on taking the moral point of view

MIDWEST STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY, I11 (1978)

ON TAKING THE MORAL POINT OF VIEW

PAUL W. TAYLOR

O U R understanding of what it means to take the moral point of view is closely associated with our conception of what makes a principle or rule a moral one. It is also connected with our view ofwhat may be called “moral validity”: the way we conceive of the binding or obligatory nature of moral requirements. In this paper I shall examine the interrelations of these three notions: taking the moral point of view, the criteria for classifying a principle as a moral principle, and the conditions that must be satisfied by a moral principle so classified if it is to be validly binding upon agents. Since it is plausible to hold that we engage in moral reasoning and make moral judgments when and only when we take the moral point of view, this study will have implications with respect to the nature of moral reasoning and moral judgment.

I

We may readily distinguish two different contexts in which a person can take the moral point of view toward something, or consider (assess, evaluate) something from the moral point of view. The first context is that in which one is applying standards or rules to particular cases. The second is that in which one is deciding whether to adopt, accept, or subscribe to a standard or rule. By a standard or rule I shall mean a normative principle that provides a ground for cetees paribus reasons-for-action. To adopt, accept, or subscribe to a standard or rule is to commit oneself to using it as a principle of practical reason in one’s deliberation and decision-making. Thus if one adopts as one’s own normative principle the rule: Do not steal, one makes a commitment of practical reason. In adopting the rule, one accepts as a major premise of practical syllogisms in one’s own reasoning the proposition: Other things being equal, that an action is steal- ing is a reason to refrain from performing it. Similarly, to adopt, accept, or subscribe to a standard is to make a commitment of practical reason. Accepting as one’s own

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standard of good character the property of honesty, for example, involves accepting as a major premise of practical reasoning the proposition: Other things being equal, that doing action X or pursuing end Y exemplifies honesty is a reason to do X or to pursue Y. Linguistically, standards may be thought of as grading or ranking criteria for the application of such predicates as “good,” “better,” “desirable,” and the like. Rules may be thought of as general statements of requirements, permissions, or proscriptions predicated of action-types. They function linguistically as criteria for the application of such deontic terms as “must,” “obligatory,” “permissible,” “right,” and “wrong.” Throughout this essay I shall use the words “norm” and “principle” to refer to both standards and rules without differentiating between them.

It should be noted that this conception of standards and rules permits us to classify them as moral and nonmoral without begging any question concerning their validity. It allows us to separate the question: What makes a principle a moral principle? from the question: What makes a moral principle validly binding? The former question concerns the characteristics a standard or rule must have if it is to be considered as belonging to a certain category of social norms. The latter question has to do with our grounds for saying that standards or rules belonging to that category place requirements upon the conduct of agents, or impose constraints upon a person’s freedom of choice. After discussing in Part I ofthis paper the two sorts of context in which one may take the moral point of view, I shall consider in Part I1 the idea of the category of morality as defining a certain class of principles, and then in Part 111 link up this conception of the category of morality with the problem of validity.

The two contexts for taking the moral point of view have been described briefly as that in which norms are applied to particular cases and that in which one assesses or evaluates a norm in order to decide whether it should be adopted or subscribed to as one’s own moral principle. When one takes the moral point of view in the first context, one applies standards and rules that one already accepts as one’s moral norms because one belieoes them to be valid moral principles. They might not in fact be valid moral principles, but it is the person’s regarding them as such that entails the point of view to be a moral one. If one were to come to doubt the moral validity of a norm one is applying in the first context, one would place oneself, as it were, in the second context and reassess one’s commitment to use the norm in contexts of the first sort.

To take the moral point of view in the second context is to assess one’s adoption of norms on certain grounds. It is to apply a certain set of tests as criteria for the moral validity of a norm. One judges the norm from the moral point of view when one decides to accept or reject it as a principle of one’s practical reason on the basis of these particular tests. If a person were to appeal to other tests, he or she would not be taking the moral point of view as it is conceived here.’

There are two tests that must be used in the second context as criteria for determining the acceptability of norms. One is a test for classifying norms as moral principles, the other a test for the validity of norms so classified. I shall argue below that these do not yield extensionally equivalent classes of norms. A set of norms satisfying the first test and hence correctly classifiable as moral principles might not all be validly binding according to the second test. This makes it possible to speak of the actual morality (or the de facto moral norms) of some person or group, without committing oneself on the question whether such an actual morality is an ideal, true, or valid morality in the sense that all agents falling within its scope are in truth under a normative requirement to comply with its standards and rules.

The logical independence of the two tests also enables us to avoid any sort of ethnocentric fallacy. Even if the test for classifying norms as moral ones includes

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characteristics that are found only in the actual morality of our own culture, as long as we do not use these criteria of classification as themselves constituting grounds of validity no fallacy need be involved. If someone prefers to use the term ”moral” in its classificatory sense in another way, this will have no logical effect on the question whether moral norms as defined in this paper are validly binding on agents. We can put the argument this way: Let us consider such-and-such conditions to be necessary and sufficient for placing any standard or rule in a certain category. Then let us ask: Is it the case that all and only those standards and rules that fall into that category impose requirements upon the practical reason of, and hence place constraints upon the choice and conduct of, all agents who fall within their intended scope? And if this is the case, is there something about the criteria of classification we used that accounts for this fact, even though the criteria do not entail their own validity?

By looking at the argument this way we avoid any doubts about being narrowly or questionably ethnocentric in our use ofthe term “moral.” We need not use the term at all, limiting our expressions to locutions like “a certain class of norms,” “a particular point of view,” and so on. However, once we make the conceptual separation between the criteria of classification for a set of norms and the ground of the validity of norms that meet those criteria, there should be no objection to using such a phrase as “moral validity” to refer to a certain class of norms that are in truth binding upon all agents.

The test I shall give for placing any norm in the category of morality consists in deterniining whether the norm satisfies a conjunction of six conditions. These may be thought of as a set of characteristics that together define a certain class of norms. The characteristics will be examined in some detail in Part I1 of this paper, but a brief statement of them here is necessary to clarify the two contexts for taking the moral point of view. A standard or rule is a moral one (that is, belongs to the category of morality) if and only if it has the following characteristics:

(1) Generality. It must be general in form, containing no reference to particular individuals or groups.

(2) Universality. It must be universal in scope, having as its understood range of application the conduct of all agents capable of voluntarily complying with it or failing to comply with it in the circumstances to which it is intended to apply.

(3 ) Priority. It must be intended to function a s an overriding nonn, outweighing not only the interests ofany particular individual or group but also any nonmoral norm (that is, any norm that does not have the other five characteristics listed here).

(4) Disinterestedness. It must be intended as a norm to be applied and complied with by agents as a matter of principle, irrespective of any particular agents’ inclinations or interests. (The content of the noim, however, might specify that the generally described interests of a generally described class of agents be promoted or protected.)

(5 ) Publicity. It must be intended to function a s the publicly adopted and publicly recognized norm among all agents whose conduct Falls within its range of application.

(6) Substantive imparticllity. Its content must be such that, when it is adopted and applied, equal consideration is given to every person as a person. Use ofthe norm must preclude counting the basic interests of one individual as having greater (or lesser) weight than the basic interests of another.

I have formulated these conditions in such a way that it is possi6le for a group of agents to adopt and apply norms satisfying all six conditions and yet be mistaken in thinking that they are under a requirement to use those norms as guides to their conduct. In accepting such norms they believe they must strive to comply with them and that they would be at fault for intentionally failing to do so. Yet it might be the case


that their beliefs are false. It is an open question, in other words, whether agents whose conduct falls under a set of impartial general norms that are intended to be universal in scope and are publicly subscribed to by them as overriding matters of principle are indeed bound by such norms. That they do acknowledge the legitimacy of the norms and do feel their normative force are matters of fact. That such norms ought to be followed by them because they are in truth validly binding upon all who fall within their intended scope is not, in the same sense, a question of fact. We can verify the aforementioned matters of fact by observing the conduct of the specific persons concerned, by discpvering their attitudes toward compliance and non- compliance, and by noticing how they carry on their practical reasoning. None of this can tell us whether they are in truth required to behave and reason as they do or to have the attitudes they have. Nevertheless there is a close connection between the foregoing way of defining moral principles and the validating ground for any such principle. (It will be one of my purposes in Part 111 to explain this connection).

Again in a preliminary way, some indication at this point must be given of the test for normative validity that is used when a person takes the moral point of view in the second context. This test tells us what makes it the case that a norm places an obligatory constraint upon an agent’s choice and conduct. It is to be understood as comprising both the necessary and sufficient condition for the validity of any norm that belongs to the class of moral norms as I have defined them. Since I hold that being a member of the class is not itself the ground of a moral norm’s validity, there remains the question: What further condition must be satisfied for any given member of that class to be validly binding on all agents falling within its scope?

The test I shall present here and discuss in Part 111 derives from the recent revival of the Kantian tradition in ethics as developed by such contemporary philosophers as Kurt Baier,2 John Rawls,3 and David Richards.‘ According to this view, a rule or standard is a valid moral principle if and only if it would be subscribed to under ideal conditions of freedom, rationality, and factual knowledge by all autonomous agents as one of their publicly recognized and mutually acknowledged overriding norms. In terms of the conceptual system of John Rawls’s theory of justice, a valid morn1 principle is a principle whose adoption would be agreed upon by all rational autonomous agents from an “original position” of equality in which they are choosing the supreme principles to govern their conduct when there occur competing claims among them.5 For convenience I shall call this the ideal mutual acknowledgment test. The central idea is that an agent is under anormative requirement when and only when the principle impos- ing that requirement is such that all fully rational and enlightened agents would autonomously place themselves under its direction. In so doing, they would give public recognition to the norm as one of their mutually agreed upon practical principles, to be understood as overriding the particular claims of any individual or group in support of its own interests.

