour and avery different order,suggesting very different criteria of valuation and evaluation, opens up. This potential gaphas been reflected in philosophical thought from the beginning.Accordingly, doubts about the status, validity,the foundation, and scope of moralitywerebound to arise. In what follows, I’ll be starting my inves- tigation by taking up this sceptical perspective on moral requirements. This could be apromisingway of proceedingpreciselybecause choosing this angle will allow us, for the sake of argument,toavoid making extensive use of moral vocabulary in the first place. So there won’tbethe danger of being lavish with moral talk which might onlypresuppose what has to be shown and, in addition to this, might even contributetoobscuring specificallymoral claims. For the employment of idle moral talk maybeone of the most effective strategies in games that servequite different purposes, purposes indifferent or even adverse

 Weber ,p. /Weber ,p.. Why Be Moral? 105 to moralconcerns. Plato alreadyhighlighted this possibility,³ and Nietzsche’scritique of morality is basedonhis contempt for this sortofdeceit and self-deceit. Before dealing with peculiarities like these, though, we’ll have to describe the “realities” of general human striving as honestlyaspossible and also in as detailed away as necessary.Thomas Hobbes,whose “courageous mind” and “tremendous loveoftruth” have been rightlypraised⁴ and who still is a vivid sourceofinspiration for branches of contemporary moral theory,⁵ mayprovide us with afirst set of suggestions. Later,we’ll look at Nietzsche’ssomewhat complementary approach. Nietzsche shares some general assumptions about the conditio humana put forward by Hobbes,but arrivesatvery different conclusions. Both Hobbes and Nietzsche, Iwill argue, fail to acknowledge the reasons whymorality is indispensable. Anditisilluminatingtosee whythey fail. So fi- nallyand ex negativo, Iamgoing to suggest apositive answer to the question “Whybemoral?”,ananswer which, Ihope to show,cannot be dismissed.

Hobbes recognizes and analyses the pursuit of happiness.But the “Felicity of this life,” he argues, cannot be thoughttoconsist “in the repose of amind sat- isfied”.⁶ Accordingly, the idea of a finis ultimus,anutmost aim, does not make sense to him. In order to live,our desires must not come to an end, and our sen- sual activity and imagination will never be at astandstill as long as we continue to exist.Hence “felicity”,orhappiness,has to be conceivedofas“acontinuall progresse of the desire” switching “from one object to another” and going along with the desire’srecurrent satisfaction, for which there is interminable hope. As aresult of this disposition, we will be always aware of the future and of future desire—that is, we will always be concerned about what Hobbes calls “the assur- ing of acontented life”.With respect to this worry human beingsare united, however diverse their passions and their understanding of how to live a happy,oratleast contented, life maybe. From all the conditions mentioned, Hobbes drawsanunambiguous and blunt conclusion:

 Plato, Rep.  a-b.  Nietzsche a, p.  (= UB I, ).  Cf. Dreier ,pp. –.  Cf. here and in what follows:Hobbes ), Chap. XI, p.. 106 Beatrix Himmelmann

So that in the first place, Iput for agenerall inclination of all mankind, aperpetual and restlesse desire of Power after power,that ceaseth onelyinDeath. And the cause of this, is not always that aman hopes for amoreintensive delight,than he has alreadyattained to;orthat he cannot be content with amoderate power: but because he cannot assurethe power and means to live well, which he hath present,without the acquisition of more.⁷

Since this is supposedtobea“generall inclination” of humans, competition for riches, for honour and command will always be found, predisposing to contention, enmity,and war.The permanentthreat of war causesfear in all and adesire for peace. However,Hobbes explains that everyone is boundbyalaw of nature, which is suggested by reason, to abstain from what is “destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preservingthe same; and to omit that by which he thinketh it maybebest preserved”.⁸ To put it in positive terms: Foreveryone it is always permissible to do—that is, everyone has a natural right to do—whatever he or she thinks maybest preserveand further theirlife. Consequently, on the one hand, we cannot but enter into conflict and wagewar,should our self-preservation be threatened,and yetwecannot but hunt for peace on the other. Further- more, Hobbes is very clear about what the general condition of war among humans involves:

To this warreofevery man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothingcan be Unjust.The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injusticehavetherenoplace. […] Force, and Fraude, areinwarrethe two Cardinal vertues.Justice,and Injustice arenone of the Faculties neither of the Body,nor Mind. If they were, they might be in aman that werealone in the world, as wellashis Senses,and Passions.They areQualities,that relate to men in Society,not in Solitude.⁹

It is important to emphasize, as David Gauthierdid, that Hobbes’sidea of a “war of every man against every man” is not based on the assumption of any “innate hostility”,but on hostility derivedfrom the ever-possible conflict between our powers of self-maintenance. Accordingly,war is the consequenceof“natural in- security” and the “natural desire” to preserveoneself.¹⁰ We all know how Hobbes tried to solve the fundamental problem of human existence, as he sawit. It is necessary “thataman be willing,when others are so too, as farre-forth, as for Peace, and defence of himselfe […], to laydown his

 Hobbes ,Chap. XI, p. .  Hobbes ,Chap. XIV,p..  Hobbes ,Chap. XIII, p. .  Gauthier ,p.. Why Be Moral? 107 right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himselfe”.¹¹ ForHobbes it is an important point that all men laydown their (natural) right; otherwise youmight expose yourself to “prey”–“which no man is bound to”–rather than to dispose yourself to “peace”.The mutual transferring of right is what we call a “contract”.¹² What holds just or unjust,right or wrongfor all cannot be determined until now.Inorder to securethe contract’senforcement,however,men need “acommon Power to keep them all in awe”.¹³ Onlyifthere is acommon power set over the parties “with right and forcesufficient to compell performance”,the contract won’tbevoid.¹⁴ All other bonds Hobbes considers too weak. Even though men naturallyloveand prefer liberty – i.e. “the absenceofex- ternall Impediments”¹⁵ – and dominion over others, they,nevertheless, finally accept “restraint upon themselves”.The reason for this is “the foresightof their ownpreservation, and amore contented life”,leaving behind the “miserable condition of warre”. ¹⁶ So men agree “to erect aCommon Power” and to confer “all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that mayreduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices,unto one Will”.This one man or the assemblyofmen are appointed to “beare their Person”.¹⁷ Men submit their wills to this one will and declare:

IAuthorize and giveupmyRight of Governing my selfe, to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thyRighttohim, and Authorize all his Actions in like manner. This done, the Multitude so unitedinone Person, is called a Common-Wealth […]. This is the Generation of that great Leviathan,orrather […]ofthat Mortall God, to which we oweunder the Immortal God,our peace and defence.¹⁸

We are obligatedto“simple obedience” to the sovereign, to whom the whole power of prescribingthe rules of life for all individuals involved is entrusted. Lib- erties to do or forbear according to our own discretion thatare left to us depend on “the silence” of the sovereign’slaw. Does this picture – at least roughly – complywith our self-understanding? Since morality has not yetbeen mentioned, maybe we don’tneed this kind of

 Cf. here and in what follows:Hobbes ,Chap. XIV,p..  Hobbes ,Chap. XIV,p..  Hobbes ,Chap. XIII, p. .  Hobbes ,Chap. XIV,p..  Hobbes ,Chap. XIV,p..  Hobbes ,Chap. XVII, p. .  Hobbes ,Chap. XVII, p. .  Hobbes ,Chap. XVII, p. . 108 Beatrix Himmelmann self-regulation?Perhaps we could or should be satisfiedwith aconcept of what it means to strive for ahappy,orrather acontented life and the idea of right,of civil laws apttoguarantee the possibilityofapeaceful, if not good life for everybody? First,wemight look at Hobbes’snotion of morality.The role and place of moralitywithin the framework of Hobbes’soverall conception is not easy to as- certain. Morality is introducedinconnection with the so-called laws of nature or “dictates of Reason”,which altogether prescribe what serves our preservation and is conducive to peace.¹⁹ Andsoitisfair to saythat the social contractismorallyrequired because it is onlybyinstitutingasocial contract that what promotes our preservation and is conducive to peace can be realized.²⁰ Morality, then, functions as the foundation of right and of politics in Hobbes’sunder- standing.His idea of moralitycertainlyendorses his specific perception of what it is to be human, aperception radicallyopposed to an Aristotelian one, as has been frequentlyobserved.²¹ In Hobbes’sview,man is not by nature zôon politikon whose flourishing has to be envisioned in terms of harmonious cooperation rather than conflict-laden confrontation and struggle for self-preservation. Thus, DavidGauthier takes Hobbes to be arepresentative of “modern moral theory,” the cast and scope of which is set by three dogmas philosophyreceives from economics. AccordingtoGauthier, Hobbes embraces all of these dogmas, and not least for this reason Gauthierconsiders him “the greatest of English moral philosophers”.²² The first dogma thatHobbes indeed acceptsisutility.Utility serves as a measure of subjective,individual preference. Hobbes spells it out in terms of goodness and desire or appetite:

[W]hatsoever is the object of anymans AppetiteorDesire; that is it,which he for his part calleth Good: And the object of his Hate,and Aversion, Evill […]. Forthese wordsofGood, Evill, and Contemptible, areeverused with relation to the person that useth them: There beingnothingsimple and absolutelyso; nor anycommon Rule of Good and Evill, to be takenfromthe nature of the objects themselves.²³

The second dogma is the idea that rationalityisabout calculation and maximization: the measure of the reasonableness of an action is the extent to which it is

 Hobbes ,Chap. XV,p..See Chapters XIV,XV, pp. –.  See also Sorell ,p..  Cf. Sorell ,p..  Gauthier ,p..  Hobbes ,Chap. VI, p. . Why Be Moral? 109 conducive to the agent’sends.²⁴ This conception underlies Hobbes’sunderstand- ing of reason and science:

Reason […]isnothingbut Reckoning (that is, Addingand Substracting) of the Consequences of general names agreed upon, for the marking and signifying of our thoughts.[…]Science is the knowledgeofConsequences, and dependance of one fact upon another:bywhich, out of what we can presentlydo, we know how to do somethingelse when we will, or the like, another time: Because when we see how anythingcomesabout,upon what causes, and by what manner;when the like causes come into our power, we see how to make it produce the likeeffects. ²⁵

Explicitly, Hobbes introducesmoral philosophyasascience understood in this way: “Morall philosophyisnothing else but the Scienceofwhat is Good,and Evill”,and he adds: “in the conversation, and Society of man-kind”.²⁶ Hobbes, as we have seen, emphasizes the natural subjective and individualistic valence of good and evil. When he now adds “conversation” and “society” which tie individuals together,aconventional element comes into play. Since no individual can escape being confronted with fellow human beingswhose preferences may differ from and conflictwith hers –“good” and “evil” maybeasdiverse as men are diverse, Hobbes suspects –,²⁷ conventional arrangements have to be in place. And we understand why, accordingtoHobbes’sconception, the most solid structure of the social contractismorallyrequired. The third dogma modern moral philosophyreceivesfrom economics is the idea that interests are non-tuistic, thatis, interacting persons are not conceived as “taking an interest in one another’sinterests,” as Rawls put it.²⁸ Not entirely coincidentally, it is the chapter on “Power,Worth, Dignity,Honour,and Worthi- ness” from Leviathan which provides evidence for Hobbes’sbelief in the validity of non-tuism. The “Value” or “Worth” of man, Hobbes writes in this section, “is as of all other things, his Price; that is to say, so much as would be givenfor the use of his Power: and thereforeisnot absolute; but athing dependent on the need and judgement of another”.²⁹

 Cf. Gauthier ,pp. , .  Hobbes ,Chap. V, p. , –.  Hobbes ,Chap. XV,p..  Hobbes ,Chap. XV,p.–.  Rawls ,p..Cf. Gauthier ,p..The term “non-tuistic” goes back to the econ- omist PhilipH.Wicksteed: “The specific characteristic of an economic relation is not its ‘egoism,’ but its ‘non-tuism.’” Cf. TheCommon Sense of Political Economy (). London: Macmillan, Book I, Chap. ,par. .  Hobbes ,Chap. X, p. . 110 BeatrixHimmelmann

Not least informed by the violent conflicts resulting from “taking an interest in one another’sinterests” that Hobbes had seen evolving both in England and on the continent and that had, at the time, pre-eminently religious motivations, he reduces the relationship between human beingstowhat he takes to be their foundation: ageneral concern about themselvesand what fosters and feeds their self-interest the pursuit of which, as amatter of fact,unites men as much as it separates them. Following self-regarding needs, desires,and judgmentsrequires attention to power relations accordingtowhich the “value” or “worth” of any individual is determined, as Hobbes observes. As those power relations are in flux, so will be the individual’svalue and worth. It is obviousthat not onlyincompatible tuistic interests but alsoconflicting ways of pursuing individual self-interest can lead to serious discord. Thisdiscord maynot be brought undercontrol by simply yielding to actual power structures, giventhe fact that those power structures lack solidity and steadiness. The chal- lengeis, therefore, to develop astable framework within which anyone’sattending to his self-interest maybemaximized. Again, we arrive at the “great Leviathan”,this strangeand enigmatic political beast,which Hobbes chose to be the title figure of his most influential book. Lev- iathan is not onlyabeast,³⁰ though,but also a “Man”,an“Artificial Man”,that is amachine,a“God”,a“Mortall God”,the “State” as awhole, and the “Sover- aigne”,wielding absolutepower in and on behalf of the state.³¹ It maywellbe that Hobbes depicts his eponymous monster deliberatelyand calculatinglyin arather perplexing way.³² Reason as wellasfancy³³ must be employed, Hobbes suggests, when it comes to familiarizingthe reader – and the citizens – with the “great Leviathan”,since the task this creatureismeant to fulfil is of utmost importance. He, and no one else, is supposedtoprovide the stable framework within which anyone’sattending to his self-interest maybemaximized. Not least for moral reasons,then,every citizen in the state must be convinced that obeying the laws he issues is tantamount to acting in their best interest,viz.their enlightened self-interest.Fear and awe, induced by the highlyambiguous imageofthe sovereign presented in Hobbes’s Leviathan, should do one last thing to prompt the citizens to submit to his power.And he differs from all of them who bow down to him in that he is not part of the contractbywhich individuals,covenant- ing with each other,institute the state. Instead, the sovereign stands out and oc- cupies avery special role, apeculiarposition of otherness. This is “because the

 Hobbes follows,asiswellknown, Job –.  Cf. Hobbes ,Introduction, Chapters XVIII, XXVIII, pp. , , .  This is shown by Johan Tralau .  Cf. Hobbes ,Chap.VIII, p. . Why Be Moral? 111

Right of bearing the Person of them all is giventohim they make Soveraigne, by Covenant onelyofone to another,and not of him to anyofthem”.For this reason, “there can happen no breach of Covenant on the part of the Soveraigne; and consequentlynone of his Subjects, by anypretenceofforfeiture, can be freed from his Subjection”.³⁴ The sovereign’ssubjects agree to theirunconditional submission to his will and power in exchangefor amaximumofsecurity and stability,protecting anyof them against anyone else. What they hope to gain from this move is in perfect accordancewith thosethree dogmas that modern moral philosophy, allegedly, receivesfrom economics and, supposedly, is deemed to accept.Submitting to the will and power of the “great Leviathan” will, firstly, enable anyofhis subjects to pursue whatever they consider “good” for themselves. They will be protected from being harassed or destroyed by others who equallyseek their advantage. Submitting to the will and power of the “great Leviathan” will, secondly, allow for the maximization of anyofhis subjects’ pursuit of what they deemconducive to their personal ends. As far as possible, they will be protected against any undue interference in theirambitions, since proper rational assessment provided by science will managetoorganize individual striving in the most efficient and sophisticated way. Being neutralconcerning the interests of others, however,isa precondition for the success of anysuch regulation which requires nothing but dispassionate calculation. Submitting to the will and power of the “great Levia- than” will, thirdly, enforcecompliancewith preciselythis precondition of non- tuism. Concludingthe section devoted to Hobbes’sargument,wecan sum up: Hobbes leavesuswith an answer to the “Whybemoral?” question that does not allow for anygap separatingwhat has been called the “realities” of general human striving from the realm of morality. On the contrary, morality in Hobbes’s understanding serves these realities by organizinghuman striving for well-being in the most efficient manner. This is to saythat each individual’spursuitofwell- being is protected from being blocked or annihilated by others whose preferences might be incompatible with their own. In exchangefor unanimouslyconsent- ing to submit their wills and their powers,apparentlythe sources of commonly shared destruction and misery,tothe one unique will and power of the sovereign, that “Mortall God” Leviathan, they are all assured maximal satisfaction of theirindividual desires. So, finally,itturns out that in Hobbes’saccount the claims of morality,right, and politics all point to the institution of asovereign power fosteringthe well-

 Hobbes ,Chap. XVIII, p. . 112 BeatrixHimmelmann being of everyone by depriving everyone of his “Right of Governing [him] selfe”.³⁵ Since well-being or happiness are supposed to be the ultimatepurposes of human life, aHobbesian style solution to the “Whybemoral?” seems to recommend itself. Among other worries two main concerns arise,nonetheless. First,could we ever conceive of ourselvesasrenouncingour wills, giving up on the right as well as the burden of governing ourselves? Second, is it true thatweare rational animals whose most salient worry is about self-interest,caring about nothing but well-being,ifnot pleasure? Considering these questions will lead us to reconsid- er Hobbes’sanswer to the question, “Whybemoral?” Indeed, we will eventually see thatitisutterlydeficient.

Certainlywealways desire, or stronger, want this or that for whatever reasons. To want something involves having apurpose we aim to achieve. And it involves employing appropriatemeansinorder to realize what we thus pursue. We all can and often do think about our purposes and about the means of striving for them. Thinking about the meansofpursuing our aims requires us to address technical issues. Henceitconcerns theoretical problems. Some kind of obstacle might occur and disrupt our dealingswith the affairs of everydaylife. Or there might be an especiallydelicate purpose we want to achieve,calling for extraor- dinary attention and treatment.Those cases present us with aset of challenges. We usuallymeet them by thinking about what is disturbing the ordinary course of events and what measures we can taketoput thingsstraight again. Alterna- tively, we respond by looking into the different resources we might have to reach our goal, be it ever so difficult to pursue. It is obvious that we do not engagein this kind of thinking all the time,but onlyifweconsider it necessary in order to cope with those smaller or largerchallenges of everydaylife. As mentioned before, these challenges posetechnical problems and requiretechnical responses. Reason, undoubtedly, is indispensable in order to be able to deal with them. However,itisreason in the service of the satisfaction of what we desire and the achievement of what we want that we are currentlyconsidering. Lookingback at Hobbes’sproject,wesee that he is exclusively concerned with these kinds of technical problems,dealingwith them full-scale and,accord-

 Cf. Hobbes ,Chap.XVII, p. . Why Be Moral? 113 ingly,onahighlevel of complexity.And, indeed, his social contracttheory offers atechnical solution to them. It is crucial to—or,better,constitutive of—Hobbes’s account thathecarefullyabstains from surpassing the scope of this type of reasoning.Not leaving the neutralground of copingwith non-tuistic human interests in thosetechnical ways that theirregulationinvolvesisdeemed necessary for ensuring social stability.The institution and maintenanceofsocial stability, however,iswhat we are morallyobliged to secure— accordingtothis picture. Whybemoral?OnaHobbesian point of view,thinking about the means of pursuing our individual aims most efficientlywill lead us to accept moralconduct as one of the most powerful instrumentsavailable. Enlightened self-interestap- pears to be the sourceaswell as the motivation for being moral. It turns out,however,that we know about ourselvesinwaysvery different from conceiving of ourselvesaspleasure-maximizing rational animals. We are capable of “stepping back” from being occupied with what is “out there” in the world to be dealt with in thosepleasure-maximizing technical respects. And onlyfor this reason, because we are capable of taking astep back, are we morallyevaluable and responsible animals. Even though we most often engage in justdoing what we do, focused on tackling the minor or major problems that mayoccur,wecan alsoaddress ourselvesasthe doerswho give rise to this or that particularevent “out there”.Wesay,for instance, “I did it”–being proud of accomplishingsomething or being called to account for something causedby us. When reflectinglike this, we refer to ourselvesasthe subject of our doingsto which we thus relate. So we do not merelyknow about what is “out there” and – to agreater or lesser extent – how to deal with it in technical terms,but we know about ourselvesasthe sourceand the end of being concerned with it.Moreover, each of us does not onlyknow about this with regard to himself or herself but with regard to anyother such “subject” or person as well. Obviously, this sort of knowledge creates obligations – most notablyinmoral respects. When we are confronted with something “out there” that we taketobeof our kind – i.e. another “subject” or person also capable of being aware of herself as the sourceand the end of her being concerned about something –,weimme- diatelyunderstand that it would be inadequate to treat it as nothing but an object to be handledinthese or thosetechnical respects,serving some project or goal we are pursuing.Wewould anticipate its resistance to being treated like this – because it is clear to us that here we do not deal with something but with someone who is able to develop the samekind of thematising relation towards himself that is open to us. He,too, is capable of being an issue for himself and so must demand to be treated accordinglybyanyone who knows or,better,is able to know this fact.This demand is not met if Iuse him as amere instrument in my hands, or regard him as an indifferent object should he fail to be of use. It 114 Beatrix Himmelmann is obvious, of course, that human beings are of use to one otherincomplex and sophisticated ways,and it is also true thatthey evade one other in equallyre- fined fashions. And there is nothing wrongwith these kinds of behaviour, at least not apriori. Nonetheless, due to the constitution of human beingsthere are constraints on their dealingswith one other.Being able to relate to them- selvesbybecominganissue for themselvesand thus knowing themselves, these animalscannot anylongerclaim astate of innocencewhen it comes to their doingsand omissions. And preciselythis knowledge goes along with moral demands. Atelling example mayillustrate what is at stake. The story of Artyom, an in- mate in aRussian prison camp, is desperatelysad, even though apparentlynot untypical. He had worked as acivil engineer and fallen prey to acorruption scandal. Falselychargedwith the embezzlement of atidysum of money that others had pocketed, he was givenaneight-year sentence. His wife does not come to see him, and his children are ashamed to look him in the eyebecause they think he is aswindler who robbed people. Artyom yearns for the sympathyofhis fellow prisoners who should best understand his grief. But they turn out to be not a bit responsive. “Come on, we all know this already, and plenty more besides! It’s not exactlyearth-shatteringnews. Your own misery is always greater,obviously, but what’sthatgot to do with anyone else?! Anyone will lend youahand with the everydaystuff, but as for the mental anguish – sorry,pal, youjust have to learn to deal with that yourself …”³⁶ This is, so their argument goes, because “in this place [sc. the prison camp] every other person has exactlythe same story.You simply don’thavethe energy or time to listen to other people’s woes.[…]You just don’thavethe time for him! And yethedoesn’tseemtounder- stand this. He goes around whiningonabout how hopeless he feels […].”³⁷ One night it’shappening.Artyom is trying to take his own life; his cellmates managetorescue him. And now,inaddition to all his suffering, he is tainted with an “attempted suicide” mark causing him even more trouble. The conclusionsthe first-person narrator provides could not be moretothe point:

As for the rest of us,weavoided each other’seyes, ashamed. Afterall, we could have known that he was on the edge,but we chose to ignore it.Indifferenceisaterrible sin. It’sonlyone short step away from the professional fish-eyed look of the unscrupulous judge who believes that the happiness of his own familyisjustification enough for anysuch “Artyoms”. Can we reallybeatpeace with ourselves, pretendingthat someone else’sfate is no concern

 Khodorkovsky ,p..  Khodorkovsky ,p.. Why Be Moral? 115

of ours?How long can acountry survive when indifferencebecomes the norm? The time of reckoning always comeseventually.³⁸

It is obvious that all three dogmas allegedlycharacterizing “modern moral philosophy” are completelyout of touch with what is morallyrelevant in this case, and it’ssafe to assume in other cases of moral significance as well. Quitethe reverse, spellingout moralgoodness in terms of utility as ameasure of individual preference, of maximization as the measure of the extent to which an action is conducive to the agent’sends, and of non-tuism as neutralitytowardsone another’sinterests means disregarding moralityasadimension distinguishing human relations altogether. Understandingwhat is crucial to human life accordingto merelyeconomic patterns,accepting the idea that everything is negotiable and that thereisnothing beyond arrangingthe flow of individuallypreferable goods most effectively,simply does not complywith what is constitutive of human beings. What is constitutive is not,first and foremost,the satisfaction of their various desires by means of supplywith relevant goods. It is what our example conveys as “mental anguish” that makes human beingsmost vulnerable. The regard they have for themselvesand want others to recognize, this re- gardrooted in knowing themselvesand being an issue for themselves, is the sourceoftheir moralsusceptibility.And so for these animals, for human beings, there is not onlyphysical misery but also this specific kind of mental agony. And the latter has to be considered more significant.³⁹ Actually, we are well aware of this fact.Weonlyneed to consider the outstanding importance giventoques- tions of esteem and self-esteem in human understanding and self-understanding.Rousseauisone of the philosophersdevoting most careful studies to preciselythis issue.⁴⁰ Whybemoral?Because knowing ourselvesinthe manneranalysed above requires it.Ifeach of us is able to understand that he, as well as all other human beings, are beingsabletorelatetothemselvesbythematising themselves

 Khodorkovsky ,p.f.  This is the “most essentialpoint” Marian Turski, asurvivorofAuschwitz whowas invited by Germany’sparliament (Deutscher Bundestag) on  and  January ,wanted his audience to understand.Worse than the physical pain and even worse than the killing, he said, was the degradation and humiliation of inmates, the fact that they were not treatedashuman beings but as if they were nothingbut a “louse” or a “cockroach”,consideredless than ordinary animals which still might be of use, whereas bugs areofnouse whatsoever but call for removal. Being treated like this, Turski emphasized,isthe worst thingthat can happen to ahuman being. (Permalink: http://dbtg.tv/cvid/).  Cf. Frederick Neuhouser’s()study: Rousseau’sTheodicy of Self-Love: Evil, Rationality, and the Drivefor Recognition. 116 Beatrix Himmelmann as they show,for instance, in referringtothemselvesand their doingsas“I…” or by being aware of their finitude, afact that entails their concern for themselves, then each of us is likewise able to know thatitjust won’tbeappropriate to treat these beingsinwaysnot complying with this understanding of who they are.⁴¹ Examples of such inappropriate treatment are immediatelyathand:using these fellow beingsasmeans serving the satisfaction of my desires without pay- ing attention to their own idea of what is suitable to them; betraying and deceiv- ing them and thus evadingtheir own response to the situation; ignoring their vulnerability in circumstances that do not allow them to help themselvesetc. In- terestingly enough, we are almostalways readytoadmitand, what is more, to correct inappropriate performance when dealing with technicalmatters.When it comes to issues of moral concern, though,weare rather reluctant to admit, let alone correct what we know is inappropriate. Instead, we are prone to offer explanations straight away whyweare not able to do what we know we should. Referringtoour example once again, it is true, in fact,thateach of the prisoners has to bear his burden of grief and despair as aresultofawhole system built on corruption, injustice, fraudand crime. It is reasonable, therefore, to saythat they will lack the energy to assist others. It is true that “your own misery is always greater,obviously”.Eventhough anybodycan perfectlywell understand all these justifications for refraining from responding to the suicide’swoes,given the circumstances,this kind of indifference,nonetheless, appears to be inappropriate and morallywrong. It goes against what we know oughttohavebeen done even in asituation likethis. And so it looks as if Kant is quite right in insisting that we’ll have to be aware of our “propensity to rationalize (vernünfteln)against

 In givingimportance to human self-knowledge as the source of moral obligation, Iamfol- lowingamain feature of Gerold Prauss’saccount of practical philosophy. Cf. Prauss .This understanding of moral obligationdiffers significantlyfromthe so-called “constitutivist” approach, prominentlyadvancedbyChristine Korsgaard, which has been much discussed recently (Korsgaard ;for acritical analysis of Korsgaard’sposition, cf. David Sussman’scontribution to this volume). Korsgaardargues that “self-constitution”,the task of “making something of oneself” through rational agency, atask which no human beingcan escape, is inextricablyinter- twined with acommitment to morality (Korsgaard ,pp. xii-xiii). So it seems we cannot opt out of morality because we cannot opt out of rational agencyand engaginginmaking something of ourselves. The approach suggested herecarries much less baggage:itdoes not start out from ideas about an agent’sefforts to flourish, to make something of him- or herself, to give meaningtohis or her life, to meet the requirements of rationality and communication etc. Thus,itavoids the flawofretreatinginto arguments that lead to aremarkablythin conception of morality,atbest,and/or the flawofchangingthe subject by neglectingthe objective side of morality which is givenwith the presenceofthe Others whomay and must demand to be treated according to whothey are: beings whoare awareofand areanissue for themselves. Why Be Moral? 117 those strict laws of [moral] duty and to bring into doubttheir validity, or at least their purity and strictness, and, wherepossible, to make them better suited to our wishes and inclinations”.⁴² However,being aware of this weakness and being prepared to resist it does not requireone to be amoral saint.Instead, it is about seeing and accepting that the demands of morality, on the one hand, and the demands of our wishes and inclinations, which mayinclude our natural concern for the happiness of our nearest and dearest,⁴³ on the other hand, do not necessarilycoincide. Cases such as those mentioned aboveshow that assumptions to the contrary may rest on wishful thinking.Arguing that we will not be able to gain “true” happiness unless we act in accordancewith moral obligations alsoservesthis tendency towards downplaying the fact that meeting these obligations might come at a cost. Again, it is obviousthatweare naturallybound, if not absorbed by our wishes, desires,concerns and the effort it takestorespond to them. Attentiveness and resolution are necessary to takeupastance towardsthem that allows for taking the – decisive – step back which opens up the scope for recognizingourselves and others as those who are morethan these wishesand desires and their satisfaction and towardswhom we have obligations preciselyfor this reason. The capacity for self-knowledge,entailing self-esteem, self-will and all the other forms of self-relation, turn human beingsinto very special animalswho cannot claim aright to ignorance and innocenceany longer.Repression of this knowledge in favour of pursuing our manydealings, bargains,transactions and affairs with cheerful abandon is apermanent temptation. It comes in various guises such as ideologies, rationalizations, and self-deceit.Not least,seriously asking “Whybemoral?” maynumber among them.

III

In the first section of this essay, we have dealt with what has been called the “realities” of human striving,namely human striving for power,and with what might be apt to balance this endeavour.Apparently, some kind of counterpoise is necessary to master its destructive and self-destructive potential and turn it into productive incentives.

 Kant a, AA : ;myaddition. Cf. also Kant b, AA : .  Remember “the unscrupulous judge whobelieves that the happiness of his own familyis justification enough for anysuch ‘Artyoms’”.Cf. Khodorkovsky ,p.f. 118 BeatrixHimmelmann

Hobbes sees the point when he compares humans with other living creatures who appear to escape these difficulties and complexities once and for all. If we look at bees and how they live sociablywith one another,while having no other directions than their particularassessments and appetites, we might ask, as Hobbes does, “whyMan-kind cannot do the same”.Ofvital importance seems to be the fact that amongst these creatures, the bees, “the Common good differ- eth not from the Private,” whereas man, whose Joyconsisteth in comparinghim- selfe with other men, “can relish nothing but what is eminent”.⁴⁴ The challenge he faces is to structure his life, which relates to the livesofothers in each and every respect,jointlywith these others – but in away that does justiceto human self-understanding and self-will. Giving our consent to submitting our wills to the one will of the sovereign – except for afew “liberties” left over because the sovereign won’tbeable to regulate all our actions –⁴⁵,the solution suggested by Hobbes,seems unacceptable.We would consent then to be treated as if we werebeasts to be tamed. Hobbes’ssuggestion demands what ahuman being cannot grant: to renouncethe very qualities by which it is marked human. Rebuffingthe foremost rights of persons,aconsequenceHobbes’sidea of an almighty sovereign seems to imply, cannot be accepted – in fact for moral reasons. This holds true even though some kind of peace and maybe happiness in return maybeexpected and even if acontracthas been made. Also, it is very unlikelythataHobbesian-style government could ever “work” in the long term: for,asAlexander Dunlop Lindsaywrote, “there will come apoint at which no amount of legal or constitutional machinery will avert disaster”.⁴⁶ This has to be assumedpreciselybecause this kind of government contradicts morallyrelevant features of human existence which make themselvesfelt and cannot be permanentlysuppressed. The extreme oppositeposition wasdeveloped by athinker who shares Hob- bes’sunsentimental approach and his interest in the phenomenon of power and power relations between humans: Nietzsche. He inveighs against “the social straightjacket”⁴⁷ which might have been useful in the earlydaysofmankind when individuals had to getaccustomed to fitting in with communities,toabid- ing by common rules, to being “predictable” so that they could live together. But now,Nietzsche argues, the time has come for the individual to free itself from the “morality of custom” (Sittlichkeit der Sitte)and advancetowardsbeing an “auton- omoussupra-ethical individual” (autonome[s]übersittliche[s] Individuum). “Au-

 Hobbes ,Chap. XVII, p. .  Hobbes ,Chap. XXI, p. .  Hobbes ,Intro., p. XXX.  Nietzsche c, p.  (= GM II, )/engl. Nietzsche ,p.. Why Be Moral? 119 tonomous” and “ethical”,Nietzsche adds, “are mutuallyexclusive”.⁴⁸ Theimpli- cation of this statement seems to be that the autonomous individual is not required to accept any(or at least anyethical) restrictions on its striving for whatever goal it pursues for whatever reasons.And this claim, indeed, forms the foundation of Nietzsche’stheory of the “will to power”. The individual does not find itself isolated, of course, but has to be seen as part of awhole field of powers in which it has to position itself. When treating power and the will to power,Nietzsche always deals with a relation between units that bear acertain strength and force, includingintellectual strength. He conceivesofpower in its different physical, psychological and intellectual facets. As an isolated, absolute power it can never even be thought.Itisinneed of an Other in order to be power at all. Without something to confront it would be empty,asifswinging at nothingness.That is, power needs aresistance, acounter-forceagainst which it reveals and unfoldsitself as apower.Consequently, wherewespeak sensiblyofpower there is always alreadyposited at least one further power as acounter-force. Accordingly,Nietzsche writes: “The will to power can onlymanifestitself against resistances; it seeks for thatwhich stands against it.”⁴⁹ Even though the Other,acounterpart of the individual, is explicitlyacknowl- edged, the framework of Nietzsche’stheory allows for all sorts of imbalance. Nietzsche advocates the right of the strongerone to flourish, possiblyatthe cost of others. He does so because he has his eyes on what he calls the “highest potential power and splendour of man as species” (die höchste Mächtigkeit und Prachtdes Typus Mensch).⁵⁰ They might onlyunfold in outstanding individuals. Seeing,incontrasttoHobbes,the promisingsides of man’sthirst for power, Nietzsche develops aconception of justicenonetheless. It originates, he claims, “among approximately equal powers”.⁵¹ “When there is no clearly recognizable supreme power and abattle would lead to fruitless and mutual injury,one begins to think of reaching an understanding”,Nietzsche argues. One starts nego- tiating the claims on bothsides, “and so the initial character of justiceisbarter”. Each satisfies the other in that each gets what he values more thanthe other. “Each man givesthe other what he wants, to keep henceforth, and receivesin turn that which he wishes. Thus, justiceisrequital and exchangeonthe assumption of approximately equalpositions of strength.”⁵² Hencejustice, accordingto

 Nietzsche c, p.  (= GM II, )/engl. Nietzsche ,p..  Nietzsche d, p.  (= N []).  Nietzsche c, p.  (= GM,Vorrede )/engl. Nietzsche (), p. .  Nietzsche b, p.  (= MA I,  /HHI,)/engl. Nietzsche (), p. .  Nietzsche b, p.  (= MA I,  /HHI,)/engl. Nietzsche (), p. . 120 Beatrix Himmelmann

Nietzsche, is born out of prudenceand asense for the “realitiesofhuman striving”. Of course there are and can be, as we all know,quite different relations,re- lationsbetween humans of very unequalpowers and strengths. Thisfact figures prominentlyinthe background of Artyom’sstory,which has been discussed above. In cases likethis, Nietzsche’sidea of justice, which is built on the idea of balancing powers,would not take effect.Itsimplywould not be applicable, since one party might not be able to bring anyweight in terms of authority,influence, goods etc. to bear.FollowingNietzsche, in these cases there wouldn’tbe anything available thatcould “bridle the relentless will to power” (dem rück- sichtslosen Willen zurMacht einen Zaum anlegen).⁵³ However,ifhuman beingsare able to relatetothemselvesbyway of knowing themselves, thus being an issue for themselvesand demanding to be treated accordingly,the approach Nietzsche suggestswould be utterlyinappropriate. For then, if this picture is correct,the idea of justice and doing justicetoone another could not relyonthe equilibrium of power humans possess or are assumedto possess, but would need to be immediatelyconnected to these human features of self-understanding and self-care which have to be respected as such. Hence, doing justicetoone another could be onlygrounded on the idea of strict equality, which Nietzsche rejects,and not on the idea of the equilibrium of power.Nietzsche’salternativecontractualist theory on which his account of right and rights relies seems to fail as Hobbes’stheory did (but for different reasons). The boundaries of pursuing theiraims that individuals have to accept in regard to theirdealings with each other (apart from thoselimits that are set by nature) seem to follow from the internal constitutions of these others, rather than from external conditions such as their actual strength thatare both contingent and unstable.

Of course we can saythe world we know does trust the “realities” of power relations, on the large and small scale, in politics and in private circles.Soperhaps we should put up with these realities and try to getalong.Weshould learn from analyses such as Hobbes’sand Nietzsche’s. But again, if we are animals that not onlywant thingsand pursue them, but know this about ourselvesand others, knowing that we are always an issue for ourselvesalong with all the issues

 Nietzsche d, p.  (= N []). Why Be Moral? 121 with which we are concerned, then we are not innocent and should respect one other as those “ends in themselves” thatweare.Accordingly,itwon’tsuffice to be just prudent combatants, skilled in the calculus of power.Furthermore, this understanding should bear on all areas of life. The contrast between the all too often very sad “realities” of human conduct and morality,the divide from which we startedout,should be lessened. Whybemoral?Inorder to live up to our knowledge of who we are.

Bibliography

Dreier,James, ed. (2006), ContemporaryDebates in MoralPhilosophy. Malden,MA/Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Gauthier,David (1969): The Logic of Leviathan: The Moraland Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press. Gauthier,David (1990): “Thomas Hobbes: Moral Theorist”.In: MoralDealing: Contract, Ethics, and Reason. Ithacaand London: CornellUniversity Press,pp. 11–23. Hobbes, Thomas (1950): Leviathan (1651), ed. by Alexander Dunlop Lindsay.New York/London: E. P. Dutton and Company (= Everyman’sLibrary691 A). Hobbes, Thomas (1991): Leviathan (1651), ed. by RichardTuck. Cambridge/New York/Melbourne/Sydney: CambridgeUniversityPress. Kant, Immanuel (1913a): Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (= Akademie-Ausgabe, vol. 4). Berlin: Reimer (De Gruyter), pp. 385–464. [Engl. MaryGregor and Jens Timmermann, transl. and ed., (2012): Groundworkofthe Metaphysics of Morals. Cambridge/New York: CambridgeUniversityPress.] Kant, Immanuel (1913b): Die Religion innerhalbder Grenzender bloßen Vernunft (= Akademie-Ausgabe, vol. 6). Berlin: Reimer (De Gruyter), pp. 1–202. [Engl. Allen Wood and George Di Giovanni, transl. and ed., (1998): Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: And Other Writings. Cambridge/New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, pp. 31–192.] Khodorkovsky,Mikhail(2014): My Fellow Prisoners. London: Penguin. Korsgaard, Christine M. (2009): Self-Constitution: Agency,Identity,and Integrity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Neuhouser, Frederick (2008): Rousseau’sTheodicy of Self-Love:Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1988a): “Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen: David Strauss der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller”.In: Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (eds.): Kritische Studienausgabe (= KSA1). Berlin/NewYork: De Gruyter,pp. 157–242. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1988b): “Menschliches, Allzumenschliches”.In: Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (eds.): Kritische Studienausgabe (= KSA2). Berlin /New York: De Gruyter.[Engl. R. J. Hollingdale, transl. and ed., (1986): Friedrich Nietzsche: Human, All TooHuman. Cambridge, New York: CambridgeUniversityPress.] Nietzsche, Friedrich (1988c): “Genealogie der Moral”.In: Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (eds.): Kritische Studienausgabe (= KSA5). Berlin/NewYork: De Gruyter,pp. 245–412. 122 Beatrix Himmelmann

[Engl. Keith Ansell-Pearson, ed., and CarolDiethe, transl., (2006): On the Genealogyof Morality and Other Writings. Cambridge, New York: CambridgeUniversityPress.] Nietzsche, Friedrich (1988d): “Nachgelassene Fragmente1885–1887”.In: Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Eds.): Kritische Studienausgabe (= KSA12). Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1988e): “Nachgelassene Fragmente 1887–1889”.In: Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Eds.): Kritische Studienausgabe (= KSA13). Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. Prauss,Gerold (2008): Moralund RechtimStaatnach Kant und Hegel. Freiburg/München: Alber. Rawls, John (1999): ATheory of Justice. Revised Edition. Cambridge/MA: Harvard University Press. Sorell, Tom(2007): “Hobbes’sMoral Philosophy”.In: Patricia Springborg (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’sLeviathan. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, pp. 128–153. Tralau, Johan (2007): “Leviathan, the BeastofMyth: Medusa, Dionysos, and the Riddle of Hobbes’sSovereign Monster”.In: Patricia Springborg (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’sLeviathan. Cambridge/New York: CambridgeUniversityPress, pp. 63–81. Weber,Max (1980): Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie (1922), ed. by Johannes Winckelmann. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck. [Engl. Günther Roth and Claus Wittich. Eds., (1978): Economyand Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press. David Sussman Morality,Self-Constitution, and the Limits of Integrity

One must indeed grant somethingevenmoreunpalatable; that,fromthe highest biological standpoint, legal conditions can never be other than exceptional conditions […]. Alegal order thoughtofassovereign and universal […]would be aprinciple hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinatethe futureof man, asignofweariness,asecret path to nothingness. — Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals II, §11

Manyphilosophers have hoped to show thatcommitment to moral principles is a necessary condition of beingarational agent.Ifsuccessful, such “constitutivist” approacheswould managetoavoid adilemma that is oftenthought to beset any attempt to provide afoundational justification of morality.In“Does Moral Phi- losophyRest on aMistake?”,H.A. Prichard (1968)famouslyargues that there is something profoundlywrongheaded about such efforts. Supposedly, these attempts must either reduce moralitytosome non-moralconcerns (such as those of self-interest), or appeal to considerations thatalreadypresuppose some sort of ethical commitment.Prichard contends that because anyattempt to provide a basic justification of moralitymust in this wayeither changethe subjector beg the question, the endeavor is itself ill-conceived. He concludes that we can onlyreason about moral demands from within the moralpoint of view, since there could be no external perspective from which those demands might be justified without completelyeffacing theircharacter as moral demands. We might avoid Prichard’sdilemma by refutingapresumption of both its horns. Prichard’sdilemma assumes that there are coherent practical outlooksex- ternal to morality that an agent might adopt instead of the moral point of view. What the constitutivist hopes to show is that there reallyisnosuch thing as a whollynon-moral perspective that an agent could hope to inhabit,and so that the moral skeptic reallyhas no place from which he can issue his challenges. The constitutivist does not have to denythatthere are non-moralinterests that are distinct from thoseofmorality.She need onlyclaim that there is no way of being an agent who self-consciouslypursues anykind of interest who does not implicitlyrecognize the supreme authority of moral principles. The constitutivist agrees with Prichard that the onlyperspective from which we can consider moral claims is from “within” the moral point of view,but denies that thereis anyspaceoutside that sphere that could serveasits boundary.The demand for anon-moral justification of moralityisthus not ignored, but neither is it sat- isfied on its own terms. Instead, the constitutivist aims to show that this demand 124 David Sussman rests on the illusion thatthere is some real alternative to being amorallycom- mitted agent that is open to us, an alternative we need some special reason to reject. To reach this conclusion, some philosophersargue thatanagent’spsyche or “soul” must have aspecial kind of unity or integrity thatcan onlybemaintained through the embrace of morality. In the Republic,Platocontends thatfor people or polities to be capable of acting,their various constituents must recognize a certain structure of laws that determine the proper relations of authority and def- erencebetween them. Such laws servetodefine the differencebetween when the agent is herself trulyacting,and when she is merelybeing affected by some forces from within or withoutherself. Aristotle similarlyholds that the form of life characteristic of human beingsisone governedbyreason, which determines what is to count as the healthy functioning of basic human powers in relation to each other. Forboth Platoand Aristotle, the more viciousorunjust aperson is, the less she reallyisaperson, and the less she can reallydoanything.The bad person turns out to be capable of actioninonlyapartial or derivative sense, in something like the waythat being sick or dying still counts as away of living. Kant also argues that recognition of abasicprinciple of reason is needed for abeing to have anypower to act in the world in away distinct from the opera- tions of natural causes. UnlikePlato and Aristotle, Kant does not hold that afundamental function of practical reason is to apprehendsubstantivetruths about goodness and value to guide the proper functioningofthe soul. Kant instead argues that the fundamental moral lawtakes its content merelyfrom what would count as success in properlyestablishingawill in the first place. The practical reasoningthat defines the will must then be autonomous; such thoughtwould have to proceed simplyfrom acommitment to freeself-determination, simply as such. Unfortunately, all of these approaches bring agreat deal of metaphysical baggage with them. Plato and Aristotle both presuppose an order of substantive ethical truths about goodness and excellence that are epistemicallyaccessibleto us in ways we can trust.Kant avoids these problems, but relies on anotion of free self-determination that is hard to reconcile with our also being parts of the natural world. In this paper,Ifocus on amodernversion of constitutivism that,while drawingheavilyonPlato, Aristotle, and Kant,proceeds in away intended to be fullyconsistent with contemporarynaturalistic scruples. In recent work, Christine Korsgaard(2008;2009) has argued that the basic function of action as such is to produce and sustain just thatunity that makes agents capable of acting.Supposedly,the formal aim of action is to integrate agents in away that enables them to act,much as the proper functioningofany living thing serves to sustain and reproducethat organism in just those ways that allow it Morality,Self-Constitution, and the Limits of Integrity 125 to continue in this very activity of living.For Korsgaard, the self-constituting function of action shows that practical reasons must be “public” or “shareable” in away that grounds not onlyprinciples of instrumental and prudential rationality but alsoarecognizablyKantian universalizability requirement. Iconsider Korsgaard’sattempts to derivemoralityfrom integrity in light of challenges from Bernard Williams, who largely echoes Nietzschean criticisms of Kant.For Williams, integrity is indeedcentral to agency or “character,” but such integrityisultimatelyintension with the kind of impersonal universality that Korsgaardhopes to extract from it.FollowingWilliams, Iargue that the ideal Korsgaarddevelops is adescription not of fullyrationalagency,but of a kind of compulsive self-denial, something akin to Nietzsche’s “bad conscience.” Paradoxically, Korsgaard’sfullyrealized agent is one thatidentifies with nothing other than his ownalienation from himself, and it is onlysuch pervasive alienation that giveshis willthe appearance of an especiallydurable sort of unity. However,this resultdoes not requirethatweabandon all hope of aconstitutivist defenseofmorality.Inconclusion, Ioffer adifferent wayofunderstanding the essentialintegrity of agency that,although more modest and less alienated than Korsgaard’s, maystill proveadequate to ground the main principles of Kantian ethics.

