Social and Political Philosophy

Contemporary Perspectives

James P. Sterba

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN:
  9780415217958
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134602452
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Social and Political Philosophy introduces some of the most important topics in contemporary political philosophy and questions whether these can be accommodated within the framework of liberal theory. It consists of specially written essays by prominent figures in social and political philosophy. Each essay carefully considers both the theoretical and practical problems of a major topic. Traditional perspectives are balanced with new challenges. Topics include:
* Moral Methodology
* Libertarianism
* Socialism
* Lesbian and Gay Perspectives
* Feminism
* Racial and Multicultural Perspectives
* Rationality
* Welfare Liberalism
* Environmentalism
* Virtue Ethics and Community
* Just War Theory and Pacifism
* Civil Disobedience.

Part I

INTRODUCTION

JUSTICE FOR HERE AND NOW

James P.Sterba

Too often, doing philosophy is modeled after fighting a battle or making war. Arguments are attacked, shot down (like a plane) or sunk (like a ship). Theses are defended, defeated, or demolished (like the walls of a city). Ideas (like people) are killed and destroyed.¹ There are clearly problems with doing philosophy in this way. There is unfairness inherent in the practice, along with its tendency to undercut the possibility of reaching truly justified views. Fortunately, there is a peacemaking alternative. This way of doing philosophy that, while seeking to determine what are the most justified philosophical views, is committed to

1. a fair-mindedness that, among other things, puts the most favorable interpretation on the views of one’s philosophical opponents,
2. an openness that reaches out to understand challenging new philosophical views, and
3. a self-criticalness that requires modifying or abandoning one’s philosophical views should the weight of available evidence require it.
   
   

From rationality to morality

Now a first step to implementing a peacemaking way of doing philosophy with respect to social and political philosophy is to examine carefully the possibility of grounding morality on the widely shared norms of rationality. This requires not simply showing that morality is rationally permissible, because that would imply that egoism and immorality were rationally permissible as well. Rather, what needs to be shown is that morality is rationally required, thus excluding egoism and immorality as rationally permissible.

In his recent book, The Rational and the Moral Order, Kurt Baier attempts to overcome this gap between egoism and morality by interpreting morality as a system of reasons of mutual benefit that are appropriate for contexts in which everyone’s following self-interested reasons would have suboptimal results for everyone.² So interpreted, moral reasons apply only when there exists an adequate enforcement system that makes acting against those reasons unprofitable. Morality so construed never requires any degree of altruism or self-sacrifice; it only requires that people act upon reasons of mutual benefit. According to Baier,

[The] Limited Good Will [of morality] is not a straightforward other-regarding or benevolent, let alone an altruistic… pattern… Persons of limited conditional goodwill may thus be motivated primarily by concern for their own good life and their conforming with [moral] guidelines is a contribution to the concerns of others, which (since they may not care about these others) is made mainly or only because the realization of their own ends is seen to depend on the contributions made by others, and because they are prepared to recognize the reasonableness of reciprocity in this matter.³

Given this interpretation of morality, it is not possible for the egoist to do better by acting against morality. So construed, morality and egoism do not conflict.

Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the defense of morality for which we were hoping. It succeeds only by redefining morality in a question-begging way so that it no longer demands any degree of altruism or self-sacrifice, e.g. for those who are poor and misfortunate, and in that way is rendered compatible with egoism.

Searching for such a non-question-begging justification of morality, Alan Gewirth has proposed a quite different argument.⁴ The central premises of his argument can be summarized as follows:

1. All agents regard their purposes as good according to whatever criteria are involved in their actions to fulfill them.
2. Therefore, all agents must affirm a right to the freedom and well-being necessary to achieve their purposes.
3. All agents must affirm such a right on the basis of simply being prospective, purposive agents.
4. Hence, all agents must affirm that every prospective, purposive agent has a right to freedom and well-being.

Gewirth claims that the universalized right affirmed in the conclusion of his argument is a moral right, that is, a right that is action-guiding for the rightholder and for others as well, a right that implies at least that others ought not to interfere with the exercise of that right. Such rights are symmetrically action-guiding because they are action-guiding both for the rightholder and for others as well.

Nevertheless, the success of Gewirth’s argument depends on the impossibility of interpreting the universalized right in his conclusion as anything other than a moral right. Unfortunately for Gewirth’s argument, another interpretation is possible. According to this interpretation, a universalized right can be deduced from the premises of his argument, but it is a prudential right, not a moral right. This interpretation is plausible because Gewirth maintains that the right referred to in premise 3 is prudential,⁵ and the universalization of a prudential right can be understood to be a prudential right, albeit a universal one.⁶

Now, what distinguishes a prudential right from a moral right is that a prudential right is action-guiding for the rightholder only, and not for others, and so it does not imply that others ought not to interfere with the exercise of that right. Such rights are asymmetrically action-guiding because they are action-guiding only for the rightholder and not for others. Prudential rights are also analogous to the oughts found in most ordinary cases of competitive games—cases that we otherwise would have thought conform to the requirements of practical reason. For example, in football a defensive player may think that the opposing team’s quarterback ought to pass on a third down with five yards to go, while not wanting the quarterback to do so and indeed hoping to foil any such attempt the quarterback makes. Or, to adapt an example of Jesse Kalin’s, if you and I are playing chess, at a certain point in the game I may judge that you ought to move your bishop and put my king in check, but this judgment is not action-guiding for me. What I in fact should do is sit quietly and hope that you do not move as you ought. If you fail to make the appropriate move and, later in the game, I judge that I ought to put your king in check, that judgment, by contrast, would be action-guiding for me. So prudential rights are asymmetrically action-guiding in just the same way as these oughts of competitive games are asymmetrically action-guiding.