Without at this juncture entering the question of why we should accept this as the ground of the validity of moral norms, we can nevertheless see why classifying a norm as a moral one under the six given criteria is not itself sufficient to show that it is valid. To classify the norm as moral, all that is necessary is to ascertain that the norm is general in form and is intended (by anyone who adopts it) to apply universally and distinterestedly, is intended to take priority over other norms and to be publicly recognized as having such priority, and is intended to be substantively impartial in its practical effects when applied to all cases within its specified scope. When a group of agents actually adopts a general norm with these intentions and understandings I shall say that the norm is one of the group’s de facto moral principles. It is part of its actual

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morality. Suppose, however, that there is a possible general nolm that no one has actually iidopted (or perhaps even has thought of) but which, if it were to be adopted by anyone, it would be adopted as a universally applicable, disinterested, overriding, public, and impartial principle. Then we can speak of this as a (hypothetical) moral norm, though not part of anyone’s actual morality. In both of these cases we can know that a norm is a moral one without knowing whether it would be adopted and mutually acknowledged by all autonomous agents as one of their moral norms under ideal conditions of freedom, rationality, and factual enlightenment. In other words we could know that a norm was a moral one without knowing whether it was valid.

I t is further possible within the conceptual system I am presenting here for a norm to be correctly classified as a moral one but to be invalid in either of two senses, a weak one and a strong one. In the weak sense a moral norm is invalid when it is not the case that agents whose conduct falls within its intended scope are in fact bound by it. They are not normatively required to comply with it, even though those who have adopted it regard it as valid and believe that all such agents, including themselves, are under the constraints specified in its content. We might say that those who accept it feel its normative force but this feeling is illusory.

In the strong sense of “invalid” a moral norm is invalid when those whose conduct falls within its intended scope are under an obligation (imposed by a valid contrary norm) not to comply with it. This again may be the case independently of whether the agents in question are aware of their true moral situation. Of course they might not be at fault in adopting or applying an invalid norm. Nevertheless they may be said to perform wrong acts unknowingly when conforming to their own norm.

Give the ideal mutual acknowledgment conception of moral validity, we can readily account for this distinction between the weak and strong senses of “invalid.” An invalid moral norm in the weak sense is a norm that has the six characteristics of morality but is not such that it would be mutually acknowledged under ideal conditions of freedom, rationality, and knowledge by all agents to whom it applies. An invalid moral norm in the strong sense is a norm belonging to the category of morality defined by the six criteria but the content of the norm is incompatible with the set of mural norms all autonomous agents would subscribe to under those ideal conditions. That is to say, it is invalid because it is practically inconsistent with the set of valid moral norms.

A norm belonging to the class of moral principles as defined here, then, may be de fucto or ideal, actual or hypothetical, valid or invalid.

I return now to the differentiation between the two contexts for taking the moral point of view and to the question of how they are related to each other. In the first context one takes the moral point of view insofar as the norms being applied are regarded us valid moral principles. It does not matter in this context whether the norms are indeed valid, or even whether they meet all of the six conditions that would make them norms of a moral kind. What is essential to taking the moral point of view in the first context is that the one who takes it implicitly or explicitly accepts the six criteria of a moral norm I have listed and conceives of moral validity in accordance with the ideal mutual acknowledgment view. To deliberate or form judgments from the moral point of view, as I am analyzing the notion here, it is necessary to appeal to norms only under the assumption that they are of a moral kind and ark validly binding when these two ideas are understood in the ways I have indicated. The assumption may be true or false, but it must be made if the point of view being taken is the moral point of view.

Given that it is the moral point of view, there are three roles a person can have in


assessing conduct, making decisions, and carrying on practical reasoning from that point of view. One can be in the position of agent, of adviser, or of spectator, where one’s aims are, respectively, to arrive at first-person, second-person, and third-person (particular or universal) judgments about what course of action is to be taken, or what goal is to be pursued, in the given situation. As agents our task has a practical purpose: to come to a decision about what alternative confronting us is to be chosen and to choose accordingly. If we are in the role of adviser or counselor, our aim in reasoning is to give good advice or guidance. We try to make the best recommendation we can concerning what action should be done or what end should be sought by the person whom we are advising. As spectators or judges, we evaluate the alternatives in a (hypothetical or actual) situation of choice confronting either a particular individual or anyone in a certain set of circumstances. Our purpose is then to determine how one ought to act or what one ought to aim at in any situation of that kind. But whether we are agent, adviser, or spectator, we are taking the moral point of view in this first context only insofar as we decide to use, as our highest overriding norms, those standards and rules we consider to be valid moral principles.

In the second context, on the other hand, we are assessing or evaluating standards and rules themselves to see whether they are acceptable as valid moral principles to be applied in contexts of the first sort. To take the moral point of view in the second context is to decide to use certain tests (those I have given for morality and validity) as the grounds for accepting or rejecting a norm. Taking the moral point of view in this context is still a matter of personal commitment, but the commitment must be made to the particular tests I have proposed. If someone uses other criteria as grounds for accepting or rejecting a norm, then I shall say that the individual is not taking the moral point of view but some other point of view. This other point of view might well be called “moral,” and I do not wish to claim that this would be a misuse of the term. How the word “moral” happens to be used by any or all English-speaking people is simply of no philosophical significance here. The particular conception of taking the moral point of view I am interested in analyzing entails that, in the second context, one decides to adopt a norm because it satisfies the six criteria of morality and because it meets the ideal mutual acknowledgment test.

It is to be noted that taking the moral point of view in both contexts involves the exercise of one’s capacities as an autonomous being. Whether one is applying an already adopted norm or is deciding to accept or reject a norm, one makes a commitment to place certain constraints upon one’s thinking. In the first context one is already disposed to place these constraints upon oneself because one has made a logically independent and prior decision (in the second context) to subscribe to normative principles of a certain kind as one’s supreme principles. Thus what might be called the mode of self-determination involved in taking the moral point of view in each context is different. In the first context it is derivative; in the second, primary. Both, however, are acts of an autonomous being who is giving direction to his or her own life. Both are modes of self-determination in the sense that the constraints in each case are self- imposed. For even in the first context one must decide in each instance whether to actualize one’s disposition to take the moral point of view by applying a norm one believes to be morally valid. It is always open to one’s choice to take another point of view, such as that of self-interest, and to make that the framework of one’s overriding principles in the given situation. In the second context, to say that one is assessing a standard or rule from the moral point of view means that one is, at that time, committed to using certain criteria as tests for moral validity. One has chosen these criteria as the ones to be applied in deciding whether a norm is to be accepted or rejected, and one

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takes the moral point of view in making the assessment just as long as one continues to abide by that choice. To continue to abide by it is itself a decision the person must make, and to make it is an exercise of self-determination.

The question may now be raised: Is there any way to justify these two modes of self-determination? Are there good, adequate, or sufficient reasons of some kind for taking the moral point of view in the two contexts? A different answer is called for with respect to each context.

Concerning the first context the justification problem splits into two questions. First there is the question: Is the assumption made by the individual in taking the moral point of view true? If the answer is affirmative, the second question arises: Is the individual’s decision to apply norms under that (correct) assumption itself justified? This question, however, is identical with the problem of justifying one’s taking the moral point of view in the second context. For a decision to apply an already adopted norm would clearly be justified if a decision to adopt that norm (as one to b e applied in all cases falling under it) is itself justified. Putting aside the second question for the moment, let us consider the first.

We have seen that when one takes the moral point of view in the first context one assumes that the standard or rule being applied is a valid moral principle. In fact to take that point of view in this context is simply to intend to apply only those norms that are valid moral principles because they are such. One then makes moral judgments and carries on moral reasoning (or to put it another way, one judges and reasons from the moral point of view) insofar as one regards the norms one applies a s morally valid. Now if it could be shown that the norms are indeed morally valid, then one’s intentions would thereby be shown to be well grounded in the sense that they can successfully be carried out. But having or forming those intentions in the first place would not thereby be shown to be justified. One’s intentions were to apply only norms that are morally valid because they are such. To show that they are morally valid is to show that one is justified in applying those particular nomu if one is also justified in having the inten- tion to apply morally valid nonns because they are morally valid. Showing that the given norms are morally valid will not provide reasons for deciding to apply any norms - these or others - because they are morally valid ones. Yet the decision to apply them for this reason, and only for this reason, is itself the decision to take the moral point of view in the first context. Thus the complete justification for taking the moral point of’ view in the first context requires a further reasoning process. Reasons must be given in answer to the question: Why should one not take some other point of view and so intend to apply nonns that admittedly are not valid moral principles?

That this question raises the issue of the justifiability of taking the moral point of view in the second context is easy to see. In the second context one appraises a norm to determine whether it should be used in contexts of the first sort. One takes the moral point of view in making the appraisal when one decides to apply the tests of moral validity. If one were justified in doing this, one would also be justified in applying a norm that satisfied the tests becuuse it satisfied them. The derivative commitment in the first context is thus grounded on the primary commitment of the second context. I t is the justifiability of this primary commitment that must now be examined.

Here it is important to distinguish two questions: (A) What makes a moral principle valid? (B) Why should one adopt, as guides to one’s own thinking and conduct, principles that are‘ morally valid according to the particular conception of moral validity given in answer to (A)? To answer question (A) we set forth criteria for the validity of moral standards and rules. These criteria define IJ certain conception of what it means to say that standards and rules correctly classified as moral are binding upon all agents.