1. Korsgaardholds thatthe problem of integrity is engendered by the basicpow- ers of rational reflection that we exercise whenever we deliberate about what to do. This problem is not faced by animalswho unreflectively inhabit theirnatural teleology,and cannot wonder whether thingsreallyare as they seem, or whether they should satisfy some desire they happen to feel. The behavior of non-rational animalsseems to be immediatelydetermined by theirinstincts and perceptions, which under normalconditions produce activity thatpromotesthe continued good functioning of thatorganism. Although an animal does not have anysubstantial self-conception, it does see the world egocentrically, through the lens of its needs. Such aworld appears not as aset of publiclyavailable objects with general causal powers,but as an arrayofresources,opportunities, and threats for that animal (2009,pp. 109 –111). In beingslike us, however,rational reflection makes it possiblefor what we perceive to divergefrom what we believe, and for what we desire most to come apart from what we actuallyintend to do. From such areflective perspective,my desires and perceptions cease to be immediate causesofmythought and behavior,becominginstead something more like proposals for how Iamtothink or act.Atthis point,Ineed to form some conception of the objectsofmydesires that will allow me to distinguish between more or less successful ways of pursuing them. In confronting the manifold of my wants, Iface the further question of 126 David Sussman which desires Ireallycare about,and which are to be treated as merelydistrac- tions or temptations to be resisted, despite their motivational influence. In this way, reflection forces an agent to confront an issue thatisnot faced by an animal: the question as to how far some feature of her mental life counts as her own doing,and to what extent that feature is merelyacondition from which she suffers and must somehow work around. Reflective agency might seem to requireonlythat we add to the animal an ability to pick some desire to pursue from all thoseitexperiences.In“Freedom of the Will and the Concept of the Person” Harry Frankfurt (1988, pp. 11–25)argues that what is essentialtobeing areflective agent is the ability to form and act from “second-order volitions”:that is, higher-order desires that some other desire be the one acted upon. Yetitishard to see how just adding another desire with apeculiar content serves to deal with the alienation and fragmentation of the self that reflection creates. These problems concern how to distinguish responses in which the agent counts as trulydoing something from thosein which she is passivelyaffectedbysomething within her.Ifthis question can applytoordinary first-order desires,itwould seem equallyapplicable to higher-order desires as well. Just as we might have anynumber of first-order desires, we might equallyhavemanydifferent second-order volitions. It will hardlyhelp to introduce stillhigher-order desires that aparticularsecond-order volition be the one that determines our behavior,since the sameproblems will just rein- scribe themselvesateach new level.¹ Frankfurt responds to these worries by arguing that our agency involves not just the formationofhigher-order desires,but the exercise of aspecial power of identification whereby the agent commits herself to act on adesire in away that “resounds through” and harmonizes the rest of her motivational economy. Frank- furt contends that identification is not just the creation of another desire with some special content,and for him it is not logicallypossiblefor aperson to be alienated from her own identifications or passivebefore them. ForFrankfurt, such identification comes to be the defining power of rational agency;the agent is just that which so identifies, and its actionsare just those behaviors that express such identifications. The problem with this response is not so much that it is false but that it is unilluminating.OnFrankfurt’saccount,identification functions much like ador- mitive virtue. Frankfurt manages to distinguish aperson being trulyactive with respect to her psychic life simply by postulating a sui generis power of real self- determination, which is defined so that the question of alienation cannot even

 See Watson (). Morality,Self-Constitution, and the Limits of Integrity 127 arise about it.This movedoes not solve the problems of unity and activity but onlyrelocates them: what could it be to identifywith some desire or attitude such thatthis identification would be so intimatelymine that Icould never experience anykind of estrangement from it? Acentral insight of constitutivism is that for anykind of thinking to count as the active exercise of apower,such thinking must be situated in abroader context of normative principles or laws that give it its significance. Moving pieces of wood on aboard can count as castling onlyifagame of chess is being played; that is, onlyifthis movement is performed by someone who takes her actions to be governed by the relevant sorts of rules, in the context of abroader functioning practice that others participate in. Similarly, enteringinto acontract or casting a vote is something more than just uttering special phrases or making marks on paper with certain intentions or beliefs. Forany such doingstobecontracting or voting,the requisitelegal and political institutions must be in place, and those engaged in these activities must recognize those practices as in some wayauthoritative over what they are doing. Constitutivism holds thatfor anyresponse to adesire to count as adecision to act,that response must be situated within some formal principles of choice, which define bothwhat counts as trulymaking adecision and what properlyfol- lows from doing so. If nothing else, areflective agent must take her choice to be governedbysome sortofinstrumental norms. In adopting anyparticularend, the agent has to take for granted that she has ageneral power to bind or obligate herself to do whatever is requisitetobring about that end, even if such actionis not immediatelyorindependentlyappealing to her.The imperative to take the necessary means to our ends can be understood as adescription of abasic normative power anyagent must ascribe to herself in order to seeherself as an agent.Indeciding to do something,anagent commits herself to being acertain kind of cause in the world, and so sees herself as having the power to bind herself to doing whatever is required for such efficacy. The authority of instrumental norms serves to give amanifold of psychological states and physical movements the distinctive unity of an action, allowing for anormative interpretation of that behavior in terms of varyingdegrees of success and failure, perseverance or weakness.Yet we need morethan merelyin- strumental norms to make sense not just of actions, but of the distinct,enduring agents who might be performing them. Such an agent would have to have an identity that can go beyond anyofits deeds. This identity is needed to ground the possibility that the very same agent might not have performedthatparticular act,orthat she might go on to perform different acts as well. Instrumental principles establish how different behaviors might all be parts of the same pursuit of an end, but such principles do not show how different choices of ends could all 128 David Sussman be the decisions of one and the same agent.Yet without such non-instrumental principles, we cannot make sense of how an agent might changeher mind (or decline to do so), since bothchangeand constancypresuppose the possibility that the very same agent could still persist even if she came to abandon the end she has adopted. In Self-Constitution,Korsgaardargues that in addition to the hypothetical im- perativesthat individuateacts, an agent must recognize “categoricalprinciples” that determine to what extent different choices of ends still count as his own doing.She explains:

The hypothetical imperative binds youbecause what youare determiningyourself to be when youact is the cause of some end. The categorical imperative binds youbecause what youare determiningtobethe cause of some end is yourself. (2009,p.81, Korsgaard’s emphasis)

At this point in her argument,the “categorical imperative” does not have anydis- tinctive content.The term is reallyjust aplaceholder for whatever principles govern not the relation of means to ends, but how the agent goes about adopting ends in response to amanifold of incentivesinthe first place. Such principles make up the “constitution” of an agent’ssoul. On this view,anagent is not to be identified with anyfeature of her constitution to the detrimentofothers; neither reason nor emotion nor anyother part is taken to be the agent’s “true self.” Instead, the agent supposedlyidentifies with and is defined by the entirety of her constitution, and it is this whole structure that determines how farsome behavior is something she does, and to what extent it is something thatmerelyhap- pens to her and for which she maybeless thanfullyresponsible.

2. FollowingPlato, Korsgaardconsiders five different political models for how an agent might constituteherself:aristocracy,timocracy,oligarchy, democracy,and tyranny. The aristocratic constitution is supposedlyhighest,being governed by reason in away thatrealizes aform of Kantian autonomy. Accordingtothis constitution, the agent’sappetites and inclinations servetopropose various objects and courses of actions to the soul as awhole, which are to be judgedaccording to universal rational principles thatare prior to all such desires.Korsgaard de- parts from Plato in holding that this ultimatestandard is to be found not in some independent order of normative facts, but instead in the basic task of sustaining the very unity of the agent that makes action possible. The aristocratic soul onlyrecognizes adesire as providing areason for actioninsofar as it can be understood as afullypublic reason; that is, in something like fair terms Morality,Self-Constitution, and the Limits of Integrity 129 that can be similarly appreciatedbythatagent or others in different circumstances,when avery different array of desires or moods might come into play. ForKorsgaard, the more specific conceptions of the aristocratic soul correspond to different interpretations of the scope of this publicity requirement.If agood reason onlyneeds to be sharable by the various perspectiveswithin anatural individual’sbiography, then the aristocratic soul is arational egoist who, although indifferent to other people, regards all different times in his life as being equallysignificant.Ifthe standard of publicity is expanded to include all agents simplyassuch, then the aristocratic soul becomes the Kantian agent who fundamentally conceivesofherself as a “citizen of auniversal kingdom of ends.” Such aperson is dedicated to acting onlyonprinciples that could be freelyaccepted by all others who take themselvestohaveanequal sayinand responsibility for the governance of their common life.² Closest to the aristocratic constitution is the timocratic soul, wherethe agent is governedbyaconcern for his integrity in the more familiar sense of being honorable, respectable, or “up-standing.” As Korsgaardpresents it,the timocrat is committed to acting in ways that are recognizably “fine” or “noble.” He is dedicated to preservinghis honor in away that might be recognized by others who are themselvestaken to be worthyofsuch esteem. The timocratic agent is governed by reason to some extent,but areason that is not fullydistinct from pride or self-love. The honor-lover is unable to conceive of astandard of correctness that is independent of the evaluative attitudes of aparticularkind of ethical community.Such an agent cannot countenance the possibility that the right thing to do might be something that no one he knows or respects could appreciate. Unlikethe timocrat,the oligarchic soul does not bring anyideal of individual excellence to bear on her desires.Instead, the oligarch has certain dominant passions that she takes as her real needssimplybecause of their motivational strength, and evaluates the acceptability of other desires in terms of their compatibility with these powerful concerns. She thus operates from a “present-aim” conception of prudence, unlike the temporallyneutral self-concern thatcharac- terizes the aristocratic rational egoist.Inthe absenceofastable set of dominant

 In Self-Constitution (), Korsgaarddoes not focus on the question of whythe aristocratic soul should take the Kantian form rather than merelythat of the rational egoist.Korsgaardsees rational egoism as one proposal for how an aristocratic soul might constituteitself, aproposal that cannot be assessed in the absenceofadefense of some morespecific understanding of what that agent’soverall self-interest involves. Korsgaard’sdoubts that such adefense is possible without presupposingthe broader commitments of Kantian autonomyare developed in “The Myth of Egoism”,inKorsgaard(), pp. –. 130 David Sussman passions, an oligarchic soul maydecayinto ademocratic one, in Plato’speculiar sense of “democracy.” The democratic soul resolves to pursue whatever desire happens to be most salient at the time, as if by akind of motivational lottery. In essence, his fundamental principle is to act as if he had no principles at all. Like Plato, Korsgaard considers the most degenerate soul to be that of the tyrant.Tyrannyiswhat emergesfrom ademocratic constitution when one passion attainssuch power that the question of whether to act on it cannot even be seriously considered. The tyrant is unable to reallydeliberate about her basic ends at all; she cannot make up her mind about what to pursue, because with regard to basic ends her mind is always alreadymade up. As Korsgaard describes it,the tyrannical soul is like thatofsomeone in the grip of an addiction or sexual obsession, who acts not from commitment but from compulsion. Like the aristocrat,the tyrant manifests astrongkind of practical unity.Unfortunate- ly,this unity is reallyjust that of single desire thathas come to be the tyrant’s entire self, precluding anyreal reflection or deliberation about other ends. Since she cannot choose her ends, the tyrant cannot make sense of herself as adistinct agent with the power to bind herself to even instrumental requirements of action. Korsgaard concludes that the tyrannical person’sdoingsare not interestingly different from animal behavior that is immediatelydetermined by instinct.Onher view,the tyrant is not so much adefective agent as the lastre- mains of one, being all that is left of awill after aprocess of corruption and dissolution has fullyrun its course.

3. Korsgaardcontends that the forms of agency thatlie between aristocracy and tyrannyare all functional but inherentlydefective.Although these people can act,they do so in onlyaderivative or degenerate way. Korsgaard holds that the common flawofthese souls is that their integrity is objectionably contingent. These agents can expect to maintain their unity onlysolongascertain kinds of practical problems never happen to arise.Incontrast, the rationally-governed soul of the aristocratcan recognize itself in anyconceivable situation thatshe might confront:

On certain occasions,the people with the other constitutions fall apart.For the trulyjust person, the aristocratic soul, there arenosuch occasions.Anythingcould happen to her, anythingatall, and she will still follow her own principles—and that is because she has universal principles that can consistentlybefollowed in anykind of case…She is completely self-possessed; not necessarilyhappy on the rack, but herself on the rack, herself even there. (2009,p.180)

Supposedly, the aristocratic or autonomous agent has aspecial kind of integrity that shields her from luck in away that makes her actions more trulyher own Morality,Self-Constitution, and the Limits of Integrity 131 than thoseofthe other,less reflectively structuredkinds of soul. Korsgaardcon- cludes thatthe otherforms of agency are not reallyself-conceptions that an agent could endorse instead of an aristocratic one. These other constitutions onlydescribe what aperson will have ended up being should her efforts to fullyintegrate herself fail in various ways.Supposedly, no one can coherently choose to be such anon-autonomous agent,evenifthat is all that they might turn out to be in the end.³ Korsgaardisnot making the mistake of thinking that because our souls must possess some degreeofdurability,any decrease in fragility must be an improvement.⁴ Neither does she denythat even aristocratic souls might break down when subjectedtoenough pain, fear,ordisease. Her point is that in such cases this disintegration would be merelysomething that happens to the soul, effected by external forces that overwhelm and shatter it.This threat is different from the possibility that the agent might come to actively dissolve herself, in a waythat counts as aproper expression of her fundamental commitments.For Korsgaard, what is distinctive about the aristocratic soul is that it alone is im- mune to turning against itself in this way. All souls maybreak down, but the non-aristocratic ones alsostand readytoactively undo themselvesshould the right conditions arise. Korsgaard seems to see this not merelyasfailure, but as something more like self-betrayal.After all, once Iamprepared to betray youunder certain conditions,itwould seem that Ihavealreadydone so, even if thoseconditions never arise. Forcontrast,consider the timocratic person. Thisagent is governed by pride or loveofhonor,wanting aboveall to be recognizablygood, fine, noble,etc. The timocrat aims at both merit and the appearance of merit,and so faces adilemma in contexts wherethese desiderata diverge. The unlucky timocrat could find himself in asituation wherethe onlyright acts are profoundlydistasteful ones (e.g., retreat in battle,surrenderingafriend to the authorities), so that it would be im-

 Here Korsgaardcan answer David Enoch’scharge that even if some moral principle can be shown to be constitutive of a “game” that all agents must be playing, these agents might still be merely “going through the motions grudgingly, refusing to internalize the aims of the game.” (Enoch ,p..) Even if an agent ends up merely “going through the motions,” this is not what she can set out to do, or whatshe fundamentallytakes herself to be doing as she so acts.Anagent can be intentionallygoing throughthe motions of some game onlyinsofar as she sees this as away of doingsomethingelse whole-heartedly(such as play-acting, teaching, dissembling,etc.).  In his review of Self-Constitution,Sergio Tenenbaum worries that Korsgaardhas “illegitimately turned unificationintoagoal to be maximized,” observingthat “acrystalchaliceismorelikely to break and lose its unity than aglass one, but it’snot adefective chalicefor that reason.” (Ten- enbaum ,p.). 132 David Sussman possiblefor him to maintain his elevated sense of his own nobility.Inthe face of such circumstances,the timocratic soul will be unable to identify what he really wants; his basic commitments will impel him to both embrace and reject the same things. Although the oligarch does not share the timocrat’sdesire to preserveapriv- ileged imageofherself, she tooisvulnerable to self-dissolution. Theoligarch has certain powerful passions thatshe takes to define her needs, and evaluates the acceptability of anyother desires in terms of their compatibility with these dominant interests. As aresult, the oligarch can be confidentthat she will consistently pursue her projects onlysolong as the economyofher desires remains stable. Past acertain degree of motivational influence, what had been atemptation will begin to assert itself as anew dominant passion, and thosedesires thatused to dominate will start to appear as the real temptations. During such atransition, the oligarch will be unable to consistentlyidentify what she reallywants or chooses; that is, she willbeunable to clearlyrecognize herself in anyactivity that would count as her ownchoosing.The situation is even worse for the democratic soul. Unless the overall economyofhis desires is unusuallystable and coherent (or his environment extremelylimited), the democrat can expectalways to be flitting from goal to goal as they catch his fancy,and so be unable to engage in anycomplex or long-term projects (Korsgaard2009,pp. 168–169).

4. The aristocratic or autonomous soul is supposedlythe onlyone that does not face the prospect of undoing itself because the aristocratisdedicated aboveall to the activity of sustaining and reproducing her formal unity as an agent.Such a person is committed to acting onlyonprinciples that she could stillrecognize despite anychanges in her moods, desires,orsocial attachments. Supposedly, the one interest every agent must have is in maintaining the integrity necessary for anykind of action at all. By identifying with this supposedlynecessary interest,aperson managestoconstituteherself in away that will remain available to her to endorse whatever changes in her other concerns and attitudes she might undergo.Korsgaardclaims that

every rational agent must will in accordance with auniversal law, because it is the task of every rational agent to constitutehis agency. And the lawranges over all rational beings, that is, it commands youtoact in away that any rational beingcould act, because you could find yourself in anybody’sshoes,anybody’satall, and the law has to be one that would enable you to maintain your integrity,come what may. (2009,p.214,myemphasis)

The aristocratic soul, by identifying with astandpoint in abstraction from anyof its substantive incentives, is the onlyone able to stand abovethe fray of contin- Morality,Self-Constitution, and the Limits of Integrity 133 gency thatcould bring the other souls to willingly dismantle themselvesunder certain conditions. Korsgaardcontends that onlyanaristocratic constitution can be coherently affirmedorendorsed by an agent.For her,the other constitutions onlydescribe what results when aperson, striving to be autonomous, falls short in some way. Korsgaardexplains:

Plato’sargument shows that this aristocratic constitution is the onlyone youcan choose….- Timocratic, oligarchic, and democratic souls disintegrate under certain conditions,sodecid- ing to be one would be likemaking aconditionalcommitment to your own unity,toyour own personhood. And that’snot possible.For consider what happens when the conditions that cause disintegration in these constitutions actuallyoccur.Ifyou don’tfall apart,haveyou failed to keep your commitment,like the conditionallyjust person whoholds out on the rack after all? Butifyou do fall apart, who is it that has keptthe commitment? If you do fall apart, thereisnoperson left. Youcan be atimocratic, oligarchic, or democratic person, in the same waythat youcan be ajust person whofails on the rack. But youcannot decide in advance that this is what youwill be. (2008, p. 120, my emphasis)

Supposedly, the timocratic person is reallycommitted to being honorable onlyso long as his merit and the prospects of social recognitiondonot divergetoo far; otherwise, he has implicitlyresolvedtoabandon thoseideals of honor,and so cease being himself. Korsgaardclaims that it would be logicallyimpossible to live up to such acommitment,because in so doing there would no longer be an agent to whom we can attribute such success (“if youdofall apart, who is it that has kept the commitment?Ifyou do fall apart,thereisnoperson left”).⁵ Korsgaard’sargument turns on the assumption that if we adopt acommitment in the knowledge that it can be pursued onlyunder certain conditions, then we have reallyonlyadopted aconditional commitment; that is, we have decided to holdtothis commitment onlysolong as the necessary conditionsob- tain, implicitlyresolving to abandon it when they don’t. By wayofillustration, Korsgaardconsiders aperson who claims to be devoted to justice, but onlyso long as he is not put to the rack (in which case he is readytodowhatever is necessary to be released, however shameful or unjust). Korsgaard does seem right about this case, holding that such aperson cannot reallybededicated to justice, but must instead have adeeper commitment to avoiding suffering, aconcern that sets the conditions in which his subordinateinterest in justice operates.

 This last step in the argument would seem to provetoo much, insofar as asimilar movewould show that aperson cannot coherentlyintend to kill himself. Afterall, if the intention is success- fullyexecuted, therewill no longer be an agent to whom it could be attributed. Similarly, apar- liament could not decide to dissolve,oraband to break up, or ameetingtoadjourn. 134 David Sussman

Korsgaardobservesthat although atrulyjustperson might yield under torture (and even know that he will), such aperson cannot decide in advanceto break in this way. To maintain his integrity,the just person does not have to ignore or deceive himself about human frailty.Nevertheless,hemust refuse to incorporate thoseconditions into his own basicpractical principles, treatingthem instead as external forces that mayoverwhelm him rather thanasconsiderations that might give him reason to changehis mind.

5. We might understand integrity in adifferent way. Korsgaard contends that true integrity involves being able to recognize yourself in anyconceivable choice situation, “come what may.” ForBernard Williams, this is exactlybackward. Wil- liams argues that having character or integrity as an agent depends crucially on the inability to recognize oneself in certain kinds of choices.Williams (1981) asks us to consider aman who can save his beloved wife from drowning, or some strangers, but not both. Williams concludes that if this man’sreadiness to save his wife depended on his awareness that it is morallypermissible to do so, he would be guilty of entertaining “one thoughttoo many.” ForWilliams, to requirethat this man respond in this waywould be to demandthat he be fun- damentallyalienatedfrom his deepest concerns in away inconsistent with the integrity that we need in order to be agents. Williams’spoint here is not about the content of morality;hereadilyaccepts that on most plausible moral views, it does turn out to be permissible for this man to save his spouse. Nor is Williams denying that substantivemoral demands are indeed authoritative principles of practical reason. At least for the sake of argument,Williams is willing to grant that to act is to exercise the power of practical reason, and that having such apower involves commitment to moralprinciples, principles that in some cases might requireaperson to sacrifice his heart’sdesire. The example is instead meant to address the more basic issue of whywesee ourselvesasagents in the first place. Williams contends thatwebecome practicallyengaged with the world by wayofcertain “ground projects” or “categorical desires” that give us areason to keep living,which might often involvedeep attachments to particularpeople or traditions. These projects don’tgiveusajustification to live;ifany such justifications wereneeded, they could be readilysupplied by anyofthe worthyproj- ects with which moral reason presents us. Rather,such attachments are meant to give us an interest in living,without which we would become dissociated from the world, not caring one wayoranother what happened to us or anything else. Williams argues thatnoimpersonal rational principles can demand that we abandon the basic concerns thatbring us to see ourselvesasparticular agents in the first place, even if coherent agency requiresustoaccept those prin- Morality,Self-Constitution, and the Limits of Integrity 135 ciples. ForWilliams, the very real demands of impersonal practical reason depend upon aprofoundlypersonal, non-rational form of interest in one’sown life. If Williams is right,there is something very wrong about requiring anyagent to be able to act onlyonprinciples that she could address to herself in anyconceivable circumstances,includingthoseinwhich her ground projects would no longer make sense. Consider the case of Ajax that Williams discusses at some length in Shame and Necessity (1993, pp. 72–102).Asdepicted by Sophocles, Ajax certainlyseems to have atimocratic constitution, valuing his honor aboveall else. Enraged over aperceivedslight,Ajax sets out to massacre his compatriots but,deluded by Athena, slaughters onlysome sheep and their inof- fensive shepherds.Insodoing,hemakes alaughingstock of himself just when he thought he was at his most terrifying.Knowing that he can never be taken seriously as awarrior again, Ajax takes his own life. Shouldweconclude thatAjax had implicitlyresolvedtoliveanhonorable life onlysolong as he could gain public recognition, and to kill himself if he could not?Ifso, then Korsgaard would be right to see Ajax as never really being dedicated to honor in the first place, being more concernedwith the esteem and the admiration of his peers. The apparent unity of Ajax’scharacter would then be an illusion sustained by his systematicallydeceiving himself about his owncommitments, which is certainlyareal human possibility. Howev- er,Williams suggests an alternative that Korsgaard cannot so readilyaccommo- date:

[Ajax] knows that after what he had done, this grotesque humiliation, he cannot live the life his ethos demands….Beingwhat he is, he could not live as the man who had done these things;itwould be merelyimpossible, in virtue of the relations between what he expects of the world and whatthe world expects of aman whoexpects that of it.(1993, pp. 72–73)

If Williams is right,Ajax could neither have explicitlynor implicitlyresolvedto abandon his commitment to leading an honorable life should he be thoroughly humiliated, preciselybecause such humiliation makes it impossible to continue to lead that life, regardless of anything he might decide. It maywellbethat after such adisgrace no wayofgoingforward could count as an expression of acommitment to Ajax’sparticularcode of honor,and so no response would be away of holding fast to thatcode. Ajax would then be unable to confront aquestion of whether to abandon or retain his practical identity because thatidentity would simplynolonger be available to him after such acat- astrophe. His suicidecould not express achoice to no longer go on in such circumstances; instead, it would onlybeanacknowledgement that therewas no longer anyway for him to go on, givenwhat happened. Alife without honor 136 David Sussman is not alife Ajax could care about or recognize as his own,and even if he thought he might come to take an interest in such alife, he nevertheless has no interest in becomingsuch aperson. Similar examples might be found closer to home.⁶ Imight suffer afatelike Ajax’sifforced to choose which of my children to save from death, or whether to care for my ailing mother or fight fascism. In all these cases, there maybenoway Icould make such achoice that would allow me to stillrecognize someone as myself at the other end. Of course, an agent might come to find such away in anyparticularcase, or at least arrive at anew understanding of herself that would allow her to live even after these crises. But if Ifound myself unable to do so, would this show thatthereissomething defective in my basic commitments, something that keeps me from being afullyrealized agent?⁷ Would I be making progress if, in some cool hour,Icould make up my mind about which of my children to save should Ieverbeforced to choose between them? These dilemmasdiffer significantlyfrom Korsgaard’sjust man facing the prospect of torture. Although that man knows thatitishighlyunlikelythat he would be able to remain himself throughout such an ordeal, he can still form some conception of what it would be for him to do so. Thejust man might foresee that he will completelybreak down under torture, but this prediction itself presupposes an understanding of what it would have been for him to remain whole thatisneeded for the idea of his disintegration or dissolution to make sense. Torture threatens onlythe just man’sability to live up to his principles, rather than theirmeaning or applicability to himself and his world. In contrast, in contemplating the choice of which of my children to save Ican form no real conception of what could count as remainingmyself through such adilemma, which would requireaprofound betrayal of someone Iloveunconditionally. I cannot begin to imagine how to relatetomyself in such afuture,orhow such afuture person could make sense of his past in away that includes me as I am now. Korsgaardmay well be right thattobeunifiedenough to act,Imust embrace principles that determine how Ishould relate to myself over the entire rangeof

FollowingKorsgaard, Ihereonlyconsider dilemmas that might afflict individuals. However, the most compelling exampleswill probablyinvolve the collapse of awhole wayoflife and the ethical concepts that it served to define. Foranilluminating discussion, see Lear ().  Cf.Williams: “People do not have to think that they could not live in that situation; they do not have to think anysuch thing, and this is atype of ethical thought as far removed as maybefrom the concernsofobligation. But they maysensiblythink it if their understanding of their livesand the significancetheir livespossessed for other people is such that whatthey did destroyed the onlyreason they had for going on.” (,p.,Williams’semphasis). Morality,Self-Constitution, and the Limits of Integrity 137 real possibilities for who Imight become. However,thereseems to be no need for such principles to includeoptions thatwould go beyond what Icould imagine being without losing my grip on myself and those with whom Imight interact, even if Iadmitthat such possibilitiesmight be successfullyrealized by someone else.⁸ The idea of aprinciple thatwould allow me to recognize myself under any conceivable circumstances makes no more sense thanthat of instincts that would enable an animal to flourish under anykind of environment,nomatter how bizarre or unlike its natural habitat.The onlyway of being assured of re- maining oneself “come what may” is by refusing to become anyone in particular, just as the onlyway to escape the threat of death is by never comingtolife in the first place.

6. Fortunately, constitutivism maynot requireasstrongasense of the unity of agency as Korsgaardsupposes. Ihaveargued that the insistence that we be able to maintain our integrity “come what may” does not merelyrequirethat we be partiallyalienated from anyparticularinterest we mayfind ourselves with. In addition, this requirement would seem to make such alienation the constitutive principle of agency;the true agent would be fundamentallydefined by her refusal to fullyidentifyherself with anysubstantial concern or attachment. In so doing,Korsgaardleavesusunable to see less reflective and more whole- hearted forms of life as anything other than defective forms of the ironic con- sciousnesscharacteristic of modern life. However,Korsgaardisright in thinking that anyeffort to set the limits of one’sself by choice must be self-defeating.For example, Imight decide to make Judaism central to my identity, refusing to recognize anyfuture person who lacked these religious commitments as apotential version of myself. Such an effort would have to miscarry because,inorder for this choice to even be available to me in the first place, Iwould have to be able to envisionareal possibility of anon-Jewishfuture of myself, if onlytobeinaposition to repudiateit. As Korsgaardsuggests, attemptingtolegislate the limits of who one might be is like trying to hear claims made in alanguageone understands as mere noise, or refusingtosee the emotioninsomeone’sfacial expressions.⁹ Such efforts can onlyappear to succeed through amassive exercise of self-deception, wherethe

 Here Idrawonthe distinction between “real” and merely “notional” confrontations that Wil- liams ()introduces in the ninth chapterofEthics and the Limits of Philosophy. See also Frankfurt (), pp. –.  “Iamsayingthat respondingtoanother’sreasons as normative is the defaultposition—just likehearinganother’swords as meaningful is the defaultposition. It takesworktoignore someone else’sreasons…” (: ). See also (: –). 138 David Sussman agent convinces herself that she cannot grasp that which threatens her precisely because of what she sees it to be all too clearly. Ihaveargued thatthe integrity needed for action requires onlythat the agent embrace principles that can be shared with not every human possibility, but onlythose possibilitiesinwhich she could see herself and the social world around her as something she could actuallyinhabit and in which she could find her wayabout.Yet although thereisasignificant metaphysical dis- tinctionbetween these conceptions of agency, that distinction maynot have much bearing on first-person deliberation. The differencebetween what I could be and what somebodylike me could be depends on the boundsofmy practical imagination, and of my ability to recognize myself in some possibility in away thatstill engagesdistinctive formsofself-concern. Although there must be some such limits, no rational agent can ever be very confident about just wherethey lie in her owncase. The problem is not just that we maybeconfused, biased, or self-deceived. In addition to these familiar failings,the very attempt to discern the bounds of my practical possibilitiesmay changewhat those limits are, turning what had been merelynotional possibilities into real options that can tempt or threaten me in ways that were previouslyinconceivable. Aproperlyintegrated agent maystill need to extend her principles as far as they can go,and to live by maxims that are as universalizable as possible. This need does not presuppose thatthe agent thinks that she could reallyturn out to be anybody, but onlythat there can be no determinate bounds to her possibilities prior to her best efforts to discern and realize them. Kant’smoral lawcould then be recovered as aregulative rather than aconstitutive principle of rational agency.Sounderstood, thatlaw would be grounded in our basic task of establishing the limits of ourselvesbyseeing justhow far we can share or publicize our practical reasons and stillrecognize ourselvesinasocial world that we could hope to navigate.There must be some limits to anysuch efforts, but we do not have to try to identify or impose them in advance; the world itself will do that without any help from us. Our striving to constituteourselvesmay then proceed just as if there were no such limits,since there is no danger that we might actuallyover- step them. In doing so Iwould be discovering not what rational agents as such could will, but rather the extent to which some possible ways of living are real optionsfor me in particular. If so, then Kant’sseemingly impersonal ideal of cit- izenship in auniversal kingdom of ends could be recovered as an honestaffir- mationofthe contingency and fragility of our particularidentities.

7. Ihaveargued that it is amistake for the constitutivist to try to derive substantive moral principles from aperfectlygeneric idea of action or rational agency. Instead of directlyreplying to the challenge “Whybemoral?”,the constitutivist Morality,Self-Constitution, and the Limits of Integrity 139 should address what is invariablythe real worry:Why should I be moral?Inre- sponse, we can show that by merelyadvancingthis question in the first-person, the challenger reveals acommitment to some principles of obligation and interpersonal accountability.The scope of these principles willcorrespond to the forms of social life that the agent could inhabit,and so to the rangeofpossibil- ities of who she could become or otherwise relatetoasaperson. The idea of a rational agent simply as such will then come into playnot because there can be no limit to the self’spossibilities, but because those limits onlycome to be what they are through asubject’sattemptstoexceed them. If successful, the constitutivist’sreplywould show that the question “Whyshould Ibemoral?” is really just away of asking whyIshould be at all, and so recognize anyactionsorde- cisions as interestingly mine in the first place. Perhaps it is possible for aperson to become so detached or alienated as to find himself really in need of an answer to that query.Wemay indeedhavenothing helpful to saytosuch aprofoundly dissociated being.However,this lack should not undermine the moralconfi- dence of the person who cannot help but approach the world from agroundless concern for some life as essentiallyand distinctively her own.

Bibliography

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Williams, Bernard Ethics and the LimitsofPhilosophy(1986). Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress. Williams, Bernard Shame and Necessity (1993). Berkeley: University of California Press. Christoph Horn What is Kant’sPrecise Answer to the Question ‘Why Be Moral’?

The question, ‘Whybemoral?’ is typicallyraised in situations in which an agent alreadyknows what would be the right thing to do but asks for an additional motivation whyhe(or she) should implement the morallycorrect option. This hesitation to realize what should be done might oftenbetraced back to the fact thatacting morallyis–or at least can be – somewhat detrimental (or not sufficientlyadvantageous)tothe agent under consideration. Thereforethe most convincing type of answer might be givenbypointing out in which sense acting morallyispart of the well-considered interest of the agent himself. This can simply be done by referring to external enforcingmechanisms such as legal sanctions or social pressureorbypointing at divine punishment in this life or afuture one. Asecond possible answer is less easilyavailable: one might claim that,byacting morally, the agent (directlyorindirectly) receivessomething advantageous or good for himself. Morality is beneficial to the person who actu- alizes it.This can be meant in the sense of agratification or some social recognition resulting from it or in the sense of inner peace of mind or some sort of self- content.Amore sophisticated type of answer is that provided by ancienteudae- monism: there, moral agency is characterized as profitable for the agent himself by referencetoour ‘true’ (rational) nature which is fullydeveloped as soon as we are in in the possession of cognitive and moralvirtues. By practising morality we are, accordingtothatview,actualizing our nature and are gainingthe happiness that is inherentlyconnected to self-perfection. Prima facie,all answers considered aboveseem to be excluded within Kant’s moral philosophy. ForKant prominentlydefends apurelydeontological position: fulfilling the demands of morality does not lie within the self-interest of the agent,and it does not amount to realizingone’sgenuine nature. Morality must be observed at anycost,evenincases of the strongest limitations of someone’shappiness.But is that acorrect reading? Does this mean that Kant has nothing to answer to the ‘Whybemoral?’ question?The aim of this paper is to show thatKant,evenifinanindirect sense, is somewhat closer thanexpected to what Idescribed as the responseofancient eudaemonism. In order to corrob- orate this unusual reading,weshould first have to look closer at the rational agency-interpretation of Kant’smoral philosophythat seems to provide aprom- ising wayout of the problem (I), then at moral intuitionism which also has an interesting response to offer (II), before Itry give athird answer that is closely 142 Christoph Horn linked with the Kantian background theory that underlies his deontological model. This turns out to be surprisingly akin to eudaemonism, an affinity which Iwill discuss in the end (IV).

The ‘Whybemoral?’ question would find asimple and convincing answer with regard to Kant if the rational agency-interpretation (as defended by O’Neill 1989, Hill 1992, Herman 1993, Korsgaard1996,Guyer 2000 and others) was correct.Ac- cording to the rational agency-reading, Kant should not be seen as apure formal- ist whose approach to ethics is primarilybased on an abstract universalization procedure; the categoricalimperativeisnot (or not primarily)analgorithmic test of the logical consistency of maxims. Such aprocedureisatleast not at the heart of his moralphilosophy, but it is onlyofindirect importance. Instead, Kant takes the rational agencyofanindividual, i.e. his (or her)capacity of setting ends, to be the decisive intrinsic, even absolutevalue. Seen under this premise, the maxims of someone’swill (Wille)must be, following Kant,apt to foster the good of rational and self-determined freedom. Thepurpose behind the CI- procedureishence not to test formal consistency,but to look at the congruence of possible maxims with the basic good of rational freedom. Additionally, these interpreters understand Kant as deriving the axiological character of all other goods from the central value of rational autonomy. The basic good thus has the rank of ahigher-order good; it has a ‘value-conferringstatus’.¹ The foundation which underlies Kantian ethics would then be ateleologicaloraxiological one. Hence, if Kant defended this basic idea and atheory of goods derived from it,then the widespread impression thatweare faced, in his ethics, with apurely formal procedurewould be wrong.Acertain formalism of his ethics would then resultfrom the fact thatrational agency is interpreted as ahigher-order value which establishes an evaluative criterion for lower goods. In fact,Kant seems to sayinseveral contextsthatfreedom –‘freedom’ in the sense of an enablingcondition of our rational agency – is the crucial value that should basically orientour conductasameta-norm.One impressive passagecan be found in the lecture notes of Collins (Ak. 27:344,mytranslation)²:

 See Korsgaard :  and .  “Worauf beruht denn das principium aller Pflichten gegensich selbst?Die Freyheit ist eines- theils das Vermögen, welches allen übrigenunendliche Brauchbarkeit gibt.Sie ist der höchste Grad des Lebens. Sie ist die Eigenschaft,die eine nothwendigeBedingung ist,die allen Vollkom- menheiten zum Grunde liegt.[…]Der innereWert aber der Welt,das summumbonum, ist die What is Kant’sPreciseAnswer to the Question ‘Why Be Moral’? 143

Whereupon does the principle of all duties against oneself rest?Freedom is on the one hand the capacity which givesall the others infiniteusefulness. It (i.e. freedom) is the highest degree of life. It is the attributewhich is anecessary condition that underlies all perfec- tions.[…]The inner value of the world, the summum bonum, is the freedom of the will (Willkür)which is not necessitated to act.Freedom is hencethe inner valueofthe world.

At first glance, the passagesounds as if Kant wanted to saythat freedom is afundamental, first,and non-derivedvalue, avalue that indirectlyconstitutes the worth of all other goods. One can try to strengthen this readingbycombining it with the idea of practical self-relatedness, i.e. by some sort of oikeiôsis-concept as we know it from ancient Stoicism. This is foundedonthe idea that our practical self-relatedness is inescapable: as agents, we have to accept the identity of an end-followingindividual thatwants to be successful in what he (or she) considers as agood; ultimately, one wishes to realize the good life as one understands it.Our self-relatedness has relevant normative implications.According to this basic idea, nobody can reasonablyreject the necessary preconditions of his autonomyand his successful agency,namelythe enablingconditions of his agency. While the rational agency interpretation is systematicallyattractive,itfinds insufficient support in Kant’swritings. At first glance, it is not impossibletoin- terpret Kant’sposition in this sense;the question of certain teleological elements within Kantian moralphilosophyisacomplex one and cannot be easilyan- swered. Christoph Bambauer in his highlycommendable study Deontologie und Teleologie in der kantischen Ethik (2011) has thereforerightlypointed out the ambiguitiesand shortcomingsofasimple classification of Kant as adeontol- ogistorteleologist.Ifwecould ascribetoKant asubstantial good as the currency of his moraljudgments, say, e.g., the freedom as the capacity to set ends, then we would come to an interpretationwhich is highlywelcome for at least three reasons:(a) This interpretationbringsKant closer to the old tradition of Europe- an moral philosophy, (b)itleavesbehind mere deontology and opens room for a Kantian account of happiness, character,virtue, welfare, and the meaningfulness of life, (c) it allows us to describe the Kantian position in terms of asystemati- callyattractive constructivism instead of astrongmetaphysical theory (see the classicalstudies of O’Neill 1975 and 1989). But thereisstrongevidence against this reading.³ In the ‘Analytic’ of the second Critique,Kant devotes his second chapter to the question how the categori-

Freyheit nach Willkür,die nicht neceßitirt wirdzuhandeln. Die Freyheit ist also der innere Werth der Welt.”  See also the objections raised by Patrick Kain ,  and . 144 Christoph Horn cal imperative and the theory of goods and values should be related. He relativ- izes (as we will see) the Humean approach which assumes that onlyanempirical account of pleasure and pain can be the starting-point of moral philosophy. In one of the corepassages, Kant disclaims every type of goods-based approach (KpV 5:58):

If the notion of good is not to be derivedfromanantecedent practical law, but,onthe contrary,istoserveasits foundation, it can onlybethe notion of somethingwhose existence promises pleasure, and thus determines the causality of the subject to produce it,that is to say, determines the faculty of desire.Now,sinceitisimpossible to discern apriori what idea will be accompanied with pleasureand whatwith pain, it will depend on experience alone to find out whatisprimarilygood or evil.

AccordingtoKant,itwould be unacceptable to derive the moral lawfrom an antecedent good. But this preciselyiswhat the rational agency-interpretationdoes. By relativizing the Humean approach, Kant dismisses each model of moral phi- losophybased on goods. Allofthem must consider goods, he thinks, as something derivedfrom our experience;but what is morallystrictlycommanded or strictlyforbidden cannot be described in empirical terms because of its invari- ance and immediacy. Furthermore, there is astrongtextual argument against the rational agency reading: passages which go into the samedirection as our quotation aboveare rare in Kant’swritings(if we accept at all the lecture notes of Collins as aKantian writing). The prevailing number of texts develops the idea that the moral law commands rational agents immediately(not mediated by aperspective of a good or of his practical identity) to do what is necessary. On my view,thereisnevertheless some truth in the rational agency reading. We should not neglect that Kant has atheory of goods and values, atheory which is partlyHumean and partlyanti-Humean. What Kant in fact does is to derive values, in the Humean part of his theory,from desire and, in the anti-Hu- mean part,from the moral law. The first,Humean element of this theory describes the value perspective which Kant calls that of self-love, whereas the second one constitutes the morallyadequate value perspective.While the first is thatpractised by everyone in dailylife, the second one is that which is morally obligatory.Weshould deducethe value of all other goods not from our desires, but from the act of commandment as Kant claims in afamous text from the Groundwork (Ak. 4:436):

Fornothinghas anyworth except what the lawassigns it.Now the legislation itself which assigns the worth of everythingmust for that very reason possess dignity,that is an unconditional incomparable worth; and the word respect alone supplies abecomingexpression What is Kant’sPreciseAnswer to the Question ‘Why Be Moral’? 145

for the esteemwhich arational beingmust have for it.Autonomy then is the basis of the dignity of human and of every rational nature.

As the text emphasizes, thereis, on the one hand, the CI-procedure which is characterized by immediacy and strictness. On the other hand, thereissome sort of value-generating process. Themoral commandment constitutes, in asecond step, values. In the case of the famous and much debated Kantian version of ‘human dignity’,anindividual bestows value to himself by following the instructions of moral law. Both elements, the immediacy of the commandingreason and the derivativegeneration of values, are confirmed by the doctrineofthe ‘fact of reason’ (Faktum der Vernunft)inthe second Critique,aswewill see in section III.

Kant rejects every sortofeudaemonism as an adequate foundation of moral normativity.Heisthereforeunable to describe ethics in terms of benefits and losses with regardtoour happiness.Inthe Critique of Practical Reason,heunambigu- ouslydeclares that “all material principles are inappropriate for the highest moral law” (Ak. 5:41). If we can reasonablyconclude that the rational agency- readingiswrong, there is asecond interpretative temptation: namelytosee Kant close to moral intuitionism. What he basicallyseems to do is to derive all value from afirst immediate insight we cannot sufficientlyaccount for.Thisin- sight has the character of anon-derived, unprecedented event.The textual evidence for such areading might be seen in sections 6and 7ofthe first chapter of the second Critique whereKant develops his famous ‘argument from the gal- lows’ and then explains it by the idea of a ‘fact of reason’.Onthe basis of this passage, manyreaders (e.g. G. Prauss in his monograph from 1983) believe that what Kant is claiming is what one might call the ‘immediacy thesis’ regarding practical reason. Kant would then be amoral intuitionist (Ak. 5:30):

Suppose someone asserts of his lustfulappetite that,when the desired object and the opportunity arepresent,itisquiteirresistible. [Ask him] – if agallowswere erectedbeforethe house where he finds this opportunity,inorder that he should be hanged thereon imme- diatelyafter the gratification of his lust,whether he could not then control his passion; we need not be long in doubt whathewould reply. Ask him, however – if his sovereign orderedhim, on pain of the same immediateexecution, to bear false witness against an honourable man, whom the princemight wish to destroy under aplausible pretext, would he consider it possible in that case to overcome his loveoflife, however great it maybe. He would perhapsnot venturetoaffirm whether he would do so or not,but he must unhesitatingly admit that it is possible to do so. He judges, therefore, that he can 146 Christoph Horn

do acertain thingbecause he is conscious that he ought, and he recognizes that he is free – afact which but for the moral lawhewould never have known.

As the text says,every one of us possesses an immediate consciousness of his obligation to act morally, and everybodyknows of his capacity to follow this obligation. This fact is characterized as inescapable and undeniable shortlyafter the last quote (Ak. 5:32):

The fact just mentioned is undeniable. It is onlynecessary to analyse the judgement that men pass on the lawfulness of their actions,inorder to find that,whatever inclination maysay to the contrary,reason,incorruptible and self-constrained, always confronts the maxim of the will in anyaction with the purewill, that is, with itself, consideringitself as apriori practical. Now this principle of morality,justonaccountofthe universality of the legislation which makesitthe formal supreme determiningprinciple of the will, without regardtoany subjective differences, is declared by the reason to be alaw for all rational beings,insofar as they have awill, that is, apowertodetermine their causality by the conception of rules;and, therefore, so far as they arecapable of actingaccording to principles,and consequentlyalso according to practical apriori principles (for these alone have the necessity that reason requires in aprinciple).