Given that the universal right to freedom and well-being in the conclusion of Gewirth’s argument can thus plausibly be interpreted to be a prudential right, Gewirth’s justification of morality cannot succeed, because it depends on the impossibility of interpreting the universal right in the conclusion of his argument as anything other than a moral right. Still, we can take from Gewirth’s work the view that if morality is to be rationally required, it must be given a non-question-begging justification.

My own defense of morality employs the same general strategy as those offered by Baier and Gewirth. It differs from theirs primarily in that it introduces the perspective of altruism in constructing a non-question-begging argument to show that egoism is contrary to reason. But I claim that this is just the missing ingredient that is needed to make the argument work.

To see this, let us begin by imagining that each of us is capable of entertaining and acting upon both self-interested and moral reasons, and that the question we are seeking to answer is what sort of reasons for action it would be rational for us to accept.⁷ This question is not about what sort of reasons we should publicly affirm, since people will sometimes publicly affirm reasons that are quite different from those they are prepared to act upon. Rather it is a question about what reasons it would be rational for us to accept at the deepest level—in our heart of hearts.

Of course, there are people who are incapable of acting upon moral reasons. For such people, there is no question about their being required to act morally or altruistically. Yet the interesting philosophical question is not about such people but about people, like ourselves, who are capable of acting self-interestedly or morally and are seeking a rational justification for following a particular course of action.

In trying to determine how we should act, let us assume that we would like to be able to construct a good argument favoring morality over egoism, and given that good arguments are non-question-begging, we accordingly would like to construct an argument that does not beg the question as far as possible. The question at issue here is what reasons each of us should take as supreme, and this question would be begged against egoism if we propose to answer it simply by assuming from the start that moral reasons are the reasons that each of us should take as supreme. But the question would be begged against morality as well if we proposed to answer the question simply by assuming from the start that self-interested reasons are the reasons that each of us should take as supreme. This means, of course, that we cannot answer the question of what reasons we should take as supreme simply by assuming the general principle of egoism:

Each person ought to do what best serves his or her overall self-interest.

We can no more argue for egoism simply by denying the relevance of moral reasons to rational choice, than we can argue for pure altruism simply by denying the relevance of self-interested reasons to rational choice and assuming the following general principle of pure altruism:

Each person ought to do what best serves the overall interest of others.⁸

Consequently, in order not to beg the question, we have no other alternative but to grant the prima facie relevance of both self-interested and moral reasons to rational choice, and then try to determine which reasons we would be rationally required to act upon, all things considered. Notice that in order not to beg the question, it is necessary to back off from both the general principle of egoism and the general principle of pure altruism, thus granting the prima facie relevance of both self-interested and moral reasons to rational choice. From this standpoint, it is still an open question whether either egoism or pure altruism will be rationally preferable, all things considered.

In this regard, there are two kinds of case that must be considered. First, there are cases in which there is a conflict between the relevant self-interested and moral reasons. Second, there are cases in which there is no such conflict.

It seems obvious that where there is no conflict and both reasons are conclusive reasons of their kind, both reasons should be acted upon. In such contexts, we should do what is favored both by morality and by self-interest.

When we rationally assess the relevant reasons in conflict cases, it is best to cast the conflict not as a conflict between self-interested reasons and moral reasons, but instead as a conflict between self-interested reasons and altruistic reasons.⁹ Viewed in this way, three solutions are possible. First, we could say that self-interested reasons always have priority over conflicting altruistic reasons. Second, we could say just the opposite, that altruistic reasons always have priority over conflicting self-interested reasons. Third, we could say that some kind of compromise is rationally required. In this compromise, sometimes self-interested reasons would have priority over altruistic reasons, and sometimes altruistic reasons would have priority over self-interested reasons.

Once the conflict is described in this manner, the third solution can be seen to be the one that is rationally required. This is because the first and second solutions give exclusive priority to one class of relevant reasons over the other, and only a completely question-begging justification can be given for such an exclusive priority. Only by employing the third solution, and sometimes giving priority to self-interested reasons, and sometimes giving priority to altruistic reasons, can we avoid a completely question-begging resolution.

Notice also that this standard of rationality will not support just any compromise between the relevant self-interested and altruistic reasons. The compromise must be a nonarbitrary one, for otherwise it would beg the question with respect to the opposing egoistic and altruistic perspectives.¹⁰ Such a compromise would have to respect the rankings of self-interested and altruistic reasons imposed by the egoistic and altruistic perspectives, respectively. Since for each individual there is a separate ranking of that individual’s relevant self-interested and altruistic reasons (which will vary, of course, depending on the individual’s capabilities and circumstances), we can represent these rankings from the most important reasons to the least important reasons, as shown in the table.

JUSTICE FOR HERE AND NOW: Table_01

Accordingly, any nonarbitrary compromise among such reasons in seeking not to beg the question against either egoism or pure altruism, will have to give priority to those reasons that rank highest in each category. Failure to give priority to the highest-ranking altruistic or self-interested reasons would, other things being equal, be contrary to reason.

Of course, there will be cases in which the only way to avoid being required to do what is contrary to your highest-ranking reasons is by requiring someone else to do what is contrary to her highest-ranking reasons. Some of these cases will be “lifeboat cases,” as, for example, where you and two others are stranded on a lifeboat which has only enough resources for two of you to survive before you will be rescued. But although such...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contributors
• Preface
• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: Foundations of Social and Political Philosophy
• Part III: Alternative Social and Political Perspectives
• Part IV: Challenges to Social and Political Philosophy
• Part V: The Application of Social and Political Philosophy to Nonideal Conditions
• Part VI: Conclusion