But to propound a certain conception of moral validity is not to provide reasons for actually adopting that conception as a normative guide in one’s practical reasoning. Moreover, showing that the conception set forth corresponds to, or makes explicit, the conception held by (most?) people in our own society has no justificatory value whatever. For another conception of the supreme norms of practical reasoning (call it “moral” or not) could be formulated, and the fact that our own society does not use such norms (or does not call them “moral”) has no relevance to the justifiability or unjustifiability of our deciding to use them as our supreme norms.

Now the problem of justifying one’s decision to take the moral point of view in the second sort of context is precisely the problem expressed in question (B). It concerns the justifiability of one’s decision to adopt a certain conception of moral validity as one’s own normative guide. For it is this decision that we refer to when we say that someone takes the moral point of view in the second context. No amount of conceptual analysis, however precise, systematic, or intuitively appealing, can provide reasons for anyone’s deciding to use a normative principle whose validity conforms to the conceptual analysis offered. A principle may be valid according to the criteria set forth in the analysis, but this leaves open whether these criteria should be accepted and complied with in practical life.a

This position assumes, of course, that conceptual analysis by itself is not deductively connected with the actual making of normative judgments or with the actual commitments involved in subscribing to normative principles. Another way to put this point is to say that the autonomous act of taking the moral point of view is not logically determined by the content of any concept of moral validity. One must accept (make a commitment to follow) the concept as a normative guide to one’s practical reasoning before it can function as such a guide. Whether justificatoxy reasons can be given for making such a commitment is the issue I shall be concerned with in Part 111.

I1

I shall now consider in more detail the six criteria for classifying a principle as a moral one and examine some of their implications. Special attention will be given to the last two criteria: publicity and substantive impartiality. Their importance will become evident when the problem of justification is taken up in Part 111.

(1) Generality. Standards and rules can serve as moral principles only when they are general in form. They must contain no referential terms designating particular agents, actions, or circumstances. They specify only kinds of action that any agent is to do or refrain from doing in certain sorts of situations. Generality, however, does not rule out mention of social positions or roles (“Everyone shall obey the king’s orders”), nor special characteristics of persons (“All red-haired people will be enslaved”).

When generality is combined with the disinterestedness criterion to be discussed below, any considerations regarding an action’s effects upon oneself or upon any other particular individual are made irrelevant. Hence no relations between oneself and others (such as being a relative of mine, being my friend, my fellow countryman, a member of my rac.e, and so on) are taken into account. Applying or evaluating a norm from the moral point of view precludes considering its effects on one’s own particular interests, whether self-regarding or other-regarding, as well as its effects on the particular interests of any other person. In applying or evaluating the norm, one simply ascertains what actions, agents, and circumstances fit the general descriptions contained in the norm and uses these propositions as relevant reasons.

(2) Uniuersality. A standard or rule can serve as a moral principle only if its range of

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application includes the actions (or, in the case of standards, the conscious aims) of all moral agents, where a moral agent is defined as anyone capable of intentionally acting in conformity with the principle or in violation of it. A moral principle is here understood always to be intended as a universally applicable norm whether or not it is a valid one, that is, whether or not it does in truth place requirements upon the conduct of those to whom it is intended to apply. A norm that serves as a moral principle may, of course, specify that a certain kind of action is to be done only when a certain set of circumstances obtains. But even then its range of application is understood to include the intentional actions (or omissions) ofany moral agent in the relevant kind ofcircum- stances. For convenience I include properties of agents in the category of circumstances. Thus a norm that required someone who was a qualified surgeon to perform an operation when sober but to refrain when intoxicated will be taken to impose requirements on the class of all moral agents when they are in the circumstances: being a qualified surgeon and being sober.

It follows from the universality condition when so understood that if a standard or rule is a valid moral principle, no agent who is capable of striving to fulfill the standard or of following the rule is exempt from its requirements. This holds, however, only when the agent is in the circumstances to which the principle is intended to apply, and sometimes it is a matter of an agent’s free choice to decide to put herself or himself in those circumstances, and so be bound by the principle. For example, it is up to an agent to decide whether to play a game, since (normally) there is no binding moral principle that requires a person to be a player in a game. In this sense the rules of games ere not moral principles. The same is true of the rules of social practices and institutions when there is no moral necessity for one to engage in the practice or become a member of the institution. Such rules are not universally applicable, regardless of an agent’s choice. But this does not imply that anyone can opt out of being in the position of having moral duties in general. That role is one which everyone who has the capacities of moral agency must play.

The absence of free choice with regard to one’s being under moral constraints does not contradict the freedom of choice that is exercised when one autonomously decides to take the moral p i n t of view, in either of the two contexts discussed in Part I. We are here dealing with the properties of moral standards and rules. Taking the moral point of view, on the other hand, has to do with deciding to apply or adopt standards or rules having those properties. Once we decide (freely) to take the moral point of view, we commit ourselves to following those standards and rules that we take to be binding upon all moral agents as such. That is, we place our choice and conduct under the requirements of what we understand to be universally obligatory norms. Having taken the moral point of view we are no longer free to choose whether to abide by its dictates. As long as we continue to take that point of view we continue to prescribe to ourselves laws of our own legislation (to put it in a Kantian fashion) and give up a certain area of freedom of choice. We are always free to reverse our decision and take some other point of view. But unless we do so we are bound by the principles we think are morally valid. We are “bound,” not in the sense that we lack the ability or opportunity to violate the principles, but in the sense that it is not morally permissible for us to violate them.

The commitment made in taking the moral point of view does not abolish the freedom of choice mentioned above in connection with social practices and roles with respect to which it is morally permissible to decide not to participate in them. Thus it is only if one freely chooses to play a game, take a particular job, or enter a contest that certain moral principles become applicable (such as, not to cheat by breaking the


rules). But the obligatoriness of moral principles still holds in this sort of case. Given one’s commitment involved in taking the moral point of view and given one’s active participation in the game, job, or contest, one cannot then choose to exempt oneself from the duty not to cheat. One can only drop out of the practice and so place oneself outside the range of the principle.

Furthermore, there may be moral rules that require us to engage in certain activities or to play certain roles. For example, it might be obligatory on us to take the role of a lender or creditor if our friend asks us for a loan in a time of need. Here- we may have no choice, morally speaking, about whether to place ourselves in a certain position or engage in a certain practice. In such situations there are two sorts of moral principles that apply to us: one sort requiring our taking a certain role and the other sort requiring whatever must be done by an agent who is in that role. In neither case can we simply opt out of the obligations involved.

(3) ~ d o r i t y . We take the moral point of view when we adopt (or apply) standards and rules that are to outweigh, as grounds of reasons-for-action, all other kinds of norms. In cases of conflict between moral and nonmoral principles, the former are necessarily overriding. This leaves open the question of what particular standards or rules are valid moral principles and hence in fact have priority over nonmoral norms. It also leaves open the question of the relative priority-relations holding among valid moral principles themselves. (It is to be recalled that moral principles are always ceteris paribus or “weak” principles. They provide only presumptive reasons-for-action that can be outweighed by other moral reasons. It should be noted, however, that the ideal mutual acknowledgment test for validity can also function as a test for valid priority- relations.) To say that moral principles necessarily take precedence over all other principles is to say that if a principle is adopted or applied from the moral point of view, it is understood to be a norm that shall serve as a supreme guide to the conduct of all moral agents. As such, it is regarded as providing any moral agent with the most important considerations to be taken into account whenever the agent engages in practical reasoning.

Two points concerning the priority-condition should be brought out to avoid confu- sion. The first is that moral principles are not being simply equated with any rules or standards that anyone chooses to make his or her highest norms. Priority is a necessary, not a sufficient condition. It means only that, given the other five characteristics of moral principles, when one takes the moral point of view in considering a principle having those characteristics and decides to accept it, one accepts it as a supreme norm for every moral agent’s choice and conduct.

The second point is that the priority-condition does not beg the justification question: Why should one take the moral point of view? It might appear to do so since, according to the view being presented, moral principles must by definition take priority over all other principles. This appearance is dispelled, however, when we see that the question, Why should one take the moral point of view? is equivalent to asking: What reasons justify a person’s accepting principles from a point of view that entails the supremacy of moral reasons-for-acting? In this question a moral reason-for-acting is understood to be any reason-for-acting grounded on a normative principle having the five characteristics of generaIity, universality, disinterestedness, publicity, and impartiality. It is not logically necessary that principles having these five characteristics also have the characteristic of priority and so take precedence over all other principles in cases of conflict. Because the prioritycondition is a sixth independent characteristic. the possibility of providing a justification for the moral point of view remains open. Such a justification would require that one show why principles having the five charac-

PAUL W. TAYLOR 45

teristics mentioned above ought to be adopted as the supreme norms of practical reason in the rational decision-making of all moral agents.

( 4 ) Disinterestedness. When we deliberate and form judgments from the moral point of view, we not only accept moral considerations as our weightiest reasons-for- action but also as reasons that apply to us independently of our own particular interests. To take the moral point of view is to adopt and apply standards or rules “categorically,” disregarding whatever consequences they might have for furthering or frustrat- ing our ends (other than the end of acting moralIy). We rule out such personal con- tingencies as morally irrelevant. Similarly, we disregard their effects upon the particular ends and interests of others. Moral standards and rules are adopted as matters of principle, not as policies aimed at realizing the goals ofthis or that individual or group.