As the second quotation makes clear,Kant should not be characterized as a moral intuitionist.The immediacy of morallaw is aclaim not about certain contents or material aspects, but concerns solelythe formal method of an appropriate examination of givenmaxims. When discussing the categorical imperative in the Groundwork and the second Critique,hedescribes acertain procedure(or even several procedures) which allow(s)ustotestmaxims with regard to their universalizability.Inasecond sort of procedurehewants us to test the non-instrumentalization (or incomplete instrumentalization) of ‘humanity’ in our own person and in all others. Also the doctrine of the ‘fact of reason’ cannot be taken in the sense of an immediate insight based on specific moral sense and its feel- ingsand emotions. Having seemed very close to a moral sense conception in his ethics of the 1760s, Kant very clearlyrejects this idea in the classical moral writingsofthe 1780s. He is quite unambiguous on this point when discussing moral emotions. The onlymorallyadequate emotion is that of respect or reverence (Achtung)which he describes as ‘non-pathological’,and this is conceivedas an effect of the moral lawwithin us. What Kant thereby emphasizes is that moral lawenforces morality at the cost of our self-loveorself-interest.Kant does not reconcile our desire for happiness with the requirements of morality – at least not immediately. Onlyinasecond step, underthe title of a ‘highest good’ (höchstes Gut), does he try to combine, in the Critique of Practical Reason, the perspective of deontological moralitywith the teleologicalview of what we seek as our true good. We will come to this in amoment. What is Kant’sPrecise Answer to the Question ‘Why Be Moral’? 147

Kant famouslyrejects intuitionism, more precisely ‘intellectual intuition’,in his epistemology (KrV B307) – and rightlyso. Generallyspeaking,moral intuitionism – as defended by G.E.Moore, H.A. Prichard, W.D. RossorMax Scheler – is systematicallyhighlyunattractive for several reasons.First,moral intuitionism is unable to explain and to resolve conflicts between divergent moralbeliefs or intuitions. Concerningintuitivedissonances,intuitionists can, accordingto their theory,donothing more than hint at further intuitions, but they cannot account for the greater or lesser degreeoflegitimacy of an intuition. Thereforeall intuitions are, prima facie,tobeequallyjustified. But this would include even very doubtful intuitions (e.g. of aracist or sexist type). Second, they cannot deal with alack of moral sense. Aperson lacking moralintuitions seems to present an insurmountable challengetothem since this state must be rather explained as some sortofdefect than rejected on an argumentative basis. Further- more, intuitionists cannot account for the phenomenal differencebetween better (e.g. well-reflected) or worse (e.g. premature) moral intuitions. That is, they cannot explain how someone can, during his moralreflections, relinquish afirst intuition in order to gettoasecond one. Practical deliberation would be something like waitingfor the right intuition to come. But how then to deal with ‘wrong intuitions’ (i.e. thosewhich someone sees now as mistaken while he held them earlier)? Ithink that avery strongadditional argument against intuitionism can be developed from the philosophical practice of moral thoughtexperiments: Manypeople come to different intuitive conclusions with regardtothe relevant parameters which are usedinthoughtexperiments like the ticking time bomb scenario. Imagine aterrorist group threateningacity with abomb while one memberofthis group who has been arrested might be tortured during interrog- ation in order to getrelevant information from him. In such acase, parameters like the severity of the danger (e.g. if we are confronted with adevastatingnu- clear or aless destructive conventional bomb) or the degree of cruelty of the acts of torture(from less to more brutalforms) seem to playarole for our moralintuitions concerning apossible legitimacy of torture. As this suggests, intuitions are related to the relevant parameters involved in agiven caseofmoral judgment,such as degrees of pain, destruction, abasement or loss of autonomy.

III

Instead of buildinghis moral theory on avalue-basedfoundation or on irreducible intuitions, Kant emphasizes that the moral law enforces our adequate behavior at the cost of our self-loveorself-interest.But this enforcement,though conceivedasanimmediate act of reason, is simultaneouslypresented by Kant 148 Christoph Horn as aprocedural one and can be methodicallyreconstructed.Thisexcludes an in- tuitionistreadingofthe categoricalimperative.Moral action goes back to immediate and strict commandments of reason; but these have no content – they are the objects of aprocedure-based insight. At first glance, the immediacy claim sounds suspiciouslysimilar to a divine command-ethics, and in fact,asmanyinterpreters of Kant,from Hegel and SchopenhauertoBernard Williams, have noticed, this resembles atheological normative account of conduct familiar from the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Note that Kant does not saythatweshould follow reason since it is our genuine nature; this is the ancient philosophicalstandpoint mentioned above. What he says is that we must obey reason without having anyinclination to do so. If this impression werecorrect,what would thatimplyfor the ‘Whybemoral?’ question?Can we find anything in his writingsthat givesusamore elaborate answer to it?Itseems as if, in this case, he could simplyreject the question by indicating that commandments or instructions have to be fulfilledbythosewho are subject to the commandinginstance. Now we alreadysaw that Kant believes that the act of commandment leads indirectlytothe generation of values. Forthis reason, we can in fact identify a genuine Kantian answer.Onacloser look, we see thatKant has amuch more complicated story to tell, basedonararely discussed theory of action which we can find especiallyinthe Critique of Practical Reason. This action theory is surprisingly close to what we know from ancient or medieval accounts of the so-called ‘human strife for happiness’.One might call this an appetence theory or inclination theory. Pre-modern (ancient and medieval) eudaemonism is usually embedded in aphilosophical framework which can be described as ateleological action theory in the sense of an appetence theory.Some of its basic characteristics are the following ideas: [1] Each action of an individual must always be directed towards an intended end or goal (as part of the definition of what it means to perform an action). [2]Byeach intended end or goal the individual is unavoidablydesiring or striving for a(real or at least aseeming) good. [3] Ends or goals can be differentiated into instrumental (extrinsic) and intrinsic goods. The formerare (normallyoratleast rationally) desired for the sake of the latter. [4] Thereby we are facedinour rational agency with longer or shorter chains of instrumental goods; these are ofteninterconnected and must always end up with intrinsic goods. [5] Each action is part of alife-longcontinuum of such interconnected chains of goods. What is Kant’sPreciseAnswer to the Question ‘Why Be Moral’? 149

[6] The continuum of goods finallyamounts to one big comprehensive,final good. [7] The one big comprehensive,final good of human life is happiness or flourishing life.

Systematically, the most provocative claims contained in appetence theoriesare theses [1] and [6].We can call them the ‘thesis of the purposiveness of each single action’ and the ‘thesis of the summation of all goods to acomprehensive final good’.Needless to say, Kant is far away from defending either of these points; nevertheless, he makes use of their theoretical foundations to arelevant extent in the second Critique.What is remarkable is that the entire passageonthe fact of reason is stronglyembeddedinanaction theory belonging to the tradition of such ateleological appetence theory.Inorder to make this plausible,weshould first have alook at the terminologyemployed by Kant in this passage. It is strongly based on the concept of ‘will’ (Wille)and the somewhat enigmatic expression ‘determination of will’ (Willensbestimmung). Concerninghis concept of Wille,it should be noted here that it is not yetasclearlydistinguished from Willkür (ar- bitrarychoice)asweknow it,roughlyten years later,from the Introduction of the Metaphysics of Morals. Regarding the concept of Willensbestimmung,itisim- portant to have in mind thatthe will is not the determiningsubject,but the determined object (i.e. in the grammatical sense of a genitivus obiectivus). Let us examine in more detail how Kant develops his version of an appetencetheory in the second Critique. As we alreadysaw,Kant thinks that all previous moral theories are system- aticallymistaken (cf. KpV Ak. 5:39). All of them suffer from the same defect: they are based on a material determination of the willinstead of a formal one. But what is amaterial determination of will as opposed to aformal one, and what makes the first inappropriate while onlythe second has to be seen as adequate? In the Groundwork,Kant defined the will as the capacity to conceive practical principles and to follow them (GMS 4:412).One might thereforeinterpret aformal determination of the will as leaving behind all the values, goods, and ends that characterize the material determination of the will. But if this reading weretrue, it would implythat Kant rejected the entire approach based on such key concepts as values, goods, and ends. But,apparently, he doesn’t. As the notion of the will as an appetitive facultyalreadyindicates, Kant operatesonthe basis of classical terminology.Inthe first chapter Critique of Practical Reason,we find the following difficult formulation (Ak. 5:22):

All material practical rules placethe determiningprinciple of the will in the lower appetitive faculty (im unterenBegehrungsvermögen); and if there werenopurelyformal laws of 150 Christoph Horn

the will adequatetodetermine it,then we could not admit anyhigher appetitive faculty (keinoberes Begehrungsvermögen)atall.

The distinction between ahigher and alower appetitive faculty is clearlypartof traditionalappetencetheories. The quotation is about the constitution of ahigher appetitive faculty;itisclaimed thatonlyaformal determination of will is able to constitutesuch ahigher faculty.Asthe text clearlyimplies, Kant explains his position in classical terms of an appetence theory. At this point,let us examine the concept of will as employed in the second Critique. Twoofits basic features are these: each will, as conceivedbyKant,must have a ‘determiningprinciple’ (Bestimmungsgrund); and there are onlytwo possibilities for adetermining principle of the will: it must be either formal or material. In the case of aformal determination, reason is the determiningfactor; in the case of amaterial one, afeelingofpleasure and pain dominates the will. This can be seen from the following quotation (KpV 5:25):

Reason, with its practical law, determines the will immediately, not by means of an inter- vening feelingofpleasureorpain, not even of pleasureinthe lawitself, and it is onlybecause it can, as purereason, be practical, that it is possible for it to be legislative.

In the caseofaformal determination, the willremains in a ‘pure’ state since it is onlyinfluenced by the ‘form of the law’,not by anycontent,asKant explicitly says alittle later(Ak. 5:31):

The will is thoughtasindependent of empirical conditions,and, therefore, as pure will determined by the mere form of the law, and this principle of determination is regarded as the supreme condition of all maxims.

Apure will is in Kantian terminologynot the samething as aholywill(cf. GMS 4:414). Whereas aperfect or holywill needs no rectification since it is always directed towardsthe real good, the pure will is thought as a ‘purified’ one, rectified by moral obligation. This sheds some light on the idea that awill can be ‘contaminated’ by material objectsand the feelings of pleasure and pain. All of these have,Kant believes, adeforming impact on the will. Within an appetencetheory,the will generallyplays the role of atendency or inclination which must receive an orientation by adetermining principle. For Kant,there exist onlytwo of them.Whereas amaterial principle aligns the will towards desire fulfillment and happiness,aformal determination directs it towardsthe real good. This implies that the will, accordingtoKant,isa goal-directed faculty;itmusthaveanobject or end. He explicitlyaffirms this in the Critique of Practical Reason (Ak. 5:34): What is Kant’sPreciseAnswer to the Question ‘Why Be Moral’? 151

Now,itisindeed undeniable that every will must have an object,and therefore amatter; but it does not follow that this is the determiningprinciple and the condition of the maxim; for,ifthat is so, then this cannot be exhibited in auniversallylegislative form, sinceinthat case the expectation of the existenceofthe object would be the determining cause of the choice, and the volition must presuppose the dependenceofthe faculty of desire on the existenceofsomething; but this dependencecan onlybesoughtinempirical conditions and, therefore, can never furnish afoundation for anecessary and universal rule.

To sum up, important characteristics of the Kantian concept of will are the following:(a) The will is described as a ‘capacity of conceiving rules’,not as afac- ulty to choose; (b)itisunderstood as an ‘appetitive faculty’ (Begehrungsvermö- gen), not as a ‘decision-making faculty’ (Entscheidungsvermögen); (c) the willis always in pursuit of certain ends; (d) the will as such, being in asomewhat uncontaminated state,isconceivedas‘pure will’ and ‘holywill’ need not be rectified; it is always directed towards the (morallyadequate)highest good (e.g. KpV V.32); (e) our will, by contrast,isanunstable one and hence must be an object of determination, as the expression ‘determination of the will’ (Willensbestimmung) indicates. Kant uses this termquite often having in mind thatthe willisthe object of determination, not the subject. Giventhe fact that Kant distinguishes, as we saw, between asuperior and an inferior appetitive faculty (oberes/unteres Be- gehrungsvermögen)and giventhese five features (a-e), it seems clear that ‘will’ in the more familiar sense of acapacity to make decisions cannot be meant by the Kantian concept of will. We are faced here with atypicalpre-modern philosophical concept of will, thatofarational appetite, aconcept famouslyattacked by Hobbes in the Leviathan (I.6) whenhewrites:

The definition of the will, givencommonlybythe Schools,that it is arational appetite, is not good. Forifitwere, then could therebenovoluntary act against reason.For avoluntary act is that which proceedeth from the will, and no other.But if instead of arational appetite,weshall sayanappetiteresultingfromaprecedent deliberation, then the definition is the same that Ihavegiven here.Will, therefore, is the last appetiteindeliberating.And though we sayincommon discourse, aman had awill oncetodoathing,that nevertheless he forboretodo; yetthat is properlybut an inclination, which makes no action voluntary; because the action depends not of it,but of the last inclination, or appetite. Forifthe intervenient appetites make anyaction voluntary,then by the same reason all intervenient aversions should make the same action involuntary;and so one and the same action should be both voluntary and involuntary.

The concept of will as arational appetiterejected by Hobbes has along history. We find it under the expression of boulêsis in Plato and Aristotle, under the terms boulêsis and voluntas in the Stoics and Neoplatonists,and underthe notion of voluntas in medieval and earlymodernScholasticism.Itultimatelygoes back 152 Christoph Horn to afamous passageofPlato’s Gorgias accordingtowhich willing (boulesthai) must always be directed towardsrational and intrinsic goods. This is the reason, accordingtothe Platonic Socrates, whyrhetors and tyrants are powerless although they possess high influenceinthe cities (466d6-e2; translation T.H. Irwin, slightlymodified):

ForIsay, Polus,that both the rhetors and the tyrants have least powers in the cities,asI was sayingjust now;for they do practicallynothing, Isay,according to their will (ouden gar poiousin hôn boulontai), but do whatever they think is best.

Takeninitself, the will is arational desire. By contrastwith Kant,there is no con- taminatedwill for Plato;hecalls onlyanuncontaminated rational desire awill (boulêsis). Arational desire can strive onlyfor areal good. Hencethe will must be good as long as it is uncontaminated by false ends. This is what Kant says in the Groundworkfor the Metaphysics of Morals (Ak. 4:414):

Aperfectlygood will would thereforebeequallysubject to objective laws (viz., laws of good), but could not be conceivedasobligedthereby to act lawfully, because of itself from its subjective constitution it can onlybedetermined by the conception of good. There- forenoimperativeshold for the divine will, or in general for aholywill; oughtishereout of place, because the volition is alreadyofitself necessarilyinunison with the law. Therefore imperativesare onlyformulae to express the relation of objective laws of all volition to the subjective imperfection of the will of this or that rational being, e.g., the human will.

One important observation that can be based on this is that the imperative character of Kantian ethics can ultimatelybetraced back to the idea of imperfect wills within an appetence theory.AsKant says accordingtoMoral Mrongovius II (Ak. 29:606)⁴:

The imperativesare takenfromthe idea of aperfect will and arevalid as rules for my imperfect will; obligation is an idea of aperfect will as anorm for an imperfect one – God hence has no obligations.

In his Metaphysics of Morals,Kant explains what he means by the concept of Willkür by contrast to that of Wille as follows (Ak. 6:213):

The faculty of desire (Begehrungsvermögen)may proceed in accordancewith conceptions; and in so far as the principle thus determiningittoaction is found in the mind, and not in

 “Die Imperative sind auseiner Idee eines vollkommenen Willens hergenommen und gelten als Regeln für meinen unvollkommenen Willen; die Pflicht ist eine Ideeeines vollkommenen als eine Norm eines unvollkommenen Willens – Gott hat daher keine Pflichten”. What is Kant’sPreciseAnswer to the Question ‘Why Be Moral’? 153

its object,itconstitutes apower of acting or not acting according to liking. In so far as the activity is accompanied with the consciousness of the powerofthe action to produce the object,itforms an act of choice (Willkür); if this consciousness is not conjoined with it, the activity is called a wish. The faculty of desire, in so far as its inner principle of determination as the ground of its liking or predilection lies in the reason of the subject, constitutes the will (Wille). The will is therefore the faculty of active desireorappetency,viewed not so much in relation to the action – which is the relation of the act of choice – as rather in relation to the principle that determines the power of choice to the action. It has,initself, properlynospecial principle of determination, but insofar as it maydetermine the voluntary act of choice, it is the practical reason itself.

The Willkür is the capacity of aconscious and arbitrary choice. The will, however,isanappetitive faculty determined by its goal. The Wille (in its perfect state)is practical reason itself. In his preparatory works for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant adds (Vorarbeiten zurMetaphysik der Sitten,Ak. 23:248, my translation):⁵

The human Wille must be distinguished from the Willkür. Onlythe latter can be called free and is directedonlytophenomena, i.e. to actus which aredetermined in the sensible world. – Forthe Wille is not under the law, but is the legislator of the Willkür and is absolute practical spontaneity in the determination of the Willkür. This is whyitisgood in all human beings,and there is no unlawful willing.The maxims of the Willkür,however, sincethey aredirected towards actions as phenomenainthe sensible world, can be evil, and the Willkür as anatural capacity is free with respect to these laws (of the concept of obligation), by which it properlyisnot immediatelydeterminable, but onlythrough the maxims that can be according to it or against it.

In this text we are faced with aclear distinction between the Willkür as the faculty to make decisions in the empirical world, and the Wille which is not under the law, but absolutelyspontaneous. The Willkür is ‘free’ in an empirical sense, and hence can make morallyadequate or inadequate decisions. The Wille is ‘free’ in the sense of being the lawgiver and can hence not be unlawful. In the end, the Wille is more or less synonymous with the moral law.

 “Der Wille des Menschen muss vonder Willkür unterschieden werde.Nur die letztere kann frei genannt werden und geht bloß aufErscheinungen, d.i. aufactus, die in der Sinnenwelt be- stimmt sind. – Denn der Wille ist nicht unter dem Gesetz, sondern er ist selbst der Gesetzgeber für die Willkür und ist absolute praktische Spontaneität in Bestimmung der Willkür.Eben darum ist er auch in allen Menschen gut, und es gibt kein gesetzwidriges Wollen. Die Maximen der Will- küraber,weil sie aufHandlungen als Erscheinungeninder Sinnenwelt gehen, können böse sein, und die Willkür als Naturvermögenist in Ansehungjener Gesetze (des Pflichtbegriffes) frei, durch die sie eigentlich nicht unmittelbar bestimmbar ist,sondern nur vermittelst der Maxi- men, sie jenem gemäß oder zuwider zu nehmen.” 154 Christoph Horn

How does the end or goal of the will come into play? In his Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone,Kant comes back to the question whyevenhis formal- istic moral philosophypresupposes the existenceofacertain goal towards which the willmust be directed. He givesthe explanation that no will can be conceived as being without an end; in the caseofthe morallyrectified will, the end of the will cannotbefound as an antecedent one, but onlyasaconsequence (Ak. 6: 4– 5):

But although for its own sakemorality needs no representation of an end which must precede the determiningofthe will, it is quitepossible that it is necessarilyrelated to such an end, takennot as the ground but as the [sum of]inevitable consequences of maxims adopted as conformable to that end. Forinthe absenceofall referencetoanend no determination of the will can take placeinman, sincesuch determination cannot be followed by no effect whatever; and the representation of the effect must be capable of beingaccepted, not,indeed, as the basis for the determinationofthe will and as an end antecedently aimed at,but yetasanend conceivedofasthe result ensuingfromthe will’sdetermination through the law(finis in consequentiam veniens). Without an end of this sort awill, envisag- ing to itself no definitegoal for acontemplated act,either objective or subjective (which it has,orought to have,inview), is indeed informed as to how it ought to act,but not whith- er,and so can achievenosatisfaction. It is true, therefore,that morality requires no end for right conduct; the law, which contains the formal condition of the use of freedom in general, suffices. Yetanend does arise out of morality;[…].

In this passage, Kant arrivesatthe following difficulty:How can an end that is by definitionthe antecedent object on which the will is directed (and hence must precede the appetenceofthe will), be seen as aconsequenceofthe will after its rectification by the moral law? Generallyspeaking, the will must always be directed towards apreceding end and can never createthis end out of the blue. Kant resolvesthis problem by appeal to the idea that the will can be seen as pure in an ‘unfallen’ state of human beingswhereasnow,under the con- ditionsofits ‘intelligible fall’,itmust first be re-directed in order to return to its original end. Morality must in this sense be prioritized to happiness.What Kant describes here is an inversion of the pre-modern procedureinethics, but one that is stillgrounded on its appetencetheories. Alreadyinthe second Critique,wefind areflection on this necessary inversion of the procedure, namely under the title of a ‘paradoxofmethod’ in the second chapter of the ‘Analytic’ (Ak. 5:62– 3).

This is the proper placetoexplain the paradoxofmethod in acritique of practical reason, namely, that the concept of good and evil must not be determined beforethe moral law(of which it seems as if it must be the foundation), but onlyafter it and by means of it.Infact, even if we did not know that the principle of morality is apureapriori lawdeterminingthe What is Kant’sPreciseAnswer to the Question ‘Why Be Moral’? 155

will, yet, that we maynot assume principles quitegratuitously, we must,atleast at first, leave it undecided, whether the will has merely empirical principles of determination, or whether it has not also pure apriori principles;for it is contrary to all rules of philosophical method to assume as decided that which is the very point in question. Supposingthat we wished to begin with the concept of good, in order to deducefromitthe laws of the will, then this concept of an object (as agood) would at the same time assign to us this object as the sole determiningprinciple of the will. Now,sincethis concept had not anypractical a priori lawfor its standard, the criterion of good or evil could not be placed in anythingbut the agreement of the object with our feelingofpleasureorpain; and the use of reason could onlyconsist in determininginthe first placethis pleasureorpain in connexion with all the sensations of my existence, and in the second placethe means of securing to myself the object of the pleasure.

What Kant describes here is preciselyhis ideaofdeontology:anadequate moral philosophy, he claims, should not derive the concepts of good and evil from the factual direction of the will, but inversely, first determine the willbythe moral law(which givesusanimmediate concept of good and evil) and then see to which end the will must be directed. All of this passageisdescribed according to the letter of appetence theories, even if not accordingtotheir spirit.Inthe context of this impressive quotation, Kant starts with the Scholastic formula nihil ap- petimus nisi sub ratione boni (Ak. 5:59) and then explains how this sentenceisto be correctlyunderstood: namelybyinterpretingthe underlying bonum-malum dichotomynot in terms of benefits and detriments (Wohl und Weh), but in terms of the moral good and the moral evil (Gut und Böse). Thispassagecorrob- orates our observation that Kant preserves the theoretical framework although he radicallyrevises its intention.

We can now see what sortofanswer Kant provides to the ‘Whybemoral?’ question. It is true that his basic approach shows similarities with some sortofdivine command ethics, namelyinthe sense that what is morallyappropriateand what must be done by the agent should not be described as basedonhuman (genuine) interestorhis (true) nature.Onthe contrary, morality must be observed at the possiblecost of all non-moralvalues, goods, desires,and the happiness of the agent.Moral commandments or instructions thus radicallylimit and relativ- ize the desires or preferences comingfrom our self-love. But nevertheless,it would be false to assume that Kant sees no relationship between the moral commandments that have to be observed and someone’shappiness.What he claims 156 Christoph Horn is thatour will (that is in fact contaminated by pathological desire) must be rectified by the imperative form of the moral law. Herethe basic structure of appetence theories comes in. The will is not con- ceivedasacapacity to choose freelyand arbitrarily, but as acapacity to strive for an end. Kant uses the notion Wille quite generally: it stands for acollective term indicating the direction of all desires and interests which can be ascribed to an agent.Taken in this sense, the Kantian concept of will expresses the basic goal- directedness of an individual. Now Kant maintains that the human will in its normal or default state is always contaminated by material ends and hence always directed towards happiness in the sense of desire fulfillment.Inthis doctrine, Kant is, to acertain extent,aHumean. But when the moral lawemergesand ‘formally’ determines the will, then the goal-directedness of the willisnot simplyinterrupted or limited, but re-oriented. The will, i.e. the human striving for the real good, is then vec- tored towardsthe genuine value of human beings, the highest good – which is described, in the second Critique,ashappiness in the sense of desire fulfillment accordingtoone’smoral dignity.Asthis consideration shows, it is not the case that onlyamaterial determination of the will leavesits goal-directedness intact; also the formal one preserves the purposiveness of the will. But after aformal re-orientation of our basicinclination, the willhas anew,morally appropriate final end. Thewill has then become apure one, even if not aholy one. Humannature is, in its starting-position, something bad or ‘fallen’;it needs to be rectified or restituted by the rationalityofthe morallaw. Seen from this perspective,the morallaw urgesusinto adirection whereour true and ‘unspoiled’ nature is restituted. If this is correct,aKantian answer to the ‘Whybemoral?’ question emerges. Thisanswer is based on an indirect value perspective.While we are rationallyforced by the moral law(direct sense),wecan additionallybeinterested in this enforcement (indirect sense) since the morallaw ultimatelyleads us to the onlyappropriatesort of happiness: that which is qualified by our moral worth. By being forced to neglect our happiness, the moral lawrealigns us – and preciselythereby,itfinally bringsusto our true nature and happiness.

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Iddo Landau The “Why Be Moral?” Question and the Meaning of Life

Of the manypossiblewaysofapproaching the question “Whybemoral?”,Ifocus in this paper on one, which links the question to the notion of the meaning of life. Following the work of DavidWiggins (1976,pp. 348–349), R. W. Hepburn (2000,p.262), KaiNielsen (2000,pp. 237, 242–250), Susan Wolf (1997a, pp. 208–213; 1997b, p. 304) Berit Brogaardand Barry Smith (2005,p.443), and manyothers, Itakethe “meaning” in “the meaning of life” to have much to do with worth or value. Discussions of the meaning of life complain that life does not have sufficient worth, or wonder what might give life sufficient value, or celebrate the finding of something of sufficientimportance in life, etc. (In what follows Iwill use the terms worth, value,and importance inter- changeably.)Take, for example, Tolstoy’snarration, in his semi-autobiographical My Confession,ofhow he came to feel that his life was not meaningful. At acertain point in his life he started looking at all he had achievedand asking himself “What of it?” and “So what?” He was the greatest Russian author: so what?He owned alot of land: what of it?(Tolstoy 1983, pp. 26–27). Isuggest thatthe “so what?” and “what of it?” questions exclaim that what seemed to him of sufficient worth stopped appearingso. What troubled Tolstoy was the feeling thatall that has been described abovewas not in fact of sufficientvalue. Similarly,Thomas Nagel (1986) argues thatfrom the objective, broad perspective of the whole cosmos and time, sub specie aeternitatis,our livesare not as meaningful as we would like them to be. He mentions that,seen from that broad perspective,our influenceonthe world is negligible; if we had not lived, nothing much would have changed, in the long run, for the world at large.Put differently, seen from the broad perspective,our death and our life are inconsequential or unimportant.Moreover,our cominginto existenceiscon- tingent: we could have easilynot been born.Nagel’sarguments suggest that, from the sub specieaeternitatis perspective,our livesdonot seem to have much value; he is discussingthe insufficient worth of human beings(when seen from that broad perspective). Discussions Ihavehad with people who thought thattheirlives weremean- ingless, or weresearchingfor what would make them more meaningful, also confirm that thosepeople were preoccupied with issues of worth and value in 160 Iddo Landau their lives. They had not found something of value, or what had been worthwhile in their liveswas taken away,orthey no longer sawwhat could be of sufficient worth in their lives. Aperson who lost abeloved brother felt that life was meaningless because something very valuable he once had in his life was now gone. Another person said that she found life meaningless upon painful disappoint- ment with apolitical movement for which she had sacrificed much; again, something that had endowed great value ceased to do so. Andanableand ambitious biologist Iknew confided that she felt that her life was meaningless because, in spite of her manyefforts, she failed to reach what she considered to be the very top of her profession. Forher,this was asufficient reason to judge her life to be meaningless.What was of extreme value to her (whetherfor good reasons or bad) was the publicorprofessional recognition of her peers thatshe was at the very topofher profession; when it became clear to her that she would not achievethat,she felt thather life was meaningless. All other discussions of the meaning of life seem to involvesimilar preoccu- pations. Complaints thatlife is meaningless translate well to claims about the lack or insufficiency of aspectsofvalue in that life. The search for meaning translates well to aquest for aspectsofsufficient value. Therefore, Iwill henceforth treat the meaning of life as the value, or worth, in life. Ameaningful life is one that has asufficient number of aspects of sufficientvalue. Ameaningless life is one without asufficient number of aspects of sufficient value. (This is whypeople sometimes describe meaninglesslives as “empty”;they are empty of sufficient value.) To make ameaningless life into ameaningful one, or to make an alreadymeaningful life into amore meaningful one, we should increase what is of worth in our lives. Now if one acceptswhat Ihavesuggested here, Ibelievethat we already have abeginning of areplytothe question “Whybemoral?” Those who want to have meaningful liveshaveareason to be moral, because being moral increases the value, or worth, in our lives. Moralitymakesour livesmore meaningful.

However,there are manywaysinwhich this suggestion maybecriticized. One waywould be to point out that some theories of the meaning of life are subjectivist,and as such implythat meaningful livesneed not be moral at all. Under subjectivism, highlyimmoral livescould be highlymeaningful since subjectivist theories do not rely on objectivecriteria but take the endorsement of beliefs, feelings, or sensations thatone’slife is meaningful to be asufficient condition for leading ameaningful life. Richard Taylor (1970,p.265), for example, argues The “Why Be Moral?” Question and the Meaning of Life 161 that “if Sisyphus had akeen and unappeasable desire to be doing just what he found himself doing,then … it would … have ameaning for him.”¹ But this, of course, also implies that if amurderer has akeen and unappeasable desire to murder,his life, too, is meaningful. This is true, of course,not onlyonRichard Taylor’ssubjectivist theory of the meaning of life, but alsoonall other subjectivist ones. Since, for them, endorsing acertain belief, feeling,orsensation about one’slife is asufficientcondition for leading ameaningful life, they allow that radicallyimmoral livescould be meaningful. Various considerations, however,suggest thatsubjectivist theories of meaningfulness are too problematic to accept.One consideration returns to the char- acterization of meaningfulness as value. As suggested above, we understand meaningful livestobelives thatinclude asufficient number of aspectsthat are of sufficient worth or value. When the overall value passes acertain threshold, life becomesmeaningful, and when it continues to increase, an already meaningful life can become even more meaningful. Meaningfulness,then, rests on value. But this is areason to reject subjectivism as regardsthe meaning of life, because we commonlythink that people can be wrongintheir evaluations, includingtheirself-evaluations. Forexample, one maybelieveoneself to be agood parent or spouse although one in fact is not.One mayalso wrongly think that one’sscientific work is good when in fact it is not (and vice versa) or that one is agood pianist when one is not (and vice versa). We sometimes think that people are toostrict with themselvesand thatthey actuallywrite better literature, or better philosophy, than they think they do, while at othertimes we believethat people have toopositive aview of their achievements. But if we accept that one can be wrong in the evaluation of specific aspects of one’slife, it is inconsistent to believethat one cannot be wronginone’sestimation of the overall worth of all the aspects. Accordingtosubjectivist understandingsof the meaningoflife, however,one cannot be wrong in one’sestimation of the meaningfulness of one’slife. If Ifeel or think thatmylife is meaningful, it is meaningful, and if Ithink or feel thatitismeaningless, it is indeedmeaningless. Asecond consideration relies on the notionofreflective equilibrium, presented by Rawls (1971,pp. 48–51) and in wide use today, which proceeds by examining and revisingour views, judgments, and intuitions by looking for their coherencewith other views, judgments, and intuitions about similar and other issues, sometimes revising some of them for the sake of coherencewith others. But subjectivist understandings of the meaning of life have some extremely

 In alater paper, Taylor changeshis view and mentions other,objectiveconditions such as autonomy, purpose, and creativity,but not morality (, –). 162 Iddo Landau counterintuitive implications, perhaps so counterintuitive that thosewho endorse the notion of reflective equilibrium (or want their theory to accord with very clear and strongintuitions for other reasons) have areason to find subjectivism too problematic to accept.Subjectivist understandings of the meaning of life consider aperson who, for example, thinksthat his life is meaningful because he is of the sameheight as some tree on the Siberian plain(Taylor 1992, p. 36) or because he devours his own excrement (Wielenberg2005,p.22) to indeed have ameaningful life. This, however,would seem to manyofustobetoo odd to accept and toofar from the regular use of the notion of ameaningful life. Athird, important consideration has been proposed by Charles Taylor (1992, pp. 31–41). Taylor points out thatwhen we suggest that something makes our life meaningful, we do not mean thatitdoes so because we just happen to think that it does. We think that that thing really makes life meaningful, and that imparting or arriving at meaningfulness is not arbitrary:itisnot the case thatanything else could have done so as well. We do not think that something is meaningful because we “just feel like it.” Thisissobecause the very idea of meaningfulness includes the notion of not being arbitrary.What is meaningful to us cannot be just anything whatsoever.Inorder to be meaningful, it has to have acertain quality or characteristic that is objectively meaningful, and that quality is what causes us to choose thatparticularthing.Evenifweasked one of those mythical figures such as the excrement eater whythey think that what they do is meaningful, they would most probablynot answer “justso,” or “just because Ihappen to be thinkingabout it now.” They would give us areason or tell us a story—perhaps abad reason or abad story,but areason or astory just the same —to explain whywhat they do is reallyorobjectively important.Perhaps the reasons or stories will have to do with some religious practice or ritual or involvean importantsymbolfor something worthyand great.Orthere maybesome other reason or story,but we would very likelyreceive some reason that refers to what is taken to be “really” the case. Our informants are likelytotell us that what they do has to do with some objective worth, and that it is because of that objective worth that they endorse the activities that they do and thatrender their lives more meaningful. AccordingtoTaylor,then, our use of the notion of meaningfulness alreadypresupposes objective rather than subjective worth. Imight add thatthe sameistrue of the notion of meaninglessness.People who saythat theirlife is meaningless tend to distinguish very clearlybetween reportingafeeling or athought,onthe one hand, and making aclaim about the waythey believetheir life really,objectively is, on the other hand.When they claim thattheir life is meaningless, they are not saying that they just feel awful, but are claiming that their feeling has to do with more than afeeling and that their life, or existenceingeneral, is really, objectively,not of sufficient The “Why Be Moral?” Question and the Meaning of Life 163 value. Some maybeunsure whether they are just in abad moodand having dark thoughts or whether they are actuallycorrectlyconceiving the wayexistenceis, but they distinguish very clearly between the two notions and take them to have different implications.

Another criticism of the claim about the relationship between moralityand meaningfulness mayaccept that meaning in life has to do (at least in part,if not entirely)with objective conditions, while denying thatthese conditions have to do with morality.Indeed, some theories of the meaningoflife that present both subjective and objectiveconditionsfor meaningfulness do not mention moralityatall, thus allowing for highlyimmorallives to be considered meaningful. A. J. Ayer,for example, posits “one’sstandinginone’ssociety and the historical influence … that one exerts” as the objective conditions of meaningfulness (1990,p.196;see also p. 194). ForPaulEdwards (2000,pp. 143 – 144), a meaningful life is one in which one’sactions relateto“some dominant,overall goal or goals which gave direction to agreat manyofthe individual’sactions” and in which one’sattachments “are not tooshallow.” And for John Kekes the objective conditions of meaningfulness are successful rather thanfutile activities whose success relates to objective conditions in the naturalworld (2000,p.32). But since, for Ayer,one’sprominent standinginone’ssociety need not have mo- rallybeneficial results, and one’shistoricalinfluenceneed not be amorallypos- itive one, his objective criteria allow for people who use their social power in their societies in quite horridwaystohavemeaningful lives. Likewise, since Ed- wards does not hold that one’snon-shallow attachments and overall goals must be moral, his objective criteria, too, allow for very evil individuals to be considered as leading meaningful lives. Edwards is aware of these implications and openlyendorses them, acceptingclaims such as “as long as Iwas aconvinced Nazi … my life had meaning … yetmost of my actions wereextremelyharmful” (2000,p.144). Similarly, since manypeople successfullyrealize quite immoral projects in the objective world, Kekes’scriteria implythat if Jack the Ripper was successful in carrying out his plans, he too would have had ameaningful life. Kekes,too, is aware of the implications of his position, and writes “that immoral livesmay be meaningful is shownbythe countless dedicated Nazi and Communist mass murderers … [who] maybesuccessfullyengaged in their projects, derive great satisfaction from them, and find their livesasscourgesoftheir literal or metaphorical gods very meaningful” (2000,p.30). 164 Iddo Landau

Some other objectivist theories take morality to be acontributingfactor that increases meaningfulness,but not anecessary condition for meaningfulness. For example, LaurenceThomas (2005,p.405) argues that “on the one hand, it seems too strong to saythat it is impossible for an immoral person to lead ameaningful life. On the other hand, we should like to think that amorallydecent human being … is … more favored to lead ameaningful life than an immoral person is.” Thomas’scriterion, too, then, allows that an immoral life that fulfills some other conditions for meaningfulness could well be meaningful. Theoriesthat accept thatimmoral livescould be meaningful take meaningfulness and morality to be independent of each other.Such theories suggest, then, that we can describe alife as having achieved acertain degree of morality, and we can also describe alife as having achieved acertain degree of meaningfulness, but these descriptions neither implynor exclude each other. Following Kekes’sexample, consider Bill, whose life was not meaningful until he joined the Ku Klux Klan. Before becomingaKKK member,Bill never believed in anything, never held ajob for more than two days,and mostlymoved, half drunk at best, from one bar to another.However,after he joined the Klan his life became more coherent and focused; it was now dedicated to an ideal and had apurpose (i.e., realizingsome violent white-supremacist platform). He now had something to believein, experienced self-worth and contentment,and had aconsiderable (murderous) effect on the livesofother people. Bill, the argument would go,indeed did not have amoral life; but he did have ameaningful one. We maytake moralitytobemore important thanmeaningfulness and thus condemn Bill’slife as immoral, even if meaningful, judging thatitwould have been preferable if he had not had this meaningful but immoral life but had instead remained an un- focused drunkard.Likewise, we maywish that he had had aless rather than more meaningful life, since then he would have been less effective and inflicted less harm. Still, the argument would go,Bill’slife was meaningful. Just as radical immorality can be consistent with, say, good taste in music, ahighIQ, or athor- ough knowledge of classicalliterature, so toocan it be consistent with meaningfulness. But if meaningfulness can be consistent with both morality and immorality,then the wish to have ameaningful life cannot function as areason for being moral. The view that livessuch as Bill’scan be objectively meaningful, however, conflicts with the common conception, mentioned at the beginning of the paper,ofwhat ameaningful life is. As argued above, ameaningful life is a life that,overall, has asufficientlyhighdegree of worth or value. But if this is the case, life cannot be very low in, say, morality yetvery highinmeaningfulness. If asufficient degreeofworth is anecessary condition for meaningfulness, then moralityand meaningfulness are not independent of each other,since mor- The “Why Be Moral?” Question and the Meaning of Life 165 ality,for better or for worse, affects the overall value of one’slife and thus its meaningfulness. If we judge Bill’slife to have avery low value overall because of its radical immorality,itcannot at the sametime be ameaningful life. This relates to another difficulty in Ayer’s, Edwards’sand Kekes’spositions. Accordingtothem, we maytakeBill’slife to have become more meaningful once he joined the KKK and at the same time be sorry thathis life became more meaningful. They take the claim that Bill had ameaningful life to be consistent with the claim thatitwould have been nicer if Bill had never existed at all. But the notion of ameaningful life, Isuggest,isalaudatory,honorific notion that has positive connotations. Ameaningful life is not alife thatitisbetter not to have had; meaningfulness is apositive value that we want people to have and to increase. It is aconcept that functions much like “heroism” or “wisdom.” We maydescribe acertain SS soldier as bold, daring,orevenbrave.But we would not normallydescribe him as a hero,since for us “hero” has positive connotations. Ahero is aperson who behavesboldlyand endangers himself for good causes. Likewise, we maydescribe aserialmurderer or rapist who managed to evade the police for along time as smart,clever,orintelligent,but we would not normallydescribe him as wise,aterm we reservefor people who use their intelligencetogain understanding and knowledge that we see as constructive and helpful. Like heroism, wisdom, and some other terms (e.g., maturity), meaningfulness,too, is alaudatory term. Hence, it would be odd to suggest that people likeBill had had ameaningful life. Athird consideration that maylead us away from views such as Ayer’s, Ed- wards’sorKekes’sasregards the meaning of life and morality is somewhat tied to the previous ones: we take meaningful livestobefullofworth. We admire highlymeaningful livessuch as those of Mother Teresa, Bach, Martin Luther King,Shakespeare, Rubens, and MahatmaGandhi, and we respect livesthat are meaningful even when they have not reached such excellence.But our reaction to Bill’slife is not one of admiration or respect but,rather,ofabhorrence or contempt.The immoral behavior of rapists,blackmailers, thieves, liars, and thugs seems not simply wrongtous, but also despicable. We seesuch people as lowlifes and keep our distance from them not onlybecause they make us angry,frightened, or cautious but because we are also disgusted by them. These are our reactions to what we find unworthy, or the opposite of worthy. It is for this reason thatThaddeus Metz (2002, pp. 805–807) has suggested that such livesinclude “antimatter,” so to speak.Theyshould be seen not onlyaslacking meaningfulness but,inanalogytonegative numbers, as being on the negative part of the scale. Such alife is not onlynot meaningful; it is the opposite of meaningful: it is “anti-meaningful.” But this suggests that im- 166 Iddo Landau moralityisinconsistent with meaningfulness.Ifwewant to have ameaningful life, then, we have areason not to act immorally.

It might be objected here, however,that being moral is not the onlyway of en- dowing life with worth or meaningfulness. We take not onlyMother Teresa, Gan- dhi, and Martin LutherKing, but also Einstein, Rembrandt,and Michelangelo to have had meaningful lives, although the meaningfulness of the latter had little or nothing to do with moral achievement.Rembrandt,for example, did not do much moral good, yetmanywould see his life as meaningful because of his artistic contribution. As Metz (2003,pp. 60 –61)pointsout,creatingartwork or making scientificadvances can be meaningful activities even if they have no moral import.Although ameaningful life has to be evaluated positively,then, it need not be evaluated positivelyinterms of one’smoral contribution or achievement.And this maysuggest that replying to the question “Whybemoral?” with “in order to have ameaningful life” maybeproblematic. In order to have ameaningful life youdonot have to be moral. It maysuffice that yoube, for example,artistic or knowledgeable. Iagree. Although refraining from behaving in highlyimmoral ways is anecessary condition for having ameaningful life, behaving in highlypositive moral ways is not anecessary condition for having ameaningful life. Hence Rem- brandt’slife could be seen as meaningful although he did not excel morally. But some minimal degree of moral behavior,orrefraining from highlyimmoral behavior,isanecessary condition for meaningfulness. Once this condition is met,one’slife can be deemed meaningful on the basis of value achieved also in otherspheres of life. Hence, we should beware of claims such as “moralbe- havior is anecessary condition for ameaningful life,” duetothe ambiguity of “moral.” We maytake people to have behaved morallyifthey have committed no gravemoral wrongs(when we saythatsuch people livedmorallywemean that they did not live immorally). But we mayalso take people to have behaved morallyifthey have helped others and performed deeds of charity or justice. Moral behavior is anecessary condition for ameaningful life onlyinthefirst sense, not the second. But acceptingthat someone like Rembrandt could have had ameaningful life even though his contribution was not in the area of moral excellence does not undermine the suggestion thatmeaningfulness is an incentive for being moral. What has just been suggested is thatifwewant to have ameaningful life, we must refrain from highlyimmoral behavior.Someaningfulness gives The “Why Be Moral?” Question and the Meaning of Life 167 us areason to be moral in the sense of seeing to it that we never become highly immoral. Moreover,ithas also been argued abovethat if we want to have a meaningful life, we mayfollow various routes, one of which is excellingmorally. So again meaningfulness givesusareason to be moral, here in the sense of excellingmorally. True, we mayopt instead for other avenues to ameaningful life, such as the scholarlyroute, or the artistic route. Nevertheless, meaningfulness givesusareason to be moral even if it givesusareason to be other thingsas well. It givesusareason to be moralasone option out of several. The wish to have ameaningful life arouses the motivation to develop in various possibledi- rections,one of which is the moral direction. And this too is areply, albeit a weaker type of reply, to the question “Whybemoral?” If we want to have ameaningful life we must be moral in the sense of avoiding immorality,since this would undermine meaningfulness, and we may be moral in the sense of excellingmorally, since this is one wayofincreasing meaningfulness. However,Ishould qualify what Ihavejust written. Although ameaningful life cannot include highlyimmoral behavior,itmay include some immoral behavior; ameaningful life need not be impeccable. Agenerallyworthylife can include, to some extent,behavior that we evaluatenegatively,includingbehavior that we evaluatenegatively from amoral point of view.Different kinds of behavior can balance each other out,toadegree, and we maydeem alife that encompasses alimited degree of certain negative elements to be, overall, meaningful. Once aperson crosses acertain threshold, however,wecan no longer regard that life as having sufficient value and, therefore, as meaningful (of course, there will be some borderline cases). Forexample, we would probablycontinue to see Rembrandt’slife as meaningful even if we learned that he had not always paid his debts on time or thatthereweresome promises he had not kept.But we would not consider aRembrandt who had to commit Jack-the-Ripper-style activities in order to find inspiration, or who sold his children into slavery in order to finance his artistic work, to have led ameaningful life.

Another possible objection to the link Ihavepresented here between meaningfulness and morality has to do with cases in which, it seems, our wish to have meaningful livesortoincrease the meaningfulness of our livesdoes not give us areason to be moral but,onthe contrary,gives us areason to be immoral. Consider acase in which some immoral behavior,such as telling asmall lie, committingasmall theft,avoiding some responsibility,orfailingtokeep aprom- ise or to return adebt,allows one to take advantage of aone-time opportunity 168 Iddo Landau and thus, say, be accepted into an art school (or develop abeautiful loveaffair or receive an academic fellowship) that enables one to considerablyincrease the meaningfulness of one’slife. This immoralbehavior diminishes meaningfulness in one way, since it makes one’slife slightlyless worthy, it but alsoenables one to develop in other spheres or aspectsofvalue in one’slife (those having to do with, say, art,love, or scholarship) so much thatone’soverall life becomes much more meaningful. We can see, then, thatmeaningfulness sometimes does not answer the question “Whybemoral?” but,rather,the opposite question: “Whybe immoral?” But Idonot think that such examples undermine the claims madehere. Even if meaningfulness, in some cases, givesusreason to be somewhat immoral, it also givesusreason to be moral because it always disallows anyhighdegreeof immorality.And while it givesusreasons not onlytobemoral but also to be, say, scholarly, or artistic, or loving,italwayscontinues to give us areason to be moral as well, as another option, or avenue, for making our livesmeaningful. True, when meaningfulness givesusareason to make our livesscholarly, artistic, or loving,itwill in some specific constellations give us as well areason to be slightlyimmoral. But thatdoes not undermine the claim that, when “being moral” is understood as “refraining from being highlyimmoral,” meaningfulness always givesusareason to be moral, and when “being moral” is understood as “engaginginpositive moral activities,” meaningfulness givesusareason to be moralinmany, even if not in all, cases.

Another question maybewhether we reallygain anyadvantage when we employ the notion of the meaning of life to explain whyweshould be moral. Ishould note, first,that some people do not think thatthis question needsareplyat all. They see the requirement to be moral as self-evident,oranaxiom, or just based on avery strongintuition, and they think that nothing more could or should be said about it.This seems to have been H. A. Pritchard’s(1912)view in his famous paper that is commonlypresented as having started off the debate. Those who believethat it is self-evident,oraxiomatic, or stronglyintuitivethat we should be moral, and thatnothing more could be said about it,will not think that anything has been gained in this paper,since nothing needs to be gainedas regards the question “Whybemoral?” to begin with. What has been argued up to now willberelevant onlyfor thosewho think that it is sensible to ask this question and look for areply. But even thoseinthe latter group might arguethat the reasons presented here for being moral do not reallyadvanceus; they just delay The “Why Be Moral?” Question and the Meaning of Life 169 the question. Assumethat we should be moral because we want to have ameaningful life. But whyshould we want to have ameaningful life? If, again, we refer to self-evidence,oranaxiom, or avery strong intuition, we have not progressed much. However,Ithink thatwehavemade some progress here. First,referringto the meaning of life, as we have done here, advances us since it shows in what sense we always need to be moral, in what sense we maybemoral but may also opt for other ways of having ameaningful life, and in what cases we may also be slightlyimmoral. In other words, this paper does not merelysuggest an axiomorintuition thatmight be more basic thanthat having to do with morality,but it alsoaims to specify the ways in which we should be moral (as faras our need to have ameaningful life is concerned). Yes, we should always be moral in the sense that we should never be highlyimmoral, but no, we do not always have to be moralinthe sense of trying to achieve moralexcellence.And it is also all right,insome restricted cases, to be slightlyimmoral. Second, it seems thatfor manypeople having ameaningful life is more important than having amoral life. It is more self-evident and intuitive to such people that they should make sure that their livesare meaningful than it is that they should make sure thatthey are moral. Forthem, it will be profitable to begin with the notion of ameaningful life and proceed from theretothe implications about morality. Third, once we understand what makes life meaningful—namelythat it be of worth or value—the replytothe question “Whyhaveameaningful life?” seems easier than the replytothe question “Whybemoral?” To ask “Whyhaveamean- ingful life?” is to ask “Whyhaveworth or value?” and the replytothat is that value is valuable, or thatworth is worthy. Askingthis question suggests that one wonders whether atautology is correct,orthat one does not understand what one is talking about,inastronger waythanthatappearingwhenone asks “Whybemoral?” Fourth, moralityseems to competeless successfullywith other values, or with otherinclinations we might have,than does meaningfulness. Manymay well think that moralityhas some worth, but that this worth is in some cases overridden by the worth in some other values (and as shown in the examples above, it indeedsometimes is). Meaningfulness, however,asasupervening or second-order value, is not taken to be overriddeninsuch ways.This, too, givesmeaningfulness an advantageovermoralityasanintuitive starting point. 170 Iddo Landau

Ihavetried to present here areplytothe question “Whybemoral?” But this reply is not meant to be exclusive.There maywellbeseveral valid reasons for being moral, and thus several replies to the question, just as there are several replies to the question “Whyread books?” or “Whybefriendpeople?” Perhaps some of the other replieswill substantiateand arguefor more demanding concepts of moralitythanIhave done here, and some of them perhaps for lessdemanding ones. Isuggest,however,that the reply “because it frequentlyenhances meaningfulness” is one helpful wayoftacklingthis question.

Bibliography

Ayer, A. J. (1990): “The Meaning of Life.” In: The Meaning of Life and Other Essays. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, pp. 178–197. Brogaard, Berit and Smith, Barry(2005): “On Luck, Responsibility and the Meaning of Life.” In: Philosophical Papers 34. No. 3, pp. 443–458. Cottingham, John (2003): On the Meaning of Life. London: Routledge. Edwards, Paul (2000): “The Meaning and Value of Life.” In: Klemke,E.D.(Ed.): The Meaning of Life,2nd ed. New York: OxfordUniversityPress, pp. 133–152. Hepburn, R. W. (2000): “Questions about the Meaning of Life.” In: Klemke,E.D.(Ed.): The Meaning of Life,2nd ed. New York: OxfordUniversityPress, pp. 261–76. Kekes, John (2000): “The MeaningofLife.” In: French, Peter A. and Wettstein, HowardK. (Eds.): MidwestStudies in Philosophy24: Life and Death. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 17–34. Metz, Thaddeus (2002): “Recent Work on the Meaning of Life.” In: Ethics 112. No. 4, pp. 781–814. Metz, Thaddeus (2003): “Utilitarianism and the Meaning of Life.” In: Utilitas 15, pp.70– 50 . Nagel, Thomas (1986): “Birth, Death, and the Meaning of Life.” In: The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 208–231. Nielsen, Kai (2000): “Linguistic Philosophy and the ‘Meaning of Life.’” In: Klemke,E.D.(Ed.): The Meaning of Life,2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press,pp. 233–56. Pritchard, H. A. (1912): “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on aMistake?” In: Mind 21, pp. 21–37. Rawls, John (1971): ATheory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress. Taylor,Charles(1992): The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress. Taylor,Richard(1970): “The Meaning of Life.” In: Good and Evil. New York: Macmillan, pp. 256–268. Taylor,Richard(1987): “Time and Life’sMeaning.” In: ReviewofMetaphysics 40, pp. 675–686. Thomas,Laurence(2005): “Morality and aMeaningful Life.” In: Philosophical Papers 34, pp. 405–427. Tolstoy, Leo (1983): Confession. Trans. David Patterson. New York: Norton. The “Why Be Moral?” Question and the Meaning of Life 171

Wielenberg,Erik J. (2005): Value and Virtue in aGodless Universe. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress. Wiggins, David (1976): “Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life.” In: Proceedings of the BritishAcademy 62, pp.331–378. Wolf, Susan (1997a): “Happinessand Meaning: TwoAspects of the Good Life.” In: Social Philosophyand Policy 14, pp. 207–225. Wolf, Susan (1997b): “Meaning and Morality.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 97, pp. 299–315.

RoeFremstedal Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardian Approach

The present text focuses on what resourcesKierkegaard offers for dealing with the question “Whybemoral?” Isketch an approach to this question by present- ing Kierkegaard’smethodology, his negative arguments against the aesthete and the motive he offers for being moral. Iconclude that Kierkegaarddoes provide motivation for assessing ourselvesinmoral terms,although his approach is more relevant to deontologicalethics and virtue ethics than consequentialism.

Introductory RemarksonMethodologyand SubjectMatter

The fact thatthe question “Whybemoral?” has been discussed many times suggests that the question is meaningful (cf. Hare 2002a, p. 95), even if afullymoral agent willhardlycontemplate the question seriously.The present paper focuses on the relevance of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–55) for discussing this question. When Ireferto“historical” issues, Idosomainlyinorder better to understand and illuminatethe points thatKierkegaard tries to make that are still relevant to us. Thus, Iamnot concernedwith historical issues as such but use them to enrich contemporary discussions. The important point for this paper is whether Kierkegaard’smultifaceted ideas, or contemporary versions of them,can offer anything of interest to contemporary debates.¹ As aresult,Ihave deliberatelychosen to include Kierkegaard’spseudonymous author- ship, particularlythose parts of it which feature the so-called aesthetes and the ethicist,eventhough some Kierkegaard scholars go as far as maintaining that the pseudonymous writingscannot be attributed to Kierkegaard (cf. Poole 1997). The important thing for present purposes is what these writingsbring to

 My methodology will be what Gary Hatfield (,p.)has describedasbeing “aware of the need for historical context to gainbetteraccess to past texts whilestill wantingtouse those texts primarilyasasource of rawmaterial for solutions or answers to present philosophical problems”.Thus,this paperbelongs,atleast mainly, to what is often referredto(especiallyby the Bennett generation) as analytic philosophyofhistory.Aconsequenceofthis is that Iseek to use contemporary terminologyrather than working with Kierkegaard’sDanish and the Golden Agecontext(cf. Nadler ,p.). My main priority is to clarify Kierkegaard’sclaims,and to give them acharitable interpretation, although Iwill also saysomethingabout their strengths and weaknesses. 174 RoeFremstedal contemporarydiscussions, not whether they can ultimatelybeattributed to Kier- kegaard.

The Argumentative StructureofEither/Or

By aesthete Iunderstand an amoralist or someone who livespremorallysince he is not fundamentallycommitted to morality.Inwhat follows, Iwill focus on Kier- kegaard’sreflective aesthete (rather than the immediate or pre-reflectiveaesthete), since the reflective aesthete represents and concretizes moral skepticism.² The reflectiveaesthete onlyallows ethical considerations insofar as these considerations are subordinated to other concerns (and not givenoverriding authority). The aesthete does relyonprudential considerations,³ but Kierkegaard sees these considerations as insufficient for moralityproper since he works within the traditions of deontological ethics and virtue ethics (not utilitarianism).⁴ Put in Kantian terms,the aesthete givespriority to empirical (material) principles over moral(formal) principles. The aesthete is not ruled by moral incentives but by competing incentivesand principles. Much like Kant,Kierkegaard describes these competingincentivesinterms of sensuousness, self-love, self-interest,and happiness (Knappe 2004,pp. 54f., 94–97). The aesthete, then, is someone who is ruled by sensuousness,sothat rationality and reflection serve sensuousness rather thanmorality.This intimate connection between the aesthete and sensuousness can be partiallyexplained by the fact that Kierkegaard

 Examplesofimmediateaesthetes include Don Giovanni in Either/Or,Part I and infants who arenot yetcapableofdistinguishingbetween themselvesand the surroundings.See SKS , ff.; EO, ff.; SKS ,  (Journal BB:). Imakeuse of the followingstandardabbrevia- tions when referencingKierkegaard: CUP = Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments,Princeton: Princeton Uni- versity Press ,vol. . EO = Either/Or,Part I,Princeton:Princeton University Press . EO = Either/Or,Part II,Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press . FT = Fear and Trembling,Princeton:Princeton University Press . SKS = Søren KierkegaardsSkrifter,vols. –,Copenhagen: Gad –. SUD=Sickness unto Death,Princeton: Princeton University Press . UD = Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits,Princeton:Princeton University Press . WL = WorksofLove,Princeton:Princeton University Press .  See particularly “Rotation of Crops: AVentureinaTheory of Social Prudence” in Either/Or, Part I (SKS , –;EO,–).  See Davenport b, p. .Regarding virtue ethics,see Roberts  and Rudd , pp. –, –.Regarding deontology, see Knappe ,Chs. –;Lübcke , pp. f. Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardianApproach 175 takes aesthetic in the original Greek sense of aisthesis,asperception from the senses, although he associates the aesthetic with sensation, sensibility,and sensuousness (cf. Furtak 2005,p.54; SKS3,29f.; EO2,21f.). Kierkegaard’s ethicist,bycontrast,isalreadyfundamentallycommitted towards morality.Heisconvinced thathe, or anyone who is seriously interested, is capable of being moral, since moral action relies on our volition rather than on luck or external conditions outside our control (Lübcke 1991, pp. 99 f.). Ei- ther/Or (and later pseudonymous works) can then be interpreted as a dialogue between various aesthetes (notablythe pseudonym “A”)and the ethicist (the pseudonym “JudgeWilliam” or “B” for short) thatshedlight on whyweshould be moral. Kierkegaard’spseudonymous writingsdevelop the ethical position, or the ethical stage, by engagingindialogue with other positions, notablythe aesthetic stage. Thedifferent pseudonyms are used to describedifferent positions from within the first person perspective.Itisjust this dialogical approach that makes Kierkegaard’spseudonymous writingsbothinteresting from aliteraryper- spective and philosophicallyrelevant for discussing the issue at hand.AsAntho- ny Rudd has argued, Either/Or givesanextremelyvivid literaryportrayal of an amoralist instead of the colorless place-holder for aposition of theoretical interest usually found in philosophicaltexts.Rudd elaborates:

Either/Or as awhole challengesustocomparethe self-portrait of the aestheteinVolume [Part] 1, with the description of him that emergesfromJudge William’sletters [to him] in Volume [Part] 2, and consider whether the Judge’saccount enables us to gain abetterun- derstanding of [the aesthete] “A” as he had appeared in his own writings.Within the work itself, the Judgechallenges “A” to consider whether the ethical perspective will enable him to articulatemoreadequatelywhathealreadyfeels about his own life. (Rudd 2001, pp. 144f.)

The ethicist Judge William is not just portraying the aesthetic and ethical forms of life but he argues against the aesthete.⁵ Theethicist’sfirst letter to Aiscalled “The Esthetic Validity of Marriage” and his second letteriscalled “The Balance between the Esthetic and the Ethical in the Development of the Personality” (SKS 3, 13–151,153–314; EO2, 3–154,155–334). These twoletters focus on the central importance of love, selfhood,and freedom not onlyfor the aesthetic stagebut also for the ethical stage. The ethicist argues that it is in the aesthete’strue interest to become an ethicist,since the central notions of love, selfhood, and free-

 Iagree with Rudd (,p.)who says “Idothink that Kierkegaardmeans to endorse Judge William’scritique of the aestheticstance,though he doesn’twant to endorseall the Judge’spos- itive views.” 176 Roe Fremstedal dom are better preserved ethicallythan aesthetically. Roughly, the idea is that without ethical commitment,loveisepisodic, lacking continuity and importance, while selfhood is unbalanced and freedom is negative,empty,and arbitrary. Forpresent purposes Iwillfocus on the dialogue between the ethicist and aesthete, abstracting largely from the religious perspective thatisalso developed in Kierkegaard’sauthorship (including “Ultimatum” in Either/Or,Part II). ThusI will focus on what is traditionallyreferred to as the aesthetic and ethical stages, rather thanthe religious stage.⁶ Forthe sake of argument this paper will accept the central point that mere prudenceisinsufficient for moralityproper,since virtue and what is morallyright cannot be reduced to aquestion of what brings happiness or well-being.⁷ Kierkegaard even goes beyond this point by criticizing eudaimonism, and implicitlyvirtue ethics, for relying too much on prudential considerations.⁸ By setting up the task in this way, that is, by disallowing arguments that are mainlyprudential, utilitarian or even eudaimonistic, Kierkegaard makes it difficult to answer the question whyweshould be moral. Thismakes it even more interesting to see what,ifanything,Kierkegaard can bringtothe table. Kierkegaard’sintuition here might be sketched by saying that arguments which give us non-moral reasons or motivesfor being moral throw out the baby with the bath water,since we would then be moral for the wrongkind of reasons (something that would amounttolegality instead of morality). Morality cannot be explained or justified in terms of anything more basic; it therefore needs to be (subjectively) recognized(Rudd 2012,p.121).⁹ On the other hand,

 Unlikethe ethicist,the religious person does not accept that we arecapableofbeingmorally perfect,but holds instead that morality presupposes divine grace.However,the religious writ- ingsgenerallypresuppose the validity of ethics,arguingthat philosophical (“first”)ethics leads waytoChristian (“second”)ethics.Thus,the religious writings takephilosophical ethics for given, much like revealed (transcendent) religion builds on natural (immanent) religion. Cf. Fremstedal .  Recent scholarship on virtue ethics has argued convincinglythat moral virtue is valuable in itself, not merelyasameans for reachinghappiness.See Annas ,pp. –, –, –;Horn ,pp. –, –;Hare ,pp. –.  LikeKant,Kierkegaardrelies on arguments against eudaimonism that appear to have more force against hedonisticand Epicurean eudaimonism than Stoicism or even Aristotelianism (cf. Annas ,pp. , ff.).  Davenport (,pp. , )argues that Kierkegaardisametaethical internalist in the sense that actingethicallymeans actingfor the sake of the ethical, which means beingmotivated by the ethical rightness of the acts,rather than the goodness of their ends.Kierkegaarddoes not endorse the old sawof“the ends justify the means”. Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardianApproach 177 if we onlygivemoral reasons or motivesfor being moral, then we stand in dan- gerofbegging the question, or so the aesthete might argue. Still, this does not necessarilyprevent happiness or prudence from playing anyrole whatsoever; it onlymeans that happiness and prudence must be amatter of secondary importance, while moral duty plays the primary role.¹⁰ This means, arguably, that Kierkegaard’sgeneral approach to the issue at hand and ethics in general, is largely post-Kantian. The ethicist sees the ethical task as the human task, arguingthat the existential choice of oneself is identical to the choice of the ethical. Unless this account is to be circular,wemust assume that there is some non-moral content to the self thataperson should become (Evans 2006,p.97). We need therefore to distinguish between the moral form of the self and its material content.The idea is that the aesthetic elements of the self are not to be eradicated but givenamoral form.More specifically, sensuousnessshould not be eliminated but merelysubsumed under morality. The ethicist develops aquite sophisticated response to the aesthete AinEi- ther/Or,Part II. Instead of merelycondemningthe aesthete on moral grounds, something thatmay appear moralisticand unhelpful, the ethicist sketches an internal critique;onthe one hand,the aesthetic stagefails on its own terms,and on the other it is preserved in the ethical stage(Evans 2009,pp. 90ff.; Ferreira 2009,p.22).This argument can be said to involveaHegelian Aufhebung of the aesthetic stage, wherethe aesthetic is partiallynegated because it is self-defeating,and partiallyrecontextualized or lifteduptothe ethical. Thus, apartfrom an external (transcending) critique of the aesthete on ethical grounds,the ethicist sketches an internal (immanent) critique that involves negative arguments as well as correctives. The ethicist argues on both aesthetical and ethical grounds, something that is also suggested by the title “The Balance between the Esthetic and the Ethical in the Development of the Personality”.One example of this dual strategyisthe claim that love needsmoral obligations in order to endure; another is thatthe ethicist gains aestheticallybydisciplining his desires.Inwhat follows, Iwill focus on the internal critique of the aesthetic since it involves an indirect,dialogical, and maieutic approach that seems more effective and persuasive than astraightforward condemnation of the aesthete on moral grounds.

 In this respect,Kierkegaard’sapproach overlapswith that of Kant,particularlythe synthesis of morality and happiness found in Kant’sdoctrine of the highestgood. Cf. Fremstedal , Chs. –. 178 Roe Fremstedal

The Argument from Despair

It seems that Kierkegaard’srelevancetodiscussion of the question “Whybe moral?” is reflected in his general methodologyasmuchasinthe content of his works.Still, this methodology is tied to the content of Kierkegaard’sthinking. Kierkegaard can be said to develop a via negativa approach to ethics that claims that we onlyunderstand the ethical through its failure, through guilt,sin, and despair (Grøn 1997, p. 227). In German and Danish scholarship, this methodology is currentlyreferred to as being “negativistic”.¹¹ The methodologydenies thatwe first have the ethical and then onlyafterwards have the possibility of failure. Rather,the normative task of being ethical, or becomingoneself, presupposes the possibility of failure, so thatbeing ethical represents aproblem (Grøn 1997, pp. 227, 261f., 277). And the caseoffailurerepresents the rule rather than the exception insofar as ordinary human agents are concerned. In order to getaproper understanding of ethics, we thereforeneed to approach it indirectly by focusing on the aesthetic stageand how it can be said to involvedespair. Kierkegaard’s(Anti-Climacus’)psychological analysis of despair can then be interpreted as disclosing ways in which one failstobeamoral agent,eventhough the ethical is inescapable. In Either/Or,Part II,the ethicist develops anegative argument against the aesthete that Iwill refertoasthe argument from despair.This argument tries to reducethe position of the aesthete ad absurdum. The absurdity,however, does not mainlytake the form of alogical contradiction but rather involves a practical absurdity in the form of existential despair (and not merelysomething immoral). The central idea is that in order to avoid despair,one must transcend the aesthetic by choosing oneself, something that amountstochoosing the ethical. The ethicist thus offers amotive, rather thanaproof, for transcendingthe aesthetic (Lübcke 1991, p. 97). This analysis of despair that is sketched in Either/ Or is developedfurther in later works,notably Concluding Unscientific Postscript, “Purity of Heart,”¹² and Sickness unto Death. The ethicist argues that the aesthetic view involves despair,either explicitly or implicitly. Thepart of Either/Or that describes the aesthetic stagefrom within, namely Part I,gives several indications of despair,particularlyinthe chapter “The Unhappiest One” (SKS 2, 211–223;EO1,217– 230). It is more difficult,how-

 The main representativesare Michael Theunissen in Germanyand Arne Grøn in Denmark. Cf. Theunissen  and ;Grøn .  The text commonlyreferredtoas“Purity of Heart” is Part One of UpbuildingDiscourses in Various Spirits (SKS , –;UD,  – ). Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardian Approach 179 ever,toshow that the different aesthetic views all implydespair.Ifthe ethicist is to succeed in this, he has to distinguish between conscious and non-conscious despair and between authentic and inauthentic despair,asisdone later in Sick- ness unto Death. The point then is that the aesthete (giventhe definition above) has to be in despair,evenifheisnot conscious or aware of it himself. This is the central claim that Iwill focus on in the following.¹³ One relatively uncomplicated waytomake sense of this claim is to saythat despair is implicit in the aesthetic stage, and thatitcan be made explicit by reflecting upon it. Despair is not amerelypsychological concept thatonlyrefers to subjective experiencesoracertain state of mind in which one lacks hope. In away reminiscent of the concept of eudaimonia, which involves activity in accordance with virtue and (objective) well-being,despair involves objective,formal constraints that go beyond subjective experiences. In much the sameway thatit is possibletobeunhappy even though one believes oneself to be happy, it is also possible to despair or lack hope (the expectancy of the good) without being conscious of it.¹⁴ Inauthentic despair arguably implies self-deception or bad faith or thatone livesinawaythat is unstable (residinginabubble) without being aware of it.¹⁵ Michelle Kosch (2006a, p. 154) argues that despair consists in an unwilling- ness to accept human agency (or selfhood) with all its particularconditions.On this interpretation, despair involves holding afalse conception of oneself, aconception that does not reflect human agency and its conditions adequately. This interpretation allows for inauthentic despair,because it is perfectly possiblyto have an inadequate conception of oneself without being aware of it.This line of interpretation makes it possibletoexplain, among other things, whydespair involves self-deception and whydespair consists in an act (in which one actively despairs) and not merelyapsychological state. Despair is not just aresult of suffering aloss, or experiencing hardship, but also something self-inflicted through guiltand sin (cf. Grøn 1997, pp. 143 – 153).

 At this point Iagreewith Kosch and Rudd whohaveargued that thereisaquitestrong connection between the notion of despair in Either/Or and in later works such as Sickness unto Death. Kosch a, pp. , ff.; Rudd ,pp. , .  Kierkegaardappears to relyonatraditional Judeo-Christian understanding of the generic features of hope. To hope is to expect good (rather than just wishingfor it). The object of hope must be possible to realize, yetuncertain; otherwise therewould neither be room nor need for hope. In addition, what we hope for must be difficulttoattain since thereishardly anyneed for hope if our goals areeasilyattainable (see Fremstedal ,Ch. ).  SKS , ff., cf. ;SUD, ff., cf. ;Grøn ,pp. –, –. 180 Roe Fremstedal

This means, however,that human agencyhas acertain structure, astructure Kierkegaard scholarship has described mainlyinterms of selfhood.This structure has importantramifications for the question of whyone should take oneself to be amoral agent,subjecttoethical demands. On this reading, the aesthete fails because his basicattitude towards his ownexistenceinvolvesamisconstru- al of the nature of agency (Kosch 2006a, p. 143). Thus, the very structure of human agencyorselfhood connects it to moralagency so that even aesthetic agency presupposes moral standards.¹⁶ In his influential analysis of human selfhood, Kierkegaard argues compel- lingly that selfhood is characterized both by freedom and necessity, transcendence and immanence. Neither of these two elements can be done away with; we cannot just identify with our givencharacter (as Schopenhauer thinks we can) or with our freedom (as Sartre tends to think). However,these two elements always stand in atenserelation to each other,and we thereforetend to exagger- ate either freedom or necessity.Still, it is onlybyreconcilingfreedom and necessity that we can become selvesand overcomedespair (Rudd 2012,pp. 48f.). Kosch (2006a,pp. 143, 149, 152f.) offers areconstruction in which the aesthetic stagecollapses by denying the very possibility of choice,thus committingthe aesthete towardspassivity and fatalism. On this reading,the aesthete sees his own identity or character as essentiallygiven, with no room for changes or mod- ifications. At this point,Kosch invokes the systematic analysis found in Sickness unto Death,particularlythe analysis of the “despair of necessity” which consists of alack of possibilityorfreedom.¹⁷ One clear problem with this interpretation is that it does not account for all the types of aesthetes Kierkegaard portrays.Al- though it shows that one attempt to escape the ethical fails, it does not preclude the possibility of other successful strategies. One particularlyimportant strategythat Kierkegaard devotes much attention to is the “despair of possibility” which consists of lacking necessity or limitations.¹⁸ Thistype of position collapses by over-emphasizing freedom and self- creation, not by denying it as the fatalist does. Instead of seeing limitations as

 Similarly, Theunissen ( and )argues that the very notion of selfhood contains demands or normative requirements, at least implicitly.  The very similar “despair of finitude” consists of alack of infinity (transcendence). Both these types of despair consist of believingthat one is not capableoftranscending facticity,or that one is not capable of breakingwith the past.See SKS , –, –;SUD, –, –.  The very similar “despair of infinity” consists of lackingfinitude.Both these types of despair implythat one wants to createoneself, without ethical restrictions, in order to getrid of the constraints of the present situation. See SKS , –, –;SUD, –, –. Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardian Approach 181 something that makes real freedom possible, limitations are seen as amere hin- drance to freedom. This type of despair absolutizes freedom, understood nega- tivelyasthe freedom from limitations (facticity). However,the resultisthatfree- dom itself is abstract and empty,since it does not allow for positive freedom to realize anything concrete. Neither does it allow for criteria making it possible to choose between different possibilities or alternatives, which means thatitends up with arbitrariness(and whims) because all possibilities are equallyvalid and equallyabstract and empty.¹⁹ This type of despair implies that one wants to create oneself, without ethical restrictions, in order to getrid of the constraints of the present situation. Kierkegaard argues that this implies not wanting to be the specific person one is, or not wanting to be positively free.²⁰ As aresultthe agent is double-minded or in despair,since he is split between necessity and possibility, immanence and transcendence. This makessense if we keep in mind that one’spossibilities onlyreside within the specific individual one is and in the particularsituation one finds oneself in. And these possibilitiesare not morallyneutral. The ethicist argues that the solution to the problems posed by this type of despair lies in getting continuity or coherenceinone’sexistencebyappropriat- ing necessity (facticity). He stressesthat one’shistory is not solelyaproduct of one’sown free acts, but something closely related to the history of mankind as a whole (SKS 3, 171; EO2,175). Hence, one’slife can onlyhavecontinuityifone sees that one standsinrelation to other human beings, both the living and the dead (SKS 3, 239; EO2,250f.). When one sees reality as something one has appropri- ated, one sees oneself and one’ssurroundingsinahistorical and social perspective.Inthis context the ethicist stresses that the self is socially mediated: “[T]he

 Scandinavians (and Germans) sometimes use the expression “likegyldigoglikegyldig” here, somethingthat means that the options areequallyvalid and indifferent.  Cf. Theunissen ,pp. –;Grøn ,pp. –, –.Put in Kantian terms, we might saythat the aesthetetries to absolutize the powerofchoice(liberum arbitrium; Willkür)and to do without purepractical reason (Wille). He thereby denies that negative freedom where one is free from alien causes involves positive freedom to be moral and autonomous.The ethicist,bycontrast,has been takenbyKosch to endorseKant’sreciprocity thesis.The reciprocity thesis claims that negativefreedom where one is free fromalien causes involves positive freedom to be moral and autonomous,sothat rational self-determination and transcendental freedom entail one another reciprocally. FollowingSchelling, Kosch argues, however,that this thesis is problematic: when freedom is understood as the capability for autonomy (self-determination), what is lost is freedom understood as the choicebetween good and evil. The result being, arguably,that moral evil is neither intelligible nor imputable. Thus interpreted, the reciprocity thesis implies that one is either moral or amoral. See Kosch a, pp. –, f., , , , –, .See also Allison ,Chs. –. 182 Roe Fremstedal self thatisthe objective[…]isaconcrete self in living interaction with these specific surroundings,the life conditions,this order of things. The self that is the objective is not onlyapersonal self but asocial,acivic [borgerligt]self.” (SKS 3, 250; EO2,262)The upshot is that one cannot become aself, or synthetize possibility and necessity,without choosing the ethical (cf. SKS 3, 243f., 249f., 261; EO2,255 f., 262f., 274f.). Kierkegaard’sview,then, is that without choosing the ethical one either lapses into an unbalanced stress on restrictions and givenness or an equallyunbalanced stress on freedom and voluntarism (Rudd 2012, pp. 104,70).²¹ This is alsoinline with the famous analysis of despair in Sickness unto Death,accordingtowhich inauthentic despair takes two basic forms, namely despair of necessity and despair of possibility, respectively (SKS 11,145 – 157; SUD, 29–42).

Rudd’sReconstructionofthe Argument from Despair

Recently, AnthonyRudd has attempted to reconstruct the argument from despair,arguing that JudgeWilliam’sethaicalviews are defensible and relevant to contemporarydebates about morality.²² Rudd summarizeshis reconstruction of Kierkegaard as follows: 1. One can onlyavoid the necessity of judging one’slife in moral terms by evadinglong-term commitments. 2. But to live such alife is to be in despair; for alife without commitments is one without purpose,and hence is one thatmakes it impossibletodevelop a coherent personal identity.(Rudd 2005,p.69)

Rudd argues thatameaningful and fulfilled life requires astable sense of self, something that

can onlybeachieved through commitment to social roles and relationships which carry with them objective standards of assessment.One must become aparticipantincommun- ities and the traditions which define them, and must develop the virtues necessary for such participation. The failure to do this will render one’slife quiteliterallypointless.Without

 See the previous page for adiscussion of the despair of necessity (including references to Kosch a).  LikeDavenport (), Rudd ()isparticularlyconcerned with the contemporary debate over whether non-moral caringinvolvesimplicit rational commitment to ethical values. Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardian Approach 183

anyunifying telos,one’slife collapses into aseries of disconnected moments,and to live in this way[…]istoliveindespair.(Rudd 2001,p.139)

On this Kierkegaardian view,personal identity or selfhood is not something sim- plygiven but rather something that must be achieved through purposive moral action which synthetizes freedom and necessity, transcendenceand immanence.²³ Rudd follows Bernard Williams in arguingthat ground projects give meaning to life and continuity to our characters.²⁴ Ground projects are necessary if we are to develop acoherent personal identity (Rudd 2005,pp. 92 f.). The crucial idea, however,isthat anyproject significantenough to give life purpose and meaning involves socialinteraction, practices,and institutions.²⁵ However,these social practices and institutions always come with standards of assessment that are not onlyintersubjective,non-instrumental, and non-arbitrary,but also

 Cf. Rudd ,p..Rudd (and Davenport) argues that both actions and personal identity involveanarrative structure. Actions that areintelligible arepurposive,involving(at least ideally) adecision, an act,and the attainment of agoal (Rudd ,pp. f.). Personal identity on the other hand requiresnot just single actions but also projects consisting of apattern of purposive action. And it is onlywhen our actions and identity belongtoalargernarrative that they areintelligible and meaningful (cf. Davenport ). Rudd and Davenport thus connect moral agencytothe narrative ideal, somethingthat is controversial. John Kekes()has recently formulated acriticism of the narrative ideal (as put forwardbyAlasdair MacIntyre) that makes the case that narrativesare not necessary for ameaningful life. However,Rudd () and Davenport ()haveboth responded to various objections against the narrative ideal, in- cludingobjections developed by Kekesinhis earlier publications(see especiallyDavenport ,p.). Forthe present purposes it seems unnecessary,and perhaps unfeasible,todis- cuss the narrative ideal thoroughly. However,itcould be mentioned that Kekes’ criticism concerns meaninginlife rather than whyweshould be moral and that Kekestargets MacIntyrerath- er than Rudd, Davenport,orKierkegaard. Kekes (,p.)argues that onlyanelitewould be able to live accordingtothe narrative ideal, whereas Rudd seem to hold that purposive action and participation in moral practicessuffices for basic meaninginlife. Kekes()sees narra- tivesascontingent human constructions,somethingRudd ()and Davenport ()seem to denybyconnectingnarrativestoobjective meaningand moral realism.  Rudd ,p.;Davenport b, p. .Atthis point,Rudd (,pp. f.) also makes use of Frankfurt’snotion of “final ends” that one caresabout for their own sake.  Rudd ,p.;cf. Davenport b, p. .Rudd uses MacIntyre’sdefinition of practice here. Aslightlydifferent approachisrepresentedbyHare(,pp. –)who argues for the necessity of assumingthat what other people evaluate as good to pursue is at least roughlycon- sistent with what Ievaluate as good to pursue, since manyofthe goods Iamlikelytopursue depend for their achievement on the cooperation of others. 184 Roe Fremstedal moral. Thus, significant projects involvesustaining non-instrumental personal relationships that requirerecognition of authoritative moral norms and ideals.²⁶ Asimilar point is made by Rick Furtak (2005,p.76) who argues thatto“accept the roles of husband, judge,and friend (or mother,author,and confidante) is to accept certain beliefs about what is of value.” Social roles and relationships involveintersubjective standards of behavior that are not merelydependent on my will, emotions, or subjectivity.Without such moralstandards of assessment, Rudd argues thatIwould lack something thatmakes it possiblefor me to assess whether significant actions and projects are better or worse (Rudd 2005,pp. 71 f. and 2012,p.110). Rudd (2012,p.91) proceeds by arguing thatthere are good reasons for endorsing Harry Frankfurt’sview thatfull selfhood requires acapacity for evaluation of my desires,dispositions, cares,and loves. However,this need for evaluation also involves an attempt to getthingsright (or getcloser to being right); as evaluative beings, we cannot suppose that our evaluative judgments are incapable of being objectivelycorrect or better (Rudd 2012,p.95). We can onlyshape our identityaspart of arational process if we are able to make ourselvesbetter or worse, judgedbystandards independent of our will. Rudd thereforeconcludes that “Ihavetoask, ‘Do I consider this, or that good?’ And this is whyIthink thatthe idea of the Good is unavoidable, if onlyasaregulative ideal. It is what my moral deliberation has to be constantly moving towards” (Rudd 2012,p.141). Rationalagency presupposes the possibility of rational examination of our higher-order cares and commitments in light of the idea of something thatisobjectively good (or at least better or worse). With- out this possibility, the irrationality(or rather arationality) of our cares and com- mitmentswould cascade down the levels, and we would have no basis for thinking of ourselvesasmore than instrumentallyrationalagents.²⁷

 Rudd ,pp. , ;Davenport b, pp. , .Rudd  prefers objective over intersubjective.Rudd (,Chs. –)defends robust moral realism, and Davenport (, pp. ff. and b, p. )also defends moral realism and cognitivism.  Rudd ,p..Rudd (,p.)concludes that “Rawlsian liberalism collapses into Schlegelian (or Rortian?)ironism – the valuing, not of rational choice, but of choice itself. But it is hard to see how such ironism can avoid collapsingintofull-blown nihilism; for whyshould we treat the sheer powerofchoice as valuable, if there is nothingelse that is genuinelyvaluable that it enables us to choose.” Much like Rudd, Davenport (b, pp. –)argues that moral standards provide afirm point outside of our first-order states that is much needed, sincewithout such an objective basis,wehavenostable ground for workingupon ourselves; anyattempt to betteroneself will then be at the mercyofthe contingencies of time. On this view,moral norms and ideals provide an Anstoβ (in the Fichtean sense) by representingsome- thingradicallydifferent from subjective perspectivesand first-order states(Davenport b, pp. f.). Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardian Approach 185

Rudd’sreconstruction of JudgeWilliam’sargument for the ethical relies on moral virtueswithout the traditional idea of life having afinal end (eudaimonia) that all human beingsshare.²⁸ Rudd argues thatground projects involvedevel- oping and exercisingmoral virtues.²⁹ He follows Peter Geach (a Thomist virtue ethicist) in arguing that “[w]e need prudence and practical wisdom for any large-scale planning[…], we need temperance in order not to be deflected from our long-term and large-scale goals by seeking short-term satisfactions. And we need courageinorder to persevere in face of setbacks, weariness,difficulties and dangers.”³⁰ The argument can be summarized as follows:

Whatever projects one undertakes, one will need the virtues of courage,self-control, and practical wisdom, and also the virtue of honest perception [of oneself][…]. In so far as one is committed to livinginasociety […], one will also need the virtues of justice and be- nevolence, in some measureanyway. […]the ethical task of developingthe virtues is the same for everybody[…]. The need to cultivatethe virtues derivesfromthe need to engage in projects,and this derivesfromthe need to live acoherentand meaningful life.³¹

On this view,there is avery close connection between the objectivity of moral values and the idea of meaninginlife (Rudd 2012,p.149). Morespecifically, a

 Rudd ,pp. –, –;Kosch a, pp. f. See also Davenport b, pp. – who argues for aminimalistictelos consisting of self-integration and an existential unification of life-narrative (rather than eudaimonia). Against broadly eudaimonistic recon- structions of Kierkegaard likethat of Rudd, Kosch objects unconvincinglythat ()agents who succeed according to aestheticcriteria arenot onlyhappy but also in despair,and ()that JudgeWilliam does not dismiss aesthetic satisfaction but tries to preserveitinthe ethical stage.However,for Kierkegaard the latter ()seems to involveanAufhebung of aesthetic values where they go from havingabsolute priority to beingconditioned on morality.This way, pleasure can be consistent with moral duties or Kantian-Hegelian ethics.And the former point ()suggests that alucky aesthetecan feel happy and thereforeavoid psychological despair but this is perfectlycompatible with inauthentic despair.This point is based on aquestionable translation where “lykkelige” is translatedas“indeed happy,” givingthe impression that the aesthetes aretrulyhappy (SKS , ;EO,).  Rudd (,p.)follows B’sdistinction between personalvirtues (courage, valor,temperance, and moderation) that arenecessary for self-development and civic virtues (notablyjustice) that arenecessary for participation in social life.  Peter Geach, TheVirtues,p. quoted in Rudd ,pp. f. Rudd (,p.)follows Iris Murdoch in stressing the importanceofhonesty with oneself.  Rudd ,pp. f., cf. .Virtue is described as “adisposition […]giv[ing] constancy and stability to my character” (p. ). Rudd does not think that Geach or classical virtue ethics succeeds completelyinjustifying the virtue of justice. Even though justiceisnecessary in order to securecooperation and mutual trust among men, this hardly explainswhy Ineed to be just (pp. f.). Rudd concludes that justiceremains problematic within the ethical stage,but not within the religious stage(p. ), somethingthat seems questionable at least exegetically. 186 Roe Fremstedal coherent and meaningful life requires significant projects,something that involves social interactions and practices that presuppose moral norms. The aesthetic stagenecessarilyinvolvesdespair (or ennui) in the sense of lacking point and purpose with one’slife. Since the aesthete does not want to commit to anyprojects,his life is pointless and without purpose.³² And without anything that givesmeaning to his life, the aesthete lacks something to unify the different parts of his life, something thatmakes it into acoherent whole with aclear personal identity.Asaresult, his life is nothing but amere series of moments or episodeswithout aunifying structure.His life is ruled by amultiplicity of moods and situations,unlike the ethicist who relies on the unifying power of personality (Rudd 2005,pp. 75,79and 2001, pp. 138f.). An important part of this is the fact thatKierkegaard’saesthetes do not identify with social roles and commitments.For this reason, Either/Or describes the aesthetes as refraining from promises and obligations, and as warningagainst enteringinto friendship, marriage, and the acceptance of official positions (SKS 2, 284–287, 356; EO1, 295–298, 367). This, however,indicates acertain respect for the ethical (SKS 2, 356;EO1,367). The idea is that one must avoid getting seriously involved with others; one must avoid commitment if one is to live aesthetically; otherwise, one will be trapped into social morality. One must therefore be able to avoid relationships,ortobreak them off by asheer act of will (SKS 2, 286; EO1, 297; Rudd 2005,p.71). Associated with this is the aesthete’sviewthat moralityisstrict,harsh, boring,and rigid (Danish, kantet³³)(SKS2,145,356;EO1, 145, 367), since moral dutiesare opposedtoour inclinations (SKS 3, 144; EO2, 146). It is not coincidental thatthis view resembles Schillerian criticism of Kant-

 The aesthetewrites that “My life is utterlymeaningless. When Iconsider its various epochs, my life is likethe word Schnur in the dictionary,which first of all means astring, and second a daughter-in-law. All that is lackingisthat in the thirdplacethe word Schnur means acamel, in the fourth awhisk broom.” (SKS , ;EO,)  The Hongs translate the Danish word “kantet” as “rigid” here.However,inthis contextthe word “kantet” might be interpreted as an allusion to Kant or as aplayonthe word “kant”.The Danish word “kantet” is based on the root “kant” and has the meaningrigid,edgy, rigorous, and inflexible (especiallywhen “kantet” is used as ashort for “firkantet”). The very meaningofthe words “kantet” and “kant” in the Scandinavian languages fit perfectlythe view that Kantian phi- losophyisoverlyrigid and rigorist.Moreover,the Danish reception of Kant closelyassociated Kantian ethics with moral rigorism (see Thuborg ,pp. –). To this very day, Scandi- navian philosophers can saythat aphilosopheristoo “kantet,” suggestingthat he is too Kantian in the sense of beingoverlyrigorous and inflexible. Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardian Approach 187 ian ethics, since Kierkegaard’saesthete is heavilyinfluenced by German Roman- ticism.³⁴ One might worry,however,that this reconstruction leavesroom for aesthetes who have infinite passion for non-moral projects without recognizing the validity of moral standards.³⁵ Whycannot aself-seeking egoist create his own projects or values, without caring about morality?Furtak (2005,p.105) argues that when one loves nothing unselfishly, one must also “suffer the unbearable emptiness of alife in which there are no final ends, because nothing is cared about for its ownsake.” Kierkegaardgoes astep further by arguing that the attempt to create one’sown values, without caring about anything for its own sake, leads not onlytovalues thatare revocable and unstable but alsotomotiveless and arbitrary choice.When subjectand lawgiver are identical, the subject influences the lawgiver; if one can bind oneself at will, one can also unbind oneself at will. This makes it possible to constantlychangeone’smind about what to do, to lazilyconcoct new tasks instead of realizingtasks thatare given(SKS8, 389 f.; UD,294f.). When values are mere contingent constructs of individuals who are fallible, imperfect,and non-moral, this leads to lawlessness or arbitrary experimentation not onlyasapossibility but alsoasalikelyresult. As long as it is not grounded in intrinsic values or objectivenorms, human freedom therefore threatens to collapse into an arbitrary and motiveless choice. Finally, Kierke- gaardargues that consistency or wholeheartednesscannot be achievedwithout unconditional moral dedication.Although he concedesthat an aesthete is capable of developing goals that mayinvolve some unity and coherence (SKS,3,178; EO2,183), he nevertheless insists that thereissomething superficial or inconsistent about such an aesthete (Davenport 2001b,pp. 299f.).This is aclaim to which we will turn in the next section.

Despair as Double-Mindedness

Rudd abstracts from much of what Kierkegaard says about despair.For Kierke- gaard, despair is more than the absence of ground projects that conveymeaning

 ForSchillerian criticism of Kantian ethics and its influence on Hegel and Kierkegaard, see Stern ,Ch.  and pp. –.For Kierkegaardand German Romanticism, see Behler ;Bohrer ,pp. ff.; Tjønneland ,esp. Ch. ;Stewart ,pp. –.  It should be clear that this argument onlytries to makeplausible that we should evaluate ourselvesinmoral terms; the argument does not try to show that doing so amounts to succeed- ing in fulfillingthe ethical task (Davenport b, p. ). It is perfectlypossible, of course,to recognize the authority of moral standards without livinguptothese standards. 188 Roe Fremstedal to our lives. Kierkegaard actuallyclaims thatdespair takes the form of being in conflict with oneself by having two wills thatare inconsistent with one another. Kierkegaard writes, “everyone in despair has two wills, one that he futilelywants to follow entirely, and one that he futilelywants to getrid of entirely.” (SKS 8, 144; UD,30) Whereas the despair of possibility (futilely) wantspossibility without necessity,the despair of necessity (futilely) wants necessity without possibility.The upshot is thatitisonlybywillingthe good unconditionallythat one can will one thing,and therefore be in agreement with oneself and avoid despair (SKS 8, 139f.; UD,24; cf. Grøn 1997, pp. 261f.). The real choice then stands between willing the good unconditionallyand willingittosome degreeonly. Whereas the ethicist and the religious strive for the former, the aesthete can be said to settle for the latter. But whydoes the aesthete despair or whycan he be said to be in despair? The point seems to be thatthe aesthete has two different wills that cannot be reconciled. On the one hand, the aesthete is ruled by non-moral incentives and principles. We have seen Kierkegaard describingthese in terms of sensuousness, self-love, self-interest,and happiness.The aesthete, then, is someone who is ruled by sensuousness, so that rationality and reflection servesensuousness instead of morality (something that appears to make the aesthete heteronomous in the Kantian sense). On the other hand, the aesthete is not amere natural being who could not have prioritized differently. The aesthete is not some animal that cannot be held responsible for his acts, since he has freelychosen to prioritize sensuousness over morality.However,subsuming morality under sensuousness means that morality is conditional on non-moralincentivesorprinciples. This means that the aesthete acts morallyinavery limited sense, that he, for instance, loves himself and his neighbor when he feels likeit, but not all of the time. However,this is deeplyproblematic since morality,byits very nature, requires unconditional and universal compliance. Forifthe will weretocompro- mise on moralityasthe aesthete does, it would partially affirmits natureand partiallyaffront it.Itwould partiallyexpress its essence and partiallyviolate it,allowing itself to be determined sometimes by aestheticstandards and sometimes taking morality to be of absolute worth. But as Seiriol Morganhas pointed out,intrying to do so,

the will would actuallyfail to achieveinany measureany of the things it half-heartedly attempted to commit to.You do not live up to the demands of morality at all by committing yourself to do so to acertain extent,and youcannot appreciatethe dignity of humanity if Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardianApproach 189

youresolvetorespect it onlynow and then. Rather,this would just show that youhad failed to grasp the importance of anyofthese things in the first place.³⁶

Throughout his writings, Kierkegaard argues thatwecannot be entirely indifferent towards existenceorlife. As long as we are conscious,wehavetoadopt at least some kind of attitude towards our lives, selves, and surroundings. Even someone who suffersgreatlywill have to relatetothis suffering by adopting some kind of attitude towards it.Put in Sartrean terms,this means that we are condemnedtobefree, since we have to exercise our freedom by choosing. Even the choice not to choose is achoice,Kierkegaard famouslyreminds us. This point maybestatedmore preciselybyusing Kantian terms (cf. Irwin 2011, vol. 3, p. 301): Our will (Willkür)has to incorporate incentives(Triebfedern) into our maxims (dispositions) and to posit ends. In order to follow inclinations, we must freely(spontaneously) incorporate these into our maxim instead of other incentives, since inclinations must be takenasanappropriate basisofac- tion. And in order to pursue an end, we must have freelychosen it as our end.³⁷ The next step then is to arguethat we are responsible for our choices,at least insofar as we could have chosen otherwise or insofar as we could consider an inclination or an end to be appropriate to act on because it can be supported by reasons. This stepmakes it possible to blame someone for choosing incorrect- ly or for adopting the wrongkind of attitude. This point is usuallyseen as uncon- troversial, and Kant and Kierkegaard both accept it. The final step is to arguethat my choice needstobeconsistent with the choice of others so that my freedom does not undermine the freedom of others but rather promotesit. Basically, the reason for this is that Iamdependent on others, since my self-consciousness,self-relation, and rationalityare dependent on others. We therefore not onlyneed to passivelyrespect the freedom of others

 Morgan ,pp. f. This is the doctrine of moral rigorism associated with Kant.Unlike Rudd, IreadKierkegaardasarigorist relyingonaKantian notion of ethics.The reasonsfor this arethreefold: First,there is clear textual evidencefor Kierkegaard’srigorism. Second, rigorism seems preferable to latitudinarianism, somethingthat has been argued by Allison (, pp. –), Firestone/Jacobs(,pp. –)and Morgan (,pp. f.). Finally, thereare strong Kantian elementsinKierkegaard’sethics (Fremstedal ).  Allison comments: “Icannot conceiveofmyself as […][arational] agent without regarding myself as pursuingends that Iframe for myself and that Iregardasrational to pursue. Correla- tively,Icannot conceive of myself as such an agent without assumingthat Ihaveacertain control over my inclinations, that Iamcapable of decidingwhich of them aretobeactedupon (and how) and which resisted.These are, as it were, necessary presuppositions for all whoregard their reasonaspractical. Kant indicates this in the Groundwork by suggestingthat we cannot act except under the idea of freedom […]” (Allison ,p.) 190 Roe Fremstedal by refraining from violating it,but we also need to actively promotethe freedom of others. Even though the principle of right mayhelp with the former, it seems that moralobligations are needed to secure the latter.Ifthese broadlyKantian points are accepted, then it seems to follow that we have to accept the necessity of moralrestrictions insofar as we are free and conscious agents. The next section will go beyond these points by elaboratingonour dependency on others.