To avoid misunderstanding here it is necessary to emphasize that disinterestedness in this sense does not entail anything about the content of the standards and rules that are so adopted. They must be general in form (according to the generality-condition), but as long as only general descriptions are involved, the action-types specified in them may include reference to consequences for people’s interests. For example, the duty of nonmaleficence may be expressed in the rule: “One must not harm another,” where “harming another” means performing an action that is detrimental to the basic interests of someone other than the agent. This rule, which not only concerns people’s interests but, when followed, mi,ght further their interests, may nevertheless be adopted and applied disinterestedly. One adopts and applies it disinterestedly when one accepts, as an overriding reason to refrain from an action, the fact that its consequences are detrimental to the basic interests of some person other than the agent, whoever that person may be and no matter what interest one might have in performing the action. The duty of nonmaleficence is then taken to apply to any instance of harming, irrespectiue of whose interests are inuolued. To act in accordance with a rule adopted and applied in this manner is to act on principle. The rule then serves as a disinterested norm and, given that the other five conditions obtain, the moral point of view is being taken with regard to its application in particular cases.

When disinterestedness is conjoined with the universality-condition we get the following result. To adopt a moral norm is to subscribe to a principle that is intended to be applied disinterestedly by all moral agents. Since its range of application includes the actions of those who apply it (in the role of agent), a moral norm will be one that is intended to be applied by each agent to himself or herself as a matter of principle. When the norm functions as a guide to conduct in this way, every agent puts aside as irrelevant any consideration of his or her own particular interests, whether self- regarding or other-regarding.

Despite these implications of the disinterestedness-condition, a moral norm may still be assessed on the basis of how it will affect people’s interests. In making such an assessment we must think ofthe norm as having been adopted by everyone to serve as one of their overriding principles binding upon them all independently of their particular aims, desires, and inclinations. Further, we must consider only the consequences of its adoption for the interests of generally defined classes of beings or of those occupying generally defined roles and positions in society. The norm, in other words, is being assessed on the basis of its expected beneficial or harmful consequences for any beings satisfying certain purely general descriptions. It is as if we asked the hypothetical question: Ifthis standard or rule were to be universally adopted as a categorical principle, what would be the consequences for any being in classes (roles, positions) A, B, C . . ., irrespective of who in particular is a member of (occupies the role or position oQ A or B or C . , . . No specific individuals or groups, as such, are


considered. Hence no particular relations between known individuals or groups and the evaluator himself or herself are taken into account.’

(5 ) Publicity. A standard or rule is a moral one only if it is intended to be publicly acknowledged and publicly recognized by all those to whom it applies. There are no private moralities, and an agent who adopts a rule as a personal policy (“I will exercise every day”) is not subscribing to a moral principle. Public acknowledgment means that each member of a community openly refers to certain standards and rules and expects all others in the community to refer to the same standards and rules in similar circumstances. Public recognition means that, as a consequence of public acknowledgment on the part of every member, those standards and rules form a common ground that all can appeal to in settling conflicts and disputes among them. Moral standards and rules define a standpoint that is assumed by each to be shared by all.

To subscribe to a standard or rule as a moral norm is to have an attitude ofapproual toward the standard or rule’s being publicly acknowledged and publicly recognized by all moral agents. Following Bernard Gert, I shall say that anyone having this attitude publicly aduocates the norm? In Kantian terms, such norms are the maxims the individual wills to be universal law. Now if one person publicly advocates a set of norms that others do not publicly advocate, then with respect to those norms there is no moral community that includes both the individual in question and the others. However, for the individual who does publicly advocate them, they are genuinely moral norms (assuming they meet the other five criteria).

Ideally, the norms one individual publicly advocates will also be publicly advocated by every other individual. I shall call such a state of affairs (when the norms meet the other five criteria of morality) a condition of mutual acknowledgment with respect to the given norms. It should be noted that these norms may or may not be valid. This would depend on whether they would (continue to) be mutually acknowledged if all fully autonomous agents were to assess them under ideal conditions of freedom, rationality, and factual enlightenment.

This conception of the publicity criterion has the following implications for what it means to take the moral point of view. We have seen that when one takes the moral point of view in the first context, one regards the norms being applied as valid moral principles. This entails that one advocates their being publicly acknowledged and recognized among all agents because one believes them to be valid. Thus having the attitude of publicly advocating the principles one applies is part of what it means for a person to take the moral point of view in the first context. Such an attitude is a fundamental aspect of the personal commitment involved when one makes judgments and decisions from that point of view.

In the second context, however, a different implication emerges. Here the individual is not applying norms to which he or she already subscribes, but assessing the moral validity of the norms to determine whether they should be subscribed to. Thus one is withholding, as it were, one’s public advocacy until one sees whether the norms are (as far as one can reasonably judge) morally valid. The norms are not deemed acceptable unless one comes to believe that they would be mutually acknowledged among all autonomous agents under ideal conditions of freedom, rationality, and enlightenment. One is committed not to publicly advocating the norms, but to testing their validity by the ideal mutual acknowledgment criterion. In taking the moral point of view in the second context, therefore, we are judging whether a norm is worthy of being publicly advocated.

In what sense, then, are the norms we assess in the second context moral ones? Do they not fail to meet one of the necessary conditions, namely that of publicity? The

PAUL W. TAYLOR 47

answer is that, although the assessor herself or himself does not publicly advocate the norms being assessed, they are nevertheless moral norms because they are conceived as norms that are intended to be publicly acknowledged and recognized among those who adopt them. A norm satisfies the publicity-condition when it is such that, if itwere adopted by an agent, he or she would publicly advocate its being publicly acknowledged and recognized by all other agents (assuming that the norm meets the other five criteria of morality). Consequently when a moral norm is assessed in the second context, the assessor must consider the norm in this light, thinking of it as a candidate for being publicly advocated by all mord agents, including her- or himself. It is as if the assessor asks: Would every autonomous agent, myself included, under ideal conditions of freedom, rationality, and knowledge, take a pro-attitude toward this norm’s being one of the publicly acknowledged and recognized principles governing any community of which I and all moral agents are members? Given that the norm in question lias the other five characteristics of a moral principle, the assessor is taking the moral point of view whenever he or she asks this question and decides to adopt (and so publicly advocate) the norm because, to the best of his or her knowledge, an affirmative answer seems justified.

(6) Substantive impurtiality. By way of introducing the particular concept of impartiality I have in mind and which I indicate by the term “substantive,” it will be helpful to refer to the idea of a fanatic discussed by R. M. Hare in his book Freedom and R e n s ~ n . ~ I shall argue that Hare’s fanatic subscribes to norms that can satisfy all five conditions so far considered. In order to exclude the fanatic’s norms from the clasq of moral principles an.d hence show that the fanatic cannot take the moral point of view it is necessary to add the criterion of substantive impartiality. Excluding the fanatic and his norms from the realm of morality is not to be taken as presupposing that his norms are invalid or that he is unjustified in subscribing to them. I t means only that his norms do not belong to the class of moral principles and therefore cannot be morally valid.

Hare’s fanatic is anyone who subscribes to principles or ideals he is willing to have fulfilled at the cost of other people’s interests and even of his own interests (when they conflict with his principles). Regarding the kind of principles he holds, the fanatic believes that one class of persons, in virtue of their birth, race, or “blood,” are alone worthy of achieving and are alone capable of achieving a level of human development that is inherently superior to what others deserve or are able to achieve. In the fanatic’s ideal world these high-born ones, being genetically superior, will be unhampered in the realization of their inherent excellence. They will rightly dominate and exploit inferior people, whose lives have worth on19 as far as they contribute to the fulfillment of their superiors’ higher existence. Finally, because the fanatic is so certain of his principles and so strongly motivated to live up to them, he is willing to put his beliefs into practice at whatever cost to his own or others’ interests. If it were discovered that he himself was not one of the superiors, he would regard himself as an inferior and so believe that his supreme duty lay in making it possible for the superiors to live their nobler lives.

Now let us ask: Can the fanatic take the moral point of view? He has an ideology, but does he have a morality? Do his principles belong to the class of moral norms? If we answer all these questions in the negative, it is because we think of morality and the moral point of view in a certain way. I now wish to make explicit what this conception of morality and the moral point of view is. The matter can best be approached by seeing how the fanatic’s principles satisfy all five conditions we have so far discussed. This cRn be done quite briefly.

Generality. It is possible for the fanatic’s norms to be expressed in purely general


terms. Descriptions of the superiors and inferiors need not refer to any particular individuals or groups in the world, but need include only property-terms.

Uniuersality. The fanatic clearly holds that his principles apply to everyone, superiors and inferiors alike. They are understood by him to impose constraints on the actions and choices of all who are capable of intentionally complying or not complying with them. No one is exempt from their requirements, including the fanatic himself. The duties laid down by the fanatic’s norms are in his view duties owed by everyone to everyone. Superiors, of course, will have different duties from those of inferiors, and they will have rights denied to inferiors. But this does not negate the universality condition, since the duties and rights apply to and are the same for everyone in rele- vantly similar circumstances. That one is a superior or an inferior is, for the fanatic, a relevant difference with respect to specific rights and duties. This is perfectly consistent with the universal applicability of the principles determining those rights and duties.

It might also be remarked that, according to the fanatic’s norms, no one can simply choose to place him- or herself outside the range of the constraints. Such freedom is not allowed even to the superiors, since they are obligated by their being born into a certainclass to pursue those ends whose realization gives a higher inherent worth to their lives. Thus no agent by choice can avoid the normative requirements of the fanatic’s principles.

Priority. It is likewise quite obvious that the fanatic’s principles meet this test. Indeed, he emphasizes the fact that his ideals and standards are absolutely overriding. In particular, they always outweigh the interests of any individual or group which has goals, policies, or purposes that are not derived from a commitment to the fanatic’s norms.

Disinterestedness. Here again we have a condition fully satisfied by the fanatic’s principles. Not only does the fanatic adopt his norms as matters of principle, but he also holds that they are to be applied to everyone categorically. They are understood by him to be obligatory upon agents regardless of their particular aims, desires, and inclinations.