Intersubjectivity,Love, and Emotions

WorksofLove presents an interesting argument whythe aesthete is in despair which supplementsthe arguments we have considered so far. WorksofLove argues that hope without the moral duty to loveone’sneighbor is false, so that the real alternative to neighbor-loveisdespair. WorksofLove proceedsbydiscussing acase whereIhope for myself while giving up others by viewing them as hopeless (SKS 9, 253–256; WL,254–256). However,hoping onlyfor myself involves conceiving of hope and the good as something privatethatdoes not concern my relationship to others, as if Ihaveafuture of my own without others or as if what is good for me is entirelyunconnected to what is good for others. Kierke- gaardargues convincingly thatbyhoping in this wayIfail to appreciate the extent to which Iamdependentupon others. If there is no hope for others, then there cannot be anyhope for me either,since Iamdependent upon others. If they are trapped in hopelessness, this must also hold for me, even if Idonot realize it myself. In this sense, Ican be trappedindespair or hopelessness without realizingit. Kierkegaard’spoint is thathoping for oneself must involvehoping for others, hoping for society (SKS 9, 253f., 248;WL, 253f., 248). Kierkegaardstresses that neighbor-lovetakes upon itself the work of hope, the task of hoping for others: “loveis[…]the middle term: without love, no hope for oneself; with love, hope for all others—and to the same degree one hopes for oneself, to the samedegree one hopes for others, since to the same degree one is loving.” (SKS 9, 259; WL, 260) Lovethus connects hope for oneself with hope for others, transformingthe object of hope into something universal, arguably an ethical commonwealth or invisiblechurch.³⁸ The upshot is not onlythat there must be some connection

 One mayobject that one is not dependent on all human beings but onlyonsome. However, whom Idepend upon in different contexts seems contingent.There does not seem to be aprin- cipled reason that prevents me from beingorbecomingdependent on anyone in particular.Still, Kierkegaard’spoint is not mainlythat Imay find myself beingdependent upon astranger or an enemy. Put in Apelian or Habermasian terms,Kierkegaardisconcerned rather with how actual Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardian Approach 191 between what is good for me and what is good for others but alsothat one is trapped in despair without the moral obligation to loveone’sneighbor. Kierkegaard appears to make use of the broadlyHegelian idea that self-con- sciousnesspresupposes intersubjectivity,and that the self-relation is mediated by the other(cf.Furtak 2005,pp. 74,99; Grøn 1997, Ch. 5). Although Kierkegaard does not fullyaccept Hegel’sethics of recognition, he does agree that Iamde- pendent on others and that this dependency implies moralrestrictions. Imust behave so thatmyfreedom does not undermine the freedom of others but rather promotes it by letting the other stand on his own as an individual different from me. The central claim here is that we need something to mediate between the self and the other,and that this mediating principle needstobeethical. Whereas Hegel describes this principle in terms of moral recognition, Kierkegaardde- scribes it in terms of neighbor-love.³⁹

discourses (performatively)presuppose an ideal discourse. Put in ecclesiastical terms,heiscon- cerned with how the individual depends on the invisible (true) church rather than the visible church. The Kantian parallel to this seems to be Kant’sclaim, in Book III of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason,that individual struggle against moral evil requiresanethical commonwealth that makes the victory of the good principle over the evil one possible.Hare elaborates on this by sayingthat “His argument is that we will have ends which require the help of others if we are going to reach them […].We arelinked together by our needs and abilities into asingle unit,orkingdom, which we must be prepared to will intoexistenceasawhole. It contains our needs (for even in the true church we will be creaturesofneed), and it contains other people with the developed abilities to meet our needs;but it also contains the needs of others,and our developed abilities to meet their needs.” Hare b,p..  Adifferent but related argument is sketched in Fear and Trembling.Fear and Trembling argues that Iamdependent on the understanding of others for aright understanding of what to do. Morespecifically, it is argued that Iamlikelytooverlook relevant arguments unless Icom- municateopenlywith others (SKS ,;FT, ). Based on this,VittorioHösle (,p.)has argued that Kierkegaardanticipates the central idea of Habermas’sdiscourse ethics.Put in Kant- ian terms, the touchstone for assessingthe objectivity of subjective judgments (claims about somethingbeingtrue) is whether others agree. Kant says that we cannot do without the under- standingofothers because such an understanding is an external criterion for truth. Without this criterion, we could not test the correctness of our own judgments,and hence we would be at the mercyofmistakes. This criterion means that the rational validity of judgments depends on it beingpossible to communicateorshare them universally(Fremstedal ,pp. f.). Put in contemporary terms,the point seems to be that we aredependent on apractical discourse for understanding what we oughttodo. And this practical discourse, likeintersubjectivity more generally, presupposes certain ethical norms.Kierkegaard’sethicist formulates this by saying that personaland civic virtues areinterdependent,sothat Icannot have anypersonal virtues without also havingcivic or social virtues (SKS , ;EO,). The ethicist distinguishes between personalvirtues (courage,valor,temperance, and moderation) that arenecessary for self- development and civic virtues (notablyjustice)that arenecessary for participation in social life. 192 Roe Fremstedal

Both the aesthete and the ethicist are deeplyconcernedwith loveasanemo- tion (or apassion). The aesthete focuses on romantic love, whereas the ethicist focuses on marriageasthe paradigm case for the ethical stage.⁴⁰ The aesthete believes in loveasanexperience thatmakes life beautiful and interesting,seeing marriageand its duties as incompatible with the freedom and spontaneityre- quired by genuine love(Davenport 2001b, pp. 91 f.). Kierkegaard suggests, however,that there is some continuity between the different forms of love. Stageson Life’sWay,for instance,describes different forms of loveinamanner reminiscent of Plato’sfamous description of different forms of love in the Symposium (cf. Furtak 2005,pp. 103f.). Whereas the aesthete sees loveasamere feeling, the ethicist and Kierkegaard seem to approach it as avirtue with affective and emotional aspectsthat can, and oughtto, be cultivated. The ethicist argues that even though we have first-order desires and states, these can onlyhave(lasting) significance by being actively endorsed and guided by practical rationalityinvolving intersubjective standards of assessment.More specifically, first-order desires onlyacquirereal importance if we are ethically committed by relatingtowhat happens to us, either by identifying with or dis- tancing ourselvesfrom first-order desires.This can be done either by viewing first-order desires as appropriate or as inappropriate, as something we ought or ought not to act on, basedonthe merits of different options, or on reasons that holdirrespective of the strength of our inclinations (Irwin2011, vol. 3, pp. 299f.).Wethus need to introduce the idea of arational choice thatis based on the merits of different options, not just on inclinations and desires. This means that we enter the area of good and evil as features to be considered in afreechoice (Irwin2011, vol. 3, p. 300). The aesthete experiences different emotions and desires,but he does not give his assent to them by actively embracing their significance or by endorsing them. He lacks second-order desires that make it possibletodevelop and culti- vatefirst-order desires and to develop along-standing attitude. He hardlyviews himself as the owner of his inclinations and desires,and he does not takere-

Even if thereissome uncertainty how far Kierkegaardactuallydeveloped this point,itneverthe- less seems to be avalid point that could have developed by him. Still, it seems that some of this point is perhaps better,ormoresystematically, developed by Kant,Hegel, and Habermas than by Kierkegaard, even though Kierkegaardgoes beyond these thinkers by analyzing despair.  The ethicist makesuse of the Fichtean idea that marriage is asteponthe path to becoming an ethically developed person and that the loverelationisnature’sway of overcomingitself and pushingustowardbecomingethical beings.Marriage is thereforeconsideredaduty (something both Kant and Kierkegaardwere opposed to). See Kosch b, pp. –.See also Hannay ,pp. –. Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardian Approach 193 sponsibilityfor them,although they do make up the basis of his decisions, ends, and actions. He is free in the sense of being independent of his inclinations, but he does not recognize or affirm his freedom like the ethicist does (Irwin 2011, vol. 3, pp. 301, 304). The reflective aesthete takesupthe perspective of aspecta- tor towards his own emotions and his own life. By doing this, he deniesthat he is alreadyinvolvedinlife and thereforeresponsible.⁴¹ The aesthete is detached from his ends, not because he chooses them without energy or dedication, but because he sees them as external to himself, insofar as they are objectsofinclination that are purelyaccidental to him (Irwin2011, vol. 3, p. 299). The aesthete would be less detachedfrom his ends if he could re- gardthem as appropriate for him, as the sort of agent he is, because they represent the type of ends thatheought to choose irrespective of the strength of his inclinations (Irwin 2011, vol. 3, p. 299). TerenceIrwin writes:

Sinceweregardourselvesascontinuingselves; and think it right,irrespective of the strengthofour desires, to plan for our continuingselves, we can also see―though we maynot see―that apurelyaesthetic attitude to ourselvescannot satisfy us.Ifwetreat our ends as matters of mereinclination, we do not ask the questions that,ascontinuing agents,werecognize as legitimate, about whether we have reason to pursue this end rather than another.The aesthetic outlook does not fit the self that adopts it.(Irwin 2011, vol. 3, p. 299)

Irwin concludes that the aesthetic agent is liable to despair because aesthetic agency presupposes some basis of non-aesthetic agency (Irwin 2011, vol. 3, pp. 299f.). The aesthete thinks of himself as aparticularcontinuingself that is free but this self does not fit aesthetic agency,which is ruled by inclinations and desires thatare accidental and external. The ethicist argues that romantic loveneeds to be both endorsed and restricted in marriage. The idea is thatromantic loveistransfigured in marriage so thatlove’sneeds are completed and fulfilled. On this view,marriageisnot an alien imposition on romantic love, but something that makes it possible for romantic lovetodevelop and endure.The ethicist proceeds by arguing that loveitself wantstobestrengthened, since it wants to ensure that lovewill last.Eveninthe absenceofamarriageceremonylovers thereforeswear faithful- ness to each other in the name of something perceivedtobehigher (e.g. moon, stars, father’sashes)soastobind themselves(SKS3,61f.; EO2,56; Davenport 2001b, pp. 91–94). Thisindicates that loveitself seeks moral commitment

 Furtak ,pp. f., f., , .For the interpretation of the reflective aestheteasaso- phisticated wanton, see Rudd ,pp. –;Davenport b, pp. f. 194 Roe Fremstedal

(SKS 3, 61,66, 144– 147; EO2,56, 60 f., 146 – 149).⁴² The ethicist presents asomewhat Hegelian (and Schillerian) argument to the effect that moral obligation is not opposed to love, as has been pointed out by existing scholarship(cf. Stern 2012,pp. 190 –199). At this point the ethicist stresses that moral duty should not be interpreted as something external that is opposed to my inner being, but rather seen as something that expresses my true being (SKS 3, 242f.; EO2, 254f.). Freedom is thereforeseen as realized in moraland social commitment. The more general point,however,isthat thereisnofree lunch. Thingscan- not have (lasting) importance or meaning if they do not implysome commitment or obligations. Emotions that are not actively endorsed and regulated are merely episodic sensations without meaning.The aesthete livesinaworld of fleeting and abbreviatedemotions, lacking emotional integrity (Furtak 2005,pp. 59, 65). He mayconsider emotions and passion to be the deepestpart of the human being;but these are wild and unrulyaslong as the aesthete does not have anydefinitive aim or end (as the ethicist does).⁴³ Without an active endorsement of emotions, these will disintegrate into mere fragments and the aesthete will be ironic and indifferent towards his own life. Furtak elaborates:

He avoids takinganythingseriously, and thereby guards himself against the emotional risk of beingmorethan ironicallyinvolved. And the fragmentary natureofhis temporal exis- tencealso keeps him fromoccupyingany rolethat requires sustained care: he can be adil- ettantebut not adevoted artist,atemporary acquaintancebut not aloyal friend. […]Rather than lettinghis episodic emotions grow into longstandingattitudes,the aesthetelets them weightlesslypass away,sothat both joy and torment end up meaningnothing. (Furtak 2005,pp. 68, 79)

Conclusion

The points sketched aboveare extracted from Kierkegaard’swritings, notably Ei- ther/Or. Rather than provingwhy we should be moral, Kierkegaard can be said to provide strong motivation for atransition from the aesthetic to the ethical

 Kierkegaardhimself has asomewhat less optimistic take on this in WorksofLove. He argues that love’sneed for obligation show that loveisdimlyawarethat it is insufficient by itself; love is insecure, anxious about the possibility of change,that lovemay vanish or change.Asaresult, loveneeds moral obligation (SKS , , ;WL, f., ). Kierkegaard’sclaim that difficulties remain with B’snotion of marriage (SKS , ;CUP, )need not undermine B’sgeneral attempt to criticize the aestheteorhis attempt to explain whyweshould be moral.  Furtak ,p. referencing Johannes Sløk. Why Be Moral? AKierkegaardian Approach 195 stagebyarguingthat despair can onlybeovercome if we choose the ethical. Ei- ther/Or portrays the ethical as inescapable,sothat we can speak of the intrusion of the ethical (cf. Grøn 1997, pp. 261f.; Evans 2009,pp. 87– 89). MacIntyre is thereforemistaken in claiming that Kierkegaard’sexistential choice between the aesthetic and the ethical is criterionless like the radical choice of Sartre (Da- venport 2001a). Perhaps the most characteristic feature of Kierkegaard’swork, as compared to his predecessors, is the central role despair plays in it.Kierkegaard went beyond his predecessors by analyzingthe importance of despair and hope for moral agency,offering asystematic analysis of despair that makes extensive use of (moral) psychologyand phenomenology.⁴⁴ Still, it might seem thatKier- kegaard’sgeneral methodologyisperhaps stronger thanthe specific arguments. The arguments are typicallyincompleteand sketchy, standing in need of interpretation and reconstruction.⁴⁵ The renewed interest in Kierkegaard over the last decades has led both to new historical research and attempts to use Kierkegaard in contemporary debates.The present paper belongsmainlytothe latter category and focuses on reasons for seeing the human task as the ethical task,seeing the choice of oneself as the choice of the ethical. Even if the arguments considered are somewhat incompleteorequivocal, they stillseemtomake plausible that we need to evaluate ourselvesinmoral terms.Itseems fair therefore to conclude that Kierke- gaardcomes at least some waytowards answering the question “Whybe moral?”–although his approach is more relevant to deontological ethics and virtue ethics than consequentialism. Kierkegaard’swork is so rich and multi-faceted that it has the potential for adding something valuable to contemporary discussions, as is exemplified by the work of Rudd, Davenport,Furtak, and others. What makes Kierkegaard’s work interesting are not onlyits arguments and dialectics but alsoits vivid liter- ary descriptions and examples as well as its use of phenomenologyand psychology. Iagree with Davenport that, in the contemporary context,Kierkegaard may be seen as allied with MacIntyre, Korsgaard, and Taylor against Williams in thinking that non-moral caring involves implicit rationalcommitment to ethical values, whether or not we recognize it or like it.The connection that Kierkegaard drawsbetween earnest purpose in life and choosing the ethical is controversial

 Cf. Stokes ,pp. f.; Hannay ,p..Regarding phenomenology, see Grøn , pp. –.  Theunissen(,pp. , )has pointed out that there exist relatively few attempts to defend or reconstruct Kierkegaard’stheory in arational or argumentative manner. 196 Roe Fremstedal and provocative,but it should nevertheless be taken as seriously as similar views voiced by contemporary thinkers (cf. Davenport 2012,pp. 130,122).

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RichardEldridge Acknowledging the Moral Law

Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgment. Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty,§378

Once upon atime, almostforty years ago, when it was still common for graduate studentstotake qualifying examinations in various subfields of philosophy, there was—so the lore among the graduatestudents had it—astandard, expected replytothe question “Whybemoral?” One was supposed to divide one’sanswer into two cases. If the question were understood as asking “What self-interested, prudential reasons are there to be moral?”,then the answer is “obviouslynone; often enough one will be either inconvenienced or otherwise disadvantagedby doing what one has, for example, promised to do.” Alternatively,ifthe question wereunderstood as asking “What moral reasons are there to be moral?”,then the answer is “obviouslywhatever moral reasons one has; it is essentialtothe distinctive forceofmoral reasons that they cannot be reduced to other sorts of reasons.”¹ In retrospect,boththese lines of responsetothe question “whybemoral?” are, at best,evasive,and we have,happily, to some extent learned to think more deeplyabout how moral reasons make claims on us. In large part,this new thinking has been spurred by Bernard Williams’squestioning of the absoluteau- thority of distinctivelymoral reasons (to do one’sduty,tokeep one’spromises, etc.) and his urging of the importance in contrast of the ethical: aset of open- ended, plural,nonsystematizable considerations about values—moral, prudential, political,intellectual, aesthetic, and otherwise—that one might articulate and to which one might appealmoreorless reasonablyand improvisatorially in order to make sense of one’slife.² As Derek Parfit puts it in endorsing Wil-

 Notably, BernardWilliams characterizes Kantian morality in general as makinguse of this dilemma and as then, vacuouslyashesees it,embracing its second horn. See Williams , pp. –.  AlasdairMacIntyre’squestioninginAfter Virtue of the authority of modern liberal morality and his urgingofamodified form of virtue ethics have also been influential (MacIntyre ). 200 RichardEldridge liam’srecommendation that we takeupthe Socratic question, “how should one live?,”³

We should ask what we have reasons to care about,and to try to achieve. […]Reasons are, I believe, fundamental.Something matters onlyifwehavereason to careabout this thing.It would have great importance if morality did not in this sense matter,because we had no reasontocarewhetherour acts wereright or wrong.Todefend and explain morality’simportance, we can claim and try to show that we do have such reasons. Morality might have supreme importance in the reason-implyingsense, sincewemight always have decisive reasons to do our duty,and to avoid actingwrongly.But if we defend morality’simportance in this way, we must admit that the deepest question is not what we ought morallytodo, but what we have sufficient or decisive reasonstodo.⁴

While Parfit here displays an admirable forthrightness in taking seriously Wil- liams’squestion about the authority of morality—in asking for reasons for being moral—his ownresponsetothis question arguablysuffers from both in- sensitivity to available possibilitiesofpractical reasoning and incoherence.⁵ Worse yet, Parfit,inhis relentless hunt for binding reasons to be moral, skates over the most important insights of Williams’sphilosophical anthropologythat make the question about the authority of morality significant for us, especially Williams’ssense that we are fragile beingsfor whom achievements of the good, even sometimes life itself, are hostagetofortune and dependent on our relations with specific others. As Williams observes, we are now in some respect closer to the Greeks—and perhaps even closer to them now than we have been for the last forty years or two millennia—thanhas often been supposed, partic- ularlyinfeeling the legitimate forceofthe claims of personal relations and in feeling bound up in processes we can neither escape nor master, all while lacking the comforts of belief in literal bodilyresurrection afterdeath.⁶

 Williams ,p..Williams goes on to remark “Ishall not try to define what counts exactly as an ethical consideration; … it does no harm that the notion is vague” (p. ). Roughly,ethical considerations turn out to be for Williams any considerations—moral, economic, political, aesthetic, prudential, sexual, familial, and so on—that bear seriouslyonhow one should live as the person whoone most deeplyis.  Parfit ,II, p. ,I.p..  In reviewingParfit’sbook, Samuel Freeman notesi)that Parfit regards the onlyoptions in metaethics as either extreme rationalism or extreme subjectivism, thus missingarangeofavail- able intermediatestances, and ii) that Parfit combines aKantian concern for absolute human rights with utilitarian concern for human welfareinawaythat is never made fullyclear in relation to hard cases where these concernsmight clash. (Freeman, ,pp. –.)  See Williams ,p.. Acknowledging the Moral Law 201

This philosophicalanthropologyhas important consequences for how we should think about philosophyasadiscipline or activity.Weshould abandon what Williams called the bogus “aspiration to atotalcritique,”⁷ give up the attempt to arrive at aview from nowhere, as if we might,bydoing so, make our- selvesimmunetofortune and certain of our ownmoral worth and purity.In- stead, we should accept our embeddedness in natural processes and personal and social relations.Philosophy is, or should be if it is honest, as Williams puts it,amatter of trying to “make the best sense of our life, and so of our intellectual activities, in the situation in which we find ourselves.”⁸ Normative relations, including for example semantic relations,are instituted by us in the course of our complex practical lives, and they are subject to historicalvariation. (Williams cites with approval R. G. Collingwood’sremark that certain practition- ers of putatively ahistorical and absoluteanalysis of concepts proceed by,asit were, “translating the Greek wordfor atrireme as a ‘steamship’ and then complain[ing]thatthe Greeks had adefective conception of asteamship.”⁹)Philos- ophyshould not be disjoined from history;making sense of semantic and other normative phenomena must involvepaying reflective attentiontoconcept-words in actual use and subject to change. We should not suppose that our ownstocks of concepts could or should be perfectlyinorder. Pointedly, we should not suppose that we are morallysuperior to the Greeks. Among them, “slavery,inmost people’seyes, was not just,but necessary.”¹⁰ Most Greeks could not imagine aworldwithout it.Rightly, we take this to be a failing on their part.But our own attitudes towardeconomic immiseration and degradation are not so dramaticallydifferent,insofar as manyofusunreflective- ly accept radical inequalities that we regard as in principle unjust as the necessary price of significantlyrising GDP.Worse yet, under the banner of unrestricted property rights, freedom of contract,and economic efficiencies, some of us celebrate radicallyimmiseratingand degrading property arrangementsasjust,even though all property holdingsare matters of institutional arrangement,not of natural right and clean historicaldescent.Insome ways,the Greeks confronted the difficult facts of their historical situation more forthrightlythan we sometimes confront ours. Nor is our moralpsychologyobviouslyinmuch better shape than that of the Greeks,since there is no possibility of pure guiltorthe verdict of consciencesim- plyassuch, arising from an inner confrontation with the bare moral law. Rather,

 Williams ,p..  Williams ,p.;emphasis added.  Williams ,p..  Williams ,p.. 202 RichardEldridge as Williams argues, drawingonNietzsche, guilt before asense of what is morally required of one is itself arefined and abstracted form of shame. As Williams puts it, “shamecan understand guilt, but guiltcannot understand itself. …Only shame[not guilt] can … help one to understand one’srelations to [wrongs one has done or might do], because it [unlike guilt] embodies conceptions of what one is and of how one is related to others.”¹¹ And this is because, as Nietzsche together with Freud (on the formation of the superego) have taught us, the voice of consciencethatproclaims guilt before the moral lawisitself the voice of an internalized other that has been modeled on and abstracted from some actually existing other,with authoritative standing,within social-ethical life.¹² Anyother picture of how we come to have senses of duty and obligation—anypicture that posits apure practical reason within, or responsiveness to the voice of God, capable of operating quite independentlyofthe internalization of admiration, respect,fear,and so on towardactuallyexisting others—is simplyhorriblyunreal- istic. True, we can abstract and generalize away from the evaluative stances of the particularothers we have encountered, partlybecause we encounter many others with manydistinct evaluative stances.But however far it goes, such abstraction and generalization continue to bear some traces of some actuallyexist- ing encountered and internalized others. In Williams’ssummary formulation,

By givingthrough the emotionsasense of who one is and of what one hopes to be, [shame, along with its later abstracted and derivative form, guilt] mediates between act,character, and consequence, and also between ethical demands and the rest of life. Whatever it is workingon, it requires an internalized other,who is not designatedmerely as arepresentative of an independentlyidentified social group, and whose reactions the agent can respect.Aftersome time, this figure does not merely shrink intoahanger for those same values but embodies intimationsofagenuine social reality—in particular of how it will be for one’slife with others if one acts in one wayrather than another.¹³

Finally, Williams is right that consequences of actions, even unintended ones, sometimesmatter.Itisatleast sometimes appropriate to feelregret for what one has done, even if one did not intend to do it or even intended specifically not to do it.AsHegel trenchantlyputs it, “‘The stone belongstothe devil when it leavesthe hand thatthrew it.’ When Iact,Iallow for bad luck, so it has aright over me and is an existenceofmyown willing.”¹⁴ We would do better to learn to live with this fact rather than denying it.OrasWilliams puts it, “we

 Williams ,pp. –.  Williams ,p..  Williams ,p..  Hegel ,p.. Acknowledging the Moral Law 203 know that in the story of one’slife there is an authority exercised by what one has done, and not merelybywhat one has intentionallydone.”¹⁵ Givenall this—the fragility of goodness,the properlyhistoricalcharacter of philosophical thinking about normativity,the developmental priority of shame over guilt,and the fact of moralluck—whyshould we not,asWilliams urges, content ourselveswith alooser “conception of the ethical that understandably relates to us and our actions the demands, needs, claims, desires,and, generally, the livesofother people”¹⁶ in various ways?Why,ifatall, should we embrace what Williams calls “the purity of morality” with its “‘must’ that is unconditional and goes all the way down”?¹⁷

Throughout both Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy and Shame and Necessity, Kantianism, with its sterile and impotent conception (as Williams sees it) of distinctively moralreasons that absolutelybind us from nowhere—in contrastwith broader ethical reasons that arise within the course of life—is the official target.¹⁸ At first blush, moreover,Kant’saccount of the authority of morality can indeed seem both inhuman in being insensitive to the conduct of practical life on the ground and distressingly dogmatic. Not onlydoes he simplyclaim that “the moral lawisgiven, as it were, as afact of pure reason of which we are apriori conscious and which is apodicticallycertain,”¹⁹ he alsodescribes awarenessof this fact as amatter of “conscientiousness … as accountability to aholybeing (morallylawgiving reason) distinct from us yetpresent in our inmostbeing.”²⁰ Henceheisatleast committed to adoctrineofasplit in the human subject between an empirical part and apure rational part.Atbest,this split can seem obscure. Hence to make Kantian distinctivelymoral reasons count for us would seem to have to mean something liketraining our defective,empirical, desiring,

 Williams ,p..  Williams ,p..  Williams,pp. , .  See the pagesfrom(Williams )citedinnote  and also p. : “Hegel admirably criticized the ‘abstract’ Kantian morality and contrasted it with the notion of Sittlichkeit,aconcretely determined ethical existencethat was expressed in the local folkways,aform of life that made particular sense to the people livinginit.” As Williams immediatelyadds,his own position is a Hegelian defense of Sittlichkeit stripped, however,ofany referencetoteleology.  Kant b, p. .  Kant c, p. . 204 RichardEldridge relationship-embedded, and project-having nature to be more at home with reasons that are indifferent to that nature.²¹ Rightly, that can seem avery tall order, perhaps too tall.²² It is, after all, true that human beingsinthe course of their individual developmental livesfrom infancy onwards find themselveshaving projects and desires and are situated within relationships thathaveforcefor them. Whythen, if at all, should distinctively moral reasons,involving universal and impersonal respect for persons, functionasakind of standing counterforcethat checks and corrects the commitments we alreadyhave? If there is an answer to this question, it must involveseeing the emergenceof distinctivelymoral commitments out of an enormous variety of developmental backgrounds,both individual and social-historical, as displaying akind of path independence. That is, just as pebbles dropped from various positions abovethe top of awellmay follow avariety of distinct paths, includingbouncing off the sides of the well in various ways,they will nonetheless each end up at the bottom of the well.²³ This is, of course, due to gravity.Could—and should—the moral lawhavefor us anything like the dispositive forceofgravity,inbringing each of us to acknowledge its authority,despite our strikingly distinct individual and social paths?And here it is obvious that, while in some possible world, perhaps,this could happen, it scarcelyseems likelyasamatter of empirical fact that it has happened or is about to happen.

 Iowe this formulation to Robert Guay, whoprovided aseries of well-considered, close, critical comments on an earlier draft of this essayand whose own defense of aNietzschean ethical contextualism, alonglines similar to those of Williams,was much on my mind in revisingmy argument.  Terry Pinkard, for example, describes “the notion of the ‘fact of reason’” as “arestatement of the quasi-paradoxical formulation of the authority of the moral lawitself, which seems to require a ‘lawless’ agent to give laws to himself on the basis of laws that from one point of view seem to be prior to the legislationand from another point of view seem to be derivative from the legislationitself,” and he argues that this paradoxcan be overcome only by replacing Kant’sappeal to purepractical reason in the individualwith an account of the logic of doubling (Verdopplung)ofagencyamongmultiple subjects,each of whom is struggling to impose demands on others and to securetheir recognition as reasonable (Pinkard ,pp. , ). Karl Ameriks observes similarlythat “if the source [of the moral law] is elevated intosomething even partlyoutside the world, then even when it is not personified as aliterallyseparate and self-subsisting entity,itcan still seem tooodd and remote to explain whyhuman agents should feel bound by it.” (Ameriks ,pp. –); see also p. ,where Ameriks observes that “this can all sound tooremarkable to be true.”  Iowe this useful analogy toSam Baron, whosuggested it during discussion of aversion of this paper, subsequent to presentingittothe philosophydepartment of the University of Western Australia. Acknowledging the Moral Law 205

It is noteworthythatKant himself held that consciousness of the moral law is not explicitlypresent in the consciousness of anyhuman being from the moment of conception or birth. As he remarks in the Foundations, “innocenceisin- deed aglorious thing [though] it is sad that it cannot well maintain itself, being easilyled astray.”²⁴ Hereinnocencemust consist in atime of life before one has become conscious of the moral lawasbinding normatively against the forceof inclination. Likewise, in “Conjectural Beginning of Human History,” Kant remarks, drawing on both Genesis and Milton,²⁵ thatinthe history of mankind “instinct … must alone have guidedthe novice” wellbefore “reason began to stir.”²⁶ What,then, might the process of coming to awareness of the moral law look like? And what,ifanything,might moveustothink that this process is something that should take place within anyindividual’scourse of development? We should not suppose,however,thatadescription of anysuch process will provide an empirical explanation of the origin, content,and authority of the moral law. It must,atleast within aKantian framework, be the casethat the human subject autonomouslyexercises rational powers in comingtoacknowl- edge the moral law. Nor will such adescription provide an independent justification of the content and authority of the moral law, apart from afreeact of rational acknowledgment that must be carried out by each agent.Inthis sense, the content and authority of the moral lawcannot be proven to amoral skeptic.²⁷ The best one can do is to supplyneither an empirical explanation nor an independent justification but rather,asAmeriksputs it, “just manylayers of illuminating description” that capture how sometimes one mayfind oneself “in the situation of being able to maintain one’srationality onlyby[actively] acknowledging the pure practical lawascompelling.”²⁸ In his “History” essay, Kant himself develops in some detail the idea of the moral lawcomingtohaveauthoritative normative forcefor us in apath-independent way. At the end of the first paragraph of that essay, Kant observesthat

While [amongindividual human beings and even whole nations] each pursues its own aim in its own wayand one often contrary to another,they areproceeding unnoticed, as by a

 Kant ,p..  Foranextended account of Kant’sadaptation of Milton’saccount of aprocedure of succes- sion (Nachfolgung,Nachmachung)asessential for coming to self-conscious maturity,see (Budick ).  Kant ,p..  Hence there is somethingright about embracingthe second horn of the dilemmawith which this essaybegan.  Ameriks ,p.;comparethe account of the acknowledgment of the moral lawinEl- dridge ,pp. –. 206 Richard Eldridge

guidingthread [an einem Leitfaden], according to an aim of nature [Naturabsicht], which is unknown to them, and arelaboringatits promotion.²⁹

Herethe guiding thread is explicitlythe normative forcewith which human be- ingsinvarious circumstances are drawntowardlife on the ground accordingto the requirements of the morallaw,nomatterwhat diverse paths they maytake towardthis end and what other commitments they mayalso have.Weare, as Kant puts it repeatedlyinthe Religion,each to live up to the “idea of ahuman being morallywell-pleasing to God” [“Idee einesGott moralisch wohlgefälligen Menschen”],³⁰ and we are to do so by creatingfirst alawful civic order in which each possesses the maximumdegree of liberty compatible with the like liberty of all and second akingdom of ends, thatis, amoral cultureofmutualrespect and achieved concrete life accordingtoreason. Following this guiding thread—that is, moving towardlife according to the moral lawwhose normative authority one accepts—is said, further,totake place “accordingtoanaim of nature.” In this context, “nature” cannot mean “the realm of empirical objects” or “natureasthe object of studyofthe natural sciences,” for nature in thosesenses has no aims or purposes [Absichten].³¹ In- stead Kant must mean something more likeSpinozist naturanaturans or “nature as God has made it to be purposive” (even wheresuch purposes are not empiri- callydiscernible), in contrastwith naturanaturata. Nonetheless, one maystill wonder:why should we be drawnnormatively by the thought that we are participants in naturanaturans or members of an intelligible world?The empirical world of ordinary objects is real enough and unavoidable, and we lack, both by Kantian lights and in fact,theoretical knowledge of anysuch higher order or world undergirdingthe ordinary world. Hencetalk of anormatively dispositive noumenal nature of which we are members mayseem to be little advance over sheer dogmatism, and such talk is, again, at best redescriptive of what we are implicitly and immanentlycommitted to in virtue of our deliberative powers; it is neither an empirical explanation of moralitynor an independent justification of it.

 Kant c, p. .  Kant e, p.  and infra. Note, however,that to be well-pleasingtoGod just is to act from respect for the moral law; Kant,ofcourse, does not put forwardadivine command morality,and belief in (a thin, non-personal) God is derivedfromthe requirements of the moral life rather than vice versa.  See Ameriks ,p. for auseful account of ambiguities attachingtoKant’suses of “nature.” Acknowledging the Moral Law 207

Is this redescriptive sketch of our powers and possibilities of acknowledging our membership in anoumenal world and acceptingthe authority of Kantian morality, from within divergent local circumstances, apt and illuminating? Since this is aquestion about powers and possibilitiesthat is, moreover,couched in metaphorical language, answering it is not astraightforward matter of empirical observation or measurement alone.³² But while observation alone cannot settle the matter,wemight nonetheless draw reflectively,normatively,and criti- callyondevelopmental psychologyand, roughly, on the theory of egoformation for some help. Here it is useful to turn to an account of egoformation thatisboth pre-Freudian and directlyconcernedwith how awareness of the Kantian moral lawasmakinganauthoritative normative demand might arise in the course of subjectdevelopment. In his 1795 essay “On the Concept of Punishment,” Friedrich Hölderlin takes up exactlythis topic. As Thomas Pfauusefullyputs it, “with the concept of punishment as a ratio cognoscendi of aprimordeal order where ‘freedom and necessity’ seem to have converged, Hölderlin implicitlyintroducesatemporal marker into Kant’sconceptual system.”³³ That is, in describing the experience of punishment as punishment,Hölderlin seeks to tracehow explicit awareness of the normative authority of the moral lawarises within the life of alivinghuman subject, not as amatter of derivation from experience alone, but rather through adawn- ing exercise of one’sdistinctive powers as asubject.HereHölderlin’sfirst move is to arguethat what is evil or wrongcannot simply be defined as behavior that is punished, that is, as behavior that results in suffering.Ifthat werethe case, then, as Hölderlin puts it, “I[would] also deduceanevil will,” that is, takemyself to have done something wrong, something that ought not to have been willed, “from anyotherresistance” or experience of suffering. In that case, “all suffering [would count as] punishment.”³⁴ That,surely, is not right.Being caught in the rain and catchingachill maybethe resultofimprudent action, and it mayin- volvesuffering,but it is not acase of beingpunished by the weather for a moral transgression, nor is stumbling over acrack in the sidewalk and bruising one’sknee. What, then, must be added to the experiences of suffering and resistance to one’swill in order to have an experience of punishment? HereHölderlin writes,inafragment that breaks off:

 This is, of course, the truth of the claim that ought cannot be derivedfrom is,aslong as is claims arerestricted to what is straightforwardlyempiricallyobservable or measurable.  Pfau ,p..  Hölderlin b, p. . 208 RichardEldridge

To this it maybeansweredthat,insofar as one considers oneself punished, one necessarily implies the transgression of the lawwithin oneself; that in punishment,insofar as one considers it punishment,necessarily[…].³⁵

Thus what is crucial is that one considers oneself to be punished, that is, to have done something that merits suffering as imposed by another agent who is enforc- ing normative demands appropriately. (The relevant sufferingcan include things like being required to sit on the stairs and think about what one has done; it need not involveonlyphysical pain.) One must grasp that one is suffering appro- priatelyinvirtue of having done something one oughtnot to have done, according to the standards of another agent who is authoritative for one.³⁶ This grasp has an empirical component—one must have done something and met arever- sal—but its content is not entirelyempirical, insofar as it includes an emerging awareness of what one oughtnot to have done in virtue of appropriate standards. Pointedly, this awareness of being punished accordingtoappropriate standards arises in the course of the experience of punishment and reflection on it.Aware- ness of standards of appropriateness is more an aspect of this reflective experience in acontext than it is something alreadyformedand brought to that experience from outside it. It is possible for there to be human beings, perhaps sociopaths, who do not have such experiencesofhaving been punished appropriately. It is also important to note that having such an experience is not required for being asubject, in the sense of someone who has and is aware of having at least aspatial and subjective point of view on things, including having preferences.³⁷ Nor is it necessary for being aperson, in the sense of someone who is able and entitled under lawtomake transactions, bring lawsuits, and so forth (perhaps doing so in apathological spirit). Subject and person are role- or status-concepts, and it is possible, though happilynot normal, to playthe relevant roles or to acquire the relevant status without,asitwere, developing aconscience. Someone who experiencedsufferings and reversals, includingcorrectionsbyothers, but without developing asense of sometimeshaving been appropriatelypunished,

 Hölderlin b, p. .  This is the truth (consider: ‘meaning’)ofWilliams’sclaim that shame is prior to guilt,since the explicit articulation of what the standardofappropriateness is will come after the experi- enceofsimplyhavingtransgressed an authoritative other’sstandard.  Hence Christine Korsgaard, in takingcommitment to the normative authority of the categorical imperative to be part of constitutingoneself as asubject,builds too much into akind of individualfaculty psychology and toolittle into what emergesininteraction with other subjects. See Korsgaard .But then Korsgaardisright that powers inherent to the subject must also be broughtinto playinthis interaction in order to yield this commitment. Acknowledging the Moral Law 209 would be, as it were, aspect-blind to the existenceofanauthoritative normative order,blind to the sense that there are thingsthat simplyought not and oughtto be done. Though pathologies of development that issue in forms of moralaspect- blindness are possible, they too are happilynot normal. There is, moreover,room for radicallysignificant variation both in behaviors that are punished and in senses of standards of appropriate punishment that mayemerge from them. What gets punished and in what ways is in fact signifi- cantlydifferent in different cultures.Atleast in the first instance, then, the experience of punishment as suffering in virtue of having violated appropriate normative standards need not,and sometimes does not,involve anysense of having violated anysingle distinctivelymoral law, let alone aKantian one.³⁸ Children and others are in fact punished for all sorts of things, including varieties of rudeness, uncleanliness, acting out,clumsiness, lack of self-control, and so forth, sometimesinappropriatelyand unjustlyso. As aresultthey sometimes develop standards of appropriate punishment,standards thatthey maythen enforceand transmit,that are in fact themselvesunjust and inappropriate. Across cultures and differencesinsocio-cultural circumstances,what gets punished, what is experienced as punishment,and what is taken to be appropriate punishment may vary widely. Is there then anyreason to think that referencetoasingle moral lawalong Kantian lines, such as the formula of respect for persons, could figure and should figure nonethelessinany experiences of punishment as punishment and anydevelopments of conscience? Perhaps the most obvious and straightforward answer to this question is “No; morality in its distinctively Kantian form does have its distinctivesocio-cultural circumstances and settings.” But while it is true that there are primitive conditions of life, say, wherethe development of Kantian consciencemay not be areasonable part of the development of conscience as such, this is much less likelytobethe case in complex societies, whereone is subject to correction and reversal throughout the course of one’s life, from infancy onwards, from avariety of authoritative others who themselves have distinct subjective pointsofview and commitments. Suppose, then, that within asetting of significant interaction with awide rangeofdiverse others, one simply stood imaginatively,asitwere, on the normative authority of only afew,readilyidentifiable distinct others (perhaps one’sparents, perhapsmem- bers of adominant social caste). That is, one experiencespunishment as punishment and one develops asense of appropriate normative standards for it and for

 This,too, is an insight that Williams has registered, in notingthe existenceand force for us of highlypluralized ‘ethical’ demands. 210 Richard Eldridge action in general, only insofar as these standardsare instituted and maintained by members of group Gwhom one respects and whom feels one must respect.If members of groups H, I, Jand so on that one encounters turn out to have different normative standards for appropriate behaviorand punishment,then they are simplynot to be taken seriously.Perhaps they are members of adominated and dependent group that one cannot respect or members of adominantgroup whom one fears but with whom one does not identify,orperhaps they are simply other,tribally, racially, sexually, economically, or whatever.What if one simply stopped there, in attachment to onlythe normative standards of distinct group G? This, too, is surelypossibleand, sadly, often enough actual. Is there anyreason to think that this stance is also pathological or aform of normative aspect- blindness? This question has no readyanswer.Attempting to answer it is complicated by the fact thatdifferent individuals with different socio-cultural backgrounds mayuse the same abstract,more or less Kantian languageofrights, duties, and respect for persons, but differ dramaticallyinhow they assess individual cases on the ground. What youcall telling someone ahard truth out of respect, Icall inconsiderate cruelty;orwhat youcall encouragement to develop one’stalents and specific forms of self-respect Icall indulgence and pampering.Mistakes and errors on all sides are possible, including, and perhapsespecially, in describing and judging one’sown conduct.What counts as respect for persons is itself asubject for open, imaginative,explorative inquiry and moral conversation in an ongoing way, even wherethe value of respect for persons is abstractly shared.³⁹ But should respect for persons, however contested and evolving its criteria be, figure centrallyinthe development of anyform of consciencearising out of the experience of punishment as punishment?This is anormative,not afac- tual question. Again, in fact not everyone develops aconscienceofthis kind, whether out of significant rudeness of circumstances,radical tribalism, or social pathology(as aKantian view would see it). But it is anormative question that admits of some argument,evenifnot apriori proof—argument that points to- ward answering “Yes.” Forwhat would it be like simply to live,without further normative reflection, accordingtothe normative standards of (let us say) one’s own group G, thence ignoring,dismissing,orviolentlyrepudiatingthe claims

 This is one wayoftakingthe point of Stanley Cavell’scontinuingemphasis on the impor- tanceofmutually explorative moral conversation rather than ‘standingon’one’saccomplished theory of right and duty.Leading amoral life is not simplyand straightforwardlyamatter of applyingtheory to practice deductively.For Cavell’sthought, see part threeofCavell , and also Bates ,who traces the theme of moral conversation throughout Cavell’scareer. Acknowledging the Moral Law 211 to respect of members of groups,H,I,J…with their local practices?Itwould be, arguably,tostop shortinreflection, to do akind of violence to oneself in restrict- ing one’sconcept of consciencetothe standards of onlyadistinct and recognizable few whose authority one had internalized, thereby cutting oneself off from significant practical interaction with members of other groups.Itwould amount, as it were, to freezing oneself as aG,acknowledging onlythe local normative standards of G-ness. (And of course this goes, conversely, for freezingoneself in H-ness, I-ness, J-ness and so on too.) This maysound all too open, tolerant,and pluralist,asthough we wereto embrace the normative standards of anygroup whatsoever.But that is not right.Rather,from within the development of conscienceininitial settingsofau- thoritative others whose standards one internalizes, it is bothpossibleand worthwhile to develop ageneralizedconception of the value of respect for human beingsasends in themselves, that is, as both beings who can set their own ends and who are capable themselvesofnormative reflection and the development of ageneralized conception of conscience. Such aconception requires a kind of tolerance and pluralism, but akind that is compatible with mutualcriti- cism and sharp disagreement.⁴⁰ It is thereforeboth possible and normatively apt that,asKant puts it,wewill “with time transform the rude natural predisposition [Anlage] to make moral dis- tinctions into determinatepractical principles” on which we mayact more effectively, so as to “transform a pathologically compelled agreement to form society into a moral whole.”⁴¹ “Steps from cruditytowardculture”⁴² are possible, and moral perfection is to be soughtand hoped for “from nowhereelse but education.”⁴³ There are, however,noguarantees.Wemay make “the transition from the go-cart of instinct to the guidance of reason—in aword, from the guardian- ship of nature into the condition of freedom,”⁴⁴ but that depends on us, specifically, on how we exerciseour powers of reflection and commitment first in situations of dependence on afew authoritative others and later in relation to more wide-rangingencounters. Aptacknowledgments of aKantian moral lawwill, moreover,not be available or fruitful at every historical moment.There are, again, circumstances both

 Foranexcellent articulation and defense of the kind of toleration that we oughttopractise and that involves and requires mutual engagement and criticism rather than mutual indifference, see Oberdiek .  Kant c, p. ;first emphasis added.  Kant c, p. .  Kant b, p. .  Kant b, :,p.. 212 Richard Eldridge prior to moralityinthe Kantian sense (prelinguistic infants; rude conditions of nomadiclife) and beyond morality (extreme emergencies, involvingtreacheries and evils to be confronted, wherenooption is innocent). Bernard Williams is thus right to some extent when he observesthat “the drive towardarationalistic conception of rationality comes … from social features of the modern world, which impose on personal deliberation and on the idea of practical reason itself amodel drawnfrom aparticular understanding of public rationality.”⁴⁵ That is, it is true that commitment to the relevanceofdeliberation guided by universal and impersonal principles has social conditionsofemergence, though those conditions, contra Williams, evidentlyobtainedinboth fifth century B.C.E. Athens and in first century C.E. Rome and Palestine, among other places.These conditions arise in various shapes more or less whenever human settlements have become large enough to requiresignificant political and economic role differentia- tion and regular interactions among occupiers of different roles.

III

It is, then, at least possible to acknowledge from within reflection the requirements of amoral lawofrespect for human beings, and it is perhaps more likely for such acknowledgment to be arrivedatby more people the less primitive and the more cosmopolitan the circumstances of life are,whereone encounters and internalizes the normative authority of awide rangeofothers. But if such acknowledgment does not necessarilytake place even in such circumstances, then what is the normative point of it?Why be moral (bymore or less Kantian lights)? In Part III of ATheoryofJustice,John Rawls undertakes to show that ajust scheme of cooperation, if instituted, would be stable,eveninthe face of widespread possibilities of free riding.Heappeals to existing “relations of friendship and mutualtrust,and the public knowledge of acommon … sense of justice” that is “normallyeffective” in shapingthe actions of most adultsubjects of the scheme.⁴⁶ Those growingupundersuch ascheme initiallylack such relations and such asense of justice, but they can be expectedtodevelop it,insofar as it is “giventhat familyinstitutions are just and that the parents lovethe child and manifestlyexpress their lovebycaring for his good” and giventhat the child then “develops ties of friendlyfeelingand trust towardothers in the association

 Williams ,p..  Rawls ,p.. Acknowledging the Moral Law 213 as they with evident intention complywith their duties and obligations, and live up to the ideals of theirstation.”⁴⁷ One might put this point by saying thatthe child’sdeveloping sense of justice sanctifies relations, roles,and values that are alreadyinplace and in which he is coming to participate more self-con- sciously, just as adeclaration of commitment in amarriage ceremonymay sanc- tify aform of mutuality in place thatdemands continuation and acknowledgment. Rawls deniesthat the availability and even the naturalness under favorable enough conditionsofacknowledgment of the moral lawconstituteajustification of the obligation to be moral. As he puts it, “these considerations do not determine the … acknowledgment of principles.”⁴⁸ This is in part because he is thinking of justification primarilyasamatter of the availability of aset of fullyarticu- lated public considerations thatare sufficient to determine once and for all a choice of value schemesfrom among all plausible available alternatives.⁴⁹ But that is not the onlyconception of justification thatisrelevant to moraltheory, and Rawls alsoobserves that “these considerations … confirm” that acknowledgment and that it may “happen that the superiority of aparticularview (among those currentlyknown) is the result, perhaps the unexpectedresult,of[a] newlyobservedconsensus” that is subsequent to critical and comparative reflection. ⁵⁰ From this point of view,the question of how we come developmentallyin favorableenough circumstances to acknowledge the moral lawisnot in the end separable from the question of what reasons we have to acknowledge it,evenif the value of such acknowledgment must also always be tested in reflection. We cannot have,but happilydonot need,ajustification for being moral “from nowhere,” apart from our location within aset of developing circumstances of life.

 Rawls ,p..  Rawls ,p..  “Justification is argument addressed to those who disagree with us,ortoourselveswhen we areoftwo minds.Itpresumes aclash of views between persons or within one person,and seeks to convinceothers, or ourselves, of the reasonableness of the principles upon which our claims and judgments arefounded. Beingdesigned to reconcile by reason, justification proceedsfrom what all parties to the discussion hold in common. Ideally, to justify aconceptionofjustice to someone is to give him aproof of its principles from premises that we both accept,these principles havinginturn consequences that match our considered judgments.Thus mere proofisnot justification. Aproof simplydisplays logical relations between propositions.But proofs become justification oncethe startingpoints aremutually recognized,orthe conclusions so comprehensive and compellingastopersuade us of the soundness of the conception expressed by their premises.” (Rawls , p. ).  Rawls ,pp. , . 214 Richard Eldridge

The formula of the moral law, in anyofits Kantian versions, will not itself be fixed by apriori reason, but instead held in view as akind of summary of acommitment that one has come to find unavoidable within one’slife, initiallyrooted in the experience of punishment,ofabeing able to traffic in obligatory,non-instrumental norms.⁵¹ Nor willepistemic certaintybeavailable. Commitment to the moral law, motivated by critical discernment,will remain an actively maintained stance, not the product of anydiscernment-neutral theory modeledonthe sciences.⁵² (AsWittgenstein once wrote, “Imust plungeinto the waterofdoubt again and again.”⁵³)But the normative value of maintaining this stance is there to be discerned from within awide-rangeofadequate circumstances, includingvirtu- allyall non-emergency circumstances within modern settled life and involving significant interactions across group boundaries. To know the moral lawistoac- knowledge it from within what,who, and whereone is.⁵⁴

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 CompareEldridge ,pp. –, –. –.  Here the view should be contrasted with the constitutivist view urgedbyChristine Kors- gaard, according to which “what it is to be aperson, or arational agent,isjust to be engaged in the activity of constantlymakingyourself into aperson” where “the categorical imperative,” as “constitutive of action,” is unconditionallynormatively bindingonthis process of making. (Korsgaard ,pp. , )Against this,Karl Ameriks is surelyright to point out that “in ordinary languageone would not be called irrational simplybecause one has not achieved or ap- proached aso-called rationallymaximal state” (Ameriks ,p.), so that it will be impossible to ground commitment to the bindingauthority of the categorical imperative solelyinthe structureofrational agency.  Wittgenstein  p. .  Robert Louden and Beatrix Himmelmannpressed me to develop the moral psychology pre- sentedhereinless exclusively Kantian terms and to be explicit about the relevant concept of justification. Hans Oberdiek and Krista Thomason readand commented on an earlier draft of this essay. Earlier versions of this essaywerepresented to audiences at ajoint University of Syd- ney-University of New South Wales conference on Natureand Culture in German Romanticism and Idealism and at the philosophydepartment of the University of Western Australia, in each of which settings Ireceiveduseful responses.Iam grateful to all these individuals and audiences. Acknowledging the Moral Law 215

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993): PhilosophicalOccasions, 1912–1951,eds. James Klagge and Alfred Nordmann. Indianapolis: Hackett. Erik Lundestad “Why Be Moral?” Pragmatism’sAttempt to Dismiss the Issue

Pragmatists holdthat the question, “Whybemoral?” bothcan and oughttobe dismissed. As they see it,this question onlyappears interesting for those of us who, mistakenly, assume that morality forms asphere distinct from that of prudence. Giventhis misconception, moralacts will be seen as having aspecific aim, different from that of prudential acts. Thus, the question will appear: Whydoweact morally? What are moral acts aimed at?Pragmatists,however,dismiss the notion of therebeing such agap between morality and prudence. This distinction, they argue, does not have anyprecursor in practice, in the manner in which we act.Since, accordingtopragmatism, everythingthat we do is aimedat agood, the question, “Whybemoral?” just isn’tvery interesting.But is this pragmatic dismissal of the “Whybemoral?” issue convincing?Can the question, “Whybemoral?” reallybedismissed in this manner?Since pragmatism contains awide rangeofapproaches,Iwill in the following be discussing these issues in relation to what Imyself consider the most promisingofthese, namelythatof John Dewey.

Like other pragmatists,John Dewey takes the interest surroundingthe “Whybe moral?” question to result from the notion that there is agap between that sphere in which we act in order to obtain something that we consider good and that sphere in which we act on the basis of other,specifically moral reasons. Like other pragmatists, moreover,Dewey believes that everything we do is done in order to obtain agood. As he sees it,therefore, thereisnosuch gap. This, however,isnot something which it is sufficient merelytoclaim. What must be done, rather,istoshow that the notion of such agap is superfluous,i.e.thatthere is no need to appeal to it in order to make sense of what we do. Dewey’smain philosophical strategy, therefore, is thatofreconstruction. Thisimplies that what are perceivedasdistinctively “moral” acts, must be reconstructed – or “re-described”,asthe neo-pragmatist Richard Rorty would latercall it – so that they too maybeseen as something which is done in order to obtain agood. The test as to whether the “Whybemoral?” issue can rightlybedismissed, we are thus in po- 218 Erik Lundestad sition to state,iswhether all that we do can be reconstructed pragmatically – as done in order to obtain agood. It is in accordancewith the philosophical strategywhich has been outlined abovethat John Dewey,inhis 1908 Ethics,argues thatconcepts such as ‘duty’, ‘right’ and ‘obligation’ maybeseen as resulting from our need to make up, or compensatefor,temporary failures in the waythat we adjust to our environment (Dewey 1978,p.310). Dewey’spoint is that since we do not always adjust suc- cessfullytoour surroundings, we sometimes need to be told thatwehavea duty or obligation to do this or that. AccordingtoDewey,the purpose of notions such as these is thereforetocorrect our behaviorsothat what we do in fact is aimed at something good. In well-known works such as Human Nature and Conduct (1922) and The Quest for Certainty (1929) this same approach manifests itself in the mannerin which Dewey emphasizes the establishingofhabits,thatisofhow children learn to anticipate how other people willreact to what they do, and how,in turn, these reactions are internalized by the child. The resultofsuccessfullyhav- ing established habits,Dewey maythereforeemphasize, is thatinagivenin- stance there is no gapbetween the child’sown conception of the good and what truly is good. It should be stressed that Dewey does not implythat we will ever reach a stageinwhich concepts such as ‘duty’, ‘right’ or ‘obligation’ mayinfact be left behind. Dewey,tothe contrary,explicitlycriticizes notions of a ‘final end’ (Dewey 2002,p.174 – 175). What he points out is that these concepts have aspecific, empirical purpose or end,namelytoensurethatour notions of the good do not lose touchwith reality – with what in fact is good. There are several problems related to apragmatic approach of the kind now considered. The one problem Iwill be concerned with in what follows is thatit runs the risk of conflatingwhat is good with that which acontingent society at a giventime actually takes to be good. Those familiar with pragmatism will identify this problem as aparallel to the (better known) problem of whether pragmatism mistakenlyconflates what is true with what we in fact take to be true. Some (neo‐)pragmatists,most notablyperhaps,Richard Rorty,would be more than happy with such aconflation. As Rorty sees it,tobemoral simply is to have internalized aspecific set of values and norms. If Isay,making use of first person, “We” or “People of our sort” don’tdothis,Rorty would argue, Iamreportinganorm. If, on the other hand,Istand back from my community, and report, in the third person: “They” or “People of their sort” don’tdothis, then Iamreportingafact.For Rorty the sourceofthe norm is the internalization of the fact,orvice versa, the sourceofthe fact is the externalization of the norm (Rorty 2007,p.196–197). “Why Be Moral?” Pragmatism’sAttempt to Dismiss the Issue 219

The reason thatweact morallyaccording to Rorty is thus simplythatwe have made certain values and norms our own. Rortycites Christine Korsgaard who claims that asuccessful answer to the question, “Whybemoral?”“must show that sometimes doing the wrong thing is as bad or worse than death”– and who goes on to note that “the onlything that could be as bad or worse than death is something that for us amountstodeath – not being ourselves anymore” (Rorty 2007,p.197). Rortyagrees to this,but regrets that Korsgaard takes it to implythatthere must be something other or more going on than that we have internalized acertain set of norms. Rorty’sview is highlycontroversial, and for good reasons.Inamuch discussed scene from Mark Twain’snovel, TheAdventures of HuckleberryFinn (which Rorty himself refers to), Huck Finn eventuallydecides to help Jim, the runawayslave,escape rather than turn him in. He thus acts against both the values and norms of the society of which he is part and his own conscience. As Rorty sees it,Huck Finn is, by doing this, simplytaking on another moral identity (Rorty 2007,p.197). Since, for Rorty, there is no such thing as morality in dis- tinctiontoour actual, historicallyconstituted,and thereforecontingent, concepts of morality,there is no non-circular wayfor us to arguethathelping Jim escape is the right thing for Huck Finn to do. Dewey would agree with Rortythatbeing moralistohavemadecertain values and norms one’sown. He would not agree, however,thatthe values and norms we adhere to are merelycontingent.UnlikeRorty, Dewey would insist that Huck Finn, when deciding to help Jimescape rather than report him, is doing what he oughttodoinasense of “ought” which is not merelyrelative to acontingent set of values and norms. But,and this is the crucial issue for apragmatist approach to morality,what sense of “ought” can this possibly be? Mustn’tpragmatists,given thatthey distance themselvesfrom the notion of adistinctivemoral realm, also distance themselvesfrom the notion of there being anyother sense of “ought” thanthe one we are in position to identify on the basisofour actual values and norms?May it not be plausiblyargued therefore, that Rorty’sconflation is what pragmatism, in effect,must come down to? To address this issue, let’sreturn to Dewey’s1908 Ethics. In this work, Dewey proposes that to deliberate can be seen as performing a “dramatic rehear- sal” (Dewey 1978,p.292). What this means is that when we deliberate we let possible courses of action unfold themselvesinour imagination so that we are able to foresee the effects they will have in real life. This notion of a “dramatic rehear- sal” provides the basis for the later,full-fledgedpragmatic approach Dewey is to take in works such as Human Natureand Conduct and TheQuest for Certainty. In these works he suggests that “we regard our direct and original experiences of 220 Erik Lundestad thingsliked and enjoyed as onlypossibilities of values to be achieved, that enjoyment becomes avalue when we discover the relation upon which its presence depends” (Dewey 1960,p.259). What Dewey here is saying is that when we deliberate over what we ought to do, we always start out with our own, actual beliefs of something as valuable or good. Rather than identifying that which – objectively speaking – is valuable or good with these beliefs, however,Dewey suggests that we should approach these beliefs as potential candidates for what is valuable or good in an objectivefash- ion. To settle whether these actual beliefs truly are valuable or good, therefore, we need to test them. What Dewey is suggesting,inother words, is thus thatour beliefs regarding the valuable or good should be seen as hypotheses open for testing. HereisDewey:

Anybelief as such is tentative,hypothetical, it is not just to be acted upon, but is to be framed with reference to its officeasaguide to action. Consequently, it should be the last thinginthe world to be picked up casuallyand then clungontorigidly. When it is ap- prehended as atool and onlyatool, an instrumentality of direction, the same scrupulous attention will go to its formation as now goes into the makingofinstruments of precision in technical fields.[…]Amoral law, like alaw in physics, is not somethingtoswearbyand stick to at all hazards;itisaformula of the waytorespond when specified conditions present themselves(Dewey 1960,p.278).

This passagecaptures the distinctive features of Dewey’spragmatism, or “instrumentalism” as he himself was going to call it.Beliefs, he states, should be seen as tools,asguides to action. It must be emphasized that Dewey is not suggesting that beliefs are “subjective” in the sense that it is “up to me” to decidewhich belief best satisfies my own interests, desires or needs. Part of the reason whythe need for adistinct moral sphere arose in the first place, Dewey believes, is because of the misguided assumption thatweinfact are self-interested individuals. Once this assumption has been made, it becomes necessary to introduce the notionofmorality as something “over” or “above” the empirical sphere in order to explain whynot all of our actions are self-interested. This, Dewey believes, is the basis of the moral philosophyofKant.AccordingtoDewey,Kant “carries to the logical extreme [the misguided] notion of the opposition between all the values which satisfy desires and the true moralgood” (Dewey 1985, p. 220). This opposition, however,does not merelyisolate morality from our doingsatlarge,but also serves to isolate the empirical sciences from morality:

The narrow scopewhich moralists often give to morals, their isolation of some conduct as virtuous and vicious from other large ranges of conduct,those havingtodowith health and vigor, business,education, with all the affairs in which desires and affection areimplicated, “Why Be Moral?” Pragmatism’sAttempt to Dismiss the Issue 221

is perpetuated by this habitofexclusionofthe subject-matter of natural sciencefromarole in formation of moral standards and ideals.The same attitude operates in the other direction to keep natural science atechnical specialty,and it works unconsciouslytoencourage its use exclusively in regions where it can be turned to personal and class advantage, as in war and trade (Dewey 1960,p.274).

Dewey’sown position, in contrast, is that anykind of deliberation (whetheritis concerned with morality,science or everydaylife) takes place against abackground of alreadyestablished social practices.Why,say,doweeat bread rather than porridge for breakfast?Why do we greet people as we do, rather than in some otherway?There are no readyanswers for such questions. It is justthe waywedothings. If, however,thingsdonot turn out as we are usedto, if say, aproblem occurs,weexperience doubt as to how to proceed. It is this experience of doubt,Charles Sanders Peirce, the founderofpragmatism, would say, which “sets the problem” (Peirce 1955,p.11). Accordingtopragmatism therefore, anyattempt to ‘secure’ inquiry by riddingusofall unwarranted assumptions, will have to be seen as doomed from the start. What has been said also implies that for anybelief to put an end to our experience of doubt,itmust be able to “fit in” with other parts of our experience, that is, with other facts thatare known to us, with other beliefs thatweconsider valid, and so forth. And again, the fact that abelief maybeable to end our doubt here and now,does not implythat it maynot,inthe future, give rise to other problems,which is whyDewey in the cited passagestresses thatbeliefs should not be “clungontorigidly” but be regarded as fallible, or as open for future revision. Another wayofstating this point would be to saythatDewey is advising us to follow the lead of the modern,empirical sciences.Within these sciences, Dewey believes, we do not onlycooperate in reaching acommon goal, but it is commonplacefor everyone to treat their beliefs as fallible. Scientists are always prepared, ideallyatleast,torevise theirtheories. It is this very attitude, Dewey believes, that should provide the basis for how we approach all areas of life. So whybemoral?Accordingtowhat has been said, thereisn’tmuch to be said about this. Since, according to Dewey’spragmatism, there are no distinct moral acts, there is no specific realm of morality “over” or “beyond” the realm of prudence; to act morallyistoact in order to realizeagood. This, Dewey would argue, is what we do, for the most part at least,when we raise children, advise students, help customers, do research, take part in political decisions and so forth. It mayturn out,ofcourse, that we in our teaching, say, have made use of amethod which has some drawbacks, or that we,inour med- 222 Erik Lundestad ical practice, have made use of amedical procedurewhich, as it turns out,has certain less advantageous effects. Life does not come with anyguarantees.The point is merelythat when such thingshappen, we should be prepared to revise our methods and procedures. All we can do is to adjust our activities as best we can, as we go along.Since, accordingtowhat has been said, we are all social beingsconcerned with the well-being of others, therejust isn’tany need for anotion of morality as something “over” or “above” this.

Not everyone will agree, of course, that all of our issues can be settledempirical- ly.AccordingtoJürgenHabermas it is amistake to assumethatwecan distinguish what is rightfully considered valuable or good from what we merely take to be valuable or good by wayoftestingour beliefs, in the manner of Dewey’s pragmatism. What enables us to draw this distinctionaccordingtoHabermas is not,asDewey mistakenlythinks, the existenceofanempirical reality which somehow “allows” us to perform some acts successfullywhereas it “denies” us the possibilityofperforming other acts. It is the existenceofpeople, rather, with values and norms that are different from our own. The onlyreason Dewey fails to recognize this, Habermas believes, is because he presupposes from the outset that we have common values and norms. Dewey approaches morality “from the perspective of community members concernedwith theircommon good” (Habermas 2005,p.234). The moral agreement in which Dewey’spragmatic approach is intended to result is in fact presupposed already from the outset! The basic reason Habermas takes Dewey’spragmatism to be flawed is thus that it is based on what he – Habermas – refers to as a “vertical We-perspective.” Within this perspective all members of society “[top to bottom] can identify everyone else as amember of the same cooperative community” (Habermas 2005, p. 234). Givenavertical We-perspective,therefore, the issue as to which values and norms we ought to adhere to is alreadydecided. The onlyissue at stake is how these common values and norms best can be accommodated. This, to be sure, is an empirical issue. The problem, however,isthatthe “vertical We-perspective” cannot form the basis in “discourses thatcross communal boundaries.” The reason for this,heclaims, is that in such discourses “the participants take on afirst-person-plural perspective that is not verticallydirected at all members top to bottom,but horizontally at the mutual inclusion of the other.” (Hab- ermas 2005,p.234) It is thus onlyonthe basis of adistinctive “horizontal We- perspective” that we are able to account for morality,accordingtoHabermas. He then goes on to point out that it was another classical Americanpragmatist, “Why Be Moral?” Pragmatism’sAttempt to Dismiss the Issue 223 namelyGeorge Herbert Mead, who emphasized how such apoint of view is “gen- eratedbyall participants symmetricallyand reciprocallytaking on each other’s perspectives” (Habermas 2005,p.234). The case of Huck Finn maythus be taken to illustrate what Habermas takes to be the problem. The problem, it seems, is thataslongasDewey’spragmatism leavesout the so-called “horizontal” We-perspective altogether, it will repeat Huck Finn’smistake of identifying thatwhich oughttobedone with that which his own society believes oughttobedone. If Huck Finn had been apragmatist of Dewey’skind, it would thereforeseem, he would test whether it is helping Jimescape or reporting him which contributes to the largersocial good. The depressinganswer that he would have come to, giventhe values and norms of the society of which he is part,would thus be that the morallyresponsible thing to do would be to report Jim. It would seem therefore, that Dewey’spragmatic attempt to dismiss the “Whybemoral?” question by wayofunderminingthe gapbetween morality and prudence, results in preciselythat kind of conflation which is defended by Rorty. This conflation, most of us would argue, is not satisfactory since it rules out the possibilityofa(non-circular)way of approaching the issue as to which values and norms we ought to adhere to. In the last instance,itwould seem, it simply replaces moralitywith prudence. The lesson to be learned, it thereforeseems, is that Kant and Habermasare right in claiming that the notion of adistinct moralsphere must be upheld. The presented criticism mayappear devastating. There is nevertheless aresponse. As we have seen, one of the main points of Dewey’spragmatism is that everything we do is done in order to realize some desire or need.For apragmatist,this is simplywhat it means to act.AsDewey points out in Human Nature and Conduct,tobealiving being is to have specific desires and needstosatisfy. To transcend these would thus be to transcend life itself. But not onlyisitinfact impossible to overcome the very sphere of our desires and needsassuch. It doesn’tevenmake sense to uphold doing so as an ideal. The reason for this is that it is only because we have certain desires and needs that we are able to experience something as something,i.e.as, cold, dry,satisfying,missing,beautifulorexact.Take away our desires and needs, therefore, and youtakeawaythe possibility of experiencing something as something altogether.The notion of morality as constituting adistinct sphere “over” that of prudencetherefore, doesn’tmake sense. If such asphere existed it would, accordingtothe point now made, necessarilyhavetobeempty.This line of criticism maynot onlybeapplied to Kant,but also, as Albrecht Wellmer has shown, to Habermas.AsWellmer points out,Habermas’ very notion of an “ideal communication community” must in itself be seen as misguided,since even to imagine 224 Erik Lundestad such acommunity is to imagine asituation in which therewould be nothing left to communicate(Wellmer 1998). It would seem therefore, that we are confronted with adilemma. From the point of view of Habermas and others, it maybeargued that the resultofany attempt to do without the notion of adistinct moral sphere will be that we miss out on morality altogether.Onthe otherhand, apragmatist such as Dewey may, with justasmuch right,argue that anynotion of such adistinct sphere will have to be emptysince to distance ourselvesfrom our desires and needs as such is to distance ourselvesfrom the very possibilitytoexperience something as something. It is, Isuspect,this very dilemma thatRorty’sprovocative form of neo-pragmatism is trading on. Even though most of us will find Rorty’sconflation of what is moral with what we take to be moralhighlyunsatisfactory,Rortymay still defend his position indirectly, i.e. by pointing out that there is no alternative,since the notion of adistinct moral sphere maybedismissed as absurd. Since, however,Rortymerelysettles for one horn of the dilemma, this is astrategy which goes both ways.His opponents, such as Habermas,may therefore, with just as much right,defend their position indirectly, i.e. by pointingout thatRorty misses out on morality altogether. The implication to be drawnfrom this is thatifpragmatism is to be successful in its dismissal of the “Whybemoral?” question, then it will have to come up with asatisfying solution to this dilemma. It will have to come up with an approach that maintains the autonomyofthe moral sphere (so thatitcannot be (rightfully) accused of missing out on morality altogether), but,without cutting the relation to desires and needs completely(so that it cannot be (rightfully) accused of presentinguswith an empty notion of morality). Can this be done?

III

It is well established that Dewey came to revisehis ownapproach to morality. This revision takes place with “Three IndependentFactors in Morals”,alecture he gave to the French Philosophical Society in 1930.HereDewey for the first time distinguishesbetween three independent factors in morality.Hethereby distan- ces himself from the approach taken in the original 1908 Ethics,wherehehad argued that notionssuch as ‘duty’, ‘right’ and ‘obligation’ can and oughttobe analyzed on the basisofthe notion of the ‘good’ (Pappas 2008, p. 94). This revision, Iwould like to argue, maybeseen as resulting from an attempt to solve the dilemma which was presented above. To illustrate how Dewey now ap- “Why Be Moral?” Pragmatism’sAttempt to Dismiss the Issue 225 proaches the issue,consider the following passagefrom the revised 1932 edition of his Ethics,describingthe relation between aparent and achild:

Achild maybesubject to demandsfromaparent which express nothingbut the arbitrary wish of the latter,plus apower to make the child suffer if he does not conform. But the claims and demands to which the child is subject need not proceed from arbitrary will; they mayissue fromthe very natureoffamilylife in the relation which exists between pa- rentand offspring. Then they do not come to the child as an external and despotic power, but as expressions of awhole to which he himself belongs.Heismoved to respond by his affection for his parents,byhis respect for their judgment; even when the demand runs contrary to his uppermost desirehestill responds to it as somethingnot whollyalien. Be- cause of inherent relationships persons sustain to one another,they are exposed to the expectations of others and to the demands in which these expectationsare made manifest (Dewey 1985, p. 218).

Previously, we remember,Dewey had focused rather one-sidedlyonhow we learn to adapt to the claims of our parents and thus to alreadyexisting values and norms. It is, we have seen, preciselythis one-sidedness that Habermas takes to undermine Dewey’sposition. As he sees it,itresultsinDewey’sassump- tion that established values and norms are givenand thus isolated from criticism. In passages such as the one cited above, however,wefind the beginnings of an alternative approach to this issue.Rather than focusingonhow the child adapts to alreadyestablished values and norms, Dewey is now approaching values and norms as something which results from the mutual claims and demands of thosewho are involved. In the cited passage, we can see, Dewey is focusingonthe distinction between arbitrary and non-arbitrary claims. Some claims, he states,are arbitrary because they are basedmerelyonthe parent’sown desires and needs. Other claims, however,are non-arbitrary because they are basedonwhat Dewey calls the “very nature” of the relation between parent and child. To the degree that aclaim or demand is based on the “very nature” of this relation, he goes on to argue, it willnot be viewed as resulting from aforceexternal to the child, but will be seen rather,as“an expression of awhole to which he himself belongs.” This differencebetween arbitrary and non-arbitrary claims, Dewey then goes on to point out,also manifests itself in the wayinwhich the child reactsvis-à-vis claims. Whereas achild acting on behalf of aclaim which it recognizesasarbi- trary maydosoinorder,say,toavoid punishment,achild acting on behalf of a claim thatitrecognizes as non-arbitrary,may do so out of respect for the judgment of the parent.Evenif, in this last instance, theremay exist agap between what the child wants to do and what the parent tells it to do, the child maynev- ertheless choose to do what the parent tells it to do, out of respect for the judg- 226 Erik Lundestad ment of the parent.Inasituation such as this, we maythus say, the claim is ac- knowledgedaslegitimate or right. Dewey’spoint,tobesure, is not to suggest thatthe parent and the child are equal negotiators.The point,rather,isthat not everythingthatthe parent does vis-à-vis the child is in the child’sbest interest.Rather the child has its own claims and demands (even though it maynot be able to give expression to them as such). So, justasthe parent mayraise questions regardingthe claims and demands of the child, the child mayraise questions regardingthe claims and demands of the parent:

The case is perhaps even clearer if we consider the parent as one whoisalso subject to claims.These need not be voiced in explicit form by the child; they do not proceed con- sciouslyfromhim. But the parent whoisconscientious feels that that they areinvolved in the parental relation. Because of this human relationship, something is owed to the child even though (perhaps even morebecause) the latter is not able to formulatethat claim in anyexpress demand (Dewey 1985, p. 218).

On this basisitmay be argued thatwhat Dewey now is offering us, albeit onlyin outline, is preciselythatwhich seemed lacking in his previous approach. Where- as he previouslyhad focused on how we address problems against acommon set of values and norms, he is now introducing the notion of asphere in which a plurality of claims and demands are openlydiscussed and criticized. He is pre- senting us, in short, with the notion of adistinct moral sphere. So, rather than seeing notions such as thoseof‘duty’, ‘right’ and ‘obligation’ as resulting from the need to compensatefor failures in the wayweadjust to the environment,asDewey had done in the original 1908 edition of the Ethics,he now sees these notionsasresulting from the relations we have to other people, with distinct claims and demands. So, justasI,accordingtothis view,may have certain obligations or duties towards you, youhavecertain obligations or duties towards me. Even though,moreover,what youmay demand of me mayconflict with what Imyself want to do, Imay nevertheless,accordingtothis revised view, recognize your demand as legitimate and therefore come to the conclusion thatI ought to act in accordancewith it,rather thandowhat Iprefer to do. In cases such as this the right will thus appear as distinct from the good; morality as distinct from prudence. “The Good is that which attracts”,Dewey now states, whereas “the Right is thatwhich asserts that we ought to be drawnbysome object whether we are naturallyattracted to it or not” (Dewey 1985, p. 216–217). But does not this implythat Dewey simply has givenuponhis own, pragmatic position?No, it does not.The point is that even if he is now insisting that the right must be analyzedindependentlyofthe good, he nevertheless maintains that there is arelation between the two. Accordingtowhat has “Why Be Moral?” Pragmatism’sAttempt to Dismiss the Issue 227 been said, the right signifies something that aperson does not in fact consider his or her owngood, but that he or she nevertheless should take to be agood. It is this element of ‘should’,wehaveseen, that differentiates the notion of the ‘right’ from thatofthe ‘good’.This, however,does not implythat agap therefore exists between the two, since what ‘should be’ is thatsomeone finds arequired wayof acting good. It maythus be asked whether the conduct that oughttobeper- formed,which allegedlyhas moral authority, actually contributes to agood in which the person upon whom the duty is laid will share. According to Dewey, this lastquestion, to be sure, is an empirical one. It maytherefore be tested. So, even though Dewey no longer accounts for moral principles and beliefs on the basis of our dealingswith the environment,but rather by wayofour con- frontingapluralityofpeople with distinct claims and demands, this does not rule out that these principles and beliefs can be tested empirically. Such atest- ing,heinsists, willsettle whether what we consider right in fact is good. On this basis, we can begin to see the outlinesofthe wayinwhich Dewey intends to solve the previouslymentioned dilemma.Whereas the moraland the prudential must be recognizedastwo (relatively)independent spheres, each with its own set of concepts and logic, one must simultaneouslymaintain that there must be a “feedback relation” between the two (Hickman 2007). That is, each of the twospheres bothcan and oughttobeevaluatedinlight of the other. We have seen that accordingtoHabermas,Dewey’spragmatism presupposes the existenceofacommon set of values and norms. That is, it presupposes a “Vertical We-perspective”.This, Habermas, believes, impliesthat the testing of beliefs is merelyable to decide which means best servethe purposes or ends that these alreadyestablished values and norms provide us with. The distinct question of which values and norms we oughttoadhere to is ignored. Even though Dewey spends aconsiderable amount of time trying to undermine preciselythat clear-cut distinction between means and ends on which Hab- ermas’ criticism is based, it must be said that Dewey’sworks prior to the revision do give the impression that he presupposes acommon set of values and norms and that he thereforeemphasizes the “vertical” rather than the “horizontal” We- perspective.Heisthus, we maysay,merelysettling for one horn of the dilemma. In his revised stance, on the other hand,Dewey makes it quite clear that to emphasize the one need not rule out the other. In his later work, therefore, Dewey is stressing the relative autonomyofthe spheres,and thus the continuity of morality and prudence, of ethics and the empirical sciences.Heis, as Larry A. Hickman puts it, “envision[ing] scientifictechnologyand communicative action as continuous with one another and as features of alargerinquirential project…” (Hickmann 2007,p.68–69). In this manner,pragmatists of Dewey’skind believe 228 Erik Lundestad that it is possible to leave behind the dilemma thatseems to beleaguer Haber- mas. In Hickman’swords, it becomes possible for them to arguethat Habermas leavesuswith “an underlying dualism from which his project continues to suffer” (Hickmann2007, p. 69).

The cornerstone of Dewey’spragmatism, we have seen, is that (moral) principles and beliefs should not be thought of as belongingtoadistinct sphere, but should be revised on the basis of the empirical knowledge that we have—both of ourselvesand of the environment in which we live.What does this approach amount to in practice? Do we have anyinstances to which we can point? One contemporary instance of preciselythis approach maybefound in the wayinwhich Cass R. Sunstein, professor of lawatHarvard, has argued that we ought to approach problems of public policy.His highlyinfluential approach is presented in anumber of books, including Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (2008, co-written with Richard H. Thaler), Sim- pler: TheFuture of Government (2013) and WhyNudge? ThePolitics of Libertarian Paternalism (2014). Even though Sunstein is focusingmore on political rather than moral issues his approach is, as we shallsee, of adistinctivelyDeweyan kind. Between 2009 and 2012,Sunstein served as headofthe Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Thisoffice was created in 1980 by the so-called “Paperwork Reduction Act”.Underthis act,nofederal agency in the United States is allowed to make youfill out aform unless OIRA allows it to do so (Sun- stein 2013,p.2). In 1981 President Reagan gave OIRA an even more important role, namelytooversee federal regulation. In Simpler: TheFuture of Government (2013) Sunstein accounts for his time at OIRA, and for what he considers anew approach to the issue of regulation. The following bringsforth the basic features of this approach:

Should we rely entirelyonthe free market to protect the safety of food?Toprotect clean air? Even the most market-friendlyeconomists recognize the existenceofmarket failures, which can justifyregulation. Suppose that food safety and clean air regulation can save large numbers of livesand do so at alow cost. Or suppose, even, that such regulation can save large numbers of livesand do so at ahighcost. Ever sincethe Reagan administration, American presidents have focused on producing ‘net benefits’ or benefits minus costs. If the net benefits arehigh, we have good reason to go forward, whatever our abstract misgiv- ingsabout regulations (Sunstein 2013,p.33). “Why Be Moral?” Pragmatism’sAttempt to Dismiss the Issue 229

As we can see, Sunstein perceivesitasmeaningless to be against regulations per se. The characteristic feature of his approach, however,isthatitattempts to moveusbeyond the unhelpful notions of regulations, either as something inherentlygood, as the political left tends to believe, or as inherentlyevil, as the political right tends to believe. The problem, he thinks, is that the political debate easilygets stuck in less than helpful categoriesfocusingeither on “the dangers of ‘more’ government” and “the risk of socialism” or on “threats posed by ‘the big polluters’ and ‘the banks’” (Sunstein 2013,p.35). Sunstein is apragmatist – as is President Obama (Kloppenberg2011). He thereforethinksthat the best waytoget out of stalemates of this kind is by wayoftestingour beliefs. “What is needed to getout of this stalemate not onlyinthe United States but all over the world, is smart,innovative strategies and tools, focused aboveall on evidence and on what works and what doesn’t” (Sunstein 2013,p.35). This appeal to empirical testingand to “what works and what doesn’t” is, as we have previouslyseen, the very trademark of pragmatism. WhatSunstein is suggesting,therefore, is simplythat both the political left,with their idea of regulationassomething inherentlygood, and the political right,with their idea of regulationassomething inherentlybad, should subject theirideas to testing. What are the effects of aspecific instance of regulating?Let’sfind out! And – not least – let us be willingtoreconsider our viewpoints in light of what we find! The basisfor Sunstein’sapproach is found in the field of studywhich is com- monlyreferred to as “behavioral economics”.This field, which was founded by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, is characterized by the attempt to merge economic theory with the findingsofempirical psychology. The assumption underlying the field as awhole is that mainstream economists are mistaken in identifying man as arational agent.Itmay be helpful, alreadyatthis point,toremind ourselvesofpragmatism’scriticism of the assumption that we, in fact,are self- interested beings. The point,namely,isthat they bothdrawthe same conclusion from this finding.Both behavioral economics and pragmatism maybesaid to implythat because we are not purelyrational – because our ownprinciples and beliefs are not simply to be trusted – we ought to approach these principles and beliefs as fallible, and subject them to testing. Accordingtobehavioral economists it is helpful to draw adistinction between two distinct modes of thinking,one intuitive and automatic, one reflexive and rational. These two modes may, with Daniel Kahneman (2011), be referred to as “System 1” and “System 2” respectively.AccordingtoKahneman it is “System 1” that we make use of when we duck when an object is thrown at us, or smile when we see something cute, or completeasentencesuch as “bread and …”.All of this is something that we do immediately, without consciouslythinking.Sys- tem 1works fast,and is experiencedasintuitive.Itdoes not even involvewhat 230 Erik Lundestad we normallyassociate with thinking.This, on the other hand, is preciselywhat is characteristic of “System 2”,which is what we applywhen we decidetocheck whether an argument is valid, whenwedecide which road to take, or decide on an education (Kahneman 2011). Both of these two systems are active as long as we are awake. “System 1” continuouslygenerates suggestions to System 2. If System 2accepts these suggestions, our impressions and intuitions are turned into beliefs, impulses are turned into actions. We do not always bother,however,torun our intuitions through System 2. Forthe most part,this too turns out well. Generallyspeaking, the impressions we receive are trustworthyand we can act on the basis of the desires and wishesthat we have.But this is not always so. System 1isgood at dealing with well-known situations and hits the mark fairlywellwhen it comes to making short-term predictions.Inaddition, its reactions are, for the most part at least,quick and to the point. System 1nevertheless makes systematic mistakes.Itmakes use of misleading rules of thumb,and “jumps” to conclusions which do not follow from the premises.Itisheavilyinfluenced by how different alternativesare presented to us, and sometimes even by information which is completelyirrelevant to the decisions that we are about to make. Whatthis implies is thathow much we eat in fact will depend on how large the portions are which we are served. What we choose to buy is dependent on how the different alternativesare presented to us. We are more apt to choose amedical procedurewhich has 20 per cent changeofsucceeding thanone thathas an 80 per cent chance of failing. We believethat it is less likelythat we will be the victims of an accident,even when it comes to something completelycontingent,such as beingstruck by lightning. We evaluatethe worth of objects differently, depending on whether it is something we ourselvesown or whether it is merelysomething that we want.Smoking,tobesure, is the subject of anumber of systematic errors of this kind. Even if we are aware of the dangers of smoking,wedonot think that we will be affected by them. Or we believethatsince so manypeople smoke, it cannot be as dangerous as the medical expertsclaim. Or thatsince we know someone who has smoked all her life without getting cancer,weare not likelytoget it either.And so on. These findings, to be sure, confirm the basic presuppositions of the pragmatists. Both Peirce and Dewey,wehaveseen, arguethat anyattempt to “secure” inquiry by ridding us of all unwarranted assumptions is doomed from the start.This is because, as they see it,inquiry takes place against abackground of alreadyestablished practices.Itisthis background that “sets” the problem. In our day-to-day life, therefore, we do not have readyanswers as to whywe do thingsinpreciselythe manner we do. It is justthe waywedothings. We sim- “Why Be Moral?” Pragmatism’sAttempt to Dismissthe Issue 231 plyrelyonsociallyestablished procedures, habits etc. What the research of the behavioral economists bringsforth, however,isthatthese procedures resultin certain systematic mistakes.The point is thus not onlythat our established procedures may lead us into problems,asthe pragmatists tended to remind us. The point rather,madebythe behavioraleconomists, is that these established procedures constantly run into problems – and in highlysystematic ways. AccordingtoSunstein, the empirical testingofprinciples and beliefs may thus have exactlythe same function as thatwhich System 2has in regardtoSys- tem 1. That is, it is onlybyway of empirical testing that we are able to keep these systematic mistakes at bay. Dewey would have agreed. As he sees it,the onlyal- ternative to testingour beliefs is “prejudice, the pressureofimmediate circum- stance, self-interest and class interest, traditional customs,institutions of accidental historical origin” (Dewey 1960,p.265). To be against testingone’s beliefs empiricallyis, bothfor Dewey and Sunstein, to be adogmatist.There just isn’tany waytomake progress,they believe, without approaching our principles and beliefs as open to revision. This is the case in the empirical sciences, it is the caseinpolitics, and it should also be the case in debates over moral issues.

Pragmatists,ofcourse, tend to be rather optimistic about what maybeachieved by wayoftheir own approach. Dewey famouslybelieved that by wayofpragma- tism, philosophers could once again concern themselveswith the “problems of men” (i.e. with ameliorating the conditions under which we live), rather than merelywith the problems of philosophers (i.e. with issues such as the “Why be moral?” question). Sunstein for his part,wehaveseen, believes that the pragmatic approach mayserveasa“third way”,thereby uniting the political left and the political right.This, it is safe to say, is overlyoptimistic. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of contemporary Americanpolitics, for instance,will be aware that it is not characterized by compromises. However,this lack of success, which of course maybedeemed somewhat ironic, givenpragmatism’sstress on “what works”,need not be taken to indicate, however,thatthere are principled problems related to pragmatism as such. After all, for pragmatism to work, people must be pragmatists (rather than dogma- tists). Pragmatism’slack of success maythus be explained, not with reference to problems in regard to it,but with reference, rather,tothe dogmatism of its opponents. 232 Erik Lundestad

This, however,will hardlybesufficient for convincing those who in fact op- pose pragmatism. Has pragmatism of the Deweyan kind, they will ask, really succeeded in solving the presented dilemma?Orisits solution merelyapparent? Mayitnot still be objected, even after Dewey’srevision, that pragmatism’semphasis on the good – or on “welfare” as we would saytoday – comes at a price, namelythat of personal autonomy? Might it not still be insisted that which principles and beliefs Ichoose to adhere to must be up to me, not because leaving it up to me necessarilywill have the best results, but preciselybecause it will then have been my choice? “If my choosing it is part of what makes my life plan good”,Kwame AnthonyAppiah states in TheEthics of Identity, “then impos- ing on me aplan of life – even one that is, in other respects,anenviable one – is depriving me of acertain kind of good. Foraperson of aliberal disposition, my life’sshape is up to me, even if Imake alife that is objectivelyless good thana life Icould have made,provided that Ihavedone my duty towardothers” (Ap- piah 2005,p.14). We have previouslyseen that ChristineKorsgaardargues that anysuccessful answer to the question, “Whybemoral?”“must show that sometimes doing the wrongthing is as bad or worse than death”,and that “the onlything that could be as bad or worse thandeath is […]not being ourselvesanymore”.Given this point of view,morality is intimatelytied up with our own identity.So, it may be asked, doesn’tpragmatism’sfocus on testingand effects simply miss out on what is trulyimportant in regard to morality,namelythat it is by wayof being moralthat we maintain our ownself?May not that which the pragmatists themselvesdismiss as “dogmatism”,i.e.not to reviseone’sbeliefs as aresultof testing, be viewed as something positive,namelytostand by one’sown principles and beliefs – and thus, in the last instance, by one’sown self?Given Dew- ey’spragmatism, can anything possiblybe“as bad or worse than death”?And if not,should this not be seen as aproblem?Those of us who will answer this last question in the affirmative will, Isuspect,still dismiss Dewey’spragmatism as an attempt to changethe subject. Rather than focus on morality,which is an issue intimatelyrelated to our own identity and to our selvesasagents, they will argue, Dewey is focusing on prudence. It must be emphasized that the point is not that pragmatism cannot accommodate autonomyassuch. The point,rather,isthat it can onlyaccommodate weak versions of it.For apragmatist there is room for weak versions of autonomy.AccordingtoDewey’srevised approach, we have seen, notions such as ‘duty’, ‘obligation’ and ‘right’ must be analyzed independentlyofthe ‘good’; that is, they belong to adistinct sphere. Nevertheless, the question both can and ought to be raised whether thatwhich we should do (because it is our obligation or duty) in effect resultsinsomething good. AccordingtoSunstein, it is a “Why Be Moral?” Pragmatism’sAttempt to Dismiss the Issue 233 fact that we appreciate autonomy. As he sees it,however,this merelyforms part of our total welfare. Autonomymay thus be viewed as one of the (many) factors that should be included in the cost-benefit analysis (Sunstein 2014,p.124). Against the backdrop of what has been said, the relative lack of success that the pragmatic approach has had in the practical-political field,and especiallyin ethics, maybetaken to indicate that manyofusare not satisfiedwith weak versions of autonomy. Those of us who are not will see autonomy, not merelyasa part of welfarebut as an end in itself and thus as decisive.They will argue, with Appiah, that the point of my life being up to me is not that it will result in something objectivelybetter than if it werenot,but that it is up to me. Thisisthe strong version of autonomy. The problem with the strongversion of autonomy, from the point of view of Dewey’spragmatism, is that it turnsout to be empty; it doesn’thaveany content. As we have seen, Dewey pointsout that it is our desires and needs that enable us to experiencesomething as something.Any notion of the self which implies that we can stepbackfrom these – and this is preciselywhat is impliedbythe strong version of autonomy – must consequentlybedismissed. Defenders of the strongversion of autonomy, however,may arguethat this is anotion which must be upheld nevertheless. The reason for this is thatitmay be seen as forming aprerequisite for seeing what we do and sayasactions. How, they will ask, is it possible to perceive that which Idoasactions, as something which Iamresponsible for,unless these are said to have their “origin” or “source” preciselyinme? On this basis, the strongnotionofautonomymay be said to accommodate acertain perspective on ourselvesand our doings – that my doingshavetheir “origin” in me – which is necessary for us to presuppose, even in order to make sense of fields such as ethics, politics and jurisprudence. On this basis, defenders of strongautonomymay turn pragmatism’sdismissal of the “Whybemoral?” question on its head. Since pragmatism’sempirical approach cannot account for the strongversion of autonomy, it maynow be argued, and since this notion forms acondition for the very possibility of perceiv- ing us as acting beings, it isn’tthis issue,but pragmatism’sdismissal of it that must be dismissed. The unavoidable conclusion, therefore, is that pragmatists seem to be drawn right back into the dilemma which they believethemselves to have found the solution to. We thus still find ourselvesinthe position of having to choose between one view,advocated by Kant,Habermas,Appiah and others, accordingtowhich the notionofadistinct moral sphere must be upheld (since anyattempt to dismiss it will have the resultthatwemiss out on morality altogether),and another view,advocated by pragmatists of Dewey’skind, accordingtowhich the notion of adistinct or autonomous moral sphere must be dismissed (since anysuch no- 234 Erik Lundestad tion will be empty). Whether we believethat the “Whybemoral?” question can be dismissed, therefore, will depend on which horn of the dilemma we choose. Both horns will leave us with serious objections.