Publicity. Finally, the fanatic is by definition one who publicly advocates that everyone publicly acknowledge and recognize his norms as universally applicable, overriding principles of conduct. It does not matter that not everyone will in fact publicly acknowledge or recognize them. For we have seen that a norm satisfies the condition of publicity when the person who applies it (in the first context) is committed to publicly advocating its adoption by all, or (in the second context) conceives of the norm as one to be publicly advocated by all. Neither of these conditions entails that the norm will be adopted or publicly advocated by all.

I conclude that Hare’s fanatic can subscribe to principles that meet all five criteria of moral norms so far considered. As far as conditions (1) through (5) are concerned, it is possible for a fanatic to take the moral point of view in both the first and second contexts.

There is, however, one fundamental aspect of the concept of morality I wish to explicate here that is precluded by the fanatic’s outlook. Central to this aspect of morality is the idea of respect for persons. I t may be expressed as the principle that all persons are entitled to, or deserve, equal consideration in the protection and promotion of their basic interests, just because they are persdns. I designate this the principle of substantive impartiality in order to contrast it with what I shall call formal impartiality. The latter is compatible with the fanatic’s outlook; the former is not.

Formal impartiality is simply the consistent application of standards and rules to all

PAUL W. TAYLOR 49

cases falling under them. No one is favored by being exempted from the normative requirements involved. There are no special privileges granted to some members of a class but not to others in that class when, according to the norms, all members of that class are to be treated in the same way. Another notion included in the principle of formal impartiality is that exceptions are never made in anyone’s favor. A set of norms that are applied with strict formal impartiality may have legitimate exceptions built into them. But these exceptions are themselves applied impartially to all cases falling within their specified range, no matter what particular persons or groups are affected for better or for worse by such exceptions. Discrimination among persons is also permitted by the condition of formal impartiality, as long as the discrimination is made on grounds stated in the norms themselves. What is not permitted is the unequal treatment of equals (persons all belonging to one class as defined by the norms) and the equal treatment of unequals (persons belonging to different classes as defined by the norms). Formal impartiality only rules out discrimination based on irrelevant grounds, that is, grounds not stated in the given norms.

All of these elements of formal impartiality can be found in the fanatic’s commitment to his principles. A true fanatic, indeed, will always be strictly impartial in this formal sense in applying his norms to everyone, including himself. He is willing to frustrate his own ends, even sacrifice his life, when this is demanded by his principles. He is also, of course, willing to sacrifice the lives of others under the same conditions. In one important sense, he treats himself no differently from the way he treats others. He asks for no special privileges and makes no exceptions in his own favor. Hence the formal impartiality of his point of view.

The crucial property that the fanatic’s norms lack, as far as the moral point of view is concerned, is a kind of impartiality that is logically independent of formal impartiality. I call it substantive impartiality because it has to do with the content of norms, not with the manner in which norms (of whatever content) are applied. To be substantively impartial a norm must be such that, when adopted and applied, every person as a person is given equal consideration. This does not mean that everyone must always be treated in the same way. But it does mean that each person’s total set of basic interests is regarded as making the same initial claim-to-fulfillment as every other person’s. (Basic interests are here understood to include, first, whatever is necessary for preserving an individual’s autonomy as a chooser of his own value system, and second, whatever is necessary for realizing those of a person’s ends and goals that are of fundamental importance in his or her self-chosen value system.) Thus a substantively impartial principle may require that blind people be treated differently from others by being provided with special benefits. This inequality of treatment is not a violation of substantive impartiality but rather a corollary of it. If such a difference of treatment were not required the basic interests of blind people would not be given equal weight with the basic interests of others. Similarly, a person whose life has been threatened should be given more police protection than one not so threatened.1°

Using Kurt Baier’s memorable phrase, we can express the principle of substantive impartiality by saying that moral standards and rules must be “for the good of everyone alike.”” As Baier himself points out, this does not entail a utilitarian ethical system in which norms must be such that the greatest amount of good (either as one aggregate or as an average quantity per person) is brought about by their adoption. On the contrary, the principle of respect for persons is incompatible with any utilitarian calculus that would require or permit the sacrifice of one person’s basic interests for the sake of promoting the nonbasic interests of others, however numerous the others might best2 It is this idea of respect for persons that lies behind Kant’s second formulation of the


Moral Law: Never treat humanity in yourself or another merely as a means, but always as an end in itself.

Let us now imagine a group of individuals whose relations to one another are governed by a set of norms that satisfy the condition of substantive impartiality as well as the other five conditions of morality. Let us further suppose that they all freely subscribe to those norms as a common ground for resolving conflicts among them. Such a group constitutes a community based on mutual respect. Since every member of the group publicly advocates that public acknowledgment and recognition be given the norms, all can openly appeal to the norms as overriding the particular interests of each. A community in which these conditions obtain is one in which there is mutual acknowledgment of moral principles. I shall call such a community a moral community. (In Part 111 the relation between mutual acknowledgment and mutual respect will be considered further. I shall argue that the former cannot occur without the latter.)

A moral community could never be structured normatively on principles of the sort subscribed to by Hare’s fanatic. Such principles deny the equality of consideration for each person that is the heart of substantive impartiality. Although the fanatic is willing to be treated in the same way others are to be treated under his principles, those principles deny that the basic interests of inferiors have a legitimate claim-to- fulfillment equal to that of the superiors.

Perhaps the most difficult problem concerning substantive impartiality arises in connection with situations in which the basic interests of different persons are in conflict. In these situations preserving or promoting one person’s basic interests can be accomplished only if another’s basic interests are frustrated. How can conflicts of this sort be resolved by appeal to norms that satisfy the substantive impartiality condition? I suggest that certain rules of procedural fairness must then be adopted and applied, these rules themselves meeting all the criteria for moral norms. Such rules will have the following general characteristics: (a) The total set of basic interests of each party to the dispute will be granted initially the same weight. (b) Whatever procedure is adopted for resolving the conflict will be general in form, applied disinterestedly, and publicly recognized as taking priority over the furthering of any particular party’s interests, basic or otherwise. (c) These procedural rules will be such that they can be mutually acknowledged by all parties to the dispute as beingfair to all.

A denial of requirement (a) would mean that one person’s basic interests are not being considered as making a claim-to-fulfillment equal to another’s initially, that is, before any relevant difference between them has been determined by a procedure for resolving the conflict. This of course is in direct contradiction to the principle of substantive impartiality. A denial of requirement (b) would mean that the procedure is being used to further the basic interests of some at the expense of others. Not being disinterested or general in form, it would be biased in favor of known individuals named in it. (Or else biased against other known individuals.) Lacking public recognition as overriding the particular interests of every party, it would simply be a method by which one party or set of parties - perhaps a majority - obtained power over the others and SO were able to pursue their ends while preventing the others from pursuing even the protection of their basic interests. No resolution of the conflict consistent with respect for all persons as such would then be forthcoming. A denial of requirement (c) would also violate substantive impartiality. This becomes clear when we consider more closely what is meant by saying that a moral principle is adopted “for the good of everyone alike.” This does not mean that all whose basic interests are affected by the adoption of the principle must have their basic interests advanced to the same degree. Some may gain more than others. Inequality of treatment is consist-

PAUL W. TAYLOR 51

ent with substantive impartiality as long as it is grounded on procedural rules that are publicly advocated by all agents whose basic interests are affected by them. Such mutual acknowledgment among the parties involved presupposes that the procedural rules in question will be applied disinterestedly and (in accordance with their general form) will advance or frustrate the interests of different persons or groups only as they are considered under general descriptions. With respect to a rule that is applied disinterestedly and is general in form, it is purely a contingent matter having absolutely no moral significance that a particular individual or group fits the description contained in it. If someone’s interests are frustrated or if one is treated less favorably than others in resolving the conflict, it must not be because they are the particular individuals they are, but because they fall under the general descriptions stated in the rule being applied. (Normally some form of compensation will be provided by the procedural rules, or some kind of rotation system will be specified, to meet the demands of being fair to those whose interests are frustrated to a greater degree than others.) When discrimination of this sort occurs no bias is being directed against any particular person.

It is important, however, that in all cases of conflict among basic interests eoery party involved be willing (in accordance with the publicity condition) to publicly advocate the adoption of the procedural rules. Only then will the condition of substantive impartiality be satisfied. Each must be given the same voice in the choice of the rules and in this sense be accorded equal consideration. Each can then look at the conflict situation from the standpoint of any party to the conflict and accept the proposed solution. Thus each is able to consider the basic interests of others as if they were his or her own. It is in this way that the procedural rules are accepted as being fair to all.

From these considerations we can derive a kind of verification test for substantive impartiality that, though difficult to carry out in practice, is a way to make clear the underlying idea. This test is applicable whether or not there is a conflict of basic interests among agents. A rule or standard is substantively impartial by this test if and only if it would be acceptable to each agent, were he or she to put him- or herself in the place of every other (generally described) agent and judge the norm from that agent’s standpoint. The judgment of the norm, however, must not be based on the question: If I had the value system of this agent, would my basic interests be furthered by the adoption of this norm? The judgment must, instead, be based on the question: Is the norm fair to others as well as to myself, when I take into account everyone’s basic interests (generally described) and give them equal weight with my own? To ask the former question rather than the latter is precisely to reject the moral point of view by taking the point of view of a particular person. The exercise of a sense of fairness would not then be necessary, but neither would a moral judgment be possible since the conditions of generality and disinterestedness would be lacking. To take the moral point of view is to transcend the particularity of every personal point of view and to look at the situation from a position that considers every individual value system in the same way, disregarding whose value system it happens to be. It is in this sense that the test of putting-oneself-in-the-place-of-another provides a method for deciding whether the condition of substantive impartiality has been met.