Bibliography

Appiah, KwameAnthony(2005): The Ethics of Identity. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press. Dewey,John (1978): Ethics 1908. The MiddleWorksofJohn Dewey1899–1924. Volume 5. Carbondale. Southern Illinois Press. Dewey,John (1960): The Questfor Certainty. New York: Capricorn Books. Dewey,John (2002): Human Natureand Conduct. New York: Prometheus Books. Dewey,John (1985): John Dewey: The Later Works,1925–1953. Volume 7: 1932. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press. Habermas,Jürgen(2005): “Norms and Values: On HilaryPutnam’sKantian Pragmatism”.In Habermas,Jürgen: Truth and Justification. Edited and withtranslations by Barbara Fultner.Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Hickman, LarryA.(2007): PragmatismasPost-Postmodernism. New York: Fordham University Press. Kahneman, Daniel (2011): Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar,Straus and Giroux. Kloppenberg, James T. (2011): Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope and the American Political Tradition. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Pappas, GregoryFernando (2008): John Dewey’sEthics: Democracy as Experience. Bloomington and Indianapolis: IndianaUniversityPress. Peirce, Charles Sanders(1955): “The Fixation of Belief”.InBuchler,J.(ed.): Philosophical Writings of Peirce. New York: Dover Publications. Rorty,Richard (2007): “Kant vs.Dewey: the current situation of moral philosophy”.InRorty, Richard; PhilosophyasCultural Politics. Philosophical Papers Volume 4. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress. Sunstein,CassR.(2013): Simpler: The FutureofGovernment. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney,New Dehli: Simon &Schuster. Sunstein,CassR.(2014): Why Nudge? The Politics of Libertarian Paternalism. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. Twain, Mark (1986): The AdventuresofHuckleberry Finn. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Classics. Wellmer,Albrecht (1998): “Truth, Contingency,and Modernity”.InWellmer,Albrecht: Endgames. CambridgeMassachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press. Héctor Wittwer Is the OverridingnessofMoral Reasons a Semantic Fact?

At first view,the question, “Whybemoral?” seems to allow for manyintelligible answers. On closer consideration, though, there are onlyahandful of suitable responses to this question. As Ihaveargued elsewhere (Wittwer 2010), all the different versions of these answers can be subsumedunder onlytwo or three types. Accordingtothe first kind of answer,weshould always—or,atleast in most cases—act morallybecause this serves our enlightened self-interest. Thisis what Plato had in mind when he tried to demonstrate in the Republic that being just is anecessary and sufficient condition for achieving happiness.¹ In the twentieth century,ethical contractualists such as David Gauthierand Grego- ry Kavkaheld asimilar position: Forenlightened rational egoists it is rationally prescribed to submit themselvestothe constraints of moralityinorder to maximize the realization of their preferences: “To choose rationally, one must choose morally. […]Morality, we shall argue, can be generated as arationalconstraint from the non-moral premises of rational choice.” (Gauthier 1986,p.4)—Whereas the first answer to the question tries to reconcile the requirementsofmorality and of self-interest—this is what Kavkacalled the “reconciliation project” (see Kavka1984)—the second kind of answer is based on the assumption that there is no need to show thatmoral actions are useful in anysort.Onthe contrary, the mere attempt to demonstrate that the good and the useful are identical proves that the concept of moralityhas been misunderstood. As F. H. Bradley has argued in his seminal paper “WhyShouldIBe Moral?”,the good is an end in itself,that is, something which we oughttodofor its own sake whichever consequences this mayhavewith regard to our self-interest.Therefore, the question “Whyshould Ibemoral?”,according to Bradley, “seems strange. Formor- ality (and she, tooisreason) teaches us that,ifwelook on her onlyasagood for something else, we never in that case have seen her at all. She says that she is an end to be desired for her own sake, and not as ameans to something beyond.” (Bradley1990 [1876], p. 53) We always ought to act morallybecause moralityisthe only end in itself. Some authorshavegrounded this claim on the assumption that morality is the onlything which has an absolute inherent

 “Then the just is happy,and the unjust miserable? – So be it.” (Republic, a[translation by Benjamin Jowett], ). 236 Héctor Wittwer worth. Forexample, in awell-known passagefrom the Groundworkofthe Meta- physics of Morals Immanuel Kant asserts

[…]nothinghas anyworthother than that which the [moral] lawdetermines for it.But preciselybecause of this, the legislation that determines all worth must itself have adignity, i.e. unconditional, incomparable worth, for which the word respect alone makes abefitting expression of the estimationarational beingistogiveofit. Autonomy is thus the ground of the dignity of ahuman and of every rational nature. (Kant 2012 [1785], pp. 47– 48 [AAIV: 436])

Thus, there are at least two prominent answers to the question “Whybemoral?” Accordingtothe first,weshould act morallybecause this is in our enlightened self-interest.Accordingtothe second, however,weshould be moralbecause moralityisanend in itself or the onlything which has absolute inherent worth. It might be that the alternative between these twotypesofanswers is exhaustive. This depends on whether the answer to which this paper is dedicated can be subsumed under the second one. Although this is an important theoretical issue, Icannot explore it here. Instead, Iwillpresent the remaininganswer without trying to decide whether or not it is onlyaversion of the second one. The response Iamgoingtopresent and criticallyevaluate says,firstly, that we ought to be moralbecause moralreasons are overriding and, secondly, that the overridingness of moral reasons is a conceptual feature of morality. In other words, it is part of the common understanding of the concept of morality that there can never be anysufficientreason for not doing what one knows to be morallyprescribed. Everyone who has learnt how to properlyapplyterms as “moral”, “morality”, “ought” or “the good” has thereby aquired the belief that we always ought to do what is morallyrequired whatever other reasons may speak against doing it.The overridingness of moralreasons is said to be a part of the language-game of morality and, hence, a semantic fact (see Hoffmann 2013,p.595).Inother words, “overridingness is genuinely part of our pre-theoretical conception of, or at least aspirations for,morality” (Stroud 1988, p. 176). The assumption thatmoral reasons are always normatively overriding is said to be an “analytic truth” (Hoffmann 2013,p.595). This assertion has an important implication. If it is true, then it is impossible to reasonablyask “Whybemoral?” because the question “Whyshould Idowhat is morallyrequired?” can be translated into the question “Whyshould Iregard the onlykind of reasons which are,bydefinition, overriding as overriding?” This would, indeed, be apointless question. By asking it,the speaker would give proof of his deficient understanding of the word “morality”.Therefore, the onlyadequate reaction to his request would consist in explaining to him the very meaning of words such as “ought”, “morality” or “the good”.Once Is the OverridingnessofMoral Reasons aSemantic Fact? 237 he has fullyunderstood the meaning of these words, he can no longer reasonablyask question, “Whybemoral?” In awell-known passageF.H.Bradley expressed this line of thought in the following way: “Has the question, Whyshould Ibemoral?nosense then, and is no positive answer possible? No, the question has no sense at all; it is simply unmeaning,unless it is equivalent to, Is morality an end in itself, and, if so, how and what wayisitanend?” (Bradley1990 [1876], p. 59) The thesis thatoverridingness is aconceptual trait of morality and thus a semanticfact was most famouslyheld by R. M. Hare in the second half of the last century.Manyphilosophershavefollowed him. AccordingtoHare, besides universalizability and prescriptivity,overridingness is a logical property of moral judgments (see Hare 1981, p. 24 and pp. 50 –61). The strength of Hare’sresponse to the sceptical challengethatunderlies the question “Whybemoral?” is that it is completelyindependent of empirical issues. Whatever the social world we live in might be like, moral reasons willalways have priority over all other normative reasons for actions. We do not need anyempirical information about human beingsand human societies in order to decide whether or not moral reasons are overriding.Instead, our knowledge of the overridingness of moral reasons is al- readypart of our linguistic competence. Before presentingmyobjections against this view,itseems appropriate to mention five of its aspects in order to avoid misunderstandingsofthe position held by Hare and his followers. (i) First of all, OT—as Iwill call the overridingness thesis from now on—does not applytosingle moral reasons taken in isolation from all other relevant features of agiven situation but to overall moral judgmentsabout what the agent ought to do. Therefore, the moral reasons which are said to have priority over all other kindsofnormative reasons have alreadytaken into account all competing prima facie duties,exceptionsand excuses. Thus, OT says thatifdoing Xis, all things considered,morallyrequired, then therecan be no sufficient reason for refraining from doing X(see Stroud 1988, pp.172– 173). If we want to construe cases in which there is aconflict between self-interest and morality, we have to take this aspect of OT into account because, if we do not,wewill include situations in which there is no real incompatibility between prudential and moral reasons.Let me mentionjust one example thathas been discussed and misinter- preted in the literature on overridingness:after World WarIImanyGermans who weresufferingfrom hunger used to steal potatoes from trains or stores in order to feed themselvesand to survive.Itseems very plausible to me that these people weremorallyexcused because they found themselvesinasituation in which they werefaced with the choice between starving to death and violating the moral rule which forbidsstealing. Thus, the case is not an example of aconflict 238 Héctor Wittwer between self-interestand morality. If we assume that aviolationofthe moral rule which forbids stealing is excused if stealingisnecessary in order to survive then the potato thieves acted in amorallypermissible manner.Therefore, the example does not provethatreasons of self-interest can have normative priority over moral reasons.Rather,itillustrates that it can be morallypermissible, or at least morallyexcusable, to violate amoral rule if this is necessary in order to avoid an evil which is clearlyand significantlyworse than the one which is caused by breakingthe rule. This, however,has rarelybeendenied either by pro- ponentsorbycritics of OT. (ii) Secondly, we have to distinguish between two kindsofoverridingness: actual and normative overridingness.Practical reasons are actually overriding if an agent or agroup of agents always givesthem priority over all otherkinds of reasons.Practical reasons are normatively overriding if all moral agents always ought to give them priority over all other relevant considerations. It is obvious that OT does not refer to the actual overridingness of moralreasons.Aswe all know thereisnodoubtabout the fact that, often, we and other people do not treat moralreasons as overriding.However,asOTrefers onlytothe normative priority of morality, this fact does not speak against it.OTcannot be falsified by empirical evidence about real decisions of moral agents. (iii) The third aspect is based on another conceptual distinction. This time we have to distinguish between twokinds of normative priority or overridingness. If areason takes normative precedence over another one only withregard to acertain criterion or acertain domain of decisions and actions,then Iwill speak of relative priority.For example, it cannot be denied that, in caseofaconflict between my desires and the requirementsofmorality,with regardtomyself- interest my prudential reasons have relative priority over the moral reasons.Or, to give another example, if the lawinacertain country forbids something which manyofits citizens regard as morallymandatory,then both the lawand the re- spective moral rule can be normatively overriding depending on which criterion one usesfor solving the conflict. With referencetothe state and its judicial system, the lawhas priority;but with regard to the moral integrity of the citizensthe moral rule should be overriding.Now,itshould be clear that accordingtoOT moral reasons are not onlyrelatively overriding but that they always have absolute priority over all otherkindsofreasons.² Of course, it is true that, judgedfrom the moral point of view,moral reasons should take precedence over prudential reasons.But,unless it is demonstratedthatone ought to solve the conflict from

 Although she does not use the concept of absoluteoverridingness,this aspect is stressed by Sarah Stroud (,p.–). Is the OverridingnessofMoral Reasons aSemantic Fact? 239 the moral point of view,this onlyshows that moral reasons are relatively overriding.Now,this is obviouslytrue with regard to all types of normative reasons. Hence, relative priority is not adistinctive feature of moral reasons. (iv) The fourth aspect of OT is closelylinked to the former one. It is assumed that absolutenormative priority is adistinctive feature of moral reasons. This assumption can be split into to sub-claims: (a) If anormative reason for action or the corresponding norm is not absolutelyoverriding,itisnot amoral reason or norm. (b)Ifanormative reason for action or the corresponding norm has absolutepriority,then we are dealing with amoral reason or amoral norm. From these alleged features of morality some authors have formallycorrectlyinferred that moral reasons and norms can be identified by referencetoabsoluteoverrid- ingness (see Kuhlmann 1985, p. 187). (v) Finally, Iwould liketopoint to an implication of OT which is of the utmost significance with regardtothe question “Whybemoral?”:ifthe absolute overridingness of moralreasons is part of the meaning of terms like “morality” or “ought” then it seems that therecan never be asufficientlygood reason for not doing what is morallyrequired. This is tantamount to saying that,inone sense or another,itcan never be rational not to do what is morallyprescribed. This claim can be understood in two ways.Accordingtoits strong version not giving priority to reasons which are normatively overriding is self-contradictory. As striving for consistency is the most fundamental requirement of rationality, it is always and necessarilyirrational to act against acorrect overall moral judgment.According to the weak interpretation, however,acting against the precepts of morality,although it is usuallyrational, can never be fully rational. In this case, it is assumed that persons who break moral rules generallydosofor prudential, political,religious or othernon-moral reasons.Asacting for reasons cannot be whollyirrational violationsofthe moralrules are not whollyirrational. On the other hand, the person who infringesamoral rule does not act on the best reasons available to her.Therefore, she makes onlyadeficient use of practical reason. Hence, her decision and her action are not fully rational. Now,ifwe link these assertions to another one which seems to me to be undeniable, namely that we always should act as rationallyaspossible, then we can give avery stronganswer to the question “Whybemoral?”:weshould always do what is morallyrequired because, unless we do so, we will act irrationallyor, at least, not fullyrationally. Having clarified what the claim that the overridingness of moralreasons is a semanticfact implies, Iwill now proceed to an evaluation of this assumption. First of all, it is evident that there is no consensus about the meaning of the word “morality” among all competent speakers of languages such as English or German. The very proof of this is the fact that philosophers have been debat- 240 Héctor Wittwer ing for along time about whether or not overridingness is adistinctivefeature of moral reasons.Hence, there is disagreement about the meaningofthe concept of morality. Now,itisnot unusual thatthere is apartial disagreementabout the meaning of certain words within alinguistic community.Such differences in opinion can be resolvedifatleast one of the following two conditions is met. If the disputed termapplies to a natural kind then there is an objective criterion for the correct definition of the term. In this case, the direction of fit goes from the meaning of the wordtothe naturalkind it refers to. If the formerdoes not correspond to the latter,ithas to be modified. Forexample, the adequate definition of the concept of atiger depends on what tigers are like. The second option for resolving asemantical disagreement presupposes acertain level of division of labor.Ifthere is agroup of specialists, for instance scientists, who due to their professional training and activity have some special knowledge about the disputed concept at theirdisposal which all other speakers lack, then it is up to these specialists to determine the correct meaning of the word. If, for example, we as laymen do not agree about the proper application of words like “polis” or “agora”,wehavetoaddress ourselvestohistorians or classicalscholars in order to resolveour dispute. Unfortunately, none of these options is available with reference to the word “morality”.Morality is neither anatural kind,nor is there agroup of specialists endowed with aknowledge about morality to which other people have no access.Let me brieflyexplain these twoclaims. Firstly, morality is asocial order or asocial practice, hence something which cannot exist independentlyof how human beingsconceive of it.Ifthere werenohuman beingsorcreatures sufficientlylikeus, therewould be no social institution like morality. Therefore, there is no objective criterion for determiningthe adequate meaning of the word “morality” which is prior to our convictions about what moralityis. Secondly, considered as moral agents, with regard to the meaning of moral concepts all normallydeveloped human adults are on an equal footing. No one has aprivi- ligedaccess to the meaning of moral terms. Hence, there is no group of specialists to which we could turn in order to figure out whether or not absolutenormative overridingness is aconceptual and, thus, anecessary feature of morality. Giventhese premises,what can we do in order to decidethe issue? All we can do is listen as carefullyaspossibletoordinary people talking about moral issues and, in particular, about conflicts between self-interest and morality. If we do this, we will certainlyfind out that absolute normative priority is not part of the common meaning of words like “morality” or “ought”.Although it is true that people often ascribenormative priority to moral reasons in their judgments, it is not at all inconsistent to accept the limited authority of moralityand to denythatitisabsolutelyoverriding.Thisfact is easilyoverlooked because Is the OverridingnessofMoral ReasonsaSemantic Fact? 241 manyphilosophersdonot distinguish between two kinds of utterances: sincere utterancesonthe one hand and insincere utterances made by speakers who do not give absolute priority to moral reasons but publiclypay lip-service to the alleged authority of morality on the other hand. Now,itisobvious that under usual circumstances nobodywho is willing to treat prudential reasons as overriding with reference to moral reasons will publicly declare that he does not accept the claim that morality has absolutenormative priority.The reason is evident: Publiclydeclaring thatone is willing to give priority to self-interest over moral requirements would simplybefoolish. If, for example, Iwant to benefit from the social practice of giving and keepingpromises Ishould not declare that although Iprofit from the general practice of giving promises,Iam willing to break my promises if that will servemyinterests. By doing this Iwould lose the confidence of those who want to relyonpromises.They would no longer re- gardmeasapotential co-operator.Itisinmy interest that Ibeconsidered as someone who will always keep his promises even if this involves considerable losses or sacrifices. From this example, which is representative for every moral practice or institution,animportantlesson can be drawn: the fact that usually nobody publicly deniesthat moralreasons are normatively overriding does not provethat overridingness is aconceptual feature of morality.Itonlyshows that generallyevery- bodyhas accepted thatitisimprudent to declare in public thatotherkinds of reasons can have priority over moral demands. As Platohad Glaucon sayover two thousand years ago: “the highest reach of injusticeis, to be deemed just when youare not”.³ Thingslook quite different if we turn to the private use of language. Behind closed doorspeople often explicitlystate that,incaseofaconflict between morality and self-interest,one should give priority to prudential reasons.This does not onlyhold for criminals who, by the way, usually know very well that what they do is morallyprohibited. Sometimes, ordinary people likeyou and me also judge thatsomebodyshould not do what he is morallyobligated to do because it is not in his interest.Judgments of this kind are not contradictory;at least,they do not look like they involveacontradiction at first sight.Imagine the following case: Arelatively youngman who works in aprivatecompany has witnessed that afemalecolleagueofhis whom he knows quite well has been dismissed under apretext because she had not reacted positively to her boss’ssexual advances. Now the youngman’swife tells him that although it is his moralduty to protestagainst this unjust decision he should keep quiet

 Plato, Republic a(translation by Benjamin Jowett ). 242 Héctor Wittwer and not mention the incident because this would endanger the promotion he has been waitingfor.Compare the sentence “Although it is your moral duty you should not do it because it would be imprudent” to utteranceswhich are obvi- ouslycontradictory,such as “Thiscircle has two angles” or “All immigrants are lazy but my Turkish friend who ownsthe greengrocery at the corner is ahard- workingman”.⁴ Unlikethe two latter sentences, the formerseems to be in no way inconsistent.But,ifthis is true, absolutenormative overridingness cannot be a conceptual feature of morality.Ifabsolutenormative priority wereindeed aconceptual feature of overall moralreasons,the young man’swife’sutterance could be translatedinto “Youshould not do what youought to do” or “Although there can never be asufficient reason not to do what youare morallyobligatedtodo, youshould not do it”.But,itseems to me that what the youngman’swife said cannot be accuratelytranslated in this way. Let me brieflysummarise my first objection to the claim that the overridingness of moral reasons is asemantic fact.Uptothis point,Ihave argued that absolutenormative priority is not an inseparable part of the common understanding of the concept of morality.Ihave based my objectiononthe conceptual distinction between public and privateutterances and on the observation that sentences in which the normative overridingness of moralreasons is explicitly denieddonot seem to be contradictory.Although Iamsure that everything I have said so far is correct,Ifear thatsome readers might not be convincedyet because, as we all know toowell, philosophers tend to be extremelysceptical. Therefore, Iamgoing to present asecond objection which is completelyindependent of the first one. The point of the first objection was that the mere fact that somebodydenies the absolutenormative priority of morality and moral reasons does not prove that this person has adeficient understanding of terms like “morality”, “ought” or “the good”.The feature of normative overridingness is not an integral part of the meaningof“morality”.Now,let me assume from now on for the sake of argument that all competent speakers would agree thatoverridingness is a necessary feature of overall moral reasons for actions, hence that everybody would consider moralreasons as overriding.Would this semantic consensus provethat moral reasons are reallyabsolutelyoverriding?—Idonot think so. In what follows Iwill try to explain whythe overridingness of morality cannot be asemantic fact. In order to explain my thesis Ihavetomake ashortdigression into the philosophyoflanguage. Every accepted meaningofaconcept or of the words which

 This example is intended to illustrate the fact that moral beliefs can be self-contradictory. Is the OverridingnessofMoral Reasons aSemantic Fact? 243 denote that concept in different languages can be considered as adefinition or, at least,asapart of the definition of that concept.If, for example, all competent speakers agree that the concept of air refers to an invisiblemixture of gases then invisibilityand being gaseous are parts of the universallyaccepted definition of the concept of air.Now,atleast some definitionscan be true or false insofar as they can be adequate or inadequate with regard to the objects to which they refer.Ifair werenot amixture of gases but aliquid then the universallyaccepted meaning of the word “air” would be inadequate. There are numerous examples of meaningswhich wereuniversallyaccepted and nevertheless inadequate. For manycenturies “being afish” was an integralpart of the word “whale”.There- fore, whales werecalled “Walfische”—“whale-fish”— in German. Hence, the feature of being afish was an integralpart of the universallyaccepted definition of whales.Ofcourse, nowadays we know that whales are not fish, but mammals. Thus, the word “whale” was used for along time implying an inadequate meaning. The upshot of this line of thought is that one must not without further ado infer from the universallyaccepted meaning of awordclaims about the nature of the object which is denoted by that word. Accepted meaningsare definitions or parts of definitions and, thus, can be adaquate or inadequate,trueorfalse. If this claim alsoholds for the concepts of morality and of moral reasons then the alleged fact thatall speakers agree thatoverridingness is an integralpart of their meaning is not asufficient reason for concluding that absolute normative priority is indeed anecessary feature of morality itself. However,atthis point we are faced with aproblem which arises because of the social character of morality.AsIpointed out earlier,morality is not anatural kind, but asocial practice which cannot exist independentlyofwhat people take it to be.Therefore, proponents of the overridingness thesis could argueinthe following way: Morality is what competent speakers take it to be.What the nature of moralityiscannotbedecided independentlyofwhat we understand by the concept of morality. Now,all competent speakers agree thatabsolute normative priority is aconceptual feature of morality.Hence, absoluteoverridingness is, indeed, anecessary trait of morality.They could illustrate this argument by pointing to an important differencebetween the concept of morality and the concept of action.Outside departments of philosophy, almost everybodytakes for granted thathuman decisions are not completelydetermined by natural causes. It is generallyheld that,unless somebodyisforced to act in acertain way, he or she can always freelychoose between at least twooptions, namelyperforming a certain action or refraining from doing it.Having the choice between alternate possibilities is, thus, an integral part of the universallyaccepted meaning of the pre-theoretical conceptsofdecision and action.However,evenifthis is 244 Héctor Wittwer true it does not follow that we do have afree will because the meaningthat we ascribetothe words “decision” and “action” could be inadequate. In order that our will be free, an external condition must be met.Onlyifthe events in the world are not completelydetermined by natural laws—that is, onlyifthere are alternate possibilities—can we freelydecide to act one wayoranother.Whether or not we are freedoes not onlydepend on what we understand by the concepts of “decision” and “action”,but also on the way the world is. But,the proponent of OT might continue, if we talk about the nature of morality we are in acom- pletelydifferent situation. Morality is what human beingsthink it is. We need not know the natural constitution of the world in order to tell whether acertain trait is anecessary feature of morality.Asall competent speakers agree that overridingness is aconceptual feature of morality,moral reasons are, indeed, overriding.The overridingness of morality is simplyasemanticfact. This argument in favour of OT maysoundcompelling. But it is based on an all toosimple premise. Our moralconcepts and our concept of moralityitself are not isolated elements of the languages we speak.The beliefs thatare incorporat- ed in them are part of awhole network of beliefs about actions, their possible justification and about practical rationality. Therefore, proponents of OT have to demonstrate that their claim fits into this web of beliefs. There is at least one belief about the justification of actions which is undoubtedlytrue and which has to be reconciled with OT because there is acertain tension between this belief and the alleged priority of morality: moralreasons are not the only kind of normative reasons for action. There is at least one other type: prudential reasons.For the purposes of my argument,the question of how manytypes of normative reasons for actions there are can be left open. Suffice it to saythat moral reasons are not the onlykind of reasons which can justify an action. Therefore, conflicts between different kinds of normative reasons can arise. OT is true if and onlyifitisrationallymandatory to act on moral reasons whenever there is aconflict between moral reasons and reasons for actionofadifferent kind. (In fact,OTisonlyunderstandable if one assumes that thereare at least two types of normative reasons for action. If there werenot,there would be nothing with regard to which moral reasons could have priority.) Let me brieflyexplain this assumption. As far as Iknow,nobodyhas ever claimed thatmoral justification is the onlypossible kind of justification. Usually, we do not have to give moral reasons for what we do. Most of the decisionsthat we have to takeday by dayhavenothing to do with moralproblems.Neverthe- less, we oftenmust deliberate,decide, and sometimes alsojustify our decisions. In manycases, we do this with recourse to the criterion of our enlightened self- interest.The ability to make choiceswith recourse to this criterion and to act according to these choices is atype of practical rationalitywhich shall be called Is the OverridingnessofMoral Reasons aSemantic Fact? 245

“prudential rationality”.The demands of prudential rationality are no less normative thanthose of moral rationality.Itcannot be denied that conflicts may arise between the requirementsofprudence and thoseofmorality.Inorder to demonstrate that moralreasons are normativelyoverriding,ithas to be shown that persons who have to make choicesbetween moral and prudential reasons always ought to act on the moral reasons.Itisplain thatthis task cannot be fulfilled by simply asserting thatnormative overridingness is part of the universally accepted meaningofthe concept of morality,for this would be an obvious petitio principii. Instead of justifying the linguistic usage, one has simplypresupposed its correctness.What is needed if one wants to avoid this petitio is ajustification which is beyond the scope of the mere meaning of certain concepts, that is a non- linguistic justification. This is tantamount to saythat even if normative overridingness is anecessary feature of moral reasons,this normative priority of morality cannot be amere semantic fact. Can there be aplausible non-linguistic justification of the alleged overridingness of morality?Isuggest thatthis is impossible because all attempts to achieve this goal leadinto the following dilemma. Either OT is restricted to the true but trivial claim thatmoral reasons are relatively overriding with regardtothe moral point of view,oritrefers to the absolutepriority of morality. In the latter casethe argument is doomed to fail because, as Ihope to show in what follows, nothing can ever have absolute priority over something else. Of course, these strongclaims need an explanation. Letusconsider the first horn of the dilemma. OT can be so modified thatitonlyapplies to the relative moral priority of moral reasons. In this case, it states correctlythat, judged from the moralpoint of view,moral reasons for action should always take precedence over all other kindsofaction. This assumption is certainlytrue; but it is also trivial. What is worse is thatitdoes not provide us with asatisfying answer to the question, “Whybemoral?” unless it is shownthat one should resolve conflicts between competingreasons for action with recoursetothe criterion of morality.But,ofcourse, this is not impliedinthe weak version of OT.This version onlystates that if the conflict is judgedfrom the moralperspective then moral reasons are overriding.But it cannot tell us whyweshould always pass judgments from the moral point of view.Hence, the weak version of OT is unsuitable for giving asatisfying answer to the question, “Whybemoral?” The strongversion of OT faces another problem. Accordingtoit, moralreasons are not onlyoverriding with recourse to acertain criterion. Instead, they are said to have absolutepriority.What this means depends on how the ambiguous expression “absolutepriority” is understood. That Ahas normative priorityover Bcan mean thatAis normativelyoverriding with regard to all pertinentcriteria. It is evident that moral reasons cannot have normative priority in this sense be- 246 Héctor Wittwer cause they are not overriding with recourse to at least one criterion, namleythe criterion of prudence. Accordingtothe second possible interpretation of the strongversion of OT thereisno criterion at all with regardtowhich moral reasons are overriding.Rather,they are overriding simpliciter or tout court. Recently, Owen McLeod has defendedthis claim and added that there is akind of ought which corresponds to the alleged overridingness tout court: he calls it “just plain ought” (see McLeod 2001). It should be clear that this is onlyanad hoc solution which barelycovers the argumentative weakness of the proposal. “Takes priority” is athree-placepredicate.Something takes priority over something else with regardtoacertain criterion. Atakes priority over Bwith regard to C. This is reflected in the fact that it is always appropriate to respond to the claim that Atakes precedence over Bbyasking:with regardtowhat criterion?The talk of an overridingness tout court and of acorresponding “just plain ought” is nothing more than ahelpless attempt to arbitrarilycut off the philosophical discussion. The second horn of the dilemma could onlybeavoided by demonstrating that there is anormative criterion for solving conflicts between morality and prudence which always tells us to act for moralreasons. This general point of view cannot be identical either with the moralpoint of view or the perspective of prudence. Whynot?These two criteria are not onlysituated on the samelevel. They also refer to the same kind of objects, namely single decisions or actions. Finally, neither of them is neutralwith reference to theirconflict.Hence, the standpoint of moralityand the standpoint of prudence are on equal footing. None of them is suitable for serving as an overall criterion for resolving conflicts between themselves. Therefore, OT could onlybesaved if there werearational meta-criterion for resolving conflicts between different kinds of normative reasons for action. But we do not possess such acontent-neutral, rational meta-criterion. Hence, in caseofaconflict between morality and prudence neither the moral nor the prudential action is rationallyprescribed. In such acase practical rationality cannot tell us for what kind of reasons we oughttoact.Asthereisnonor- mative meta-criterion for choosing between them, both are rationallyallowed. It is as rational to act morallyasitistoact prudentially. We cannot solve the conflict between the two kindsofreason from ageneral point of view simplybecause this general normative perspective does not exist.⁵ It follows from the foregoing that the claim that moralreasons for action have non-moral priority over other kindsofreasons cannot be justified. The over-

 Amoredetailed argument for these claims is to be found in Copp ,esp. pp. –. Is the OverridingnessofMoral ReasonsaSemantic Fact? 247 ridingness thesis is either true but trivial or false, and its true version cannot provide us with asatisfying answer to the question “Whybemoral?”. At the close of my paper,Iwould like to discuss brieflyanobjectiontowhat I have said. At first sight,itmight seem that my position is unable to explain afact which cannot be denied. People do actuallypass overall judgments on conflicts between competingkinds of reason. They choose between acting for moral or for prudential reasons. It might be claimed thatthe overridingness thesis offers the best or even the onlyexplication of this fact.Thisiswhat Sarah Stroud seems to have in mind when she invites us to

consider the fact that some of us actually take moral requirements to be overriding: we treat them as defeatingother claims.Ifmorality is indeed overriding, then there is no diffculty in understanding this practice: such agents aresimplyresponsive to the true weight of practical reasons. But if in fact morality is not overriding, acommitment to honoringits demands seems rationallyunmotivated. (Stroud 1988, p. 176)

This quote contains at least two different assumptions. First,Stroud claims that OT provides us with aplausible explanation of the fact that people do resolve conflicts between prudenceand moralityinfavour of the latter.Secondly, she assumes thatifmorality werenot overriding we could have no rational reason for resolving those conflicts. Ireadilyadmit the first part.But it must be added that OT is not the onlyplausible explanation of the fact that people can make choices between self-interest and moraldemands. The situation is different with regard to the second claim which Itaketobefalse. Whyisthis so?First of all, Stroud, like other authors, does not sufficientlydistinguish between the two kinds of overridingness mentioned earlier: actual and normative overridingness.Denying that morality is normatively overriding does not implythat moralreasons cannot be actuallyoverriding. Of course, it cannot be deniedthat people actuallyoftengivepriority to moral reasons.But,inorder to explain this fact we do not have to assume that they decide to act for moral reasons because they are responsivetothe “true weight” of moralreasons.They can make the samedecision for different reasons,for example because they fear external or internal sanctions.Inthe end it all depends on how much significance the individual agent attributes to moralityand to his owninterests. Since in the case of aconflict between self-interest and moral demands both actions are rationallyallowed, the two different actionscan be motivated by rationalreasons for action bothifagents choose to act for moral reasons and if they decidetoact for prudential reasons.Finally, their preferences will decide. But whatever they do, no normative conclusion can be drawnfrom their actual choice. 248 Héctor Wittwer

To sum up my argument: The alleged normative overridingness of moral reason is not asemantic fact.Itisnofact at all.

Bibliography

Bradley,F.H.(1990 [1876]): “Why Should IBeMoral?” In: EthicalStudies. Reprint. Bristol: Thoemmes AntiquarianBooks, pp. 53–77. Copp, David (1997): “The Ring of Gyges: Overridingnessand the Unity of Reason”.In: Social Philosophy&Policy 14. No.1, pp.86–106. Gauthier,David (1986): Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hare, R. M. (1981): MoralThinking: ItsLevels, Method and Point. Oxford:Clarendon Press. Hoffmann, Martin(2013): “Thomas Buddenbrook undder Vorrang der Moral”.In: Miguel Hoeltje/Thomas Spitzley/Wolfgang Spohn (Eds.): Sektionsbeiträge des achten internationalen Kongresses der Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie e. V. Duisburg-Essen: Universität Duisburg-Essen (online publication), pp. 593–606. Kant, Immanuel (2012 [1785]): Groundworkofthe Metaphysics of Morals. Ed.byMaryGregor and J. Timmermann. Cambridge/New York: CambridgeUniversity Press. Kavka,Gregory(1984): “The Reconciliation Project”.In: David Copp/David Zimmerman (Eds.), Morality,Reason and Truth: New Essays on the FoundationsofEthics. Totowa,NJ: Rowman&Allanheld, pp. 297–319. Kuhlmann, Wolfgang (1985): Reflexive Letztbegründung. Untersuchungen zur Transzendentalpragmatik. Freiburg/München: Alber. McLeod, Owen (2001): “Just Plain ‘Ought’”.In: The Journal of Ethics 5, pp. 269–291. Stroud, Sarah (1988): “Moral Overridingnessand Moral Theory”.In: Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79, pp. 170–189. Wittwer,Héctor (2010): Istesvernünftig, moralisch zu handeln? Berlin/NewYork: de Gruyter. Alan Thomas Williams on Integrity,GroundProjects and Reasons to Be Moral

This paper addresses the question, “Whybemoral?” from the standpoint of Ber- nard Williams’smoral and political philosophy. Schematically, Williams’sanswer to this question was thatethical reasons,likeall an agent’spractical reasons, must be grounded in thosefundamental projects with which an agent is most deeplyidentified. As acorollary of this most general claim, it follows that to act from such ground projects is to act from integrity.¹ One of Williams’s concerns, in addressing this question, was whether or not apriori arguments can be giventhat the contents of anyone’sground projects are shaped by rationally inescapable principles of morality.(Forexample, principles of the kind defended by Thomas Nagel in ThePossibility of Altruism [Nagel 1970].) His answer was negative:there is no soundtranscendental argument to the effect that the requirements of morality are constitutive of rational agency as such. That critique is based on Williams’sconception of practical reasons as all “internal” in a sense Iwill explain. Afurther aim of this paper is to extend the consideration of Williams’sanswer to our orienting question from its origin in aconception of practical reasons in general – as always “internal”–to his later political psychology. Thislate discussion presents his considered verdict on the natureofground projects [Wil- liams 2002,chapter 9]. It complements his earlier account of internal reasons and integrity and addresses amajor line of concern about his whole argument strategy. This concern is one that must be addressed satisfactorilyifhis treatment of these themes is to be plausible. The concern is this:for Williams’scritics, the key bridging concepts that take us from ethics to politics, thoseofaground project and of an agent’sintegrity, fall outside the scope of the moral completely. That is why, for them, his argument is puzzlingly weak.Williams himself added that whatever resonancehis account of an agent’sintegrity was supposed to have,itwas not that of aprinciple

 Williams,asweshall see, connects this idea of integrity to that of identification with those ground projects from which an agent’sreasonsstem: “[an agent] is identified with his actions as flowingfromhis projects and attitudes ….[H]is actions and his decisionshavetobeseen as the actions and decisionswhich flow from the projects and attitudes with which he is most closely identified”.[Williams, ,p.,pp. –] 250 Alan Thomas being refuted by acounterexample.² Yethis discussion of integrity produceda plethora of such counterexamples: of principled slaveholders and Nazis who exhibit the putative virtue of integrity.Ifsuch people can act from integrity,then the connection between integrity and acting in the light of moral reasons seems whollycontingent and external. ForWilliams’scritics, absent apriorcom- mitment to the shapingofthe agent’sdeliberative field – thatwhich she is prepared morallytosomuch as countenance – by acommitment to moralprinciple, appeal to an agent’sground projects arrivestoo late.Moralityisnot something, as Nagel put it,that an agent can “beg off”:its sourcecan be known apriori and it is aconstraintonthe projects of all agents. Interpreted in this way, Williams’sargument is shoehorned into the contrast between altruism and egoism. With this context in place, ground projects play the role of putativelyethical commitments whose fulfillment mayplayarole in determining the agent’s own conception of the good, but whose moralcreden- tials are yettobedetermined because they mayturn out to be egoistic or immoral. Vicious actions mayfulfill the ground projects of the principled Nazi and thus be “good for” her,but this is no help in explaining what it is to be moral. This one waytrading of intuitions givesrise to apersistent sense that the two sides in this debate are talking past each other – did Williams reallyoverlook such obvious counterexamples to his thesis?³ Williams has ignored the fact thatpractical agency is the ultimate “ground project” and the moralprinciples thatconstrainit are inescapable for all agents.⁴ In this paper,Iextend consideration of Williams’sarguments in ethics to the arguments of Truthand Truthfulness because onlytheredoes Williams connect the idea of an agent’sground project to the modern politics of identity [Williams 2002]. Examining this argument shows threethings: first,that in spiteofthe criticisms thatWilliams’sproposal received, it was one to which he remained committed. Secondly, this treatment of ground projects in the broader context

 “Ican hardlydenythat Iproduced an integrity objection in the sense that Imade an objection and it centredonthe notion of integrity ….The objection did not,however,take the form of my tryingtodisprove atheory by counter-example, as much of the discussion has assumed. If the stories of George and Jimhavearesonance,itisnot the sound of aprinciple beingdentedbyan intuition.” [Williams, a, p. ]  The critic continues:does not William himself note the importance of the pre-commitments to the outcome of ethical deliberation involved in what the agent is preparedtocountenance? Equally, does he not also stress the category of that which the agent finds unthinkable? If the very same emphasis on the pre-structuring of the agent’sdeliberative field appears in Williams’s work and his critics objections to it,then onceagainthis discussion seems to have set off on the wrong foot.  This is the definingthesis of meta-ethical constitutivism [Nagel, ;Korsgaard, ]. Williams on Integrity,Ground Projects and Reasons to Be Moral 251 of what it is to be truthful to oneself – and the political ramifications of that ideal – re-iterates his view thattoact from integrity is not to act on an executive minor virtue that can be assessed independentlyofany assessment of an agent’s ends in action.(Agood example of the latter is the admirable trait of cleverness [Wallace 2001].) So aslaveholderand aNazi cannot act from integrity giventhe badness of their ends in action (while they could pursue those ends while exhib- iting cleverness). Thirdly, and most importantly, this late discussion reinforces the point that to act from integrity is to act in the light of aground project that calls for acknowledgement on the part of others. Acknowledgement has twodimensions: the first is thataperson is harmed if the ground project with which he or she most deeplyidentifiesfailstobeacknowledgedbyothers. The second is that such aproject must be, first-personally, as much found as made. As astable commitment to an identity thereisarole to be playedinthe explanation of such projects by voluntary choice.For example, such achoice enters into whether or not aperson structures their life around such identifications as a “home- maker” [Thomas, 2009a]. However,the element of commitment to an identityim- plies that such identifications cannot be adopted or abandoned merely at will. This final point reinforces my central claim: ground projects,asWilliams con- ceivedofthem, presuppose an ideal of mutual recognition foreshadowed by his earlier discussion of the “proleptic mechanism” involved in blame. In the background to the entire discussion, then, is aconception of ethical community in which reasons are receivedand given.⁵ It might seem important,incharacterizingsuch acommunity,toexplain at length Williams’sdistinction between the ethical and the moral. Unfortunately, for reasons of scope Icannot give this distinction the full discussion it merits. I will note onlythat Williams’scritique of the Morality Systembothinforms, and is informed by,his conception of practical reasons as internal [Skorupski, 2007]. Iwill examine thatconnection in the opening section of this paper.Iwill, for the most part,treat the question of whyone ought to be moral as whyone ought to

 Arthur Ripstein notes, of this conception of amodern society,that “the very possibility of persons conceivingofthemselvesasfreeand equal, and havingthe appropriate concepts so to re- gardthemselvesisahistorical achievement” [Ripstein, ,p.,emphasis added]. Foradis- cussion of this point in connection with Williams’slateturn to political philosophysee Thomas []. The point itself, and Williams’suneasy relationship to it,isareminder that Williams’s latework was completedunder the shadow of chronic ill health, that it is sometimes not all of a piece, and that it is hard to reconcile the republican strands in his political philosophywith his foundationalaccount of human rights in the context of his political realism. 252 Alan Thomas be committed to the ethical in the least demanding sense that Williams characterized as:

the capacity shown, in some form or other,byhumans in all cultures to live under rules and values and to shape their behavior in some degree to social expectations, in ways that are not under surveillanceand not directlycontrolled by threats and rewards.[Williams 2002, p. 24]

One has areason to be moral in this sense if doing so stems from one’sfunda- mental ground projects.Toact in the light of such projects is to act from integrity;this is not,however,tobeunderstood as an exercise in mere self-assertion as reasonable ground projects demandacknowledgement from others.

1Williams’sPsychologism about Practical Reasons

There is afundamental connection, in Williams’swork, between what seems to be a “local” critique of some of the ideas of the Modern Western ethical tradition in the guise of the Morality System and avery general thesis about the nature of practical reasons in general. Unfortunately, Williams’sthesis thatall practical reasons ascriptions are “internal” has been subject to as much misunderstand- ing as anythesis he ever advanced. Even sophisticated moral philosophersper- sist in treating the view as adefenseofaHumean instrumentalism about reasons combined with the implausible claim thatall moralmotivation is grounded on (unmotivated) desires.(This latter thesis is betterdescribed as Hob- besian rather than Humean.) More sympathetic interpreters,however,such as Stephen Finlay(and the current author)trace Williams’sthesis back to his interest in an Aristotelian conception of actionexplanation in general and Davidson’sre-workingofthese Ar- istotelianideas in particular[Davidson 1980;Thomas 2002,2006;Finlay2009]. As Finlayneatlyencapsulates the view:

[T]o believethat Risfor youareason for action just is to believethat Risacertain kind of explanationfor action, an explanation of whyyou would act if youwere to deliberate soundly. [Finlay2009,pp. 1–2, emphasis added]

This expressesWilliams’sopposition to what he calls a “de-psychologised” conception of action explanation represented paradigmaticallybythe “external rea- Williams on Integrity,Ground Projects and Reasons to Be Moral 253 sons theorist.” The external reasons theorist severs this connection between justification and even potential explanation. Onlythis conception of reasons ascriptions as internal, Williams argued, captures what it is for areason to be practical: reasons explanations must say something distinctive about the particularagent and explain whyshe acted as she did. How does this very abstract thesis about the explanation of rational agency bear on the very specific claims that Williams makes about the Morality System? John Skorupski has argued thatthe connection emergeswhen one takes se- riouslyWilliams’sclaim that Kant was the “limiting case” of an internal reasons theorist: it is integraltoour modernconception of morality that reasons be en- dorsable from the first-personal perspective of the agent.This is the idea that,as Skorupski puts it, “agents cannot be said to have reasons for acting which they are unable to recognise as reasons (even when they know the relevant facts)” [Skorupski 2007,p.73]. If there is to be athreat to the Morality System, it cannot emerge from thatthesis as both Williams and Kant share it. The wayinwhich the internal reasons thesis combined with this idea that reasons have to be endorsed from the perspective of the agent givesrise to a challengetoour moraloutlook – at least as the Morality System represents it – emergeswhen it is combined with two other theses. The first is that of the universality of moral reasons.The second is apsychologicallyrealistic account of actual agents and the variation in theirpsychological capacities.Skorupski givesthe following example of aperson, Tom, who lacks the capacity to feel gratitude:

Imagine that Tomsimplyhas no sense of gratitude….Sowhen Mary goes out of her wayto help him, it’snot possible that he should thank her for that reason,that is, simplyand sole- ly because he sees for himself that gratitude is appropriate. (Hemay of course recognise prudential reasonstoobservethe social conventions he’sbeen told about, etc.) Does it follow that Tomdoes not have that reason for thankingMary – that that particular fact is not a reasonfor him to thank her?Ithink our response to this kind of question is interestingly uncertain. [Skorupski 2007,p.88]

GivenTom’sincapacity,does he lack the relevant reason?Ifareason is to playits explanatory role for aparticular agent,then we must understand him or her as possessingthe capacity to recogniseitasareason: our attitude to examples like Tom, Skorupski suggests, is indeed ambivalent. But acommitment to the universality of moral reasons,plusthe thesis that to blameaperson requires thatthey be at fault for overlooking areason available to them such that they could have done otherwise had they acknowledgedit, 254 Alan Thomas rules out this ambivalence. Hencethe tension in our ordinary commitments – as we have historicallyinherited them. Williams’sconclusion is that we need to be more truthful about how our practices of praise and blame actuallywork. There is no such thing as areasons ascription that can bear an “external” interpretation, but there are “optimistic internal reasons statements” thatwedirect at people in order to make it true that they have the very reasons on the basis of which we seek to blame them. Williams fullyacceptsthe connection between his “cognitive internalism,” as Skorupski calls it,and the groundingofblame on areason potentiallyavailable to an agent:

Blame rests, in part,onafiction; the idea that ethical reasons, in particular the special kind of ethical reasons that areobligations,must,really, be available to the blamed agent…. He ought to havedone it,asmoral blame uses that phrase, implies therewas areason for him to do it,and this certainlyintends morethan the thoughtthat we had areasontowant him to do it.[Williams 1995b, p. 16]

However,Williams immediatelycontinues:

But this maywellbeuntrue: it was not in fact areasonfor him, or not enough of areason. Under this fiction,acontinuous attempt is made to recruit people into adeliberative community that shares ethical reasons … by means of this fiction people maywellindeed be recruitedintothat community or kept within it.But the device can do this onlybecause it is understood not as adevice, but as connectedwith justification and with reasons that an agent might have had; and it can be understood in this wayonlybecause, much of the time, it is connected with those things.[Williams 1995b, p. 16]

It is not my brief here to assess, specifically, this aspect of Williams’scritique of the Morality System.⁶ Itsbearingonmydiscussion is that Williams explains this “proleptic mechanism” for expanding the scope of blame (while not recovering its full universality) by invoking areflexive motivation, on the part of most ethical agents, to “desire to be respected by people whom, in turn, one respects” [Williams, 1989,p.7]. It is important to add that,for Williams, blame only works in the wayitactuallydoes if it is not privileged in the waythe Morality System insists, but depends on other ethical dispositions. Furthermore, it is as subjectasthe internal reasons constraint – which it mirrors – to the constraint that,asamatter of contingent fact,people either have this “ethicallyimportant disposition” or they do not [Williams, 1989,p.7].

 Forcontrastingdiscussions of Williams’scritique of the Morality System see Charles Taylor []and Robert B. Louden []. Williams on Integrity,Ground Projects and Reasons to Be Moral 255

Givenwhat Williams takes to be the most general truth about reasons there can, literally, be nothing thatmakes an external reasons ascription true. If blame is connected to such reasons in the waythat the Morality System insists, then blame cannot be all that it seems to be. But something survivesWilliams’scritical account in order to meet his test of stability under reflection: aconception of blame, in amoreramified set of connections with other ethical dispositions and emotions, and atruthful recognition of putatively externalreasons as optimistic internal reasons statements.Arealistic, unmoralised,account of human psychologyleavesuswith aconception of the ethical community as constituted by those who want to relatetoothers on abasis of mutual respect.Wecan truth- fullylivewith each other on thoseterms and dispense with the fictionsofthe Morality System. Similarly,Williams’slateraccount of ground projects involves ageneraliza- tion of an analogous reflexive structure to thatinvolvedinrespect to those virtues thatsurround our practicesoftruth telling. But this more developed account starts even further back in Williams’saccount of “steadying the mind” and the constitutive involvement of acommunity in stabilizingthe very disposition of belief such that the content entertained in an agent’smind can be, deter- minately, either abelief or adesire [Williams 2002,pp. 82–83]. This is avery ambitious argument that begins from Williams’sfamous claim that belief cannot be subjecttothe will, via an account of “steadying the mind” in the context of a community,tothe wayinwhich different conceptions of community support different conceptions of what it is to be truthful about oneself. However,Williams opts for one of these ideals of truthful self-expression as the correct one. His later account of ground projects features in his defense of this ideal [Williams 2002,chapter 9]. Iwill set out this argument in more detail in section four,below. The starting point for anyassessment of Williams’scomplex and mutually supportingset of arguments is this:inorder for something to count as areason for aparticularagent,itmust be potentiallyexplanatory of that specific agent’s actionsasaresult of sound deliberation from his or her initial subjective motivational set.Williams’smoral psychologysees acertain kind of structuring identification – aground project in Sartre’ssense – as playing adistinctive functional role in anysuch set.AsPamela Hieronymi puts it: To appreciate that role we need to examine another aspect of Williams’sethical philosophyasawhole: his critique of act utilitarianism. Williams’sconstraints on the answer to the question, “Whybemoral?” are substantive,not formal, and determine that the answer must fall within the class of what Scheffler calls “moderate moralities” [Scheffler 1993, p. 6]. 256 Alan Thomas

Now we can see how Williams’ internalism underwrites his integrity objection ….[U]tilitar- ianism neglects the extent to which the agent’sactions and decisionshavetobeseen as flowingfromthe projects and attitudes with which he is most clearlyidentified ….And yetutilitarianism tells the agents to treat his own projects and attitudes in an impartial way, to view them as if they belongedtosomeone else ….The agent can neither act nor deliberate fromatrulyimpersonal standpoint,as“anyone”⁷ [Hieronymi, n.d., pp. 4–5].

So Iwill now examine Williams’scritique of act utilitarianism in more detail to show whyhis constraints on the answer to the question, “Whybemoral?” are substantive, not formal. They determine thatthe answer to the question must fall within the class of what Scheffler calls “moderate moralities” [Scheffler, 1993, p. 4].

2Integrity and the Rational Authority of Morality

It mayseem to take some exegetical work to reconstruct the connection between ground projects and action from integrity,given that Williams’ discussion of the latter idea occurs in aspecific and apparentlyquite limited context: his critique of act utilitarianism. However,the appearance that Williams’spoint is merely local to thatdiscussion is misleading:

[T]he reason whyutilitarianismcannot understand integrity is that it cannot coherentlyde- scribe the relations between aman’sprojects and his actions.[Williams 1973,p.100]

So the objection is the specific application of amore general thesis. Iwill suggest aphenomenological argument,implicit in Williams’sdiscussion, which underwrites the claim that this argument has this wider significance. In an importantrecent book Paul Hurley has givengrounds for taking Wil- liams’sobjectiontoact utilitarianism to have such significance for normative ethics [Hurley 2009]. In the guise of an objection to act utilitarianism, the point of Williams’sargument is to highlightafault line between the consequentialist’stheory of value and theory of rightness, and between the latterand our intuitiveidea of the rational authority of moral reasons.However,inthe course of developing that argument Williams drawsonamore general thesis: that to be

 As Hieronymi noteshere, this connects with Williams’sthesis that practical reasoning is es- sentiallyfirst personal; this thesis was defended in Williams []but later retracted – but Wil- liams did not saywhy!For adifferent rationale for the thesis than Williams’sown see Thomas [forthcoming]. Williams on Integrity,Ground Projects and Reasons to Be Moral 257 identifiedwith the ground project of Utilitarian morality is to be identified with a project with no distinctive content of its own. Iwillexpand upon bothpoints. Hurley has argued that interpreters have misunderstood the nub of Wil- liams’scritique of utilitarianism. Standardlyunderstood, it is awell-worn objection to act consequentialism that it tells us that,under certain circumstances, moralitycan be very demanding for an agent.One could, indeed, view the integrity objection through this lens: loss of integrity would feature as one more,ad- mittedlyheavy,cost to the agent.Unfortunately, however,the objection thus understood is not very plausible. It is, afterall, not difficult to imagine circumstances in which the morallyright action simply is very costlytoan agent.Further,the act utilitarian can respond thatone ought not to shoot the messenger: if act utilitarianism bringsthe messagethat morality can be very demanding,then that is aproblem about the content of morality – and apractical problem for us. It is not,per se, aproblem for act utilitarianism. Hurley,however,argues that this is amisunderstanding:the real issue is not that act utilitarianism is toodemanding,but that it makes no demands at all. The reason for this is that, qua species of the genus of consequentialist moral theories, this kind of normative theory is concerned solelywith aconstitutive account of the nature of rightness.The natureofrightness is explained in terms of the intrinsic values of outcomes. It says nothing at all about aseparate relation, namely, about the relation between rightness and our intuitive notion of areason. As Hurley aptlyputs it,act utilitarianism “jettisons ordinary morality but leavesordinary reason in place” [Hurley 2009,p.183]. It simplytakes the folk psychological conception of amoral reason for action for granted and fails to notice that the content thatitgives to its substantive theory of rightness severs the connection between rightness and reasons. So far from issuing extreme demands, the theory (qua theory of rightness) issues none at all; it would onlydosowereitentitled to assume aconnection between rightness and reasons.But it has no such entitlement: in fact,given the plausibility of Williams’sproject-based account of reasons for an agent,the theory givesusex- cellent advice as to how to avoid being alienated from the content of moralityas the act utilitarian understands it:

The real difficulty is not that rational agents are alienated by consequentialist morality from their plans,projects,and commitments,but that rational agents arealienated from such a consequentialist morality by the good reasons each has to honor her commitments and pursue her plans and projects.[Hurley 2009,p.21]

Consequentialism does not produce alienation from the content of morality, but the reverse. By the practical authority of moral reasons Hurley is appealing to no 258 Alan Thomas more here thanthe minimal idea thatagents can have sufficient or decisive reason to do what they oughttodo[Hurley,2009,p.11–12]. If reasons are internal in Williams’ssense, then that places him within the general family of “practical objectivity” theories thatincorporate this minimal understanding of the authority of reasons (this is the “cognitive internalism” that Skorupski correctlyattributes to him). So if internal reasons are grounded in an agent’sground projects,then act utilitarianism is powerless to alienate the agent from them. Thisfocus on the distinct relations between the values of outcomes and rightness, and the relation between rightness and reasons,im- mediatelyexplains the connection between these ideas and integrity:the act utilitarian tells an agent to perform the right action even if the agent has no reason at all to perform the recommended action. The act utilitarian requires acting rightlyevenifall the agent’sinternal reasons,basedonher ground projects,give her most reason to do what is, by act utilitarian lights,the wrongaction.That seems, in avery straightforward sense, aviolationofanagent’sintegrity. Iamnot concerned directly, here, with the assessment of this intriguinggen- eral argument against act utilitarianism, but with the deeper connection it makes between the internal reasons thesis and the nature of ground projects.AsHurley points out,inthe standard understanding of the problem of moral demandingness both act utilitarians and their critics presuppose the rational authority of moral reasons. However,the very same act utilitarian account both presupposes that thereare non-impersonal reasons and that agents have reasons to act on them. (That is what generates the initial paradoxthat agents have sufficient reasons to do wrongand insufficient reasons to do right.) But further reflection reveals how act utilitarianism, in it standard formulation, is self-stultifying – an even more serious problem. That which producesthis paradoxisthe claim that act utilitarianism must both exclusively represent the claims of the moralpoint of view and be rationally inescapable for an agent.Therefore, as an impersonal theory,the view cannot tolerate anynon-impersonal reasons in its formulation. But Williams demonstrates that the theory rests essentiallyonnon-impersonal reasons for its formulation such that,wereittoacknowledge this truth, act utilitarianism would be merelyone standpoint amongst otherstandpoints that the agent rationally could adopt.That latter concession is fatal to the theory;asHurley’sargument develops, it leads at least beyond consequentialism to hybrid theory and from there to acontractualism based on second-personal normativity.Myinterest here is in the first stepofthis argument: how act utilitarianism depends essen- tiallyinits formulation on non-impersonal reasons that it cannot acknowledge on pain of underminingits own claim to exclusive rational authority. Williams on Integrity,Ground Projects and Reasons to Be Moral 259

The crux of Hurley’sreconstruction of the argument runs as follows: imagine an agent who takes upon herself the empirical equivalent of the normative task of Hare’sWorld Agent: she represents the perspective of all other agents and their owninterests, values and projects and ranks outcomes according to the maximal satisfaction of an act utilitarian standard.⁸ [Hare 1981] There are no reasons in this picture as it is not anormative picture; the problem emergeswhen this conception is understood as potentiallyreason-giving with regard to ordinary agents. Under what conditions could we understand this empirical ranking as converted into anormative one? How could we understand the normative perspective of the World Agent? Williams argues we can understand it onlyonone condition: that the agent who thus takes act utilitarianism as her ground project must be an exceptional agent – an agent whose position cannot be generalizedtothat of all others. If, however,she must be an exceptional agent then her standpoint loses its claim to be the exclusive standpoint in which the rationalpoint of view and the moral point of view are unified. The standpoint of the World Agent is, then, arationally optional standpoint and at thatpoint the theory is in trouble. If it acknowledges that it rests on non-impersonal reasons,then it loses its claim to exclusive rational authority;ifitfailstoacknowledge that it is so grounded, then it deniesan independentlyplausible phenomenological point about ground projects as part of its general severing of the relation between rightness and reasons. What is the explanation of this necessarilyexceptional status?Why is the standpoint of our putative utilitarian agent,for whom act utilitarianism is her ground project,one that cannot generalize to all other agents?The explanation Hurley recovers from Williams is that we can envisage an agent adopting act util- itarianismasher ground project.The problem blocking the generalization of this concession, however,isthat this “higher order” ground project has no distinctive content of its own. The phrase “higher order” grants it neither anyspecial content nor anyspecial rational authority.Instead, it is one ground project amongst all othersuch projects. Just as first order projects are transparent to the values that ground them, so the act utilitarian’shigher order project of seeking compossiblytorealize all the lower order projects of all agents (includingher own) is transparent to those very same groundingvalues. Certainlythe act utilitarian can stipulate that her exceptional ground project encompasses all others within its scope, but thatisnot to claim that being “higher order” captures anyspecial rationalauthority (except

 Hurley does not introducethe analogy with Hare’sWorld Agent,but Itakeithis discussion suggests aview of this kind [Hurley, ,pp.–]. 260 Alan Thomas stipulatively). Comprehensive scope does not generate an automatic entitlement to such authority.Other agents are in adifferent position: they are free to adopt the act utilitarian’sground project and for them it could generate reasons,but that is because it is merelyone optional project amongst all other projects and is, therefore, an explicit disavowal of such special authority. Hencethe dilemma:either the act utilitarian, in the light of the constitutive connection between ground projects and reasons, breaks the connection between rightness and reasons, or she does not.Ifshe breaks it,she violates an agent’sintegritybygiving her no reason to do right,orgood reason to do wrong. If she does not break it,she must abandon the claim that act utilitarianism showsthat the moral and the rational points of view are identical and inescapable for all agents. Thus the reason the specific discussion of the failures of act utilitarianism generalizes beyond this context is that Williams’scritique of the act utilitarian drawsonageneral truth in moral psychology: that to be committed to aground project is to be open to arangeofvalues and reasons that structure an agent’s deliberative field.Itisthe phenomenological claim thatthe life of virtue has no distinctive content of its own; it is aquasi-perceptual sensitivity to the values that are relevant to that ground project [Thomas 2005,2006]. It is this phenomenological point that grounds the crucial claim that the “higher order” ground project of the envisagedutilitarian agent is essentiallyparasitic on the content of the ground projects of non-utilitarian agents. We can envisageanact utilitarian agent from whom the normative perspective of the World Agent is her ground project,sothat for her the connection between rightness and reasons has been guaranteed; but if this ground project has no content of its own, then if we imagine it generalized to all agents then we are playing the “shell game.” At some point we have to discharge the obligation to explain the content of the utilitarian ground project.When we do, its claim exclusively to represent arationallyman- datory standpoint that unites the rational and the moral is undermined. We cannot all be act utilitarians all of the time; this is true even if some of us can be act utilitarians some of the time. The bearing of this point on the central question with which this paper is concerned, “Whybemoral?” is that anyanswer to thatquestion can onlybe raised,and answered, in the light of the substantivecontent of an agent’sground projects.Scheffler concludes, in his own “reconciliationist” project of formulat- ing ahybrid theory,that the connection between rightness and reasons can be preserved onlyinwhat he called a “moderate morality” [Scheffler1993; 1994]. That is the whole point of phrasing the question of whether alife good for the agent and amoral life are potentiallyconvergent: there is no answer to that question that is independent of the substantivecontent of an agent’sprojects. Williams on Integrity,Ground Projects and Reasons to Be Moral 261

Giventhat reasons are internal, and that ground projects underpin our ordinary notionofacting for areason in the light of asocial identification, plus the constraint of psychological realism, Williams is eliminating competingpositions one by one. The answer to the question, “Whybemoral?” cannot involveapriori constraints on practical agency as such: in that sense it has no formal answer. Furthermore, in so far as the question has onlyasubstantive answer,thosean- swers are also constrained to fall within the class of “moderate moralities.” It also seems we are in aposition to sayevenmore: that within thatclass we are constrained to consider thosemoderate moralities consonant with abackground conception of ethical community thatinvolvesrelations of mutualrespect.⁹ If even conceptualizing our ethical livesinthatway represents acertain kind of historical achievement, can Williams’slater discussion of political psy- chologydetermine the class of permissible answers to our initial question even further by turning from mutual respect to mutualacknowledgement?

3FromMoralPsychologytoPolitical Psychology

Ihaveoutlined Williams’sgeneral strategy, but Ihavenot yetallayedthe concern that it fails to address the crucial issue. It seems that we need, case by case, to examine the substantivecontent of an agent’sprojects to see whether or not they ground amoral life satisfying to the agent.But is this eudaimonistic perspective sufficienttodetermine the content of moral projects?Inorder to address this point Ithink it is helpful to discuss Williams’sfinal statement of his moral psychology. The subjectmatter has changed, by the time of Truthand Truthfulness,to whether or not agenealogyofthe concept of knowledge can lead us to identify virtues, norms, and values that are constitutively bound up with the “belief-assertion-communication system” [Williams 2002,p.84; Thomas 2008].Williams’s answer is “yes,” in an ambitious argument thattries to identify the schematic content of this system, based on interpretational arguments taken over from Donald Davidson, while also arguing thatthis schema has to be filled in via the contingent history of actual epistemic practices. In order to highlight that his two keyterms are terms of art,Williams capital- izes the words “Accuracy” and “Sincerity” as part of his general account of truth

 My own view,which Iwill not develop at anylength here,isthat what Ihavecalled Williams’s “phenomenological” argument pushes his view towards aform of moral realism – although this is not aconclusion that Williams would have welcomed. That Williams’sresistancetorealism partlydepends on his epistemological foundationalism is argued in Thomas [/]. 262 Alan Thomas tellingasinvolving these twin schematic dispositions on the part of people within the “system” of knowledge to take care and not to lie or otherwise mislead. It is not my aim here to assess the plausibility of Williams’scharacterization of these schematicepistemic virtues, but to focus on the wayinwhich they shape Wil- liams’sfinal discussion of the idea of aground project.¹⁰ Williams thoughtthat,historically, different conceptions of Sincerity and Au- thenticity had playedanimportant – sometimes fateful – role in shapingpolit- ical expression of the social conditions to which these conceptions could be reconciled. Examining this argument in some detail reinforces the point that,for Williams, ground projects are not egoistic in content.Thisisbrought out very clearlywhen the context of the discussion is the transitiontothe political expression of the ground project of being truthful about oneself. In asuggestive discussion of the two contrasting accounts of Sincerity found in Rousseauand Diderot,Williams takes them to be two “elaborations” of his ge- nealogyofSincerity into two competingaccounts of personal authenticity that explain “what it takes to be atruthful person” [Williams 2002,p.173]. It is clear from his discussion that they mark two polar opposites – two ways of being wrong – but there is acorrect account of the politics of self-knowledge re- coverable from the insights of each view by aprocess of triangulation. Williams claims that Rousseau’saccount of community is deeplymonolog- ical in its account of truthfulness to self and hence truthfulness to others (in that order of explanation). Giventhat he believes he has direct knowledge of himself from immediate acquaintance, “le sentiment de l’existence,” the mystery for Rousseauiswhat blocks his truthful presentation to others such thatheisso persistentlyand frustratingly misunderstood¹¹ [Rousseau1959, p. 1047]. The answer,for him, has to lie in extrinsic social conditions – when, thatis, it is not simplyacaseofindividual malicetowardshim. So Rousseaufurther concludes that we need,collectively,toremove the social conditions of material inequality and hence dominance: we thereby remove the obstacles to mutual sincerity.Given that, for Rousseau, living with each other in conditions of spontaneous openness is the highest virtue,weneed to live in a kind of political community wherethe blockagestothis spontaneous openness have been removed.¹² This puts us in aposition to institute aRousseauian con-

 Iassess these arguments elsewhereinThomas [].  “Whyisitsodifficulttobringabout aconcord between whatone is for oneself and what one is for others?”[Starobinski, /].  Williams quotes Starobinski on Rousseau’sideal for authentic inter-personal relations: “paradise was the reciprocal transparencyofconsciousnesses,atotal and confident communication between them” [Starobinski, /,p. quoted by Williams, ,p.]. Williams on Integrity,Ground Projects and Reasons to Be Moral 263 tract that involves no bargain, or trade, hence no cost to the agent: after signing the contractyou are as free as youwerebefore. We can see this as grounded in the deeper fact that “each, by giving himself to all, giveshimself to no one”.¹³ [Rousseau, 1997, I.6.8]Primarily, we need to removethe obstacles to this openness; to removethe social causes of inflamed amour-proprethat Williams reveal- ingly describes as “competitive self-assertion.”¹⁴ Hencearepublic thatisrestrict- ed in size, wherepeople are aboveall citizens at the expense of their private ends, renounceluxury,embrace frugality,and avoid all status inequalities that arise from the twin facts of material inter-dependence and inequality.From aliberal perspective,the problem is that the cost of this spontaneous openness if very high: this society is extensivelycoercive and the attractions of this modern daySparta are elusive from our ownperspective. Iturn now to Diderot who, by contrast,represents for Williams the claim that sociality enters into the stability of the dispositions that render the mind steady. This has the consequence that society is not merelythe mutual collision of monologic truth-tellers as Rousseauenvisages it.OnWilliams’sreadingofRa- meau’sNephew,thatwork is concerned to present acharacter who is committed to Rousseauian transparencyinhis self-presentation, with the flawthat the self thus presented is not stable over time and thereby frustrates the goal of explaining what it is to be atruthful person. Diderot’sperformance model undoes itself: there is “uninhibited spontaneity,” but with no groundinginastable self. The protagonist improvises the self that his audience, in some specific context,requires him to be. (Perhaps the best analogyfor this character is that of the con- versational “shape shifter”.)¹⁵ So one virtue,spontaneous openness, does not secure another: mutual trust.Itfails to do so as thereisnostable character in whom one can trust.But the problem, as Williams sees it,actuallyruns deeper:

On Diderot’sview,asIunderstand him, it is auniversal truth, not just aspecial featureof modernity,that human beings have an inconstant mental constitution that needs to be steadied by society and interaction with other people. [Williams 2002,p.191]

 As PhilipPettit notes, crucial here is the thoughtthat no lawlegislated by the General Will can be unjust because “no man can be unjust towards himself” [Rousseau, ,II.. quoted in Pettit, ,p.].  Taylor emphasizes Rousseau’sclaim that in this competition all lose: givenacondition of dependence, “maître et esclave se dépravent mutuellment” [Emile,Paris,Garnier, ,Bk, p. ,quoted in Taylor ].  Thereisalatter presentation of the same theme, of comparable brilliancetothat of Diderot, in Melville’s TheConfidence Man [Melville, /]. 264 Alan Thomas

Williams’sargument is thatwecannot rest with the idea that Rameau’snephew is spontaneously authentic, but just for amoment; for aspeaker of that kind whose character seems improvised and episodic, we oughttoquestion “what kind of thing is in his mind” [Williams 2002,p.191, emphasis added]. Episodic beliefs thatchange, not in responsetoevidence, but because of re-configura- tions of the agent’spsychology, maycome to strike us as not beliefs at all. This maynot be the casewith the deliverances of basic capacities of mind such as memory or perception. But for more complex interpretative or evaluative beliefs, these must be embedded in asocial practice of situated avowal in order to be candidates for belief at all. Paradoxically, Williams argues Diderot’sinsight allows for amore robust individualism than that envisaged by Rousseau. That is because of its recognition of “[the] social dimension [of] the construction of beliefs, attitudes and desires” which are “the materials of idiosyncrasy,and the lesson is that we need each other in order to be anybody” [Williams 2002,p.200,emphasis added].¹⁶ So we can now triangulate between the flawedviews of Rousseauand Diderot: sociality enters into individuality and indeed makes it possible in acommunity characterized by various levels of inter-personal trust.Our fundamental relation to each other is dialogic and not monologic. This claim is grounded on fundamental facts in the philosophyofmind about knowledge,self-knowledge,and the stability of the dispositions that underpin belief. Williams believed that acritical engagement with Rousseauand Diderot takes us directlytoanargument for aliberal politics. Such apolitics is aworking out of the relationship between freedom from domination and an individual life worth living.¹⁷ Rousseauwas primarilyconcernedwith freedom from domina-

 Perhapsweshould add “anybodyinparticular” giventhat,inhis careful and complementary analysis of Rousseau’spolitical psychology,Charles Taylor notes that,inacommunity of virtue bound together by “perfectlybalanced reciprocity”,for Rousseau it follows that “caring about esteem … is compatible with freedomand social unity,because the society is one in which all the virtues will be esteemed equallyand for the same [right] reasons.”“Paradoxically,” Taylor continues, “the bad other dependencegoes along with separation and isolation; the good kind, which Rousseaudoesn’tcall other-dependenceatall, involves the unity of acommon project,evena‘common self’” [Taylor ,pp. – quoting Du contrat social,p.]. Wil- liams’scomment is that the aspiration to “coincide with myself onlyifIcoincide with others” is a “desperate assertion … merefantasy,atriumph of the wish” [Williams ,p.].  In akey range of cases that Williams describes,anindividual’scommitment to truthfulness stands in an antagonistic relation to apolitical culture “which destroysand pollutes the truth” [Williams, ,p.]. This takesaparticular form in the special development,within modern societies,ofthe institutions of modern scienceand the vocation of ascientist whovalues truthfulness for its own sake.Itmatters to Williams that the scientist facesarecalcitrant reality that is Williams on Integrity,Ground Projects and ReasonstoBeMoral 265 tion, but failed to secure the right kind of political community;Diderot recognizes thatsociality is the underpinning of individuality so he sets us on the right track for apolitics for amodern,commercial, society.Such asociety involves both the values of individualityand the basis for astable social order grounded on generalizedimpersonal trust and mutual assurance. Asecure individualism is grounded in the social conditions for social cooperation.¹⁸ Interestingly for current purposes, Williams then extends his basic argument in anovel direction: this truth about the politics of knowledge helps to explain a distinctivelymodern phenomenon, namely, the politics of recognition. Modern authenticity depends on an “individualized” identity that is, as Charles Taylor puts it, “particulartome, and thatIdiscover in myself” [Taylor 1995b, p. 227em- phasis added]. Arefusaltorecognize an identity is aform of personal or cultural impoverishment.Identities,inthis politicallyrelevant sense, have to reflecta combination of finding and making.This is Williams’sonlyexplicitdiscussion of the political dimension of his idea of a “ground project.” Williams argues that, first-personally, we need to be identifiedwith them by an act of commitment,but concedes that even that wordseems toovoluntaristic. The role of such social identifications is that they have to be, from the first-personal perspective,asmuch found as made. That has adirect consequencefor how we present ourselvestoothers: as calling for “acknowledgement.” We need to be mutuallyrecognized as being in the position to make claims upon each other that can be reciprocated. Our relation to each other in this endeavor is active and not passive.Williams describes the coreofhis liberal political psy- chologyasfollows:

In the social or political case, where the presenceofother people is vital, sincerity helps to construct or to create truth. Drawn to bind myself to the others’ shared values, to makemy own beliefs and feelings steadier [to make them, at the limit,for the first time intobeliefs], I become whatwith increasingsteadiness Ican sincerely profess:Ibecome what Ihavesin- cerelydeclaredtothem, or perhaps Ibecome my interpretation of their interpretation of

not the will of another agent; “that is akey to the sense of freedom that it can offer” [Williams, ,p.]. To be free, in such acase, is to be free from arbitrary domination by the will of another,but also to be free of deceit: the virtues of truth areset against the difficulty of discovery of truths that areboth independent of the will of the inquirer,but also free from interferenceby other inquirers.  To invoke Rousseauonce again, it is social cooperation of the kind that he identifies in his famous parable of whether or not agroupofindividuals should hunt for stag(requiringmutual trust and adegreeofrisk, but with ahigher payoff)orhunt for stag (requiringnotrust,norisk, but with alower payoff whollywithin the individual’scontrol [Rousseau, ,II.]. Williams’s answer,throughout Truth and Truthfulness,isthat the “assertion-belief-communication” system rests on mutual assurance – in Rousseau’sterms,aStagHunt. 266 Alan Thomas

what Ihavesincerelydeclared to them. The sense that Iamcontributingtothis, that it is a project,fills out the idea that acknowledgement is morethan amere factual discovery, while at the same time the sense that thereisadiscovery involved is related to the need to resist fantasy in makingsense of my beliefs and allegiancesinthis way. [Williams 2002,p.204]

Being sincerewith each otherisnot,asRousseauenvisaged, the transparent expression of atruth about oneself that is alreadyestablished, but is partiallycon- stituted by the stable underwriting of the disposition of belief that depends on our social nature. (Nor is this the inauthenticity of seeking to be only what one is in the eyes of others – an inverse of Rousseauian mirroring.)Claims about truthfulness, the epistemic virtues surroundingpropositional truth, lead to surprising claims in the philosophyofmind. Those theses, in turn, support aview about the nature of political community whereanessential role is played by mutual recognition and the very sociality thatmakesindividuality possible. The schematic political psychologyofTruth and Truthfulness envisages agenea- logical argument from the nature of the knowing subject to twopolitical conditions: that we live alife whereweare not arbitrarilydominated by otheragents and wherethe conditions thatremovedomination leave room for individual lives worth living. Williams clearlyenvisages, in this late discussion, ground projects as figur- ing in the explanation of the worthwhileness of alife. Truth and Truthfulness contains what youmight call achastened account of their importance: he thinks they are rife with the capacity for self-delusion and errorand always risk “ethical and social disaster” [Williams 2002,p.205]. But they remain apart of his view and Ialsotakeittobeimportant that this late discussion takes them to be projects that call for acknowledgement;they are not aform of egoistic self-assertion. At this point it might seem as if we have gone full circle: Williams’s “cognitive internalism” about reasons,the connection between blameand moralreasons, and this very ambitious transcendental argument in Truth and Truthfulness seem to offer asecure groundingfor amorality of reciprocal recognition. In fact,Williams is making common cause with aconception of normativity as second-personal normativity,a(sophisticated) approach to contractualism. That is, indeed, how Paul Hurley interprets him [Hurley 2009]. My own view is that this conclusionwould be tooquick. Williams thinksour own political history has containeddamagingmistakes about the particular ideal of truthfulness and its social pre-conditions;asIhave indicated, he thinks that those mistakescan be corrected and one account can be selected as the truth on this issue. This conclusion is, however,fullycompatible with his earlier discussion of the implications of his internal reasons thesis. That view,too, in- Williams on Integrity,Ground Projects and ReasonstoBeMoral 267 voked amechanism by which we seek mutuallytostabilise each other’srespons- es, but as Inoted aboveitappealed to onlyone aspect of the moralityofmutual recognition – the desire for mutual respect.Inthat sense the later discussion in Truth and Truthfulness further articulatesthis schematic account for awider rangeofinterlockingdispositions: anyideal of truthfulness of self that we can reflectivelyendorse forces us to embrace the existenceofthe more complex mechanism of mutualreliance and the constitutive role of community in “stabil- ising the mind.” Itake it,however,that the transition from Williams’sdiscussion of the proleptic mechanism of blame and its necessary fictions, even when expanded into the latter account of the community stabilisation of epistemic virtue,continues to draw on areflexive truthfulness about these fictions.Williams thought thatwe had glossed over the workingofthe proleptic mechanism because the Morality System forces upon us the fiction that thoseweblame always had external reasons to act as they did such as to deserve blame. Recognise the fiction, however, and the device no longer functions as it is supposedto(just as,inTruth and Truthfulness,the stabilisation of the virtuesofSincerity and Accuracy requires them to be valued for their own sake or they will not discharge their function). The two accounts now diverge: Williams’sgenealogyofSincerity and Accu- racy is compatible with areflective understandingofthem as more than mere devices,but and as boundupwith two kinds of value valued for their own sake and asurroundingset of dispositions and emotions. The reflective account of the proleptic mechanism involved in blame, however,isstable under reflection onlyif, acknowledging the constraint of psychological realism, we have to abandon our presupposition that moral reasons are universal. What bothac- counts share, earlyand late, is that they are examples of Williams’swider meth- odological commitment to anaturalistic psychologyfor morality thatdoes not presuppose anyethical ideas. The clearest expression of this goal is in Shame and Necessity,whereWilliams asks us to rethink the goals of moral psychology:

This is not merelythe idea that theremust be apsychology of ethics ….The idea is rather that the functionsofthe mind, aboveall with regardtoaction, aredefined in categories that gettheir significancefromethics.That is an idea that is certainlylacking in Homer and the tragedians.Itwas left to later Greek thought to invent it,and it has scarcely gone away fromussince. [Williams 2008, p. 42]

It is this constraint that continues to make Williams, within the broad school of “mutual recognition” theorists, an outlier more indebted to Nietzsche than to any other of his historicalforebears.Italso seems to me to make him an uncomfort- able bedfellow for proponents of aFichte-inspired ideal of second-personal normativity,but afurther consideration of that point awaitsanother occasion.Atthe 268 Alan Thomas least it reinforcesthe point that the very idea of acontractualist account of morality is an internallycomplex one. It contains strands more hospitable to the very idea of internal reasons and thosethat are less accommodating [Freeman 1990; Wallace 1990;Thomas 2006/2010,chapter four]. Overall, then,how conclusive is Williams’sdiscussion?Wehaveconclusive reason to endorse the claim that anyacceptable moralview willfall within the class of moderate moralities and we can rule out anyapriori transcendental argument that tries to provethatmoralityisaninescapable ground project for any agent.Inaddition we can add the claim that anysuch ground project will seek acknowledgement from others just as, from within the moral properlyunder- stood freed from the distortion of the MoralitySystem, moral reasons are ex- changed between those who desire the respect of each other on abasis of mutuality. The continuingcauses for concern for Williams’scritics are these: first,who gets to set the terms of acknowledgement?¹⁹ Can the agent be selective in those from who she seeks acknowledgement?Itisnohelp if the principled Nazi seeks, on her own terms, onlyacknowledgement from otherNazis. Point taken, but this simplyraises the issue about content dependence again: the answer to our question requires acase-by-case consideration of substantive answers. Secondly, with the necessary,apriori, and hence universal foundationfor moralityundermined, plus aconstraint of psychological realism, what now guar- antees the universality of moralreasons within such networks of mutual respect as thoseinvolvedinWilliams’sproleptic mechanism?Isubmit that,ifthe perfect coincidenceofacommunity of mutual respect and an evaluativecommunity of mutualacknowledgement is no longer guaranteed by reason, then theirrelation- ship is, indeed, open to further determination.²⁰ Williams has identifiedcon- straints on the answer to the question, “Whybemoral?” that are necessary, but not sufficient,conditions for an ethicallyadequate answer.But if Williams leavesuswith aquestion, but not an answer,then it could hardlybeotherwise. There are determinate truths to be had about the social and political conditions of anysuch answer and, as Ihavedemonstrated, Williams establishes what they are in his discussion of the modernpolitics of identity.But the actual answer to

 IamgratefultoBradCokelet,Katerina Deligorgi and David Owen for separatelyraisingthis concern in different ways.  This is, in fact,the major choice point in contemporary contractualism between Scanlon’s view,which presupposes an independentlyvaluable idea of an ethical community bound by relations of mutual acknowledgement,and Darwall’sreasons based view.Idiscuss this in ‘Second Personal Reasons and Agent-Relativity:AResponse to Mark LeBar’ [Thomas, b]. Williams on Integrity,Ground Projects and Reasons to Be Moral 269 the question of “whybemoral?” cannot be legislated for by philosophical reflection alone.

Conclusion

In this paper Ihaveaddressed Williams’sanswer to the question, “Whybe moral?” by placing some of the fundamental concepts of his ethical outlook – the internality of reasons,the idea of aground project,and the idea of action from integrity – in the context of his later political psychology. One, negative, aim is to address the worry thatWilliams’saccount of the place of ethical constraints in the life of an individual licenses egoism or,indeed, the expression “with integrity” of unethical motivations (such as those of the principled Nazi). There are prior, presuppositional, constraints in Williams’saccount,but it is not the set of apriori moral principles that the constitutivist argues constrain all expressions of practical agency. These constraints determine the answer to the question at different degrees of generality. Finally, anyanswer to the question for us – and, as usual in Williams’sphilosophy, identifying who “we” are is the crucial issue – is constrained by mutualacknowledgement and mutualrespect,inthe context of amodern ethical community where “modern” records the fact that acommunity of that kind is an historical achievement.Ihave argued that it is within the context of acommunity of this kind that candidate answers to the question, all within the rangeofmoderate moralities, will be assessed not by philosophybut rather,asAlasdair MacIntyre once remarked, by reflective living [Thomas 2006/2010,p.253].²¹

Bibliography

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 Research for this paperwas funded by the Templeton Foundation research project “The Phi- losophyand Theology of Intellectual Humility.” Iamgrateful to the Foundation for its support. Forcomments on earlier drafts of this paperIam gratefultoKathryn Brown, Brad Cokelet,Ka- terina Deligiorgi, Beatrix Himmelmann, Antti Kauppinen, Burt Louden, Kian Mintz-Woo, Adam Morton, and David Owen. 270 Alan Thomas

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Contributors

Dieter Birnbacher is Professor Emeritus of Philosophyatthe Universityof Düsseldorf.

RichardEldridge is Charles and Harriett CoxMcDowell Professor of Philosophy at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania.

HallvardJ.Fossheim is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ber- gen.

Roe Fremstedal is Professor of PhilosophyatUiT,The Arctic University of Nor- way.

BeatrixHimmelmann is Professor of PhilosophyatUiT,The Arctic University of Norway.

Christoph Horn is Professor of Philosophyatthe University of Bonn.

Ivar Russøy Labukt is AssociateProfessor of Philosophy at UiT,The Arctic Uni- versityofNorway.

Iddo Landau is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa.

Robert B. Louden is DistinguishedProfessor of Philosophyatthe University of Southern Maine.

Erik Lundestad is Associate Professor of PhilosophyatUiT,The Arctic University of Norway.

Peter Schaber is Professor of Philosophyatthe UniversityofZürich.

David G. Sussman is Professor of Philosophyatthe University of Illinois at Ur- bana-Champaign.

Alan Thomas is Professor of Ethics at TilburgUniversity.

Héctor Wittwer is Professor of Philosophyatthe Otto vonGuericke University Magdeburg.

Index

Allison, Henry181n, 189n Edwards, Paul 163, 165 Ameriks, Karl 204–206, 214n Eldridge, Richard 7–8, 205n, 214n Annas, Julia 55 Enoch, David 131n Appiah, Kwame Anthony 232–233 Evans, C. Stephen 177,195 Ariely,Dan 86 Aristotle 3, 5, 50, 65–79, 124, 151 Ferreira, M. Jamie 177 Ayer, A.J. 163, 165 Fielding, Henry50 Finlay,Stephen 252 Babiak, Paul 25 Firestone,Chris189n Baier,Kurt48, 83 Foot, Philippa 59 Bambauer,Christoph 143 Fossheim,Hallvard J. 3 Bates, Stanley 210n Frankena,William K. 45, 47n, 51n Bayertz, Kurt 15 Frankfurt, Harry126, 137n, 183–184 Behler,Ernst 187n Freeman, Samuel 200n, 268 Bentham, Jeremy 26 Fremstedal, Roe 6–7, 176n, 177n, 179n, Bennett, Jonathan 49n, 173n 189n, 191n Birnbacher,Dieter 1–2, 13, 15 Freud, Sigmund 202, 207 Blackburn, Simon 15, 45n Furtak,Rick Anthony 175, 184, 187,191– Boghossian, Paul 52 195 Bohrer,KarlHeinz 187n Bradley,F.H.45, 235, 237 Gallie, Walter Bryce57 Brandt, Reinhard157 Gauthier,David P. 47,90, 92, 106, 108– Brink,David O. 83–84, 97,99 109, 235 Brogaard, Berit 159 Geach, Peter 185 Budick, Sanford 205n Gert, Bernard 45–46 Butler,Joseph 99n Gewirth, Alan 52, 83 Gibbard, Allan 52–53, 55, 58 Camus, Albert45 Gide, André 15 Carnap, Rudolf 1, 13 Glock, Hans-Johann 52n, 59 Cavell,Stanley 210n Grøn, Arne 178–179, 181n, 188, 191, 195 Coady,C.A.J.60 Guyer, Paul 142 Collingwood, Robin George 201 Copp, David 246n Habermas,Jürgen 8, 52, 191n-192n, 222– Cottingham, John 170,271 228, 233 Cuneo, Terence 83 Hannay,Alastair 192n, 195n Hare, John 173, 176n, 183n, 191n Darwall, Stephen 83, 268n Hare, Richard M. 16–17,83, 88n, 89n, Davenport, John 174n, 176n, 182–185, 237,259 187,192–196 Hare, RobertD.25 Davidson, Donald 252, 261 Hart, H. L. A. 49n Dennis, Peter V Hatfield, Gary173n Dewey,John 8, 217–234 Hegel, G.W.F.148, 187n, 191–192, 202– Diderot, Denis262–265 203 Dreier,James 105n Heidegger,Martin 13 276 Index

Hense, Otto 1n, 10 Kripke,Saul 52 Hepburn, Ronald W. 159 Kuhlmann, Wolfgang239 Herman, Barbara142 Hickman, Larry227–228 Labukt, IvarRussøy3–4 Hieronymi, Pamela 255–256 Lance, Mark Norris52–53 Hill, Christopher S. 53, 58 Landau, Iddo 6 Hill, Thomas E. 142 Lauer,Paul34n Hills,Alison 45, 49n Lear, Jonathan 136n Himmelmann, Beatrix 4, 62, 197 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 13 Hobbes, Thomas 4, 48, 59, 85, 105–113, LloydThomas, D.A. 85 118–121, 151, 252 Louden, Robert B. 1–3, 49n, 51n, 254n Hoffmann, Martin 248 Lübcke, Poul 174n, 175, 178 Hölderlin Friedrich 207–208 Lundestad, Erik 8 Horn, Christoph 5–6, 157,176n, 197 Hösle, Vittorio 191n Mackie, John L. 15, 17 Hospers, John 45–46, 48, 50n MacIntyre, Alisdair 183n, 195, 199n, 269 Hume, David 36n, 144, 156, 252 McDowell, John 52, 67 Hunt, Lester 84 McLeod, Owen 246 Hurley,Paul 226, 256–259, 266 Mead, George Herbert 223 Hursthouse, Rosalind 72n, 79 Melville, Herman 263n Metz, Thaddeus 165–166 Interlandi, Jeneen 58, 62 Mill, John Stuart 26–27,35, 87,91 Irwin,Terrence61, 70,152, 189, 192–193 Milton, John 205 Monro, D. H. 14–16 Jacobs, Nathan 189n Montada, Leo 18 Joyce, Richard 83 Moore, G.E. 147 Morgan, Seiriol 188–189 Kahneman, Daniel 229–230 Kalin, Jesse 83 Nadler,Steven 173n Kain, Patrick 143n Nagel, Thomas 81, 159, 249–250 Kant, Immanuel 5–7, 20–23, 33, 49, 54, Nelson, Stephanie A. 47n 59–60, 99, 116–117,124–125, 138, Neuhouser, Frederick 115n 141–157,174,176–177,181n, 189, 192n- Nielsen, Kai23, 47–48, 159 193n, 203–207,211, 220, 223, 233, 236, Nietzsche, Friedrich 1, 4, 23, 50, 56, 103, 253 105, 118–120,123, 125, 202, 267 Kavka,Gregory48, 92, 235 Nussbaum, Martha 78n Kekes, John 163–165, 183n Khodorkovsky,Mikhail 114n, 115n, 117n Oberdiek, Hans 211n, 214n Kierkegaard, Søren 6–7, 173–196 Ogden, Charles Kay53 Kloppenberg, James T. 229 O’Leary-Hawthorne, John 52–53 Knappe, Ulrich 174 O’Neill, Onora60n, 142–143 Kohlberg, Lawrence26 Österberg,Jan 89n Korsgaard, Christine M. 5, 33, 49n, 116n, 124–125, 128–137,139, 142, 195, 208n, Pahel, Kenneth 45n 214n, 219, 232, 250n Pappas, GregoryFernando 224 Kosch, Michelle 179–182, 185n, 192n Parfit, Derek 45n,83, 199–200 Pears, David 72n Index 277

Peirce, Charles Sanders221, 230 Skorupski, John 251, 253–254, 258 Pettit, Philip 263n Smith, Barry159 Pfau, Thomas 207 Smith, Michael 83 Pinkard,Terry204n Socrates 1, 16, 27,33, 47–48, 50, 55–56, Plato1,5,23, 26–27,31, 47–48, 50, 55– 152 56, 69, 105, 124, 128, 130,133, 151–152, Sorell, Tom108n, 122 192, 235, 241 Stace, W.T. 45 Poehlman, Eric 58 Starobinski, Jean 262n Pojman, Louis P. 45n, 47n, 48n, 51n Stemmer,Peter 33n, 34, 36–37 Poole, Roger 173 Stephen, Leslie 50 Prauss,Gerold 116n, 122, 145, 157 Stewart, Jon 187n Prichard, Harold Arthur2,31–32, 40,46, Stokes, Patrick 195n 49–50, 123, 147 Stroud, Sarah 236–238, 247 Sunstein,CassR.228–229, 231–233 Quinn, Philip L. 47n Sussman, David 4–5, 116n

Rachels, James 82 Tännsjö, Torbjörn83 Rachels, Stuart 83 Taylor,Charles 162, 254n, 263–265 Railton, Peter 97 Taylor,Craig 60 Rand, Ayn 84 Taylor,PaulW.45 Rawls, John 109, 161, 212–213 Taylor,Richard160–161 Richards, I.A.53 Tenenbaum,Sergio 131n Ricken, Friedo 49n Theunissen, Michael 178n, 180n, 181n, Ripstein, Arthur251n 195n, 197 Rescher,Nicholas13, 28 Thomas,Alan 1, 10,251 – 252, 256n, 260– Roberts, Robert C. 174n 262, 268–269 Rorty,Richard217–219, 223–224 Thomas,Laurence164 Ross, W.D. 147 Thornton, J.C. 46–47 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 115, 262–266 Thuborg, Anders186n Rudd, Anthony 174–176, 179–180,182– Tjønneland, Eivind 187n 187,189n, 193n, 196 Tolstoy, Leo 159 Toulmin, Stephen 45n, 47 Sartre, Jean-Paul 180,189, 195, 255 Tralau, Johan 110n, 122 Scanlon,Thomas M. 90n, 268n Turiel, Elliot 26 Schaber,Peter 1–2 Tversky,Amos 229 Scheffler,Samuel 10,99, 255–256, 260 Twain, Mark 219 Scheler,Max 147 Schelling, F.W.J. 181n Urmson, James Opie 72n Schiller,Marvin 45n Schopenhauer,Arthur148, 180 Wachsmuth, Kurt 1n, 10 Sellars, Wilfrid 45n, 55 Waismann, Friedrich 52n Sen, Amartya 17 Wallace, G. 15, 57–59 Seneca23 Wallace, R. Jay 251, 268 Shafer-Landau, Russ45n, 47n, 48n, 97 Walker,A.D.M. 15, 57–59 Sher,George 45n, 47n, 48n Watson, Gary126n Sidgwick, Henry45, 83, 88, 92 Weber,Max 103–104, 122 Singer,Peter 35, 36n, 83, 90,95, 100n Wellmer,Albrecht 223–224, 234 278 Index

Whiteley,C.H. 91n Wittgenstein, Ludwig13, 15, 52, 199, 214 Wielenberg,Erik J. 162, 171 Wittwer,Héctor 8–9, 235, 248 Wiggins, David 159, 171 Wolf, Susan 61, 159 Williams, Bernard3,5,7,9–10,65, 79, Wood, Allen W. 99 125, 134–137,148, 183, 195, 199–204, 208n, 209n, 212, 249–269