It is now evident exactly why the principles of a fanatic (in Hare’s sense of the term) are the very antithesis of moral principles. The fanatic is committed-to a value system according to which one group of generally described persons is allowed, or even obligated, to exploit another. Exploitation here means that one group uses another as a means to ends not of the other’s choosing. Although the inequality of worth assigned to superiors and inferiors is itself grounded on principles, these would be unacceptable


to the inferiors and SO would never be freely and knowingly subscribed to by them. Moreover, if either the inferiors or the superiors judged the fanatic’s principles from the impersonal standpoint of the moral point of view, such principles would be condemned by them as unfair, since every conflict of basic interests between superiors and inferiors is automatically resolved in favor of the superiors. It is therefore impossi- ble for a community structured on fanatic principles to be based on mutual respect. A fanatic’s ideal society cannot constitute a moral community and the very nature of the fanatic’s commitment prevents him from taking the moral point of view.

This completes my account of the six characteristics of moral norms that correlate with a certain conception of what it means to take the moral point of view. The importance of classifying moral principles and defining the moral point of view in the foregoing ways does not lie in the discovery of the essence of morality. (There is no such essence.) Nor does it lie in how well it articulates and systematizes our intuitive moral judgments. (What makes them “moral” judgments, and who is to be identified as the reference-class of “our,” are just the points at issue.) Rather, its importance lies in the concept of the oalidity of moral principles that is logically connected with it. If we look Bt morality in the way I have indicated in the above analysis, we come to a certain understanding of how and why moral principles so conceived are validly binding upon free agents. We also come to see what sort of ultimate commitment is involved in taking the moral point of view, and what sort of justification for making such a commitment is possible.

I11

The conceptual system so far presented includes one way to classify norms and one way to conceive of the validity of the norms so classified. As I pointed out earlier, the analysis of these concepts does not itself provide a justification for anyone’s adopting them as normative guides in practical life. The question I shall be concerned with in this final part of the paper is: Can such a justification be given? This question is equivalent to asking: Is there a way to justify anyone’s taking the moral point of view in the second context? For it is in the second context that the decision to take the moral point of view is a matter of adopting, as one’s ultimate normative framework, the six criteria for moral principles and the ideal mutual acknowledgment test for moral validity. Why should anyone make that commitment rather than some other, such as a commitment to the supremacy of self-interest or of the interests of some special group?

The argument I shall set forth may be divided into two parts. In the first part I try to show that if one accepts the six criteria for moral norms, then one is committed to accepting the ideal mutual acknowledgment view of moral validity. This does not contradict my earlier claim that a norm may satisfy the six criteria yet not be valid. It is the test of a valid norm that must be accepted, not the particular norms so tested. An invalid moral norm fails to meet that test, though it belongs to the class of moral principles because it has the six relevant characteristics.

In the second part of the argument my aim is to show that,no one will accept this conception of moral validity (conjoining the six criteria with the ideal mutual acknowledgment test) unless he or she makes a certain kind of prior commitment. This prior commitment, which turns out to be a necessary condition for taking the moral point of view in the second context, is then shown to be ultimate or final in the sense that no reasons require anyone to make it. Thus I cannot prove that it is irrational or unjustified for anyone not to make it. But I do defend the claim that it is not contrary to reason to

PAUL W. TAYLOR 53

make such a commitment and that consequently it is perfectly rational in this sense to take the moral point of view.

When a norm is assessed from the moral point of view, the assessor asks: Is it for the good of everyone alike that this substantively impartial and general norm be applied distinterestedly to everyone and be publicly recognized as overriding any particular person’s or group’s interests? Now a certain commitment is presupposed by the assessor in asking this question. It is a commitment to the ideal mutual acknowledgment test for the validity of the norms being assessed. To support this claim 1 begin with the Kantian idea of the autonomous will as the source of the obligatoriness or requiredness of a moral norm. No norm can validly bind an agent unless that agent would be willing freely to place his or her practical reason under its direction. This follows from the concept of a norm as a ground of reasons-for-action. A fact about an action cannot be a reasonfor me to perform the action unless I regard it as a reason, and I shall so regard it only insofar as I would be willing to make the relevant norm my own principle of practical reason. I may indeed follow a social rule I have been forced to comply with, but my reason for doing so is not grounded on the content of the rule itself. It is grounded on another norm, that of self-interest, and the source of the requiredness of the rule lies in my interest in avoiding the unw’anted consequences of disobedience. Since a moral norm is here understood as one to be applied disinterestedly, its requiredness (assuming it to be valid) does not derive from the particular interests of the agents to whom it applies. Yet the agents must be willing to accept it if it is to function as a guide to their conduct. What, then, can be the source of its requiredness other than the autonomous will of those agents themselves? To place their practical reason under its constraints, they must exercise their capacity to direct their conduct by principles they have chosen for themselves. We can accordingly think of the autonomous will as a kind of capacity for self-government or self-mastery. It is as if the agents freely decide to lay down the standards and rules for themselves to follow and so make them their own reasons for acting.

If a moral standard or rule is to be valid, then, it must be such that all those who are bound by it can freely adopt it as an expression of their own autonomous will. Freedom and autonomy are thus presupposed in talking about a moral norm’s being validly binding upon all moral agents. When we turn to the conditions of enlightenment and rationality in the ideal mutual acknowledgment test, on the other hand, a different sort of consideration becomes relevant. We have seen that, when a moral norm is assessed from the moral point of view, the assessor asks whether it would be for the good of everyone alike that the norm be adopted as an overriding principle applicable to everyone. Given that the norm belongs to the category of morality, an affirmative answer implies that it is rational for eoeryone to adopt the norm and to publicly advocate its adoption by everyone else. “Being rational” here means being disposed to maximize the probability that the values a person has in any role, office, or position in the society will be realized in the long run in an internally harmonious way.13 “Everyone” refers to every generally described agent occupying a generally described role, office, or position in the given society. It does not refer to particular individuals or groups. The idea is that, if a moral norm is to be adopted for the good of everyone alike, the expected consequences of its adoption by everyone must be such that they maximize utility in all generally described roles, offices, and positioiis taken by agents in the society, assuming that the consequences do not involve any violation of the condition of substantive impartiality. Now all agents would not freely agree to adopt a general norm that is to be publicly applied to everyone and is to override everyone’s


particular interests in an impartial manner if its expected consequences were less beneficial to everyone impartially considered than an alternative norm having the same range of application. Since a moral norm can be valid only when all agents to whom it applies are willing freely to adopt it, the only valid moral norms are those that are expected by their adopters to yield an impartial distribution of maximum good. Any other norms having the same range of application would be publicly advocated only when the adopters were irrational (failing to aim at maximizing good under the impartiality principle) or were in error about the facts concerning such effects (falsely ex- pecting optimum consequences to ensue).

It follows that a moral norm that would be replaced when an increase in the rationality or knowledge of the agents who subscribe to it occurred could not be a valid norm. As we have just seen, rational agents would not adopt a moral norm that was known to be less than optimum (where “optimum” signifies that it is better for everyone, generally and impartially considered, that the norm be adopted than that any other moral norm having the same range of application be adopted). Thus no freely adopted norm known to be less than optimum in the sense stipulated could be a valid one. Valid moral norms must only be those that would be mutually acknowledged by fully rational and enlightened agents because they believe, on the best available evidence, that the norms are optimum.

One implication of this view of validity is that no one knows with certainty what moral norms are in fact valid. Although valid norms are those that fully rational and enlightened agents would justifiably expect to be optimum, we do not have such knowledge. This, however, is not a reason for rejecting the view. As I pointed out earlier, it is perfectly possible for actual moral agents to believe they are bound by a set of norms but be mistaken in that belief. They might nevertheless correctly understand the norms to belong to the category of morality and accordingly apply the correct test for validity. But such norms may not be valid because they would not be mutually acknowledged under the relevant ideal conditions.

It follows from this consideration that there is a task for moral agents other than and in addition to the task of complying with moral principles. It is the task of trying to discover valid moral principles. In practice, however, agents who lack knowledge of such principles can still truly be described as taking the moral point of view. For they may be committed to applying the ideal mutual acknowledgment test (as far as their knowledge enables them to) to determine whether a norm is morally acceptable and so should be publicly advocated by them. In accordance with my argument in Part I, this commitment is sufficient for their actually taking the moral point of view.

I conclude, then, that anyone who accepts the six criteria for moral norms I have set forth in Part I1 will be committed to the ideal mutual acknowledgment view of moral validity. The question now to be considered is: Why should anyone accept the six criteria (and the corresponding concept of moral validity) in the first place? This question will be my concern for the remainder of the paper.

In discussing the idea of substantive impartiality I said that I would later argue that there cannot be mutual acknowledgment unless there is mutual respect. The argument, which I shall present now, arises from reflecting on the situation in which all members of a society would agree to adopt norms that satisfy the sixth criterion: substantive impartiality. Why would all agree to have, as norms overriding their particular interests, principles that count everyone’s basic interests equally? They would agree to this, I submit, only if they thought of each individual as making the same valid claim upon everyone with regard to the protection and promotion of his or her basic interests. In other words, they would conceive of all persons as bearers of certain

PAUL W. TAYLOR 55

fundamental human rights, these rights being the same for everyone, belonging to all equally in virtue of their being persons. Now to conceive of all persons as bearers of certain rights just because they are persons is to have an attitude of respect for persons. Therefore, if a group of agents lacked an attitude of respect for persons they would never place their practical reason under the overriding and disinterested governance of substantively impartial norms. Thus there can be no universal mutual acknowledgment, and hence no moral community, without mutual respect.

One implication of this is that no one can take the moral point of view in either of the two contexts without having the attitude of respect for persons. For taking the moral point of view in the first context involves one’s publicly advocating the norms that one has adopted because one believes they are substantively impartial (as well as general, universal, and so forth). In the second context it involves judging a norm to be acceptable only if it is such that one would be willing to publicly advocate it. In both cases, one must be disposed to approve of a substantively impartial norm’s being publicly acknowledged and publicly recognized by all agents, including oneself. But this is to be disposed to,approve of the norm’s being mutually acknowledged, and we just saw that mutual acknowledgment of substantively impartial norms is possible only when there is mutual respect. Now a person would not approve of, or even be disposed to approve of, the mutual acknowledgment of impartial norms and hence of a community based on mutual respect unless the person her- or himself also has the attitude of respect for persons. Thus a precondition for anyone’s taking the moral point of view is the having of an attitude of respect for persons.

If we are to justify anyone’s taking the moral point of view in either context, then, we must justify anyone’s having an attitude of respect for persons. How can this be done? One possible suggestion that might be made here involves an appeal to the principle of reciprocity. If one benefits from living in a community where others comply with a set of norms and if one benefits as a result of their compliance, then one is obligated to comply with the same norms. Not to reciprocate such compliance would be to take unfair advantage of others, accepting benefits their compliance makes possible without accepting the burdens that make possible similar benefits to them. One would thereby violate the duty of fair play. This in turn would show lack of respect for persons, since one would in effect be counting one’s own interests as having a greater right to be fulfilled than the interests of others. On the other hand, suppose one reciprocates the compliance of others, accepts the same burdens that others accept in similar circumstances, and accordingly fulfills the duty of fair play. It is then argued that one’s conduct shows respect for persons because one treats others as one treats oneself. That is, one acts in such a way that the interests of others are given equal consideration with one’s own. The conclusion drawn is that the principle of reciprocity can serve in this way as a kind of rational ground for the attitude of respect for persons.

Unfortunately, this attempt to justify respect for persons fails. The argument over- looks an important distinction and once this distinction is made it is evident that the question is begged. The distinction concerns two kinds of reciprocity, formal and substantive, and runs parallel to the distinction I have drawn between formal and substantive impartiality. Formal reciprocity occurs when every member of a norm- governed society who benefits from others’ compliance reciprocates that compliance. This condition holds, whatever the content of the norms might be. If the norms themselves allow one class of agents to exploit, enslave, or otherwise use another class as mere instruments, then the fact that a member of the exploiting class benefits from others’ compliance and himself complies with the norms is hardly the fulfillment of a duty of fair play. It is certainly not evidence of an attitude of respect for persons.


Indeed, if one really had an attitude of respect for persons in such a society, one would either try to get the norms changed or, failing that, conscientiously refuse to comply. Substantive reciprocity, on the other hand, is the willingness to make no stronger claim in behalf of one’s own interests than one grants on the part of others. It is to reciprocate the respect that others show toward oneself when they refrain from taking unfair advantage of one and give equal consideration to one with themselves. It is clear that reciprocity of compliance with a set of norms will be substantive reciprocity only if those norms are themselves substantively impartial. Moreover, one will practice substantive reciprocity in one’s relations with others just to the extent that one has respect for persons. Hence the circularity of any argument that attempts to derive respect for persons from substantive reciprocity.

I return to the question of justifying anyone’s having an attitude of respect for persons, which we saw to be a precondition for anyone’s taking the moral point of view. The position I shall defend is that one has the attitude of respect for persons only insofar as one places inherent worth on persons as such, and that placing inherent worth on persons (or regarding them as having inherent worth) is itself a matter of taking an ultimate attitude. As an ultimate attitude, no reasons can be given against taking it other than reasons that presuppose the taking of some other ultimate attitude (such as thinking of persons, or some subclass of persons, as mere means to an end). But it is also the case that no reasons can be given to show any other ultimate attitude to be unjustified. One must simply decide, when the full nature of the choice is faced, what ultimate attitude toward persons one shall commit oneself to take. One thereby decides what kind of world one wants to live in and how one wants to live in it.

Let us go back to the connection between respect for persons and the idea that all persons have in common certain fundamental human rights. In considering the basic interests of everyone as making an equal valid claim to be protected and promoted, one regards all persons as bearers of human rights. These rights are understood to belong to persons as such. They are not special entitlements that an individual must earn by accomplishing some task or acquring some skill. They belong to a person “by nature,” that is, simply in virtue of one’s being a person. To recognize and acknowledge such rights is what it means to have respect for persons. Furthermore, to accept any list of specific human rights as being correctly ascribed to all persons is to make a normative commitment. It is to subscribe to a set of principles of practical reason. Since these principles define rights that are the same for everyone, they are substantively impartial. Since they impose duties upon everyone (namely, not to deprive another of his or her rights), these duties being understood as publicly acknowledged obligations having priority over the particular interests of each agent, the principles are universally applicable, disinterested, public, and overriding. In short, they are moral principles. Thus when we conceive of persons as bearers of human rights and so publicly advocate the public recognition and acknowledgment of those rights, we are taking the moral point of view.

Now why would anyone subscribe to a set of principles specifying certain human rights? We cannot offer as an explanation the fact that the one,who subscribes to them has an attitude of respect for persons, since having such an attitude entails subscribing to the principles. The answer, rather, lies in the fact that one has respect for persons (and so subscribes to the principles) because one places a certain kind of value on persons. Persons are considered to have inherent worth simply as persons.

The idea of inherent worth might best be clarified by contrasting it with the concept of merit.“ The latter is a grading or ranking concept, the former is not. In judging

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persons on their merits, we are deciding how good or poor they are in some respect. We grade or rank them according to how well they meet certain standards: he is quite a good tennis player; she is an outstanding teacher; the child is a promising pianist; and SO on. When we regard a person as possessing inherent worth, on the other hand, we think of her or him as having a kind of value that does not depend on merit. Whatever merits people may have or may lack, their inherent worth is unaffected. However varying may be their merits, their inherent worth remains the same. This is because, in regarding people as having inherent worth, we consider their existence as autonomous beings to be an end in itself. We place intrinsic value on the protection and promotion of their basic interests, these being the interests that are essential to their very autonomy and personhood. Every individual is thus seen to be equally deserving of our concern and consideration, regardless of their merits and regardless of any personal interest - self-regarding or altruistic - we might have in them. Although respect for persons is not an attitude of indifference, it is an impersonal attitude in which everyone is viewed in the same light.

It might be noted in passing that the moral rights of nonhuman animals can be understood equally well in terms of the idea of inherent worth. I t is perfectly possible for moral agents to place inherent worth on the protection and promotion of the basic interests of animals (where “basic interests” refer to the necessary means to an or- ganism’s survival and healthy growth). Thus we can conceive of animals as bearers of rights and subscribe to principles of duty to respect their rights. This contrasts with the view that animals have value only because, and to the extent that, they can be used to benefit humans or are objects of human enjoyment. The possibility of regarding animals as bearers of rights stems from the more general point that the kinds of entities on which moral agents place inherent worth need not themselves be moral agents - even potential ones. For example, we place such intrinsic value on the basic interests of brain-damaged children and the incurably insane when we think that they must be given equal consideration with other humans and must not be treated as mere means to others’ ends. Exactly the same can be done with respect to nonhuman anirnals.I5

In a recent study of the concept of human rights, Joel Feinberg argues that there seem to be no properties shared by all humans that can plausibly provide a ground for the assertion of their equal inherent worth.16 This is, in fact, a consequence of the distinction between inherent worth and merit. Unlike merit, inherent worth is not a supervenient property. Its application to something does not depend on the properties .of the thing in the way the predication of merit does. It then becomes puzzling why anyone should believe that anything has inherent worth. In particular, if we wish to claim that every person as such has the same inherent worth, what can our reasons be for making this claim? The answer: “Well, they are persons, aren’t they?’ is not SO

much the giving of a reason as repeating the claim in a different way. But, as Feinberg points out, this answer is actually the only suitable one to give. For we are here using a concept whose applicability is not dependent on any good-making characteristics, when these are defined as properties in virtue of which something fulfills a standard of value. We are not applying standards at all.

What, then, are we doing when we ascribe inherent worth to persons? Feinberg’s answer, which seems to me correct, is that we are in fact taking an ultimate attitude toward persons. Insofar as any entity is a person it is understood by us to be the appropriate object of this attitude. Hence all persons are included, and the same attitude is taken toward each one. It is an ultimate attitude because we do not justify it on the basis of any more general or more fundamental attitude that we might have. We


simply commit ourselves to this way of regarding persons, or else we find ourselves committed in this way by our upbringing and we choose to maintain this commitment throughout our lives.

I conclude, then, that the decision to subscribe to the principles of morality rather than to some other principles is a decision that will be made only if one has already made a prior commitment. This prior commitment is the adoption of a certain ultimate attitude toward persons as persons. One takes this attitude when one considers all persons to have the same inherent worth, regardless of their varying merits and regardless ofthe particular relationships they have to oneself. I shall refer to this hereafter as the egalitarian attitude.

Despite the fact that the egalitarian attitude, being an ultimate one, is not derivable from any more basic attitude, there is still a significant problem to be raised concerning its justification. With regard to this problem we must distinguish two senses in which an attitude can be justified: showing that it is not unjustij5ed for anyone to take it, and showing that it is unjustified for anyone not to take it.ll To show that it is not unjustified we must establish that it is not contrary to reason to take the attitude. I shall make an attempt to do this below. On the other hand, to show that anyone would be unjustified not to take the egalitarian attitude, we would have to give reasons such that they require the taking of that attitude. In other words we would have to show that it is contrary to reason to take any attitude toward persons that is incompatible with the egalitarian attitude. I shall argue that this cannot be done.

In order to establish that it is not contrary to reason to regard every person as having inherent worth, we need only show that taking the egalitarian attitude does not violate the rules of deductive inference, that it does not involve any factual error or unwar- ranted inductive inference, and that whatever practical reasons there are against taking it already presuppose normative principles that are a matter of ultimate commitment themselves and hence have no greater weight as grounds for rejecting the attitude than the principles one adopts in taking it.

Without going into details, it should be clear that one can be wholly consistent and factually enlightened in taking the egalitarian attitude toward all persons. One might admit that people differ greatly in talents, skills, levels of taste, and creative achievements but not consider these to be relevant differences as far as the promotion or protection of their basic interests are concerned. One might still hold that despite these differences they should be treated, as persons, with equal consideration. Indeed, to take the egalitarian attitude in the face of such differences is to make the distinction between the inherent worth of a person and a person’s merits. No contradiction or factual error need be involved in the belief that people having different merits have the same inherent worth.

Concerning arguments against the egalitarian attitude that are grounded on normative principles of practical reason, it seems that any such argument must beg the question. Let us consider the most obvious argument of this sort: that it is irrational for one to take the egalitarian attitude because it is not always in one’s interest to do so. The reply to this is that the attitude is being shown to be unjustified only under the normative principle of egoism, according to which reasons of self-interest override all other kinds of reasons. The use of the term “irrational” in this context, though linguistically correct, does not signify a justificatory reason for rejecting an attitude unless the egoistic point of view is assumed to be a justified one. Whether it is in truth a justified one is just the point at issue. To take the egoistic point of view is to subscribe to the principle that only considerations of self-interest are relevant and overriding as reasons-for-action. Subscribing to this principle, however, is not a way of arguing

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against the normative principle underlying the egalitarian attitude. To judge one principle to be unacceptable because it is incompatible with another is to beg the question of whether subscribing to either principle is contrary to reason. This will hold true no matter what principle is appealed to as a basis for giving reasons against anyone’s taking the egalitarian attitude. If this is so, then taking that attitude cannot be shown to be unjustified.

It seems to me just as true, however, that taking any attitude which is incompatible with the egalitarian attitude cannot be shown to be unjustified (as long as such a commitment does not involve inconsistency or factual error). Consider, for example, the attitude taken by Hare’s fanatic. It was argued in Part I1 that the fanatic can be fully consistent in adopting a set of norms that are themselves internally coherent. We can now see that it is also possible for the fanatic to avoid factual error. Of course people who in history actually held fanatical ideologies were frequently mistaken concerning the facts of genetics, usually did not recognize distortions of feeling and thought that result from deep emotional conflicts and needs, and were often badly in error about the causes and consequences of social policies. But in theory at least it is perfectly possible for a factually enlightened person to be a fanatic in Hare’s sense. Thus suppose it was scientifically demonstrated to such a fanatic that the “superiors” had a genetic make-up similar to that of the “inferiors,” or that the natural capacities of the two groups alone could not explain their different degrees of success or failure in achieving certain valued ends (the distribution of natural abilities itself being in part determined by social conditions of inequality). It would not follow from these facts that the fanatic is mistaken in taking those he regards as superiors to have greater inherent worth or to live a higher kind of existence than those he classes as inferiors. He might, however, have to change the basis of his classification from purely genetic differences to differences partly due to social conditioning. I t might be thought that in this case the fanatic’s method of discriminating among persons is clearly shown to be arbitrary and therefore indefensible on rational grounds. But again the fanatic’s own vaIue system must be taken into account. Given the kind of world that would be ideal according to that value system, the fanatic’s method of discrimination is justified. His distinction between superiors and inferiors is based on the conception of a world he considers most desirable to bring about. For him the realization of such a world is an end in itself, a good that should be aimed at for its own sake. Thus whatever properties of persons he uses in classifLing them as superiors and inferiors are made releoant by the ideals and values he has adopted.

Those who take the egalitarian attitude also have a value system. They place the same intrinsic value on the promotion and protection of everyone’s basic interests, no matter what properties different persons might have or might lack. Their conception of an ideal world is that of a moral community among all persons. The properties which the fanntic uses as grounds for discrimination are made irrelevant by the egalitarian’s ideals and values. Once one commits oneself to the principle that all persons have equal inherent worth, there can be no legitimate discrimination among persons with respect to their basic interests.

One cannot, however, argue that the fanatic’s principles are unjustified because they deny a simple fact about the world as it is, namely, that all persons possess equal inherent worth. The possession of inherent worth is not analogous to legal ownership, nor is it like having a good memory or possessing musical talent or exemplifying any other characteristic that persons can be said to “have.” Saying that everyone has inherent worth is not making a statement of fact whose truth or falsity can be ascertained by some kind of empirical test. I t is to express an ultimate attitude involving commitment


to certain normative principles. As such, it has the same status as the fanatic’s assertion that there are two classes of persons or two ways of life, one having greater value than the other.

Similarly, any attempt to argue that the fanatic is unjustified on mora2 grounds will beg the question. To attempt such an argument is to assume that moral principles (or, alternatively, the egalitarian’s principles) are themselves justified in the strong sense of being required by reason. All arguments of this sort commit the same kind of circularity as did the argument considered earlier regarding the justifiability of adopting any principles incompatible with the egoistic attitude. Both the egalitarian and the fanatic make ultimate normative commitments to principles they accept as overriding all other considerations. They make such commitments within the framework of value systems that give rise to incompatible attitudes toward persons.

It seems, then, that although we can show that a person would not be unjustified in taking the egalitarian attitude, we must concede that this may be equally true of nonegalitarian attitudes and that consequently the egalitarian attitude has no special claim to be supported by reason. If we decide to take that attitude ourselves, we can explain our doing so to someone else by making clear the whole outlook on life and the whole value system that is involved in making such a commitment. This explanation will help another to understand why we take the attitude toward persons we do. (Think of the analogous case of explaining to someone why we regard a certain animal species, such as the California Condor, as having the right to exist.) But to explain why we take an attitude is not to justify it in any sense entailing the unjustifiability of someone’s taking some other ultimate attitude incompatible with it.

At the same time, the egalitarian attitude cannot be shown to be contrary to reason. It may be condemned as irrational when “irrational” is used in an egoistic way, but, if I am right in the foregoing analysis, reason does not require us to accept the egoist point of view. As far as reason is concerned, we are free to adopt the egalitarian attitude and so make the commitments involved in taking the moral point of view.

FOOTNOTES

1 This way of looking at the second context was originally developed by Kurt Baier in The Moral Point o fv i ew: A Rational Basis ofEthics (Ithaca, 1958). However, the concepts of morality and validity I shall be presenting here differ in some respects from those set forth in Baier’s book.

K. Baier, The Moral Point of View. J. Rawls, A Theory oflustice (Cambridge, Mass., 1971).

J. Rawls, A Theory oflustice, Part One. I hold that these remarks also apply to Rawls’ method of “reflective equilibrium.” To con-

struct a theory of norms that is in reflective equilibrium with the considered judgment of compe- tent judges does nothing to show that the principles adopted by such judges are valid. By appealing to a certain class of (intuitive) judgments, one is assuming that the principles being applied in such judgments are correct or justified. But this is the very point in question. This circularity holds no matter what particular class of judgments is appealed to, including those of “ideal observers.” On the other hand, Rawls’ “Kantian interpretation” of his theory of justice seems to me to be a sound approach to the justification problem. My argument in Part 111 is a possible way to use the “Kmtian interpretation” for this purpose. On the method of reflective equilibrium, see J. Rawls, A Theory oflustice, Part One, Section 9. On the Kantian interpretation, see Part Two, Section 40.

‘ D. A. J. Richards, A Theory of Reasonsfor Action (Oxford, 1971).

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7 John Rawls’ metaphor of “The Veil of Ignorance” is an imaginative device for conveying this idea. See, A Theory of Justice, Part One, Section 24.

* B. Gert, The Moral Rules: A New Rational Foundation for Morality (New York, 1973), es- pecially chapters 5 and 6. Both Kurt Baier and John Rawls have also propounded the publicity criterion. (See their works, already cited.)

9 R. M. Hare, Freedom and Reason (Oxford, 1963), chapters 9-11. 10 These consequences of substantive impartiality, as well as the concept itself, have been

discussed in two well known essays: W. K. Frankena, “The Concept of Social Justice,” and Gregory Vlastos, “Justice and Equality.” Both essays were first pubIished in Social justice, ed. R. B. Brandt (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1962). I am greatly indebted to these essays.

l1 K. Baier, The Moral Point of View, p. 200. 12 It is interesting that, while Rawls deduces this principle as one that would be chosen from

the “original position,” Richards makes it one of the conditions that define the original position (or, as he would put it, one of the conditions for the ideal contract). Compare Rawls,A Theory of justice, pp. 179-183 and Richards,A Theonj of Reasons for Action, pp. 86-89. My view is closer to Richards than to Rawls since respect for persons is conceived here not to be a moral norm itself, but a necessary condition for any norm to be a moral one.

13 This is similar to, but not identical with, the “maximize utility” view of rationality used in welfare economics and game theory. A careful analysis of it is to be found in D. A. J. Richards, A Theory of Reasons for Action, Part I.

14 I am indebted to Gregory Vlastos for this distinction, and for the connection between human rights and the inherent worth of persons. See G. Vlastos, in Sociallustice.

15 Some interesting essays on the concept of animals’ rights, though not exactly in line with my viewpoint here, are to be found in, Animal Rights and Human Obligations, eds. T. Regan and P. Singer (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1976).

l6 J. Feinberg, Social Philosophy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1973), pp. 90-94. 17 This corresponds to Bernard Gert’s distinction between “allowed by reason” and “required

by reason.” B. Gert, The Moral Rules, chapter 2. However, I do not accept Gert’i analysis of rationality.

on taking the moral point of view

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